The pounding on the floor the next morning roused the orphan from his sleep. He yawned and stretched, then realized that across the room Sehun was already sitting up in bed and smiling as he watched the orphan. 

Baekhyun pulled his arms back towards himself and grinned sheepishly. “G’morning.”

“Slept well?” the taller asked kindly. The sounds from men going back and forth in the hallway drifted loudly through the slightly opened door, drowning out the orphan’s chance at a verbal response, so he just nodded and grinned sleepily. Sehun chuckled as he got out of bed. “So cute. I totally get it..”

“Hmm?” The orphan made a questioning noise and looked at the taller man with confusion. 

“Thanks for making the boss smile so much lately.” Sehun continued. “It’s been weird, but at least we know he’s in a good mood.” 

Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows in further confusion. “Didn’t he smile before?” he asked as he rubbed his eyes.

Sehun shook his head as he went over to the door. “The past few years he hasn’t had a lot of reason to…”

The little one was intrigued. But he had a feeling this was something he needed to hear from Chanyeol instead of through second-hand gossip. He decided to stop the conversation pleasantly. “Then I’m glad I can help this way too.” he said in a politely dismissive tone. He got out of bed with a smile and picked up the pile of dirty laundry from the night before. “I’ll take this to the laundry before taking my turn in the bathroom.” Baekhyun then scooched out of the room past Sehun before the older man could say anything else.

The orphan threaded his way through the men that were milling about in the hallway as they all got ready for the day, and quickly went down the stairs to the laundry room. He tossed his dirty things in the proper basket then whirled around to leave the room- and promptly bumped his face into a broad chest. 

“Ufff!”

“Easy there little one!” An unfamiliar set of hands grabbed his arms as though to keep him from falling over but the grip was tight and the orphan looked up in shock with a tinge of fear. The man Baekhyun recognized as one of the Chinese workers smiled down at him with an extra wide smile.  “Can’t have our favorite little tailor getting hurt, now would we, Sweetheart…?” The man very slowly loosened his grip and let go of the orphan’s thin arms.

Goosebumps crawled up Baekhyun’s neck and he felt overly flushed as he hastily bowed. “Sorry. Thank you.” he said in a hurry then rushed around the man and out of the room. His heart was pounding but not in a good way and he felt a little short of breath as he started to climb back up the stairs. By now most of the men were headed down the stairs, so the orphan had to hug the wall and go against the flow of the foot traffic. His hair was ruffled good-naturedly a couple of times and several of the men greeted him with warm smiles that came close to his face as they walked by. 

By the time Baekhyun made it back up the stairs he felt a sense of panic that was similar to when he used to bathe in the creek and people would watch him and say dirty things to him. His mind was racing. But he knew this was not the same. He needed to calm down. 

Baekhyun went into his room and shut the door, then sat on the floor with his knees curled up to his chest and his back to the door, forcing himself to look up at the window where the sunshine was starting to stream into the room more. He was safe here. The men on the stairs were just being affectionate. The Chinese worker wasn’t trying to hurt him. It wasn’t like before. No one would tell him they were going to do mean and erted things to him. No one would act like they wanted to take advantage of him. He was safe here. Baekhyun curled his toes as he breathed in through his nose then blew the air out slowly from his mouth. He had picked up this technique when he was much younger and still living in the orphanage. Whenever the orphan realized he was starting to feel panicked, he would try to remind himself to breathe this way, and it usually helped a lot. It seemed to do the trick today as well, and after a minute or so Baekhyun lowered his legs, stretching them out in front of himself. He bent over and touched his toes, then slowly raised back up, climbed back onto his feet, and took a deep breath. 

The sounds of conversations and laughter drifted up the stairs, but no sounds seemed to be coming from the upper level when the orphan opened his door. He quickly ran to the bathroom to relieve his bladder and splash some cold water in his face, then hurried and put his shoes on before going down the stairs and taking his place in line to get breakfast. 

After breakfast, the boss followed the workers out the front door to watch as they all piled into the carts and left for the grove. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon took over the dishwashing duties, shooing the orphan off to “go enjoy himself.” Baekhyun tried to not blush at their chuckling and ran over to meet the boss at the front door as he came back inside, still drinking the last of his coffee. 

“Sir- I mean- Mr. Park, is it ok if I work with the sewing machine a little this morning?” he asked eagerly.

Mr. Park had a small smile on his face as he stood as though dazed for a second and stared at the orphan, but then shook himself. “Uh, Yes! Yes, that would be fine.” he responded. 

Baekhyun couldn’t help a little giggle at the tall man, who brought his coffee cup up to his mouth in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. Still grinning, the orphan turned and ran off down the hallway and up the stairs.

Kyungsoo pointedly cleared his throat. The boss turned to the two men in the kitchen area, who had completely stopped tending to the dirty dishes and were now looking at the tall man with eyebrows raised and knowing looks on their faces. 

“Not a word, gentlemen.” the boss commanded.

“Oh, I have more than just one word, Park Chanyeol.” Junmyeon said with a smirk. Kyungsoo snorted but kept his mouth shut as the boss pointed at both of them. The tall man swallowed his smile as he wordlessly put his coffee cup down on the counter and gave it a push to slide it over to the sink area, then his heel and walked back to the front door and out onto the po