As Baekhyun and Jaein walked along the streets of Seoul, they stayed quiet.

"How were you doing for the past year? Never get to ask." Jaein turned her head and looked at the boy who was kicking the small rock on his feet. Baekhyun put his hand in his pocket with his head lowered. "I became prettier I guess?" Jaein didn't want to bring up the night she lost sleep, the time that she finally cried in front of Rora sobbing so hard that she couldn't breathe. It might sound dramatic to anyone but, what do you expect from a girl who has been protected so well? Jaein was just a young and naive girl. "Maybe also hating you." Didn't expect the answer, Baekhyun laughed out loud. "Looks like I gave you a hard time?" he said and rubbed his neck with his palm. Jaein rolled her eyes and punched Baekhyun on his arm, "Not now anymore, I must have been blind to even care about you." Bakehyun replied with a wink, "No one could resist my charm anyway."Jaein raised her leg to kick him, "If you do that one more time, I'll dig your eyes out Baek don't make me!" Baekhyun saw the aggressive Jaein and ran away while laughing along the streets. Maybe it was the process that skipped to really know each other. Baekhyun then only learned a lot about her, asking about what's her favorite movies, the type of songs she like and so much more about her. The walk back was no more awkward silence but full of laughter as Baekhyun learned Jaein had a bright personality with thoughts out of the world, he felt at peace when he talked to her. No harsh words, straight forward, sincere and pure. No expectations from him, just a boy and a girl talking like friends.

Their conversation did not stop for a second when they were together until Jaein finally met her step at the front of her house. "Thanks for sending me home, even though you're the reason I'm home late," Jaein said and flicked Baekhyun's head as she was standing at the top stairs while he was on the bottom, making them at the same eye level. Baekhyun smiled and teased, "Is it even a crime that I wanted to look at your face more after not talking to you for so long?" Jaein was stunned, with her heart rate speeding up when Baekhyun was looking at her earnestly. She knew better how Baekhyun always did that with words so she rolled her eyes, " I'm just EXO's secretary anyway, I'm just EXO's acquaintance- " "No, you're our friend okay?" Bakehyun frowns and cuts her words before she can finish her sentence. Jaein looked turned her gaze from looking at the floor to now looking into those captivating brown eyes that she first fell for. Before she could fall into the whole trap again dealing with the heartbreak she knew she didn't deserve, she made an awkward laugh, "You gotta go, it's late, I'll just go in so you can leave now, bye." Jaein tried to hide her emotion and turned herself to face the door again trying to run away from this awkward atmosphere. 

Before she could take any step further, she felt a hand grab her wrist pulling her from going forward, not hard but enough to stop her. "Jaein." Baekhyun called softly, "I'm...I'm sorry about what I said to you." he whispered.  Jaein was shocked, the playful bright, and always loud Baekhyun was now apologizing so she stayed silent once again. 

"You know, you might need to be reborn if you want to pay for all your sins, Byun Begel. I'm not a forgiver." Instead of making it more awkward, Jaein joked about it in a way that Baekhyun understood she was cool with it. Different from the careful Baekhyun who was asking for forgiveness, there's a sign of carefreeness in his laughter when Jaein responds. When Jaein turned around and gave him a smile of assurance, suddenly Baekhyun extended his hands, "Friends?" Jaein responded after a few seconds and took his hands. "Friends." Jaein smiled for the first time after a long time. 

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It was apparent that there was an improvement in Jaein and Baekhyun's relationship but what didn't change was that Jaein was still quiet as before. She would quietly sit in the corner even with EXO break havoc with pointless conversation and Baekhyun would notice how she bit her lower lips to stop herself from smiling too widely. His eyes would inevitably stray onto her, how she would comb her hair when she lowered her hair to note down the meetings, the way she furrowed her eyebrows when she thought things were not in order. Little things that she does, he can't help to just take a look at her. Just when Baekhyun saw Jaein furrow her brows and write down the notes that the group was discussing Chanyeol highlighted, "Let's go to the music festival this Friday?" Chanyeol suggested, "C'mon guys! For the sake of reference." "Our audition is 6 months away yeol, we're supposed to plot things and start composing."

"C'mon hyung we've been working on this for the past 3 months already, let's have a break!" Chen chimed in."Yah Suho, let them just take a breath." and the whole group was saying the same thing. 

The next thing they know, Jaein is now out of her house with a sling bag and wearing a long yellow sundress preparing herself for the festival just near Han Gang River. Rora joined because EXO agreed to bring a friend so she felt less awkward with all the EXO boys around her. Glad that Rora was not one of the big fans that are so crazy about EXO, but she was not happy about how Baekhyun had treated Jaein previously, so she would assume to not like all the members too. 
"C'mon babe, just this once! Please accompany me to the music festival, I wanna run away from the boys once I reach the festival and I don't want to be alone." Jaein was grabbing Rora's wrist to stop her from running away for her pleading. "Why do you just say you're not interested in going in the first place?" Rora stops struggling and looks at Jaein with her hand on her hips like a mother scolding her daughter. That made Jaein frown deeper but her smile slowly grew on her face because she knew that when Rora stood like that, she'd agree to whatever Jaein was asking for. " Because... I don't want to let the boys down, they look so excited already and I AM a member of the EXO concert anyway." Jaein then hugged Rora's arm. " So you choose to let me down and ruin my weekend? You ungrateful bastard." Jaein knew that meant Rora agreed so she jumped and hugged Rora. "Can't love you more, my love of my life!" 

So now Jaein and a grumpy Rora are taking the train to the music festival. It was probably because a free event so the train station was crowded with a sea of people when they arrived. Jaein and Rora were holding each other's hands so tightly that they were stuck together. Jaein was only following Chanyeol's head with his tall height as a flag to know where were the boys going. Along the way when they were scrunching through their way to the main platform, Jaein heard that it had been half an hour for the past few trains to not stop this particle platform to avoid overcrowded for the next station.

When the boys and two girls finally stumbled themselves nearest to the train tracks, miraculously the train stopped on that platform. Since it had been 30 minutes since any train stopped by, people were pushing their way into the train when the door opened as if they were scared that they might miss this train. EXO boys and the girls were fine to be late but because of the pushing behind them, all of them were pushing into that train and Jaein was in panic with her hand clutching to one of the members who were in front of them because she was too small. Jaein managed to be the second last one to make it into the train with Rora just behind her at the edge of the line. As the door closed, the space became smaller and Jaein could feel her back sticking to the person behind her. All she could do was just to turn her head around and lucky or not, Baekhyun was looking down at her at the same time as their eyes met. Since Baekhyun was taller, he was able to reach the handle of the hand post on top of his head and the closest side post to steady himself while Jaein could only rely on the people beside her to stand stable.

"Sorry..." Jaein spoke softly, enough for him to hear and she heard Baekhyun clear his throat to reply and accidentally swallowed a tad bit too loudly. Maybe it was the overflowing people, but the train took a longer time to start moving than normal. Because of the impulse of the train moving, Jaein stumbled back. At that second, a hand shot up beside her to keep her from falling to the side. Baekhyun by impulse was holding her shoulder until she steadied herself. "You okay?" Baekhyun whispered and asked as he lowered his head to the side of her ears. His hot breath tingling at the side of her ears made her body hot instantly. As much as she wanted to move away from Baekhyun's intimidating action, she could only stay still as there was too limited space so she just nodded. Lucky or not, the train would take another 10 minutes until they reached their destination, and Jaein just silently prayed she could leave the train as fast as they could. 

Just a few minutes passed as nothing happened, the girl who was beside Jaein suddenly raised her voice and spoke with a hushed voice that was way louder than intended "Chagiya yeogi, I'm coming to you!" Just as the girl said, she fished her way out of the corner between the sea of people to the man who was standing behind Baekhyun. Because it was too crowded, Jaein and Baekhyun had to squish and replace the girl's place quickly so that both of him and Jaein had space to stand, which left Jaein and Baekhyun in a very tight position. Jaein's back was now leaning on the glass at the end of the row of the seat while Baekhyun trying to push himself against the wall and glass shield that Jaein was leaning on, caging Jaein in place. All Jaein could see was Baekhyun's grey oversized T-shirt hanging lowly on this wide chest that was faintly showing his chest. Jaein pinched her leg as hard as she could to distract her from the prominent shape of his chest and stop her from feeling so hot all of a sudden. 

Little did Jaein know Bakehyun was also trying hard not to breathe too hard and show that he was heart was beating faster than before for some reason. Just as Baekhyun lowered his head to check if Jaein was doing okay, he saw Jaein fidgeting and sticking on the wall as close as possible to move away from him with that unbelievable pair of cute ears that was as red as an apple. A soft laugh rumbled out of Baekhyun's breath without him knowing causing Jaein to raise her head to meet his playful eyes. That eye contact made Jaein even more red so instead of having her back to the side, she made a 180-degree turn and faced the wall of the train instead. 

As the train goes, Jaein would wobble back and forth so Baekhyun wanted to hold her still. Knowing Jaein too well, instead of holding her hand, he places his hand on her shoulder instead. At first, Jaein wanted to shake off his hand but Bakehyun lowered down from behind and warned," If you shake my hand off again, I won't guarantee stopping myself from pressing you on the wall to steady you Jaein." His word made Jaein turn and glared at him, which made Baekhyun enjoy the pissed-off Jaein more.To stop the teasing, Bakehyun put his hand on Jaein's shoulder to steady her as the train was somehow stopping abruptly now and then. This has caused Jaein's forehead to knock on the wall a few times even with Baekhyun holding her.

The shaking of the train worsened as they got closer to the destination and the passengers were complaining but the small girl in front of him did not even flinch every time her head knocked on the wall. The last straw was when the girl behind Baekhyun whined loudly and tried to loosen herself accidentally pushing Baekhyun to fall forward. The domino effect caused Baekhyun to fall onto Jaein and made her slam herself on the wall. As soon as that happened, Baekhyun grabbed Jaein by her waist and turned her back to face himself. His hand then moves from her waist to the back of her head so that he can stop listening to her head banging onto the wall.

"I still need your brain to think for the performance arrangement, so stop banging your head on the wall." There was a red patch on her forehead already when Jaein tilted her head in shock to be in such close proximity. Nothing came out of Jaein's mouth to fight back Baekhyun because it was painful with the train stopping constantly. Regardless of how fast Jaein's heart was racing, she was grateful for him to hold her. Baekhyun could feel her body stiffen and her trying to put the distance between them but he just laughed it away as she failed miserably.

Baekhyun lowered down to reach her eyes, "You can't run away from me sweetheart," and gave her his signature lopsided teasing smile. Though the teasing, he was glad it was him who had stopped her head from hitting the wall. 

DEAR LORD IT TOOK ME CENTURIES TO WRITE THIS CHAPTER!

But there you go lovelies, the lovey dovey chapter is coming uppppp and I hope you guys will fall hard for this!  I swear I'm loving all the chapters i'm writing and i even thought of all the flow before I went to sleep. My brain would be working on full blast mode the moment I close my eyes because only then I feel like I deserve to have a rest. <3

Comment below to let me know how you feel about the chapters!