Stranded

Luhan is feeling a little bit twitchy for being forced to stay outside when Sehun and Kai were allowed inside the meeting room and okay maybe he’s not one to complain given that he’s nobody in this building but he’s getting impatient by the minute. It’s bad enough that he can’t hear anything from where he’s seated but it’s just so damn annoying how he can see what they’re doing inside the music room and not have any idea on what they’re actually talking about.

“I thought their engagement is off?”

“It is but from what I’ve heard, Ms. Gyuri asked her to come help Sir Chanyeol,”

“Eh? Isn’t that hard? Considering they already broke up,”

“I heard that Baekhee woman found someone else.”

“I heard Sir Chanyeol cheated on her that’s why she left,”

And yadda yadda yadda, blah blah, blah, insert more word vomits and nonsense here.

Luhan actually wanted to stand up from his seat and lecture every one of the staffs, boys and girls alike, what Baekhyun has gone through and what his relationship with Chanyeol ended up in altogether just shut their traps but then the sliding door opened violently and came stomping out is a not-so-friendly looking Baekhee who immediately grabbed Luhan and walked out of the office, slamming the door shut. Sehun followed immediately and they end up in some staircase from the door they opened taped with the words “Fire Exit”.

“I AM SO ING PISSED!!!!”

Luhan and Sehun immediately cover their ears and let Baekhyun yell his frustrations out followed by multiple pissed groans.

“You wanted this.” Luhan deadpans.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to get pissed!” Baekhyun yells again. “Nobody told me Kyungsoo’s his new VP!”

Sehun blinks at him. “Uh, Kai didn’t tell you?”

“No of course not! If he did then I wouldn’t be freaking out right now!”

“Calm down.” Luhan says softly, slightly getting worried about Baekhyun’s temper and blood pressure.

“Where’s Kai by the way?”

“Ah, I think he stayed behind. I’ll check on him,” Sehun opens the door and leaves.

Silence filled in the staircase, with Baekhyun’s footsteps being the only source of noise. Luhan watches him walk back and forth, his lips moving and whispering some words, clearly showing how disturbed and upset he is. And as his best friend, Luhan would rather see Baekhyun yelling in anger than him trying to suppress the pain.

“B,” Luhan calls softly but Baekhyun doesn’t stop walking. Finally, Luhan moves closer and grabs his arms. “Stop.”

Baekhyun looks up at him, startled, as if he has no idea what he was doing. “Huh?”

“You’re upset.” Luhan tells him and feels Baekhyun’s shoulders slowly slumping down.

“It’s just—Kyungsoo and Chanyeol—everyday, I’ll see the both of them every day and it’s so hard to act like nothing’s wrong. I can’t even believe I’m saying this right now. This was supposed to be easy.”

“It’s not easy. Nothing is. You know that.”

“I just—I don’t understand how. How can Chanyeol just look at me like nothing’s wrong and switch his gaze to Kyungsoo like he’s everything that’s right?” Baekhyun asks, all the suppressed pain finally taking its toll. “I don’t understand.”

“It was hard for him too. I was there. I’ve seen him every day, drunk, lost and slowly losing his self. And I felt bad, really bad. You’ll understand too if you’ve seen how he was after London.” Luhan says softly while pulling his friend into a hug. “You can do this, B. I asked you right, if you’re serious about this?”

Baekhyun burries his face on Luhan’s neck, trying to seek refuge. “I am.”

“You looked really determined. Don’t tell me you’re giving up already? You’re Queen B, right? You’re powerful. You’re strong. Everyone looked up to you in high school.” It’s during these times that Luhan is reminded that despite all the titles, Baekhyun is always weak with his heart. And for years he’s tried so hard not to fall in love, ergo everything is messed up and just ed up when Chanyeol came.

Luhan can feel Baekhyun chuckling softly in his neck. “Queen B, huh? It never really occurred to me why they use Queen, instead of King.” Baekhyun slowly lifts his head. “But I guess, being dressed like this, it’s the most appropriate name.” Luhan laughs at him. “You’re right, Lulu. Little K doesn’t stand a chance.”

Little K. Luhan laughs even louder. “You really are something, B.” He says while pinching Baekhyun’s cheek.

He realized this before and until now, his feeling doesn’t change. He feels the proudest being Baekhyun’s friend, because he can see how Baekhyun stands up from a fall and witness just how strong this person is.

--

Kai looks around and smirks when he notices that out of all the members present at the meeting, Chanyeol was the first one to disappear. He really wanted to say something to Chanyeol but the CEO probably despises him so much by now. He was walking to the door when he notices something moving from under the table and leans down slightly.

Kyungsoo crawls out, holding a stack of papers, and stands up slowly, unfortunately losing balance. Kai immediately walks to him to avoid the papers from falling over to the ground. “Whoa, easy there.”

Kyungsoo looks up at him, startled. “Uh,” Kai smiles. “Thanks.”

“You shouldn’t be carrying these things. You’re so small.” Kai took half of the papers for him to carry.

“Ah, I can do it.”

“Says someone who almost dropped half of these.” Kai snorts. “Come on. You’re bringing these to my office right—ah, your office. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

Kai drops the papers on the desk and sighs heavily when the heavy weight finally disappeared on his arms. Kyungsoo, on the other hand, was quietly organizing the papers. Kai took this chance to look around his old office and notices that nothing’s changed that much.

“Do you…miss your office?” Kyungsoo asks.

“Not really. Actually, I’m just here to take some of the things I left.” Kai answers with a laugh and quickly skips to the book shelf to retrieve some of his books, including a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (a gift from Sehun who thought that the title suits Kai perfectly), some of his music CDs and the Legolas Greenleaf, son of Thranduil, Prince of the Woodland Realm poster Sehun taped on his wall as a prank (it ended up staying there anyway).  

“Ah, there’s still another one,” Kyungsoo says meekly while slowly moving closer to Kai. Kai turns to him and sees him holding his copy of Jessica Khoury’s Origin. “Sorry, I read it…I thought it looked interesting so I just read it.”

“It’s fine. You finished?” Kyungsoo shakes his head. “Keep it until you’re done.”

“KIM JONGIN!!!” Kai can feel his ears bleeding when he hears Sehun yelling in the hallway.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. Just ring me when you’re done.” Kai says and immediately runs outside the office, meeting Sehun. “What?”

“Ah, there you are!”

--

“And I’m telling you that I don’t need her!” Chanyeol yells, probably for the 10^th time and always, his sister just ignores his protests. “I can get the investors back on my own! Just give me some time!”

“That’s the problem. You don’t have time. Our sales are declining fast, really fast, Chanyeol. Look, just let her help you.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t let her help me. Sis, you know that and you know the reason why!”

“This isn’t high school anymore, Chanyeol! Grow up! You’re a CEO!” Gyuri yells, finally getting fed up by Chanyeol’s immaturity. “Forget about whatever personal issues you have with her! You need her! And I’m not going take any more bull from you Chanyeol! If you don’t stop with all these childish acts and start acting like an adult, I’m going to have to call mom and I know how much you don’t want her sticking her nose into your problems! You said you can do it on your own? For the past 6 months, what improvement have you actually done?!”

Chanyeol blinks at her. Seeing Gyuri mad is rare and is an indication that he has completely ed this up big time. Chanyeol doesn’t say but realizing that he does need Baekhee—or Baekhyun—is like a wake-up call for him, that for the past 6 months he’s mourn over the loss he brought to himself. But he doesn’t know how to undo what’s already done. He feels like it’s not the same with Baekhyun anymore. He’s not the same anymore. And you can’t just go back to being who you are overnight, that’s not how reality works.

“I know I may seem incapable…but I can do it, now.”

“Chanyeol just—just let her help you.”

“Fine.” Chanyeol finally says. “But don’t expect me to work with her.”

--

Surprisingly, when Baekhyun comes the next day, the rest of Chanyeol’s staff greeted him with all smiles and rainbows and unicorns. Not only that, they gave him flowers and a few advices on how to deal with some of the employees in the company and how to properly flush the toilet since the toilet’s been broken for almost half a year ever since Chanyeol kicked it for being so pissed off one day.

Gyuri also was very enthusiastic when he led Baekhyun to his new office. The office is nice, spacious enough, there’s also shelves, a couch, a flatscreen TV, a mini-fridge and a window-to-floor glass window that enables him to gaze at the scenery outside the building. The only turn-off of this perfectly remade office is that it stands exactly beside Chanyeol’s and the only wall that separates their offices is not even a wall but also a window-to-floor glass thingy. So, later that afternoon, Baekhyun purchased office curtains to cover the glass wall and make everything right again. Now he doesn’t have to see Chanyeol’s annoying face every day.

--

It was already past midnight when Kai entered his quiet home.

He doesn’t normally stay up late in the studio but somehow this time was different, his body couldn’t seem to detach from the music booming out from the speakers and he just kept on dancing and dancing and dancing that he lost track of time. He even forgot to call back home to inform Sehun, who has sent him countless messages of where he was, that he’ll be late.

He found his dinner on the table, covered with plastic and decided to take it to his room. He kind of felt guilty. It’s not always someone cooks for him and Sehun anyway. He was on his way to his room when he noticed the light on Baekhyun’s room. Seeing as it’s already past midnight, he wanted to know why Baekhyun was still up. He knocked softly thrice before finally opening the door slowly.

Ah. He shook his head at the sight of Baekhyun sleeping on his desk, over the papers scattered around under the lampshade. He saw the window open, greatly welcoming the cold wind inside Baekhyun’s room and decided to close it. He pulled the blanket from Baekhyun’s bed and draped it over his tired and cold shoulders.

He scans Baekhyun’s desk. There are papers from the company, probably something Gyuri gave him as a guide, and newspaper cut-outs of the investors Chanyeol lost, Park Industries’ record of sales for the last years, and then finally to the shelf already covered with post-its with Baekhyun’s neat handwriting.

There’s one that caught his attention.

Meeting with Jo Hyun Moo @ lunch

Woo Bin’s ball @ 6 the next day

*CEO needed unfortunately

Kai couldn’t help but smile and feel proud that Baekhyun managed to get two of the five investors in less than a week. So this the Elliot side in Baekhyun? He can get used to this.

--

Baekhyun wakes up to his alarm with a smile, courtesy of Kai’s gift, that stupid little teddy bear alarm clock that emits some kind of cute sound that says “Wake up~ wake up~”. He turned the alarm off and checked the time. He still has a few hours to prepare and already at the back of his mind he’s hoping that Chanyeol is doing the same thing in his house because there’s really no time to waste since lunch with Jo Hyun Moo means lunch with horses aka he’s at some kind of horse show event at Busan and uh, horses, takes him back to his childhood in London.

He organized the papers before skipping inside the bathroom.

He went out 15 minutes later and was greeted by the constant ring of his phone. He picked it up from his bed while searching for an appropriate attire to wear.

“Ms. Baekhee? This is Sir Chanyeol’s secretary.”

“I know. I can afford a caller ID. Is everything ok?”

“Yes, ma’am. Your dress for Mr. Woo Bin’s ball is already at the hotel I booked you and Sir Chanyeol at. I’ll send the address of the hotel at your phone later, ma’am.”

Baekhyun picks up a black dress, with the skirt long enough to reach to his thighs. “Right. Thank you, Yoon Hye.”

“Uh—ma’am, there is one problem.”

Baekhyun crooks his eyebrows as he closes the cabinet and asks, “What?”

“Sir Chanyeol, um, I tried calling him a lot of times but he’s not answering. I’m kind of worried he slept in. He always sleeps in and never gets anything done in time so…”

Baekhyun sighs. “It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.” He ends the call and thinks that he should’ve seen this coming. He just won’t be helping Chanyeol in business but also get his together because there’s no succeeding in this if the CEO himself isn’t doing his part. He figures he can just beat the crap out of Chanyeol but that’ll be all the more reason why he shouldn’t be helping him.

He got dressed with the black dress he picked up earlier, and matched it with black boots that reaches above his knees and a white bonnet. He curled his wig slightly before grabbing his bag and proceeded downstairs. This is going to be one tiring day.

--

Tiring because he’s sure as hell he’ll need his screaming prowess all day. He arrives at Chanyeol’s house (and it still looks like a great property to burn) and curses inwardly because there’s seem to be no sign of activity and it just looks dead like the owner doesn’t have any appointments for today and it just makes Baekhyun so ing pissed that he has to do this.

He rang the doorbell five times, even knocked 10 times, however, still no sign of life anywhere in this house. He actually wanted to break the door but he doesn’t want to pay the damage. So, since desperate times call for desperate measures, he decided to climb up Chanyeol’s balcony like he used to. It’s not so hard except he’s wearing a dress and that’s something to worry about. But then again, thinking about the time and the time needed to get the ing CEO prepared, and the time needed to get to Busan, that is not something to worry about.

So he started climbing up, albeit slipping a lot of times because of his boots and he can’t really take it off, he managed to arrive at the balcony safely and with no traces of bruises and cuts on any parts of his body and when he finally turned to the sliding door, he immediately felt like bombing Chanyeol’s house seeing as he’s sleeping beside Kyungsoo and the weight of anger is just—is just—

Chanyeol bolts up with his eyes wide followed by Kyungsoo whose eyes are even wider, both in panic and shock.

—just enough to make Baekhyun grab a flower pot and throw it on the glass door, breaking it in pieces.

“WHAT THE HELL?!”

“Good morning.” Baekhyun greets with a smile.

“YOU BROKE MY DOOR!”

Baekhyun snaps.

“HOW CAN YOU EVEN YELL AT ME WHEN YOU’RE THE ONE AT FAULT?! YOU EVEN HAVE THE BALLS TO SLEEP IN ON SUCH AN IMPORTANT DAY!”

“YOU BROKE MY DOOR!”

“GO TO THE BATHROOM AND TAKE A BATH!”

“YOU BROKE—“

“YES I BROKE YOUR ING DOOR NOW GO TO THE BATHROOM OR DO YOU WANT ME TO DRAG YOU THERE MYSELF?!”

In just a matter of seconds, or less, Chanyeol is already down the hallway with all of his manhood crushed.

Baekhyun turned to Kyungsoo who looks surprised and confused. “Sorry about the…door. It’s just that we have to get to Busan before lunch for a meeting. And yeah, it’s not every day Chanyeol gets a meeting.”

“I understand.”

Baekhyun checked the time and groaned when he noticed it’s already past their supposed schedule to leave. He immediately walks to Chanyeol’s closet and grabs a few clothes so when he gets back, he can change clothes as fast as he could. He picks up the first familiar suit he sees, Westwood, and carefully places them on his bed.

“What are you doing?” Kyungsoo asks.

“Preparing his clothes,” Baekhyun replies, turning around to find shoes.

“I can do it,”

“It’s fine.”

“No, I mean, I can do it.”

And that’s when Baekhyun realizes that indeed, Kyungsoo can do it, because this is not something of his concern anymore. Their roles have changed and he should’ve reminded himself of that. “Sorry.” He turns to him and smiles.

“It’s okay. It’s hard to break habits sometimes.”

Baekhyun fakes a smile and leaves the room rolling his eyes.

--

When Chanyeol went down to the living room, almost after nearly an hour, he saw Baekhyun on the couch with his legs and arm crossed, possibly already grown impatient. He didn’t have the chance earlier when he woke up to the sound of his glass door breaking into pieces and all the panicked screaming followed but now that he’s walking towards Baekhyun, he can appreciate how he’s dressed, like he always has before all this. Baekhyun has always been intimidating, whether he dresses up or not but when he does, you just sort of get astonished at how much he can hold power even with a disguise. And it was during these moments when Chanyeol used to effortlessly break his walls.

But not anymore.

Chanyeol cleared his throat. Baekhyun looked up at him. “Oh thank god!” He immediately stood up and grabbed his bag and coat. “Come on Chanyeol! We’re already behind schedule!”

Chanyeol followed Baekhyun outside immediately, after saying goodbye to Kyungsoo, and should’ve seen his myriad of whines coming. “If we don’t get to the meeting in time I’m telling you I am going to kill you!” Baekhyun stopped beside his car and Chanyeol just blinked at him. “Well? Your car?”

“We’re…You’re riding in my car?”

Baekhyn rolls his eyes. “Are you stupid? How are we supposed to get to Busan?”

“No, I mean. We’re riding in my car…together?”

“Unless you want to make our lives miserable and leave me here and go to the meeting alone which I can’t allow to happen because I’m pretty sure you’ll end up punching Hyun Moo in the face.”

“Alright, alright. Just,” Chanyeol says while fishing out his keys. “Nobody told me.”

“I did. But you forgot.” Baekhyun opens the door as soon as it’s unlocked and hops in riding shotgun. “God knows what’s playing in your mind while you look like you’re listening when I was giving our instructions…when you’re actually not.” He adds while waiting for Chanyeol to hop in the driver’s seat which is taking forever by the way and when Chanyeol finally does, he yells, “Come on! Let’s go! We don’t have time to waste!”

“Alright, alright!” Chanyeol yells and immediately starts to drive away after starting the engine. This will be 2 hours of Baekhyun whining and he wished he brought earplugs with him.

--

“Wow, Luhan, it’s like your business is on fire.” Sehun says in awe as he scrolls down the orders from their official website, thanks to Chen the Genius. “How are you going to get these orders done in time?”

“That’s why we’re working even harder,” Luhan appears back from the storage room, carrying two boxes of clothes with him and he puts it down with a tired sigh. Hyomin, also as equally tired, has been constantly checking the items and the names of the customers.

“You look like you could use some more people,”

Luhan chuckles at Sehun. “Can you take the other boxes from the storage room?” Sehun happily complies and skips to the storage room.

Luhan was moving the boxes to the corner when the bell on top of the door rings and he looks up to see Gyuri walking in. “Ms. Gyuri!”

Gyuri immediately smiles at him, almost relieved to see him. “You can drop the miss, Luhan. You are a friend of Baekhee right?”

Luhan nods and leads Gyuri to the couch on their mini-lounge. Sehun served her tea earlier and quickly left and it was only a few sips when Gyuri started talking. “I just came to ask if…you know where Baekhee lives?” Luhan pauses at the question. “I’ve been trying to find it but I can’t, it’s sort of weird. I wanted to send her flowers and some gifts as a thank you for agreeing to help Chanyeol.”

“Ah…about that,” Luhan had no excuse and Sehun, king of lying, is somewhere at the storage room and it would so weird to call him just for this simple question. So Luhan tried the best excuse he could think of. “Baekhee doesn’t really let people know where she lives. She likes keeping her privacy.”

“Oh,” Gyuri says, obviously not expecting such answer.

“Um, you can just send the gifts here. She often comes by and hangs out. I’ll tell her you visited.”

Gyuri places the cup back on the table and nods. “That would be great.”

--

If staring could kill, Baekhyun had pretty much killed the poor trash can by now.

“How can you be so stupid to not check your car’s engine before leaving?” He yelled, leaning at the side of Chanyeol’s car with his arms crossed, and his face pretty much screaming how pissed off he was that Chanyeol’s car just had to break down now on such an important day. “In fact, how can you be just stupid? Didn’t you learn anything at school?!”

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol starts while peeking from the hood of the car. “Can you please stop whining?”

“Stop whining?! You slept in! We’re already 2 hours behind schedule! Your car’s broken! And you tell me to stop whining?!”

“Forget I asked.” Chanyeol says while sliding back to the hood.

“I swear Chanyeol if Hyun Moo’s secretary will call right now to cancel because we’re running late I’m going rip your head off—“ Baekhyun startles at the sound of his phone ringing and immediately fishes it out of his bag. He gasps. “This is it. I knew it!”

“It’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet my head on it.” Baekhyun scoffs then walks away to answer the call. He tried to calm his mind and his face first then started inhaling and exhaling. “Yes, Hwayoung-shii, ah, really sorry to say but I think we’re going to run late for lunch and…oh! Hyun Moo’s running late too? At least 2 hours?!” Baekhyun immediately covers his mouth after yelling and side-eyes Chanyeol who’s still busy fixing something on his car. “Late lunch? Oh, okay! Late lunch it is!” The call ends with him smiling so wide his lips can almost reach his ears but of course he’s not going to tell Chanyeol the good news because then he’ll start boasting like ‘I told you it’s going to be fine luck is on my side you should listen to me sometimes blah blah blah insert more of Chanyeol’s annoying nonsense here’, and really, his ears are too elegant for that.

Baekhyun sees a small store by the road and decides to buy himself a bottle of water and a few chips given that Chanyeol might take even longer to finish fixing whatever is wrong with his car.

When Baekhyun comes back afterwards, Chanyeol is still fixing his car. He leans silently into the side of car, on his spot before, and slowly moves forward to peek from his spot what Chanyeol is doing. However, what he notices instead, is that Chanyeol is now only wearing the white shirt he has inside his suit and even at the thickness of the fabric, his tones abs are visible due to the sweat sticking to the shirt. He never really noticed Chanyeol’s body like this but maybe this is just the result of the scorching sun and the extremely hot weather.

He lost balance and cleared his throat after immediately getting back up. “Chanyeol,”

“Hm?”

“Do you want some water?”

Chanyeol looks in between his wet fringes and smirks. “No thanks.”

“Okay.”

And then after a minute.

“Chanyeol.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to eat something?”

Chanyeol again looks in between his scattered fringes and sees Baekhyun munching some chips and declines. “No thanks.”

“Okay.”

It’s been fifteen minutes of walking back and forth when Baekhyun notices Chanyeol’s sweat almost spreading everywhere on his shirt. “Chanyeol.”

“What?”

“You should take your shirt off.” He really does hope that didn’t come out wrong judging by the way Chanyeol reacted—he almost dropped the reservoir cap he was holding—and aside from that, it starts sounding awkward by the second and Baekhyun can feel his face heating up.

Chanyeol stands up straight, holding his arms slightly high. It took a moment before Baekhyun realized that he’s showing his hands dirty from the engine he was fixing. Chanyeol looks at him expectantly and that’s when Baekhyun knew he has to take the shirt off himself or it’ll get dirty and he’s just eating his words. He gulps.

“Come on, Baek, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Yeah. We don’t. Baekhyun repeats inside his head. He moves closer to Chanyeol and grabs on the hem of his shirt, trying not to look directly at him, and then slowly lifts his shirt up and—holy yeah this is really a bad idea—because seeing Chanyeol’s flesh up close is basically a caution, a warning and a danger zone all in one. His eyes couldn’t seem to keep still looking away as no matter how much he tries hard to look away, they just keep coming back and he can feel Chanyeol’s smirk all over him, add the fact that his heart is beating so fast like—wtf calm down—so he quickly pulls the shirt up tohis  head, startling Chanyeol, and then finally out of his long arms.

To be honest, Chanyeol thinks it’s cute, how Baekhyun’s cheeks are red and how he needed to tiptoe.

Baekhyun immediately turns around, ignoring Chanyeol’s smirk. He doesn’t want to admit but he’s got really no skills in controlling his emotions at this point so he quickly walks to the side of the car, acting as if he badly needed to hang Chanyeol’s shirt on top of the car window, just to hide that flushed expression on his face.

--

“Ah, thank god you called,” Baekhyun mumbles to Kai on the phone while opening his eyes, his sight being occupied with the car’s ceiling as he was lying on the back seat, with the car’s door open to let the wind in, and his legs dropped on the edge of the seat.

“Why? Something wrong?”

“We’re stuck. And by we, I mean Chanyeol and I. We’re stranded at some road to Busan, I don’t even care anymore.”

“What happened?”

“The car’s engine broke. And he’s trying to fix it. Not sure how’s that going since it’s been one and a half hour.”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes high. I’ve never seen him fix his car before. He always hitches a ride with Sehun whenever his car breaks.”

“Ah, that little piece of .” The sound of Kai’s laughter over the phone was suddenly cut off when Baekhyun hears a loud tap on the car and he looks at the door to see Chanyeol standing in front of him—basically in front of his legs—with his arms spread on each side of the door.

“I’m going to get help—“ Chanyeol’s words fade as he slowly looks down on Baekhyun’s bare legs (not to mention slightly spread out for being too comfy) and Baekhyun, noticing the smirk on Chanyeol’s face, immediately closes them. Chanyeol clears his throat. “I need you to stay here.”

“Uh-huh,” Is all Baekhyun can say.

Chanyeol grabs his shirt before leaving. Baekhyun heaves a heavy sigh, and just then he noticed that he was holding his breath.

“Baekhyun?”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Hey, listen, I got to go. I was going to tell you something but it can wait for later.”

“Okay.”

“Alright, bye.”

The call ends. Baekhyun’s suddenly alone. But even so, he can still feel how red his face is.

--

Fifteen minutes later, thanks to Chanyeol’s nonexistent expertise in asking for help, he finds himself walking back to his car with a pissed off worker from the car repair shop he found. And not only that, but for Christ’s sake, Baekhyun is leaning on the hood of the car, with his sticking out, so casually as if no one would actually look at his . So, as soon as they arrive by the car, he not-so-subtly pushes Baekhyun out of the hood, resulting in Baekhyun almost falling to the ground first. “Excuse me,” Is all Chanyeol said.

Baekhyun looks at him incredulously. “Rude.”

“So, what’s wrong with the engine again?” The helper asks.

“I think it’s a leak.”

“Ah! You’re lucky it’s not so bad. You’ve done a pretty good job yourself.”

Baekhyun decides to leave as he has absolutely no interest in watching two guys fawn over a car engine.

Although five minutes later, he was bored as hell. He was playing with his legs while sitting at the edge of the back seat, door open, when he sees Chanyeol leaning on the side from the window, looking tired as hell. He immediately grabs the water behind him and hops off his car to walk over. “Here.”

Chanyeol turns to him, eyebrows crooked due to the sweat on his face. He takes the bottle as Baekhyun grabs his handkerchief and, he’s sure it as unconsciously, started wiping off the sweat from Chanyeol’s forehead and then slowly down to his cheeks and then to his jawline. It was there that Baekhyun again notices the dark circles under Chanyeol’s eyes and he started to wonder if he’s been missing sleep lately. Is it hard for him to sleep? Is something bothering him? Is he sick? He’s got a lot of questions but he was in no position to ask. He snaps when he sees Chanyeol staring back at him and quickly withdraws his hand. “Sorry!” And again, he hides his flustered face by running behind Chanyeol, just to get away from him.

Chanyeol smiles, really smiles, as he walks to the back seat to get his own taste of rest.

Five minutes later, Baekhyun yells at him. “Chanyeol, there’s food on the paper bag if you’re hungry!”

Chanyeol grabs some chips and eats them quietly, and everything is so quiet, like really quiet, that he’s suddenly feeling curious on what was Baekhyun doing outside. He hops off the car and peeks from his spot when he sees Baekhyun casually chatting with the helper while leaning on the hood just like how he was leaning earlier, and his temper suddenly snaps. He walks closer to them and seeing as the helper is looking at Baekhyun like he’s his prey, he immediately stands in between like it’s the most natural thing to do. “How long is this going to take?”

“Oh, it’s already fixed actually. I was just telling this lady here how the engine works.”

Baekhyun bites his lip when Chanyeol turns to him with a pissed off glare.

“So, uh, I guess I’ll be going?”

Chanyeol sighs and grabs his wallet to get the payment for the helper. After the helper left, Chanyeol immediately turned to Baekhyun. “You have the guts to yell at me earlier when you’re slowing us down yourself by chatting with that…man,”

Baekhyun gasps, feeling a bit offended. “Excuse me? You’re the one who took long fixing the engine when you’re completely hopeless!” He yells at Chanyeol’s back seeing as Chanyeol’s already hopping on the driver’s seat. Baekhyun immediately hops on the other side. “Besides, he was pretty cute.”

Chanyeol scoffs. “Yeah, you’d like that. He totally wanted you.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. I’m supportive actually.” Chanyeol replies with a wide smile. “See?”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes and leans on the window as the car slowly drives away finally after almost 2 hours of heart racing and face reddening.

--

They arrived at Berke’s, a restaurant situated just near Jo Hyun Moo’s building, half an hour later, with Baekhyun trying to calm himself from the panic of being late and Chanyeol just coolly standing in front of the door, listening to Baekhyun’s reminders.

“Relax, it’s going to be fine. Trust me.”

“Trust me, your face.”

“I’m going.”

“Wait!” Baekhyun quickly fixes Chanyeol’s lapel and then his hair before looking satisfied. “There. You look fine.”

“Okay, Baek. I’m going.”

Baekhyun nervously gives Chanyeol a supportive pat on the back and yeah, five minutes later Chanyeol is walking out with a disappointed face. “He didn’t want—“

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Baekhyun throws his bag to Chanyeol and walks inside the restaurant, deciding to have a talk with Jo Hyun Moo himself and he should’ve really seen this coming.

And, fifteen minutes later, Chanyeol feels Baekhyun walking out of the restaurant and stopping to stand beside him. Nobody talked, and Baekhyun sighed first before slamming the signed contract on Chanyeol’s chest with a proud smirk.

Then Baekhyun grabs his bag and starts walking back to the car first. “Come on, Chanyeol. We still have a ball to attend.”

Chanyeol just watches him go, watches as his back sway as he walks, and he wonders how everything turned out like this. This could just be another normal episode of the great young CEO Park Chanyeol and his fiancé, Baekhee, however, it’s not.

And it saddens him to admit that he kind of misses those episodes. His heart is just as hard as his head but to be honest, he feels fine now, seeing Baekhyun and hearing his unending tantrums, like the old times, even though everything might not go back to what it was before anymore.

A/N:

mehehehehe.

oh here's the full image of baek's dress

- gelie