Worth
Perfectly Imbalanced
Yixing and Kris. Yixing and Kris. That’s fine, right? Yixing and Kris. Yixing and Kris. I don’t even know why I’m worried?
“BYUN BAEKHYUN!!!”
Baekhyun gasps when he snaps out due to Luhan’s painful screech beside him. “What?”
“Don’t what me. I’ve been calling you since forever. Why are you in a daze?” Luhan says, pouting, while turning beside him to grab some fruits Chanyeol gave them before leaving. It’s a blessing Kai came back after Chanyeol’s gone or else it’s going to be even more awkward. Other than that, Chanyeol agreed to let Baekhyun take the day-off he badly needed. Luhan leaned back, giving Baekhyun a slice of apple and then throws some oranges to Kai and Sehun. Baekhyun bites from the apple and munches as he slowly drifts back into thinking about Yixing and Kris and Luhan, noticing how Baekhyun’s staring at nowhere again, slaps his hands on Baekhyun’s cheeks. “BAEKHYUN!”
“I HAVE APPLE ON MY MOUTH!” Baekhyun yells while desperately keeping the bits of apple inside his mouth.
“STAY WITH ME BRAH!”
Baekhyun shoves Luhan away. “What the hell is your problem?”
“No, what the hell is your problem?” Luhan retorts crossing his arms. “You’ve been blank lately.”
Baekhyun should really tell Luhan about Kris and Yixing coming but he feels like the other two audience, Kai and Sehun, doesn’t need to know about why they’re coming. Still, Luhan would never take his if he tells him nothing’s wrong. Luhan’s ‘best friend instinct’ is quite the force to be reckoned with. He sighs as he turns to face Luhan. He swallows the apple he was chewing before finally saying, “Kris and Yixing are coming to Seoul.”
It’s like everyone thought about doing the same thing when a weird pause happened and finally they all yelled at the same time. “WHAT?!”
“Yixing?!”
“Kris?”
“Yixing’s coming? Cool!”
Amidst the confusion, Baekhyun, Luhan and Sehun seemed to have noticed the same thing when they all turned to Kai after sprouting his happiness, their eyebrows crooked. “Why are you so happy?” Baekhyun asks.
“Yeah, why are you so happy?” Sehun and Luhan second, both sounding offended.
“Uh,” Kai glanced at each of their confused faces. “Well, Yixing is cool! If I had a brother, I’d want it to be him!”
“You do have a brother.” Sehun says from his bed but was unfortunately ignored. Luhan just laughs at Sehun pouting.
“So, when are they coming?” Kai asks while messing Sehun’s hair in which Sehun pushed him away with a pout.
“Next week,” Baekhyun answers, nodding. “Yeah, next week.”
This is probably the first time Baekhyun has wanted to get inside the Park Industries building so bad. It’s ing air conditioned and air condition is what he needs the most right now because he’s sweating like crazy thanks to Lu-ing-han and that bad luck he was born with.
Chanyeol’s secretary, Yoonhye, immediately greets him once he was spotted walking to the elevator. “Ma’am, here are the sales for this month. And these are the lists of the weapons that need to be reviewed.”
Baekhyun presses the button and sighs as he feels the cold air. “Yoonhye, the moment. Come on. Let me enjoy the moment.”
Yoonhye scans Baekhyun and finally notices the sweat. “You’re sweating, Miss Baekhee. What happened? It’s not that hot outside, is it?”
“Someone thought he can cook and used the kitchen. I tell you, when you think you can cook, don’t step into the kitchen and cook.” Baekhyun walks inside the elevator when it finally opens and Yoonhye follows. “Our kitchen exploded so I had to help him clean it up.” The memory is pain. Baekhyun shakes his head.
“Oh, how unfortunate.”
“Yeah, the horror.”
At least he gets to have some cold now that he’s at work. When Baekhyun finally reached his floor, he took some of the files from Yoonhye to review them while he walks to the office. “Let’s see, not bad. What are these guns for? Like those normal guns in movies?” Baekhyun asks as he stops in front of the glass door of the office while still scanning the papers, completely missing the sight before him. “Oh well,” He says as he closes the folder and opens the door. “I’m gonna review them later—“ He stops at the doorway and stares at the number of staffs with their own fans fanning themselves. “What—“
“Aircon’s down.” One of the staffs yelled.
Baekhyun drops the files.
“That wasn’t really my fault, right?” Luhan tells Sehun, feeling a little guilty about making Baekhyun help clean the mess he made earlier. “I mean, who knows if the stove was broken? You guys tried to cook before, right? What if you broke it? So when I tried to cook, it exploded?”
“What are you trying to justify here?” Sehun replies even though his attention is mostly on his laptop, playing a game. “I mean, why did you even try to cook?”
Luhan purses his lips. There is no way, absolutely no way, he’s going to tell Sehun that he tried to cook for him. So he keeps quiet until the only sound that echoes around the room is the keyboard getting repeatedly tapped by Sehun.
“Luhan.”
Luhan stares at Sehun and then to his laptop that is now closed and then back to Sehun.
“Why did you try to cook?”
“What’s wrong with that? I was just trying…I mean, maybe I can cook…”
“Yeah, but why? “
“No particular reason.”
Sehun eyes him. “You’re lying.”
“I am not lying.”
Sehun turns to Kai’s cat, Shelrlock that’s sitting at the foot of the bed. “Hey Shelrlock, look at his face. That’s the face of a liar.”
“Shut up. I’m not lying.”
Sehun turns back to Luhan with a sly smile. “Oh yeah? You weren’t trying to cook for me?”
Luhan gasps in surprise and he can feel his blood rushing to his face. No no no. His heart’s palpitating, save the fact that Sehun’s looking at him like he completely knows what his heart is doing to him. “Why—“ Sehun looks at him expectantly. “Why would I even do that?! Please, don’t flatter yourself!”
Sehun fishes his phone from under the sheets and smirks at Luhan before reading a message from Baekhyun. “Hey, when Lulu gets there later, tell him I’m ing pissed because I’m sweating like hell right now. If he wanted to cook for you, he could’ve just told me. Jesus, you guys are hopeless.”
He’s gonna kill Baekhyun.
He doesn’t even care who should be pissed right now but he’s going to kill Baekhyun.
“Man, this is funny.” Luhan crooks his eyebrows at Sehun’s words. “You’re even trying to hide it—“
“YOU THINK THAT’S FUNNY?!” Luhan yells, startling Sehun. “FINE! WHATEVER! FORGET I CARED!” He immediately grabbed his bag and stomps to the door.
“H-hey, Luhan—“ Sehun flinches when the door slams close. “Wha…What just happened?”
Meanwhile at the VP’s office, Kyungsoo is glaring at the screen, on Kris’ name to be exact. He couldn’t even count anymore how many times he’s clicked spam on Kris’ e-mails because every time, it’s all the same messages. “What the hell are you doing? I told you to stop seducing Chanyeol. What are you still doing there?” He mocks with a snarl at Kris’ crappy messages. He sips from his coffee before typing a reply for Kris.
Dude, calm down.
Try being in my place. It’s not that easy.
But rest assured your highness, I have a plan.
Do Kyungsoo
Psychologist at Calm The Down
Vice President, Park Industries
“Sir?”
Kyungsoo raises his head at the door. “Yeah?”
“I turned down the air condition at Sir Chanyeol’s staff office.”
“Great!”
“Um, I hope I’m not being rude but why did you want to turn the aircon down?”
“I get it sis, Jesus, you keep on yelling like some retarded penguin,” Chanyeol says irritably on the phone as he walks inside his office. “Yeah, bye, don’t call me again. I won’t answer!” He hangs up and as soon as he looks up, he idles at how empty the office is. He turns to his secretary. “Where are my staffs?”
Yoonhye stops fanning herself to answer. “They’re at the lounge, sir. The aircon’s down and it’s too hot in here.”
“What? Why’s the aircon down?” Chanyeol walks to the dispenser across the room to quench his thirst, putting his briefcase down on a table on the way. “Did you call maintenance?” He says while grabbing a cup but stopped as soon as he sees Baekhyun inside his office, trying his wig up, with his back facing him. He gulps when Baekhyun’s wet nape presents itself, add those ing long slender fingers pressing on it. It’s not that new, well, he’s seen his nape before and he had always thought it’s y but the fact that he can only stand and look at it is messing up his libido.
“Sir? SIR!”
Chanyeol snaps, the surprise forcing him to lose grip on the cup he was holding and it falls on the floor, the water splashing around it. “.” Baekhyun turns around and sees Chanyeol dropping to the floor to clean up his mess.
“Sir, I tried calling the maintenance. They’re not picking up.”
Baekhyun slides the glass door open and peeks outside. “Need help, sir?”
Chanyeol looks up at Baekhyun staring down at him, arms crossed. Now he’s sweating. He looks away. “THIS IS A BILLION WON COMPANY WHY CAN’T YOU ING FIX THE AIRCON!?”
Yoonhye, shocked, grabs the phone again and dials the maintenance in a hurry.
Baekhyun smirks and turns around, giving Chanyeol a full view of his as he walks back to his desk.
“Well, .” Chanyeol curses.
Kyungsoo’s gotta say, he’s quite a genius. He doesn’t even understand why he thought this whole thing would be complicated and hard. He just has to keep pushing the two together and then in a matter time, they’re going to be hugging each other with not a single given to the world. Yes. Sounds like a plausible plan.
So now, to celebrate his mini-victory, he decided to treat himself some sweets at some café located just across the Park Industries building. It’s just a simple treat; he feels as though finally he can take a break from breathing in the air from the building. He missed simplicity but if it wasn’t for the fact that he needed the money badly, he wouldn’t be in this position right now. But it was worth the risk, he got to meet all these people, and if he can fix it himself, he’d be happier to do it.
Other than that, this café is pretty special for him.
“Good afternoon sir,” The lady on the counter greets with a sweet smile. “What can I get you?”
“Um, I’ll have Cappuccino.”
“Okay, sir. Just wait a moment.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t know if Kai remembers that day of August last year but for him, the memory is still fresh. It was raining very hard and being hardly able to save up money for himself because of his father needing it so badly, he couldn’t afford coffee when he came in to take shelter. It was cold and he was almost freezing to death. He tried to ask politely but the whole café was packed so he ended up ignored. He decided to give up then and leave but when he was already near the door, the counter lady called him. “Sir, your coffee?” He stood there and he looked behind him when the lady spoke again. “Sir, it’s yours.” He walked slowly, still unsure, but the lady was offering it kindly to him. “But I didn’t order anything,” he said to the lady. The lady replied with a smile, “Sir Kai paid for it.” Kyungsoo turned to where the lady was looking and saw a tan man, probably younger than him, talking to another man sporting curly blond. “Who is—“ When he turned back to the lady to ask, she was no longer there. Kyungsoo found her entertaining the customers and decided not to bother her anymore.
Since then, he pretty much stalked Kai, and he’s thankful that he didn’t get caught. It was only at the Exotic Restaurant did he know that Kai’s is friends with Chanyeol. What a small world, after all.
“Sir!”
Kyungsoo snapped, his eyes wide. “Huh?”
“Your order, sir.”
Kyungsoo takes the cup carefully after paying. His attention was then drawn to the girls squealing beside him—Park Industries’ female staffs to be exact, standing around a post where they seem to be discussing something. After craning his neck to see, he managed to see a poster glued on the post. He leaned forward to take a closer look and luckily, one of the girls moved away, giving him his view. It was a poster for an underground dance battle but what surprised him was hearing the girls talk about Kai.
“I heard Sir Kai joined.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, my cousin also joined. They were given a list.”
“I didn’t know Sir Kai can dance!”
“We should go see it!”
“Ehh, but we have work.”
“Oh come on, this is a one-time chance!”
Kyungsoo walked away. Kai joined…?
Kai dancing?
Kai?
Kyungsoo ran back to where the girls were swarming, shoving them away softly, to find the location and time at the poster. When he finally got the location, he immediately ran outside to grab a cab.
Yeah, he’s doing this.
The wind’s nice, at least, even with the aircon down. Baekhyun’s leaning on his seat as he faces the opened window, feeling the wind pass through him. He would’ve gone home but there’s too much work but then he won’t be able to work with this heat so he doesn’t really know what he’s still doing here. He bolts slightly when he hears an angry groan from outside. He hops off his seat to take a quick peek outside when he sees Chanyeol stomping to his office. He turns to his secretary, Yoonhye, who looked as startled as him.
“What happened?” He asks but Yoonhye only gave him a shrug.
It’s rare for him to see Chanyeol angry so he concludes he’s overreacting as usual. Must be the heat.
It’s not just the heat. Chanyeol immediately slumps down the couch as soon as he’s inside his office. He’s too hot-headed right now. It just pisses him so much at how the board members grilled him during the meeting earlier, slapping him with words like how useless he is, that his consultant is even more worth talking about than the CEO himself. It just ing annoys him how judgmental they all are. For all he knows, if he didn’t save the company after his father died, they’d be on the streets now.
He hears a knock on the door and he throws his head back from the arm rest of the couch. Baekhyun is standing by the door, holding some pink box. Chanyeol follows Baekhyun walking beside the couch with his eyes. Baekhyun squats down beside his face and he lifts his hand to touch Chanyeol’s forehead.
Chanyeol’s eyes widens at the sudden action. “What—“
“Shh.” Baekhyun smiles at him. “You’re hot-headed. You’re annoyed, that’s okay, but please don’t take it out on your secretary. She’s got enough issues.” He chuckles and weirdly, somehow, Chanyeol can feel himself calming down. Baekhyun withdraws his hand and Chanyeol can feel the urge to put it back. “What happened?”
Chanyeol sighs. “No, it’s nothing.”
“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says sternly. “It’s not like I’m a stranger.”
“It’s…” But that’s what it feels like. “…really nothing, Baek.”
Baekhyun clicks his tongue. “Alright. If you say so. Here,” He places the small box on Chanyeol’s chest. “Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”
Chanyeol looks down on the box and sees a Hello Kitty drawing on it. Baekhyun left afterwards.
Chanyeol sat up slowly, the box now on his palms and he opens it. There’s a cupcake with a smiley face.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know….you were mad and then that happened and you got even more mad…”
He remembers a memory from last year, at the mall, when he spent shopping time with Baekhyun, Luhan and Sehun. He got mad because he didn’t like the way Kris is being too friendly with Baekhyun. In the end, he couldn’t last a day getting mad at Baekhyun.
“I’ve never seen you that mad. It’s…scary. I’m sorry.”
Chanyeol stares at the cupcake in his hand as memories of that day kept coming back to him.
“But you weren’t scared this time, right?” He whispers smirking. It’s nice. If he could travel back during that time, where everything’s simple, he would. He would take back that feeling, that warm feeling whenever he’s with Baekhyun.
He stood up and walked out of his office to Baekhyun’s. When he got there though, he found Baekhyun nowhere. He turned to Yoonhye. “Where’s Baekhee?”
“Oh, she said she’s going to the hospital.”
“Ah, I see.” Chanyeol purses his lips and nods.
So, in the end, he couldn’t last the whole day being stuck at a billion-won office with a faulty air-condition so he decided to pay Sehun a visit a little earlier than promised. There weren’t much work to do anyway. And, he would also want to strangle Luhan now if sees him inside Sehun’s room.
He sighs as he opens the door and idles when he found the room empty. “AHH! SEHUN?!” He runs back outside to grab a random nurse. “Where’s the patient here?!”
“Oh, Mr. Oh Sehun? He was walking down the hallway earlier—“
“HE’S LIMP! HE’S GOT A BROKEN LEG! WHY DID YOU LET HIM?!”
“He seems fine—“
“HE SEEMS FINE?! ARE YOU EVEN A NURSE?!” Baekhyun groans in exasperation. “Forget it! Let’s just look for him! Where did you say he was going?”
“This way.” They immediately ran to wherever it is the nurse remembers Sehun went.
“I swear if we find him on the floor, groaning in pain, I’m going to cut all your hair off!”
They take a turn at the stairs and before they can even run up, they saw Sehun seated at the end of the staircase above them. Baekhyun gasps. “SEHUN!”
“Hi hyung,”
Baekhyun immediately runs on the steps and stops beside him. “What are you doing here? What happened? Hey! You!” He yells to the nurse. “Come here and help me carry him!” The nurse immediately runs towards them to lend a helping hand. Baekhyun is on Sehun’s left while the nurse is on his right, lifting his arms to support him down the steps when the nurse accidentally lets go of Sehun’s arm, making him fall down the steps and he rolls and rolls and rolls until he reached the ground and Baekhyun stands there, shocked. “Se…” Sehun groans in pain. “SEHUN!” Baekhyun squeals as he runs down, dragging the nurse with him. “CAN’T YOU BE A LITTLE MORE CAREFUL?!” He yells to the nurse as they both try to lift Sehun up. After successfully lifting Sehun up, they walked slowly towards the staircase to walk down. It was a slow process given they have to be extra careful not to repeat what happened earlier but at least, it only took them more or less 15 minutes to arrive at the ground. Baekhyun, feeling a bit tired with some snarp pain shooting from his back, retreated his hand that’s holding Sehun’s arm around him to lean on the cabinet beside them. And that results to Sehun slipping down from the hold, painfully falling down the floor with a loud thud and probably another broken limb, and Baekhyun, shocked, bolted away from the cabinet, making his hand push the cabinet a little hard causing it to fall down on top of Sehun along with the medical supplies on it dispersing around them. A perfect formula for a complete disaster.
Baekhyun just stood there, trying to process over and over again what the just happened until the nurses came to help Sehun. He glances at the nurse beside him and finds her smirking. He sighs and immediately takes out a bill. “How much til you didn’t see anything?”
“My vision’s very clear.” Baekhyun takes out another bill. “They’re starting to fade.” Another bill. “It’s blurry.” And finally, he slams the last bill. “Oh my God, why is it so dark? I can’t see.”
Baekhyun rolls his eyes and follows the nurses who have successfully put Sehun on a wheelchair.
Baekhyun sighs as he places the dress inside the paper bag. It’s a good thing he decided to leave some of his clothes at Sehun’s room because then he could change any time after he’s done with work at the Parks. When Sehun was finally successfully carried back to his room with the help of the other male nurses, the doctor in attendee said that he needed to check if his injuries got worse. So, Baekhyun took that time while the doctor’s checking Sehun, to go to the bathroom and change to his casual clothes, without the wig and all.
When he can’t hear any more voices from outside, he finally went out. He sees Sehun lying on his bed, changing channels on the TV. “Hey, sorry about earlier.” He says while walking to the couch to drop the paper bag.
Sehun turns to him with a smile. “It’s okay, hyung. It’s my fault for going out unsupervised.”
“You were actually supervised, by blind nurses.” Baekhyun mocks while pulling the chair to him so sit beside Sehun’s bed. “Where were you going anyway? Where’s Luhan? Shouldn’t he be here? Or did he go to the shop?”
Sehun turns off the TV and turns to Baekhyun. “I was actually looking for Luhan.”
“Why?”
“I think…he got a bit mad at me.” Sehun says with a guilty grin.
“What.”
“Chanyeol! Where are you?”
Chanyeol regrets answering the phone now as soon as Gyuri’s voice came shrieking out. “I’m on the road.”
“What are you doing there? I just received a call from the board and they told me you—“
“Sis, I’m driving. Now, I don’t wanna die so I’m hanging up.”
“Wait, Chan—“
“Bye.” Chanyeol drops the phone on the other seat and pulls over near the hospital.
“Well, you know, Luhan’s dramatic. He’s paranoid. He…watches too much Disney. What did you expect?” Baekhyun says while munching some sliced apples.
“He looked really hurt.”
Baekhyun chuckles. “So, what does that tell you?”
“That he was offended?”
“Because?”
“Because I laughed at him trying to cook for me?”
Baekhyun nods. “So, why do you think he tried to cook for you?”
Sehun thinks for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know.”
“Is that why you laughed? Because you think it’s some stupid thing to do when you’re bored? Because he just randomly thought of cooking with no particular reason at all? Sehun, he’s 24. He’s been in a lot of relationships and I know so well he’s never tried to cook for any of the guys he went out with.” Baekhyun says softly, thinking how people who found true love are pretty much hopeless. “Don’t you feel at least touched that he tried to cook for you? Don’t you like him?”
“I do! I like him! You know that.”
Baekhyun chuckles and ruffles Sehun’s hair. “There you go. Next time don’t laugh at other people’s feelings.”
Sehun blinks at him. Feelings?
“Huh? Why is there a guitar here?” Baekhyun asks after accidentally finding the guitar hidden in between Sehun’s bed and the bed side table.
“Oh. It’s my classmate’s. They came by this morning to visit before going to class. They said they’ll come back for it later.” Sehun says while Baekhyun elevates the guitar from the floor to his lap. “Hyung, why don’t you sing a song?”
“Huh? I don’t—“
“Luhan said you have a nice voice.” Sehun immediately cuts with a grin.
“What makes you think he’s telling the truth?”
“He insulted your voice a lot of times, I mean the way you scream and shriek, but never your singing voice,” Sehun shrugs. “He was really excited too when he told me that. B has a really nice voice! You have to hear him sing!”
Baekhyun laughs at him. “Fine, just because you’re my favorite dongsaeng.”
“You’re my favorite hyung too!”
“I know! Gosh. Aren’t we a perfect match?” Baekhyun jokes as he slowly pulls the guitar closer to his chest, his left resting on top and his other hand pressing on the strings. He thinks of a good song to sing and there should be a lot. He’s not that good at playing the guitar but Yixing taught him some basics. He could sing a song while playing the guitar with decency. He clears his throat and his finger nails brush softly against the strings. “Right from the start, you were a thief, you stole my heart…” He mumbles quietly, wondering why the words came out so naturally. He wasn’t even thinking about this song. “And I your willing victim.” He pauses there when he finally realizes why. So, in the end, the only way he can voice out his feelings is through a song.
“I let you see the parts of me that weren't all that pretty and with every touch you fixed them.” Chanyeol gave him a silver-lining he never knew would ever exist. Just one chance, one time, and everything changed from that moment he ran away from Yixing’s guards at the Grand City Hotel. He doesn’t know if it’s fate but he’s convinced that everything that has happened from then until now has a meaning.
“Now you've been talking in your sleep, oh, oh. Things you never say to me, oh, oh. Tell me that you've had enough of our love, our love.” It’s the same, he thinks. They’ve made some bad decisions on the way that could cost their love.
“Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough. Just a second we're not broken just bent, and we can learn to love again.” Maybe they can. Maybe they can fix this, maybe he can fix this. He refused to be left broken after all and he knows, at least, that Chanyeol doesn’t want this too.
“It's in the stars. It's been written in the scars on our hearts, we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again.” Yes, because even though the mind says so the heart knows what it wants and with those scars the pain had left for them, every last one was worth it. Because it’s love. And maybe, someday, they can accept this love again.
Baekhyun opens his mouth for the next verse when a sudden sounds of a cat meowing from outside interrupts him. He stops and he looks up at Sehun now drifted into sleep. He smiles as he quietly places the guitar back where he took it and stands up to walk to the door.
Chanyeol never knew.
He arrived not long ago but instead of going inside the room, he got caught up with the beautiful voice that he couldn’t take one step to miss those angelic notes floating around the air into his ears. And Chanyeol never knew he’d find this beautiful voice in possession of possibly the most beautiful and real person he had ever met.
He can just imagine Baekhyun as a kid discovering his singing voice and he sings his heart out every day, for everyone to hear, and at the end of each song he gets applause from the happy audience. He wonders if Baekhyun ever dreamt of becoming a singer. He wonders if he did, what did he feel when he knew he couldn’t be one. Yet, even with these negative possibilities, he feels like none of it matters, because as long as Baekhyun can sing, his dream lives on.
There are a lot he doesn’t know about Baekhyun but he feels as though he’s seen all of him.
A loud meow surfaces, startling him, and the song stops. He looks beside him and finds a black cat on the floor, staring at him. Then he meows again, louder this time. He can hear footsteps from the room so he immediately chickens out and runs away.
Baekhyun opens the door and finds Sherlock looking at something from afar. “Sherlock? What are you doing out here?” He squats down and picks Sherlock up on his arms. He looks around. There’s no sign of someone relevant so he stands up and closes the door.
“Yeah, I’m coming back, Sis. Relax, will you?” Chanyeol says through the phone while putting in the key to open his car.
“Good. Can you also please bring Kyungsoo with you? The board is also looking for him.”
“Kyungsoo? He’s not in his office?”
“Yeah, I’m standing inside his office, unless he’s invincible…”
Chanyeol groans as he hops in the driver’s seat and putting in his seatbelts. “Fine, fine. I’ll call him.” He hangs up and immediately dials Kyungsoo. His phone rang for a few times before it was finally answered. “Kyung—“
“Sup bro.”
“Sis?!”
“Yeah, that bastard left his phone in his office.”
“Who’re you calling a bastard?”
“Oh, that wasn’t an insult.”
Chanyeol rolls his eyes. “Look, if he left his phone in his office, there’s no way I can contact him, let alone find him.”
“At least do something!”
“What do you want me to do? Send a search party?”
“Oh, let me see! How about you find your goddamn lover and get your assess here because the board doesn’t have the same patience as I do and I swear to God Chanyeol if you blow this up you’re going to meet me in hell!”
Chanyeol flinches as Gyuri hangs up after yelling at him over the phone.
He slams his head softly on the steering wheel.
And after a while, he decides to drive off to somewhere Kyungsoo might pop out.
Sehun seems to have a concentration span of a baby because as soon Baekhyun dropped Sherlock on the floor, he woke up because of the noise. What noise? Sherlock’s paws?
But after checking the time, Baekhyun realizes it’s about time. “Hey, I really want to stay here and keep you company but Kai’s dance battle starts in an hour and I promised I’d watch.”
“It’s okay hyung, you can go. You’ve kept me company enough.” Sehun reassures with a smile.
Baekhyun leans closer to pinch his cheeks. “You are so cute! Alright, Sherlock is here anyway. He’ll keep you company. Right, Sherlock?” He turns to the cat and the cat only replies by tilting its head.
“Shelrlock's a she by the way.” Sehun informs with grin.
“Oh, right!” Baekhyun clicks his tongue. “Oh well, I’ll be going. Don’t sneak out, okay?”
“Okay. Bye hyung! Have fun!”
Kyungsoo stands confused in front of an old building, holding the poster he ripped off somewhere in front of him. “I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere here…” He looks up at the old building again and he can name at least a thousand reasons why this place has to be the wrong place to hold an underground dance battle. And then it hits him. “Underground?”
Baekhyun stops by the hospital door.
And then he slowly turns beside him.
“You are so stupid.”
Luhan bolts up in shock. “B-Baek—“
“You are the dumbest person to set foot on this planet.”
“W-What—“
“Seriously, you’re 24. When are you going to stop acting like a high school girl who got caught?” Baekhyun pauses. “Actually, that applies for the both of you.”
“I don’t—“
“Stop. No. I don’t want to hear anymore. I’m just going to leave in case you’ll make me sing too. You deal with your own heart issues.”
Luhan blinks. Heart issues?
This is it. Kai thinks. Sweaty bods, tired breaths and pumped dancers greeted him once he’s inside the battlefield. He’s been practicing for days for this but to be honest, the most important thing for him at this moment is finally being able to impress Baekhyun by doing what he loves. What’s better than dedicating this dance to that person he likes? He’s really thankful that he got this opportunity to show Baekhyun why he gave up his stable job and position in Park Industries for this.
“Hey, Nigga!”
Kai turns to the disk jockey a few meters beside him.
“Where’s your CD?”
“Ah!” Kai drops his bag on the floor to get the CD. When he finally found it, he threw it carefully to the DJ. “Track 3.” He says and the DJ gives him a thumbs-up.
He’s standing at the same lane as the turntable with the other participants while the host entertains the audience surrounding the battlefield. There’s music booming in the speakers (Nicki Minaj’s Va Va Voom) and people’s yells mixing in with the beats, majority of them holding up their bills for the bets later.
He looks up at the railings of the second floor. He told Baekhyun earlier to stay at the second floor because less people hangs out there and he can see him immediately. He smiles when he sees Baekhyun waving at him, flashing his bright smile. He waves back and Baekhyun mouths a good luck to him.
Meanwhile, Kyungsoo who’s at the other side of the railings, frowns at the little action he saw from Kai. But that’s okay. They’re friends. Baekhyun has Chanyeol. He’ll stay here and watch Kai.
The music stops and only the screams surfaced. The host finally announces the start of the battle and immediately, the first group of three dances their way to the battlefield, dancing to a remix of Chris Brown’s Yeah. The next ones are a group of girls dancing ily to Pixie Lott’s Mama Do, attracting the attention of the guys. After them was a group of five guys wearing masks with smiley faces, dancing comically to Taylor Swift’s Love Story, making the audience laugh. Next to them, the dancer before Kai, was hip hop mixed with popping and locking through the beats of Chris Brown’s Wet The Bed and Cash Cash’ I Like It Loud.
And then finally it’s his turn. He might be imagining it but the closer he walks to the circle, the more blurry the screams become, it’s as if his mind has completely shut them off. He takes a quick glance at Baekhyun who’s smiling at him and the music starts.
He remembers his struggles and dilemmas before this. There are a lot of potential songs he can use but it seems to him that he needs something that’ll make even his soul to dance and when he found this song, Let Me Know by NLT, he felt really enthusiastic about it.
The song ends with the only heart he can hear is his heart beating so loudly.
He looks up at Baekhyun and he felt really light when he sees his proud smile only for him.
Only for him.
He really likes him.
“YAY!” Baekhyun yells in joy after their food was finally served. “Even though you didn’t win first place, at least there’s still cash prize, yeah? I’m starved!”
Kai laughs at Baekhyun’s cuteness. “So, what did you think of my dance?”
“Are you kidding me?! You don’t have to ask! It was awesome!” Baekhyun says while stuffing his mouth with cuts of pork, making his cheeks bloated. “Especially when you did that…twirl thing!”
Kai laughs at the image of Baekhyun as a hamster he’s seeing at the moment. “I’m glad you liked it.”
Baekhyun sighs after swallowing all the pork cuts he stuffed in his mouth. “It’s too bad dumb couple didn’t get to see it. But it’s okay, I got it on tape! We can watch it together when we get back.”
It’s been atleast an hour and all Chanyeol did was drive around the city and ignore Gyuri’s calls. He figures the board must be pissed at him by now but at least if he finds Kyungsoo, he’ll have a reason why he’s late.
It’s a lot colder now that he’s outside the shop. Baekhyun is awkwardly walking in front of the shop, couldn’t stay still because he was freezing while waiting for Kai who’s saying his goodbyes to his friends. He looks around and stops at the sight of two drunk old mean walking his way. He looked away, trying to ignore them and hopes that they just pass by him but really, what did he expect with his face looking a potential punching bag?
The drunken men stop beside him. “You alone, kid?”
“Uh, no.” Baekhyun replies, snarling because they reeked of alcohol.
One of the two snickers. “Really? Where’s your friend then?”
“He’s inside.” He gasps when suddenly a hand grabbed his arm. “Don’t touch me!”
“You’re quite a stubborn kitty, aren’t you?”
“HEY!” Kai yells running to them and immediately landing a punch on the guy gripping Baekhyun. “ off!”
The other one, seeing his companion down on the ground, immediately lounges on Kai for a punch, hitting Kai on the gut. “.” Kai groans, curling down in pain. The man then kicked him on the face next, causing Kai to fall on the ground completely.
“Guess you’re all talk huh, kid.”
“KAI!” Baekhyun yells, dropping beside Kai’s body.
Kyungsoo, seeing the trouble from afar, immediately runs to find a cop.
Chanyeol’s pretty sure he already passed by this side of the city before. If that’s the case then he’s just wasting his time by driving around and around. He sighs however, when he glances on the other side of the street, he sees Kyungsoo running with a worried face. “Kyungsoo?” He immediately pulls over.
Baekhyun yelps when the man, again, grabs his arm, pulling him up from the ground. “LET ME GO YOU !” The man looks down at him with a glare and finally, having been fed up with his struggling, slaps him on the face. Baekhyun couldn’t react. He just got slapped. Nobody slaps him like that. Nobody gets away with slapping him like that. Nobody gets away with hurting his friend. He clenches his fist, his temper slowly burning out.
“Huh, what a sadistic .”
Baekhyun looks up at him with a glare as he extends his left leg and twirls around his spot, causing the man to trip on his feet (but the impact rather hurt his leg). When the man was finally down on the ground, he locks him with his knee pressing on his abdomen and his elbow pressing down his throat. “Do you know how many guys I’ve sent to the hospital?”
“You’re just a kid.” The man mumbles.
Baekhyun opened his mouth to talk but the sudden impact of a punch from behind him cut him off and he turned around to see Chanyeol sending the other man on the ground who he didn’t notice was actually lounging at him. The surprise of Chanyeol’s presence made him lose his grip on the man under him so he got violently shoved away and finally the cops arrived just in time. The men immediately ran away and the cops continued to chase them.
Baekhyun hears Kai groaning in pain and he turns around. Kai is slowly standing up. He tried to stand up too but the pain on his leg is finally surfacing that he wobbled. Chanyeol immediately ran beside him, grabbing his arms to keep him from falling.
Baekhyun softly pushes him away. “I’m fine.” Then he turns to Kai. “Kai, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Kai answers. “It doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”
“I’ll take you guys home.” Chanyeol says out of the blue, startling them both.
“Are you su—“
“You don’t have to,” Kai says, cutting Baekhyun’s sentence. “We’ll take a cab.”
“You’re both injured.”
“We’re not dying.” Kai turns to Baekhyun. “Come on, Baek.”
Chanyeol immediately grabs Baekhyun’s forearm. “Please, let me take you home.”
“Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun groans in exasperation. “Shut up! I’m not gonna go with any of you! I’m going home by myself!” He stomps his way out of the two, aggressively pushing away the helping hand Chanyeol is still trying to give him. Kai, also done with all the bull he had to go through tonight, gave up and walked the other way.
Chanyeol didn’t know what to do. It’s not right. He would’ve gladly taken them home. He doesn’t know why it’s so complicated. Still, he can’t stand seeing Baekhyun in that state. So he catches up behind him and then finally, pulling him closer to carry him on his shoulder. “What—CHANYEOL!” Baekhyun yells. “PUT ME DOWN!”
“Your leg’s bleeding. Stop struggling.”
“I’M SERIOUS! PUT ME DOWN!”
Chanyeol ignores his shrieks until he’s successfully put Baekhyun on shotgun. “Chanyeol, let me out.”
Chanyeol closes the door to the driver seat and sighs. “Look, just let me treat your wound. Then you can go home.”
“No, let me out so I can go home.”
“This would be a lot easier if you just agree with me.”
Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
Well, he didn’t expect this. Where else would Chanyeol treat his wound? Of course in his house. It’s weird setting foot on the place again, Baekhyun thinks. It hasn’t changed that much, it has definitely became cleaner and his things are more organized but still, none of the memories he had here changed. And the longer he stays under his roof, the more it hurts remembering the past.
“Aw.” Baekhyun flinches, his hand gripping the couch tightly, when Chanyeol dips the cotton on the wound on his leg. He didn’t even know he had a cut. He must’ve gotten it from the man’s chains.
“Sorry.” Chanyeol dips another one but more carefully this time. “What were you doing there anyway?”
Baekhyun snickers. “No, what were you doing there?”
Chanyeol looks up quickly at Baekhyun before glancing back down the wood he’s treating. “I was looking for Kyungsoo.”
Baekhyun stiffens. “Oh.”
“But I was led to you,” Chanyeol adds with a smile. “Funny, right?”
“Well, I guess God didn’t want me to go home with a bruise on the face.”
“No,” Chanyeol replies softly. “You would’ve owned the other one too judging by the way you attacked his companion. I just had to get involved because I wanted to do something for you.” He blows Baekhyun’s wound before sticking the bandage on his leg.
“Why are you doing this?”
The question caught Chanyeol off guard, obviously. But he has seen it coming. He has seen this coming. He looks up slowly at Baekhyun and again, like the first time he saw those eyes, he was mesmerized. “Mistakes…are inevitable. We both made really bad decisions. Wrong assumptions. And a part of me still hopes. You’re the same, right?”
Baekhyun would’ve accepted this. Besides, this was the reason why he came home in the first place. He wanted to fix this. He wanted to straighten their bent relationship. God knows how much he yearns to hug Chanyeol tightly, scream at him, laugh with him and do a lot of stupid things with him. But…
“She’s going after whoever is the most important person to you instead.”
Chanyeol’s life is worth more than his own happiness.
He pushes Chanyeol away and immediately hops off the couch. “I’m going home.”
“What? Wait, Baek—“
He turns around to avoid eye-contact and grabs his bag. “Thanks for treating my wound.”
“What about what I said? You’re just going to ignore it?”
“Isn’t that what it was supposed to be?” Baekhyun bites his lip to keep himself from breaking down in front of Chanyeol. “This was never going to work.”
“What…” Chanyeol breathes, unable to stop Baekhyun from leaving as his back disappears behind the door. He swore, for a second there, he saw hope in Baekhyun’s eyes. What happened?
Baekhyun runs and runs and runs until he trips on the ground and he falls beside a swing set somewhere at the newly built park of the subdivision. And he cries there and chokes on his own words.
A/N:
it's a progess!
YAY!
updating at 2am because i really am hopeless
yes, the song is Just Give Me A Reason by P!nk and Nate
and jst imagine that cat's black at the pic
and lol his name is Sheldon, not Sherlock
- gelie
edit:
ok again excuse dumb author
sherlock = cat
sheldon = the bird that for some weird reason i forgot abt
shercat and shelbird ok
case closed
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