[Sorry for the wait ;_; that wasn't my intention. But here's an update ^-^]

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[Jongin’s POV]

After practice, I had nearly fainted from hunger and working too hard. Baekhyun hadn’t come up with a solution yet and it made me feel angry, though deep down – honestly not even that deep – I knew that it wasn’t up to him, but rather me to fix the situation. But being in my angered state of mind, I pushed aside all of my other thoughts and just had to make do with the way we had been coping up until now, working hard. Though at the end of the day, Baekhyun had fetched me from the training room and brought me in this cozy café in which he said he ate often. I was actually surprised by how energy-drained I had become during the day and I was happy he brought me here. I had showed him how happy I was the wrong way, I tried to kiss him. I knew that was wrong, of course I did… but Baekhyun was one of those people who were beautiful and seeing him all flustered when I closed the distance between us, it made me feel victorious. I got pushed away harshly, he said something about being in public and ‘even if we aren’t in public…’, so in other words, he ran away from me and I was so glad he did.

After he had left, things had gotten even worse. I ordered a caramel macchiato and ramyun and tried not to focus on the fangirls that came swarming in. They already made my life difficult enough when I was performing – since it was on their behalf that I acted like someone I was not… which would trigger the feeling of guilt since I could obviously just stop doing that, but that would most likely result in me getting fired – and I didn’t want to have them interrupt my alone-time with my dinner. I received a lot of stares and whispers, but I wouldn’t look them in the eye because hell, for once, I wasn’t working.

After a while though, a pleasant change occurred in the café when I had already finished my ramyun and didn’t feel like leaving yet because I still had my caramel treat. A boy – in contrast to all the girls – who looked rather shy and didn’t steal the attention of those annoying girls, walked into the crowded space and took place at one of the available rooms, though there weren’t that many left. I found him interesting, to say the least; he was rather cute actually. Where Baekhyun was someone who would emanate a certain iness, this guy only seemed to show innocence and in a way, I liked to see that once in a while.

He was eyeing me, slowly but surely and when I was anticipating his eyes to meet my own, the waiter interrupted our chance of eye-contact. If it were any other guy, I would have said ‘not that it mattered’ but with him, it mattered; and I didn’t even know the guy. But then again… he was checking me out, I knew that, the way his eyes moved up from almost below the table to where our eyes almost met, it was obvious. Maybe he knew me? I didn’t really know, though I was sure all of the other customers did know me.

The guy’s second try to see my face, made me smirk. If I hadn’t been looking at him the whole time, I would indeed not have noticed a thing, but I was and I knew what he was doing. I couldn’t fight that victorious feeling once again, even if all those girls around were only making me feel annoyed, he was the one that made me feel superior.

But everything seemed to change when our gazes locked. A deep blush was creeping up his face and within seconds, the sly smile had erased itself from my face. I quickly put some money on the table and left, as fast as I could, before that young man could do anything to me. I didn’t know what it was, but he made me feel so damn insecure by just holding my gaze like that, even with the blush that indicated that he, himself, wasn’t even secure. I ran home like a maniac, not minding to grab a taxi – even though I was exhausted beyond normal standards – or look out for any other lost souls on the streets, I just wanted to get home as soon as possible and drown myself in D.O’s music.

When I got home, I felt that I was sweating and breathing hard. I didn’t know what had come over me, but those eyes, they did something to me and I didn’t know what it was. Any other boy and I would have not felt a thing, but this one, who was checking me out so obviously, made me feel like the most self-conscious person in the world.

And like a punch in the face I realized. He was the same as D.O. Making me realize what an insensitive I can be. Making me realize that the things I did, don’t make sense and most of all, making me realize that I didn’t need to do any of that. But what if I am myself, D.O… what would happen? Surely you wouldn’t like me better… I bet you would like someone who is strong, someone who can take care of themselves and someone… who doesn’t rely on others to fix their problems… I should talk to Baekhyun tomorrow, tell him that he’s my hyung. I should tell him that I care and that I would figure something out myself, apologize for trying to kiss him and all the other things I have done to him. D.O-ssi… I hope one day I will see you, when I’m worthy of seeing your face.

 

[Baekhyun’s POV]

I was twirling my phone around in my fingers, debating on whether to call him. I had promised myself not to anymore, but I wanted to know if he had been able to talk to one of their idols already… I wanted to hear him tell me what he thought, I wanted to hear him say how his day had been, hear him ask me how was my own… Maybe after all, I was just being selfish again and I just wanted to hear his voice. That terrifyingly soothing voice that only one person could own, with the matching words that could only leave his lips. I craved his attention and I knew that very well. After all, he was my best friend…

But not calling affected my sleep. I couldn’t drift off peacefully – or at all, for that matter – and I stayed up the whole night. I wondered if he was happily asleep now and I reminded myself of the way he used to look when sleeping since we had spent quite some nights together when we were younger. Sleepovers and all that. We used to be so close, something I missed so much at the moment. Maybe when we could arrange something with our companies, we could just hang out together again…

Would any of the idols be willing to work together with Kai? I knew that if I had the choice, I would never choose the same again. Or maybe I would, Jongin was handsome and I believed that somewhere, there was a real person, not the act. But then again, I also knew that I would never be the one who would bring the actual person out of him, since he used me to vent off his frustrations. If working together with someone else could also be the solution to that problem… than I would be very satisfied.

My thoughts got interrupted at five A.M. My phone was ringing and when I checked, I saw it was Chanyeol. I hastily tried to pick up, but because I was terrified that something had happened to him because he never called me, I let my phone drop two times before being able to answer it with shaking hands.

“Yeollie?” I asked, shivering.

“Ah, Baek…” again with the early morning huskiness of his voice. Yesterday, it had been too much for me to handle and I thought I had been dying because of the iness that came with it… But I couldn’t allow myself to think like that over my best friend, he would only be freaked out if ever he would find out about my thoughts of his early morning voice – and his voice late at night, or even the one he used in the middle of the day. “You… didn’t call me. Are you upset…?”

“Eh?” I wondered for a while what he would have meant, but then the thought that I always called him, invaded my mind and maybe – just maybe, I wasn’t hoping or anything – he had been a little worried. “Ah, no, of course not! I felt bad for calling you every night so I thought maybe you wanted to sleep early and–” baby. “you called me baby.” My eyes widened at my own conclusion. I hadn’t been thinking about that ever since it had happened, maybe I was trying to push the thought away because I had been too busy handling the idol I was in charge of. But suddenly, the thought had come rushing back to me and my cheeks were painted pink again, just like about twenty four hours ago. Chanyeol had called me baby and I… I liked it too much.

“So… you are upset… I am sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Oh. Okay. I kept silent, not knowing what to answer because I was – in all honesty – quite a little bit disappointed that he hadn’t wanted to call me baby. “But I… I have spoken to Kyungsoo and he says he wants to try, if Kris cooperates and your boss will, too.”

“Ah… okay…”

“Baek, what’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” I answered, being completely honest about that. Wouldn’t it have been the weirdest thing ever if Chanyeol had wanted to call me that? So, Baekhyun, put away that despicable selfishness and be yourself! “I’ll uh… I’ll contact you once I’ve spoken to Yixing, is that alright?” I changed my voice back to the cheerful one I usually had even though I was still debating with myself.

“Ah yes, that’s alright. I’ll wait for your call and ask Kris.” Of course I could hear my friend was confused. Who wouldn’t have been… Anyways. It was time for me to push myself aside and to work again, getting things ready for Jongin, talking to Yixing, all of that needed to be done now, no Chanyeol-time anymore.

 

[Jongin’s POV]

My façade found it harder to appear today. I was tired to the point of having aching muscles that never gave me a break. How was I supposed to be Kai if I could barely keep myself standing all day… No, I couldn’t simply complain about that, I had to find a solution and I had to do it fast, or else Baekhyun would have done it already. I didn’t want him to take the blame for my own incompetence, so I had to think fast. Though whenever I was practicing, I couldn’t think of anything else, I had to be occupied with one thing – or mostly two – at a time.

Besides, I had been wobbly all day already, both in my mind – because of the weird encounter last night – and in my legs. I wasn’t too sure of how long I would be able to keep on dancing because I had been completely drained of energy. Several times, I had to resist the urge to sit back down and just breath before continuing.

In one of my last breaks though, my boss came up to me, backed up by my manager and Jongdae, Yixing’s secretary who didn’t seem to leave his office very much. It was common sense that Yixing’s one and only person he could trust, was Jongdae, so he probably wanted to take him with himself, as a pre-caution or something. Not that I was in the mood for anything today though…

“Jong… Kai-ssi.” He opened, carefully righting his wrong right after he made it. Another thing everyone knew; do not call me Jongin, unless your name is Baekhyun and you have etched your way into my heart. All I did, was look up at him with a bored expression, though this time it was almost solely caused by my extreme fatigue. “I have had a discussion with Kris, you know who I am talking about, right?” I gave him an eye-roll, of course I knew who he was talking about, I knew about the rivaling companies and their higher-ups. “Right… You’ll be working together with D.O, starting tomorrow.”

I completely blanked out on him. D.O. Tomorrow. Working together? How could I work together with him, I wasn’t supposed to know what he looked like… How could I even look him in the eye after I had betrayed him so many times by acting like the total fool I was? My breathing became irregular as I hopelessly stared at Baekhyun, I knew I was – right now – losing my mind.

“H-hyung?” I asked, my eyes wide, before they rolled to the back of my head and made my world collapse. This wasn’t something I could take on top of feeling like I could already die of fatigue and embarrassment.

 

[Baekhyun’s POV]

“H-hyung?” Jongin called me and for a moment, a blush painted itself on my cheeks. Hyung, I had never been his hyung before… Though I didn’t have any time to think about it any longer since his body collapsed to the ground, shocking every person who was in the room, including people who usually wouldn’t even have looked Kai’s way because they disliked him. Some of them even came rushing forward to help, but fortunately, Jongdae had caught on with Jongin’s ‘hyung’ and kept them at a distance.

“Baekhyun-ah, let’s take him somewhere else, we need to figure out what’s wrong.” Yixing’s words came strongly and it was obvious that this was his professional demeanor since he, too, highly disliked Kai’s ways. Nevertheless, he was our main source of income and therefore, he was one of the most important people in the company and he had to be cared for at the moment. We carried him to one of the lounges at the back and placed him on the white leather couch which he usually used when he was taking a break from training. “Right… I hope you can make it clear to him that he really can’t back out of this since we have set our hopes on this solution… Baekhyun-ah, I want you to take care of him now, I still have a lot of paperwork to go through, not to mention thanking Kris properly for saving our company even though we’re not on good terms… Jongdae-yah, come with me, please.” He showed me a smile, though it wasn’t a sincere one since there was no sign of his dimple. He was stressed, clearly. Well, who wouldn’t be when their idol is breaking down in front of your eyes…

I got to the vending machine to get some water for him and knew I just had to call Chanyeol. I had to share my part of the story with someone and who was a better fit than my best friend? I quickly whipped out my phone and called his number, having to wait a bit longer than when I called him later at night, so he was probably still working or something.

“Hi.” He said, but I didn’t know what emotion I could hear laying underneath his seemingly cheerful voice.

“Hey… I uh… I’ve come across another situation.” I said, still not really sure what to do with the whole baby-thing. “Jongin has collapsed when Yixing mentioned D.O to him.”

 

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I know I promised Kyungsoo and Jongin's meeting, but that will have to wait until next chapter since it didn't fit yet ^-^

I hope you liked it and thank you for reading, commenting and subscribing <3