He gets up late, which pisses him off in the first place and makes his entire morning schedule run behind by almost half an hour.  He’s half an hour late to the gym, half an hour late in getting his coffee, and half an hour late in getting to work.  Feeling like the universe is against him on this particular day, he drives exceedingly careful, hoping that he can get things back on their usual track if he just doesn’t invite more bad luck. 

He’s pulling up to a stop light when the car suddenly jolts forward with a sickening metallic crunch from the rear.  His coffee is now all down the front of his freshly pressed suit. 

God, he thinks.  Why have you forsaken me?

He puts on his hazards and steps out of his car, only to find a short, androgynous person in a paint-stained apron already out surveying the damage.  Wide, kohl-lined brown eyes look up, and he can’t decide if he’s attracted or repelled. 

“Oh, look!” The clearly-a-man says in a voice much deeper than he was expecting.  “My car is kissing your car’s !”

His mouth drops open.  He’s late to work, his insurance is going to go up, he’s spilled his coffee all over himself, and all this retarded hippie-reject can say is it’s kissing its ?

“What the , man?  You’ve just rear-ended me, and that’s all you have to say?”

The pixie-faced man beams at him.  “Oops?”

The car currently nose-to-tail with his own is a valiant representation of the problems with the youth of today.  It’s a tiny, two-door hatchback, and the paint is peeling off in places, revealing dark grey primer and rust spots, and the stuffed animal on the dashboard might be a purple dragon or a grey dog.  Just the thought of something that hideous touching his four-hundred-a-month-in-payments, quality-luxury SUV is enough to induce spasms of hate.  Actually seeing it makes him feel soiled just by having that sight inside his brain forever. 

The damage to his SUV is superficial; a few scratches, and some powder-blue paint has rubbed off the hatchback.  He notices a small dent in his bumper, too, and has to physically restrain himself from turning around and murdering the teenaged sprite who hit him and ruined the perfect symmetry and cohesiveness of his beautiful truck.  He can’t help but notice that the at-least-fifteen-year-old hatchback has suffered significantly more damage, probably because his truck is built like a tank and the shady little import is made mostly of plastic.

“I have full coverage,” the sprite says.  He turns and finds the man-voiced-child-faced fairy entirely too close to his personal space – not even inside it, just too close to his perceived bubble – holding out an identification card and an insurance card.  “Let me find my cell phone and I’ll call it in to my agent,” he adds, proving that he only looks like an idiot.

And drives like one. 

He gets his cell phone, identification card and insurance information from his glove box, as well as a notebook to write down the other man’s information.  He has to do a double take on the ID card, because it must be lying. 

“Byun Baekhyun?” he asks.  The kid salutes. 

“That’s me.  And you are…” he peers at the card in his hand before smiling widely.  “Park Chanyeol.  Nice to meet you!” 

“Yeah, no,” Chanyeol says, irritably.  “Are you seriously twenty six years old?”

Baekhyun dips his head and smiles.  “Twenty-seven, actually.  My birthday was last month.”

This midget freak is older than he is.  Chanyeol can’t believe what he’s seeing.  The kid is now talking on his cell phone, presumably to either his insurance agency or the police.  Chanyeol tunes him out, copying down his information so he knows who to order the hit on.  For a brief moment, he legitimately contemplates doing murder, himself – he’s never had a day like this before. 

“I’m sorry about your coffee,” Baekhyun says, contrite and apparently off the phone.  Chanyeol looks at him unwillingly, and sees him with the mobile still plastered to his ear.  Chanyeol is scandalised. 

“Don’t talk to me while you’re on the phone!” he orders.  “That is incredibly rude.”

“Dude, you are incredibly uptight.  I’m on hold.”  Baekhyun rolls his eyes.  Chanyeol feels his fingers curl in an ever-increasing urge to simply wrap them around the other man’s throat right there in the middle of the street, in front of god and everybody.  He’d even be willing to take the murder charge in exchange for ridding the world of someone as clearly-wasteful and idiotic as this kid.  He calls the firm and apologises for his tardiness.

The inexplicably cheerful response is: “Don’t worry about it, Chanyeol.  You work too hard anyway!  Just take the rest of the day off and see if you can get back on track.”

He hangs up and stares at the phone in his hand.  A…day off?  “What the am I supposed to do with a day off?”

“Come get coffee with me,” Baekhyun chirps.  Chanyeol slowly turns his head – he can almost hear the muscles creaking in objection to this course of action – and stares the other man down.  “You know, since you ended up wearing yours this morning.  It’s on me.  My shop’s just down there; I was on my way when I accidentally hit you.”

Chanyeol is so stunned by the sheer audacity of the guy to offer coffee as an apology for rear-ending him and making him late to work and eventually not going to work at all and staining his suit and he realises he has possibly become delusional because of the shock, but he thinks he’s going to get the coffee.  He consoles himself with the thought that it’s free.

“We have to move our cars out of the traffic lanes anyway.  Did you call the cops?”

“No need,” Chanyeol says.  “It was minor, and entirely your fault.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun says.  “Sorry about that.  You’ll be hearing from my insurance agent later about fixing it.”

They get back into their vehicles after Baekhyun points out the coffee shop once more, and Chanyeol drives the short distance to the café and parks.  Baekhyun rolls up in the horrible hatchback just a few seconds behind him, and immediately hops out, waving Chanyeol inside like a spastic monkey.  The outside of the shop makes it look like a downtown alley bar – dark and skeezy.  Chanyeol palms his phone once more, just in case he needs to make an emergency call upon entering, but the inside of the shop is an immense surprise.  The windows are tinted dark on the outside to allow for the cozy, dim atmosphere inside.  A massive fireplace – complete with roaring fire – adorns most of the far wall.  Instead of hard seats and small tables designed to cram as many people in for the shortest amount of time, the décor seems to be a mish-mosh of low-slung sofas and long coffee tables, with a few arm chairs for the solo drinkers.  The floor is parquet, the counter marble, and every inch of the store is gleaming and clean.  Tasteful instrumental music wafts quietly from hidden speakers, and incredibly detailed paintings and sketches are hung on the walls. 

The entire atmosphere makes Chanyeol’s blood pressure drop from dangerously-high back into normal and relaxed just by stepping inside and looking around.  The smell of freshly roasted coffee beans mixes with the aroma of brewing coffee and steamed milk and almost entrances Chanyeol on the scent alone.

“Nice, isn’t it?”

The trance is broken by Baekhyun’s voice.  Chanyeol turns to look at him, and sees him looking around the shop with a small smile that completely transforms his face.  There’s a hint of smugness to the smile, too, that puzzles Chanyeol until he places the emotion Baekhyun is portraying as pride.  “I wasn’t expecting you to bring me someplace like this,” Chanyeol grudgingly admits.  It makes the Starbucks he spilled all over himself seem like an expensive waste, especially after he notices the prices listed on the menu.

“This is my baby,” Baekhyun says.  “I finally managed to buy it two years ago, and just finished renovating last month.  It was a total dump when I first started working here, and the manager had almost driven it into the ground.”

He owns his own business, Chanyeol thinks, shell-shocked by the very idea that someone as disgracefully dressed as Baekhyun could be a successful business owner.  For it was clearly obvious just looking around that he was busy.  It wasn’t even ten in the morning yet, and there were five people in line at the counter, cheerfully being served by two model-quality baristas in a friendly and efficient way, and ten or fifteen more scattered around the armchair-and-sofa army inside the spacious room. 

The cashier looked up at Baekhyun’s entrance, and smiled broadly.  “Baekhyun!  It’s about time you made it in!  I was just about to send Yixing out to form a search party.”

Baekhyun motions Chanyeol to stand next to the counter.  “I accidentally bumped into him on the way in,” he says, and now that his spastic-fairy personality has submerged beneath the ing business owner man lurking behind it, Chanyeol decides yes, totally attracted.  Even in spite of the horrific accident of nature that is his car.  Then, puzzled, he wonders why – since Baekhyun had the money to turn this place into what it is after buying it – he drives that piece of vehicle.  Baekhyun and his barista, whose nametag reads Jongin, start chatting with the other customers in line, who express sympathy for the accident, and some even turn to inquire after Chanyeol’s well-being. 

Baekhyun slips behind the counter and washes his hands before donning a hat, and then appears, smiling, before Chanyeol.  “What can I get for you?  We also have loose-leaf tea, cakes, cookies, sandwiches, pastries, and assorted other nibblies hand-made in the back by our chef.”

Chanyeol is seriously impressed.  “You employ a chef?”

“Chef-in-training,” says someone else, and Chanyeol looks up to see another attractive man coated in flour standing in the doorway to the back room.  His nametag, half-obscured by dough, informs Chanyeol that the chef-in-training is called Kyungs.

Jongin turns and smiles at him.  “Hey, Kyungsoo, got any more of the pistachio coco-bites?”

“They’re cooling off.  Should be another couple of minutes.”

Chanyeol eyes the menu while the coffee-shop scuttlebutt rises and falls around him like a gentle tide.  The other barista, Yixing, is pulling espresso shots like he was born to do nothing else, multitasking by mixing up assorted coffee drinks and keeping a running dialogue going with the customers.  Chanyeol is struck by both the level of professionalism displayed and the obvious quality of customer service.  He generally considers himself a good judge of character, but at this point even he has to admit to himself that he completely misjudged Baekhyun, and not for the better.  He finally makes a decision on what he wants to drink, and to his surprise, Baekhyun begins preparing it himself. 

“Go have a seat anywhere you’d like,” Baekhyun offers.  “I’ll bring it to you.” 

Chanyeol obeys and finds a comfortable-looking armchair in a relatively unclaimed corner of the shop.  Hanging above the table is an absolutely beautiful painting of the Han river at sunset, framing an embracing couple silhouetted by the golden light.  It’s framed without glass, and Chanyeol can see from the brush that it’s been hand-painted by someone.  He looks for the signature, but doesn’t recognise it when he spots it tastefully drawn into the corner of the painting. 

When Baekhyun arrives, he’s carrying a tray with two absurdly large mugs and three plates of the bite-sized pastries, sandwiches and cakes he verbally advertised before.  Baekhyun takes a cup for himself, and offers the other to Chanyeol, who is startled to see a portrait of himself in the foam floating at the top.

“Like the paintings?” Baekhyun asks, almost coy. 

“They’re beautiful,” Chanyeol says absently, still staring at the bizarre picture in his foam.  “Did you do this?”

“It’s still drinkable,” Baekhyun informs him.  “I did almost all of the paintings in here, and I’ve been practicing with the foam art.”

Chanyeol is abruptly forced to reassess his opinion of Baekhyun upwards  he verbally advertised before.  Baekhyun takes a cup for himself, and offers the other to Chanyeol, who is startled to see a portrait of himself in the foam floating at the top.

“Like the paintings?” Baekhyun asks, almost coy. 

“They’re beautiful,” Chanyeol says absently, still staring at the bizarre picture in his foam.  “Did you do this?”

“It’s still drinkable,” Baekhyun informs him.  “I did almost all of the paintings in here, and I’ve been practicing with the foam art.”

Chanyeol is abruptly forced to reassess his opinion of Baekhyun upwards yet again.  He takes another long look at the painting of the Han River sunset couple and now he can make out the two stylised B’s in the signature.  He feels his mouth drop open and knows it’s undignified but he can’t seem to conceal his shock.  He takes a sip of the coffee to help cover for it, and feels the flavour of the coffee burst across his tongue like a fireworks display.  He lets out an unintended hum of pleasure, and feels eyes on him.  When he looks up, Baekhyun is smiling at him – almost beaming like a spotlight once more, pleasure radiating out of his face in almost-tangible waves. 

“You like it?”

“I think I owe you an apology,” Chanyeol says, sighing. 

“A lot of people mistake me for an air-headed teenager,” Baekhyun admits, glancing down at himself.  With a muffled yelp, he abruptly sets down his coffee and tears the paint-stained apron off, revealing what is actually a clean white button-up shirt tucked into a pair of sinfully tight brown corduroy trousers.  Chanyeol feels an instant rush of desire as he gets a good look at the trim, toned thighs, small waist, and long, slender fingers – details he’d initially overlooked, disgusted as he was by the man’s apron and car.  “Yixing!” Baekhyun hollers, and the two baristas behind the counter begin snickering.

“We had a bet about how long it would take you to notice!” the barista calls back at him.  “Jongin, pay up!”

Chanyeol can’t help but smile at the interplay.  Suddenly, he wonders if the horribleness of his morning was somehow meant to lead him into this coffee haven.  Then he remembers his own stained-shirt, and can’t decide if it was worth the price.

*

“So what do you do for a living, Park Chanyeol?”

They’re on their third cup of coffee, and it’s after noon.  Chanyeol can’t believe he’s been there in the shop for almost two hours, but Baekhyun has proven himself to be a startlingly good companion in spite of the horrible start to his day. 

“I’m a senior counsel with a law firm, about to become an equity partner,” he blurts, and Baekhyun’s face lights up.

“Wow, that’s incredible!  Is it guaranteed?”

Chanyeol preens.  His parents were less than thrilled when he announced his decision to become a ‘blood- lawyer’ instead of a doctor or a CEO, but he’s worked hard with his firm, and those long years of long hours have finally paid off.  “Near enough,” he says.  “The man I’m replacing is retiring soon, and they chose me to become a senior counsel.”

“Congratulations!” Baekhyun says, and he actually sounds like he means it.  “You were heading this way, so does that mean your office is nearby?”

Chanyeol has to stop and reorient his mental map.  “Just around the corner, actually.”

Baekhyun beams.  “You’ve got to start getting your coffee here,” he suggests.  “It’s free.”

“Always?”

“For you.”

+

Baekhyun’s scars are itching.  It’s been a couple of days since he’s seen the totally hot guy he accidentally hit, despite the offer of free coffee, and it’s beginning to have an impact on his condition.  Kyungsoo, the most perceptive of his staff, is the one who notices him idly scratching at his wrists. 

“You don’t think he’s coming back, do you?” he asks.  Baekhyun jumps, nearly spilling the coffee he’s holding all over himself.

“Probably not.  It wasn’t even a real date, and he seemed kinda pissed.”  Baekhyun’s made a career out of being cheerful in the face of unhappiness – had to, because his only other option was to break down screaming and never stop.  Laugh, he thinks, and the world laughs with you.  Cry, and the world laughs at you.  It’s why he’s got to be strong.  It was only a chance encounter.  They shared a good conversation, and then Baekhyun hasn’t seen him since.  “It would have been nice to see him again, though.”

The bell over the door jingles merrily.  Baekhyun turns automatically to greet the new customer, and hears an already-familiar voice.

“Please give me the strongest of whatever you’ve got,” Chanyeol says.  Baekhyun feels happiness radiate out of him like light. 

“I thought I’d chased you off,” he says, teasingly.  He desperately wants this man to like him.  He doesn’t have the greatest track record with men – his last boyfriend tried to kill him, after all – but he just knows that The One is out there waiting for him somewhere, and someday, he’ll find him.  Jongin and Yixing about being kind of a , but it’s not like he sleeps with all the guys he dates, it’s just that they all have some kind of horrible character flaw:  Luhan cheated on him with that college kid, and Yongguk was too career-focused to have a boyfriend, and Jongki saw him touch Yixing on the shoulder once and went into a jealous rage that ended with Baekhyun in the hospital and Jongki behind bars.  Baekhyun sighs.  None of the others ever went past a first date.

He pulls three espresso shots and lines them up to pour into the coffee he’s mixing for Chanyeol, forgetting that his sleeves are rolled up.  Chanyeol notices the scars and the dreaded expression of pity and horror comes over his face.  Baekhyun catches sight of it and hurriedly tugs his sleeves down over his hands, but Chanyeol’s seen them.  One of his dates thought him suicidal, and left before dinner was even over.  He’s been wearing long-sleeves ever since.  He hopes furiously that it doesn’t have the same effect on Chanyeol.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“My ex had a tendency to overreact,” he explains.  Kyungsoo has retreated so quietly that Baekhyun only just notices that they’re the only ones in the store, a rare lull for the café that couldn’t have come at a better time.

The pitying expression turns to fury.  “Overreact?  It looks like she tried to kill you.”

The words come out before he’s ready for them.  “He did,” Baekhyun says, and realises that he’s ed things up beyond belief now.  A crushing wave of depression looms threateningly.  He was hoping that he’d have a couple more ‘not-dates’ with Chanyeol before easing him slowly into the conversation regarding his personal interests, and whether that list might happen to include Baekhyun. 

Now that he’s accidentally outed himself to soon, he fears it’s all over. 

Instead of looking disgusted, Chanyeol looks intrigued.  “He?”

Baekhyun rallies his courage.  “I’m gay as a three dollar bill,” he announces, and hands Chanyeol’s coffee to him. “Now that’s out of the way, where’d you disappear to?”

The interested gleam in Chanyeol’s eyes fails to fade as he motions Baekhyun back over to ‘their’ corner, inhaling his coffee with a blissful expression when he sits down.  Thunder rumbles outside, just before the rain begins falling in sheets.  Baekhyun looks around the empty shop and calls out.

“Jongin, go ahead and lock the doors.  You and Kyungsoo can leave if you’d like!”

Jongin calls back from the kitchen.   “I ain’t going out in that!  Are you crazy?”

Chanyeol laughs, still looking at Baekhyun like he’s something to eat.  “A massive case came into our office just after I left the other day.  It feels like I’ve spent the last fourty-eight hours hunched over a desk.”

He rolls his shoulders, and Baekhyun feels his pulse leap at the sight of powerful muscles moving under the fabric of his shirt.  “Well,” Baekhyun says with effort.  “It looks like you’re stuck here for a little while, unless you’ve absolutely got to be back soon.”

“They told me to make myself scarce until I could stop shouting at the interns,” Chanyeol says.  He suddenly reaches across the table and takes one of Baekhyun’s hands in his.  Baekhyun is so surprised and pleased by the unexpected motion that he doesn’t react for a moment, and by then it’s too late to stop Chanyeol’s next move – shoving the sleeve back up to his elbow, revealing his pale arms and the horrible scars.  Chanyeol traces one with the tip of one finger, and suddenly it’s like someone replaced his blood with gasoline and threw a lit match into his veins.  The room is sweltering and too small, and Chanyeol is either going to have to kiss him or get out.  “These look defensive,” Chanyeol says softly. 

“They were.”

He still wakes up in screaming nightmares sometimes, remembering Jongki coming at him with the fifteen inch blade held high above his head. 

“Look, I’m no good at this sort of thing,” Chanyeol says, and uses his grip on Baekhyun’s hand to pull him forward, leaning to meet him in the middle with a kiss.  “Go out with me.  I work too much and I hate having my schedule disrupted, but ever since you crashed into me –”

Baekhyun’s thoughts are swimming, but he still has enough presence of  mind to interject in his own defense, “It was just a little bump, I hardly crashed –”

But Chanyeol is having none of it, and continues, “–Smashed into me, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

A beam of sunlight pierces the storm clouds raging above them and illuminates the two of them as hard as it can, fighting its way through thick, rain-filled clouds and the dark tint on the windows.  It lights up red highlights in Chanyeol’s messy brown hair.  It kind of looks like the sun is rising behind him.