Everybody doodles. It’s a common hobby which is easy to do, relaxing and fun. For Chanyeol, doodling is more than just a hobby; put a mini calling in life. He just loves to doodle. On paper, walls, bags, tables, mugs, plates…anywhere and everything with a surface smooth enough to doodle. Chanyeol’s drawings are pretty good too. He has always wanted to be an artist, but could never find the patience to actually pursue a specific kind of art, which leads him to spend his days working in an art shop. His boss, Suho is nice enough to hire him, but definitely not nice enough to tolerate his doodles.

                “Chanyeol! Stop doodling on that table! It’s brand new you idiot!” Suho whacked him across the head and Chanyeol dropped his chalk. He rubbed off the doodles but the marks could still be seen.

                “Chanyeol, what am I going to do with you?”

                “Sorry about that boss.” He muttered sheepishly.

                “You know, if you love drawing so much, why don’t you become an artist? I have enough supplies for you to start your career.”

                Chanyeol shrugged. “I don’t like using paint and canvas. I prefer using pens and chalk.”

                “You just like scribbling on random places don’t you?” Suho crossed his arms. Chanyeol pouted. He always felt drawing on other stuff was more fun. He hates being constricted to just a tiny piece of canvas to focus on, it’s so constricting.

                “Stop pulling that face and focus on your work. There’s a customer here.” Suho slapped his head again. Chanyeol turned and put his chalk away. In came two boys, one with a canvas under his arm, the other with a book bag.

                “Kris, what are you looking for?” the other boy with light brown hair asked. From a distance, he seems to be rather small in stature compared to the Kris guy, who’s like a giant next to him.

                “Blue paint. I’m all out of it. I want to paint a pretty picture for Tao.”

                “It must be love if Tao can actually stand your paintings. Oh wait, might have something to do with the fact that he’s pretty bad at it too.” The small boy smirked. As he walked closer, Chanyeol could see his beautiful brown eyes and pretty smile. Chanyeol felt his heart skip a beat.

                “Shut up Baekhyun.” Kris snapped. “Artists are often misunderstood creatures.” He sighed.

                “Then you must be mislead as well.” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. He walked around the shop with his friends and spotted a tall, and rather handsome creature behind the counter. He was wearing a blue shirt with an artist’s apron around him and he had chocolate locks with large ears that protrude rather cutely and big round eyes. The tall guy caught Baekhyun’s gaze and waved at him. Baekhyun smiled and waved back. The tall guy dropped his head and started giggling, feeling shy.

                Baekhyun giggled as well. Boy, that kid is so cute!

                “Are you flirting with him?” Kris pointed to the tall guy, whose ears are already red as a beetroot.  “Yeesh, you do have weird tastes in guys.”

                “Who’s he?” Baekhyun asked.

                “His name is Chanyeol, and that’s all I know. If you wanna know more, go talk to him.” Kris pushed his friend away. “Let me walk around the store in peace.”

                Baekhyun walked up to the tall guy. He found that this Chanyeol fella was incredibly tall. Much taller upclose. Chanyeol found out that not only did Baekhyun have pretty eyes and pretty hair, he also had pretty fingers. Chanyeol could have sworn an angel appeared in front of him and decided to bless him with all the beauty in this world.

                “Hi.”

                “H…..hey…” Oh yeah, smooth Chanyeol. Real smooth.

                “What’s your name? I’m Baekhyun.”

                “Chan…Cha…Chanyeol. My name is Chanyeol.”

                “Oh, I already know that. I just wanted to hear you speak.” Chanyeol had a very deep and soothing voice in Baekhyun’s opinion, so different from his rather husky one. A face that doesn’t match his voice…and I thought he couldn’t get any cuter.

                “He…Are…are you looking for anything here?” Chanyeol mustered with all his courage to talk to the beautiful boy, but he kept sounding like an idiot, or a guy who just got injected with Novocain at the dentist.

                “Not me, my friend Kris is. I’m a librarian, so I don’t really paint.” Baekhyun smiled, pointing at his book bag.

                “Where do you work?” Chanyeol asked, somehow managing to complete a coherent sentence this time.

                “Town Library. Just up this road.”

                “Ah…I see…”

                “What about you? Do you read?”

                “Erm…yeah…I read a little…and I also um…draw…”

                “Really? Are you an artist?”

                Chanyeol shook his head. Baekhyun turned his head and spotted a doodle of a puppy on the walls, up high until it almost touched the ceiling. “Did you draw that?”

                “Er…yeah…” Chanyeol confessed sheepishly. No one ever paid any attention to that puppy doodle up there. That’s the only doodle in this whole store that he can get away with.

                “That’s pretty good! I like it!” Baekhyun smiled. “It’s a really cute drawing.”

                “Alright! I can’t find my paint, looks like we’ll have to go to another store.” Kris said, pulling his friend’s arm. Baekhyun was still glued to the floor, eyes looking up at the doodle.

                “Dude, let’s go!” Kris pulled.

                “Wait! Chanyeol, are you working here full time?”

                “Yeah…”

                “Cool,” Baekhyun smiled. “I’ll see you more often then.”

                As Baekhyun and Kris exited the store, Chanyeol’s eyes followed them out and his heart started thumping widely. He looked up at the puppy doodle, and a small and goofy smile started to appear.

                No one has ever told him his doodles were nice. No one.

                Looks like Chanyeol has fallen in love already.

                                                                                **********

                The next day, Chanyeol started doodling on the counter. The store was quiet and Suho was out. Suho’s partner, Yixing is much nicer and actually let’s Chanyeol doodle wherever he wants. He thinks that random doodles actually add some spice to the otherwise dull store. Now why can’t Suho be just like his partner?

                “Hey Channie.” A familiar voice appeared and Chanyeol’s body stiffened. He remembered that voice very well indeed.

                “B….Baekhyun…”

                “Are you drawing again?” Baekhyun rushed to his side and dropped his bag. He bent himself over the table and looked at Chanyeol’s doodles. Chanyeol could feel his breath stop and his voice stuck in his throat. He tried to cover his doodles out of embarrassment but Baekhyun slapped his hand away.

                “They are so cute! Can you teach me?”

                “How to…doodle?”

                “Yeah. Well, more specifically, teach me how to draw just like you.” Baekhyun asked, looking up at Chanyeol earnestly.

                “Um…ah sure…”

                Chanyeol started to teach Baekhyun how to doodle a house. Baekhyun worked on his house , copying Chanyeol’s drawing carefully. Chanyeol was working on his own too, when Baekhyun immediately leaned over him, his breath close to his ears.

“Can you add a flower here?” he asked, putting his hand on top of Chanyeol’s. Chanyeol felt his skin tingle and he turned his head, only to find himself looking into Baekhyun’s brown eyes.

                “Er…ahah…I…uhm…”

                “Like this maybe?” Baekhyun started guiding Chanyeol’s hand to draw a flower. Chanyeol didn’t even know what he was doing. He felt like his insides were going to burst and his face heat up as if it were on fire.

                “See? That looks so pretty!” Baekhyun cheered happily. Chanyeol stared at the house, with flowers in front of it. It was really pretty indeed. He turned to look at Baekhyun, who is of course, really pretty as well.

                “Can I come back tomorrow so that you can teach me?”

                “Hah…hee…”

                “I’ll take that as a yes.” Baekhyun smiled and grabbed his bag. “I have to leave for work. I’ll see you tomorrow!” Baekhyun bolted out the door as Chanyeol waved goodbye, his lips reaching for the corners of his eyes.

                All day long, Chanyeol stared at the doodles Baekhyun created. He would circle his fingers around it and tilt his head, imagining Baekhyun still there, working on it with him. A huge smile would form on his face and his eyes looked like a love struck puppy’s eyes. He was so in love that he didn’t even realize his boss staring at him.

                “That Park Chanyeol, how dare he doodle again…” Suho seethed, only to have Yixing place a warm hand on his shoulder.

                “Give the kid a break, he’s in love, can’t you see?”

                “That doesn’t mean he should sacrifice my new marble counter top.”

                “Be nice Suho. You know what it feels like to be in love. Remember when we first met?” Yixing asked, wrapping his arms around him. Suho smiled a little and sighed.

                Unfortunately, he did.

                                                                                *********

                Chanyeol’s sudden-inability-to-talk condition improved miraculously. On the third day, he could form coherent sentences. On the fourth day, he could make small talk. On the fifth, he could laugh at Baekhyun’s jokes. On the sixth, he was the one who could tell jokes. On the seventh, exactly one week, he actually asked Baekhyun for his phone number.

                “Planning to ask your little boyfriend out?” Yixing teased Chanyeol. Chanyeol blushed bright red. Baekhyun has been coming to the store almost every day for two weeks now, and Chanyeol would love to see more of him. They had so much in common, they loved the same music, same food, same movies, they both had dogs, they both loved quiet dates rather than loud parties and they both think Kris’s drawing is crap.

                “I want to, but I’m afraid I can’t even talk. I’m so nervous.”

                “What’s to be nervous? You seem to be doing fine.”

                “But I think the feeling is coming back again. What do I do?”

                “Just go with what you feel most comfortable with.” Yixing said, rubbing the taller guy’s back. “You’ll think of something.”

                A few hours later, Baekhyun walked in as usual.

                “Hey Chanyeol!”

                Chanyeol said nothing. Instead, he held up a drawing pad.

                Baekhyun giggled. “What’s wrong? Got a frog in your throat?”

                Chanyeol nodded. He flipped the pad.

                Baekhyun’s eyes widen.

                Now, Baekhyun’s smile widen. He looked up at the tall, stuttering boy and said:

                “Only if you teach me how to doodle ‘yes’.”

                Chanyeol threw his pad away and hugged the small boy. Yixing watched the couple and nudged Suho.

                “Aren’t they adorable?”

                “Yeah yeah, but he had better be getting back to work.”

                Suho lifted his head to look at Chanyeol and Baekhyun, still wrapped in each other’s arms.

                Okay, so maybe it is pretty cute.

                                                                                *************

                After several months of pure bliss and Chanyeol coming to work with smile so wide he could have been the Cheshire Cat’s long lost owner, Chanyeol decided to confess his true feelings.

                Except this time, instead of being nervous, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

                He went to the book store and bought one of Baekhyun’s favourite books, The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. He went home and prepared for his big surprise.

                The next day, Baekhyun entered the store as usual to see his beloved doodle tutor. He found Chanyeol at the counter. This time, he was reading, not doodling.

                “Chanyeol, you read Nicholas Spark’s too?” Baekhyun’s eyes twinkled at the mention of his favourite author. Chanyeol shook his head and handed the book to Baekhyun. Baekhyun looked at Chanyeol with an odd expression before opening the book.

                Inside the book, there was a drawing, not doodle, but an actual drawing of a couple hugging. Next to the drawing a few words were cleverly circled.

                 I . Think. Of. You. Like. A. Home.

On the next page, a few more words were circled.

                You. Are. The. Best. Thing. In . My .Life.

                On the final turn, the centre of the book was carefully cut out with a beautiful love pendant in the middle and the words circled:

                I . Love. You.

                Please. Be. My. Boyfriend.

                Baekhyun felt the tears in his eyes. He held the gold heart pendant and looked up at Chanyeol. No words needed, he was soon enveloped in Chanyeol’s embrace. In his tight and loving hold, Baekhyun started doodling on Chanyeol’s back.

                I . Love. You. Too.

                Yes. I. Do.

A/N: I'm supposed to be studying for my exams and look what happens...XD

Comments and subscribers are loved. Some cheesy romance to heal all broken hearts (escpecially after reading 10080, oh god I cried buckets reading that one...TT)