When Minseok’s belated rite-of-passage dinner was over, everyone was a little tipsy. She learnt her lesson and abstained from the drinks, no way she would let herself come home drunk two nights in a row. Worrying over what she might have said carelessly to Baekhyun almost took her sanity today. She would not let her guard down again. After all, it was because she got drunk that day four years ago that all this happened.

Those who were driving offered to send those who weren’t sober enough to home. Minseok was automatically assigned to her care, because she was his “mentor” of some sort. She felt that Minseok didn’t need to be taught much, though.

"Minseok, did you drive here?"

"Y- Yeah." He began to reach into his pocket and handed her a bunch of keys attached in a loop. "Thanks a lot… Noona."

"Noona? Huh. I expected that, you look eighteen. Come on, which is your car?"

Minseok didn’t need much help, he was still clear-headed enough to function, but not enough to drive without getting himself and another innocent driver killed. The gears and set-up of Minseok’s car was foreign to her, so to be safe, she spent a few minutes familiarizing herself with it and to key in Minseok’s address into the GPS. The car started up, and Minseok visibly relaxed into the cushion of his carseat.

"So… I never really got to ask. How old- no, how young are you to be calling me noona?"

"A little over twenty three."

"You’re funny. We’re same age. Great joke you made there."

"Oh. I didn’t know, you looked-"

"Don’t say it."

"Old."

"You said it."

Minseok’s soft laughter eased the frown on her face. She wasn’t really upset, but every woman didn’t like having her age pointed out, much less be told that they looked older than their actual age.

"Ha… Sorry." She knew Minseok was surely drunk when he continued to giggle.

"It’s really not that funny." She muttered.

"When you’re drunk, everything is funny," Minseok replied, and proceeded to giggle some more.

"Yeah, so funny…"

Minseok quietened down after some time, only to suddenly wind down the window and stick his head out. She jumped to pull him back before his head literally rolled.

"Jesus! Minseok, behave yourself!" She had a lot on her hands, driving without getting both of them killed, attempting to tame Minseok who was bent on mimicking those American movies, and answering her phone which had been ringing the past minute. The car came to a stop at the red light, and she was finally able to shut Minseok’s window and glare at him in warning, which almost made the latter cower away. By then her phone was still ringing, and she rushed to pick it up.

"What."

"I-" She almost flinched from the voice, and from the sound of it, she could almost see the caller doing the same. "I was wondering when you’d come home."

"Soon," was all she said, ending the call as the light turned green. There was no need to help Minseok into the house, his flat mate willingly took him in his arms and hurried into the depths of the apartment. With a curt goodbye, she left the compounds and flagged a cab home.

The living room was dark save for the light emitted from the television screen. She didn’t need to look to know Baekhyun had fallen asleep waiting for her. He didn’t do this all the time, often he’d just go to bed without waiting up, but there were times like this, and she called it the last stage of his “cycle”. Cycle meaning he would suddenly become more clingy than usual, more attentive and overall suffocating. Then a few days later he’d go back to however normal he could be, and the process would repeat.

She turned off the device and headed up without looking back. It was only when she washed up and crawled into bed, socks and all, did she start feeling a tiny bit bad for him. One thing Baekhyun was more of during his “cycle” was sensitive. As much as she despised him, she didn’t want to hurt him more than he deserved it. And Baekhyun at least deserved a blanket over himself. So she got up, retrieved a blanket from the wardrobe and draped it over him. The position he was in looked relatively uncomfortable, but if he could fall asleep like that then so be it.

-

"Hey, did you hear? Minki is getting beat up!"

"Goody-two-shoes? No way! Let’s go see."

As her classmates rushed out of the room one by one, she realised that Baekhyun wasn’t in his seat. It was rather odd to think this way, but usually wherever she was, he would be there too. Feeling uncomfortable, she got up and easily followed the other students towards the commotion. There was already a crowd formed, and from the distance she was, she could hear the students gossiping in hushed whispers, more importantly, her ears picked up his name.

She wasn’t close to Baekhyun, they’d only conversed twice before, once when he collided with her, twice when he told her not to go by the back gate. But for some reason, she found herself squeezing her way through the students, all the way to the front line. She wanted to see for herself. She knew she was the type that would plunge her head into the dark when faced with threat, blocking out everything and pretending it wasn’t there. But when the truth was placed smack in front of her, there was no working her way around it. For some reason, she felt betrayed.

"I dare you to say it again! Say it to my face!" He snarled, harshly grabbing the smaller boy’s collar. When the boy didn’t respond, Baekhyun dealt a blow to his cheek. She thought he would stop with that—the boy was bleeding all over his face—because Baekhyun just didn’t come off that way. Even on that day, when she had witnessed him beating up another fellow student, she knew Baekhyun had his reasons. But why would Lee Minki warrant a beating? That boy was afraid to hurt a fly.

She didn’t dare to stop him. It wasn’t as if she was his friend or anything, and trying to would probably earn her a beating too. Nobody else would dare interfere. For one, it was Byun Baekhyun, his name alone was equivalent to another thousand reasons to stay away. Second, it was Lee Minki, he wasn't any more welcomed than Baekhyun was. Seeing the two "losers" fight amongts themselves must be twice as entertaining for the school. She could only stare as Baekhyun seemed to get angrier by the second, delivering punches that seemed more violent than the previous.

"What’s going on?!" At the sound of a teacher, the crowd dispersed and everyone scampered back to their classes. But she couldn’t move. Maybe because she was the only one to see Baekhyun’s gentle side, maybe because she just refused to believe Baekhyun could pose a threat to her safety.

Baekhyun looked up and met eyes with her, and suddenly he felt ashamed of himself. He had vowed to never let her see anything ugly, to never let her view of him be tainted any further. And even when the discipline teacher yanked him off Lee Minki, his gaze was fixed on her horrified expression. The teacher pulled his arms behind his back, almost like he was being cuffed.

Don’t look at me with such fearful eyes, Nara.

Even as he was dragged away, he could not tear his eyes away from hers.

I’m not a bad person... I just come from a bad place.

-

The first thought that came to mind when Baekhyun woke up wasn’t why he was sleeping on the couch, but whether she had come home safely or not. He threw himself off and dashed up the stairs in a manner he hoped won’t have him trip and break any bones. The door was thrown open a little too loudly, and he scolded himself when he noticed the pink socks peeking out from under the duvets.

He glanced at the clock and decided if he didn’t wake her up now, she’d get even more mad at him than she usually would be. Carefully, he lifted the sheets and shook her shoulder. She groaned and turned away, and Baekhyun considered just leaving her be. She looked so tired, surely skipping one day of work wouldn’t hurt.

Baekhyun shook his head. That was what he thought, not her. If it wasn’t already obvious enough to him, they didn’t share the same sentiments about anything. He reached out and shook her again, a little harder this time, thinking that if she still didn’t get up, then he’d leave her be.

She swatted his hand away sleepily and sat up, sheets all bunched up around her waist, almost as if she was sitting on a cloud. And she might be, considering how it was so bright, what with the giant floor-to-ceiling window one wall was made of.

"If you don’t get changed," Baekhyun said, keeping from laughing out loud at her bird’s nest of a hairstyle. "You will be late for work."

"… Work," she muttered, unleashing another groan before getting up. Baekhyun smiled to himself. He didn’t get ignored this time. Probably because she was too sleepy to bother, and he wondered just how late she got home. While she washed up in the bathroom, he threw on something more presentable and headed downstairs to make her a quick breakfast.

The toast had just popped out when she came down the stairs with hair still damp. He set the plate and mug down on the table, moving back when she came over to sit.

"Thanks."

Baekhyun blinked hard and tried not to make his staring so obvious. “Y- You’re welcome. I, uh, I’ll drop you off at work, okay?”

She nodded wordlessly and Baekhyun took it as his queue to leave her alone. When she was ready to leave, he quickly got up and followed her out the door. She seemed to be in a relatively good mood today, his words weren’t going off unheard, and she was responding rather well. If only there could be more days like this.

The silent car ride came to an end when he pulled up outside her office building.

"Don’t stress yourself out too much," he muttered, not daring to look at her. "And call me if anything. Or even if there’s nothing, just… Call me. If you want to."

"See you."

He only risked lifting his head when the car door slammed shut and she was walking away. Some part of him knew she was somewhat shaken by what he said, and hopefully, things could finally start getting a little bit better than before.

As Baekhyun drove off, intending to stop by the grocery store before heading home, his cellphone buzzed.

"Hello?"

"Kim Jongdae canceled on us again. Same reason."

"I warned him I won’t sit back and do nothing the second time. Look up Tao, there needs to be an establishment of dominance here. House of Venus in an hour."

"Oh, um, but you see… Tao’s already here."

"What?"

"He’s here. House of Venus, and he’s waiting for you. Quite cocky if you ask me."

"That son of a . Alright, I’m on my way."

~*~

The employees of the barber shop practically scampered out of his way when Baekhyun stormed in. He went down to the basement and entered the same private room as before. His own men stood alert and bowed their heads, while the haughty young man whom Baekhyun guessed was Tao, remained seated in all his high fashion couture glory.

"I was expecting something along the lines of spiked leather jacket, leather boots and overall a more intimidating outfit. You look like a homemaker."

"Such a pleasant greeting."

"I speak my mind, sir."

"I intended to look you up, but it seems you’ve beaten me to it. What do I owe to such a visit?" Baekhyun replied, nodding subtly at the door for his subordinates to leave the room.

"Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to match a face to the name."

"Well, I have more serious reasons. I don’t know what the you’re up to, but I hear from Jongdae that the reason why he can’t deliver my supplies is because of you. There are many other suppliers out there, I believe the reason why you chose Jongdae and demanded such unreasonable things is more than just, oh, I wanted to match a face to the name. So I’ll get to the point. What the are you trying to achieve?"

Tao, with olive skin and dark circles around his eyes just like his own, simply picked at his cuticles and gave what looked like a smirk. And even that seemed half-assed. But it suited his persona.

"I hear you’re married."

If Baekhyun was pissed before, then he has never felt more enraged than now.

"Don’t ing bring that up. Don’t even try."

"Oh, protective I see."

Before he could think, Baekhyun lunged across and snagged the man’s collar, knocking over the bottle of wine on the table between them.

"Don’t. You ing. Dare."

"Boo, you ruined my shoes. But I’ll overlook that for once, because now I am very interested in meeting the woman who owns the other ring."

There was nothing he hated more than her being brought up in work-related conversations. So in less than a second, Tao was on the floor, now gifted with a busted lip and hopefully (or not) still intact nose. He could hear some commotion outside, and it was probably his own men restraining Tao’s from barging into the room after hearing glass shatter.

"Look you little piece of . I don’t care what your issue is with me, but it better ing hell stay with me. I can overlook those canceled deals, at most I’ll find another supplier. But don’t you even think for one second that I’ll let you live a minute longer than you deserve should you even attempt to intrude into my personal life. Understood?"

Tao pried the violent hands away from him and stared defiantly into the other’s eyes. “Mission accomplished.”

With that, he made his way out the private room, and Baekhyun’s own men rushed in, glad to see their boss was unharmed. Of course he would be, there was no meeting he walked out of bruised or hurt in any way. It was always the other way round.

The two lower men stood by the door, while Yixing approached him and hoisted the table back to its original position. Baekhyun stared at the tiles where Tao was previously sprawled across, anger and worry bubbling in his throat.

"Yixing, we have a huge problem."

jaedrug u have no idea how thankful i am that people like u exist T_T thanks for all your nice, effortful comments, they really make my day~