“Sir, you’re missing another rose in my bouquet.”

“Hey, I asked for dandelions, not tulips!”

“I’ve been waiting in line for fifteen minutes now!”

Baekhyun rubbed his temples, scurrying to aid another customer with their orders. His once delicate hands were all now cut up from the wrapping paper used for the bouquets; Baekhyun hurried to wrap each one within world-record timing, and he had to suffer the consequences that came from those efforts. The white parts of his shoes was browned up by now and he was sweating in places that does not need to be revealed.The boy was tired, aggravated, and though he didn’t want to admit it, lonely.

Baekhyun had dreaded this day from February 15th of last year. Valentine’s Day was probably the only holiday that he thought was downright stupid; his boss never gave him the day off and even if he didn’t need to work, he had no one to spend it with. He was a rather dashing guy, but females these days, he concluded, only accepts males that had chocolate six packs and a protruding jaw line, and from a guy who wraps flowers for a job, didn’t have that.

“Hey, young man! Please tell this idiot that this is my order, not his!” A voice yelped from the front counter. Baekhyun immediately settled down the dozen chrysanthemums he was holding, receiving another yell from an individual that he assumed was their order, and rushed to the scene.

Wiping the beads of sweat that clung to his forehead, he said, exasperated, in a stern tone, “What seems to be the problem here?”

“This man says order 471 is his, but here, on my receipt, has the number!” The middle-aged man that called for him dug in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled white piece of paper. The man proceeded to open and straighten the receipt, and pointed to the bold and underlined words on the top-left corner: Order 471.

“But my receipt says I have the same number!” The male with furrowed eyebrows and folded arms beside him practically threw the paper on the counter and scowled at the troublesome worker.

Baekhyun hesitated to speak his words but eventually had let out, “I-I’m sorry. It’s my mistake. I will get your orders in just a few minutes.” He bowed seventy degrees; he would’ve done a full right angle but the pain in his back didn’t allow it.

He his heels and walked away, hearing the harsh feedback that the customers had whispered behind his back. Ambling into the backroom, Baekhyun heaved a deep sigh and took another pain-relief pill before getting back to his strenuous labor.

--

Hyeri was walking down the streets of Seoul, seeking enjoyment from the little boutiques and food stands. She had reserved this day only for herself (her excuse for not admitting she had no Valentine) and albeit she had numerous purchases and ate nice food, she just couldn’t feel the slightest bit of euphoria.

Her ex-boyfriend had broken up with her two months ago, and although it’s been a full eight weeks, she couldn’t fully grasp the fact that she, Song Hyeri, was single. She was no female that went around countless guys; it was that she always had her February 14th occupied.

She was now strolling to anywhere her two feet took her, holding her bags in one hand and talking to her friend with the other.

“I’m fine, geez! You’ve asked me am I okay like fifty times already.” Hyeri grimaced, kicking a pebble that was in her way.

“You don’t need to lie. You’re obviously still upset about the breakup.” Her friend had stated on the other line, earning a “yah!” from Hyeri herself.

“I’m not upset, okay?!” Hyeri had unintentionally screamed into the phone, drawing bewildered looks from people near her.

“Sorry,” she apologized, both to her friend and those around her, “it’s just that..why? Why would he do that! Such a move, you know?!”

Her friend chuckled, waiting for this side of Hyeri took come out. She had knew that Hyeri masked her feelings about the whole ex-boyfriend-Valentine’s Day issue, and it was now showing.

“Like, what kind of boyfriend dumps you over a text message? Were those years worthless enough to end it over some damn pixelated text!”

“I get it, I get it. But it’ll be okay, you’ll move on. My mom’s calling me, so I gotta go, okay?” Her friend said and when Hyeri muttered a sad “ok”, the call was ended.

Hyeri placed her phone back into her pocket and puffed out her cheeks in boredom. Looking around, Hyeri searched for places that she could go into next.

Her eyes wandered to a cafe in front of her, decorated with pink and red strobe lights and drawn hearts on the windows. Her eyes magnified to the interior and saw that it was packed with girls and boys, practically throwing themselves on each other. “Gross,” Hyeri disapproved.

She then eyed a petite, yet extravagant shop that sold girls’ apparel. As she was nearing the boutique, she noticed a couple inside: the girl trying out the dresses and her partner applauding when she came out from the fitting rooms. “Disgusting.”

Wherever she went, the sight of any couple would instinctively cause her to blurt out an insult. The movies, a book store, restaurants. She swore that if she could establish anything in the world, it would be something couple-free.

As she was searching for another location, a couple passed her, giggling to each other whilst holding hands. Hyeri could almost feel the vomit coming up and she whispered in askance, “Repulsive.” She heard a gasp escape the girl’s mouth, followed by “That !”

, she heard me! Hyeri thought and had a frozen facial expression. She felt trouble was creeping near, so she took off and left the site before she would get a black eye.

She ran nearly two blocks before stopping, panting for breath. Single and unfit. I’m a mess. When she picked up her head, she found herself standing right in front of a florist shop. She lifted her head a little more to know the name of the place: Exotic Flowers.  She looked down her full hands holding roughly three bags each, all containing clothing, no flowers. Cocking her head to the side, she thought “why the hell not. I’ll buy flowers for myself!”

Hyeri entered the place and literally was not prepared for what was inside that florist.

It was like a battlefield; people were tugging on a bouquet which eventually fell apart, women snapping their fingers in each other’s faces, and men almost exchanging punches over some tulips. Her jaw had dropped to the floor and literally nothing could come out of . She scooted over to the left and looked at the pile of chaos. The customers were literally like the pigeons on Finding Nemo; the sound of “Order Ready!” had them screaming to want whatever it was.

Both men and women huddled up in the front counter, yelling their frustration at the employee working in the front. Hyeri could decipher the words “You worthless being!” and “Can’t you do anything right?” and she found herself concerned for the worker that had to deal with the cruel backlash; no one deserved all those insults!

Within a few seconds, three orders were done and these people just snatched the bouquets and recklessly threw their payments in the air. Fortunately, no one stole the money, as they were too consumed in actually getting their flowers, and it safely landed on the counter.

As the respective three customers who got their purchases moved out of the line and left the store, Hyeri saw a glimpse of the worker: a sweating, disheveled boy with a drenched fringe and red hands. She examined his face; pink lips with a dent of teeth marks, an irritated nose, and round, brown eyes dark as night.

He was cute, she had to admit, but there was a bigger picture to look at: he was struggling with so much on his plate and Hyeri couldn’t just stand there and allow these people to yell at him, to overwork him, to stomp all over him. Making her decision, Hyeri threw her bags in the corner and threw herself over the counter, running to the worker.

“Hey,” she called to the guy who was adding verbena to the arrangement, “do you need help?”

He looked up; astonished at the female in front of her. With her curled locks and smiling eyes, Baekhyun stuttered to respond back, “N-no, it’s o-okay.”

“You need help. Tell me what I can do. I can bring the flowers to you and you wrap them up.” She stated, determined and ready to work.

As he was distracted from his work for a minute, a man forced himself to the front and exclaimed, “Hey, could you get back to your work?!” Baekhyun reacted by nodding his head and went back to finishing.

“Hey, man. We’re doing things as fast as we can. So if you wait patiently and stop acting like such a , then maybe you’ll get your order faster, okay?” Hyeri barked at the incredibly rude customer, who shut up at her words.

“You can’t be like that to customers!” Baekhyun was taken aback at the temerity of the girl.

“Well, you have to be like that to put them under control. Now, what is your next orders, I’ll get them from the back, where I assume they are.”

Baekhyun sighed; she was some random stranger and he couldn’t just allow her to work like that. He barely even knew this sass-filled, feisty girl except that she was the definition of both adjectives. “I already told you, you can’t-”

“COME ON, WILL YOU? WE’RE THE ONES PAYING YOU!” Someone had yelled from somewhere in the crowd of people, and everyone else yelled “yeah!” in agreement to the one who said it.

Hyeri raised her eyebrow at him, looking at the horde and back to Baekhyun. “Really? You don’t need any assistance?”

Baekhyun huffed, defeated, and gave in, “Fine. Get me two dozen roses and six daffodils.”

“Yay! You’re welcome, by the way.” She began to walk back to the shop, as if it was her own occupation, but stopped when Baekhyun blurted out, “Who are you?”

“I’m Hyeri. And I’m guessing your name is Baekhyun,” she pointed to his chest and he looked down; his name was in carved in the nametag.

“Just hurry up with the flowers.” He called and she sent him an “OK” hand symbol, complimented with a grin.

Hyeri returned with the correct flowers; Baekhyun was impressed at how she accurately retrieved them.

“How’d you get them right?” He asked.

“I’m a complete enthusiast of flowers, I guess.” She replied. Baekhyun acknowledged her intelligence before sending her back for more orders.

On her way back, Hyeri snickered and whispered to herself, “Does he not know they have labels on all of them?”

--

After a few trips back and forth, Hyeri grew tired and carried eight orders at once, holding nearly 150 flowers. Thorns of the roses pierced into her skin, the petals of the peonies made her nose itch, and the fluffiness of the gardenias made it difficult to see.

"Hey, Baekhyun? I literally don't know where I'm going, so- AH!" Hyeri slipped, preparing for all of the flowers to fall everywhere.

"Careful!" Baekhyun saved her, holding on to her back with a hand and encased the huge array of flowers with the other. "Thanks," she said and stood up, settling down the flowers.

Baekhyun spoke, “You didn’t need to get all of that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to go back so I just took all of it.” She took a Kleenex and wiped her arms. “I want to wrap so we can switch places.”

Baekhyun nodded and gestured his head for her to sit next to him and observe. She obeyed and watched as he took the flowers, decorated with a smaller type, wrapped in red, pink, then white paper, and ended by typing a silver ribbon.

“Easy.” She scoffed, grabbing two orders from the table and laid them in front of them. The two proceeded to do the arrangement simultaneously with Hyeri perfectly following the directions and finishing it.

“I guess... you’re okay.” Baekhyun stood up, giving the people their orders and actually receiving the money back in his hand.

As he sat back down, Baekhyun fought the urge to ask a question he had from the beginning, but he eventually couldn’t hold it in. “So why are you here? You don’t have a Valentine or something?”

Hyeri smirked; she saw it coming anyways. “Nope. I mean I could've had one." She mumbled and he probably heard.

"Ex dumped you?"

"Well, aren't you so straight to the point?" She chuckled and went on, "I really had nothing else better to do. And I saw you struggling, so I thought I’d help.” She answered and Baekhyun responded by a soft “oh”.

“What about you?” Hyeri asked, interrupting Baekhyun from thinking. “I see you’re working and everything, but do you still have a Valentine?”

He shook his head, “Never had one since I’ve been working here.” Hyeri eyed him and he continued on. “Which was two years ago.”

Hyeri didn’t hide her shock and blurted out, “Really? That’s unexpected.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh.. nothing!”

--

Nearly two hours passed and the two were on a roll. As more customers came in, more came out; this time, they left wearing satisfied smiles, rather than grumpy frowns. Their teamwork was impeccable, and as they worked together, her grabbing the flowers and him wrapping them (and vice versa), business was going faster and easier. Both had not kept track of the time, but by now, it was nearing 9PM: the shop’s closing time.

Fewer people were coming in and they had one more order left until the shop would be vacant, meaning they could have a much-needed break. After Baekhyun had finished it up and the customer took off, the two tiredly sat down on the floor; they were too exhausted to walk back to the employee room to rest.

“Wow, this job literally .” Hyeri said as she downed her entire water bottle. She looked to Baekhyun and said immediately, “Sorry if I offended you.”

He chuckled, “Nope. I hate this job, too. But there is one thing that I actually like from it.”

Hyeri looked at him with eyes of curiosity. What could be good about this job? Customers curse at you and you must oblige, you work on your own all 12 hours long, and you look and smell like a wet dog at the end of the day. “And what is that?”

“That..” Baekhyun pulled out a calculator as well as a overview record of today’s purchases. After leaving his response like that for a while and pressing in several numbers, he continued again, “that employees get to keep 15% of the money from Valentine’s Day.”

“So what’s the total today?”

“Roughly around $4200.” Baekhyun smirked, showing her the total that popped up on the calculator.

“Oh my gosh!” Hyeri hit Baekhyun on the shoulder out of both jealousy and elation, “That’s nearly $1000 for you! Congratulations.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s not all for me, you’re the one who practically saved me.” Baekhyun said, handing her four crisp 100 dollar bills.

“No, no! I can’t take that, I don’t even work here.” She continuously refused, but Baekhyun wouldn’t allow her to leave empty-handed when she really was his life-saver today.

“Please. Just take it. I beg of you.” Baekhyun’s lower lip protruded in a pout and Hyeri still denied.

“Don’t make me force you to keep it.”

“Try me.”

As if it was an automatic reaction, Baekhyun lunged forward, grabbing one of her hands and stuffing the bills inside. She protested, balling them up into a fist before he could be able to do it. He stuffed them into the top, pressing them down with his finger for the bills to go in.

Hyeri proceeded to laugh at his remark; he said it in an adorable high voice and with him meaning what he said, it was the funniest thing ever.

Baekhyun somehow squeezed three-fourths of the rolled-up bills in her hand and wrapped his own around her's, ensuring that she would keep them close. He took the other hand shortly after that, for her not to resist. Giggling the whole way through, Hyeri surrendered, "Fine, fine!"

"Damn, Baekhyun! You remind me of-" Hyeri stopped mid-sentence, her jaw left open. Her gaze was fixated directly ahead, and when Baekhyun faced the same way, he saw a male with a relatively strong build and a petite girl next to him. 

"It's just a normal couple, Hyeri." Baekhyun stated and Hyeri just shook her head. Her once-delighted face expression quickly turned into a dejected one, and Baekhyun noticed the atmosphere growing extremely uncomfortable. He looked back at the couple once more, this time the guy was staring back at Hyeri. Who was he? Baekhyun pondered.

The male smirked before throwing his coat over the female, who showed a shocked expression from the action. Hyeri's bottom lip was practically hanging off and she stifled back a few curse words. Damn, the thought suddenly occured to Baekhyun, that's her ex.

Baekhyun tapped Hyeri on the shoulder, “Are you okay?” He whispered to her gently.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She let go of her balled fists, which were practically purple. She avoided his gaze, staring down at the ground.

"Hey, that guy's a . He lost a lot when he lost you." Baekhyun attempted at making her feel better, to no avail. "Well, you saw that girl's reaction. She was probably like, oh my gosh, this desperate- boy who paid me to go out with me finally did something nice and unjerkish-like today!" Baekhyun said, three octaves higher than his normal one and added the usual girl hand gestures. He flipped his hair and smacked him lips obnoxiously.

Hyeri couldn't help but laugh at his imitation and turned back to him, who was still in his feminine pose. "I guess."

"And like, he just wants me for my zero intelligence and my s!" Baekhyun continued in his female impression and looked inside of his shirt, "Well not really the s anymore!"

"Baekhyun!" Hyeri giggled, "that's not right." Baekhyun laughed, but stopped before he would go over the top with it.

"What's not right is that boy really let go of something that's great."

"Thanks, Baekhyun." Hyeri grinned and Baekhyun returned it; he was glad she had felt better.

“We’re closing now, so do you want to grab a bite or something?”

She hesitated, but then he said aloud, “Fine. I’ll pay, you can keep your full 400.” He joked and she laughed through her tears, “No, it’s not that that!"

"... But okay, I’m pretty hungry.” Hyeri confessed.

“Great. Come on, let’s go.” He jumped over the counter and helped Hyeri do the same.

She walked to the corner and picked up her bags (she hadn’t forgot), and the two walked out together.

--

“That was sooo satisfying after a day of long work.” Hyeri mumbled, rubbing her full stomach. She let out a soft burp, hoping Baekhyun wouldn’t hear it. He didn’t, but when a sudden smell of onions and barbecue hit his nose, he exclaimed, “You’re gross!”

She snickered out of embarrassment, “Sorry! I couldn’t hold it in..”

“Are we already at that close?” Baekhyun laughed and Hyeri shook her shoulders. It was weird, really. Just a mere eight or nine hours with a guy and it feels like you’ve known him forever. She hadn’t met a guy like Baekhyun, one that was gentle and kind and put up with her kind of attitude. He was the epitome of contentment and Hyeri loved his presence.

After Baekhyun paid (he had kept his word), the duo had walked out of the restaurant together. They strolled in silence, enjoyable silence. They didn’t know where to head to, but both knew they didn’t want to leave anytime soon.

“Do you want to sit here?” Baekhyun pointed to a park bench amidst towering trees. It was night and there was no need for shade, but the trees just helped for the feeling of a serene environment. They both seated, taking a whiff of the air and exhaled it in pleasure.

“I had a really nice day today.” Baekhyun confessed, shy to face Hyeri.

“Even if we sweated our butts off?”

He laughed, “Even if we sweated our butts off.”

She laughed, echoing into the cold. Hyeri took in a deep inhale, closed her eyes, and pointed her chin to the sky. “I really needed this, Baekhyun. Thank you.”

He smiled, turning towards her. Her curls were loose now, her cheeks still a faint, rose color, and she had different shades of green shades on her white clothing. She looked tired, yet she was still beautiful to Baekhyun.

“Hey, Hyeri?” He spoke softly.

Hyeri opened her eyes once again and turned to him, smiling in bliss. He watched carefully as her lips tugged upwards and her pearly whites slowly showed.

“What is it?” She questioned after he didn’t reply. She gave her full attention to him, and that’s what he waited for.

“I need to ask you something.”

Hyeri shrugged his shoulders as if she was saying, “Well, what?”

Baekhyun reached for his back and pulled out a single red rose, probably wrapped with the most of his efforts. He handed it to Hyeri, who accepted it willingly. Grinning with a twinkle in his eye, Baekhyun asked softly, “Will you be my Valentine?”

A/N:

Hello! I really do hope that I didn't disappoint you all with this one-shot. The first chapter was long over-due and I really do apologize for that! Please enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I really didn't intend it to be this long (pretty long for me) but the more, the merrier right? LOL Thank you to all the those who subscribed before I put up the first chapter. It means a lot. Till the next fic, goodbye readers!