It was finally Sunday afternoon again as Ten hurried back to his dorm. His master-of-the-day had been especially brutal and picky- making sure he placed everything at exactly the right angles. It was really annoying, but thankfully it was only for half a day. And now he could go home and maybe Twelve would make him some food . . .

“Chanyeol.”

. . . unless they're already too low on their monthly rations. In which case then Ten could only take a nap and-

“Chanyeol!”

Ten felt a tap on his shoulder and spun around. Seeing Baekhyun in front of him, his eyes widened. They haven't seen each other since that last encounter days ago and he wasn't sure how to act. “Uh . . . Baekhyun, are you-”

“Did you not hear me call you?” the shorter boy interrupted impatiently.

“Call? But all I heard was Chan. . .” Ten trailed off as he realized what Baekhyun meant. “Oh. Oh my god! Is that my name?” he exclaimed excitedly.

The Entertainer smirked. “Yeah. I thought of it.”

People had told him that his smiles looked creepy sometimes so he tried to control it, but Te-Chanyeol couldn't help but smile as widely as his face could let him. He let out a small noise of happiness. “What does it mean?”

Baekhyun made a face. “Bright and strong,” he muttered.

“Wow. I like it!” Chanyeol said. “Thank you so much, Baekhyun. And now we both have names! That's so cool! I wish I can tell-”

“You can't tell anyone,” Baekhyun warned, interrupting the long (and loud) rant.

“Yeah, I know.”

A beat of kind-of-awkward-kind-of-not silence passed before Baekhyun said, “Do you want to meet my friends?”

Chanyeol's mouth dropped open. He wasn't complaining, but it was weird that Baekhyun was so nice to him today. Maybe this was progress in his “mission”?

“I know what you're thinking,” he continued drily. “I'm just tired of everyone telling me to be happier and not act like a all the time.” He paused and looked at Chanyeol pointedly. “So, do you want to?”

“Yes!”

Baekhyun actually wasn't too sure what he was doing. Why the did he decide to invite the Cleaner? And he knew Jongin would never stop making fun of him for this. And they were late too. ing hell. He let out a heavy sigh and caught Chanyeol glancing worriedly, only looking away after Baekhyun glared at him.

Everything screamed bad decision bad decision bad decision! but it would be too immoral for him to back out now, especially with the landfill in clear view.

Chanyeol, with his long and uncoordinated limbs, had a bit of trouble squeezing through the their secret entrance and as he was forcing himself through, Jongin and Sehun made their way over. The two glanced from Baekhyun to the newcomer and made a show of acting surprised.

“You didn't tell us you actually had other friends,” Jongin teased.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “You should be happy I took your ing advice to heart.”

“ing advice,” Sehun whispered before giggling. “Frick fracking advice,” he added for unnecessary clarification of his immature pun.

Jongin gasped dramatically. “Baekhyun! This is all your fault. You're such bad influence for our Sehunnie.”

“Um, hi guys! I'm Chanyeol,” the Cleaner, who had finally made it, greeted brightly.

“Hi,” Baekhyun's friends chorused.

“Introduce us, please,” Jongin said politely with a smirk.

“Well,” Baekhyun said, dragging out the word. “The tan one is Jong-Ka-” He paused and felt everyone's stares. “The tan one is Jongin. The twig is Sehun.”

Chanyeol repeated his greetings while Jongin shot Baekhyun a look both knowing and questioning, which was promptly ignored.

Baekhyun felt as if he was watching his friends from afar as Chanyeol awkwardly but energetically participated in the conversations. Seeing the group of friends relaxing on a Sunday afternoon was like watching a scene played out from one of his fantasies, but not really. It was missing something- something making it a little less than perfect. Maybe it's the fact that they were relaxing in a ing landfill. Maybe.

But overall, it was pretty nice and not much a bad decision.

Until Chanyeol said, “Baekhyun, you should come meet my friends too.”

He blinked and realized they were all looking at him. “Why?”

Why did he keep getting distracted and why did they keep staring at him?

Chanyeol shrugged as if the answer was so obvious he couldn't even think of one. Jongin muttered something about being rude and a “ off” was at the tip of Baekhyun's tongue. He glanced up at the sky and instead said, “It's almost curfew though. And we have work.”

The Cleaner seemed to deflate a little and he almost felt bad.

But after a beat of silence, Jongin said, “How about you just walk Chanyeol to his dorm, say hi really fast and leave before curfew?” Baekhyun glared at him but was ignored.

“Wasn't that what they were going to do anyway?” Sehun asked as he played with some leftover food.

“Shh,” Jongin said to him. “So, that's a yes?”

~ ~ ~

Baekhyun found himself walking down those dusty half-deserted streets with Chanyeol acting as much the annoying hyperactive poodle he was. And while he went on about how nice Jongin and Sehun were, Baekhyun was fuming because the Cleaner's dorm is too damn far and I need a nap and why the am I doing this and encouraging this and making him think I'm a nice person because I'm abso-ing-lutely not and now I'm going to meet his friends like we're going to get married or something but we're not going to because I just felt bad for him and also numbers can't even get married and . . .

He realized that Chanyeol was staring at him expectantly.

, not again, he thought in his mind. “What," he said flatly.

“Jongin was right!” the giant replied happily.

“What?” he asked.

“He said that you don't pay attention a lot of times because you're busy in these worlds that you build in your mind.”

“When did he say that?” Baekhyun made a mental note to yell at that for revealing all his secrets.

“At the landfill place,” Chanyeol answered. “But what do you have in your worlds and why do you do that?”

“You have too many questions,” the Entertainer muttered. Today was a bad day and he was in an abnormally bad mood. He felt like he was going to scream.

“Sorry.” Chanyeol pouted and looked apologetic, but continued, “But I really want to know. It's interesting.”

“It's really not interesting.” Baekhyun mumbled. He sighed and decided to satisfy Chanyeol's curiosity, in hopes that would be the end of it all. “I have too many worlds to count, but in all of them, I'm living this normal life where I don't people for a living. And everyone in those worlds knows my real name- the name my parents would've given me, because I would also know who they are and . . .” He trailed off, not knowing what else to say. All those fantasies suddenly sounded really stupid out loud and he kind of felt embarrassed.

“So, kind of like being an Elite?”

“No!” he said a little too quickly. “No,” Baekhyun said again. “There aren't any Elites or Numbered. Everyone's just a human and everyone's happy, okay?”

“Okay.”

They finished the walk in silence and Chanyeol seemed to be as lost in his thoughts as Baekhyun. The meeting with the other Cleaner- Twelve- was pretty much how he had imagined: awkward and abrupt.

And then he was walking alone back to his dorm. Thank god that's over.

~ ~ ~

“I think Chanyeol really likes you,” was the first thing Jongin said when he got back to their room.

“Okay,” Baekhyun replied. He was laying on the cot, staring up at the ceiling, not wanting to get ready for the night.

“No, seriously.” He didn't sound serious and Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “Like the way he stares at you like you're some god. It's so cute.”

“Shut up.”

“And I think you really like him too,” Jongin continued. Baekhyun could hear the ing obnoxious smirk in his voice.

“What?”

“You're breaking all sorts of rules for him and you even told him about your dreams. How everyone will be human and happy.”

Baekhyun shot up immediately at that. “You were following us?” he screeched.

“No,” Jongin defended himself without conviction as he held up a skimpy sequined top. “I was walking Sehun back and his dorm is right next to the Cleaners'.”

“Stalker.”

“And,” he continued, ignoring Baekhyun. “That friend of Chanyeol's is kind of cute. Like squishy cute but also a I-wanna--you type of cute. I wonder-”

“If you follow me again, I. Will. ing. End. You,” Baekhyun interrupted, not wanting to hear whatever Jongin wondered about the other Cleaner. Probably his noises or something else equally stupid. “Now shut up and stop bothering me.”

~ ~ ~

As Baekhyun finally began readying himself- mechanically lining his eyes with kohl that always smeared and ended up looking like all over white pillows- his thoughts were scattered, trying to make sense of everything that had happened recently.

The day he met the giant poodle, he had undoubtedly been infected with happy virus.

He had throbbing headaches from wondering how someone who had only been a number until today could be so content and cheerful.

Sleepless nights wondering if he could ever let himself be that way. And how nice it would probably feel.

♔ A  u  t  h  o  r  '  s    N  o  t  e ♔

For Chanyeol's name meaning, I went by him Chinese name 灿烈

did you like the mini kaisoo?

Also, I've been getting a lot of nice comments (I think the most in any of my stories) and I just want to say thank you ^_^ You make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even though I *really at replying because I'm awkward >.<