“I’m back; here you go” Sehun announces, handing the table cloth to Luhan. It’s the last day –or maybe the last night, because the sun has set already –before the gala, and there are very few things left to finish with the preparations. Like the table by the reception, for example, where they will be checking the names off the guest list and provide directions to the twelfth floor for the guests, or hand out gifts and return their super-expensive coats when the guests will be leaving.

It’s the hello-goodbye table, as Sehun likes to call it. There is something pleasantly unrefined in that nickname; it’s so dry and abrupt, yet it stands for something that represents civility and graciousness, it highlights the conformism of the modern era, with the need to look sophisticated and urbane, while in truth being void of any sincere civility and humanity; it’s the cold façade of politeness that this nickname aims to strike by verging on crass. Do you get it?

No?

Okay.

“Oh, thanks” Luhan snatches the table cloth without even glancing at Sehun and starts draping it carefully above the table. Maybe a bit too carefully. This is odd; who smoothes out the table cloth inch by inch, eight times every inch? Sehun doesn’t say anything and only watches quietly instead. He’s not one to judge.

Luhan is one of the Park Company’s stuff who stayed behind to help out with the preparations; Lay hyung, Kai and a few others Sehun doesn’t know stayed as well, because the things they need to move in the rooms as final preparations were being used until earlier in the work day, and they have to do it last minute. Lay hyung went upstairs with Baekhyun hyung and Kai has been following Kyungsoo hyung to wherever, and since Sehun and Luhan know each other, they were paired together to set up the hello-goodbye table.

But Sehun has been getting this strange feeling ever since they started setting up the table, like something is off, you know? At first, he thought that Luhan’s voice sounded so stressed because it’s really silent in the empty lobby of the huge company building. Then, he thought that, maybe, it’s more than just his impression because of the silence, and maybe Luhan is actually tired. But, if he is tired, then why is he avoiding Sehun? Do the two of them connect, like, avoiding Sehun if you’re tired helps in something? Sehun doesn’t think so.

“Can you please give me that blue book?” Luhan asks politely, while his hands are still smoothing out the tablecloth frantically. So, tired Luhan is a perfection maniac? Or maybe Sehun is imagining things again. It doesn’t matter if the table is not perfect anyway; Baekhyun hyung will inspect everything personally before leaving work, so he can fix it as he likes.

“Sure” Sehun takes the guest book from the corner and walks to Luhan with a plan in mind. He will find an answer to this.

Experiments –usually –don’t lie: they reveal deterministic relations between variables and not just correlations; or so the teacher back at his university days used to repeat too much. So, here goes his experiment.

He makes sure his last steps are inaudible and makes his way to stand too close to Luhan, who is still unaware, fixing the table cloth. “Here” he calls and Luhan turns mechanically to him. After one split second, Luhan realizes that Sehun is too close for comfort. His eyes widen in shock, his cheeks turn pink and he flinches away quickly. He is still avoiding Sehun’s eyes though and he looks pretty much like a cornered mouse. As Baekhyun hyung would infer with his psychology insight: he is hiding something.

“Thanks…but what are you doing, standing so close?” Luhan’s voice is slightly higher pitched and Sehun can tell the difference in the silence. The older snatches the book away and places it on the table.

“Why are you acting weird all of a sudden?” Is that too straightforward?

“I am acting weird? You were the one invading my personal space” Luhan retorts.

“So, it’s a personal space issue?” That would make slight sense as an explanation for Luhan’s behavior. But how come it has never been brought up before? Like that day in the elevator, personal space didn’t seem to matter much, the way Luhan was pressed against Sehun’s side; no one complained back then...

“Um…yeah, let’s call it that: personal space issue” Luhan fixes a silver candle holder on the table.

“What’s your personal space radius?” Sehun would like to know, just to make sure he is not making Luhan uncomfortable in the future. Luhan gives him a dumbfounded look.

“What sort of question is that?”

“Just asking” Sehun shrugs his shoulders indifferently. He tried; he is not responsible for any future mishaps. Luhan shakes his head in bewilderment and then proceeds with the preparations in silence, ignoring Sehun and his unorthodox experiments. “So, will you be here tomorrow?” Sehun asks bored after a while. Luhan nods. “Have you bought Chanyeol hyung a gift?”

“I have, but I will give it to him personally on the day of his birthday” Luhan answers without paying close attention to the conversation.

Baekhyun hyung was worried yesterday about whether he should buy Chanyeol hyung a gift or not and what sort of gift it would be. Sehun stopped paying attention to his discussion with Kyungsoo hyung, so he doesn’t know what Baekhyun hyung decided in the end.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” Luhan asks, still not paying much attention to anything that doesn’t have to do with the hello-goodbye table.

“Yup…but I will be somewhere you won’t be able to see”

Sehun is in charge of arranging coats in the room they will be using as a closet and, even though it doesn’t sound very exciting, because it isn’t, it’s good enough a job for Sehun; he understands that, because of his lisp it’s better if he doesn’t interact with people much. And then he will be one of the people who will present the birthday cake to Chanyeol hyung, because the catering company’s people need someone in charge and that someone has to look pretty presentable too –not that Sehun thinks he is presentable, but everyone else seems to think so; he made it clear that he is not singing any birthday song though. And then Baekhyun hyung said he can do whatever he likes –which will probably be surfing the net for ways to bleach your hair– until he returns to the coats again, remembering to pair them with gifts for each departing guest.

Overall, it’s a much less stressful job than the one of Kyungsoo hyung’s, who will be double checking the names of the guests behind the hello-goodbye table, or Baekhyun hyung’s, who will be running around to make sure everything backstage, from the candles of the cake to the music of the dj, works like clockwork.

Luhan stops his work and looks at Sehun, creasing his eyebrows.

“It was a silly question, wasn’t it?” he guesses and then shakes his head. Sehun takes a moment to remember what they had been talking about. “Of course you’ll be here...I’m sorry”

“What for?” Sehun asks. He didn’t really mind anything.

“For making you answer a silly question”

“That’s okay; you’re tired, so I think you can allow yourself to ask a few silly questions”

“Really?” Luhan raises an eyebrow doubtfully. Sehun tosses away the loose thread he had been toying with and gives Luhan an equally doubtful look. What does Luhan doubt? Has no one ever told him that being imperfect sometimes is normal? Scratch that, being imperfect is the norm for humans.

“Yeah; you can’t be organized, under control and perfect all the time. You are entitled to being human every once in a while you know” Sehun keeps his gaze locked with Luhan’s for a while, until Luhan starts blinking dazedly –probably because he is tired.

“That’s an interesting way to put it…” Luhan mumbles, picking up his jacket from a nearby chair and heading for the elevator with swift, calm steps. Sehun follows him slowly, with his hands jammed in his pockets, wondering how large Luhan’s personal space radius is.

Staring at the back of his blond head, Sehun decides that the radius can’t be too large; since Luhan is a small person.

--

Kyungsoo brushes his teeth idly, staring at his reflection in his bathroom mirror without really seeing anything. He needs a good night’s sleep. The past week has been exhausting and stressful –partly thanks to a certain Baekhyun, who asked for blue roses all of a sudden and Kyungsoo had to search in every flower shop in the city to find them. The whole preparation process for any event takes its toll on Kyungsoo, and he can’t help but wonder every time how Baekhyun does it; how he can handle so much -if not more than that- pressure with his little, soft heart and still be smiling at the end of the day.

Kyungsoo rinses his teeth and then glances at the reflection of the room behind him. His eyes settle on the suit he has picked to wear tomorrow. It’s expensive and fancy enough, pretty and well-tailored; hopefully, it will make him look good enough.

Not that he wants to look better than usual, of course, there is no reason for that. There isn’t, okay? Idiots are not reasons, they are just idiots, a burden to humanity. It’s just that there will be many rich people around and he would like to make a decent impression. Yeah, that should be it.

He shifts his gaze in the mirror to look at his face. He pokes his eye bags with a finger and then leans closer to the mirror, examining his dark circles. These had better been gone by tomorrow; he needs to look good. Generally speaking.

The neighbor’s cat slips in through the door of his bathroom and starts circling his feet, pressing its body on his calves. That sneaky, furry, caress-addicted little thing, its owners will be looking for it again…But Kyungsoo is too tired to worry about the cat right now. He looks back at his reflection and practices a few welcoming lines, monitoring the tone of his voice and the moves of his eyebrows. When it finally sounds like he had imagined it, he arranges his features into a smile.

‘Smile for me, Soo!’

What did just cross his mind?

Oh, he knows what it was, he just doesn’t want to admit it. That idiot’s notes are poisonous; they are starting to infiltrate his system…He will never read another note, he won’t even glance at them for pretenses’ sake from now on. Never ever.

But as he keeps on glaring at the frozen smile, he starts to think. Is this what Kai meant by smile? Is this what he wants to see? Does it look…good enough? Is this smile good enough? Keeping his lips in a smile, he turns to the only –furry– friend he has available.

“What do you think?” he asks through his teeth, trying not to ruin the smile, looking down at the cat. The cat only looks back, nonresponsive. Ugh, what did he expect…

“I think I’m going crazy” he mumbles, dropping the smile, and then he looks back at the mirror. “You are going crazy, Do Kyungsoo!” he accuses his reflection, pointing a finger at it threateningly “You are going crazy and I am not so sure whose fault it is”

Maybe his genes are crazy-prone, maybe Baekhyun is conducting some weird psychology experiment on him, maybe he is just tired from work, maybe it’s the cat meowing annoyingly every morning.

But, probably, it’s the idiot’s fault; making him go crazy with everything he says and does, with each of his lithe dancer steps, with every lustful kiss, with the cute notes, with the affection in his soft caresses and the need in his rough pulls, with the persistence to make him breakfast, with his sultry smile, with his beautiful gleaming eyes, with his very existence and his every breath on this earth.

--

Chanyeol flops on his bed. His skin is cool from the shower he just took and the bed sheets are a bit cold too, but they are warming up quickly, creating a comforting feeling on his skin. He buries his head even deeper in the pillows; lying down feels so good after a tiring day at work.

He remains still for a while, enjoying the peace and quiet of his large, dark bedroom. His eyes open and close slowly, lazily, like a cat next to a fireplace, and his thoughts travel down happy paths, sometimes losing sense, but he doesn’t let himself fall asleep quite yet. Everything is set for tomorrow; his suit is ironed to perfection, his shoes are polished, he has decided what he will do with his hair and the only thing remaining is to pick a tie. This will be tricky, but he will have enough time for that tomorrow.

He wants to look perfect –not so much for the gala, people will be happy to see him there anyway, but because he will meet his heartbreaker Baekhyun again! He feels so excited! Baekhyun will look polished and every bit as perfect as the universe made him and he will wish Chanyeol, with those little, soft, pink lips of his, happy birthday; Chanyeol lives and breathes waiting for that moment.

Ah, those lips…Chanyeol was having a hard time concentrating on eating and chatting inconspicuously while Baekhyun was sitting right across from him, smiling and eating. I mean, he was right across…Who knew that Chanyeol could have so many thoughts just by looking at someone eating spaghetti?

How his lips opened and closed in pretty circles and lines, and how they rested softly around the metal fork, and how the tips of the fork plunged slightly on his lips when he rested it against them, and how cutely they let out his voice, and how dazzlingly they smile…Chanyeol sighs in the silence of his room.

Just like his night ritual proceeds, he takes his phone from the bedside table. His fingers move quickly on their own, until the message appears on the screen. It’s been almost a month, yet he still feels butterflies in his stomach.

This is new to Chanyeol; he has not felt like this for that long a period of time, neither with such intensity. He wants Baekhyun, he wants to hold him in his arms and kiss him and make him smile and then kiss him again.

Kiss?! Times three?!

Chanyeol feels vaguely shocked by his own thoughts, but he is too lethargic to have any physical reaction. These sort of thoughts has become more frequent recently…Is it strange that he wants something like that? Is it strange that he wants to hold and kiss Baekhyun every time he sees him? That he wants to make him laugh and sigh and blush, and then run his fingers over every inch of that porcelain, pinked skin on his beautiful face?

He’s too tired to decide whether it’s strange or not, but he knows he wants it either way.

Chanyeol leaves the phone carefully on the bedside table again and turns on his side to sleep. “Goodnight, Baekhyun” he mumbles sleepily with a smile.

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a/n. A bit of everything in this chapter, I hope you enjoyed it! (Guest staring in this chapter: the neighbor’s cat; yey for cats!!!) Next update will probably be on Channie’s birthday (I’m shamelessly taking advantage of the random fact that my plot works well with the actual date, hehe), so stay tuned!

Did you ever have a professor obsessed with experiments and stuff? I have about a dozen of them and I am not happy about it…As for Chanyeol’s thoughts of dubious orientation, let’s not forget that he used to be interested in girls all his life before Baekhyun, and I’ve told you he’s not as smart as you are, so you get the picture (snail speed processing…)

Subscribe and vote if you liked it! Comments are appreciated too. Until next time, kitty