For the past four years of their relationship, there was not one thing that Chanyeol dreaded more than Baekhyun’s birthday. Or rather, what to get him. Whenever Chanyeol would ask, Baekhyun would simply reply: “I already have everything I want.”

Well, that made things so much simpler, didn’t it? What was Chanyeol supposed to get for somebody who has everything he ever wanted at the age of twenty-three? For the past four years, Chanyeol had struggled to find his love the perfect gift, but whenever Baekhyun’s birthday came around, he was less than satisfied with the gift he had prepared; each year, he was ashamed to give Baekhyun the present he had prepared.

“I don’t see why you panic so much whenever it’s my birthday,” Baekhyun would tell him, year after year. “Anything you give me, I’ll love.”

Year after year, Chanyeol would briefly entertain the idea of wrapping himself in brightly coloured ribbon and presenting himself to Baekhyun in place of an actual present – for somebody who already has everything, Chanyeol included, surely Baekhyun would appreciate that kind of gift far more than anything else.

But as Baekhyun’s birthday drew nearer, Chanyeol chickened out. Every. Single. Year.

This year, however, was going to be different. Chanyeol had spent weeks planning the perfect birthday for his love; first they were going to go visit the botanical gardens; Chanyeol planned a list of Baekhyun’s favourite movies to save onto his laptop. There would be nothing nicer than sitting under a tall willow, a blanket draped over their legs, the dapple of sunlight peering through the leaves and the warm spring air fresh and clean.

Then, they would go on a horse and carriage ride around the city and take a walk along the Han river in the starlight. Following the starlight stroll, they would head off to a candlelit dinner at the most expensive restaurant in the entire city; Chanyeol had made a reservation months prior to ensure his Baekhyun had a magical night.

But there was one thing still missing. A present. Something personal that Baekhyun could keep forever.

“Why not just make him something?” Jongdae had suggested on multiple occasions, whenever his friend would mention the subject of his partners’ birthday. “It’s as they say - handmade gift is a gift from the heart.”

In most cases, Chanyeol would dismiss his friend with a wave of his hand, but not this time. This time, he took Jongdae’s words into consideration. Chanyeol knew that the one thing Baekhyun didn’t have was something that could be made by hand; crafted with love. But one question still remained – what was Chanyeol to make?

Chanyeol wasn’t sure how many hours he had devoted to making Baekhyun’s present, but he was certain that when he was finished, it would be absolutely perfect. He thought that he would never set foot inside a craft store; after all, that wasn’t his thing. But this present (and his determination to make it) had proved him wrong.

On his way home from work each afternoon, Chanyeol would stop past and scan the shelves, double and triple checking to see that he had not forgotten anything during his previous trips into the cluttered store.

Chanyeol learned quite a lot of things from the time he spent browsing the shelves – there were at least a hundred different names for the colour green; each one looked identical in shade but differed greatly in price. He learned that certain markers smelled like fruit and took particular care to select Baekhyun’s favourite scent.

He learned that he was particularly fond of crinkle cut scissors and spent much longer than he had intended carefully t the edges of the testing paper. When the shop keeper came to see if he needed any help, Chanyeol insisted that he was merely checking if the scissors worked and left shortly after with six pairs, eager to avoid any further questions from a very amused shop keeper.

For many nights in a row, long after Baekhyun had gone to bed, Chanyeol would sit up at the kitchen table, his shoulders hunched in concentration as he worked on his birthday surprise. The day was drawing nearer and Chanyeol wondered if he would be finished in time.

Off cuts of craft paper littered the surface of the kitchen table and scattered around his feet, the edges cut in perfect waves.

A small pile of failed present attempts lay in the corner of the table farthest away from Chanyeol. The calligraphy on each piece of discarded craft paper was slightly off.  It wasn’t perfect. But it had to be.

Chanyeol groaned, dragging his fingertips through his hair in frustration. A handmade gift was far more difficult than he could have imagined. Why did he listen to Jongdae in the first place? He should have just gotten a ribbon and wrapped himself up as a gift instead. That would have been far simpler.

Closing his eyes, Chanyeol sighed. No matter how difficult it was to make a handmade gift, his Bunny was worth the effort. After all, Jongdae was right. A handmade gift really is a gift from the heart.

With his hands in the pockets of his jacket, Chanyeol hesitated in front of the craft store on his way home from work. Standing on his tip toes, he peered over the display in the window, carefully checking to see if the shop keeper was nearby.

He had been careful to avoid the store in the days following his crinkle cut scissor splurge, but with one day to go before Baekhyun’s birthday, Chanyeol wanted to be absolutely certain that he had not forgotten anything.

After making sure the shop keeper was nowhere in sight, Chanyeol made his way into the store and paced the aisles, scanning each object carefully. Would he need paint? Would he need felt? A canvas? Sequins?

Coming to a halt in the middle of an aisle, Chanyeol frowned. He had certainly found his fallback in case his hand made gift was a failure, however, he would have to ask the shop keeper for assistance with it. Cussing quietly, he his heel and stalked back to the counter, a roll of silk black ribbon in his hand.

Dropping it onto the counter, Chanyeol did his best to keep a straight face. The shop keeper knew what he was making for Baekhyun, but if he thought the purchase of several pairs of crinkle cut scissors were strange, surely he would think ribbon – black, no less – was an odd addition.

“Two meters, please,” Chanyeol muttered, looking at anything but the man behind the counter.

“You just want to wrap the present, don’t you?” the other responded, surprised. “Two meters seems like an awful lot of ribbon for something like that.”

Chanyeol flushed. He didn’t want to tell the shop keeper that the ribbon was to wrap himself up in if his handmade gift was a failure. Although something told him that the man behind the counter already knew what he had planned to use the ribbon for.

“No,” he replied, shifting from one foot to the other, eager to escape into the busy street once more. “Two meters is perfect.”

Baekhyun didn’t sleep that night. He wanted to but couldn’t. For the past two weeks, Chanyeol had been working so hard on something – something that Baekhyun wasn’t allowed to know about. After dinner each night, he would be shooed from the kitchen, Chanyeol excused himself from their usual evening time together in order to barricade himself in the kitchen. Whenever Baekhyun would ask why, Chanyeol would explain he had to write a report for work.

Chanyeol would wait until he was settled on the couch, bring him out a cup of tea, kiss his forehead and then disappear back into the kitchen to work on his ‘report’.

Baekhyun wasn’t stupid. Chanyeol didn’t need strawberry scented markers to write a report, nor did he need fancy craft scissors, both of which he had a habit of leaving lying around (and then insisting they were for work whenever Baekhyun asked him about it).

Closing his eyes, Baekhyun smiled to himself. He couldn’t sleep because he was excited. Chanyeol had spent two weeks working on a handmade gift for his birthday and even though Baekhyun had not the slightest idea as to what the present would be, he was certain it would be the best present he had ever received.

Why?

Because it was from Chanyeol.

Baekhyun squirmed with excitement as he sat up in bed, his back propped up by a pillow. Chanyeol had prepared a delicious breakfast in bed to start off the day, a small flower in an even smaller vase sat in the corner of the breakfast tray. Three napkins had been folded into paper cranes; only one of them was clean.

The other two Chanyeol had drawn over - decorated with the tiniest writing he could muster; letters that Baekhyun spent so much time reading and re-reading that Chanyeol had to remind him that his breakfast was going cold.

My darling Bunny, one letter read.

Do you know what today is? It’s your birthday! Not a day goes by where I am not thankful for your existence. Your smile brightens even the darkest of days, your cuddles are what I live for. Coming home to you every night makes a long day at work bearable. I don’t know if I can accurately put into words just how much I love you, but just know that I do.

I love you to the moon and back.
Happy birthday.

Chanyeol

Baekhyun’s lips curled up into a wide smile as he placed the crumpled napkin in his lap. Chanyeol had certainly gone the extra mile this year to make sure everything was perfect. Was this what he had stayed up into the early hours of the morning doing? Writing on napkins?

Maybe he had scattered them throughout the house and Baekhyun would be tasked with locating each and every one? That seemed like a lot of fun. Briefly, Baekhyun wondered if they all said the same thing. Did Chanyeol write the same message on each napkin in beautiful calligraphy?

Ignoring Chanyeol’s reminder about his breakfast going cold, Baekhyun reached for the second crane, unfolding the fragile origami bird with care. Smoothing it out over his lap, Baekhyun couldn’t help but laugh. In the center of the napkin was a crude drawing of the two of them in green marker, tiny pink love hearts encircled them; the scent of strawberries clung to the paper.

Chanyeol wasn’t the most artistic of people, but Baekhyun absolutely loved the drawing. Turning the napkin over, Baekhyun laughed again. Scrawled hastily on the back in the same green marker were the words: ‘apparently this colour is mint. Do you like mint?’

Chanyeol had certainly learned a lot from his frequent trips to the craft store, Baekhyun concluded. And that would certainly explain his love for crinkle cut craft scissors. Placing the second napkin carefully atop the first, Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol, and for the second time that morning he laughed.

“I like mint,” he said with a smile. “But I like you more.”

Following breakfast, Baekhyun was ushered from the house without so much as a clue from Chanyeol for what the day would entail. The entire journey to the botanical gardens, Baekhyun tried his hardest to trick Chanyeol into giving him answers but the Giant did not cave in to the others questioning.

“Please~” Baekhyun whined, his arm linked tightly around Chanyeol’s as they walked from the train station. “Please tell me?”

A broad grin spread across Chanyeol’s face and he shook his head, tapping the tip of his nose with a finger. “That is for me to know and you to find out, Baek.”

Baekhyun allowed his shoulders to slump in defeat and pouted. Chanyeol won – he would just have to wait. No amount of prying was going to crack the Giant. With a low chuckle, Chanyeol stooped down, placing a quick kiss on Baekhyun’s lips, the pout disappearing immediately.

Chanyeol had made sure to wake extra early that morning in order to save as many of Baekhyun’s favourite movies onto his laptop’s hard drive as possible. Fantasy, Science Fiction, Action – everything Baekhyun liked about a film, they were all there. He wanted to make sure his Bunny had a selection of his favourite movies to pick from when they got to the botanical gardens.

The moment they crested the hill and the uppermost branches of the tall willow tree came into sight, Baekhyun’s eyes lit up.

“A picnic?” he asked excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Chanyeol nodded – Baekhyun had caught on fast. “Yes,” he said, patting his shoulder bag gently so as not to crush the lunch that he had prepared for them both. “But that’s not all of it.”

Unfurling the tattered old picnic blanket that Chanyeol was sure had been with his family for many years, he spread it across the ground. Waiting for Baekhyun to take a seat, he folded the long blanket across so that it covered their legs. It might have been almost summer, but the May air was still quite cool.

After making sure Baekhyun was comfortable, Chanyeol set about unpacking their lunch and organizing his laptop.

“What would you like to watch first, Baek?” he asked with a smile. To his surprise, Baekhyun grinned in response, wrapping an arm around his waist.

“I want to watch you.”

This time, it was Chanyeol’s turn to pout. “You can watch me later,” he whined. He was certain Baekhyun was being cheeky on purpose. “But for now, please pick a movie.”

The horse and carriage ride was far more than Baekhyun expected. He and Chanyeol sat side by side in the carriage, a warm blanket draped across their legs. The canvas roof of the carriage had been folded back, allowing a beautiful view of the city streets.

The world around them seemed to slow down as the two clydesdales trotted through the city. The normally fast paced city environment seemed to fall into step with the two steeds’ rhythmic hoof beats against the asphalt.

One two, clop, clop.

As the horse drawn carriage wound its way through the twisting streets, Baekhyun gazed out at the passing scenery. No matter who they passed, the curious faces of strangers peered at them. Baekhyun nudged Chanyeol eagerly.

“They’re all staring,” he whispered. “I bet they’re jealous.”

Chanyeol followed Baekhyun’s gaze before a small smile tugged the corners of his lips upwards. “Of course they’re staring,” he whispered back. “They’re staring because you’re beautiful. They have every right to be jealous, too – I can’t even begin to tell you how lucky I am that you’re mine.”

Baekhyun felt his cheeks heat up. Lifting himself off the carriage seat, he placed a quick kiss on Chanyeol’s lips.

“Not as lucky as I am knowing that you are mine.”

Baekhyun couldn’t have asked for a more perfect evening.  The sky was alight in hues of purple and red, the sunset reflected in the crystal waters of the Han River. Long after the sun had dipped behind the horizon and the street lamps golden glow shimmered and refracted against the glassy water of the river, Chanyeol and Baekhyun made their way slowly towards their final destination for the evening.

Coming to a halt out the front of the restaurant, Baekhyun frowned, his head tilting to the side. Noticing this, a broad grin spread across Chanyeol’s face and he moved swiftly to the large glass door and opened it, one hand tucked neatly behind his back as though he were a waiter.

“This way, kind sir,” he cooed, watching as Baekhyun’s look of confusion changed into one of disbelief.

“You didn’t – “ Baekhyun began. “There’s no way! This place has been booked out for –“

“Months,” Chanyeol finished smoothly. “I know. Sometimes, I’ve been known to plan ahead.”

“Would you like your present now?” Chanyeol asked, shifting nervously on the spot. He watched Baekhyun nod eagerly and instantly, the pit of his stomach began to churn anxiously. Both of his hands were tucked behind his back; in one, he held the handmade gift contained within an envelope and in the other, the length of black silk ribbon.

Drawing in a deep breath, he passed Baekhyun the envelope, watching carefully as the other quickly took the gift from his hand and opened it. Inside the envelope was a small polaroid photograph, one that had been taken during their very first date. The words ‘I love you’ were scrawled down the side of the photograph in marker. Baekhyun smiled.

“And what colour green is this?” he asked, gesturing to the polaroid, a glint of amusement in his eyes. Chanyeol flushed a deep shade of scarlet.

“Shamrock,” he replied quietly, looking down at his feet.

“Shamrock,” Baekhyun mused, placing the polaroid on the couch next to him. Peering into the envelope once more, he paused. “Is this what you have been working on all those nights, Yeol?”

Chanyeol nodded nervously, preparing himself for the worst. What if Baekhyun hated it? He would have to laugh the present off as a gag and then excuse himself from the living room to prepare his back up gift.

Baekhyun slid the small ring-bound booklet from the envelope, his eyes filled with curiosity, and leafed through it. Coupons. Each small square of paper had something different written on it in beautiful calligraphy, a small - relatively crude - drawing of what each coupon was used for decorated the corner of each.

Breakfast in bed for my Bunny: expires after five uses.

Twenty minute back massage: expires after three uses.

An apology, even when I’m right: expires after one use only. (Use it wisely.)

“That one will definitely come in handy,” Baekhyun teased, his eyes not once leaving the coupons, a wicked smile on his face. Chanyeol instantly regretted adding that one.

A day trip to wherever you want to go (I promise I won’t complain): expires after two uses.

A free hug: expires after twenty uses. (Although I will still give them to you even after you’ve used your last coupon.)

A piggyback ride: expires after four uses.

My love.

Baekhyun frowned, turning the final coupon over, scanning the back of the paper to check if Chanyeol had written anything else.

“What about this one?” he asked, holding the slip of paper out to his Giant. “When does this expire?”

“Never,” Chanyeol grinned taking a seat on the couch next to Baekhyun. Wrapping his arms around the others waist, he placed a trail of butterfly kisses down Baekhyun’s neck. A small smile tugged the corners of Baekhyun’s lips upwards.

“Can I use that one now, then?” he asked, batting his eyelids innocently.

Chanyeol grinned. “You can.”

Ahahahaha oh wow.
I can't cute/romance/fluff.
Sorry in advance.

Alternative summary:
50 Shades of Green,
oppa Chanyeol style.
*box of shame*