five steps forward, five steps back [Kai/Baekhyun] (1/2)
five steps forward, five steps back
Kai/Baekhyun, with some Chen/Suho, Lu Han, Sehun; PG; 6,508w
Fluff, Crack (?), Romance, Friendship
Baekhyun learns that everyone is looking for someone. Even himself.
Written for kei17 because she wrote me really cute KaiBaek and I'm returning the favor. I hope you like this, bb. ♥♥♥
Two parts because LJ is crap.
five steps forward, five steps back
Baekhyun makes a living by matching people. He takes pride in knowing, seeing people as soon as they walk into the makeshift office of whatislove.com and sensing what kind of partner they‘re looking for. He senses it in the walk they walk, the uncomfortable shift in their seats when they finally sit down, their decisions in whether they’d rather drink juice over coffee or water… of course he also interviews them, so there’s that. Still, Baekhyun thinks he has a gift of bringing people together and that makes him feel like he’s living quite a fulfilled life.
He sits back in his desk in satisfaction as the couple, one irregularly tall, gangly and puppy-looking male cooing over a tiny, fluffy wide-eyed seemingly little boy (but of course, he’s of age, Baekhyun likes to keep himself out of jail) recounts their love story. Baekhyun watches as Chanyeol fusses over Kyungsoo, making sure that he’s sitting comfortably or that his necktie isn’t on too tight or that his hair isn’t combed enough; and while Kyungsoo seems to shy away from all of this, Baekhyun can see the adoration that he has for Chanyeol, confirmed by the very minute touches that he gives him in return. And this, this, is exactly why he loves to do what he does. It makes him believe over and over again that love does exist, that not everyone is doomed to single-blessedness like he is.
For some reason, although helping other people find their match and seeing them all happy and in love gives him a sense of satisfaction, at the end of the day, it almost makes him sick to his stomach because he thinks it’s something he can never have. It is probably cliché but Baekhyun thinks that if his parents, who seemed so in love in the early years of their marriage, being high school sweethearts and all that, can break up and act like they’d always been strangers, what makes him think that love can happen for him? Happily ever afters only exist in fairytales and, even then, no one just really bothers to know what happens after happily ever after. Another thing is that, he can’t very well match himself because well, weird. So he chokes it up to the back of his mind and heart and just trudges on, living off of the happiness of everyone else whom he’s helped find love.
“You could’ve dated Chanyeol, you know,” Jongin tells him, bit of samgyupsal making its way over to Baekhyun’s plate from his mouth. He takes a swig of his beer and swallows. “Chanyeol is your type.”
“Who’s Chanyeol?” Jongdae, their tiny (Jongin scoffs at Baekhyun, “you’re tiny”) friend, whom they both think is overpaid for a greeting card writer.
“What do you know about my type?” Baekhyun snaps, glaring at Jongin and deliberately ignoring Jongdae. If he didn’t need an assistant to run his humble dating company, he would’ve chucked Jongin out of the first window that he’d seen. But, alas, he doesn’t know anyone who is as good at organization, handling documentation and fixing up the website as Jongin is. He also doesn’t have any other choice. Sehun would rather die than be associated with anything lovey dovey, which is ironic because he always gets drooly and becomes gaga whenever Lu Han, another one of their friends, walks into a room. Traitor.
Jongin laughs really loudly, practically spewing beer all over the place, making Jongdae scoot farther away from him, and Baekhyun wonders how he can bear to be seen with such an uncouth human being. Baekhyun is a decent person and makes a decent living making other people find their happiness and here is Jongin, disgusting and just plain caveman, trying to make his life worse by spitting beer all over him. Sometimes he thinks that he needs better people to hang out with. Maybe that’s the reason why he hasn’t found anyone special in his life because all the bad vibes that is Jongin is shooing all his good karma away.
“Your type is easy,” Jongin wiggles his eyebrows so knowingly that Baekhyun is unable to stop himself when he throws a big piece of lettuce on his face, combined with a piece of samgyupsal and a chunk of rice. Jongin ducks, though, and all his effort is wasted. “You want someone who looks after you, who assures you that your hair is in place or that your eyeliner isn’t smudged, or that your teeth are white enough. You want someone to remind you of your appointments or to help you with filing things or remind you to pay your bills. You want someone who carries your bag for you when it’s too heavy or pulls you to his side in case an incoming bus comes careening at you. You want someone to yell at when things get too stressful or when things don’t go your way. You want someone to hold your hand and squeeze it to assure you that things will be okay, that it’ll all work out in the end.” Jongin pauses, eyes squinting, and Baekhyun ignores that hard thudding of his heart in his chest because Jongin is pretty spot on with everything he’s said so far. “You want…”
Baekhyun swallows nervously as he presses for more. “What?”
“You want… a slave.”
Jongin bursts into peals of laughter as Baekhyun’s mouth hangs open. He narrows his eyes at him and prepares to launch himself on his so-called friend to maybe strangle him to death when Jongin slumps over the table, mouth open, clearly passed out. Baekhyun screams in frustration at not being able to carry out his plans and shoots his anger at Jongdae instead.
“What are you laughing at?” Baekhyun glowers.
And because Baekhyun really has horrible taste in friends, Jongdae gives him a serene smile and says, “You. I’m laughing at you, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun proceeds to strangle him instead.
-
Baekhyun stomps around the office long enough before Jongin grabs his elbow and confronts him about it. It’s taken Jongin a whole morning to ask about it, which is quite surprising in Baekhyun’s opinion because, normally, Jongin would snap at him and push him on a chair, demanding him to stop moving. He defiantly juts his chin out and pokes his tongue at him because he knows it’s something that Jongin finds extremely childish and he waits for him to sneer at him or something. Instead, Jongin steps away and moves to file the newer application forms that they’ve printed out from the website. Baekhyun narrows his eyes at his back for a second before giving up and sauntering over to his desk to review the form of the client he is meeting that afternoon.
“Wu Yifan, 22,” Baekhyun muses loudly as he reads over the application. He continues reading through the file and then proceeds to browse through their database for a possible match. He furrows his eyebrows when he sees Lu Han’s name on their list and swivels his chair around towards Jongin. “Since when is Lu Han a client of ours?”
Jongin smirks. “Everyone is looking for someone, you know. Even Lu Han isn’t immune to finding his one true love,” he tells him, placing a couple of folders he’s finished stuffing with applications on the shelf. He turns to face Baekhyun, who was giving him a thoughtful look. “What?”
“What about you?” Baekhyun asks, unsure why he’s never thought of asking Jongin before. They’ve known each other for years, having been roommates in college. It then startles him when he realizes that he doesn’t know much about Jongin’s love life, except for the fact that he once dated that creepy stalker dancer, Taemin, whom he’s put a restraining order against. “Are you looking for someone, too?”
Jongin shrugs, turning away to then shuffle some papers that Baekhyun is pretty sure are just crap they have lying around to pretend that their dating office is overflowing with requests and applications. “You’re really cute, you know,” Jongin starts.
“What--?” Baekhyun straightens up in his seat.
“Too bad you’re deaf,” Jongin faces him again, rolling his eyes. “I just said that everyone is looking for someone, dimwit. So I guess the answer is yes, okay.” He mumbles a couple more words under his breath before walking out of the office for an early lunch. Baekhyun doesn’t even get the chance to be offended at his words because he most certainly isn’t deaf.
-
“Oh I don’t think you’re deaf,” Jongdae consoles him when Baekhyun recounts the details of the reason why his friends are going to find Jongin’s body in a ditch somewhere. Baekhyun starts to smile because sometimes his friends actually seem to be nice people and actually make sense. “You’re just blind,” he finishes.
Except when they’re not. Baekhyun clenches his fist and fights the urge to knock Jongdae off his couch. He’s kind enough to invite Jongdae over to watch some Disney movies, which Lu Han politely declined when he found out that they were watching Bambi, and this is what he gets instead. Some more continuous ribbing. He really hates his friends sometimes.
“I really hate you sometimes,” Baekhyun voices out and Jongdae doesn’t seem to care because he just laughs and snuggles even more on the couch.
“Sure you do,” Jongdae grins. “But that means you love us most of the time, right?”
“Never,” Baekhyun resolutely answers, but he pauses to think about it. He’s reminded of Sehun saying no to every favor he asks from him, sees Lu Han’s cheeky grin when he steals another one of his designer shirts, watches Jongdae deny them of sharing the high pay that he has, and Jongin… well, Jongin is Jongin so he doesn’t need anymore explanation than that. He nods in confirmation. “Yeah. Never.” He then realizes how ridiculous Jongdae’s question is and makes a face at him.
“Aww,” Jongdae pouts and flutters his eyelashes at him. “Because I’m sure some of us love you a little more than most of the time.”
Baekhyun stares at him. “How you are a greeting card writer, I will never know. You’re the worst. If the people I match used your words to woo people, I’d be out of business,” he states, shaking his head.
Jongdae huffs. “Joonmyun likes my work thankyouverymuch so your opinion doesn’t matter at all.” He pokes his tongue out for good measure.
“Joonmyun just likes you,” Baekhyun declares. “Meanwhile, your work is just plain awful. Which is unfair because there are far more qualified people in your line of work to get pay raises.”
“I still maintain that you’re blind,” Jongdae snaps and turns away from him just as Bambi meets Thumper. He then lifts his head up and looks at Baekhyun again. “On second thought, you are deaf, too.”
Baekhyun retaliates by slamming a throw pillow on his face.
-
Baekhyun is extra irritable that day. He’s not sure what it is but seeing Jongin walk into the office, wearing a white low cut shirt, horrible tan collarbones exposed so impertinently, over a pair of black tight jeans, seems to just make him even more short-tempered. He immediately snaps at Jongin, throwing disorganized documents on his desk and telling him off for not changing the images on their website. Jongin’s eyes widen a bit at him but merely follow his orders, shuffling over to his desk.
Jongin’s shirt rides up a bit as he bends to the floor to pick up the scattered papers, exposing a bit of the smoothness of his lower back. He wears black Calvin Klein underwear and Baekhyun pinches the bridge of his nose because ohmygod why is Jongin so disgustingly underdressed that day. They don’t have an office dress code, but Baekhyun at least believes that they should at least come fully clothed. Maybe he should also add that no one should wear tight-fitting clothes at work too as the curves of Jongin’s ass become more pronounced each time he picks up a sheet of paper off the floor.
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Baekhyun yells and Jongin freezes. Baekhyun coughs because he knows he’s overreacted and laughs nervously when Jongin stands up to face him, an eyebrow raised. “I was just…practicing.”
“Practicing,” Jongin repeats and there’s a ghost of a smile threatening to take over his face.
“I’m joining this…play for, uh, this…thing, and I have to get really really mad about something and just scream THAT’S ENOUGH,” Baekhyun hastily (and very lamely) explains.
Jongin crosses his arms over his chest and sits on the edge of his desk, placing the gathered papers on it. “Oh really,” he snickers. “What do you get mad about?”
Baekhyun shrugs carelessly. “Just this officemate who looks disgusting in his low-neck shirt and really tight pants and-“ Baekhyun covers his mouth and makes a sound like a dying whale because he didn’t just reveal that he’s been checking Jongin out all along.
Jongin feigns innocence and Baekhyun feels relieved because he thinks Jongin is stupid. “So what happens next?” Jongin asks, getting off his desk, and sauntering over to Baekhyun, who gulps because Jongin is now leaning over him and he can see the flat and muscular planes of his chest because of his damn shirt and it looks so golden that Baekhyun wants to-he slaps a paper on Jongin’s face instead.
Baekhyun smiles contentedly as he watches Jongin sputter in indignation and takes a few moments to regain his composure. Jongin peels the sheet of paper off his face and looks at it, frowning as he reads it through.
“What is this?” Jongin waves the piece of paper dangerously close to Baekhyun’s face that he’s afraid he’s going to get a paper cut on his porcelain white cheeks.
Baekhyun grabs the paper, creasing it in the process just to protect his pretty face. “It’s a date,” he growls. “You can read, you know.”
Jongin’s eyes narrow into slits. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Go out with him,” Baekhyun waves him off and turns to face his desk. “I need you out of my hair.”
The office is suddenly quiet and the hairs on Baekhyun’s neck stand on end because the last time the office has been this quiet was only because Jongin had accidentally smashed one of the computers with the baseball bat that he’d gotten as a present from Sehun and was afraid that Baekhyun would murder him when he found out. Baekhyun didn’t murder him. But Jongin did get a black eye and a bloodied lip.
Baekhyun slowly turns around in his seat, expecting for something horrifying to come flying at him because Jongin is a caveman, a childish one at that, and he’s not going to put it past him not to send some fake insects towards him. But all he sees is Jongin standing there, paper still in hand. He gives Baekhyun a look that Baekhyun isn’t sure what to name as.
“Are you sure about this?” Jongin asks, and Baekhyun thinks it’s the weirdest thing that Jongin’s ever asked or said to him.
“Of course I’m sure,” Baekhyun answers. “I’m good at what I do, you know. I’ve gone through your preferences, likes, dislikes, hobbies and all that jazz. You two are perfect for each other. He dances, too, and likes to eat the same things that you do. He’s also a bit slow so I really think you two will get along fine.” He claps and flashes his pearly whites at him because he’s a genius. The moment he met Zhang Yixing, Baekhyun knew that he and Jongin were a match made in Baekhyun’s heaven.
Jongin continues to stand there, looking torn about something, before he nods and glances at the clock. “I guess I should go and prepare then,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Baekhyun rolls his eyes and shoos him away. But before Jongin reaches the door, he stops him, by standing up and making his way over, hands on Jongin’s biceps. “Be good, okay? My reputation is on the line here,” he insists even when Jongin makes a face. “Wear that nice gray shirt you have and the nice black blazer that I bought for you that time I forced you to go shopping with me.” He glances down quickly at Jongin’s jeans before lifting his eyes off of it. “Those jeans will do. Please wear proper shoes, preferably black and not rubber shoes, Jongin. Also, put your hair up.” Baekhyun’s fingers lightly brush Jongin’s bangs off his forehead and his hand shakes so he puts them down and stuffs it in his pocket. “Because your hair looks sexy pushed back.” Jongin sniggers and Baekhyun’s cheeks pink because quoting movie lines in real life is just embarrassingly lame. “Just go,” he demands, pushing Jongin out of the office before he can say anything else.
He then sits back down in front of his desk and wonders why his hands are tingling all over.
-
Part 2
Kai/Baekhyun, with some Chen/Suho, Lu Han, Sehun; PG; 6,508w
Fluff, Crack (?), Romance, Friendship
Baekhyun learns that everyone is looking for someone. Even himself.
Written for kei17 because she wrote me really cute KaiBaek and I'm returning the favor. I hope you like this, bb. ♥♥♥
Two parts because LJ is crap.
five steps forward, five steps back
Baekhyun makes a living by matching people. He takes pride in knowing, seeing people as soon as they walk into the makeshift office of whatislove.com and sensing what kind of partner they‘re looking for. He senses it in the walk they walk, the uncomfortable shift in their seats when they finally sit down, their decisions in whether they’d rather drink juice over coffee or water… of course he also interviews them, so there’s that. Still, Baekhyun thinks he has a gift of bringing people together and that makes him feel like he’s living quite a fulfilled life.
He sits back in his desk in satisfaction as the couple, one irregularly tall, gangly and puppy-looking male cooing over a tiny, fluffy wide-eyed seemingly little boy (but of course, he’s of age, Baekhyun likes to keep himself out of jail) recounts their love story. Baekhyun watches as Chanyeol fusses over Kyungsoo, making sure that he’s sitting comfortably or that his necktie isn’t on too tight or that his hair isn’t combed enough; and while Kyungsoo seems to shy away from all of this, Baekhyun can see the adoration that he has for Chanyeol, confirmed by the very minute touches that he gives him in return. And this, this, is exactly why he loves to do what he does. It makes him believe over and over again that love does exist, that not everyone is doomed to single-blessedness like he is.
For some reason, although helping other people find their match and seeing them all happy and in love gives him a sense of satisfaction, at the end of the day, it almost makes him sick to his stomach because he thinks it’s something he can never have. It is probably cliché but Baekhyun thinks that if his parents, who seemed so in love in the early years of their marriage, being high school sweethearts and all that, can break up and act like they’d always been strangers, what makes him think that love can happen for him? Happily ever afters only exist in fairytales and, even then, no one just really bothers to know what happens after happily ever after. Another thing is that, he can’t very well match himself because well, weird. So he chokes it up to the back of his mind and heart and just trudges on, living off of the happiness of everyone else whom he’s helped find love.
“You could’ve dated Chanyeol, you know,” Jongin tells him, bit of samgyupsal making its way over to Baekhyun’s plate from his mouth. He takes a swig of his beer and swallows. “Chanyeol is your type.”
“Who’s Chanyeol?” Jongdae, their tiny (Jongin scoffs at Baekhyun, “you’re tiny”) friend, whom they both think is overpaid for a greeting card writer.
“What do you know about my type?” Baekhyun snaps, glaring at Jongin and deliberately ignoring Jongdae. If he didn’t need an assistant to run his humble dating company, he would’ve chucked Jongin out of the first window that he’d seen. But, alas, he doesn’t know anyone who is as good at organization, handling documentation and fixing up the website as Jongin is. He also doesn’t have any other choice. Sehun would rather die than be associated with anything lovey dovey, which is ironic because he always gets drooly and becomes gaga whenever Lu Han, another one of their friends, walks into a room. Traitor.
Jongin laughs really loudly, practically spewing beer all over the place, making Jongdae scoot farther away from him, and Baekhyun wonders how he can bear to be seen with such an uncouth human being. Baekhyun is a decent person and makes a decent living making other people find their happiness and here is Jongin, disgusting and just plain caveman, trying to make his life worse by spitting beer all over him. Sometimes he thinks that he needs better people to hang out with. Maybe that’s the reason why he hasn’t found anyone special in his life because all the bad vibes that is Jongin is shooing all his good karma away.
“Your type is easy,” Jongin wiggles his eyebrows so knowingly that Baekhyun is unable to stop himself when he throws a big piece of lettuce on his face, combined with a piece of samgyupsal and a chunk of rice. Jongin ducks, though, and all his effort is wasted. “You want someone who looks after you, who assures you that your hair is in place or that your eyeliner isn’t smudged, or that your teeth are white enough. You want someone to remind you of your appointments or to help you with filing things or remind you to pay your bills. You want someone who carries your bag for you when it’s too heavy or pulls you to his side in case an incoming bus comes careening at you. You want someone to yell at when things get too stressful or when things don’t go your way. You want someone to hold your hand and squeeze it to assure you that things will be okay, that it’ll all work out in the end.” Jongin pauses, eyes squinting, and Baekhyun ignores that hard thudding of his heart in his chest because Jongin is pretty spot on with everything he’s said so far. “You want…”
Baekhyun swallows nervously as he presses for more. “What?”
“You want… a slave.”
Jongin bursts into peals of laughter as Baekhyun’s mouth hangs open. He narrows his eyes at him and prepares to launch himself on his so-called friend to maybe strangle him to death when Jongin slumps over the table, mouth open, clearly passed out. Baekhyun screams in frustration at not being able to carry out his plans and shoots his anger at Jongdae instead.
“What are you laughing at?” Baekhyun glowers.
And because Baekhyun really has horrible taste in friends, Jongdae gives him a serene smile and says, “You. I’m laughing at you, Baekhyun.”
Baekhyun proceeds to strangle him instead.
-
Baekhyun stomps around the office long enough before Jongin grabs his elbow and confronts him about it. It’s taken Jongin a whole morning to ask about it, which is quite surprising in Baekhyun’s opinion because, normally, Jongin would snap at him and push him on a chair, demanding him to stop moving. He defiantly juts his chin out and pokes his tongue at him because he knows it’s something that Jongin finds extremely childish and he waits for him to sneer at him or something. Instead, Jongin steps away and moves to file the newer application forms that they’ve printed out from the website. Baekhyun narrows his eyes at his back for a second before giving up and sauntering over to his desk to review the form of the client he is meeting that afternoon.
“Wu Yifan, 22,” Baekhyun muses loudly as he reads over the application. He continues reading through the file and then proceeds to browse through their database for a possible match. He furrows his eyebrows when he sees Lu Han’s name on their list and swivels his chair around towards Jongin. “Since when is Lu Han a client of ours?”
Jongin smirks. “Everyone is looking for someone, you know. Even Lu Han isn’t immune to finding his one true love,” he tells him, placing a couple of folders he’s finished stuffing with applications on the shelf. He turns to face Baekhyun, who was giving him a thoughtful look. “What?”
“What about you?” Baekhyun asks, unsure why he’s never thought of asking Jongin before. They’ve known each other for years, having been roommates in college. It then startles him when he realizes that he doesn’t know much about Jongin’s love life, except for the fact that he once dated that creepy stalker dancer, Taemin, whom he’s put a restraining order against. “Are you looking for someone, too?”
Jongin shrugs, turning away to then shuffle some papers that Baekhyun is pretty sure are just crap they have lying around to pretend that their dating office is overflowing with requests and applications. “You’re really cute, you know,” Jongin starts.
“What--?” Baekhyun straightens up in his seat.
“Too bad you’re deaf,” Jongin faces him again, rolling his eyes. “I just said that everyone is looking for someone, dimwit. So I guess the answer is yes, okay.” He mumbles a couple more words under his breath before walking out of the office for an early lunch. Baekhyun doesn’t even get the chance to be offended at his words because he most certainly isn’t deaf.
-
“Oh I don’t think you’re deaf,” Jongdae consoles him when Baekhyun recounts the details of the reason why his friends are going to find Jongin’s body in a ditch somewhere. Baekhyun starts to smile because sometimes his friends actually seem to be nice people and actually make sense. “You’re just blind,” he finishes.
Except when they’re not. Baekhyun clenches his fist and fights the urge to knock Jongdae off his couch. He’s kind enough to invite Jongdae over to watch some Disney movies, which Lu Han politely declined when he found out that they were watching Bambi, and this is what he gets instead. Some more continuous ribbing. He really hates his friends sometimes.
“I really hate you sometimes,” Baekhyun voices out and Jongdae doesn’t seem to care because he just laughs and snuggles even more on the couch.
“Sure you do,” Jongdae grins. “But that means you love us most of the time, right?”
“Never,” Baekhyun resolutely answers, but he pauses to think about it. He’s reminded of Sehun saying no to every favor he asks from him, sees Lu Han’s cheeky grin when he steals another one of his designer shirts, watches Jongdae deny them of sharing the high pay that he has, and Jongin… well, Jongin is Jongin so he doesn’t need anymore explanation than that. He nods in confirmation. “Yeah. Never.” He then realizes how ridiculous Jongdae’s question is and makes a face at him.
“Aww,” Jongdae pouts and flutters his eyelashes at him. “Because I’m sure some of us love you a little more than most of the time.”
Baekhyun stares at him. “How you are a greeting card writer, I will never know. You’re the worst. If the people I match used your words to woo people, I’d be out of business,” he states, shaking his head.
Jongdae huffs. “Joonmyun likes my work thankyouverymuch so your opinion doesn’t matter at all.” He pokes his tongue out for good measure.
“Joonmyun just likes you,” Baekhyun declares. “Meanwhile, your work is just plain awful. Which is unfair because there are far more qualified people in your line of work to get pay raises.”
“I still maintain that you’re blind,” Jongdae snaps and turns away from him just as Bambi meets Thumper. He then lifts his head up and looks at Baekhyun again. “On second thought, you are deaf, too.”
Baekhyun retaliates by slamming a throw pillow on his face.
-
Baekhyun is extra irritable that day. He’s not sure what it is but seeing Jongin walk into the office, wearing a white low cut shirt, horrible tan collarbones exposed so impertinently, over a pair of black tight jeans, seems to just make him even more short-tempered. He immediately snaps at Jongin, throwing disorganized documents on his desk and telling him off for not changing the images on their website. Jongin’s eyes widen a bit at him but merely follow his orders, shuffling over to his desk.
Jongin’s shirt rides up a bit as he bends to the floor to pick up the scattered papers, exposing a bit of the smoothness of his lower back. He wears black Calvin Klein underwear and Baekhyun pinches the bridge of his nose because ohmygod why is Jongin so disgustingly underdressed that day. They don’t have an office dress code, but Baekhyun at least believes that they should at least come fully clothed. Maybe he should also add that no one should wear tight-fitting clothes at work too as the curves of Jongin’s ass become more pronounced each time he picks up a sheet of paper off the floor.
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Baekhyun yells and Jongin freezes. Baekhyun coughs because he knows he’s overreacted and laughs nervously when Jongin stands up to face him, an eyebrow raised. “I was just…practicing.”
“Practicing,” Jongin repeats and there’s a ghost of a smile threatening to take over his face.
“I’m joining this…play for, uh, this…thing, and I have to get really really mad about something and just scream THAT’S ENOUGH,” Baekhyun hastily (and very lamely) explains.
Jongin crosses his arms over his chest and sits on the edge of his desk, placing the gathered papers on it. “Oh really,” he snickers. “What do you get mad about?”
Baekhyun shrugs carelessly. “Just this officemate who looks disgusting in his low-neck shirt and really tight pants and-“ Baekhyun covers his mouth and makes a sound like a dying whale because he didn’t just reveal that he’s been checking Jongin out all along.
Jongin feigns innocence and Baekhyun feels relieved because he thinks Jongin is stupid. “So what happens next?” Jongin asks, getting off his desk, and sauntering over to Baekhyun, who gulps because Jongin is now leaning over him and he can see the flat and muscular planes of his chest because of his damn shirt and it looks so golden that Baekhyun wants to-he slaps a paper on Jongin’s face instead.
Baekhyun smiles contentedly as he watches Jongin sputter in indignation and takes a few moments to regain his composure. Jongin peels the sheet of paper off his face and looks at it, frowning as he reads it through.
“What is this?” Jongin waves the piece of paper dangerously close to Baekhyun’s face that he’s afraid he’s going to get a paper cut on his porcelain white cheeks.
Baekhyun grabs the paper, creasing it in the process just to protect his pretty face. “It’s a date,” he growls. “You can read, you know.”
Jongin’s eyes narrow into slits. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Go out with him,” Baekhyun waves him off and turns to face his desk. “I need you out of my hair.”
The office is suddenly quiet and the hairs on Baekhyun’s neck stand on end because the last time the office has been this quiet was only because Jongin had accidentally smashed one of the computers with the baseball bat that he’d gotten as a present from Sehun and was afraid that Baekhyun would murder him when he found out. Baekhyun didn’t murder him. But Jongin did get a black eye and a bloodied lip.
Baekhyun slowly turns around in his seat, expecting for something horrifying to come flying at him because Jongin is a caveman, a childish one at that, and he’s not going to put it past him not to send some fake insects towards him. But all he sees is Jongin standing there, paper still in hand. He gives Baekhyun a look that Baekhyun isn’t sure what to name as.
“Are you sure about this?” Jongin asks, and Baekhyun thinks it’s the weirdest thing that Jongin’s ever asked or said to him.
“Of course I’m sure,” Baekhyun answers. “I’m good at what I do, you know. I’ve gone through your preferences, likes, dislikes, hobbies and all that jazz. You two are perfect for each other. He dances, too, and likes to eat the same things that you do. He’s also a bit slow so I really think you two will get along fine.” He claps and flashes his pearly whites at him because he’s a genius. The moment he met Zhang Yixing, Baekhyun knew that he and Jongin were a match made in Baekhyun’s heaven.
Jongin continues to stand there, looking torn about something, before he nods and glances at the clock. “I guess I should go and prepare then,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Baekhyun rolls his eyes and shoos him away. But before Jongin reaches the door, he stops him, by standing up and making his way over, hands on Jongin’s biceps. “Be good, okay? My reputation is on the line here,” he insists even when Jongin makes a face. “Wear that nice gray shirt you have and the nice black blazer that I bought for you that time I forced you to go shopping with me.” He glances down quickly at Jongin’s jeans before lifting his eyes off of it. “Those jeans will do. Please wear proper shoes, preferably black and not rubber shoes, Jongin. Also, put your hair up.” Baekhyun’s fingers lightly brush Jongin’s bangs off his forehead and his hand shakes so he puts them down and stuffs it in his pocket. “Because your hair looks sexy pushed back.” Jongin sniggers and Baekhyun’s cheeks pink because quoting movie lines in real life is just embarrassingly lame. “Just go,” he demands, pushing Jongin out of the office before he can say anything else.
He then sits back down in front of his desk and wonders why his hands are tingling all over.
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Part 2