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willowser · 10 months

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bakugou + strawberries ; 2.7k ੈ‧₊˚ for our meet fruit collab ! ‧₊˚✧ ₊˚

mina suggests speed-dating.

first as a joke — you think — after the two of you spend too many weekends in a row watching sappy rom-coms on her couch while crying into a bowl of trail mix, and then a second time, and then a third time, after you refuse.

in her last attempt, she pulls out the big ones: her upcoming birthday. it will be so fun!! she tells you, with her big eyes and bigger pout, looking at you as if you'd hung the stars by saying yes. it's a cheap shot, really, because she knows you or anyone would do pretty much anything when it comes to mina the birthday girl.

— and that's how you find yourself here, sitting in too nice of an outfit to be spending your allotted time listening to a man bash his ex-girlfriend.

you might have found him a bit cuter if he wasn't doing that, or if he showed even an ounce of interest in you whatsoever. instead, he's treating this like a therapy session, and you're not getting paid for it.

when the timer rings, you're more than thankful. irritated enough, even, to spin around the room in search of mina — who is happily watching on as two men grapple with each other for who gets to sit across from her next. you suppose being a top hero is good for that, finding someone who is willing to give you their all.

to yourself, you sigh quietly and turn back to the little bowl of strawberries in the center of the small table, the flutes of champagne on either side of it. mina's bottle, you noticed, is almost totally empty; your last date hadn't even looked at yours, nor did he seem to think to offer you a drink.

it's not that you're jealous. really. you wouldn't even say that you're interested in dating right now, finding your job at the agency to be too much of a whirlwind to balance, anyway. you love mina: she's your closest friend, your home away from home, your cheerleader and personal hero — but working for her is nothing short of a full-time job.

sometimes your bed is a little lonely, when she's not staying the night in it after another rom-com evening, but you really can't think that you'd like someone in it, anyway, much less a stranger. it's hard to explain where your time goes, who it goes with; having to share that with someone, you think, would take more emotional energy than you have right now.

and maybe it also sorta, kinda has to do with the fact that the one and only man you're thinking of outside of work — is the same man you see inside of it every single day.

the very thought of bakugou has your stomach turning, painfully. the image of him in the late afternoons with the sun glowing in his hair, the gentle look he spares you as you wait for the elevator, how he'd looked at you today, when you told him where you and mina were going; you don't know how anyone could make you feel the way he does, at least right now.

the seat across from you is taken up suddenly, then, and you look up into the eyes of someone that looks — nice. a little shy, a little nervous, as they introduce themselves. they decide to pour you a glass of champagne, and they even tell you, openly, voice shaking, how nice you look tonight.

you smile so hard that your cheeks hurt, much to your own surprise.

"i'm actually allergic to strawberries," they tell you with a laugh, gently pushing the bowl closer to you. "that would be a hell of a first date, wouldn't it?"

you agree. "definitely one to remember!"

"well, in that case—" they joke, suddenly leaning forward as if they're going to pull it back towards them, and it's so earnest and sweet that you feel your heartbeat in your throat a bit. "i sound like i'm kissing up to you, but—you have a really nice smile, also."

you have to sit back in your seat, fanning your face dramatically as you both laugh. "wow, i'm not used to someone—"

"time's up, extra."

you blink so hard that your eyes are crossed when you open them, and you look up at the man standing there, waiting for his turn, just as the timer dings and the room comes to life with a bustle. the person across from you only frowns, too timid to say anything in response before they're getting up and casting you a regretful glance. they're barely a foot away before the chair is taken, so aggressively that it scrapes against the floor and shakes the table.

you can't believe what you're seeing. you can't believe bakugou is sitting across from you, right now, ruining everything.

"what—are you doing?" you hiss, though your feelings — with a mind of their own — flutter like butterflies in your stomach at the sight of him.

the scowl he gives you is ugly, as always, but his face is smoother than you remember it being today; freshly shaven, maybe. the cologne he's wearing is strong, woodsy, potent enough that it dizzies you from across the table, that you can only imagine how sweet it smells soaking into the soft skin of his neck. even the shirt he's wearing, you notice, is a button down that you've never seen him in.

"the hell do you mean?" he growls, face pinched as he leans closer, so that his voice doesn't carry as it usually does. "'s'it look like i'm doin'? saving you from some sorry dumbass."

"bakugou," you grit, though the room quiets as everyone takes their seats again, and you have to swallow back your annoyance so you don't draw anymore attention to yourself.

you're not dumb enough to think he'd get away without some people fighting for his attention, too, the same way they did to mina, and — as irritated as you are, suddenly, at his appearance — you're not exactly keen on sharing him, either.

"they were very nice, thank you very much,"

"psh," he rolls his eyes, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "couldn't even look me in the eyes to tell me to fuck off—"

"maybe because they were worried you would blast them through the window—"

"and i would have—"

"oh!" you clench your hands into fists and squeeze your eyes shut, trying to will your anger back down. losing your cool isn't a good look, especially in a room of people that are trying to get to know you. "are you serious right now? why are you here?"

"you really wanna spend our five minutes doin' this?"

and there's something about the way he says it — our five minutes — that has your stomach turning in that horrible way it always does, whenever you bite into the softer parts of him. the look on his face is pensive, nervous if you thought that he was capable of being nervous. his shirt, his shaven cheeks, his alluring cologne; he's here, right now, on a date with you. pushed his way into it, even.

you straighten in your seat and sit back, dropping your eyes to the table, ashamed at the fire you've just thrown at him. "can you at least tell me why you're here in the first place?"

bakugou is silent for long enough that you can't stand not to take him in, how appealing he is to look at, how your heart sings when he looks back. one shake of his head has him sighing and then he's leaning back, too, staring only at the strawberries.

"this is her birthday thing, ain't it?"

"yeah," you murmur in agreement quietly, fiddling with your own fingers in your lap as your nerves harden into bitter disappointment. he's here for the same reasons you are, you tell yourself: for your friend, only.

distantly, you try to remind yourself that this nothing out of the ordinary. that you shouldn't be thinking of him this way, getting so hung-up on someone that's never expressed an interest in you to begin with. there have been a few late night conversations in the stairwell, that ran longer than they should have, that revealed more than they should have — but it doesn't make him yours. not in the way you want it to.

in an attempt to swallow down your own sourness, you reach for a strawberry, picking through them until you find the fattest one, and then bite it to the stem. a little stream of juice sprays out, dripping down over your bottom lip as you scramble for your napkin. you lick after it before patting at your face, spreading the sugar, the sweetness.

bakugou leans across the table so suddenly that you startle, mouth twisted like he's struggling to say what he's about to say. "alright, look—"

the timer rings, horribly, but his ruby stare never dims, never leaves yours and yours never leaves his, either, as if you're both suddenly trapped in a weird limbo of in-between; in-between the quiet moments, in-between the loudest ones, in-between everyone else, together.

and then mina notices.

"oh my god, blasty, you came!" she shouts, springing up from her seat to wave at you both from across the room. her earrings jingle loudly, bracelet beads knocking together as she leans too far to the left, champagne-drunk already. it snaps the moment between you and him, worry filling the gaps as you think about how you're going to get her out of here, once the night is over.

bakugou sinks a little further into his chair, as if it will hide him, before grumbling to himself. cheeks reddening, you realize; strawberry-kissed. he heaves a heavy sigh before digging his fingers into his eyes, deep enough that an ache develops in your own, and he opens his mouth to speak again when someone else approaches the table.

"okay, time to switcheroo!" he sings, grinning too cheerily at you, enough to make you laugh at his enthusiasm.

it darkens bakugou, considerably; "piss off," is all he says, scooting his chair further into the table as if to claim it. he barely gets another word out before the man is starting to protest, and the look he gives him then is awfully viscious: nostrils flared, looking up from beneath his long lashes and furrowed brow, as if this stranger had pissed in your champagne. "i said, fuck off, before i howitzer you through the—"

"okay!" you interrupt, reaching across the table with both hands to close one of bakugou's. his fingers are curled dangerously, and you swear you can see little sizzles of steam slipping between your linked fingers. "let's just—do an extra skip this time, okay? how about you just gives us this one, and you go to the next table?"

the man frowns — which is a bit flattering — but ultimately takes the lifeline you offer, trailing away without another word down to the next table. you can feel the couple on the other side watching you and bakugou now, a little open-mouthed, and your heart quickens at the worry that they're noticing him, that your new five minutes are going to be wasted, too.

—but his hand hasn't moved from yours and his eyes have returned, full to the brim with some emotion you can't read. if you had to guess, you'd say regret, maybe, but you aren't sure how to take that, and so you don't.

you should let him go, literally and figuratively, but the solidity of your logic is no match for the soft beat of butterfly wings in your gut.

"what are you doing?" you ask him again, softly, surely, because you want to hear the answer whatever it is. he either needs to deny you, here and now so you can move on — or he needs to acknowledge the confliction on his face, the soft intertwine of his fingers into yours.

bakugou looks at you now the way he does in the stairwell, the way he does when the sun is painting you warm, too. "i told you," he murmurs, "savin' you from some dumbass."

"but why do you even care?"

another heavy sigh falls from him and you can feel your glass-fragile heart breaking when his hand slips from yours, a little roughly. it surprises you when he grabs the champagne bottle from the center of the table and pours himself a small glass, downing it in one, bitter go before filling up your flute, too.

liquid confidence, maybe; his cheeks darken, noticeably, before he's running a rough hand over his face, still struggling to wash out the words.

"why the hell do you think?" he finally says, though his harsh question lacks the abrasive tone his voice usually has; instead it's gentler, more sincere, bakugou — katsuki — in his rawest form. "why d'you think i do—any of this shit?" one hand waves around to gesture to the span of the dining room, but you know he means more than that, much more. "you think i spend that much time after work just 'cause i have time to waste? jesus."

"i don't know," you say, earning a flat look. "why do you?"

"why do you?"

you take the glass from the center of the table and peer down into it, how it bubbles. maybe you're playing dumb and maybe that's what's really bothering him, but — someone like bakugou deals in absolutes, and you need him to do it now.

the struggle is clear, though, across his face, thickening how he swallows and turning down his lips that much more. you feel a bit bad in the silence, when the timer rings and the muscle in his cheek jumps again.

before anyone can even approach the table, he simply sticks his hand out, and the man beside you was definitely watching on, because he doesn't spare you a glance before going around.

and maybe, you think, decidedly, that's enough.

"because i don't want to go home yet," you tell him honestly, trying to ignore the blood rushing in your ears with his mouth twists and he starts to squirm at your truth. "because i'd rather spend the night with you in a stairwell, than anywhere else."

there's a ludicrous amount of tension that leaves his shoulders then, so much that you didn't notice it until it was gone, and he slumps back into his chair with pink ears, now. the sight makes you smile, widely, as if the sight is a confirmation.

maybe for him, it is.

"yeah, well," he grumbles, eyes dropping to the strawberries before darting away, as if he'd thought of something he shouldn't have. "that's what 'm sayin', too."

"no, you're not!" you laugh, nose crinkling when he side-eyes you with a frown. "you're not hardly saying anything!"

"i'm here, ain't i?" he argues, huffing like a bull. "makin' a damn idiot of myself just to stop you from—"

"—going home with some dumbass?"

"well, yeah!"

"so you want me to be going home with you, then?"

"yeah! no! i mean—" he scowls when you laugh again, lip pulling up over his teeth as if he means to bite into your softest parts, too. the thought is more thrilling that you're willing to admit — at least for now. "quit laughin'!"

but it's not just you; across the dining room, you realize mina's giggling, too, turned around in her seat, ignoring the chatty man that wouldn't shut up about his ex. when bakugou turns around to glare at her, she nearly tips out of her chair by throwing her head too far back, and when he moves to stand up like he needs to help her, all she does is wave at him to turn back around.

and he does, to you, cheeks flaring as he grabs the bottle of champagne again, pouring himself his own glass to glare into. he mutters out another quiet, "jesus" before slamming both his elbows on the table, rudely, and holding his glass up for — what you belatedly realize is — a cheers.

behind him, the afternoon sun has long since set, replaced now by nightfall and stars that shine through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows — but he glows regardless, and the look he gives you is just as warm.

#IT'S DONE I'M FREEEEEEE #literally i wrote both of these TODAY my brain is WORN OUT #somebody never let me wait this long again LMAOOOO #sorry that these are both dog water !!! :) i have no one to blame but myself !!!! :)#but it's DONE WEEEEEEE #WAAAAHH nikuniku gave me the idea of speed dating with bakugou 😭 where he just — absolutely refuses to play LOL #cuuuteeee #will edit in the morning brain sleepy.....#✿ willow writes #✿ one shot: bakugou

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 9 months

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Can I Stay? (A Baekhyun Story) Part 1.

Pairing: You x Baekhyun

Rating: M

Word Count: 6.9k

Warnings: an unspecified age difference, this is an English story that uses the word Noona for lack of another word in English that carries the same feeling, if you don’t like this, then don’t read this story.

Author‘s note: remember all those years ago I said I’d write a Baekhyun x Noona fic? This is that fic.

Inspired by the Ray LaMontagne song Can I Stay

Links: Can I Stay: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Your new assistant was going to be a problem.

You clocked him as a problem before he walked through the doors of your office.

You spotted the danger a mile away the moment you saw the memo from the President of the company’s personal secretary advising you that a new member of your team would be starting today. A new member whose presence you’d never requested; who’s resume you’d never even seen, and whose last name was suspiciously identical to that company President’s whose Secretary was asking you — no, telling you to welcome your brand new, fresh out of college, probably fresh out of his dear mothers warm hugs and kisses embrace, with as much of a warm welcome as if you were welcoming the President himself.

Not only did you get thrust into your lap a most likely spoiled rotten nepotism baby, but now he was sitting across from your desk staring back at you with a bright beautiful smile of plenty of professionally straightened teeth and an even brighter happy go lucky personality that told you that this strapping young man had never known a day of struggle in his entire life — as short as that life had been so far.

An assistant should be younger than you anyway, right? You wouldn’t feel right bossing a homely old man around all day.

Did that young assistant have to be so very pretty though? Did he really have to be sitting there so damn moist and tender, looking at you with his head cocked to the side as if he had been jumping to as many conclusions about you as you had about him?

“I’m Byun Baekhyun. I like playing video games and working out. I can’t eat cucumber or spicy food. Please take care of me, Miss Manager Noona.” His words pulled his pink lips into a pout as he spoke and the sounds of his voice had just enough of a nasal whine that you wondered if he simply always got his way all of the time with everyone he knew.

You frowned and ticked your head back and forth at the name he called you. “Just Manager.” You corrected sternly and his wide smile dipped into a pronounced pout. The kind one might see on a little kid who’d just dropped his ice cream cone. You heard a nasal grunt of complaint come from the back of his throat and you hated how quickly that sound strummed a particular chord inside of your chest. You felt weirdly rebuked for the quick rebuttal and your lips dropped open almost against your will, “I mean, it’s just that…”

Just when you’d opened your mouth to speak he’d already moved on, “So what do I do here, Miss Manager…?” His words out loud stopped at the word Manager but you caught the movement of his lips as he silently mouthed the forbidden word ‘Noona.’ Clearly thinking he’d gotten away with something, his bright smile was back and as he asked his question he leaned forward with both of his elbows bent on the edge of your desk. His head peaked around to steal glimpses at the various pieces of work both open on your desk and brought up on your computer screen. You had been up to your ass in it before he walked in here and the thought of pausing all of this progress to train this guy was making your stress ulcer act up. You had deadlines to meet if you were going to get this script to the Assistant Directors in time for them to begin filming the next episode. The directors had deadlines, the locations were booked and paid for, the sponsor checks had long ago been cashed, and the reality show talent had a schedule that, contractually, could not be delayed. You simply did not have time for this inexperienced man to be asking you silly questions like “So what do I do here, Noona?”

You pulled a long breath into your lungs through your nose and closed your eyes for a moment, harnessing your self control. It wasn’t his fault you were overwhelmed with work. It wasn’t his fault he was born into a life of privilege and comfort. It wasn’t his fault that you didn't have time to train an entire new employee on the complicated job that sat before you. It was, maybe, perhaps his fault though, that the full head of bottle blonde hair you saw on top of his head had just enough highlights in it to bring out the pink in his cheeks and lips and make him look like something straight out of a boy band.

By the time you’d finished taking in your several calming deep breaths and you put your eyes back on him he was standing over your desk with his eyes peering over the document you had been working through for the past hour.

He was reading and mouthing the words, although from upside down you doubted he could tell what he was looking at, yet you watched curiously as he stuck a slim finger forward to touch the corner of one of the papers. You had been going over translations. Making sure the wording was correct, yes, but ultimately safe for widespread distribution. Your copy had red slashes through it with changes and suggestions. You were the final set of eyes that would approve this language that would be distributed proudly with your companies name all over the world.

“I think this one is no good,” he pointed to a single word on the document that had seemed innocuous enough for you to skip over it entirely. “That word,” his fingertip was stopped on a noun in the middle of the page, “means something very, very naughty in Brazil.”

Your eyes glanced down to where he pointed, surprised first for him to catch on to this task so quickly without you even having to explain it, and second to learn that sometimes a seashell is not just a seashell.

“That’s what you are doing with this, right?” He was grabbing the stack of papers from your desk now. “Give it, you have more important things to do, Miss Manager…” Again his lips continued the next two syllables in silence and you realized that this man was probably the most stubborn person you would ever meet in your entire life, and you were about to be permanently sealed into his mind as his Noona, whether you allowed it or not.

And it wasn’t that you approved of any of this anyway. But by the time your brain turned back on, the documents were already in his hands and he grabbed the red pen and started marking the page on top.

You had no choice but to allow it. The mere thought of someone taking away even a fraction of your workload felt like some sort of a dream come true. Plus, it really did seem like he had some idea of what he was doing. Part of you was genuinely curious as to how he would do.

You glanced over at him occasionally as he read through the pages making his notes and you soon found yourself immersed in the next task that was due soon.

Your focus was interrupted when a chipper sing-songy tune sounded out in his voice beside you, “I’m do-ne,” he called out and the script plopped down on your desk. His eyes were bright and his wide smile was back as his eyebrows wagged in the direction of the stack of papers he’d proudly presented you with.

You’d only made it through the first page when he started speaking again — this time without the singing.

“Did I do well? Do you like it? Can I stay?”

You were leafing through the pages, finding the spot where you left off and where he took over and you quickly read through the lines, taking care to read every suggestion he had made as well as the suggestions he had not made on the chance that in his inexperience he had missed something.

It looked pretty good. You didn’t tell him that though.

“Where did you say you came from again Mr…?”

“Baekhyun. I am Byun Baekhyun and I am yours now. You can use me however you like.” His wide smile had not so much as trembled since he’d brought the script back to you and the jovial attitude did not let up as he delivered to you one of the strangest, most ridiculous promises you’d ever received from anyone in your professional career.

You kept your face blank and ignored his eagerness. At least he was enthusiastic.

“Can you take this down to QC for final approval, Baekhyun…and do you have, like, a resume or something I can look at?”

He nodded with his eyes wide and he was digging through his bag for something. What he handed back to you was a tablet. The electronic kind that kept the little kids quiet at restaurants. His fingers tapped on the screen as he peered over your shoulder he brought up a picture in his photo gallery that seemed to be just a screen shot of his resume. He had to flip past various personal pictures as he did it and you did your best not to focus on any of it until he’d reached the one intended for you to see. There was nothing inappropriate from the looks of it. But it didn’t seem polite of you to snoop.

You did see some things though. Not that you were trying to see anything, but the picture right before the resume was one of him sitting in the driver’s seat of some fancy foreign car with a sweet smile on his face and a different color of hair that if you were being honest looked just as good, if not better than the blonde he had now.

“Sorry Noon—Uhh, Miss Manager, I don't have a printed copy on me but you can look at it there.” His hands were busy putting the paperwork carefully into a large white envelope so he could deliver it all to Quality Control and his head whipped back around with an afterthought for you, “You can just scroll to see the next page, okay?”

He was gone before you could answer him.

His resume showed promise. He’d graduated from an expensive Ivy League, of course, and had spent a few years abroad on various internships, no doubt landed with the ease of his family’s connections in the industry. You’d reached the end of the first page feeling somewhat hopeful that this time your new assistant would prove himself to be quite useful to you for however long he stayed in such a bottom level position. He would probably last no longer than a half a year before he rocketed to the top of the chain of command. The next page had various awards and honors achieved throughout his education and you glanced at the dates that he attended school, cursing your ability to do some quick mental math to guess his age.

He was young. A good amount of years younger than you, that was certain. Of course he was young, his skin still had traces of that smooth soft baby fat in his cheeks. Your finger scrolled back to the first page of his resume and with your fingertip still connected to the glass you allowed the picture to backtrack just a little, so the edges of the image of him smiling behind the steering wheel of that car showed just a little.

You had no business doing this. What were you thinking? You were just some delusional old lady thankful that she had an extra five minutes to her own thoughts thanks to her brand new assistant’s skills with a red pen. You quickly swiped away, back to the safety of the approved viewing material. Page one of Byun Baekhuun’s resume. You swiped again, a little too forceful for this tablet and page two quickly filled your screen. Perhaps the third swipe you made was out of spite but you gasped out loud when the next image in his picture gallery filled the screen of the tablet completely.

A wave of panic filled you and you quickly raced to undo what you had just done, what you had just seen.

You went back. It wasn’t enough.

You went back again, desperate for what you had just seen to be erased from your memory, but no matter how long you stared at the words on that screen, no matter how forcefully you exited out of the gallery entirely, closing the whole thing up and then finally giving up, locking the tablet and putting it to sleep, that image crept back up again and again and again.

Soon the desperation turned to bargaining. And bargaining turned to acceptance. It was normal really for a woman like you, a single, lonely, overworked woman like you to have this sort of reaction to accidentally seeing an attractive shirtless man standing poolside with the sun at his back and wetness glistening over his skin and broad chest and abs and other various well defined, firm, manly muscles.

Anger followed next. You were pretty sure you were going in the wrong order here, but how dare he put that picture in his tablet and just tell you to scroll. It was so easy for him to say it too as if he wanted you to find the picture and admire the time and work he put into building all of those muscles in his body. What if you had been caught in a trap. What if this was some sort of a test by HR to see if you needed to be sent to sensitivity training for sexual predators. What if there was a tracking device on that picture and there was now a blaring nipple warning happening in some control room upstairs.

A soft and pleasant ding interrupted your thoughts and you had a message waiting from Dami in the QC department. Baekhyun must have delivered the package by now. A quick glance at the clock on your computer told you that he had been gone for some time now and you half wondered if perhaps he had gotten lost on his way back.

“Oh my god. WHO. WAS. THAT?!!!??”

“I take it you got the revisions — please be quick, I’ve had 1st AD breathing down my neck all morning.”

“Gotcha. You made some interesting choices with this but I'm into it. What was wrong with those seashells?”

“Vulgar slang, censored in the Brazil market.”

“Ohh-la-la, great catch! This is why you’re the best.”

Her latest message stared back at you as your fingers refused to type a response. The last thing you wanted was to accept someone else’s work as your own, but you also really want to spend too much time on this distracting conversation that was keeping you and her both from your work. A simple emoji would do the trick. A smiley face, or a rolled eyes emoji maybe. Something that didn't exactly make claims to the potential slip up that Baekhyun caught on his first upside down glance at the script that you somehow missed even after looking over it twenty times.

Maybe you needed to brush up on your international slang terms for various sexual acts and their involved genitalia.

“My new assistant, Baekhyun, caught that one.” The long pause between her misdirected compliment and your delayed confession made you feel just a little bit guilty for any potential misunderstandings you might have opened yourself up to.

“Even his name is pretty.”

[She should see his muscles] an uninvited guest in the back of your brain whispered and you winced when it happened.

As soon as the thought crossed your mind you felt the shame of its aftermath course through you. That was the last thing you needed to be thinking about.

You didn't have much time to dwell on it because there was a sudden commotion outside of your office door. You heard the sound of someone’s shrill shouting, overdramatic screaming really and the telltale sounds of someone being thoroughly scolded. At the exact same time an alarm was sounding out on your phone telling you it was time to make it to your biweekly meeting with the directors and assistant directors upstairs. You quickly grabbed your laptop and calendar and made your way out of your door to see what in the world all of the fuss was about.

The carpet outside was littered with assorted papers and standing in the middle of the mess with his head hung down in shame was your assistant, looking sheepish and guilty. The source of the shrieking, as usual, was Carla, one of the less organized members of the translating team. You could see the now empty document tray sitting just at the edge of her desk and you imagined that she had set the whole thing precariously close to the edge again just tempting fate.

“What am I supposed to do with this now? This was my whole day’s work and you’ve made a huge mess of it all! Who even are you? Are you supposed to be in here?”

Baekhyun’s head dipped lower and his cheeks were bright pink as he was scolded again and again for bumping into her teetering tower and sending it crashing down to the ground, as you had seen happen around her desk at least once a week.

“Sorry, but I hardly even touched…” He was opening his mouth now, and as he began to protest what he thought was an unfair scolding you saw her lift up a rolled piece of paper and bonk him squarely on the top of his head with it.

You knew it was time to intervene and you cleared your throat noisily to make your presence known.

Carla’s hand with the rolled up paper dropped in an instant and her eyes widened as she looked at you in surprise.

“M…Manager, He…”

Baekhyun’s face whipped to look to you and you noted the apprehension in his eyes and the way he pulled his lips into the smallest pouty frown.

“Carla, why don't you and Emily work together on this? I know you’ve been working very hard all alone this week. Emily, let’s push back your workload to next week, hmm?” You pivoted to address the rest of your team as to not call attention to Carla alone.

“Everyone, let’s not stack everything on the edge of our desks. Let’s try and keep a clean workspace for everyone so accidents like this don't happen so often.”

You did your best to keep any bit of reproach out of your voice and it must have worked just enough to satisfy the easily excited girl because she closed up her mouth and flattened out her angry eyebrows with a small shrug.

You weren't above cleaning up a little mess here and there. As soon as you were done talking you dropped down to your knees and started gathering the papers up into a stack, the moment you moved, the rest of the team all dropped to their knees to do the same. Baekhyun was the first at your side, reaching for papers and pulling them out of your hands as you made neat stacks and he placed them carefully on the opposite side of Carla’s desk next to the partition, safe from literally anyone who might want to walk through this office.

“Baekhyun, I have a meeting upstairs, why don't you tag along so you can see what that’s like?”

“Yes ma’am,” he whispered beside you with a smile building on his face again and he moved quickly, keeping directly behind your steps as you moved down the hallway to the elevators.

“Noona, I’m so sorry about that earlier — I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I don't even know how it happened. All of a sudden she was just yelling at me. ”

“Manager, Baekhyun,” you corrected quickly as you stepped into the elevator first and he followed behind with a sheepish smile creeping up on his face. “And you didn't cause any trouble. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You were so cool though. You felt like a hostage negotiator, freeing me from my kidnapper. What did you think of my resume? Am I a man that meets your high standards?” His questions came in rapid succession one after another and you held your composure well at the mention of that damned resume of his.

That resume and those muscles.

“You’re smart and you seem capable enough,” and young and firm and handsome as all hell, “I’m sure you’ll do fine while you are here.”

You gripped your calendar in your fist and tapped it lightly against his belly. He grunted once and grabbed it with his free hands. “Pay attention to that. You’ll need to follow my schedule.”

He smiled and shone brightly in response with an energetic head nod and he spent most of the upstairs meeting leafing through your calendar, making small marks on certain dates and pulling out his cell phone to no doubt copy certain entries into his own phone calendar.

Baekhyun’s first day was eventful but he was very promising. The next days and weeks to come were interesting in a way you hesitated to define.

He proved himself valuable to you instantly. He was indeed smart and capable and had a sense about him that you hadn’t seen before in a coworker. Having him at your side not only made your own job infinitely easier, but you noticed your mood had lightened when he was around.

He was cheerful and funny and although you tried your absolute best not to encourage his jokes or god forbid, laugh at them, the first time you slipped and let a quick chuckle out over something stupid he’d said he looked at you with wide eyes and the proudest grin on his face. You had to instantly roll your eyes for damage control.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever made you laugh. Noona, admit it, you like me just a little bit.”

You’d given up on trying to break him of that nickname after the first week of him just ignoring your attempts. The first time you’d answered to it, you knew it was over. You’d screwed up.

And you just did it again with the laugh. He was holding something very important just out of your reach as he sometimes did when his mood grew playful and you had been doing your best not to kick him in the shins so he would drop the stupid thing that you just needed your final signature of approval so you could move on to the next thing that needed your immediate attention.

“I never said I didn’t like you, Baekhyun, this is work. We are working right now. If I miss this deadline that’s it for me and for you and for the entire department out there.”

“So when the project wraps you’ll have a drink with me and then you’ll laugh at all of my jokes? You promise?” He dropped the papers just enough for you to be able to touch the corner of them and you gripped them tightly, pulling them hard into your hands with a force that instantly made him let go. He knew the penalties of destroying something at the last minute and no amount of playfulness would make him risk having to run around re-gathering important person’s signatures with just one hour until shooting began.

It was what you needed and you signed quickly with a pen, passing them back into his arms with an urgency on your voice.

“Fine. Go. Now.” He was out the door without a second word. Of course he was playing about drinks with you. Of course he was playing with you about liking him just a little bit. This was just what he did and he didn't mean any of it at all. This guy was so far out of your league he had his own fan club.

He was very highly sought after by all of the young ladies in this office alone, and you had heard rumors of his popularity in the rest of the building.

Why wouldn't he be joking with you? It made no sense for you to take any of it seriously and you knew it deep down inside of you.

You made for a quick fluff in the mirror on your wall and a touch up of your makeup along with slipping on a classy professional jacket and the heels you kept in your office for situations that required you to look just a little more presentable than usual. You had another meeting to attend for an upcoming project. Something new and different that required you to meet with a whole new team of very important people to sell yourself and your team and their highly sought after skill set. You pressed the elevator button and caught a glimpse of your reflection in the shining silver elevator doors and just behind you saw the familiar bounce of his blonde hair as he rushed to your side to join you at this meeting. He was huffing and puffing from clearly running through the office to get back to you. You noticed the flush in his cheeks and what looked like dust on his jacket. His hair was just a little messy too. You always did your best not to look too closely at Baekhyun. The few times you did allow it your mind would wander into forbidden places and you noticed that it never took very long for him to catch you watching him.

He didn’t need to attend this one. It was more of a schmoozing event than any sort of technical planning meeting but the sight of his bright smile brought you a strange comfort so you didn’t send him away. Inside the elevator you noticed he was watching your face rather closely and when you turned to him in question he lifted a finger up to his lips and pointed.

“Your lipstick has a little smudge.”

Great. Just what you needed. You tried to look your best and just ended up a mess again. You reached up and rubbed lightly below your bottom lip and he shook his head and took a step closer to you and lifted his own hand to your face.

You froze and held your breath and you stared into his face in shock as the tip of his finger ran a path down the edge of your upper lip. He cocked his head to the side and his eyes slipped into your own for a split second and you were sure that you noticed his cheeks darken a shade. Had your own cheeks given you away so easily as well?

Baekhyun cleared his throat but he wasn’t done and he was no longer looking into your eyes as he did this. He made another, firmer pass of his index finger over the edge of your upper lip and you instinctively pulled your lips inward and squeezed them together, pretending as if you needed to spread your lipstick more instead of just getting away from his fingertips that touched you in this quiet and private place.

As you did it, he moved again. His hand lifted to run his fingertips along your temple, where you must have had an errant strand of hair that he slowly and carefully tucked behind your ear. You kept your breathing calm and steady and you kept your face impassive, but the racket inside of your own chest as your heart beat took on a life of its own was distracting and terribly concerning. You were a mess deep down inside. You were just so good at hiding it from him.

“There,” he whispered. “Beautiful,” he said even quieter, almost entirely under his breath just as the sound of elevator dinging made you jump with the sudden intrusion.

You were the first one out. You didn’t hear his footsteps behind you as you usually did and when you risked a quick glimpse behind you, you noticed he hadn’t yet left the elevator and his focus seemed distracted and lost.

“Baek,” you called and his eyes snapped back to life before the elevator doors closed on him. He shook his head lightly and took three big steps to take his place at your side. His smile was nowhere to be found and his eyes didn't quite meet yours and something about him made the air in this blasted hallway feel awkward and claggy and downright difficult to breathe in.

“Oh, I feel—,” you let out a breath through your pursed lips and whispered out loud to yourself as you placed a hand over your chest to calm your beating heart, “—-nervous,” you admitted in defeat, pausing outside of the heavy wooden doors.

“Because of the meeting?” A quiet question eked out in a familiar voice behind you and you refused to meet his eyes.

“Of course, why else?” You answered flatly and quickly but his reply did not come as quick. What came instead was a sharp inhale of breath pulled into the lungs of the man who stood behind you at this door.

“Right,” he said softly with a small exhale through his nose. “Why else.” He agreed out loud. You must have imagined just a hint of disappointment in that exhale. Of course you’d imagined it. It probably originated inside of your own head, really. Everyone knew you had no business feeling any sort of way about your assistant Byun Baekhyun. Whether it be disappointment; or heart flutterings; or attraction; or desire; all of it was off limits.

“Baekhyun, this is a very important meeting.” You inhaled slowly and deeply and stole a glance to your left where Baekhyun stood and you noticed he had what looked like an entire leaf stuck to the top of his head.

What?

The more you looked at him the messier he actually seemed and you knew that behind that door would be a multitude of very important, very rich people who held your future in their hands. People who very likely did not have dirt on their coats and leaves in their hair.

This would not do. There was an empty hallway near the stairwell at the end of the corridor. You’d often used that quiet space to regroup before these kinds of meetings. You knew there was a bench and a clock on the wall that did not tick as it’s big hands spun around its face. You reached for his arm and pulled him

“Why are you so messy? What happened to you?” You pulled him fast and he complied with rushed steps to the sanctuary of that quiet space and when you pushed at his shoulders, sending him down to sit in front of you on the bench, he did so with a soft grunt of surprise and zero resistance. Baekhyun never ever resisted anything from you. You’d overheard him downright arguing with some of the other staff members before but he took being your assistant quite seriously and treated even small requests from you as if they had been laws set in stone to follow.

He was just a little bit ridiculous but mostly he was just the best.

“Before, when I was getting signatures, the paper flew away in the wind and I had to chase it down. There was a bush…” You brushed at his coat with your fingertips, patting harder to get some of the dirt to fall off and you had to step closer to him to get at the leaves in his hair. There were two and they were small and dried and they crumbled into a million bits when you grabbed them, making you have to pull apart the strands of his blonde hair carefully to remove every last bit of them.

“…it flew under the bush in the courtyard and I had t-to…”

You knew you were leaning into him and he seemed to abruptly stop his explanations when you took another step placing your feet in the spaces around where his feet parted, you felt the roundness of his kneecap brush against the inside of your inner knee and he had gone completely still and his words quit entirely. The part of your brain where you kept your most incriminating secrets about him sounded alarms and warning bells. You ignored the cacophony in favor of this necessary task at hand.

It took some doing but you’d gotten all of the mess out of his hair. There was a small pile of broken and dried leaves sitting in the palm of your hand and you noticed some more dirt on the breast of his dark blue coat. It was a dark enough colored coat that the dirt would definitely show so you reached down with your empty hand, laying your palm over the spot, you tried to brush the dirt away. It didn’t budge as easily as you wished it would and a second pass with your hand, with more pressure seemed to work better.

It was almost done. He was nearly perfect again but when your hand returned for one more pass your mind’s alarms rang as you caught on to the firmness and the warmth you felt below his coat. the feeling of him inside of these clothes.

Your stupid intrusive thoughts that you did your best to keep at bay surged up again.

Baekhyun was silent and motionless. Baekhyun had done nothing to encourage this. Everything he had ever told you that might have sounded flirtatious was said in jest. He was joking. He was always joking with you, that was just his way. But he sure did joke a lot with you. You often found yourself confused and frustrated by him.

The dust was gone. He could go now. You could let him go. He was ready to face them.

“There,” you said in a soft whisper, beautiful you thought in secret. Your whisper felt an appropriate tone of voice for such a quiet and secluded hideaway such as this and you mustered up the nerve to remove your hand from his chest so you could throw this trash away and attend your damn meeting.

You rocked back on your feet, shifting your balance away from where he sat on this bench, introducing some distance between the two of you. Then you moved your hand away from his chest for a fraction of a second you no longer felt the warmth and the firmness of his body below your palm and you began to pivot on your heels, you began to turn away from him and extract yourself entirely from this fantastical and impossible situation you had been entertaining inside of your own silly imagination. Only when you shifted so did he and rather than the warmth of his chest under the palm of your hand you felt the slow moving heat of his hand covering over the back of your own hand.

The sensation caught you off guard and you froze mid step, looking down to see it happening. You felt the smoothness of his fingertips tracing an achingly dizzying path up your wrist and higher until your entire hand had been covered completely by his.

You took another step away from him. This was strange. This was some sort of trick of your imagination again.

Your eyes sought out his eyes for answers only the look you saw in his expression did not give you any insight at all. He was watching you with a sort of detachment from this, from you; similar to the same look you’d seen from him in the elevator earlier. Similar to the look you’d seen from him many times over the course of the last few months of working closely with him.

You needed more answers than his face could give and when you took another step the grip he had on your hand tensed and he held on tighter and suddenly he was in motion as his thigh muscles tensed up and he stood on own two feet.

Your mind was consumed by confusion and uncertainty when his movements did not stop.

Baekhyun took a step into you, undoing the distance you had carefully and desperately put between your body and his body and out of the corner of your eye you caught movement in his other hand.

The fragments of seconds of time were insufficient to process any of this. If he was playing some sort of a trick, he was taking it too far for sure. Your heart was entirely too weak to take this kind of behavior from him.

Baekhyun’s hand lifted — he sought to touch the side of your face and at the same time, the distance between the two of you shrunk in an instant as he moved in. You watched on in surprise and in shock until every detail of Byun Baekhyun’s face blurred and you felt the warm wetness of his lips that landed over your own surprised ones.

He kissed you.

He had kissed you.

In this space, this quiet space that was once only yours, he had kissed you and you were frozen in this moment without even the ability to comprehend how this man could have done this, or why he had done this, or what, if anything at all was the punchline of this particular joke of his.

He had kissed you and he was still kissing you and your frozen reaction must have been what brought him to his senses.

He opened his eyes and his lips retreated just enough for him to pull back and look into your face. You made a sound. It was the smallest questioning hum from the back of your throat and you shook your head a microscopic amount to try and clear the static happening inside your brain.

“Uhh,” you finally managed and he had dropped his hold on your hand and closed his eyes up tight.

He looked to his left and then he looked to his right. Both spaces were empty. You were standing in front of him but he did not look at you.

His eyes closed up again and you saw him pull his lips in between his teeth and he bit down and exhaled a huff through his nose before pulling his expression into the smallest wince.

“Shit,” he whispered. He looked behind himself. He looked up at the ceiling and he looked down at the floor. He wasn’t actually looking anywhere but you knew for absolute certainty that he was not looking at you.

You swallowed away the dryness inside of your mouth at the sound of that tiny curse word and the unimaginably tiny sting you felt inside of your chest when you heard him say it.

This was okay.

This was fine.

It was just a mistake; a joke taken too far. He was silly by nature and you did not need to read anything into this little blunder of his. You definitely didn't want to make him feel bad about having made this mistake. Maybe this suffocating ache inside of your chest was the punchline. You could feel its tendrils creeping up inside.

Ha! Ha! Stupid old lady.

No. No, This was okay.

This was fine.

The clock on the wall called to you and you watched the minute hand join up with the hour hand as the two became one and it was 12 noon. It was time for both of you to be inside that meeting room instead of out here playing jokes on each other and instantly regretting it.

His gaze followed yours, touching upon that clock and understanding the task at hand and you stood straighter, fixed your skirt and jacket, made sure your button up blouse was still closed up tight, and you made a few steps toward the trash can to throw away the dried leaves from his hair and from what felt like ages ago and you heard his footsteps follow you down the hallway to enter the meeting room.

You did not hold the door open behind you and you did not listen carefully for the comforting sound of his footsteps behind you. When you opened the door to walk inside you did not do so with any regard for anyone else in the world — especially not for someone like Byun Baekhyun, who’s father’s name adorned the outside of this enormous building and even your paychecks. Especially not for Byun Baekhyun who had exactly three weeks left of his detail in the International Subbing Department before he moved on to QC or AD or wherever the hell he wanted to go when he left you.

[To Be Continued]

Links: Can I Stay? Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

#baekhyun #baekhyun fic #exo #exo fic #fan fiction #Baekhyun fanficion #i think this will be a two shot.#nothing crazy long #just something to ease me back into writing #maybe #or maybe the last two chapters of anything I’ll ever write again #who the hell knows #i dont

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