Boss Complex

4. Quiet intern

Chanyeol would have eventually put two and two together.

He would have come to realize that the man torturing him at work was directly related to the thing driving him crazy outside of work. It really makes sense now that he thinks about it, but he's never seen Baekhee. He's never seen anything but her photo. He quickly ducks back behind the pillar and pulls the envelope from Mr. Byun from his breast pocket and tears it open. Sliding the photo from the beige envelope, he drops it to the ground, holding onto the photograph with a bewildered expression as Baekhyun gets told that he's the reason for all of his family's problems somewhere in the background. The blonde angel sitting in the photo holds Chanyeol's fullest attention as his eyes trace over the partially hidden eyes, the small nose, and the grin pulling his cheeks up. His betrothed has long dark hair, with features that look strikingly similar but it's the blonde boy that Chanyeol is intent on. Different hair color, style, but there was no denying that this was Byun Baekhyun sitting next to Baekhee.

Byun isn't uncommon enough across the country that he would have noted it as being similar, but e should have seen it in Mr. Byun's face.

He tucks the picture safely back into his breast pocket and turns around the corner. He had to step in and say something. It's hardly Baekhyun's fault that his sister refused to come to marriage meetings.

"At least your sister can be married off to save us, but you have no worth. An intern, making no money, living off of our dwindled wealth. What do you have to show for yourself? You graduated from university and you traveled for 2 years and you have nothing to show for it. Unmarried, unemployed as far as I'm concerned, and soon, homeless! If this doesn't work out with Baekhee, you're out of our house! You're out! We can't support you two any more!"

"Baekhee didn't even go to coll—you're being unreasonable!" He shouts before he runs out into the rain without a single concern for the heavy streaking rain.

Chanyeol steps out from behind the column, fumbles with his wallet for a moment and reaches for the keys in the valet's hands, nodding his thanks with a slip of a bill into his palm. Chanyeol turns on the lights, edging out into the rain with a slow hesitation until he locates the running man as he crosses the green-lit crosswalk.

"Should I let him into my car?" He mumbles to himself as he follows behind the man at a safe distance with his flashers on.

But what would h say once he let him in? Would he let him in and then act like they were friends or does he continue to act like they don't know one another? Does he just pretend to be a concerned boss? Does he let on that he knows the truth? Does he admit that he knows that Baekhyun is the brother of the woman he's engaged to? Or supposed to be engaged to... Or will be engaged to... While he debates, he watches Baekhyun duck into a 7eleven. At least he's out of the rain.

The right thing to do here would be to drive off. Now that he's at a well-lit, dry place, it's no longer his concern. It probably never was any of his concern. But he parks instead. Flashers on, he parks before the long window and waits for Baekhyun to re-emerge. He would offer him a ride home at the least. Or he could call someone to come pick him up, but that invites an entirely new array of questions that he didn't want to answer. The first of which remained: Why does he even care what happens to Byun Baekhyun?

He reappears in the window, hair drenched, cardigan pulled off and wrapped around his waist with a bowl of instant noodles and breaks apart his chopsticks as he waits for the noodles to soak in the hot water. He doesn't seem to be crying, which is surprising because he would have predicted that he would be crying after such an encounter. Maybe Baekhyun was an emotionless drone that felt no fear or sadness. Maybe he couldn't get Baekhyun to react the way he wanted because he isn't capable of feeling those emotions.