Boss Complex

35. Forced Pleasantries

Chanyeol sees his own reflection in the glassy surface of his laptop screen, 7:30 PM and Victoria has just bid him farewell and the office is quiet. She doesn't say anything but he knew she was thinking about their conversation from the day before. He just can't bring himself to call Baekhyun and fire him though. And while it would be easy enough to get Joonmyeon to do it, he feels like it's something that he should do. He owes the man this one last thing. But talking to him would mean hearing his voice, and how could he not crumble under that sound.

There's a knock at his door and he clears his thoughts, embarrassed to be caught once again, innocently enough lost in thought.

"Come in!" He calls, and for a moment, nothing happens.

He thinks for a moment that the person can't hear him, but after a moment the door slowly creaks, a small space appearing and there, the little man who's been running away from him for weeks pokes his head around the corner.

"Hey."

Chanyeol is instantly irritated at the sight of the man. How dare he show up on his own time after stubbornly avoiding everyone for all of this time like he was smoke tossed through the wind.

"What are you doing here, Baekhyun?"

The light filters through the soft wisps of hair and Chanyeol feels it in his gut. He feels the pull to this man that he's thought only of for days now. He's been obsessing over him, begging for just a glimpse of him, driving himself crazy over this man for days with a physical pain in his fingertips, closing up his throat, stopping his words and thoughts.

"Chanyeol, I just came here to tell you that you can't get rid of me." He says.

This pleasant news rang in his chest, and it felt so good to let out a breath of relief. But he curses the part of him that relishes the information because it would only lead him down a dark path. A dark path that would certainly end in an affair as he lived side by side with Baekhee, thinking of her brother every time she smiled, everytime he pouted or sometimes when she ties her hair up and looks up at him a certain way.

"Baekhyun, we've been through this now. You and I both know--"

"That you're in love with me?"

The words ring in the empty office and he stares at Chanyeol, defiant as ever.

"And I'm in love with you." He adds walking to the front of Chanyeol's desk, staring across the mahogany desk at him with the same downturned unwavering gaze that won Chanyeol over all those months ago.

"Do you hate your family that much? You'd rather watch them crumble under your selfishness?"

Baekhyun slams his hand on the desk once.

"Chanyeol, you're not ready to walk away from everything we had, and neither am I? Why aren't you willing to let the pieces fall where they will and just take a leap with me? Don't you want this? Was I not good enough?"

Chanyeol loosens his navy tie and swallows hard, slowly getting to his feet. He checks his bare wrist and feels the sting in his chest. Either his heart is giving out at an early age due to the stress of his job, after all this is alot to carry for a 33 year old, or there's the possibility that he's unable to give up this tiny stubborn man. He glances over the piles of paperwork, knowing he needed to keep working, knowing he had things to do, knowing and he still...

"You need to leave. You're on the verge of being fired. You either want the job, or you don't. So tell me why you're here and then leave."

Baekhyun shakes his head and whispers, his tone soft but Chanyeol knew what he was saying. No.