Two Asses (Are Better Than One) [1/2]
Title: Two Asses (Are Better Than One)
Author: Anonymous until 1/30/14
For: jesstoast
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Word Count: 13,874
Summary: An annoying, immature, eccentric new assistant is the last thing Baekhyun either wants or needs, but that’s exactly what he gets.
Warnings: language
Rating: PG-13
One
Baekhyun doesn’t know what led him to believe that working in advertising would be glamorous; then again, advertising and false expectations do go hand in hand.
The job has material perks, certainly; like the Rolex around his wrist, and the silver Mercedes he drives to work every morning, and the modern, spacious apartment that’s too big for him, filled with expensive objects he’s hardly ever around to use.
He knows he is very well paid compared to most people, but while Baekhyun’s salary is high, job satisfaction is at an all-time low. Instead of getting to work on fascinating, life-changing projects like he’d always hoped he would, much of the time his job consists of trying to sell the unsellable - convincing people to spend money on products of dubious value that they probably don’t really need in the first place.
Exhaling forcefully, he steps into the elevator at the basement level of the office building where he works, and tries to mentally prepare himself for the long day ahead. The elevator stops at level 1, and Baekhyun moves a little closer to the back to accommodate the people potentially about to enter. The bell sounds and the doors slide open, revealing only one person - a tall, twenty-something young man with wild, curly red hair. He’s wearing a grey suit and a skinny black tie, with a heavy-looking backpack stuffed to bursting point slung casually over one shoulder.
Baekhyun looks the stranger up and down. He’s cute, in a scruffy sort of way. Some people might be into that. Maybe 6 Sexy Points out of a possible 10.
“Going up?” he enquires politely, fingers hovering over the buttons.
“Ah, yeah. Level 27, thanks,” the man replies. His voice is surprisingly deep, which scores him another mere half a point - Baekhyun fancies himself to be a hard marker.
“Mmm. Me too.”
Baekhyun presses the button for level 27; the doors shut and they begin their ascent. The lanky stranger looks nervous, checking his watch and rocking back and forth on his heels constantly. When coupled with that freefalling sensation Baekhyun usually gets in his stomach inside a moving elevator, his companion’s swaying starts to make him feel slightly seasick.
The stranger smiles at Baekhyun. It’s a friendly, lopsided, one-dimpled smile. Baekhyun smiles back and nods briefly.
After some time, the guy is still smiling. It is a little unnerving. The fact that they’ve acknowledged each other’s existence makes Baekhyun think that perhaps he should take the interaction a little further; he may as well give the man a legitimate reason to smile awkwardly at him.
Damn this elevator for being so slow.
In his desperate search for an ice-breaker, Baekhyun turns his attention to the music playing through the speaker. It sounds like one of those lame, easy-listening radio stations that would probably only appeal to a middle-aged, mostly female demographic.
“They always play the most dreary music in here,” he says, shaking his head. “Even by elevator-music standards..”
“I dunno, I kinda like this song,” the guy replies with a non-committal shrug. He speaks in a lilting drawl with lazy consonants. “It's groovy.”
Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say to that, so he laughs through his nose to be polite.
“Well, I guess we can't be friends then,” he says drily. He’s not altogether serious, but he’s not joking either. If the guy hadn’t already shot himself in the foot by humming along tunelessly to ‘Monday, Monday, then the word ‘groovy’ was definitely the clincher.
The red-haired stranger merely lets out a good-natured chuckle in response.
Baekhyun doesn’t know where to look, so he lowers his gaze to the man’s hands, which are clasped together in front of him, and then he sees it. The middle finger of the hand resting on top is proudly sticking straight up.
Baekhyun’s eyes drift back up to the guy’s face. The stranger raises his eyebrows and smiles at Baekhyun knowingly, as if to say why yes, I am flipping you off - and I’m not being very subtle about it, either.
Baekhyun doesn’t have time to let the offense of the gesture sink in before the longest elevator ride of his life comes to a sudden stop with a loud ding!, followed by the sound of metal doors sliding open.
They both leave the elevator at the same time, and Baekhyun breathes a discreet sigh of relief as the stranger heads off in the opposite direction with a chirpy “see you ‘round.” He walks away in such lengthy strides that he’s already around the corner before Baekhyun even has time to mutter “okay… bye…”
Not if I see you first, gingernut.
Although Baekhyun thinks he’s already had enough weird to last him the morning, he arrives at his once spacious, once private office to find two desks in there instead of one. The other desk is a desk just like his own, fully equipped with computer, telephone and an assortment of stationery items. He stares at it for a good minute or two, thinking he’s walked into the wrong office by mistake - but no, that’s definitely his desk next to the window.
There is trouble afoot. The song from the elevator rings in his ears.
‘Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day.’
“Hi… sorry, I got a bit lost…”
Baekhyun whips around in surprise at the sound of the deep-voiced apology. The red-haired guy who flipped him off in the elevator is standing in the doorway, huffing and puffing like he’s just run a marathon.
“Uh, can I help you with something…?" Baekhyun asks warily.
“I went in the wrong direction by mistake,” the man says, looking flustered. “How embarrassing… this isn’t even the first time I’ve been here. Anyway, if I’d known who you were, I’d have introduced myself back there..”
Baekhyun stares at him stupidly. “I don’t follow. Who are you..?”
“You must be Baekhyun. I’ve heard a lot about you,” the guy announces, beaming widely. “You’re the guy who wrote the Banana Bar jingle.”
Baekhyun’s stomach recoils at the mention of those dreaded words. If he had to name his most loathed sentence in the entire history of loathsome sentences, then ‘you’re the guy who wrote the Banana Bar jingle’ would probably be right up there with ‘I need you to come in to work on Saturday. Oh, and Sunday.’
Okay, so maybe Baekhyun used to make his bacon by writing jingles, before he was lured away from his last job with the promise of a well-paid senior copywriting gig. And it’s possible that he may have once penned a dumb little ditty for a popular brand of banana-flavoured ice-cream - one that rather unfortunately resembles a big, yellow phallus on a stick.
But that does not mean he appreciates being reminded of the fact.
“How did you-?”
“The Banana Bar jingle is like my favourite jingle of all time,” the stranger exclaims, flapping his arms about like a deranged bird, “you’re a jingle-writing genius.”
“Mmm, so I’ve been told,” Baekhyun sighs, sinking into his chair, “I’d prefer not to talk about it, though. The Banana Bar jingle is something I hope to eventually obliterate from my memory..”
“But why?” the guy asks, looking confused. “It’s such a brilliant jingle... it takes your brain hostage and you just end up singing it all day, even if you don't want to-”
“This is all very nice, and everything,” Baekhyun says, cutting him off, “but you still haven’t told me why you’re in my office..”
“Oh, right, of course. How silly of me,” the man laughs, and then he extends his hand. “I’m Chanyeol, the new junior copywriter.”
Baekhyun looks at the proffered hand for a moment and shakes it cautiously.
What the hell is this nutjob on about?
“I wasn’t told we were hiring a junior…”
Chanyeol’s face falls. “They haven’t told you about me? Ah… well, I was interviewed last week, and then a Mr. Kim Minseok offered me the job a couple of days ago. Naturally I accepted. So… looks like we’ll be working together. Maybe you can rub some of that talent off on me, huh?”
He gives Baekhyun a little wink as he says it.
Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. His lips are frozen at the beginning of a sentence, but the words are not forthcoming. Chanyeol merely looks back at him with unblinking intensity, and that strange, creepy smile never falters. It’s as though he knows some sort of secret that Baekhyun’s not privy to.
There will most definitely not be any rubbing, of any kind. Especially not on this guy.
“Hold that thought,” Baekhyun says eventually, his eyes still trained on Chanyeol as he slowly stands up and backs away towards the door. “I’ll be with you in a second..”
Fucking Minseok.
He hurriedly rounds the corner and flings himself into the creative director’s office. Minseok doesn’t even look up.
“Minseok,” he says breathlessly, “why is that fruitcake in my office..?”
“I didn’t know we were having a cake day…” Minseok absently replies, peering at the screen in front of him. “I would have brought in a tray of my special brownies.”
There’s a lot of speculation around the office as to what exactly makes Minseok’s brownies special. Although nothing has ever been proven, Baekhyun suspects it’s probably the same sort of stuff he was smoking when he wrote the Banana Bar jingle.
“I’m not talking about actual cake,” he says exasperatedly, “I’m referring to the tall, redheaded guy. You know… Chanyeol. He’s in my office spouting some nonsense about you offering him a job, and there’s another desk in there, and if there were any memos about either of the above then I appear to have missed both of them.”
“Chanyeol? Chanyeol… Oh, right - you mean Curly Sue,” Minseok nods. He’s always had a weird habit of giving stupid nicknames to staff members when he doesn’t remember their actual names, which Baekhyun finds extremely irritating. “Of course. Well, we know you’re always snowed under, so we hired a junior to share the workload. You know - to do all the boring research and the running around and the shit bits you don’t feel like doing. You’re a senior now; it’s about time you had your own assistant. It’s okay, though; there’s no need to thank me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Baekhyun mutters under his breath, “why didn't you tell me you were hiring someone new?”
“Because I knew you'd freak - obviously.”
“Mmm… ‘freak’ is a fitting word,” Baekhyun replies, tapping his chin thoughtfully with his index finger. “In fact, it's precisely the term I’d use to describe the individual in my office at this very moment. Speaking of which, why doesn’t he have his own bloody office?”
“Now, now Baek,” Minseok tuts gently, “no one likes an arsehole. If he had his own office he would be in The Dungeon next to Mr. Wu, all the way down the other end of the hall. Given that you’ll be working together, it might be better if you shared a space, don’t you think? Anyway, we can’t dump Chanyeol in there, because Mr. Wu recently claimed that room; he’s planning to knock a wall down so he can expand his Chamber of Terror.”
Oh he would, wouldn’t he, Baekhyun wants to say, but he doesn’t bother. It’s no secret that Mr. Wu is something of a self-serving tyrant; pointing it out would just be a waste of breath.
“Come on, Baek, cheer up,” Minseok says in cajoling tones, “it won’t be so bad. The kid really admires you. You should have seen how star-struck he was when he found out he’d be assisting someone with so many award-winning campaigns under his belt. You can pretty much make him your personal slave - it’ll be great.”
“I’m assuming you’re the one who told him I wrote the Banana Bar jingle, then,” Baekhyun says irritably.
Minseok shrugs. “He wanted to know a bit more about you, so I ran him through some of the best examples of your past work. So sue me. Is that such a bad thing?”
Baekhyun leans against the edge of Minseok’s desk, running his hands through his hair in exasperation.
“That jingle was far from being my best work… it just happened to become famous by sheer misfortune. I’ve written a shit-tonne of other things, you know. Clever, worthwhile things.”
“I'm sure you have Baek,” Minseok says gently, if not a little condescendingly. “In fact, I know you have. But I’ve seen this guy’s portfolio, and he really is quite talented. I was sort of hoping you could mentor him a little… that way we can train him up to be the next Byun Baekhyun, copywriter extraordinaire.”
Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Bullshit. You people just wanted to steal him before he got too good, just like you did with me.”
“Well, okay,” Minseok admits, “that too.”
“What if he was actually happy at his last job? Did you ever think of that? And what about me? What if I don’t want - or need - an assistant? If you had to hire a junior without my input, why couldn’t you have at least found someone a bit more… well, normal..?”
Minseok raises an eyebrow. With his spectacles magnifying his eyes to twice their usual size, he looks like a disapproving owl. Baekhyun knows that expression all too well. It means something along the lines of I’ve had enough of your shit, so you’d better leg it out of my office if you want to live.
“Because a normal person wouldn't be able to cope with your mood swings - that’s why,” Minseok replies matter-of-factly, turning his attention back to the screen in front of him. “I think you’re forgetting that I’m your boss, which means that ultimately, you have to do what I say. Now quit your bitching and go do some work.”
Baekhyun sighs. He can’t exactly argue with that.
“Alright. I guess I'll be going back to my - our - office, then..”
“Good lad,” Minseok grunts in reply. “And I want to see some progress on the KIA account from you and Dara sometime today, else I’ll have both of your guts for garters.”
Will you wear them? Baekhyun is tempted to ask, but he holds his tongue instead. He returns to his - and Chanyeol’s - office to find his new workmate adding some personal decorative touches to his desk, pulling item after item from his apparently bottomless bag of magic tricks, including a lava lamp, a fluffy purple cushion for his chair, an ‘I love my ferret’ photo calendar, and several hand-painted pet rocks with plastic googly eyes.
“There, that’s better… feels a lot more like home now, doesn’t it..?”
Baekhyun doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really know what to say.
“Your desk looks awfully empty…” Chanyeol notes gravely, looking over at Baekhyun’s side of the room. He makes it sound like having an empty desk is some sort of human rights violation. “Do you want a pet rock..?”
“No thanks - I’m all for minimalism,” Baekhyun assures him.
“Oh, come on,” Chanyeol insists, “I have a whole bunch of them here. What kind would you like? They make great paperweights..”
Baekhyun shrugs in defeat. “Oh, I don’t know,” he sighs, “surprise me..”
Smiling, Chanyeol walks over with one of the creatures concealed in his palm and deposits it on Baekhyun’s desk. It’s painted in the likeness of a frog, or perhaps a crocodile - it’s a little hard to tell.
Baekhyun looks at it for a moment, feeling strangely unnerved by the unseeing plastic eyes staring up at him.
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun replies, trying his hardest to sound enthusiastic, and failing somewhat. “It’s… really something.”
“I’m glad,” Chanyeol says, grinning as he returns to his seat. He stretches his arms up over his head and cracks his fingers. “So. What’s on today’s agenda? Anything I can get started on?”
“Well, first of all, I’ve got a stack of copy that needs proofreading,” Baekhyun replies, “so I guess we’ll see what your attention to detail is like..”
“Yes, sir,” Chanyeol smiles. He happily accepts the bundle of documents from Baekhyun with a little salute.
Baekhyun sits himself down and is just about to start work when The Bangles’ ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ suddenly fills the room.
“Would you mind turning that off?” he says irritably, glaring over in Chanyeol’s direction. “I can’t hear myself think..”
“But… music is good,” Chanyeol pouts, “it gets the creative juices flowing, and I find that it actually helps me concentrate. We had the music going at all times where I used to work.”
“Most 80s music should have stayed in the 80s, as far as I'm concerned,” Baekhyun replies coolly. “But if you absolutely must listen to music, then please, for the love of Madonna, at least use headphones.”
Chanyeol turns the volume down and looks at Baekhyun curiously.
“What does your creative process involve, then?”
“I don’t know,” Baekhyun sighs wearily, “I suppose I just do a little research and then stare at my computer screen until something happens. Isn’t that what everyone does?”
Chanyeol raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Is that how you came up with the Banana Bar jingle..?”
“Well, no. There was another layer to the conception process of that particular jingle, and it’s one that I am not willing to divulge.”
Instead of pressing Baekhyun for more information, Chanyeol accepts the response with a simple nod.
“Fair enough. A good magician never reveals his tricks.”
Baekhyun soon regrets telling Chanyeol to turn off his music, because now he’s forced to listen to the other man’s fingers tapping against the keys, and he’s so used to having his own private space that somehow the sound of someone else’s typing clashing with his own is monumentally distracting. To make matters worse, Chanyeol soon reveals himself to be a chronic fiddler, fidgeting endlessly with whatever’s close at hand. It doesn’t take long for the cacophony of pen spinning, leg jiggling, mouse clicking and desk tapping to slowly drive Baekhyun crazy.
He sighs forcefully. Will he or won’t he say something?
Just when he thinks it can’t possibly get any more ridiculous, Chanyeol loudly and obnoxiously scrunches up a piece of paper and aims it at the bin near the door. It lands somewhere just shy of the bin instead.
“Oops,” he says, “close enough. The floor makes a much better bin, don’t you reckon? And it never gets full.”
Having said this, Chanyeol makes no move whatsoever to pick the offending item up off the floor and actually put it in the bin. Baekhyun can feel his eye twitching in indignation.
Before he can carry out any plans for murder, his phone rings, showing Minseok’s extension on the caller ID. That can’t be a good thing. Exhaling loudly, he picks it up.
“Baekhyun, can you come into my office please, thank youuuuuuu-”
There’s a loud click as Minseok hangs up before Baekhyun even has time to reply.
Typical.
“Baekhyun,” Minseok says brightly, clasping his hands together as Baekhyun reluctantly enters his office. “Dear, sweet Baekhyun... How’s it going with your new friend?”
“Uh… okay, I guess,” Baekhyun replies hesitantly. “Except he hasn’t even been here a day, and I kind of already want to throw his corpse down an elevator shaft.”
“Splendid,” Minseok replies, clearly not listening. “What are you doing after work?”
Baekhyun already doesn’t like where this conversation is going, but he doesn’t have any decent lies at hand, so he tells the truth.
“Well… I was sort of planning on going home. What else would I be doing on a Monday night..?”
“Not any-more,” Minseok singsongs, “I want you to take the new guy out for coffee. You know… get a bit friendlier with each other, seeing as you’re going to be working so closely together from now on. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
Baekhyun groans. “I suppose, if I must..”
“Yes,” Minseok nods, “you must. You can take him to that trendy cafe across the road - the newfangled organic hipster one with the metrosexual barista. Go on, it’ll be fun. You like having fun, don’t you?”
“Hanging out in a place where people sit on upturned crates and drink green stuff from recycled jam jars isn’t really my idea of fun,” Baekhyun sighs, “but sure. Whatever.”
“Look…” Minseok replies, “I’m a fair person, and today’s been somewhat cruisy, so I’ll do you a deal: you can shoot off at five - a whole two hours early. You’ll actually see some sunlight for once in your life.”
“Is that supposed to make me happy when I’m only going to end up wasting those precious daylight hours playing ‘getting to know you’ with the new guy?” Baekhyun mutters crossly.
Minseok shrugs. “Swings and roundabouts. That’s the best I’m going to do for you, Baek. I’ve got bigger problems right now than you and Little Orphan Annie in there.”
Baekhyun shoots Minseok a sympathetic glance. “Is Mr. Wu terrorising you again?”
Minseok looks at Baekhyun pointedly for a moment, and leans a little closer, partially covering his mouth with his hand to keep his voice from carrying outside the room.
“He came in here earlier to hassle me about some account or other, and then he dropped a silent-but-deadly on his way out - just because he could. That’s, like, the third time this week. I mean, the nerve of that guy. I don’t know where he got the idea that being my superior gives him the right to befoul the air in my office..”
“You know what?” Baekhyun says as he heads towards the door, “you're right. You do have problems.”
“Do you think that counts as sexual harassment?”
“What, someone farting in your office?” Baekhyun snorts, “I highly doubt it. It wouldn’t even pass for workplace bullying.”
“I didn't think so,” Minseok sighs, “anyway, back to work with you. And make sure you take Anne of Green Gables out like we discussed, because I’m going to be quizzing him about it tomorrow morning.”
“Anne of Green Gables doesn’t even have curls,” Baekhyun points out, “she has braids.”
Minseok frowns. “She’s a ginger too, though, isn't she?”
“Uh, yeah,” Baekhyun admits, “I guess so..”
“Well, there's your tenuous connection,” Minseok declares purposefully, shuffling the bundle of papers in front of him and flashing Baekhyun a winning smile. “This conversation is over.”
÷
Chanyeol sure as hell talks a lot.
Baekhyun comes to this conclusion while seated across from his new colleague on an uncomfortable old crate, with a huge wooden spool standing between them in place of a table. He can feel what he assumes to be a rusty nail poking into his rear.
He sighs and takes a sip of his organic, fair-trade, home-roasted coffee - which was thankfully served to him in a cup instead of a jar.
I’ve probably got a butt full of tetanus right now. Thanks a lot, Minseok.
Well, at least the coffee’s acceptable.
Although words are Baekhyun’s bread and butter, he’s always been terrible at small talk, so he opts for what he hopes will pass for attentive silence, letting Chanyeol babble away to his heart’s content. He interjects only occasionally with an mmm or an ah or a that’s nice to show that he’s listening, even though he can think of quite a few things he’d rather be doing right now. Chanyeol doesn’t seem to mind carrying the discussion almost entirely on his own, which suits Baekhyun just fine, because he’s not exactly brimming over with choice topics for conversation.
“I have three bikes,” Chanyeol gushes, “I just love bikes; I ride almost everywhere. I also have a ginger ferret at home called Cheezel. Oh, and I love music - all kinds of music - but who doesn’t love music, right? I used to write and play my own stuff all the time - guitar, keys, drums, you name it..”
Baekhyun swirls the dregs of his coffee around in his cup and tries to appear interested by asking questions here and there. At any rate, it’s a good way to avoid having to talk about himself.
“Why did you stop..?”
“Well, it’s kind of a funny story… I was fiddling with the brake disc on my mountain bike one day, and I somehow managed to slice my middle finger right off,” Chanyeol laughs, as if this is the most amusing thing in the world. “Silly old me… Anyway, it was successfully reattached, but the tendons were irreparably damaged, so I can’t move or bend it anymore. My right hand hasn’t really been the same since.”
Baekhyun suddenly feels a pang of something akin to sympathy.
“Ouch. I’d die if I couldn’t play my piano properly… It’s one of the few things in life that keeps me sane.”
“Nah, it’s alright,” Chanyeol sighs, “I play, just not as easily, or as often. But I’m getting used to having a stiff middle finger… and people often think I’m making obscene gestures at them, which is kind of hilarious. I still love my bikes, but I have a little more respect for them now; they can be quite unpredictable creatures sometimes.”
“I can only imagine.”
After they finish their coffee and leave the café together, it occurs to Baekhyun that he might have misjudged Chanyeol. Maybe. Just a little. He seems like a half-decent guy - definitely weird, and admittedly irritating, but ultimately a well-meaning individual. Having to share an office with him isn’t ideal, but with any luck, that’ll only be a temporary thing.
Please, let it only be a temporary thing..
“So,” he pipes up during the walk back, “did you drive to work today too..?”
“Oh, no - I don’t even have a car…” Chanyeol replies airily. They’re about a block away from their office building when he pauses in front of a public bike rack with a red vintage bicycle chained to one end.
“This is my ride right here,” he says happily, affectionately stroking the chrome handlebars. “Her name is Gwendolyn. Isn’t she lovely?”
To Baekhyun it just looks like any old bike, but he nods anyway, watching as Chanyeol relieves the bicycle of its chains. “Very nice.”
Chanyeol pulls a matching red helmet from his backpack - it’s beyond Baekhyun’s understanding how he manages to fit so much crap in there - and pops it onto his head, fastening the strap beneath his chin. Then, to Baekhyun’s utter mortification, he drops his suit pants right there in the middle of the street, revealing slim, hairless legs in nothing but a tiny pair of skintight black bike-shorts.
“Excuse me while I strip,” Chanyeol says with a chuckle, “normally I would change in one of the bathrooms at work, but this is quicker than trekking all the way back there. I don’t think any of these nice passersby will mind..”
The shorts leave very little to Baekhyun’s unwilling imagination, but Chanyeol doesn’t seem at all bothered by it, shrugging off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt like nobody’s watching - and boy are they watching. He’s wearing a lime green tank top underneath, and the well-formed musculature of his arms doesn’t escape Baekhyun’s attention. It definitely makes him feel something, although he can’t decide if it’s rage or admiration.
Plus two Sexy Points for arms. Minus one for abominable shorts.
Add on half a point for reasonably-sized contents of said shorts.
Current total stands at 8 points and is subject to change at any time.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning,” Chanyeol says cheerily, folding his clothes and shoving them into his backpack. He slings it onto his back and hops onto his bike, his hands securely gripping the handlebars - all except for that dastardly middle finger, which sticks straight up in the air like a miniature flagpole of contempt. With a ring of his bell and a friendly wave, he’s gone.
Baekhyun waves back and watches the other man ride off before making his way to his car. Although he doesn’t notice it at first, he drives home that day with a hint of a smile on his face, along with a mental image of Chanyeol in those awful shorts that he just can’t seem to shake.
÷
Baekhyun doesn’t believe in mixing work with pleasure. Work is meant to be taken seriously, not enjoyed. As far as Baekhyun is concerned, anyone who looks happy while they’re at work is probably not quite right in the head, and therefore shouldn’t be trusted.
Chanyeol’s arrival at the agency soon begins to challenge all of Baekhyun’s preconceived notions about what makes a normal, functioning workplace. It turns out he’s come from one of those ‘progressive’ places where there is a lot of emphasis on making the work environment fun and exciting, and where the focus is more on staff happiness than productivity.
It all starts off innocently enough when Chanyeol rocks up at work on Friday clad in jeans and a navy sweater, with a steaming mug of coffee in hand. He looks at Baekhyun in his expensive suit and frowns.
“Don’t you guys do Casual Fridays..?”
“Well, no,” Baekhyun replies slowly, looking up at him in confusion. “We just do regular ones.”
Chanyeol merely shrugs and sits himself down at his desk.
“You guys need to shake things up a bit around here,” he says, casually taking a sip from his mug. The mug reads if it’s after five, this ain’t coffee. “People shouldn’t dread going to work. Work should be fun. We even had a karaoke room and a nap room at my old workplace.”
I know, Baekhyun thinks to himself irritably, you’ve told me that at least five times now.
He tells Chanyeol he’ll put the motion forward at the next staff meeting, having no real intention of doing so. When he comes back to work the following Monday, however, the agency is another world entirely. For some mysterious reason, everyone is wearing unusual hats; there are account executives wandering around wearing Stetsons, and personal assistants with cloches and pillbox caps to match their peep-toe pumps. The account director is wearing a black felt top hat, and the graphic designers are sporting berets and feathered fedoras and knitted beanies with pom-poms bouncing around, even though winter is well and truly over.
After making sure that he hasn’t in fact waltzed into a completely different building, Baekhyun arrives at his office to find Chanyeol already seated at his desk.
“What’s with all the hats…?” he asks, gesturing at the fez perched on Chanyeol’s head.
“Oh. Well, I thought we could have a 'Wear A Hat' day today,” Chanyeol replies. “We used to have themed days all the time at my old job.”
Baekhyun can’t help feeling a little put out. “Was everyone informed about this except me..?”
Chanyeol suddenly looks guilty.
“Oh, I sent a group email around on Friday afternoon..” he says in a small voice, “did I forget to CC you…? Well, never mind that - I actually brought a hat especially for you, so you didn’t need to bring one anyway.”
Chanyeol rummages around beneath his desk for a moment. He emerges with a large, yellow hat.
Baekhyun looks at the hat, and then back at Chanyeol.
“A sombrero..?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol says, grinning widely.
Baekhyun puts on the sombrero and stands up.
“The brim is a little wide. How am I meant to fit through the door?”
“Oh, you’ll fit,” Chanyeol reassures him. “Just... tilt your head a little.”
Baekhyun does as he’s told, but the sombrero gets knocked off his head on his way through and falls onto the floor.
“Sorry, Chanyeol,” he says, poking his head back through the door, “looks like the sombrero and I just weren’t meant to be.”
“Aw, you’re no fun..” Chanyeol calls out after him as he walks away.
Baekhyun ducks into Minseok’s office to see if he’s fallen victim to the hat plague, and finds the other man at his desk, wearing an impressive plumed pirate hat with an eye-patch to go with.
“Baekhyun? You were supposed to come to work wearing a hat today,” Minseok says, as though this is common knowledge. “Didn’t you get the memo?”
Baekhyun knows he shouldn’t give a shit, but somehow he feels left out. No, he did not get the bloody memo. He had no idea ‘Wear A Hat Day’ was even a legitimate thing until Chanyeol came along and declared it to be so.
“Oh, I got it, alright…” he lies, “but since when were you into shit like that? You’re the least fun person I know.”
“Like you can talk, you miserly curmudgeon,” Minseok snorts, “when did your happy sacks get chopped off, anyway..?”
“They haven’t descended yet. It’s a sensitive topic, I’d rather not talk about it,” Baekhyun says drily, “I’m all ready for today’s meeting, by the way, so you can reschedule that heart attack for another time.”
“You’d better be, or you’ll be taking a long walk off a short plank. I’ll see you in the conference room at 2.”
“Aye aye, captain.”
Baekhyun steps out into the corridor only to immediately bump into his art director Dara, wearing a gaudy plastic tiara with big, fake jewels set into it.
“Oh Dara,” he sighs, “not you too…”
“I’m sorry,” she says, biting her lip. “At least I’m not a party pooper like you. Lunch later..?”
“Fine. But that horrid thing on your head is not invited.”
Dara whacks him with the pile of papers in her hand and disappears into her office.
÷
Baekhyun finds himself without much of an appetite during lunch, instead watching Dara with an expression of distaste as she mixes her bibimbap into a pile of unappetising mush. She then carves a valley in said mush with her spoon and fills it with a red river of gochujang. Dara’s eating habits have always been creative, to say the least.
“Do you always get the urge to art-direct your food..?”
“Shut up,” Dara says bluntly, and then as an afterthought, she adds, “so how’s it going with the new guy?”
“I don’t know how to feel about him, really. I mean, you’ve met him… what do you think? Isn’t he weird..?”
“Of course he’s weird,” Dara says, stirring the spicy paste thoroughly into her food. “Being slightly insane is a prerequisite for working in advertising. But he got a good rap from the agency he used to work for, or so I’ve heard from Minseok, so I think we shouldn’t be so quick to judge him. Let him prove himself first.”
Baekhyun sighs and pokes at his own lunch with vague disinterest. “He keeps several pet rocks on his desk. Sometimes I come back from the bathroom and catch him talking to them..”
“I’m sure he has his odd little habits,” Dara says with her mouth full, “but who doesn’t? Anyway, we all know what you get up to in your spare time, Mr. ‘I’m-so-perfect-and-normal’..”
Baekhyun bristles slightly. “I’ll thank you not to bring that up.”
Dara shrugs. “Just saying.”
“Sparking up a dooby every now and then helps me relax a little. It’s not like I do it everyday.”
“It’s illegal, first of all, and it’s a mind-altering substance,” Dara says, waving her rice-caked spoon disapprovingly in Baekhyun’s face, “but you know what? Anything that’ll help loosen that stick up your arse can’t be all bad.”
“Ouch. I happen to like that stick,” Baekhyun mutters grumpily. "It makes me stand up straighter.”
Dara rolls her eyes at him and smiles. “Well, I’m done,” she announces, standing up and straightening her skirt. “I’ll see you at the meeting?”
Baekhyun nods and continues to push his half-eaten lunch around on his plate absent-mindedly. “Okay..”
Without realising it at first, he forms a circular pile of rice that begins to look a bit like a head. He pokes two holes in the pile, and they stare up at him like a pair of eyes on a face. He then spoons gochujang over the top of the ‘face’ to represent a crop of obnoxiously bright red hair.
One | Two
Author: Anonymous until 1/30/14
For: jesstoast
Pairing: Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Word Count: 13,874
Summary: An annoying, immature, eccentric new assistant is the last thing Baekhyun either wants or needs, but that’s exactly what he gets.
Warnings: language
Rating: PG-13
One
Baekhyun doesn’t know what led him to believe that working in advertising would be glamorous; then again, advertising and false expectations do go hand in hand.
The job has material perks, certainly; like the Rolex around his wrist, and the silver Mercedes he drives to work every morning, and the modern, spacious apartment that’s too big for him, filled with expensive objects he’s hardly ever around to use.
He knows he is very well paid compared to most people, but while Baekhyun’s salary is high, job satisfaction is at an all-time low. Instead of getting to work on fascinating, life-changing projects like he’d always hoped he would, much of the time his job consists of trying to sell the unsellable - convincing people to spend money on products of dubious value that they probably don’t really need in the first place.
Exhaling forcefully, he steps into the elevator at the basement level of the office building where he works, and tries to mentally prepare himself for the long day ahead. The elevator stops at level 1, and Baekhyun moves a little closer to the back to accommodate the people potentially about to enter. The bell sounds and the doors slide open, revealing only one person - a tall, twenty-something young man with wild, curly red hair. He’s wearing a grey suit and a skinny black tie, with a heavy-looking backpack stuffed to bursting point slung casually over one shoulder.
Baekhyun looks the stranger up and down. He’s cute, in a scruffy sort of way. Some people might be into that. Maybe 6 Sexy Points out of a possible 10.
“Going up?” he enquires politely, fingers hovering over the buttons.
“Ah, yeah. Level 27, thanks,” the man replies. His voice is surprisingly deep, which scores him another mere half a point - Baekhyun fancies himself to be a hard marker.
“Mmm. Me too.”
Baekhyun presses the button for level 27; the doors shut and they begin their ascent. The lanky stranger looks nervous, checking his watch and rocking back and forth on his heels constantly. When coupled with that freefalling sensation Baekhyun usually gets in his stomach inside a moving elevator, his companion’s swaying starts to make him feel slightly seasick.
The stranger smiles at Baekhyun. It’s a friendly, lopsided, one-dimpled smile. Baekhyun smiles back and nods briefly.
After some time, the guy is still smiling. It is a little unnerving. The fact that they’ve acknowledged each other’s existence makes Baekhyun think that perhaps he should take the interaction a little further; he may as well give the man a legitimate reason to smile awkwardly at him.
Damn this elevator for being so slow.
In his desperate search for an ice-breaker, Baekhyun turns his attention to the music playing through the speaker. It sounds like one of those lame, easy-listening radio stations that would probably only appeal to a middle-aged, mostly female demographic.
“They always play the most dreary music in here,” he says, shaking his head. “Even by elevator-music standards..”
“I dunno, I kinda like this song,” the guy replies with a non-committal shrug. He speaks in a lilting drawl with lazy consonants. “It's groovy.”
Baekhyun doesn’t know what to say to that, so he laughs through his nose to be polite.
“Well, I guess we can't be friends then,” he says drily. He’s not altogether serious, but he’s not joking either. If the guy hadn’t already shot himself in the foot by humming along tunelessly to ‘Monday, Monday, then the word ‘groovy’ was definitely the clincher.
The red-haired stranger merely lets out a good-natured chuckle in response.
Baekhyun doesn’t know where to look, so he lowers his gaze to the man’s hands, which are clasped together in front of him, and then he sees it. The middle finger of the hand resting on top is proudly sticking straight up.
Baekhyun’s eyes drift back up to the guy’s face. The stranger raises his eyebrows and smiles at Baekhyun knowingly, as if to say why yes, I am flipping you off - and I’m not being very subtle about it, either.
Baekhyun doesn’t have time to let the offense of the gesture sink in before the longest elevator ride of his life comes to a sudden stop with a loud ding!, followed by the sound of metal doors sliding open.
They both leave the elevator at the same time, and Baekhyun breathes a discreet sigh of relief as the stranger heads off in the opposite direction with a chirpy “see you ‘round.” He walks away in such lengthy strides that he’s already around the corner before Baekhyun even has time to mutter “okay… bye…”
Not if I see you first, gingernut.
Although Baekhyun thinks he’s already had enough weird to last him the morning, he arrives at his once spacious, once private office to find two desks in there instead of one. The other desk is a desk just like his own, fully equipped with computer, telephone and an assortment of stationery items. He stares at it for a good minute or two, thinking he’s walked into the wrong office by mistake - but no, that’s definitely his desk next to the window.
There is trouble afoot. The song from the elevator rings in his ears.
‘Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day.’
“Hi… sorry, I got a bit lost…”
Baekhyun whips around in surprise at the sound of the deep-voiced apology. The red-haired guy who flipped him off in the elevator is standing in the doorway, huffing and puffing like he’s just run a marathon.
“Uh, can I help you with something…?" Baekhyun asks warily.
“I went in the wrong direction by mistake,” the man says, looking flustered. “How embarrassing… this isn’t even the first time I’ve been here. Anyway, if I’d known who you were, I’d have introduced myself back there..”
Baekhyun stares at him stupidly. “I don’t follow. Who are you..?”
“You must be Baekhyun. I’ve heard a lot about you,” the guy announces, beaming widely. “You’re the guy who wrote the Banana Bar jingle.”
Baekhyun’s stomach recoils at the mention of those dreaded words. If he had to name his most loathed sentence in the entire history of loathsome sentences, then ‘you’re the guy who wrote the Banana Bar jingle’ would probably be right up there with ‘I need you to come in to work on Saturday. Oh, and Sunday.’
Okay, so maybe Baekhyun used to make his bacon by writing jingles, before he was lured away from his last job with the promise of a well-paid senior copywriting gig. And it’s possible that he may have once penned a dumb little ditty for a popular brand of banana-flavoured ice-cream - one that rather unfortunately resembles a big, yellow phallus on a stick.
But that does not mean he appreciates being reminded of the fact.
“How did you-?”
“The Banana Bar jingle is like my favourite jingle of all time,” the stranger exclaims, flapping his arms about like a deranged bird, “you’re a jingle-writing genius.”
“Mmm, so I’ve been told,” Baekhyun sighs, sinking into his chair, “I’d prefer not to talk about it, though. The Banana Bar jingle is something I hope to eventually obliterate from my memory..”
“But why?” the guy asks, looking confused. “It’s such a brilliant jingle... it takes your brain hostage and you just end up singing it all day, even if you don't want to-”
“This is all very nice, and everything,” Baekhyun says, cutting him off, “but you still haven’t told me why you’re in my office..”
“Oh, right, of course. How silly of me,” the man laughs, and then he extends his hand. “I’m Chanyeol, the new junior copywriter.”
Baekhyun looks at the proffered hand for a moment and shakes it cautiously.
What the hell is this nutjob on about?
“I wasn’t told we were hiring a junior…”
Chanyeol’s face falls. “They haven’t told you about me? Ah… well, I was interviewed last week, and then a Mr. Kim Minseok offered me the job a couple of days ago. Naturally I accepted. So… looks like we’ll be working together. Maybe you can rub some of that talent off on me, huh?”
He gives Baekhyun a little wink as he says it.
Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. His lips are frozen at the beginning of a sentence, but the words are not forthcoming. Chanyeol merely looks back at him with unblinking intensity, and that strange, creepy smile never falters. It’s as though he knows some sort of secret that Baekhyun’s not privy to.
There will most definitely not be any rubbing, of any kind. Especially not on this guy.
“Hold that thought,” Baekhyun says eventually, his eyes still trained on Chanyeol as he slowly stands up and backs away towards the door. “I’ll be with you in a second..”
Fucking Minseok.
He hurriedly rounds the corner and flings himself into the creative director’s office. Minseok doesn’t even look up.
“Minseok,” he says breathlessly, “why is that fruitcake in my office..?”
“I didn’t know we were having a cake day…” Minseok absently replies, peering at the screen in front of him. “I would have brought in a tray of my special brownies.”
There’s a lot of speculation around the office as to what exactly makes Minseok’s brownies special. Although nothing has ever been proven, Baekhyun suspects it’s probably the same sort of stuff he was smoking when he wrote the Banana Bar jingle.
“I’m not talking about actual cake,” he says exasperatedly, “I’m referring to the tall, redheaded guy. You know… Chanyeol. He’s in my office spouting some nonsense about you offering him a job, and there’s another desk in there, and if there were any memos about either of the above then I appear to have missed both of them.”
“Chanyeol? Chanyeol… Oh, right - you mean Curly Sue,” Minseok nods. He’s always had a weird habit of giving stupid nicknames to staff members when he doesn’t remember their actual names, which Baekhyun finds extremely irritating. “Of course. Well, we know you’re always snowed under, so we hired a junior to share the workload. You know - to do all the boring research and the running around and the shit bits you don’t feel like doing. You’re a senior now; it’s about time you had your own assistant. It’s okay, though; there’s no need to thank me.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Baekhyun mutters under his breath, “why didn't you tell me you were hiring someone new?”
“Because I knew you'd freak - obviously.”
“Mmm… ‘freak’ is a fitting word,” Baekhyun replies, tapping his chin thoughtfully with his index finger. “In fact, it's precisely the term I’d use to describe the individual in my office at this very moment. Speaking of which, why doesn’t he have his own bloody office?”
“Now, now Baek,” Minseok tuts gently, “no one likes an arsehole. If he had his own office he would be in The Dungeon next to Mr. Wu, all the way down the other end of the hall. Given that you’ll be working together, it might be better if you shared a space, don’t you think? Anyway, we can’t dump Chanyeol in there, because Mr. Wu recently claimed that room; he’s planning to knock a wall down so he can expand his Chamber of Terror.”
Oh he would, wouldn’t he, Baekhyun wants to say, but he doesn’t bother. It’s no secret that Mr. Wu is something of a self-serving tyrant; pointing it out would just be a waste of breath.
“Come on, Baek, cheer up,” Minseok says in cajoling tones, “it won’t be so bad. The kid really admires you. You should have seen how star-struck he was when he found out he’d be assisting someone with so many award-winning campaigns under his belt. You can pretty much make him your personal slave - it’ll be great.”
“I’m assuming you’re the one who told him I wrote the Banana Bar jingle, then,” Baekhyun says irritably.
Minseok shrugs. “He wanted to know a bit more about you, so I ran him through some of the best examples of your past work. So sue me. Is that such a bad thing?”
Baekhyun leans against the edge of Minseok’s desk, running his hands through his hair in exasperation.
“That jingle was far from being my best work… it just happened to become famous by sheer misfortune. I’ve written a shit-tonne of other things, you know. Clever, worthwhile things.”
“I'm sure you have Baek,” Minseok says gently, if not a little condescendingly. “In fact, I know you have. But I’ve seen this guy’s portfolio, and he really is quite talented. I was sort of hoping you could mentor him a little… that way we can train him up to be the next Byun Baekhyun, copywriter extraordinaire.”
Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “Bullshit. You people just wanted to steal him before he got too good, just like you did with me.”
“Well, okay,” Minseok admits, “that too.”
“What if he was actually happy at his last job? Did you ever think of that? And what about me? What if I don’t want - or need - an assistant? If you had to hire a junior without my input, why couldn’t you have at least found someone a bit more… well, normal..?”
Minseok raises an eyebrow. With his spectacles magnifying his eyes to twice their usual size, he looks like a disapproving owl. Baekhyun knows that expression all too well. It means something along the lines of I’ve had enough of your shit, so you’d better leg it out of my office if you want to live.
“Because a normal person wouldn't be able to cope with your mood swings - that’s why,” Minseok replies matter-of-factly, turning his attention back to the screen in front of him. “I think you’re forgetting that I’m your boss, which means that ultimately, you have to do what I say. Now quit your bitching and go do some work.”
Baekhyun sighs. He can’t exactly argue with that.
“Alright. I guess I'll be going back to my - our - office, then..”
“Good lad,” Minseok grunts in reply. “And I want to see some progress on the KIA account from you and Dara sometime today, else I’ll have both of your guts for garters.”
Will you wear them? Baekhyun is tempted to ask, but he holds his tongue instead. He returns to his - and Chanyeol’s - office to find his new workmate adding some personal decorative touches to his desk, pulling item after item from his apparently bottomless bag of magic tricks, including a lava lamp, a fluffy purple cushion for his chair, an ‘I love my ferret’ photo calendar, and several hand-painted pet rocks with plastic googly eyes.
“There, that’s better… feels a lot more like home now, doesn’t it..?”
Baekhyun doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t really know what to say.
“Your desk looks awfully empty…” Chanyeol notes gravely, looking over at Baekhyun’s side of the room. He makes it sound like having an empty desk is some sort of human rights violation. “Do you want a pet rock..?”
“No thanks - I’m all for minimalism,” Baekhyun assures him.
“Oh, come on,” Chanyeol insists, “I have a whole bunch of them here. What kind would you like? They make great paperweights..”
Baekhyun shrugs in defeat. “Oh, I don’t know,” he sighs, “surprise me..”
Smiling, Chanyeol walks over with one of the creatures concealed in his palm and deposits it on Baekhyun’s desk. It’s painted in the likeness of a frog, or perhaps a crocodile - it’s a little hard to tell.
Baekhyun looks at it for a moment, feeling strangely unnerved by the unseeing plastic eyes staring up at him.
“Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun replies, trying his hardest to sound enthusiastic, and failing somewhat. “It’s… really something.”
“I’m glad,” Chanyeol says, grinning as he returns to his seat. He stretches his arms up over his head and cracks his fingers. “So. What’s on today’s agenda? Anything I can get started on?”
“Well, first of all, I’ve got a stack of copy that needs proofreading,” Baekhyun replies, “so I guess we’ll see what your attention to detail is like..”
“Yes, sir,” Chanyeol smiles. He happily accepts the bundle of documents from Baekhyun with a little salute.
Baekhyun sits himself down and is just about to start work when The Bangles’ ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ suddenly fills the room.
“Would you mind turning that off?” he says irritably, glaring over in Chanyeol’s direction. “I can’t hear myself think..”
“But… music is good,” Chanyeol pouts, “it gets the creative juices flowing, and I find that it actually helps me concentrate. We had the music going at all times where I used to work.”
“Most 80s music should have stayed in the 80s, as far as I'm concerned,” Baekhyun replies coolly. “But if you absolutely must listen to music, then please, for the love of Madonna, at least use headphones.”
Chanyeol turns the volume down and looks at Baekhyun curiously.
“What does your creative process involve, then?”
“I don’t know,” Baekhyun sighs wearily, “I suppose I just do a little research and then stare at my computer screen until something happens. Isn’t that what everyone does?”
Chanyeol raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Is that how you came up with the Banana Bar jingle..?”
“Well, no. There was another layer to the conception process of that particular jingle, and it’s one that I am not willing to divulge.”
Instead of pressing Baekhyun for more information, Chanyeol accepts the response with a simple nod.
“Fair enough. A good magician never reveals his tricks.”
Baekhyun soon regrets telling Chanyeol to turn off his music, because now he’s forced to listen to the other man’s fingers tapping against the keys, and he’s so used to having his own private space that somehow the sound of someone else’s typing clashing with his own is monumentally distracting. To make matters worse, Chanyeol soon reveals himself to be a chronic fiddler, fidgeting endlessly with whatever’s close at hand. It doesn’t take long for the cacophony of pen spinning, leg jiggling, mouse clicking and desk tapping to slowly drive Baekhyun crazy.
He sighs forcefully. Will he or won’t he say something?
Just when he thinks it can’t possibly get any more ridiculous, Chanyeol loudly and obnoxiously scrunches up a piece of paper and aims it at the bin near the door. It lands somewhere just shy of the bin instead.
“Oops,” he says, “close enough. The floor makes a much better bin, don’t you reckon? And it never gets full.”
Having said this, Chanyeol makes no move whatsoever to pick the offending item up off the floor and actually put it in the bin. Baekhyun can feel his eye twitching in indignation.
Before he can carry out any plans for murder, his phone rings, showing Minseok’s extension on the caller ID. That can’t be a good thing. Exhaling loudly, he picks it up.
“Baekhyun, can you come into my office please, thank youuuuuuu-”
There’s a loud click as Minseok hangs up before Baekhyun even has time to reply.
Typical.
“Baekhyun,” Minseok says brightly, clasping his hands together as Baekhyun reluctantly enters his office. “Dear, sweet Baekhyun... How’s it going with your new friend?”
“Uh… okay, I guess,” Baekhyun replies hesitantly. “Except he hasn’t even been here a day, and I kind of already want to throw his corpse down an elevator shaft.”
“Splendid,” Minseok replies, clearly not listening. “What are you doing after work?”
Baekhyun already doesn’t like where this conversation is going, but he doesn’t have any decent lies at hand, so he tells the truth.
“Well… I was sort of planning on going home. What else would I be doing on a Monday night..?”
“Not any-more,” Minseok singsongs, “I want you to take the new guy out for coffee. You know… get a bit friendlier with each other, seeing as you’re going to be working so closely together from now on. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
Baekhyun groans. “I suppose, if I must..”
“Yes,” Minseok nods, “you must. You can take him to that trendy cafe across the road - the newfangled organic hipster one with the metrosexual barista. Go on, it’ll be fun. You like having fun, don’t you?”
“Hanging out in a place where people sit on upturned crates and drink green stuff from recycled jam jars isn’t really my idea of fun,” Baekhyun sighs, “but sure. Whatever.”
“Look…” Minseok replies, “I’m a fair person, and today’s been somewhat cruisy, so I’ll do you a deal: you can shoot off at five - a whole two hours early. You’ll actually see some sunlight for once in your life.”
“Is that supposed to make me happy when I’m only going to end up wasting those precious daylight hours playing ‘getting to know you’ with the new guy?” Baekhyun mutters crossly.
Minseok shrugs. “Swings and roundabouts. That’s the best I’m going to do for you, Baek. I’ve got bigger problems right now than you and Little Orphan Annie in there.”
Baekhyun shoots Minseok a sympathetic glance. “Is Mr. Wu terrorising you again?”
Minseok looks at Baekhyun pointedly for a moment, and leans a little closer, partially covering his mouth with his hand to keep his voice from carrying outside the room.
“He came in here earlier to hassle me about some account or other, and then he dropped a silent-but-deadly on his way out - just because he could. That’s, like, the third time this week. I mean, the nerve of that guy. I don’t know where he got the idea that being my superior gives him the right to befoul the air in my office..”
“You know what?” Baekhyun says as he heads towards the door, “you're right. You do have problems.”
“Do you think that counts as sexual harassment?”
“What, someone farting in your office?” Baekhyun snorts, “I highly doubt it. It wouldn’t even pass for workplace bullying.”
“I didn't think so,” Minseok sighs, “anyway, back to work with you. And make sure you take Anne of Green Gables out like we discussed, because I’m going to be quizzing him about it tomorrow morning.”
“Anne of Green Gables doesn’t even have curls,” Baekhyun points out, “she has braids.”
Minseok frowns. “She’s a ginger too, though, isn't she?”
“Uh, yeah,” Baekhyun admits, “I guess so..”
“Well, there's your tenuous connection,” Minseok declares purposefully, shuffling the bundle of papers in front of him and flashing Baekhyun a winning smile. “This conversation is over.”
÷
Chanyeol sure as hell talks a lot.
Baekhyun comes to this conclusion while seated across from his new colleague on an uncomfortable old crate, with a huge wooden spool standing between them in place of a table. He can feel what he assumes to be a rusty nail poking into his rear.
He sighs and takes a sip of his organic, fair-trade, home-roasted coffee - which was thankfully served to him in a cup instead of a jar.
I’ve probably got a butt full of tetanus right now. Thanks a lot, Minseok.
Well, at least the coffee’s acceptable.
Although words are Baekhyun’s bread and butter, he’s always been terrible at small talk, so he opts for what he hopes will pass for attentive silence, letting Chanyeol babble away to his heart’s content. He interjects only occasionally with an mmm or an ah or a that’s nice to show that he’s listening, even though he can think of quite a few things he’d rather be doing right now. Chanyeol doesn’t seem to mind carrying the discussion almost entirely on his own, which suits Baekhyun just fine, because he’s not exactly brimming over with choice topics for conversation.
“I have three bikes,” Chanyeol gushes, “I just love bikes; I ride almost everywhere. I also have a ginger ferret at home called Cheezel. Oh, and I love music - all kinds of music - but who doesn’t love music, right? I used to write and play my own stuff all the time - guitar, keys, drums, you name it..”
Baekhyun swirls the dregs of his coffee around in his cup and tries to appear interested by asking questions here and there. At any rate, it’s a good way to avoid having to talk about himself.
“Why did you stop..?”
“Well, it’s kind of a funny story… I was fiddling with the brake disc on my mountain bike one day, and I somehow managed to slice my middle finger right off,” Chanyeol laughs, as if this is the most amusing thing in the world. “Silly old me… Anyway, it was successfully reattached, but the tendons were irreparably damaged, so I can’t move or bend it anymore. My right hand hasn’t really been the same since.”
Baekhyun suddenly feels a pang of something akin to sympathy.
“Ouch. I’d die if I couldn’t play my piano properly… It’s one of the few things in life that keeps me sane.”
“Nah, it’s alright,” Chanyeol sighs, “I play, just not as easily, or as often. But I’m getting used to having a stiff middle finger… and people often think I’m making obscene gestures at them, which is kind of hilarious. I still love my bikes, but I have a little more respect for them now; they can be quite unpredictable creatures sometimes.”
“I can only imagine.”
After they finish their coffee and leave the café together, it occurs to Baekhyun that he might have misjudged Chanyeol. Maybe. Just a little. He seems like a half-decent guy - definitely weird, and admittedly irritating, but ultimately a well-meaning individual. Having to share an office with him isn’t ideal, but with any luck, that’ll only be a temporary thing.
Please, let it only be a temporary thing..
“So,” he pipes up during the walk back, “did you drive to work today too..?”
“Oh, no - I don’t even have a car…” Chanyeol replies airily. They’re about a block away from their office building when he pauses in front of a public bike rack with a red vintage bicycle chained to one end.
“This is my ride right here,” he says happily, affectionately stroking the chrome handlebars. “Her name is Gwendolyn. Isn’t she lovely?”
To Baekhyun it just looks like any old bike, but he nods anyway, watching as Chanyeol relieves the bicycle of its chains. “Very nice.”
Chanyeol pulls a matching red helmet from his backpack - it’s beyond Baekhyun’s understanding how he manages to fit so much crap in there - and pops it onto his head, fastening the strap beneath his chin. Then, to Baekhyun’s utter mortification, he drops his suit pants right there in the middle of the street, revealing slim, hairless legs in nothing but a tiny pair of skintight black bike-shorts.
“Excuse me while I strip,” Chanyeol says with a chuckle, “normally I would change in one of the bathrooms at work, but this is quicker than trekking all the way back there. I don’t think any of these nice passersby will mind..”
The shorts leave very little to Baekhyun’s unwilling imagination, but Chanyeol doesn’t seem at all bothered by it, shrugging off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt like nobody’s watching - and boy are they watching. He’s wearing a lime green tank top underneath, and the well-formed musculature of his arms doesn’t escape Baekhyun’s attention. It definitely makes him feel something, although he can’t decide if it’s rage or admiration.
Plus two Sexy Points for arms. Minus one for abominable shorts.
Add on half a point for reasonably-sized contents of said shorts.
Current total stands at 8 points and is subject to change at any time.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning,” Chanyeol says cheerily, folding his clothes and shoving them into his backpack. He slings it onto his back and hops onto his bike, his hands securely gripping the handlebars - all except for that dastardly middle finger, which sticks straight up in the air like a miniature flagpole of contempt. With a ring of his bell and a friendly wave, he’s gone.
Baekhyun waves back and watches the other man ride off before making his way to his car. Although he doesn’t notice it at first, he drives home that day with a hint of a smile on his face, along with a mental image of Chanyeol in those awful shorts that he just can’t seem to shake.
÷
Baekhyun doesn’t believe in mixing work with pleasure. Work is meant to be taken seriously, not enjoyed. As far as Baekhyun is concerned, anyone who looks happy while they’re at work is probably not quite right in the head, and therefore shouldn’t be trusted.
Chanyeol’s arrival at the agency soon begins to challenge all of Baekhyun’s preconceived notions about what makes a normal, functioning workplace. It turns out he’s come from one of those ‘progressive’ places where there is a lot of emphasis on making the work environment fun and exciting, and where the focus is more on staff happiness than productivity.
It all starts off innocently enough when Chanyeol rocks up at work on Friday clad in jeans and a navy sweater, with a steaming mug of coffee in hand. He looks at Baekhyun in his expensive suit and frowns.
“Don’t you guys do Casual Fridays..?”
“Well, no,” Baekhyun replies slowly, looking up at him in confusion. “We just do regular ones.”
Chanyeol merely shrugs and sits himself down at his desk.
“You guys need to shake things up a bit around here,” he says, casually taking a sip from his mug. The mug reads if it’s after five, this ain’t coffee. “People shouldn’t dread going to work. Work should be fun. We even had a karaoke room and a nap room at my old workplace.”
I know, Baekhyun thinks to himself irritably, you’ve told me that at least five times now.
He tells Chanyeol he’ll put the motion forward at the next staff meeting, having no real intention of doing so. When he comes back to work the following Monday, however, the agency is another world entirely. For some mysterious reason, everyone is wearing unusual hats; there are account executives wandering around wearing Stetsons, and personal assistants with cloches and pillbox caps to match their peep-toe pumps. The account director is wearing a black felt top hat, and the graphic designers are sporting berets and feathered fedoras and knitted beanies with pom-poms bouncing around, even though winter is well and truly over.
After making sure that he hasn’t in fact waltzed into a completely different building, Baekhyun arrives at his office to find Chanyeol already seated at his desk.
“What’s with all the hats…?” he asks, gesturing at the fez perched on Chanyeol’s head.
“Oh. Well, I thought we could have a 'Wear A Hat' day today,” Chanyeol replies. “We used to have themed days all the time at my old job.”
Baekhyun can’t help feeling a little put out. “Was everyone informed about this except me..?”
Chanyeol suddenly looks guilty.
“Oh, I sent a group email around on Friday afternoon..” he says in a small voice, “did I forget to CC you…? Well, never mind that - I actually brought a hat especially for you, so you didn’t need to bring one anyway.”
Chanyeol rummages around beneath his desk for a moment. He emerges with a large, yellow hat.
Baekhyun looks at the hat, and then back at Chanyeol.
“A sombrero..?”
“Yeah,” Chanyeol says, grinning widely.
Baekhyun puts on the sombrero and stands up.
“The brim is a little wide. How am I meant to fit through the door?”
“Oh, you’ll fit,” Chanyeol reassures him. “Just... tilt your head a little.”
Baekhyun does as he’s told, but the sombrero gets knocked off his head on his way through and falls onto the floor.
“Sorry, Chanyeol,” he says, poking his head back through the door, “looks like the sombrero and I just weren’t meant to be.”
“Aw, you’re no fun..” Chanyeol calls out after him as he walks away.
Baekhyun ducks into Minseok’s office to see if he’s fallen victim to the hat plague, and finds the other man at his desk, wearing an impressive plumed pirate hat with an eye-patch to go with.
“Baekhyun? You were supposed to come to work wearing a hat today,” Minseok says, as though this is common knowledge. “Didn’t you get the memo?”
Baekhyun knows he shouldn’t give a shit, but somehow he feels left out. No, he did not get the bloody memo. He had no idea ‘Wear A Hat Day’ was even a legitimate thing until Chanyeol came along and declared it to be so.
“Oh, I got it, alright…” he lies, “but since when were you into shit like that? You’re the least fun person I know.”
“Like you can talk, you miserly curmudgeon,” Minseok snorts, “when did your happy sacks get chopped off, anyway..?”
“They haven’t descended yet. It’s a sensitive topic, I’d rather not talk about it,” Baekhyun says drily, “I’m all ready for today’s meeting, by the way, so you can reschedule that heart attack for another time.”
“You’d better be, or you’ll be taking a long walk off a short plank. I’ll see you in the conference room at 2.”
“Aye aye, captain.”
Baekhyun steps out into the corridor only to immediately bump into his art director Dara, wearing a gaudy plastic tiara with big, fake jewels set into it.
“Oh Dara,” he sighs, “not you too…”
“I’m sorry,” she says, biting her lip. “At least I’m not a party pooper like you. Lunch later..?”
“Fine. But that horrid thing on your head is not invited.”
Dara whacks him with the pile of papers in her hand and disappears into her office.
÷
Baekhyun finds himself without much of an appetite during lunch, instead watching Dara with an expression of distaste as she mixes her bibimbap into a pile of unappetising mush. She then carves a valley in said mush with her spoon and fills it with a red river of gochujang. Dara’s eating habits have always been creative, to say the least.
“Do you always get the urge to art-direct your food..?”
“Shut up,” Dara says bluntly, and then as an afterthought, she adds, “so how’s it going with the new guy?”
“I don’t know how to feel about him, really. I mean, you’ve met him… what do you think? Isn’t he weird..?”
“Of course he’s weird,” Dara says, stirring the spicy paste thoroughly into her food. “Being slightly insane is a prerequisite for working in advertising. But he got a good rap from the agency he used to work for, or so I’ve heard from Minseok, so I think we shouldn’t be so quick to judge him. Let him prove himself first.”
Baekhyun sighs and pokes at his own lunch with vague disinterest. “He keeps several pet rocks on his desk. Sometimes I come back from the bathroom and catch him talking to them..”
“I’m sure he has his odd little habits,” Dara says with her mouth full, “but who doesn’t? Anyway, we all know what you get up to in your spare time, Mr. ‘I’m-so-perfect-and-normal’..”
Baekhyun bristles slightly. “I’ll thank you not to bring that up.”
Dara shrugs. “Just saying.”
“Sparking up a dooby every now and then helps me relax a little. It’s not like I do it everyday.”
“It’s illegal, first of all, and it’s a mind-altering substance,” Dara says, waving her rice-caked spoon disapprovingly in Baekhyun’s face, “but you know what? Anything that’ll help loosen that stick up your arse can’t be all bad.”
“Ouch. I happen to like that stick,” Baekhyun mutters grumpily. "It makes me stand up straighter.”
Dara rolls her eyes at him and smiles. “Well, I’m done,” she announces, standing up and straightening her skirt. “I’ll see you at the meeting?”
Baekhyun nods and continues to push his half-eaten lunch around on his plate absent-mindedly. “Okay..”
Without realising it at first, he forms a circular pile of rice that begins to look a bit like a head. He pokes two holes in the pile, and they stare up at him like a pair of eyes on a face. He then spoons gochujang over the top of the ‘face’ to represent a crop of obnoxiously bright red hair.
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