High Maintenance 👑 h.zt

16

~Tao~

He'd stared at the page for a long time. He couldn't understand it, no matter how long he thought about it, it didn't make sense. What could Lu Han have possibly done to get a hit ordered on him? Tao didn't make a habit of trying to get inside his employer's brain, but he couldn't help it, this was different.

Tao pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling, his eyes darting from one blank empty space to another, just like how his mind hopped from one stupid conclusion to another. He was hungry, maybe that was what was halting his thinking process.

He heard the doorbell chime, and that gave him enough of an excuse to get up, so he closed his laptop and headed to the front door. After a second, the bell was rung frantically, and a series of hard knocks came to the door. Tao frowned. He figured it was Haneul, or maybe Min-hee, but neither of them would knock that hard, neither would be that aggressive about it.

Tao walked up to the door, Suri yapping behind him, trotting up to the door, just as excited as always. Tao shut one eye and peeked out the little lens in the door, after what had happened today, he didn't want to just open the door. Through the lens he saw Baekhyun, pouting and looking right back at him. Tao tried to think of why he might be there for a second, then he decided it was best to just open the door to find out.

As soon as the door was open, Baekhyun squeezed in, pulling Min-hee behind him. Tao was surprised, she hadn't even seen her outside. Baekhyun pulled Min-hee to the couch, making her sit down and patting her shoulder.

"Baekhyun..." Tao started, not in it enough to come up with a snarky answer, or even a relevant question. His mind was still on the job, still on the target, still on what Chanyeol had said. Thoughts weren't coming in clearly for anything else.

"A blanket, Tao-Tao, she needs a blanket." Baekhyun replied, already knowing where to find a blanket. It was Tao's favorite, a big white, fluffy, soft one. He took the blanket and hastily unfolded it, laying it over Min-hee's legs and a little around her shoulders.

Tao walked around so he was in front of the couch so he could see what was going on better. His eyes widened. Min-hee was shaking, crying, her sobs were only just barely audible, but each sob racked her body.

"You want hot chocolate?" Baekhyun asked her. Min-hee just nodded, the tears coming too hard to speak.

Baekhyun gave her shoulder a little shake, smiling lightly before grabbing Tao's wrist and pulling him with him into the kitchen. Tao was too deep in thought, he wished he'd at least said something to Min-hee, maybe wiped away her tears, he couldn't imagine what she was crying about, but it had hurt her, and to watch her like that made it feel like his heart constricted.

Baekhyun pulled Tao into the kitchen, pushing him over to the counter kind of roughly. Which was strange for Baekhyun, he was hardly ever mad, but the look in Baekhyun's black outlined eyes was enough to make Tao think twice about just outright yelling at him for the push. There was a flame in Baekhyun's eyes, he was beyond angry, which surprised Tao even more.

"You wanna know what happened a minute ago?" Baekhyun asked, rhetorically, because he didn't wait for an answer. "Min-hee was jumped by two guys outside a f*cking grocery store! Two guys that looked like they knocked people's teeth out for a living, and they gagged her, and tied her up, and were going to kidnap her." Baekhyun squinted at him, "Stop me when this starts to stop sounding like you're at fault for this happening to Min-hee, but aren't you the one who goes out fighting because you're bored? Aren't these the kind of guys you deal with? Please, tell me how this isn't you fault, Tao, because I didn't say anything about the fighting because you seemed to have it covered, but Min-hee could have gotten killed!"