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When a new shop opens down the street, Yixing goes to welcome the newcomer. The shops on this street- a boho boutique, a bookstore, a couple of cafes, and Yixing’s flower shop- are all small, independent establishments. Yixing can tell that this new candy shop is no different. The board that has the shop name, ‘Delight’ on it, is slightly askew. There are huge cutouts of candy at the four corners of the board. “Candy-tacks,” Yixing murmurs under his breath, with a laugh. The proprietor is evidently creative, with his whimsical personal touches apparent even before Yixing has entered the store.
Yixing pushes the door open, and that sets the wind chime near the door clinking, announcing his arrival. The wind chime’s bell tubes have been painted and shaped to look like candy canes. Yixing watches the pink-and-white striped candy canes clink together with his mouth agape.
“Hello!” A cheery voice calls. “Welcome to Delight! Do you want to taste some samples?”
A boy who looks like he has been spun from cotton candy and marshmallows grins at Yixing from behind the counter.
“H-hi,” Yixing stammers, taken aback because he didn’t expect the proprietor to be so cute. He was going to introduce himself as the florist further up the street, and give his usual bracing local-businesses-supporting-each-other speech, but faced with the candy shop owner’s mellowcreme smile all the thoughts fly out of Yixing’s head. He walks to the counter wordlessly.
“I’ve got a new batch of gumdrops.” The candy shop owner has a nametag, also with candy cutouts in its corners like tacks, which says ‘Baekhyun’. Yixing watches as Baekhyun picks out a few sample gumdrops into a tray. When Baekhyun sets the tray on the counter, Yixing chooses one and pops it into his mouth.
“It’s lovely!” He says instantly.
“It’s pomegranate, and there’s a hint of black salt to temper the sweetness a little,” says Baekhyun, pleased.
“Uh, I’d like to buy some,” says Yixing, gumdrop puffing out one cheek, as he hurriedly takes out his wallet.
“I’ll give you a hundred grams to go,” says Baekhyun, weighing and putting them in a cute little paper box with a huge smiley on it and ‘Delight’ stamped across it.
While paying, Yixing tells Baekhyun, “It’s wonderful how you’ve done the interiors.” There are round smiley tables, and small framed artworks made entirely of candy wrappers collaged together. It’s unique, almost eccentric, and Yixing admires it. His own shop is done up in a very classic manner, with tasteful vintage interiors; plenty of pale, sleek wood and embossed curlicues. It’s fancy where Baekhyun’s is quaint.
“Thank you,” says Baekhyun, “I designed everything myself!”
“I thought so,” Yixing dimples at him. “I’ll be going, then!”
Baekhyun waves him goodbye, and Yixing wonders what his excuses can be to keep visiting Baekhyun’s shop in the future. He can’t keep buying candy, because he’s rather health conscious. Next time he can go tell Baekhyun that he’d like to help him straighten his shop’s signboard. Yes, that’s what he’ll do; he’ll fetch his own ladder.
✿｡✿
Once Yixing fixes Baekhyun’s signboard and helps him choose upbeat and fun, but non-distracting music to play in his shop, he finds that he doesn’t need excuses to visit Baekhyun anymore. This isn’t because he and Baekhyun have managed to become close within these few meetings, unfortunately. It’s because Baekhyun is garnering plenty of traffic to his store. Children stick their noses to the display windows and, overcoming their shyness, shuffle inside with round eyes and pocket money. Parents and doting relatives buy candy for their children, lovers buy chocolates with a variety of fillings, and candy connoisseurs buy candy for themselves. Even when they’re not buying, they’re lingering over plenty of window shopping. So Yixing finds it easy to pretend to window shop himself in order to ogle Baekhyun and, with luck, exchange a few words with him. As Baekhyun gets busier with his thronging customers, those words become fewer.
Yixing, seeing that his flirtation is not going so well, decides to fall back upon that historically tried and tested method of courting somebody: giving them flowers. He strides the length and breadth of his shop, examining the arrangements, the bouquets, even his flower boxes. He dawdles over the heart-shaped boxes packed with everlasting roses in various shades of pink, before he decides that he doesn’t want to come on too strong, and also that they don’t really suit Baekhyun. His eyes skim past the orchids, the lilies, the bright-coloured tulips and assorted wildflowers. The michaelmas daisies look more like it. The sunflowers look even better.
Baekhyun has a busy day the next day- busy days are increasingly becoming the norm with him. He’s doing so well that he is expanding to selling wholesale to bakers and pastry chefs. “Yes, I make maraschino cherries to order,” Baekhyun tells one of the neighbouring cafe owners happily. “I can start supplying them to you from next week.” It’s as the cafe owner leaves that Baekhyun notices a bouquet of sunflowers and daisies left on the counter. He wonders whether a customer forgot it here, but when he checks the card, it says ‘for the delightful Baekhyun’ in swirly cursive. There’s no indication of who left it for him. Baekhyun is mystified.
Around once or twice a week Baekhyun finds similar bouquets left on the counter for him, sometimes with asters or a marigold tucked into the center of the bouquet. He pays extra attention to his customers, trying to guess who the bouquets are from. There are several regulars, and he tries to narrow it down according to who has flirted with him before, but he’s still very muddled about it all.
“You could find out which florist they’re buying the bouquets from if you look at the card,” says one of the cafe owners, Minseok, when Baekhyun takes him into confidence about the mysterious bouquets. “And then if you could talk to the florist, maybe they won’t tell you who the customer is, but there’s a chance that they will. They’re sure to remember who it is, because this person is buying the same kind of bouquet from them each time. Probably even telling them to make the same kind of custom bouquet for them each time, with little alterations.”
“Minseokie, you’re really smart,” says Baekhyun, patting Minseok’s bulging bicep. He keeps the cards he got with the bouquets in a small drawer in his shop. When he riffles through them he notices that they all bear the same message, ‘for the delightful Baekhyun’, on the same type of card with a swirly border and gothic flowers as a faded background. “Fancy,” Baekhyun mumbles, turning the card over to read the name of the florist’s again. ‘Zhang Floral Arrangements.’ Baekhyun has been obsessed over the fact that the person leaving the bouquets has never identified themselves in the cards, and that led to him overlooking basic clues.
Baekhyun knows Zhang Floral Arrangements. It’s a florist’s right up the street from his shop. He decides to stop by there as soon as he gets off work, and solve the mystery of his secret admirer once and for all. But when he gets off work, Zhang Floral Arrangements is already shuttered for the night.
This happens all throughout the week- Baekhyun finds the florist’s shut by the time he finishes up at his own shop. Baekhyun doesn’t take the weekends off, since that is when he gets the most visitors to his shop; his designated day off is Monday. So as soon as Monday comes, he heads for the florist’s, hoping they choose a different day of the week for their day off.
Thankfully, the florist is open for business, and he sees a familiar man arranging laburnums in a long-necked vase. Baekhyun squints at him, wondering where he’s seen him before, then it occurs to him- his first customer. Baekhyun has occasionally glimpsed him in his shop since then, and he’s happy to see that the man is a fellow shop owner.
Baekhyun enters the shop, and the man looks up. For some reason he seems shocked, as though he can’t believe his eyes. Baekhyun strides up to him, notes the name on his nametag- ‘Yixing’- and smiles at him ingratiatingly. “Hi! Wonderful shop you’ve got here. I love flowers.”
“Do you?” says Yixing and then, clearing his throat, “What are your favourites?”
“I quite like sunflowers,” says Baekhyun, and unless he’s imagining it, the tips of Yixing’s ears redden. “Someone’s been leaving bouquets of sunflowers for me, and I don’t know who it is,” Baekhyun continues, getting straight to the point. “But I do know that the bouquets are from your shop.”
Yixing is quiet, but Baekhyun sees that his hands are trembling when he moves a bunch of yellow laburnums to the center of a bouquet.
“Would you perhaps remember who is buying these bouquets from you?” Baekhyun persists. “They must be a regular, and they’re buying sunflowers from you each time-”
“I don’t really remember, sorry,” Yixing says without looking at him.
“If you ever have an inkling, you could come to my shop,” Baekhyun says, pointing down the road unnecessarily. “It’s called Delight. Or, wait, you might be too busy to- here.” Baekhyun takes a card that would usually be placed in a bouquet and writes his number on it, handing it to Yixing with his best grin. Yixing can’t help but dimple back at him.
Baekhyun walks away, thinking, Oh my god, I want to tuck a candy into his dimple. He’s so toned. He’s freaking attractive, I can’t believe I gave him my number.
Yixing watches Baekhyun walk away, thinking, Oh my god, he’s got sugarplum cheeks. He’s so adorable. He didn’t guess it was me, right? He couldn’t have. I can’t believe he gave me his number.
✿｡✿
Baekhyun finds himself daydreaming over the next few days that it is Yixing who was leaving the bouquets for him. He wants it to be Yixing. Yixing is freaking attractive. Also, Yixing had seemed nervous and embarrassed when Baekhyun asked him about the bouquets, so Baekhyun thinks that is enough to merit an investigation.
Baekhyun’s plan of action is: he’ll keep an eye out for when Yixing visits his shop. Maybe Yixing hid his bouquets behind his back, but Baekhyun would still find out if he was him. He’d make a note of the times that he glimpsed Yixing. And when he next saw a bouquet left for him, he’d check his CCTV beginning from the most recent time he saw Yixing until the time he saw the bouquet.
That’s what he does, although for a week he receives no bouquet; Yixing must be lying low after their little confrontation. But a bouquet does appear after a week, and when he checks his CCTV he clearly sees, in an aerial view, Yixing entering the shop with a bouquet of sunflowers behind his back. Baekhyun feels triumphant. Maybe Yixing was only delivering for someone else, but Baekhyun thinks that’s unlikely.
The next Monday, Baekhyun strolls into Yixing’s shop and says, “What are your favourite flowers?”
Yixing looks taken aback. “Lotuses,” he says after a pause.
“I’d like a bouquet of lotuses, please,” says Baekhyun, and he smilingly watches Yixing arrange the bouquet, smiling wider when he notices that Yixing is definitely nervous due to Baekhyun’s gaze.
When Yixing finishes tying up the bouquet of conical pink furls of lotus buds, Baekhyun pays for it, fills out a card, then hands the bouquet back to Yixing.
“What’s the matter?” Yixing gapes. “Is it unsatisfactory? Do you want a different arrangement?”
“No, it’s perfect,” says Baekhyun, hastening to explain. “It’s for you.”
Before Yixing can understand what’s going on, Baekhyun has left the shop. Then Yixing looks at the card tucked into the bouquet. He opens it to see what Baekhyun had written.
For the equally delightful Yixing: will you go out with me?
Yixing has a sudden mental image of him and Baekhyun going to smell the same bouquet. They’d bump noses over a bunch of flowers, and then they’d kiss. They’d feed each other luxurious chocolates from the same heart-shaped box. They’d make love, and their scents would mingle; Baekhyun’s sweet scent of sugar and assorted candies, and Yixing’s flowery fragrance.
Yixing goes bright red, trying to curb his mind from running so boldly away with its fantasies. Then he takes out a card from a drawer, reads the number written on it (that he has already memorised), and dials it with trembling fingers.