Vernon was laying on his bed, Seungkwan sprawled over him. Seungkwan had a song blasting from his phone, showing off one of the newest songs Jihoon had produced.

"What do you think?" Seungkwan asked excitedly when it ended.

Vernon weighed the song up. The idol group's vocals were decent, but the song had been good. Not exactly a sound most idol groups would go for. "Pretty good. I can understand why it's only smaller companies that get him to do songs for their groups."

Seungkwan waited expectantly for an explanation.

"It's not the hip hop vibey, wannabe tough guy thing most guy groups go for these days, is it? It's a bit more bubblegum funky pop."

Seungkwan snorted. "'Bubblegum funky pop? Vernon, only you."

"Hey! Bubblegum funky pop's a perfectly good explanation. Anyway, we're supposed to be at the cafe at four thirty, what time is it?"

Seungkwan checked his phone for the time before groaning and flinging his phone to the foot of the bed.

"What, really close?" Vernon asked, trying to push Seungkwan up. If they were cutting it close they had to get up now.

"Try late; it's four forty eight," Seungkwan answered. "Can we just not go?"

Vernon gave up trying to push Seungkwan off him. "No. We all agreed on meeting this afternoon. We're going." Seungkwan groaned and rolled off Vernon, off Vernon's bed, and fell to the floor with a thud.

Vernon heard Seungkwan whine in mock pain. "You're fault, you fool," he said, sitting up. He grabbed Seungkwan's phone and scarf from the end of his bed, and held them over the side of his bed for Seungkwan to grab.

"I still can't believe you gave me this ugly hickey," Seungkwan complained as he wrapped his scarf around his neck.

Vernon was still very proud of the hickey he'd given Seungkwan while they were making soup the day after they got together. It had faded a little, but was still quite visible.

"I don't think I want to you to give me any more, ever. They're tacky."

Vernon laughed. "What about down near your collarbone? Where it's easier to hide?" he tried bargaining.

Seungkwan pretended to think about it for a second. "No," he said flatly, "not if they're going to look like this. Seungkwan stood up and slipped his phone in his pocket.

Vernon stood up, too, got his phone off his bedside table, and followed Seungkwan to the front door. He wondered vaguely what his family and Joshua were up to as he put on his shoes and a jumper.

"Fine, I'll give you little ones that'll fade quickly?" Vernon tried bargaining again as he locked the door with spare key. Seungkwan chuckled and agreed. It felt like a small victory.

Once they got to the cafe and were sat at the group's usual table, Vernon realised Seungkwan was wearing his jumper. The one Seungkwan had made him give the other, claiming it was ugly and needed to be burned.

"Wearing each other's clothes already?" Dokyeom goaded.

Mingyu grabbed a few chips off Dokyeom's plate and threw them at him. "Shut up, DK. It's cute."

Vernon glanced down to his own jumper. It was the one Seungkwan had given him in return. He couldn't even find it in himself to care, it was a cute thing cute couples did. Seungkwan deserved for them to be a cute couple. (And Vernon kind of liked it, too.)

The four boys fooled around for a bit, joking around like old times and probably disturbing the few other customers with their raucousness.

There was a noise like the clearing of a throat. A very unimpressed clearing of the throat. Jihoon. The four boys paused and turned their attention to him. His lips were pursed, but he looked like he was trying not to grin from the terror in their eyes. (Minus Seungkwan. Seungkwan just looked bored.)

"This is a cafe, not a kindergarten. Act like the young adults your are, please. I'm required to say 'please', so don't feel special."

The four teenagers nodded, with varying levels of fear.

"Vernon, can I talk to you?" It didn't sound like Jihoon was asking.

"No, please, Jihoon. Don't bring it up," Seungkwan pleaded, his eyes slightly widened in some form of fear. Vernon gulped, wondering what Seungkwan had talked to Jihoon about that Jihoon wanted to talk to him about.

Vernon stood up, nodding. "Of course. No problem." He trailed after Jihoon, ignoring Seungkwan telling them both not to move another step, into the back of cafe and outside a door.

"Please not the face!" Vernon asked when Jihoon turned to face him. He moved his hand to cover his junk. Vernon scrunched his eyes shut, trying to steel himself for a punch. It never came. He opened his eyes warily to see Jihoon laughing and clapping his hands.

Vernon waited for him to calm down.

"You thought I was going to hit you?" Jihoon gasped through the last of his laughter. "I'll only do that when you hurt Seungkwan."

Vernon felt a little slighted that Jihoon had said "when" and not "if". He leaned against the wall. Jihoon took out a cigarette and a lighter from his frontpocket under his apron.

"Do you mind?"

Vernon shook his head, his father smoked and often the best time to be able to chat to him was when he had a cigarette out the front.

"I didn't know you smoked," Vernon let slip.

"It's not something I do all the time, or that I want everybody to know about," Jihoon said as he lit his cigarette. He shoved his lighter back in his pocket and leant against the wall next to Vernon.

"Seungkwan's a good kid, you know," he started after taking a drag. Vernon nodded, Seungkwan was. "I've heard him go on about you so much, and I know you try your best to look out for him and take care of him." He paused for another drag.

"But, do yourself a favour. Take him out on a date, tell him you want him to stay around next year - don't try convince him to stay, simply let him know you want him around but still support his decisions a hundred percent, or something else sappy but true. He needs to hear you care. Don't try convince him you like him by kissing him and telling him you adore him or whatever you say to each other." Again, Jihoon brought the cigarette up to his lips.

"Have you ever?.." Jihoon asked, motioning with his cigarette.

"I tried a few years back; I got caught stealing one from my dad's packet less than two days in," Vernon confessed.

Jihoon laughed bitterly. "It's a bad habit, horrible to kick. Been smoking since I was in my first year of high school. Real funny watching Seungcheol try quit for Joshua."

He tapped the stick and ash fell off the end of it, then he took another couple drags, holding the smoke in his lungs longer than he had before.

"You know what else is a bad habit? Alcohol. I heard you had a little at Seungcheol's a few weeks ago."

Vernon nodded, remembering the taste. It wasn't something he was rushing to try again.

"If I hear you get into any of Seungcheol's other bad habits I'll let Seungkwan know. He doesn't need to be dragged into anything."

"What are Seungcheol's other habits?" Vernon asked. He wondered how serious they were. He wasn't a gangster, was he? What could someone the straightlaced Joshua be soulmates with really get into?

Jihoon smushed the cigarette into the wall to put it out. "Nothing too major, depending on who you talk to. But it's not my place to tell you."

"Are you sure he really does whatever you think he does?"

Jihoon chuckled and smirked. "Who do you think got him into most of his habits? I stopped most of it, except smoking, in my last year of high school. Slowed right down on the cigarettes, though. He liked it all too much, or found it too useful, and continued."

"Is that all? To tell me to stop trying to prove to Seungkwan that I like him, and warn me about Seungcheol?"

Jihoon shook his head. "I want you to prove to me you like Seungkwan. Think of me as..." he paused for impact, "The big brother he doesn't have. If you're only pretending to like him, you best be prepared to act like that forever. If you stop because it becomes too much work or gets boring, you will get hurt. I know people who'll chop your off or something else messed up."

Vernon thought it was difficult to think of Jihoon as Seungkwan's older brother, he was still more than a little stuck on him giving Seungkwan hickeys.

"I really do li-" Vernon started.

"I don't want to hear it from you. You can say the sky's green, doean't mean it is. I want to see you care about him, or hear about it from Seungkwan," Jihoon interrupted. "Am I clear?"

Vernon nodded.

"Good. You can go back to the others now." Jihoon held open the door and followed Vernon through it, steering him back to the front of the cafe.

When he joined the others at the table, Seungkwan pulled him down onto his lap. "What was it about?" Seungkwan hissed into his ear.

"He wanted to warn me not to get involved in things I shouldn't," Vernon assured him. Which was technically true, that had been part of the conversation.

Seungkwan nodded, obviously not believing him, and wrapped his arms around Vernon's waist. He placed his chin on Vernon's shoulder.

"You just missed it!" Mingyu exclaimed. "I would have dived onto telling you as soon as you sat down, but Seungkwan ensuring your health was more important."

"What'd I miss?" Vernon asked. He'd been gone less than fifteen minutes, what could possibly have happened?

"Trouble in paradise," Dokyeom sighed.

"Junghan and Joshua just had a yelling match! In the cafe! Things aren't as perfect for our favourite as we thought," Mingyu excitedly supplied. "My relationship with Wonwoo's looking pretty good, right now."

Vernon blew out a puff of air. Wow, Joshua yelling in public. He didn't seem like the type.

"It wasn't so much a yelling match as Junghan expressing himself loudly and Joshua begging to go somewhere else to settle things," Dokyeom corrected.

That makes more sense, Vernon thought.

"What was it about?" Vernon asked.

The three other boys gave each other glances. "One guess," Mingyu offered.

Vernon ran through a list of possible reasons. Smoking was the first and came in at a close second. He voiced both possibilities.

"Ding ding ding, it was!" Dokyeom announced like a game show host.

"Something about Joshua not touching Junghan, or not wanting to anymore." Seungkwan told Vernon.

"I don't want to gossip about them; we should forget about it," Vernon told his friends. The three begrudgingly agreed.

"So, DK, how's your friendship with Soonyoung?" Seungkwan asked.

Dokyeom shrugged. "Good enough. We play around a lot and have heaps of inside jokes and gags. It's a different friendship from what I have with you guys, like the sort of friendship I need, you know?"

The other three nodded.

Mingyu sighed."Yeah, I know what you mean, with Wonwoo I can be who I am, and who I want to be, and we just get each other. The way Vernon and Seungkwan always have."

"Maybe if we knew a soulmate connection felt like this, Vernon and I would've gotten sorted out earlier," Seungkwan mused.

Vernon chuckled and turned his face sideways to kiss his boyfriend. "Maybe, but things happen for a reason."

Seungkwan smiled and kissed Vernon, slipping in some tongue. Mingyu whistled, and Vernon felt himself blush. He pulled away and his lips, getting rid of excess saliva.

"Seungkwan, not in public," he whined.

"OK, no tongue in public. Sorry," Seungkwan apologised, then gave a kiss to the corner of Vernon's mouth.

"You two are so cute!" Mingyu cooed.

Dokyeom shook his head. "Chan and his girlfriend are cuter," he said offhandedly.

Vernon felt Seungkwan stiffen under him. Mingyu froze, too, and Vernon felt a sense of foreboding. Seungkwan was probably going to flip.

"No one's cuter than Vernon and I," Seungkwan said fiercely. "We're soulmates, and we're the adorable friends to lovers story everybody loves."

Vernon sighed. That had not been the reaction he expected. Mingyu nodded emphatically, and elbowed Dokyeom when he didn't immediately join in.

"Right! The cutest. I can't imagine why DK said Chan and his girlfriend are cuter!" Mingyu said, over exaggerated smile plastered across his face.

"Have you seen them? Are they cuter?" Seungkwan immediately questioned.

A look of panic flittered across Mingyu's features before he schooled them into a neutral expression. "What? No! I haven't seen Chan and his girlfriend! You and Vernon are totally cute!"

Vernon grabbed Seungkwan's arms and wrapped them around him. "Kwannie, does it really matter if other people think we're cute?" He leaned back into Seungkwan while he waited for an answer.

"Of course it matters! I want to be a cute couple, Vernonnie!"

"Kwannie, do you think we're cute?" Vernon asked, tone soft. It was important he wasn't too harsh, or Seungkwan would get even worse.

Seungkwan kissed Vernon's cheek. "Of course we're cute."

Vernon shrugged. "Well, why does it matter? If we think we're cute, then we're cute."

Seungkwan nodded, and brought a hand up to play with Vernon's hair. "Ok then, we're cute. Well, not until you can get to an actual hairdresser to get your hair redone - Mingyu had to cut it pretty choppy because you didn't want to lose too much. That was a giant wad of gum."

Vernon groaned. He still hadn't seen it, but from the looks he'd gotten in class after lunch it wasn't pretty.

"It looks good enough for now, though," Seungkwan tried to assure him.

"How do you do that?" Mingyu asked in awe. The couple looked to him. "Vernon, you placate Seungkwan so easily! I've lived with him for nearly six years and still have no idea how you do it!"

"Isn't placate a big word for you, Mingyu?" Dokyeom teased.

Mingyu shot him a look, "Dokyeom, you probably don't even know what it means."

"It isn't that difficult to calm Seungkwan down. You just be gentle and reasonable," Vernon explained.

Seungkwan made a noise of agreement. "But firm, you have to be firm."

"What? Gentle but firm? I give up, from now on you can come over and calm down Seungkwan," Mingyu told Vernon. Dokyeom laughed.

"Oh my gosh," he said through gasps, "I didn't know I missed this so much."

Vernon's phone vibrated, and Seungkwan pulled it out of Vernon's back pocket. "Says it's your mum," he told him, passing him the phone. Vernon took it and read the message; his mum was on her way to pick him up.

"Mum'll be here to pick me up soon, anyone want a ride home?" The three other boys said they did.

When Vernon's mum arrived and they all clambered into the car, Mrs Chwe turned to Vernon and her face fell. "Oh, sweetie, what happened to your hair?"

"It's a long story, don't want to go into it." He swore she was going to say something else, probably comment on the carful of teenage boys.

"I'll get you to a hairdressers soon, then," she promised. Her expression brightened. "This hasn't happened in a while, a bunch of teenage boys in my car," she said, a smile playing at her lips.

Vernon nodded. "Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? Like sorting everything out with Seungkwan made everything else fall back into place."

"Hey! We can't understand; translate for us," Dokyeom called from the backseat. Vernon told the boys what his and his mother had said.

"Maybe we weren't really around you because you were always with Chan, and all the drama between you and Seungkwan?" Mingyu said, his tone only half joking.

Vernon turned around just in time to see Seungkwan slap Mingyu's arm. "Mingyu! That wasn't funny! I hardly saw your either."

Mingyu pouted. "But it's true! If -" Dokyeom clapped a hand over Mingyu's mouth.

Vernon turned back around, facing the front again.

"What was that about?" his mum asked.

"Nothing."

"You sure, sweetie? Your expression says otherwise," she pressed.

Vernon nodded, "It was nothing. Now can you stop asking? You almost missed that turn."

She shook her head, but agreed to stop. The rest of the drive was full of joking around and pointless banter, then near silence once the three boys has been dropped off.

Vernon spent the remainder of that night texting his friends and playing cards with his younger sister. He was also trying to come up with an alternate to Seungkwan's ideal carnival date, and Sof might've given him a really good idea.

***

Vernon almost forgot he was supposed to spend lunch with Chan and Minghao. Until they dragged him to the cafeteria, that is. It wasn't a particularly interesting affair, Vernon mostly chatted with Minghao, and cooed over how cute Chan was with his girlfriend - Suhyun, he was pretty sure. (He understood how Mingyu felt, always making noises and saying how cute Vernon and Seungkwan were whenever they did something even slightly couple-y.)

There was a point where things got a little awkward, when Suhyun brought up Vernon and Chan's past relationship. She said she was glad they'd broken up because she'd harboured a crush on Chan for a few weeks before they'd gotten together and had worked up the courage to confess. She'd found out the day she was going to give Chan a letter that Vernon and Chan had a date set up. The two boys had to set her straight, and explain they'd never really dated, they'd just been a thing, they guessed?

But, overall, Vernon was glad he'd had lunch with them. He walked back to class chatting quite animatedly with Chan about the new choreography Soonyoung had them working on, and thought maybe Chan could be a good friend next year.

============

I feel like I've been really lazy with updating lately. I would apologise or try justify it or something, but I just haven't really felt like writing much. 

I've decided on names for the spin off stories! They're a while off (I haven't started writing them yet or anything), but I at least have names, which is personally the worst bit about writing.

Chan's girlfriend's Suhyun from Akmu, just in case anybody wants clarification. Just 'cause I think they'd look adorable together.

I don't know what else to say. I hope you all enjoyed the update!