Baekhyun just knows something is off.

                He senses it the moment Jongdae stood on his doorstep, a somewhat hurt look on his face and Baekhyun instantly swings the door wider for him to enter without a word. He didn't expect anything like this; Jongdae sounded pretty normal in their conversation last night so the attitude he receives this day only serves to make him confused. Jongdae is a strong man, and seeing him hopeless like this must mean that whatever made him feel that way must have been something important to him, something worth Baekhyun's time and attention.

                He has his phone in his hands, tightly gripped, and the way he stomps to the sofa gives Baekhyun the impression that he's angry too. He shuts the door behind him and walks over to where the younger male is sitting, his legs folded across his chest as he hugs them. “Wanna talk about it?” He asks, thinks that this is probably the reason why he asked to come over last night. Jongdae rarely asks if he could come over, and something about the way Jongdae is acting is telling Baekhyun that he's somehow insecure, unsure, conflicted.

                “Please.” He replies, and Baekhyun takes a seat beside him, watches his face carefully. It's one of those moments where they know it's not the time to joke around, they are in a serious situation where poking fun at it seems inappropriate. He inhales deeply and anticipates whatever Jongdae has to say. “I'm not crazy, am I?”

                Baekhyun gets caught off guard by the question. Jongdae stares at him with hope and he blinks repeatedly at him, he can't even believe Jongdae said that. Jongdae's phone vibrates and he looks at it for a moment. Someone is calling him, but he ignores the phone call.

                “Back then... You set me up with Tao for that one night stand, I didn't think it was a big problem and then... Lu Han set us up together too for a double date and... suddenly I'm into him, but he's not, so we didn't see each other after that.” Jongdae explains, his voice dripping with what sounded like sorrow. “I had another one night stand after that, I liked him, but I still think about Tao from time to time even when I'm with him.”  

                “No, you're not crazy.” He replies. “I'm pretty sure you know what this means.”

                "But Baek, I mean," Jongdae trails off, his eyebrows creasing in confusion as he rests his chin on his knees and lets his eyes gaze down at his toes. “I just feel like I don't want to be done with him, you know?”

                “I think I know what you mean.” Baekhyun nods his head, hand reaching out to hold Jongdae's shoulder. “I think it's best if you talk to him about it.” Jongdae's phone vibrates again.

                “Talk to him?” Jongdae repeats, skeptical. He takes a look at his phone and ignores the phone call once more. “I just told you! He doesn't want to see me, what makes you think he'd be up for talking to me?” 

                “I'm just saying. If you feel like he's not explaining himself, then I'm suggesting that you hear his side of the story first.” Baekhyun tells him, and Jongdae goes quiet once more. His phone screen lights up and someone is calling him again. Jongdae doesn't do anything but stare at it, eyes sad and mouth shut. “Is that him?” He asks, and Jongdae's eyes shift up to stare at him. “The guy from that one night stand you mentioned.”

                “O-oh...” Jongdae looks back at his phone. “Yeah...”

                “Are you not going to answer that?” He asks, and Jongdae shakes his head. His lips settle into a pout and he puts his phone face down onto the table, showing clear indication that he doesn't want to talk to whoever is calling at the moment. Baekhyun utters a small sigh and rubs his neck sheepishly at the situation. It feels as if Jongdae is denying his feelings for Zitao, and that he's distracting himself from Zitao by spending some time with this other man he had a one night stand with. If he says anything about that, he has no doubts that Jongdae would say something along the lines of I'm not forcing myself to be with him, I genuinely like him.

                Yes, Baekhyun thinks, Jongdae has eyes on this man, but deep down both him and Jongdae know where his heart lies. He just wants to be with Zitao, right? 

                Huang Zitao. Of all the times Baekhyun's spent with the taller male, one thing that he is sure of is that Zitao is not the type to leave without saying anything. Thus explains why he doesn't like the idea of having one night stands. But in this particular situation, Zitao decides to leave without saying anything, he decides to do something that he never expects himself to do. He doesn't want to face Jongdae and explain himself – he is also denying his feelings for Jongdae. What has this man been up to again?

                Jongdae lets out a sigh and picks up his phone again. This time, he answers the call, gives Baekhyun a look before placing his phone beside his ear. Baekhyun stands up and walks to the kitchen in favour of giving him some privacy. He fishes his phone out of his pocket and takes a glance at Jongdae before typing in a message for a certain someone. 

                Before he knows it Jongdae is standing up, his feet dragging as he walks over to the door. “Hey Baek?” He calls out, a sad smile on his face. “Thanks for the talk. I'll be going now.”

                “So early?” Baekhyun blinks, phone in his hands as he sends the message. “Anyways, just... Just think about it okay. Maybe if you talk to him you'll feel a lot better.”

                “I'll consider it.” Jongdae shrugs. “I'll be on my way now.” He says, waving his phone beside his head where Baekhyun could see that he had just finished a phone call. “He misses me.”

                “How sweet.” Baekhyun chuckles, “Bye.” He looks down at his phone as it alerts him to an incoming message.

                What do you mean? – Lu Han

~

“You're looking good.”

                Zitao snickers loudly at Lu Han's compliment. He brushes his fingers through his hair and meet's Lu Han's reflection in the mirror where he's lying on Zitao's bed, one arm propped up on the bed to support his head. “I know.” He replies smugly, and Lu Han scoffs at him. The older male had been excited about meeting Zitao in his apartment that day since he was excited to hear how Zitao's date went last night and now, he decidedly stays in his apartment before Zitao goes off to meet her one more time. 

                “Remember who taught you.” Lu Han winks at him in the mirror. Zitao rolls his eyes at him and walks away so he could look into his wardrobe and consider the jackets or blazers that would fit together with his outfit. “So I've been wanting to ask you something...”

                Zitao quirks a brow. “What's that?”

                Lu Han rolls to his stomach and rests his chin on both of his palm. “Does Sehun ever talk about me whenever you guys are alone?” He asks expectantly, legs kicking playfully behind him.

                Zitao turns his head to the older male with an unimpressed look on his face but replies anyway. “He does.” He says disgustedly. “'Hey Tao, you think Lu Han would be into this?' Or, 'Lu Han won't be weirded out if I do this, right?' And then he'd blush and tell me not to say a word about it.”

                “How cute. I guess he can't resist me.” The smaller male smiles smugly, and Zitao laughs at him. Suddenly Lu Han's phone rings, signalling that he has an incoming message.

                “Who was that?” Zitao asks with a smirk as Lu Han fishes his phone out of his pocket. “Sehun?”

                “Very funny, Taozi.” He says sarcastically. “That was... Baekhyun...” He trails off, eyebrows knitted together in confusion when he finally reads the message on his phone. “He is sending me some weird messages... Hold on, let me just call him.” Zitao waves a dismissive hand at him and Lu Han walks out of the room to make a call. 

                “Don't you get it?” Is the first thing Baekhyun asks.

                “What?” Lu Han blinks, looking around him to make sure Zitao isn't eavesdropping on his conversation. “Jongdae wants him? Are you talking about Zitao?”

                “Of course!” Baekhyun hisses.

                “Wait,” Lu Han frowns. “Doesn't Jongdae have a new boyfriend or something? His boyfriend's been at our apartment a lot.”

                “He talked to me just now.” Baekhyun explains. “He has a boyfriend but guess what? He's still into Zitao. Can't get over him.”

                “Oh...” He ponders for a moment. “We should like... Get them to talk to each other or something.”

                “That's what I said to Jongdae!” Baekhyun exclaims. Lu Han turns to Zitao's door and hopes he doesn't leave the room anytime soon. “It looked like Jongdae was pretty firm about not wanting to talk to Zitao anymore.”

                “Hey you know what?” Lu Han smiles, suddenly feeling mischievous. “One day, I'll talk to Jongdae into meeting me in some coffee shop, you talk to Zitao into meeting you in a coffee shop and we'll just leave them together so they can talk.”

                “Sounds like a plan to me.” Baekhyun chuckles. “Okay, talk to you later.”

                When the phone call ends Lu Han stares at his phone a bit longer. Zitao and Jongdae are making things complicated. Really, all he wanted in the first place was for them to meet each other, but things took an emotional turn and the next thing he knew is that Jongdae doesn't want to ever talk about their double date together and Zitao doesn't even want to lay his eyes on Jongdae ever again. He thought they would go along so nicely, but Zitao was being so pissy about the whole two night stand thing, and Jongdae refused to believe he ever had any feelings for Zitao.

                Lu Han just wants to hit him at the back of his head. And he does – he walks up to Zitao as he faces the mirror and rears his hand back to hit the taller man at the back of his head. Zitao flinches when he does that, hands immediately flying to cover the back of his head as he turns to look at Lu Han with an incredulous look on his face. “What was that for!” He demands.

                “I told you not to wear jeans with–” He pauses, eyes looking up and down Zitao's outfit. “Oh wait. That actually looks good on you.” He reaches his hand out to squeeze his shoulder and smiles brightly at him just to make up for hitting the back of his head. “Good job.”

                Zitao heaves a sigh before fixing his hair once more, and Lu Han takes the opportunity to casually walk over to his bedside table and eye Zitao's wallet that's placed there. Lu Han takes a glance at Zitao and cautiously takes his own wallet out before switching it with Zitao's. As a result, his wallet is now on Zitao's bedside table and Zitao's wallet is with him. That done, he takes a deep breath and heads over to the door. “Gotta go, Taozi.” He calls out. “Have fun at the date later!”

                Oh yes, Lu Han's got a plan.

~

It takes Zitao half an hour to realize that Lu Han's wallet is with him.

                He finds himself staring at Lu Han's ID card in confusion, and then it hits him that the older male probably took Zitao's wallet by accident and left his instead. He takes a look at his watch and finds that he still has some time before his second date with Liyin so he phones Lu Han about the matter. “Lu Han?” He calls out after said male replies. “Do you have my wallet? I think you took mine by mistake before you left.”

                “What?” Lu Han asks. He hears something at the end of the line before, “Oh. Yeah I have your wallet. Is mine with you?”

                Zitao lets out a relieved sigh at the reply. “Yeah, it's with me.” He replies. 

                “Could you come over to my place?” Lu Han suggests, “We could give our wallets back to each other and you'll go on your date.”

                “Sure,” Zitao says, “I don't want any of my money gone by the time I have it back.”

                “No promises, I'm afraid.” Lu Han chuckles at the other end of the line. “See you later.”

                Wait. Doesn't that mean... Oh no. Zitao has no choice but to go to Lu Han's apartment. He gravely doesn't want to go to his place because he'd have to face Jongdae too, but no, he isn't going to cancel his date because of this. Taking his keys, he walks out of his apartment and drives to Lu Han's place, leaving behind all form of comfort. 

                When he reaches Lu Han's apartment, he brushes his sweaty palms against his new jeans, takes a deep breath and hopes that whoever opens the door after he knocks isn't Jongdae.

                The door opens. Fortunately, it's not Jongdae.

                However, it's also not Lu Han.

                The man on the doorstep is just as surprised as he is. Both males blink repeatedly at each other, surprised, and Zitao briefly wonders if he got the wrong apartment, or if Lu Han moved out without him knowing. But no, he's sure of it, and the male looking back at him is doing nothing but gape at him, a big bowl of popcorn in his hand. It was in that moment that Zitao gets a good look of the man in front of him – buff, around Zitao's height (but Zitao likes to believe he's taller) and he has this air of intense confidence. Zitao clears his throat.

                "Sorry, who are you?" The man finally asks, breaking the silence between them.

                "I'm... Zitao.." He replies, trying to look past the man. "Is Lu Han around?"

                "Zitao? Is that you?" A distinctive voice calls out instead. It's familiar enough for Zitao to know it's Jongdae, and the male standing on the doorstep shifts to the side, revealing Jongdae sitting comfortably on the sofa. Judging by the bowl of popcorn in the male's hand and the blue blanket wrapped around Jongdae's small frame, Zitao wonders if he interrupted their movie session.

                "Yeah..." Zitao croaks out, "Is Lu Han around? He said he accidentally took my wallet."

                "Oh, hold on, let me just get him," Jongdae says. From Zitao's peripheral vision he sees the male put some popcorn in his mouth, watch Zitao intensely and listen to their conversation carefully. "I'll be right back."

                "Okay," Zitao flashes a small smile and waves a dismissive hand at him before Jongdae is off walking to Lu Han's room, leaving Zitao and the male alone.

                “So,” The male begins, and suddenly he's wearing this cold demeanor that has Zitao wanting to scowl at him. “How did you know Jongdae? You two friends or something?”

                “Yeah,” Zitao nods his head, folding his arms across his chest. “Lu Han introduced me to him.” The male nods. They fall into silence, and suddenly Zitao finds himself frowning and staring back at the male with a somewhat competitive feeling – it's not like they're in a competition or anything, but Zitao certainly gets the impression that this guy sees him as one, and he definitely doesn't want to lose. 

                Before anything could get even more intense Jongdae comes out of Lu Han's room, Zitao's wallet in his hands and Zitao turns his attention from the male to him. Jongdae looks back and forth between them, and then places a hand on the taller male's back before handing Zitao his wallet back. “Thanks, Jongdae.” Zitao puts on a warm smile for the smaller male just to tick the man off and it works – he sees the man scowl from the corner of his eyes and gives himself a pat on the back. What was the man thinking he wants to compete with Zitao? If anything, Zitao probably knows Jongdae in – in.... more ways than one...

                Zitao walks away from the door and catches the impatient look on the male's face before the door is shut. Zitao feels something kick at the back of his head as he leaves Lu Han's apartment – something like irritation, anger. He isn't sure why, but it feels as if something is wrong.

                No, there's nothing wrong. Zitao sure of it too, he's not jealous. He's happy for Jongdae. He's happy that Jongdae's found a man to settle with, and that he wasn't hung over him. At least both of them have moved on with their lives.

A/N: this was sort of rushed ;A; soooo sorry if there are any mistakes here and there!!!