"Look, look, cookies!"

Kyungsoo almost flinches when he sees a tall shadowed figure sheltering him from the sunlight. The shadow crouches and Kyungsoo takes in the boy's cheerful grin. He smiles back tentatively, remembering to be polite to customers.

"Can I have one?"

Kyungsoo just nods and looks away, busying his hands with the cookie mixture. The boy reaches for a freshly made cookie and Kyungsoo remembers to warn him that they're still hot before his burns his fingers.

"Oh," The boy pouts.

"Take this one," Kyungsoo points towards a cookie with his stirring spoon. He hears footsteps and almost flinches again when he sees three more boys behind the crouching one.

"What are you doing?" The morbidly tall one runs a hand through his hair and fixes the boy crunching on the cookie with a stern look.

"This... this... this is so good."

"Thank you," Kyungsoo gives him a small smile and he presses a star shaped cookie cutter into the dough.

"Kris ge, pay for my cookies."

The man who spoke before sighs.

"Here, take some," The boy hands out cookies to each of his friends and they take them carefully.

"My name is Huang Zitao," He tells Kyungsoo happily. He points to the tall man and introduces him as Kris. "This is Sehun, and this is Jongin."

"Hello," Kyungsoo says, his eyes flitting briefly over each boy. Kris' face is impassive and his height scares Kyungsoo slightly, so he looks away very quickly.  Sehun doesn't prove to be much friendlier with a very blank expression and his lips pulled in a slight pout, and Jongin's looking at the cookie in his hand with a mixture of apprehension and disgust.

Kyungsoo decides quickly that while Zitao seems to be like an overly friendly panda, his friends look fit for a well-dressed sort of gang.

"What's your name?" Zitao asks through a mouthful of cookie.

"Oh," Kyungsoo flips over the cookie dough.  "I'm Kyungsoo. But my friends call me D.O."

"Why?"

"My last name is Do, so it's probably that."

"Imaginative," Sehun deadpans, dusting off the cookie crust from his hands.

"Ah -" Kyungsoo is unsure of what to say. "-not really, I guess."

 Jongin gives him a weird sort of look and Kyungsoo has to look away before his face burns even brighter.

 "Well, my friends call me Tao," Zitao the tips of his fingers. His eyes narrow mischievously and Kyungsoo has to stifle a smile at Sehun's stony glare.

 Kris crouches down, a couple of bills in his hands. His face is surprisingly handsome but what really amazes Kyungsoo are his hands which seem to be bigger than Kyungsoo's own head.

 "Will this be enough?"

 Kyungsoo accepts the bills and counts through them quietly, and singles one out to give Kris his change.

 "Don't bother," Kris says, giving him a gummy smile. "It's a tip."

 Kyungsoo gives him a look that must be more than just a little bewildered because Zitao laughs and the high pitch sounds strange combined to his features.

 "It's because you're cute," Zitao coos, looking like he was moments away from pinching Kyungsoo's cheeks.

 Kyungsoo silently thanks Kris for pulling Zitao up before he could. Zitao answers Kris with a grunt but smiles and tells Kyungsoo to keep warm and not to work too hard.

 "Thank you," Kyungsoo beams up at him and finishes the icing on the cookie. He hands it to Zitao.

 Zitao's eyes go round and Kyungsoo swears that he looks a little teary.

 "Hyung," He wails at Kris, almost shoving the cookie into his nose.  "It's a panda. Look at it! It's perfect. He's perfect!  Can we keep him, please, please?"

 "Stop doing aegyo," Sehun cuts through icily. "You're embarrassing."

 Kyungsoo wants to speak up and tell Sehun that Tao's actually very cute even though he's a little weird but doesn't because Kris agrees with Sehun (even though his wording is politer) and they haul Zitao away as he yells choked up goodbyes to Kyungsoo. Sehun just smirks and Jongin gives him another one of those creepy stares before departing as well, holding Kyungsoo's cookie between his thumb and forefinger.

Even though Kyungsoo likes Zitao considerably, he is glad to see the strange entourage go, because if Sehun made him feel a little bit iffy, Jongin made him feel straight out uncomfortable.