Compose New Tweet

Happy New Year 2016. Have a great year ahead!

Tweet.

Chen smiled to himself, satisfied.

It was dark by the time they finished playing Mario Kart and Suho had to go out buying the promised pizza because it was his 34^th lose. Chen was sitting in front of his computer, scrolling through Suho’s twitter timeline as he waited for the older boy to get him his pizza. Well, he’d love to share but he was the MVP today.

A notification popped up when Chen glanced back up from his phone screen to check his own account. It was a reply to the new year tweet from someone with the username @freezingms90 that said:

XM @freezingms90 13s

Glad to know you’re still alive. Wanna get some coffee tomorrow?

The reply instantly piqued his interest.

They had been friends since elementary school. They went to same high school but had to part ways in university. Suho enrolled into business and management major while he went to a completely different path, music and performing arts.

Chen obviously knew everyone in Suho’s circle, given 12 years of being best friends. But he absolutely never heard of this one. Freezingman? So people who used lame username still existed out there and Chen winced when he realized he got the username wrong. He swept his glance along the sentence and started typing into the reply box.

“Uh, I’m glad too? I guess-”

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Chen’s fingers stopped moving and hovered over the keys. He raked his brain for some information about Suho’s schedule tomorrow. He might as well be considerate if he wanted to take care of this one.

Morning class. Lunch break. Class, he recalled Suho’s schedule on Monday.

He grinned to himself when he remembered that Suho class ended at 4 PM. He usually got to go home early on Mondays. What a perfect timing, Chen thought to himself.

Su Ho Ho Ho @kimjmyeon12 18s

@freezingms90 Sure. Is 4 PM okay for you?

Chen typed away, suddenly forgetting the witty comment he previously wanted to throw. The clicking sound of mouse was drowned by the sound of doorknob being turned and Suho appeared with two boxes of pizza in his hands, his face sour.

“Yay!” Chen pumped his fist in the air as he basically jumped out of the chair and dashed towards Suho to help him with the boxes. He cradled the boxes in his hand while grinning triumphantly up at Suho who rolled his eyes but let the corners of his lips lift slightly anyways.

“I’m going to get the coke. Don’t you dare get a head start,”

With a glare, Suho disappeared into the hallway.

Chen was sniffing the boxes when Suho came back with a large bottle of coke, two mugs and a bowl of ice cubes. He set it on the table next to the boxes and began picking ice cubes into his own mug. Chen retrieved his own mug (well, his default mug when he was over at Suho’s house) and cracked the coke bottle open with ease.

“I’ve never had such a sweet victory in a long time,” Chen sang after finished munching on an ice cube. He grinned over at Suho who was keeping a scowl in his face. But he regarded his best friend’s playful tendencies like he’d ever been all this time.

“Next time, I get to choose what to play,” Suho glared as he moved closer to the table to open one of the box. Chen had said he’d like anything for his pizza so he ordered what they frequently ordered, meat and cheese.

“Alright, alright,” Chen said, happily munching on his first slice, “You’ll probably end up losing again,”

Suho shook his head, looking mildly irritated. “I have no idea where you get that level of confidence,” he paused and glanced over Chen’s head to see that his computer was still running. He stood up and walked over to the chair. “But when it comes to your crush you’re just as quiet as your phone,”

“Hey!” Chen yelled in protest, spitting pieces of meat everywhere. He turned around to look for a cushion to throw and it hit the back of Suho’s head. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he put a palm over his chest when Suho turned around on the chair, feigning to look hurt and offended.

“Which one? Your confidence or your crush?” Suho offered without shifting his glance from the screen.

“My phone!” The pout must’ve been audible because Suho’s shoulders shook as he chuckled.

“Yeah, isn’t your phone always so quiet? You even charge it once for two days,”

Chen threw both of his hands up, surrendering. “You got me there,”

A silence fell between them. But it quickly shattered when Suho gasped, loud enough for Chen to drop his fourth slice of pizza. He groaned but decided not to pay attention to whatever his best friend was doing on the computer and took a bite of the slice.

“Did you reply to Xiumin’s tweet?” came Suho’s voice after a long silence.

“To who?” Chen said over a mouthful of pizza.

“Freezingms90?” Suho’s voice was a pitch higher when he said that. It sounded full of urgency and Chen honestly had no idea what had possibly gone wrong by him replying to the tweet on his behalf, except—

“Wait,” Chen paused to swallow. “Don’t tell me you still have something to do after class tomorrow?” he took a sip of his cola and glance over the rim of his mug at Suho nervously. He messed up. He knew it. He could tell just by the way Suho was gripping at his mouse slightly harder. His knuckles didn’t turn white but he could tell.

“Listen, drama queen, I’m sorry, okay?” Chen said over the forming lump in his throat. He put his mug away from him on the table and got up to walk over to the computer. He bent down slightly to peek at the screen and was surprised by the new notification that had just came in.

“You should come,” Suho said weakly without shifting his glance away from the word ‘yeah, sounds good to me’. Chen looked at his best friend incredulously but Suho looked like he’d given up.

“Okay, okay,” Chen tried to reassure him. “But who’s he, anyway? I’ve never heard of him before,”

Suho looked around his computer table, looking for something. He reached the back of the monitor to take a sticky note out along with a pen. He started scribbling something and Chen leaned in to see what it was. Apparently, it was a doodle of someone’s face.

“Do you remember Lay?” Suho asked as he added bunny teeth below the mouth. He looked so focused and it made Chen think he must’ve taken this whole thing pretty seriously.

Chen made an incoherent noise at the back of his throat as he nodded.

“This guy, Xiumin, he helped me find a book which my professor recommended to use during my study in the university,”

Suho finished explaining and doodling at the same time and Chen started to sweat.

“How do you reject people without sounding like a rejection?” Suho put his hands to his face.

Chen shifted slowly to take the sticky note from his hand and looked at the doodle. It was really cute. He was wondering if people as cute as the doodle existed. And he realized he never really paid attention to this freezingman’s icon. Did he really look like this?

“Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?” he pointed to the doodle and Suho glared.

“Why did you choose to be an right now, of all times?”

Chen grinned sheepishly. “I thought you were free so I decided it for you,”

Suho exhaled noisily through his nose. “Remind me to not ever let you get close to my computer when I’m not around,”

“Okay…? But what do you want me to do about this freezing guy?” Chen lifted the sticky note to his face. A bunny face covered his vision.

“I want you to go meet him,” Suho’s voice came muffled because apparently he was already on the other side of the room, changing his clothes.

Chen had a time to be surprised. “What?”

Suho’s head peeked out of the collar of the shirt and he didn’t count how many times Suho had glared at him today. And it was only halfway through the day. “Stop glaring or your eyes are gonna fall out of the sockets,”

“Then stop pissing me off,”

Ouch. It was true, actually and Chen grimaced.

“Anyway, you have to meet him at the promised time and don’t be late!” Suho said, putting on his pajama pants and went back to sit on the chair. He sighed when Chen didn’t say anything. “Listen, he’s a nice guy. You two will get close in no time,”

Chen looked into the distance. “What if I don’t want to?”

“Oh, you will.” He could absolutely hear the evil grin in his best friend’s voice.

--

It turned out that he came an hour early because he suddenly forgot the promised time and went to the coffee shop as soon as his class was dismissed. It was around 2 PM and he had to wait yet another hour as he stared at the empty cup on the table.

Suho had told him that apparently he had to be back at the dorm to finish a group project due next week and he didn’t want to have an earful from his roommate, Baekhyun, because he’d been slacking off lately. Chen had pat his best friend’s back in advance and actually drove him to the dorm early in the morning.

He’d known Baekhyun for two years. And his boyfriend Chanyeol, for a year.

The two always ticked him off whenever they decided to do PDA.

Chen had finished his second cup of Caramel Macchiato by the time a guy came over to his table and asked him if he went to the wrong table because—

“You’re not Suho…”

His vision was blocked by blue. So much blue. Too much blue, he decided. And that was when he trained his eyes up to look at the guy’s face and gasped. “Bunny face!”

What the hell was that, Kim Jongdae?

“I-I’m sorry, I mean,” Chen fumbled with his phone. “Freezingman, isn’t it?”

He facepalmed when the guy started chuckling and slumped into the wooden chair next to him. Of course Chen had to forget the guy’s name under such important circumstances like this and it made him mad because he just couldn’t remember.

“Listen, I know you’re surprised and all because obviously I’m not Suho and I didn’t mean to creep you out or anything but I was the one who replied to your tweet last night,” he started explaining while flailing his limbs helplessly.

The guy smiled. “Why were you on Suho’s twitter? Are you guys…?”

The question threw Chen over the edge as he flailed some more while trying to answer. “No, no, it’s not like that,” he managed to explain without stuttering. “We’re best friends since forever and I was sleeping over and yeah,” he rubbed the back of his neck.

“I see,” Freezingman hummed as he threw an amused glance at Chen who couldn’t decide where to set his eyes to. He opted for the wooden table that absolutely looked as interesting as a brick wall. “Did you wait long?” he jolted in his seat when the bunny guy’s voice reached his ears.

“Nope, not really,” he answered without looking up.

He could still feel the guy’s eyes on him and when he looked up, the guy raised an eyebrow. “Explain those cups, then, err—” the guy squinted his eyes while trying to read the name written over Chen’s cup. “…chensaurus,” he grinned, ending the statement.

Chen felt like burying himself.

“I’ve been here…long enough to order two cups of my favorite drink, that’s all,” he provided weakly and he thought his heart was gonna stop beating when he saw the guy gasped and looked genuinely concerned.

“I’m sorry,” he said but Chen couldn’t hear him over the hammering of his heart.

“I-It’s not a big deal, really,” Chen managed to choke out several inhales of deep breath later. He had a tendency to be clumsy when he was nervous so when he knocked the cups off the table, he stared at it for a moment but quickly recovered.

“I’ll go order the drinks.”

--

Chen had decided that he needed to stop using Freezingman and Bunny guy to refer to the guy so he did what everyone did on their first meeting with someone, asking his name. But of course, being the gentleman he was, he had introduced himself first (and asked the guy to follow his twitter as well).

“Xiumin,” the name rolled easily on his tongue and it was only later he remembered that Suho indeed had mentioned his name several times yesterday. He was just too dense to remember. Suho sometimes scolded him for that.

“Do you have something to say to Suho? I mean, I can pass it to him if you want,” Chen asked casually after taking a sip of his third Caramel Macchiato. Looked like he’d have to stop consuming caffeine three days onwards.

Xiumin looked startled after hearing his question. “Ah, it’s okay. It’s nothing important. I just wanted to say hello and catch up on pretty much everything,” his answered quietly as he fiddled with his locked phone.

Chen made an understanding noise and took a notice of how the guy’s ears were slightly tingled pink. Holy hell, Chen felt like poking those ears but he composed himself. “He told me you helped him search for the book he needed,” he was surprised at how casual his voice came out in contrast of how attacked he felt. “It was so kind of you,”

Xiumin nooded and he finally met his gaze. “Well, I feel like as his senior I—”

“Hold up,” Chen cut him off mid-sentence. “You’re his senior? Holy ,”

Xiumin looked amused. “Yeah, why?” he chuckled.

“You look younger than that damned young master,” Chen snorted a laugh and start fanning himself. He looked similar to those gossip girls who just found out the they hated got roasted by the teacher and couldn’t contain their feels.

“Young…master?” Xiumin’s laughter brought Chen’s hands back to his side.

“Because he’s rich and all,” he rolled his eyes.

“Well, yeah, I can see that,” Xiumin grinned, bright and beautiful and Chen wondered if it was the heavens’ lights he just saw.

“I can tell him to swipe his card for us,” Chen joked with a sole purpose to see the grin once again.

And he did witness the grin come back to Xiumin’s face but not for long before his stomach started to hurt and his vision started to blur. He might want to kill himself later if he remembered what he said before he stumbled out of his seat and collapsed right ing there in front of Xiumin.

“Hehe…you have a really cute face.”

--

When Chen opened his eyes, his vision was blocked by a blurry face of a guy…it was Xiumin! He felt himself panicking at the proximity but he couldn’t bring himself to sit up because his body was apparently still weak as hell. Also his stomach still hurt but not as bad as it did a few hours ago.

Wait…how long had he been out?

He realized he said that out loud when he heard Xiumin’s voice answered.

“Three hours and a half,”

He could make out the shape of Xiumin’s head as he turned to see the clock. Chen tried to sit up by using his elbows as support. For now he didn’t know what time it was, where Xiumin had brought him or whether he’d paid for their drinks or not. He didn’t know what happened after he passed out and it was embarrassing.

“Are you okay? It’s okay if you want to lay around until you recover,” Xiumin reached out to put his palm on his shoulder and he tried not to freak out. Not now, Brain.

Chen shook his head and managed a small smile. He must’ve looked so tired because Xiumin’s frown deepened. He told him to lean against the armrest while he went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. He had nodded and muttered a quiet thanks. When Xiumin was totally out of his sight, he freaked out.

He was chomping and pulling abusively at the collar of his shirt when Xiumin appeared with a glass of water in hand. If it wasn’t for the state he was in, he probably had thought he looked like an angel that just descended from heaven.

Chen quickly release the collar of his shirt and took the water gratefully.

For the nth time today, Chen wanted to bang his head against a brick wall.

“We’re at Lay’s dorm, don’t worry,” Xiumin provided even before he got the chance to ask. It was like he could read his mind like an open book and he felt amazed.

“That Lay?” Chen raked his brain for memories of a person with the name Lay. “The same Lay whom Suho and I know?”

Xiumin nodded. Chen noticed he was sitting on the floor when he had to look down to talk to him. He quickly folded his legs and told Xiumin to sit on the space left of the couch. He agreed and he felt like they could converse more comfortably like this.

“Geez, you got it pretty nasty right there,”

A voice from the door startled him as he looked over Xiumin’s head to see that Suho was standing in the doorway with a plastic bag hanging loosely from his fingers. He put what looked like a keychain on the bowl beside the shoe rack and slipped into the house while muttering, “sorry for the intrusion.”

When he was close enough to hover around them, he set the bag on the table and put his hands to his hips.

“Oh, no, my mom’s here and she’s going to scold me,” Chen said with a feigned scared tone and expression. Xiumin actually laughed at that and added, “Her glare is really nasty I think I’m going to cry,”

At that, Suho’s expression softened and his hands were back on his side. He crouched down to sit on the floor just in time for Chen to reach out and look into the plastic bag he brought. There were enough Mocha Breads to feed them for two days in the bag and Chen waved the bag happily in the air.

“Let’s forget about her nasty glare, my mom’s actually an angel,”

Suho cleared his throat. “I’m not your mom, Jongdae, you prick,”

Even though Chen a lot for acting like one, he was truthfully grateful for it because he lost his mom in such early age and Suho had been taking a good care of him since then. Well, his whole family actually had a big influence on his life.

“Whatever, Junmyun. I’m not sharing the bread with you,” Chen stuck his tongue out.

Xiumin laughed and took the bread from his hand. “You’re not having anything if you still act like a five-year-old, Jongdae,”

Chen was obviously ignoring Suho’s mention of his real name earlier but hearing Xiumin said it made his heart skipped a beat and he felt he might collapse again. He stopped his movements mid-air and contemplated what to do. He didn’t want the silence turn awkward so he reached out and tickled Xiumin.

“Give me back my mocha bread, you thief,”

Xiumin’s laughter roared and it was contagious. Soon, they were a mess of limbs on the couch as they tried to tickle each other, the bread long forgotten. Suho chose not to care and treat himself the sweet bakery as he scrolled through his timeline.

“Lay mentioned me,” Suho said when the laughters had died down and there was only the sound of their heavy breathings. “Don’t roll around on the couch too much or it will—” A loud crack. “—break,”

As if on cue, the part of the couch they were sitting at collapsed and the movement made Chen hit his head against Xiumin’s. Suho looked at them and the couch interchangeably in horror. And as if things weren’t bad enough, a knock on the door was heard and Lay’s voice echoed throughout the room.

“Is everything okay, guys?”

--

Chen had never thought he’d go out with Xiumin again. Besides coffee shop and Lay’s dorm. Not to mention, they were going to IKEA. And Chen felt embarrassed the moment he stepped into the building. It was swish and everything looked so expensive. He never once went to IKEA and had no idea what to do.

Xiumin nudged him to start walking because he was apparently blocking the entrance. It broke him out of his stupor and he started following the excited Xiumin into the living room section.

There were so many things to see. So many couches to look. And so many price to pay.

He gripped Suho’s card and nodded to himself. He ran up to Xiumin who was currently looking at a wooden cabinet. There was a blue couch next to it and Chen couldn’t help but sit there. It was very comfortable, way more comfortable than the one they owned in their house or the one they broke in Lay’s dorm.

“Hey, you’re not going to sit there forever, right? We need to go,” Xiumin said over to him, amused.

Chen raised an eyebrow. He was about to respond when he saw one of the worker walk towards them and quickly scrambled up to his full length. He snorted when the worker didn’t even notice them. “Psh. Thought gonna get my kicked,”

“Like the last time Suho did to you for breaking Lay's couch?” Xiumin chuckled.

A heat crept up to Chen’s cheeks upon hearing that. His mouth opened, wanting to say something but he closed it again. Xiumin pulled his hand before he could make out a single coherent sentence as a response.

The trip to IKEA was surely going to be one of those moments he’d never forget.

Xiumin was a really responsible guy and Chen let him handle everything, including Suho’s card. After he swiped and purchased the similar couch (red one) under Lay’s name, he asked the worker to have them delivering the couch to Lay’s dorm. It was nice and clean. And Chen was grateful he asked him to go with him.

After considering that it was safe enough for them to leave, Chen defied himself to ask Xiumin to go to the coffee shop where he collapsed and didn’t get to finish his drink. The older guy had asked him if his stomach could handle the drink but he waved it off by saying he was craving for the tea.

“I only agreed because you said you wanted tea,” Xiumin motioned towards his cup.

“Alright, alright,” Chen pushed him towards where they sat a few days ago and went to the counter to order the same drinks they ordered.

“I thought you said you wanted tea!” Xiumin exclaimed as soon as he was back with their drinks. He pouted and Chen felt like his heartbeat taking a speed at the sight.

“Sorry, my brain is on auto-pilot every time I’m in front of the counter,” he said with a sheepish grin and thankfully, Xiumin didn’t push on it further. He felt himself relaxing in his seat as he took a sip of his drink.

A silence fell between them. It was rather an uncomfortable one on Xiumin’s side.

So Chen opened his eyes, stopped drinking and turned his head towards the older guy.

“What’s bothering you? Do you not like the drink?” he asked, panicking.

Xiumin laughed but it sounded strained. “It’s not that,”

Chen raised an eyebrow. “What is it then? You want to use the toilet?”

Xiumin shook his head. He was looking down at his fisted palms on his lap.

“Is it okay if I say I like you, Jongdae?”

--

“You are a big idiot,”

Chen’s groan came out muffled by his arm over his mouth. He was laying on Suho’s bed, staring at the blankness of his ceiling and contemplated to go back to IKEA to buy a star decoration to fill the space. Next to him, Suho was typing away a document which apparently a report of the group project.

It had been four days since the confession and he never heard from him since then. It had also been four days since Chen ran away and hid his in Suho’s house. Weekend came by surprisingly fast and he was secretly thankful for it.

“Get yourself together, man,” he heard Suho said in between the click-clacks of the keys. He started to get irritated by the sound now that he’d been hearing nothing but that for exactly two hours.

“I’m trying,” Chen glared over his fingers.

“Do I need to set you two up or something?”

Chen knew he was absolutely joking but the idea was really bad. He didn’t want to involve anyone else. It was his problem. And he needed to face it himself. Solve it like a man. He began to question his true feelings for the older guy when Suho’s voice was back into the focus of his hearing.

“Here, he just tweeted to me,” Suho shifted the monitor slightly but it was still too bright for Chen to see from the spot where he was laying on the bed.

“What did he say?” he was curious and he felt like his heart beat faster as he waited for Suho’s answer.

“Tell him I’m sorry and that I want to talk to him for the last time?”

Thump.

“What did he mean by last time?” Chen thought out loud.

He heard Suho typing again. “Do you want me to reply that to him?”

Chen groaned into his hands. “Do you have his numbers?”

That was it. He finally asked it.

He could feel Suho’s smug eyes and grin was directed towards him. He heard a shuffling before a phone was shoved in his face. “Here,” and the lit screen came into focus in his vision. A string of numbers was displayed across it as Chen fumbled to fish his own phone out and saved the numbers.

“Thanks,” he mumbled before getting up, glancing at the clock and walking towards the door to get his jacket.

Suho didn’t need to ask to know where his best friend was going. He just grinned to the monitor as he waved and said, “I hope he won’t dump a drink or a spaghetti to your head or something.”

--

Chen had called Xiumin and it took three rings for him to pick up. It was awkward as hell and Chen wanted to set himself on the railway or something. But he managed to tell Xiumin to come to the pasta restaurant near Lay’s dorm. Then he remembered what Suho had said to him before he left his house.

“I hope you won’t dump that spaghetti on me,” he said nervously when the food came.

Xiumin choked a laugh. “Why do you think I’d do that?”

Chen’s shoulders sagged. “Because you’re mad at me for running away?” he shrugged.

“Well,” Chen saw Xiumin took the fork and began twirling the pasta. “I don’t know why you still think about that but I forgave you a long time ago,”

Chen pouted. “That means you were mad at me,”

Xiumin had to roll his eyes. “Yeah, but I think I’m the one who should’ve apologized,”

He had stopped twirling the pasta around his fork when Chen looked up, genuinely surprised. “Are you saying you feel sorry because you like me?” he asked in disbelief.

Xiumin grimaced. “You make me look like the bad guy here!” then he proceeded to put his fork down, got up and dove in to place a kiss on Chen’s cheek.

By the time Xiumin had settled down in his seat, Chen’s face was very red and did the temperature just turn a thousand degrees hotter? Because Chen could feel his palm started sweating. The grin on Xiumin’s face wasn’t helping either.

“It looks like you’re going to collapse again. Are you okay?” Xiumin asked, looking a bit worried.

Chen looked down on his empty plate. On a pan of Italian pizza. On a condensed glass of iced tea. On Xiumin’s spaghetti. On Xiumin’s hands. On Xiumin’s collarbones. On Xiumin’s lips. He stopped. He thought the tablecloths were ugly and eating out at this hour was definitely a bad idea.

“Why do you have to be like this?” he cried.

Xiumin blinked up at him when he stood up. “Are you leaving? But what about the pi—”

Chen didn’t give Xiumin a chance to finish his sentence. He looked around the empty café and leaned in. He whispered, “I don’t like Italian food, anyways,” before he sealed their lips together in a chaste kiss.

THE END