13^th October 2018

“I need your advice.” Is what Ryeowook greets Jongdae with when he and Baekhyun walk into the café. Jongdae blinks. He hadn’t even had the time to sit down and order some food yet.

Jongdae opens his mouth to say something yet before any sound could come out Ryeowook had grabbed him by the arm and led him out back to the staff rest area. Ryeowook closes the door behind him and makes Jongdae sit down on one of the chairs. Ryeowook takes his own seat facing Jongdae.

“Okay. What do you need my advice for?” Jongdae asks and he can honestly say that he’s curious as to why Ryeowook needed his advice. Usually people went to Ryeowook for advice not the other way around.

“So there’s this guy…” Ryeowook starts and Jongdae can feel a smirk start to form on his face. From what he knows it’s been a long while since Ryeowook has been romantically interested in someone. “He’s been coming in for a while and I know he’s had his eyes on me and yesterday he asked me out. What should I do?” he asks and Jongdae stares at him like he’s stupid.

“You say yes and let him take you out that’s what.” Jongdae says to Ryeowook bluntly.

Ryeowook bites his lip. “I just- I don’t know.” He says. “I don’t know if I’m ready, especially after…”

“Oh hyung.” Jongdae sympathises. Him and Ryeowook had been together for such a long time and they had looked so happy together. When Jongdae had heard that they had broken up he nearly couldn’t believe it. Jongdae had been convinced that they were going to last forever. Get married and have a family and he knew that Ryeowook had thought the same. But not everything is always as it seems to be.

“Just do what your heart tells you to hyung.” Jongdae advises. “It’s up to you whether you want to give it a go or not. Or you could tell him that you’re simply just not looking for a relationship at the moment. It’s up to him whether he stays or goes. If he chooses to leave he didn’t deserve you in the first place and if he stays well… that says something about him doesn’t it?”

“Thanks Dae.” Ryeowook says, his voice showing just how sincere he is. He knew Ryeowook trusts him to tell it as it is and to not sugar coat his thoughts.

“It’s nothing.” Jongdae says. “There’s no reason for you to thank me. It’s what friends are for.” He says, pulling Ryeowook towards him and giving him a big comforting hug.

“So, do I get to know who this mystery man is?” he asks cheekily, nudging Ryeowook in the side. Ryeowook clutches his side and looks at Jongdae with a glare that is supposed to be intimidating but to Jongdae he just looks like an adorable little kitten.

“No not yet.” He says when he’s finished ‘glaring’ at Jongdae. “I want to see how this will play out first. I don’t want to get my hopes up to early”

“Fair enough.” Jongdae says. “I expect a free meal for my services.”

“Like you ever pay anyway.” Ryeowook huffs. “I’m way too good to you.”

“You’re the one who refuses to let me pay.” He fires back and Ryeowook has to roll his eyes.

“Come on. Time to go back to the family. We need to make sure Baekhyun hasn’t managed to accidently kill one of the kids, or lose any of them.”

“Lets just say that if that happened all hell would rain down upon him.” Jongdae says.

Both Jongdae and Ryeowook stand up and make their way out of the rest room. They separate, Ryeowook heading behind the counter while Jongdae heads to their usual booth where Baekhyun had sat the kids down.

From what Jongdae could see nothing bad had happened. Junmyeon is happily sitting in Baekhyun’s lap playing with the salt and sugar packets while Minseok and Luhan are fully immersed in their drawing. One must never distract a child from their drawing and one must never try and guess what it is they’re trying to draw. Baekhyun had made that mistake once, thinking that Minseok had been drawing a bird when it had actually been a cat and reducing the little boy to tears, which had then resulted in Luhan bursting out into tears in retaliation to his brother.

It had taken Baekhyun, with the help of Jongdae, an hour to calm the boys down. In the end they had to result to bribery to get the tears to stop. Baekhyun had never made that mistake again after that.

Jongdae and Baekhyun had been sure to pass this bit of information onto Yifan, Chanyeol, Kyungsoo, Jongin and Ryeowook. They didn’t want them to encounter the same thing that they had. He was sure that Kyungsoo, Ryeowook and Yifan had listened to their advice though he wasn’t too sure about Chanyeol and Jongin. They tended to be a bit… forgetful at times.

“Is everything alright?” Baekhyun asks Jongdae when he sits down.

“Yeah, he’s fine. He may have found himself a man.”

“Really?” Baekhyun says.

“Yeah, though he’s not sure if he should go for it.” Jongdae says as he sips his drink. “In the end it’s all up to him. I told him what I thought but he has to make his own decisions. I can’t make them for him.”

“Yeah.” Baekhyun agrees. “Oh.” He says all of a sudden. “While you were talking with Ryeowook Kyungsoo came over for a little while. He couldn’t stay long but he told me to tell you he says hi and they he’ll catch up with you sometime later this week.”

“I’ll text him later.” Jongdae says in response. “Do you know where he was headed?” he asks.

“I think he mentioned going out to the park with Jongin and Sehun for lunch.”

“Ah that’s good.” Jongdae smiles. “They’re really getting along aren’t they?”

“They are.” Baekhyun agrees.

“He’s good for Kyungsoo. Because of him Kyungsoo literally has help twenty four- seven. I seriously think that Jongin would do anything for Kyungsoo and Sehun.”

“I wouldn’t surprise me. Jongin’s been taken by Kyungsoo from the moment they first met.” Baekhyun says and everyone who had seen them in the early stages of their relationship would have said the same thing.

“I know they haven’t officially been together for long but Kyungsoo already sees Jongin as being Sehun’s father.” Jongdae points out.

“It doesn’t surprise me really.” Baekhyun says. “Jongin really has stepped up and taken the ‘father’ role. They’re both so young and they’ve had to shoulder a lot of responsibility yet neither of them complained. They’re pretty mature for their age.”

“They have. They’re both strong young men.” Jongdae comments. He’s so proud of both of them.

He feels like their mother, watching them grow up and achieve amazing things. Their family had grown so much in the last couple of years and he would have it any other way. Life was good at the moment. They were surrounded by people they loved and trusted. They couldn’t ask for anything better really.

He couldn’t wait to see what the future holds for all of them.

I really struggled with this chapter. It was a challenge to get it over 1000 words. It doesn't help that I've been pretty sick as well. If you've been reading the notes at the end of the chapters you'll know that I've been pretty sick for about 3 weeks now. I'm feeling better today but I'm just really tired. Literally all I've been doing is sleeping. I've had to cancel all of my plans for this week :( I was supposed to be meeting up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while but I've just been to sick to even leave the house. Been parked on the lounge surrounded in blankets and pillows and wallowing in my own self misery.

Now about the chapter. Ryeowook may have found himself a man. Who do you think it is? Kyungsoo and Jongin are doing great, same with Baekhyun and Jongdae, and Chanyeol and Yifan. seeing as I've been struggling to come up with ideas for this story I have decided that the next chapter will be the last one. What are your thoughts about that? I hope no one's too upset or disappointed about it. After this is finished I'll hopefully post the story that I was supposed to post on Jongdae's birthday and then after that I have another story that I've been waiting to write for the longest time.

Oh and there's just something that I want to bring up. There's been a lot of problems lately with peoples stories and subbed video's being plagiarised or re uploaded. When this happens it really dampens the spirit. Some of my favourite authors and subbers have shut down or privatised their accounts because of this and it's just really upsetting to see. These people give up there time to do this for us and it's just blatantly disrespectful to claim others work as there own. If you see this (eg: plagiarised stories or videos uploaded where they're not supposed to) please report it.

Anyway see you all next week~