Walking up to the counter of the pet store, Seungcheol smiles at the worker.

The worker smiles back, ‘What can I help you with today?’

‘I would like to buy four koi fishes,’ Seungcheol tells her with confidence.

They exchange grins, glad to have such a great encounter with each other so far.

To continue their conversation further, the worker asked, ‘Do you have a 50 pound tank to accommodate your new koi fishes?’

Hearing the question though, makes the smile fall off Seungcheol lips. He never thought about the fish tank.

Seeing the smile fall off of Seungcheol, the worker hesitantly asks, ‘Wha- what size tank do you have?’

With a raised finger, Seungcheol, breathes in to start his sentence, but stops. Putting the finger on his lips, he thinks about his plans. It only takes seconds for him to realize what he was going to have to do. Nodding his head, accepting the decision he made with himself, Seungcheol starts once more. Looking at the waiting worker, Seungcheol tells her, ‘I should start from the beginning. I need a 50 pound tank and four koi fishes.’

The pet store worker nods with a smile, ‘Would you also be needing any accessories to go along with your purchase today?’

A clueless look of confusion takes over Seungcheol’s face again, ‘Koi fishes need accessories?’

‘The, the fish tank,’ the worker explains, ‘It makes the tank look nice. Otherwise you can just buy peebles, and it’ll be fine.’

Needless to say, Seungcheol goes home 500 dollars less than he expected, and a whole fish tank system to install.

‘You’re here pretty early, Seungcheol,’ Joshua said, walking up to the counter where Seungcheol was sipping on a cup of coffee.

‘I wanted to get an early start,’ Seungcheol informs him, ‘It is a Saturday, and Soonyoung was late coming in to grind the coffee last time. Where is he anyway?’

Joshua sighed, ‘Running late, as always.’

At that moment, the store door opens up and a ruffled up Soonyoung comes running through the door. ‘I’m here. I’ll grind the beans. I’ll start the machines. Woah! When did we get koi fishes?’

‘Koi fishes?’ Joshua repeats the question, following the gaze of Soonyoung’s, ‘What koi fishes?’

Seungcheol watches on with a small grin as Soonyoung coos at the new koi’s, already starting to name them.

Jihoon was fuming, angrily cleaning their equipments, as he tried to forget the last rude customer he had just helped. The customer had stood there, asking for every syrup Jihoon could put into the drink before they were satisfied. Not only was it impolite, but it went against all of Jihoon’s beliefs of how coffee should be drunk.

If Seungcheol knew of the situation beforehand, he would have rethought his approach, but with no prior knowledge of what happened, he walked over to Jihoon. ‘Hey Jihoon.’

Jihoon sighed and looked over to Seungcheol. ‘Please tell me you’re going to take over the counter for awhile.’

‘Is-is it that bad today?’ Seungcheol hesitates before remembering his intentions, ‘I had something i wanted to ask you.’

‘And that is?’ Jihoon asked, knowing he had no way of getting out of watching over the counter.

Seungcheol offers a smile, ‘If you’re not busy tonight, do you think you could hang out around for awhile. The whole crew is. We’ll close the whole store, we won’t have to deal with customers. Everyone wants to hang out with you too, and this is the perfect chance.’

Jihoon thought to his plans of going home and writing in peace. Was he really ready to give that up for spending more time with his coworkers? Looking up at Seungcheol’s expecting face, Jihoon knew he couldn’t back out of hanging out with them. He had no excuses. He had avoided many invitations and he felt bad enough already.

His writing was going to have to wait till much later. Jihoon sighed again as he said, ‘Fine. But don’t expect me to mingle and be happy.’

‘Your presence will be enough to make everyone else happy,’ Seungcheol tells him with a gummy smile.

After the store was closed, Jihoon sat himself in a chair and had yet to move or talk to anyone. Joshua had joined him at one point and tried talking to him, but their conversations were getting nowhere since Jihoon was giving him one word replies. Jun had also came to give him a huge hug before running over to where Minghao had claimed a spot on their new couch. Soonyoung tried to strike up a conversation, but when Chan had pronounced a dance battle he ran away to join.

Through all of this, Jihoon couldn’t wait till the hangout died out and he was allowed to go home. He saw no point in being there.

Taking out his phone, Jihoon started scrolling through different sites, wasting time. He didn’t care about the dance battle where Soonyoung was basically jumping on tables and chairs. He didn’t care about the rap battle that Hansol started, telling Seungkwan he was never going to become good. He didn’t care about the cookies Mingyu was handing out... actually Jihoon did stop his scrolling for a cookie, it was a cookie! He didn’t care about Jun running around hugging everyone, even the Wonwoo who was trying his hardest to avoid the hug.

So he didn’t notice when some of the members disappeared.

Only when all the lights go out, and Seungkwan starts screaming bloody murder does Jihoon stop staring at his phone. He looks around at the dimly lit place and wonders what was going on. In matter of seconds does he get his answer.

The lights returns and the backroom door swings open to reveal three members. Seungcheol, Joshua, and Seokmin walks through the door. Seungcheol holding a cake on a platter, and Joshua and Seokmin clapping as they started singing. ‘Happy birthday to you.’

Jihoon is confused to whose birthday it was, but he quietly joined in. When the cake ends up in front of Chan, Jihoon almost didn’t want to believe the youngest in their group was aging. Chan was supposed to stay their baby forever.

A smile grows on Jihoon’s lips as he hears Seungcheol sing loudly over everyone, ‘Happy birthday dear our precious Channie. Happy birthday to you.’

If Seungcheol was trying this hard to make everyone happy, Jihoon knew he could try to talk a little more to everyone too. Even if it meant trying to hold a conversation with Seungcheol.

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A/N: image credit to: wonnhuis