Luhan gave himself special exception on this hangout with Minseok to be a grouch. To his absolute horror, the coworker who also needed a suit and was Minseok’s party plus one was none other than Chen, the stalker and potential ual harasser. Picking them both up from Minseok’s house and driving to Luhan’s chosen tailor was like trying to keep needles in his mouth. Minseok was as friendly and jovial as ever, clearly not seeing the problem sitting in the backseat of Luhan’s navy Mercedes.

The sharp-cheeked coworker didn’t really speak unless Minseok asked him something, and a few times, Luhan looked through the rearview mirror and saw him making faces and muttering to the seat next to him. Yeah, definitely suspicious.

When they arrived at the small boutique, Luhan waved at his tailor friend, grabbed Minseok, and all but offered Chen up to be measured and dressed first. Liyin clapped her hands and practically bounced in her flats to be dressing someone new up, so Luhan felt no guilt whatsoever even as Chen shot him a glare. He just shot him a glare back.

“Wow. It’s so fancy here,” Minseok said, poking at one of the suits on display. “One or two of these would probably wipe my savings. Oh, wait.”

“Don’t worry. I called ahead after I called you and told Liyin to take it easy on your wallets.” He glanced to make sure that the two were deep inside the back space before huddling at Minseok’s shoulder. “Okay, spill the rice pot. Why are you going with your stalker coworker?”

He laughed, and Luhan grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“This is serious! What made you think that bringing him to a party in a different city was a good idea?”

“Lu, he’s really not the stalker you pegged him for. He knew that I was there at the mall that one time because I have a group chat with my coworkers.”

“Still! He’s shady and suspicious, and I refuse to let him go to a faraway different city with you.”

“Juzhou isn’t that far. And actually… I should probably tell you, so there won’t be anymore misunderstandings.”

He chuckled, nervous, and roped Luhan to the furthest corner of the store. Considering that heavy velvet curtains, racks of fabric, and a big dressing room in the back provided ample muffling, he didn’t think that it was necessary to go to such lengths, but he obliged his friend and leaned in as Minseok did.

“So, uhm, before, I told myself that I wouldn’t love anyone ever again. It didn’t seem right after what happened with my brother… I always thought that I cared too much or that how I cared led him to hate his life and throw caution to the wind.”

He in a shuddering breath, and Luhan patted his shoulder.

“I blamed myself for what happened, but… Chen told me that maybe there’s another way to look at it, and maybe I don’t— Maybe I don’t have to torture myself like this. I want to try loving again, and… I want the person receiving that love to be Chen.”

The little nervous flutter in his voice moved to his hands, rubbing at his neck. Looking at him again, Luhan could see the way pink dusted his cheeks and why his eyes would linger on the man. He gave Minseok a brief hug before holding onto his shoulders.

“Thanks for telling me. It must've been hard, going through that, but I’m glad that someone was there for you.”

He sighed. He had to admit it. Minseok was whipped, and Luhan could only wish for his happiness. However…

“But I hope you know that that just gives me more rights to make sure that this man is treating you right. You know how in dramas when the younger sibling gets a significant other, and the older sibling goes to inspect them? Yeah, I’m that older sibling. When you go in the back, I’m having a talk with Chen.”

“Lu, nooooo. I didn’t even tell him yet!”

“And when were you going to?”

“Uhhh…”

“Exactly.”

Luhan turned and was immediately yanked back, arms wrapping around his upper chest and squeezing his ribs, steadily constricting him. He thought that Minseok would ease his playful grip, but as the manager rambled nervously, panic started rising in him.

“No, Lu, I’m serious. Don’t tell him. I’ve been cutting off relationships since I was twenty-ish, and any amount of intimacy is like being injected with sugar. I think that I’ll die of embarrassment of whatever cheesy thing that Chen will unknowingly say to me because he doesn’t even know how cuddly he actually is—”

“Okay, I get it! Just let me breathe!”

He let go, and Luhan stumbled forward, gasping a bit. He didn’t want to raise alarm or make the manager feel bad, so he just coughed the discomfort away, taking deep breaths.

“Circuits, Minseok. You’re really strong.”

“I didn’t know that I was… Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Just be careful next time. Not all of us are built from steel beams like you.”

He chuckled and hooked an arm over his shoulders to reassure him and sat them down in the plush seats.

“Alright, so what made you like your stalker coworker?”

“Lu…”

“What? I’m an engineering professor. I live for gossip, and that goes double as your friend. I need all the details.”

Contrary to how he thought the manager would react, Minseok froze, staring wide-eyed at him. Luhan waved a hand in front of his face and had to poke the manager before he reanimated.

“Uhm, thanks for saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“That you’re my friend.”

That didn’t seem like something that really needed a thanks for, but then he remembered what Minseok just said about cutting off relationships. Justified rage fueled his person, and he wrapped Minseok in a hug.

“Of course, my bun of a friend, but I’m not letting you go that easy. Spill.”

“Not now, Lu. I don’t want Chen hearing yet.”

“There’s no way he can hear us from here with those curtains and the privacy of the back. Trust me.”

Minseok twittered out a nervous laugh, and Luhan held back a cringe using his years of teaching experience because that was just weird. A lot of things about his friend were weird—and not just idiosyncrasies that one could accept after frequency or turn into reasons for teasing.

The random looks across the room when he thought Luhan wasn’t looking, the hushed urgent whispering in his bathroom that didn’t sound like reassurances to a cat at all, that time he threw his cat at him and told him to drive away but then they woke up in his house—those Luhan didn’t know what to make of them. And right now, more than Minseok’s potential embarrassment of saying why he liked his coworker, he wondered why he glanced up at a certain angle, as if someone was there, and why he acted as if Chen would be able to hear them quietly speaking in another room.

Ah, wait. He was doing it again. He was calculating and scrutinizing a person’s actions, trying to find holes, mistakes, lies. But Minseok wasn’t someone who would have any of those without justification. The habit that Luhan tried so hard to smother and erase enacted itself on one of the most genuine people he had ever met. Cursing in his head, he shifted away from Minseok.

“On second thought, just tell me later. When I have a broom and dustpan to clean up your glitter and sparkles.”

“Lu, is there something wrong?”

“Nah, why would you think that?”

“Because you just sorta dimmed. And you don’t sound as happy.”

“It’s nothing. Just tired.”

He jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder. Peering over it, he saw Minseok frown for a moment before his expression lit in idea.

“It’s your turn. How’s it been going with that transfer student?”

Luhan looked away because he knew that his face was starting to heat up.

“N-Nothing needs to be ‘going’ between us. He’s studious as always, and I just grade his work. He finally got his refund a couple days ago, but it seems like a waste for him to buy the ebook when more than half the semester’s over, so we’re just going to continue our homework grading system.”

“Ohhh, so more time with him. I seeee.”

“Minseok.”

“I can tell that there’s something else you’re not telling me. As you said, spill the rice pot.”

He chuckled because that saying sounded funny hearing it from someone else, and the gossiper (or maybe excitement…) in him was burbling words in his chest.

“Okay, a couple weeks ago, his dog followed him to class. She’s really cute, a border collie named Vivi. She jumped me as soon as I started the class, and it was kinda weird because I walked in and there definitely was no dog in the classroom before. Anyways, then Sehun dropped his binder that he uses for the class, and he looked so embarrassed when everyone looked at the loud noise and when he came to the front to get his dog.”

Luhan chuckled thinking about the red that flushed his skin and how his features crinkled his normally impassive face in embarrassment. It had been an expression he never seen on Sehun before and… he liked it.

“Did you let him keep Vivi in the room?” Minseok asked.

“I wasn’t going to make him risk losing her by making her sit outside. I just told the class to keep it secret because it was obviously unintentional.”

“Mm hmm, and then?”

“I told him to come to my office hours because there was apparently some confusion about who she belonged to. He said that he thought that she belonged to a customer from his workplace and somehow managed to wander into his apartment, but she had a note with my social media tag written on it, so then he thought she belonged to me. He’s just going to take care of her since she likes him so much.”

The flatness of Sehun’s voice in the next comment surfaced in Luhan’s mind, and he sighed.

“He also said that she helps with him living alone among other things, and while I was trying to transition into asking about how he spent his autumn festival, he responded with the fact that his parents don’t care for traditions. He didn’t dwell on it, but with what he said about Vivi, I have a feeling that he’s not close with his parents. I can relate.”

Minseok nodded too, and Luhan sighed again, thinking of that day, of how Sehun so easily accepted his lack of purpose and tried to divert from the subject of himself. Luhan knew those tactics well, being a longtime master of redirection, so turning the conversation into a gentle confrontation had been easy. He could scoff at himself for falling back into his old habits, but he had done it to help Sehun. It was fine, he told himself, and that wasn’t what he wanted to focus on, not with Sehun.

“You know, he told me how he saw the world a little. I think he attributes colors to people’s passions and reasons for living.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. Did you ask him about his?”

“He said that he doesn’t have one. He offered to tell me mine, but I told him no.”

“How come?”

“I want him to find his first before he tells me mine. He has silver-dyed hair, and with how quiet he is to the world, I think that means something.”

Because Luhan saw it. He saw the little shines in his eyes when he told his tidbit of life for the homework grading session, when he hugged his dog in the classroom and outside their building, when he watched the world around him and spoke about it. The decisions he made, the things he endured, Luhan saw how they shaped him even if they didn’t temper any tangible passion. Silver was a beautiful color that matched the in-between Sehun saw himself in.

“Alright, then I hope you tell him that, along with everything that you were just thinking about.”

Luhan jumped a bit. He almost forgot that he was talking to Minseok. “What?”

“I hope you tell him that his living has its own purpose even if he feels that he has to search for it, and everything else that you were thinking so deeply about.”

“I-I wasn’t—”

“Don’t worry, Lu. You can tell me after you tell him.”

Minseok pulled a smirk at him, and Luhan just blinked because he didn’t expect someone like the mollifying manager to do anything remotely associated with cockiness. He was still processing it when footsteps shuffled, and the velvet curtains pulled back. Chen’s plain shirt and jeans had been exchanged for a dark green British traditional with an Alice blue collared shirt and golden pin on a subtly patterned tie. Luhan always had an interest in fashion, and he noted the tapered waist and fitted shoulder area of the suit to perfectly accentuate the coworker’s lean body.

“Liyin, you outdo yourself.”

“Oh, thanks. He was actually quite easy to adjust for, not as many changes as most. Just a bit snappy during measurements.”

“I don’t like people touching me.”

“Well, I hope you didn’t give her too hard of a time. Do you like it?”

Chen didn’t reply right away. Instead, he walked past Luhan, and Luhan couldn’t say that he wasn’t surprised to not see the man bust out in arrogance. Quite the opposite—he messed with the cuffs as he stopped in front of Minseok.

“Why’d you pick dark green for me?”

The manager met his eyes, looked down at the little space between them, then away, his face wholly red.

“How’d you know that I did?”

“The tailor said that the blessed one told her that that was what you wanted for me.”

“Luhan called me beforehand and asked me if there was anything specific we wanted. I just remembered seeing you in dark green before, and I wanted to see how it would look on you in a suit…”

“Is it okay?”

“Y-yeah, way better than just okay. You look great. Really h-handsome.”

Minseok fulfilled his bun namesake with the way he steamed hot and blushed. Chen leaned his face towards him, and Luhan faked a gag, not even wanting to guess what he was doing, while Liyin grabbed Luhan’s shirt and shook him with silent vicarious romance shrieks.

“Can I pick your suit color too?” Chen said.

Luhan saw Minseok nod, and Chen turned back to them.

“I want him in the same color as me.”

The vicarious romance shrieks stopped being silent as Liyin let out a screech right into his ear. Then she cleared and resumed professionalism, though not without a lingering smile.

“You can’t show up in the same suit color as your date, cotton fluff. But don’t worry—there’re are other ways to let people know that you’re together at a party.”

“We—us—no, we’re not together together—”

“Why’d you say two togethers like that?”

“Mr. Minseok, Mr. Chen, follow me back into the dresser, and Mr. Chen, you can pick out the details to your partner’s clothes.”

Luhan stepped back and sent Minseok a sly smile as he walked into the back WHILST his crush (Luhan’s just going to use that label) held his hand. Sitting down, he decided to check his emails as he waited, but he barely had one email answered when Chen walked back out in his casual clothes, bag carrying his suit slung over his shoulder.

“That was fast.”

“I barely looked at anything, and the tailor told me to go wait outside.”

“Oh, that just means that she saw what caught your attention and will style Minseok accordingly. Liyin is one of the best, so relax. She just doesn’t like having others watch her work.”

Glancing at the coworker, he waited a little, watching the man train his gaze to the velvet curtains, before clearing his throat.

“So Minseok invited you to be his plus one for his party.”

Chen turned his head back so that just his ear faced Luhan, and Luhan shivered a little at how he felt like he was the one being stalked but gathered his courage.

“For the record, I still have my apprehensions about you, but treat Minseok right, and I won’t go after you with a baseball bat, alright?”

The man shot up and threw the clothes down. An inhumane growl rumbled the air, and Luhan could’ve sworn that Chen’s eyes changed color as he him. He flinched into the chair just as Chen stopped, glancing to the side, like someone had caught his attention. Luhan held his breath, fear creeping up his spine while watching Chen’s gaze shift back and forth between him and the air. Then he snorted.

“You’re damn lucky you’re blessed and Minseok’s friend. Be careful of who you threaten, human. Most demons aren’t as forgiving as me and my unit.”

Luhan didn’t understand the context behind any of those words, but one caught his attention. ‘Demon’—That time he woke up in Minseok’s house, Chen and that group of coworkers had talked of them then too. He couldn’t really think of what connection then and now had though, because he still felt like recoiling for his life despite the coworker sitting back down.

“Is that a human thing? To threaten people for their friends even though they don’t stand a chance?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s ‘cause he’s my friend, and I care for him.”

“Hmph. Fine.”

Silence lapsed, and somewhere in Luhan’s brain he recognized that Chen wasn’t a threat (anymore), and he should probably stop losing dignity by cowering in a perfectly safe boutique. Straightening his limbs, he played with the edges of his phone case.

“Hey.”

He looked over at Chen, who had turned back to the velvet curtain again.

“What did Minseok say about… why he liked me?”

Luhan almost locked his lips in a tease when he realized that his question was too specific. He didn’t ask ‘if.’ He asked ‘what,’ as in he knew that they were talking about why Minseok liked the man. Did he really hear them from the other room? That didn’t make sense, but Luhan probably shouldn’t take too long in answering back.

“He didn’t tell me, but either way, you should ask him for that kind of information.”

“But he does like me, right?”

“Again, you should ask him for that confirmation. What I can tell you though is that most people don’t get all steamed and embarrassed seeing their friends all dressed up. Appreciative, yes, but not like what he did just now.”

He turned his head to look directly at Luhan now, head tilted, and for some reason he likened the man with a curious cat.

“Then when humans do that, is that just because they favor the person or is it because they’re crushing on the person?”

“Favoring? Like differential treatment of benefit? No one uses the word like that, at least not when referring to people they’re close with.”

“Does that mean Minseok is close with me?”

“I’d say so. That’s more of a thing between you and him though and if it’s something more than just close friendship.”

“Like crushing?”

“Crushing, liking, loving, yeah. But I’m not him, so don’t rely on my word for stuff on your and his relationship.”

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