Tuesday. The day after Valentines.

It was the first day of the week that Yixing reported to work. He took a leave yesterday since he didn’t really have anything to do that day; no shoots and no edits to be done. He spent the entire day on his keyboard, playing random songs while eating junk food in between. It wasn’t exactly purposeful but it gave him time to think and understand himself.

Still, even today, Yixing wasn’t in the mood to do anything. He was sitting sloppily on his desk chair, taking pictures of his pencil case, his mug, the wall, anything actually.

“Chen…” he lazily called the other person in the room.

“Hmmm?” the younger answered as he was proofreading a write-up he finished yesterday.

“Do… do you think it’s possible to love a person without knowing it?”

“Huh?” That definitely caught Chen’s attention as his eyes quickly left his computer screen and was focused on Yixing.

“You know, just… unconsciously…”

“Oh and why do you ask?” the younger asked as a small smile started to appear on his face.

“I was just wondering…” the other said softly.

“Really?”

“Mmm.”

“Okay then, to satisfy your curiosity, hyung, I think it’s possible,” Chen said as he turned his chair to face Yixing. “I think it’s the usual case actually.”

“Usual case?”

“Yeah. Aside from the dating-ish procedure, I think it’s quite common to hear from couples that it all started when one started to feel differently somewhere in between their relationship as friends…”

“Then… which do you think is stronger: the undiscovered one or the one that a person puts effort in?” Yixing said as he took a picture of his desk calendar.

“I don’t think it’s a case of being either of the two,” the younger said strongly. “I think it all depends on the people involved.”

“Really?” Yixing said as he finally sat properly and faced Chen. “But I think” (snaps a photo of the wall behind Chen) “I think the second case would win no matter what.”

“And that is because…?”

“Okay,” the older said as he appeared to come alive again. “Let’s say that the person receiving the love is this camera, the person with the undiscovered love is the strap, and the person exerting effort is my right hand…” he explained while pointing them out.

“Okaaay…?”

“So, if I hold the camera like this,” he said as he placed the camera strap around his neck and raised the camera with his right hand.

“I don’t get it, hyung,” Chen said as he observed the other.

“If the situation is like this, any person would tell you that it’s my right hand that is supporting the camera; the strap becomes useless.”

“So then you think that the undiscovered one becomes unneeded?”

“Exactly,” Yixing said with a nod and a frown.

“I don’t think that’s right, hyung.”

“Well, it makes sense to me,” the older said as he turned back around and placed his camera on his desk.

“I disagree,” Chen said as he got up and leaned on Yixing’s desk. “But anyways, why are you telling me all of these?”

“Because I… I think I lost our bet,” he admitted after he softly slammed his head on the table.

“You don’t saaay~” the younger said in a rising tone with a smirk.

“I think I lost badly…” Yixing said as he slowly raised his head.

“Interestiiing~”

“But even though I lost, I don’t think that-“

“KNOCK KNOCK!” someone shouted as he entered the room, completely surprising the two as they turned to face the door.

“YIFAN!” Yixing called loudly.

“Xing, hey, did you sleep well yesterday?”

“Oh! Hi, hyuung~~” Chen greeted their visitor with a bigger smile on his face.

“What’s your problem?” Yifan asked, feeling a bit creeped-out by Chen’s now devilishly smiling face.

“Noo~thing.”

“Stop looking like that, it makes you ugly, well, uglier.”

“Okay, I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that because I’m in an extremely good mood now. But, I swear, if you say that to me again, I’ll make sure you find out how sharp the pencils in this office are.”

“You’re the one being creepy!”

“Am not!” Chen said as he stood properly and started walking. “But I AM just gonna go outside for a while… I’ll leave the two of you here~~” he said with that smile again.

“What’s his problem?!” Yifan asked Yixing as soon as Chen left.

“He’s Chen,” the younger answered as he faced his desk again and started browsing the pictures he took with his camera a while ago.

“That’s true…”

“So…” Yifan continued. “What did you have for dinner yesterday?”

“Snacks.”

“Only?”

“Was too lazy to move around.”

“I bet you had the time of your life because I wasn’t there to nag you…”

“I did. My life became peaceful.”

“Hey. That’s not a very nice thing to say to your roommate.”

“Heee,” Yixing replied with a small smile. “What about you? Did everything go according to plan?”

“Yeah…” Yifan replied. “After watching the show, we went to this awesome hotel and-“

“That’s great!” the younger suddenly said loudly. “It’s good that you had a great time!”

“I did. It was like a drea-“ Yifan managed to say before being cut by a shout.

“YIXING! IS WHAT CHEN SAID TRUE?! YIXIIIING!” Luhan, who appeared to have run towards the office, said as he opened the office’s door. Chen followed behind, shouting a: “Shhh! Shushh!”

While Yifan almost threw Luhan a sharpener for surprising him, Yixing somehow expected it to happen and he just let his head slam on his desk - which he thought he had done a lot of today.

“OHH!! Hi, Yifan!!!” Luhan greeted happily from the doorway, with a smirk similar to his friend’s. Chen, on the other hand, was hitting Luhan’s arm and was seemingly hinting for them to leave.

“What is wrong with your friends?” a perplexed Yifan asked Yixing.

“I think the question should be: ‘What’s wrong with me for having such friends?’…”

“That would work too…”

“That’s great!” Luhan suddenly exclaimed. “Just pretend we didn’t disturb you, and, and continue your little chat and, and, and we’ll just go now…”

“Seriously Luhan, you’ve been hanging out with Chen too much.”

“YAH! WHAT ARE YOU-“ Chen erupted before his mouth was covered by Luhan.

“We were never here. Please go on,” Luhan said before he dragged himself and Chen to the corridor.

“Oh that’s right! I owe those two punches!” Yifan remembered.

“Please punch them… hard,” Yixing mumbled as his face was still flat on his desk.

“You bet!” the older announced as he began to walk away. “See you at the apartment, Yixing!”

“Mmm.”

“Don’t you think we’ve done this a lot lately?” Yifan asked that Thursday night when he and Yixing were again in their apartment, eating packed food they bought from the nearby store.

“Not really. Besides, this tastes good,” Yixing said as he continued to eat.

“Still, it ruins the whole ‘we-eat-out-every-Thursday’ theme…”

“Okay, you got me. I’m trying to save up a bit of money,” Yixing lied. “I want to buy something for me so let’s stay away from eating out for a while.”

“And ‘for a while’, you mean?”

“A month…?” the younger said. “Or two… or we could just get used to packed food,” he thought to himself.

“A MONTH?!” Yifan protested loudly.

“Oh c’mon, that isn’t very long.”

“No way! We could already have missed a lot of new food by then! I’ll just treat you until you save up.”

“You know I don’t like being treated to, hyung.”

“Then just pay me back whenever.”

“It’s just for a month hyung. As a friend, you could at least just support me.”

And just like that, Yifan lost another argument between the two of them. “Fine. But after you buy whatever you’re buying, we’ll eat a very expensive restaurant. No buts.”

“Sure,” he replied before the two of them remained silent for a while.

“Oh, hyung, you know…”

“Mmm?”

“I saw a beautiful bracelet the other day. I think someone living in our building lost it or something…”

“A bracelet?”

“Yup! I’m actually wearing it now…” Yixing said as he raised his right hand.

“Oh!” Yifan exclaimed suddenly.

“Huh?”

“It… it… it does look good…” the older stuttered as he seemed to have shaken off something from his mind.

“It is, right!”

“Mmm.” Yifan mumbled as he shifted his focus back to his food.

“I actually asked the reception lady and the security guy if anyone had inquired about a lost bracelet, but they said nobody did. So, I guess, I’ll just keep this bracelet until then…”

“So you’ll just take it as your own?”

“If nobody claims it.”

“It looks good on you,” Yifan said as he stood up.

“Right?” Yixing smiled.

“Yeah… Well, I’m going to bed first. I need to get up early tomorrow for a shoot…”

“Sure…”

“Night.”

“Yeah.”

It was when Yixing was alone, eating his food, when his mind was again able to freely think.

“It’s harder than I thought…” he said softly.

And later that night, someone had trouble sleeping; no matter how much he tossed and no matter how hard he tried, what he saw that day completely bothered him. Still, coincidentally, the two circle pillows had the smiling face showing.

----------------------------------------- 

A/N: a slightly shorter chapter just to bridge things to the next events J oh, btw, if you guys are wondering about Valentines, the things that happened then will be told bit by bit in the next chapters. ^^ THANK YOU FOR THE COMMENTS AND FOR SUBSCRIBING!