Of his coworkers, Jongin definitely talks the less than Amber who is a bit like Luna in where she could talk a lot and also loudly. The first few days Jongin would wander over to Luhan when consumer activity was low and wordlessly poke Luhan. It was like he was trying to establish some kind of silent communication by how he just stared and poked Luhan. Luhan still wasn’t getting it but he started poking back.

They have sporadic random conversations and they both figured out quite quickly that they could coat their words in sarcasm and make snarky comments comfortably around each other. The more silly conversations somehow end up with them violently smacking eat other in fits of laughter. Jongin also likes to randomly dance around the many aisle of the store. Sometimes he would be doing it purposely to show off, but there were some moments where Luhan would walk by and catch him seriously engrossed in his dancing or trying some new dance step. At those moments when Jongin realized Luhan was watching, he would shyly stop whatever he was doing and shuffle off the opposite direction and Luhan would sometimes follow him just to annoy him.

Luhan comes to work on Saturday to find Jongin dancing around happily while sorting the numerous varieties of pens on a display table that continuously got put out of order by the large stream of customers today.

  “It’s assorted pen day Luhan! Can you go to the back and bring out more of that gel pen variety!” Joonmyun has his hands full of clients checking out at the register.

With Luhan's reemergence from the storage room, Jongin cackles away with a stupid grin on his face as the crowd quickly diverts to Luhan’s arrival of supplies.

  “I didn’t think pens were this popular!” Luhan wails as he gets mobbed by a wave of high schoolers who are fortunately after the assorted gels pens in the box and not him.

  “Joonmyun got them for a good deal and now he’s selling them super cheap.”

Luhan manages to push through the crowd and drop the box on the table before stepping out of the madness. Jongin has also given up trying to sort the pens and makes his way towards Luhan and playfully pokes his shoulder.

  “They are like ducks in the park going after the same piece of bread,” Luhan sighs as he watches two girls bickering over a particular pen.

Jongin laughs and also accompanies his outburst with light smacks to Luhan’s shoulder. Luhan tries to bat Jongin’s arms away but ends up getting into a sort of smacking battle with Jongin where they both try to be the last one to land the last hit on the other.

  “Okay please, lend me some of that fairy dust that is that’s making you act so stupid today.” Luhan gives up and lets Jongin continue lightly hitting his shoulder.

  “What you want to be stupid?”

  “Stupid people tend to be happier I guess,” Luhan shrugs.

  “Well it’s the opposite here. Prepared to be amazed,” Jongin pauses his smacking and puffs himself up proudly, “This genius here set the curve for my chem class midterm.”

  “Uh huh. I get it. You used up all your smart and now your acting dumb.”

Jongin grins before turning to help a girl pick up her handful of pens she had dropped.

Jongin ends up working over time because Amber is a bit late and after he clocks out he still lingers to help.

  “Hey Luhan. Hang out with me after you clock out.”

  “To celebrate your genius feat?”

  “No, just for the sakes of hanging out.. uh,” Jongin pauses to think, “..Coworker bonding time.. yeah,” before adding, “Unless you
think I’m too nerdy to hang out with anymore.”

Luhan rolls his eyes, but after handing over his duty baton to the next worker, Sulli, patting her on the shoulder and wishing her good luck, he pushes out of the crowed crafts store and finds Jongin sitting on the bench outside. He looks up at Luhan with a sort of a shy grin.

  “Sooo, what do you want to do?” Jongin stands up next to Luhan and Luhan starts feeling pretty self conscious. *Oh god this is starting to feel like a date.*

  “Um, we could walk around the mall?” *Lame we already work in the mall just about every day.*

  “What do you usually do here?”

  “Um.. get bubble milk tea I guess..” *and then get the hell out of here..*

  “Okay then.”

  *Not okay*

---

Oh my god. Why is Minseok’s shift so late today?

Oh god. What are these guys doing here?

Baekhyun, Tao and Kyungsoo are all at a table studying. Kyungsoo is helping Tao with some part of his homework and Baekhyun is the first of the bunch to look up at Luhan and Jongin’s entrance. Baekhyun starts snickering.

  “You do not know me! You DO NOT know me!!” Luhan mouths frantically.

The tea shop is fairly noisy and fortunately Jongin isn’t paying attention, but Baekhyun is still snickering at Luhan. And that’s bothering him. Baekhyun then pokes Tao who looks up at Luhan and Jongin and also starts guffawing. Kyungsoo looks around in confusion at Tao’s sudden inattention before spotting Luhan, widening his eyes and then giving Luhan the thumbs up. Luhan really wants nothing more but to curl up in a hole and die of shame. Minseok just smirks at Luhan who nervously picks out a few extra bobba straws and pockets them when picking up his order and they escape the shop with teas in hand.

They aimlessly wander around for a bit. Jongin keeps looking into the glass window displays and after a while Luhan thinks Jongin is checking his own reflection off the reflective glass or something. It’s the ‘or something’; Luhan catches Jongin staring at him through the reflection of the glassy surface of the windows.

They awkwardly exchange waves through their reflections before giggling stupidly. Jongin clears his throat,

  “So what do you think of your first experience of the Kim’s Krafts Kraze? Note, they are all spelled with a ‘K’.”

  “That madness happened before?”

  “Uh yeah. A few times actually. There was one time it was play doh and Joonmyun thought it would be a god idea to have some sample play doh hanging around and we got a whole bunch of kids in the store as well as a big mess when they left.”

  “Man. Aren’t we a bit under staffed for these kinds of events?”

  “Pshh yeah. We are and we brought it up a few times before but Joonmyun thinks its fun. I pretty sure he’s secretly a sadist and masochist.”

Luhan laughs and Jongin shares a few more stories while they finish their bobba.

They somehow wind up in the hipster accessory store later. Jongin makes fun of Luhan’s hesitation to go in and interprets Luhan as scared of the low lighting and the loud music.

  “I am not scared.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not.”

  “Fine. Prove it.”

Only a few minutes at perusing the shelves, Luhan feels the weight of a cold metal keychain in his pocket. Damn it. Luhan is too scared to pull it out and put it back where it came from in case anyone would catch him in action. So he lets it stay in his pocket and weigh down his mood.

Jongin pops out of nowhere and places a cap on Luhan’s head, the bill pulled down covering half of his face. Luhan tips the hat up to peer out at Jongin who blankly stares at Luhan for a second before breaking out laughing.

  “What?”

  “Nothing… Okay, the cap says ‘ You’ and it’s supposed to be all thug and everything, but you are looking more cute than anything else.”

  “I am not cute,” Luhan scowls as he flips the hat around backwards, “I am very manly. Yo.”

Apparently Luhan’s pout is not convincing enough and Jongin just grins and takes the hat off.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “That’s a really nice bandana you got there though.”

Luhan looks down to see that he had been wrapping and unwrapping a kind of black patterned white handkerchief around his left hand. He quickly stuffs it into some kind of skeleton mug nearby.

  “Um.. I -,”

  “Haha, that’s not where it goes. Why don’t you buy it?”

  “Uh.. out of cash.”

  “Ha, spent it all on the milk tea?”

  “Mmmm..”

That wasn’t true. Luhan is actually worried that the keychain in his pocket would fall out if he went to grab his wallet. The whole store is starting to feel stuffy and seems to cave in on him a bit. Luhan feels cramped and shifts uncomfortably trying to avoid looking at the other merch around him. The loud music was also aggravating his attempts to maintain his inner calm. If he even had an "inner calm" when he stepped into this store.

Jongin looks over at Luhan’s sudden mood shift with concern before grabbing Luhan by the shoulders and wheeling him out the store. The sort of funny thing is, Jongin doesn’t turn Luhan around to push him out and is in a way staring at Luhan’s face the whole time he is getting backed out of the shop.

  “What are you doing?” Luhan worries that Jongin may have suspected or seen Luhan stealing the keychain and now things are going to spiral down like what had happened with Sehun.

Jongin says nothing until they get outside. Still staring at Luhan with his hands on his shoulders Jongin shrugs.

  “You looked like you wanted to be out of there really bad. Wait right here.”

Jongin goes back into the hipster store and leaves Luhan terrified that he may have gone back to get a worker or the manager to report him. Luhan shifts his weight from one leg to his other nervously, and contemplates walking away when Jongin reemerges from the store with a small plastic bag that has the hipster shop’s name emblazon on it. He smiles at Luhan’s shocked expression.

  “Wow, were you that scared for me walking into a creepy, dark store alone? I’m touched.”

Luhan smacks Jongin on the shoulder and they meander their way around the mall a bit longer, breaking into a few random topics before stopping in front of the bubble milk tea shop again.

  “Well. I’ll leave you with your friends. They seem happy to see you.”

Luhan glances over to Tao, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo who all quickly make themselves looks busy.

  “… And this.”

  *What?*

Jongin hand Luhan the small shopping bag and Luhan looks in it and finds the bandana from earlier.

  “You.. didn’t have to…” Luhan mumbles, “but thanks.”

Jongin scratches the back of his neck.

  “Yeah keep it. You don’t have to uh pay me back or anything. And .. um I guess I’ll see you later.”

  “Yeah..”

Luhan watches as Jongin sort of cheerfully lopes away gracefully before turning to look at the bandana in the bag smiling. He feels a kind of warm melty feeling inside and he’s not quite sure if he likes it. He hears a tap on glass and turns to look through the window at Tao who has a piece of paper with the words: Sass master Luhan.. KO’d

He sees Kyungsoo shake his head and hears a muffled, “He’s never really been that sassy.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, “Please.. you haven’t seen him at work.”

---

Luhan supposes being placed in an environment where he has to be aware of his every action may have calmed his temperament. Minseok notes that Luhan doesn’t randomly rage anymore when he comes back from work. Kyungsoo points out, while over at dinner (the one he had promised to make), that there isn’t any reason to because Luhan works a less stressful job.

Luhan doesn’t want to go back to another Kleptos Anon meeting to Minseok’s disappointment, because he is determined to fix his problem himself. Never before has he been more aware of how much sleep he got and his emotional state of mind whenever he walks into work.

Luhan still occasionally beats himself up when he find bits of ribbon, beads and scraps of fabric that he accidently takes home with him in his pockets, but Luhan feels like his is on the mend.

---

The scraps of fabric came from the day Kris surprised Luhan by walking into Kim’s Krafts to look for supplies to make a prototype of a new plush he had designed.

  “Wow a designer!” Amber seemed impressed until Kris showed her the blue print of what he was making. Most people reacted the same way.

  “Is that supposed to be a pig or a wolf?” Luhan laughs.

  “It’s an artistically abstract hybrid of animals. Kids love it.” Kris sniffs.

The three of them fussed over what kind of fabric Kris should use and what buttons for the eyes. The fussing was quite reminiscent of what went on at the design company and Luhan also felt the familiar stress that came along with it…

---

Since their little coworker bonding dating, Luhan starts to carry around the bandana to keep his hands busy whenever he feels antsy. He’s not sure if Jongin notices that. Luhan himself starts to notice new bits and pieces of Jongin.

Kim’s Krafts usually plays a few playlists from Joonmyun’s music collection throughout the day and Jongin would hum along to some of the more romantic songs.

Jongin also – having a normal college student workload – falls asleep quite easily. Once during ribbon highlight week, Luhan had collected scraps of ribbon here and there over the course of his shift and tied them all together to create a rope long enough to wound around Jongin, who had somehow managed to fall asleep standing up and leaning against a shelf in the back of the store. When he had awoken he grumpily hopped like a bunny after Luhan around the store before they were both stopped and scolded like little kids by Joonmyun.

Luhan also let Jongin fall asleep on his shoulder one lazy day at work. Luhan was at the cashier counter, chin propped on the heel of his palm, staring out at the bustling crowd passing in the mall outside of Kim’s Krafts. Jongin was in midsentence, mumbling about how sleep was important to preserve his mighty intelligence, when the next moment he was leaning on Luhan and lightly snoring into his ear. Luhan would have been perfectly content in this moment had it not it not been for him looking across the mall and seeing a familiar silver haired boy exit the tea shop with a bobba. Sehun narrowed his eyes at the sight of Luhan and Luhan in return stuck out his tongue.

When Jongin was awake they would have random staring contests whenever they caught the others eye from across the store. Jongin also would spill over his any energetic conversation he was having with Luna to Luhan. The random conversations between them have not stopped. The hitting and the poking between them have not ceased.

---

Luhan looks up from organizing bottles of glitter glue to see a familiar eyeliner prince prance into Kim’s Krafts not followed by the usual glam princess Tao but the tall and nervous Chanyeol.

Chanyeol has his mouth pressing into a determined line and Baekhyun is tugging at his arm,

  “You’re doing fine. You’re okay. Just tell me whenever you want to leave.” He is also soothingly rubbing Chanyeol’s arm.

  “Baekhyun..” Luhan hisses as they past the aisle he’s working at.

  “Oh hi Luhan!” Baekhyun waves brightly while Chanyeol jumps at the sudden sight of Luhan.

  “What are you doing bringing him here? No offence Chanyeol. I mean he is-.”

  “Oh you think I don’t know? Nah, I figured out he was a bit.. uh special, on my own,” Baekhyun glances between Luhan and Chanyeol, “Thanks for the heads up on that that by the way,” He adds sarcastically before continuing, “Uh we are trying to work out his anxiety problems bit by bit because he wants to be able to go shopping on his own to buy presents for me. Haha.”

Chanyeol’s ears turn red he is nervously darting his eyes around the store.

  “And well, I don’t mind doing a lot of shopping together in the meantime, cause we can do this.” Baekhyun laces his fingers with Chanyeol’s, who now looks a mix of ecstatic and terrified, and Baekhyun drags Chanyeol helplessly around the store for a bit before waving to Luhan again as he exits Kim’s Krafts.

  “. . . I’m not gonna lie, but that was kind of cute.” Jongin sticks his head out from the aisle he is pretending to straighten up.

Of course mister romantic would find that cute.

---

Luhan comes to work today greeted by an overly bright Luna who smiles and waves excitedly at Luhan before rushing off to class.

   “Hi Luhan! Have a marvelous day at work!! And Bye Jongin! Goood Luck!!”

  "Oh. Shut up Luna.."

Luhan slips on his apron and pins his nametag while curiously looking over at Jongin who is weaving in and out of aisle and frequently looking over at Luhan.

For the remainder of his shift, Jongin is pretty quiet. Actually scratch that, he is just quiet. Too quiet. It wouldn’t normally bother Luhan, but Jongin isn’t in one of his sleepy quiet moods and he keeps catching Jongin staring at him from behind shelves.
Luhan spends the last bit of Jongin’s shift chasing him around the store.. well more like tailing him everywhere and poking him when he gets close enough. Jongin just ignores him and Luhan starts to panic.

What if their weird friendship ends here, just like this. What if Jongin actually needed good luck from Luna to tell him to bug off and Luna was masking the serious situation with cheerfulness. Luhan, out of nervous habit, starts playing around with the bandana in his pocket. The same one Jongin had given him. The same one he tried to put on one time at work and Jongin was so embarrassed that he started hitting Luhan’s shoulder as he always did when he was shy or amused.

  “Ow.. You wouldn’t hit a girl would you?”

Luhan had pulled the bandana on his head like a wig.

  “Lame hyung. You’re so lame.”

  “No stupid. I’m a nun.”

  “Oh well then, forgive me your holiness.”

And they had stared at each other for a beat of silence with straight faces before they had burst out laughing like maniacs.

No… Luhan didn’t want their relationship to be over just yet. Not when he was just deciding Jongin was special to him. And at the very least he wasn’t going to let him go without a good enough explanation.

Jongin’s shift has just about ended and Amber hasn't shown up for her's yet. Usually Jongin would hang around overtime without much of a fuss for Amber, but today he heads back to the storage room to hand up his apron. Luhan follows only to have the storage room door closed in his face. Wow.

  “Jongin. Can we please at least talk about this? Ugh.. this sounds like we are having a lovers spat or something.”

Luhan is banging a fist against the door before he gets thrown back as it suddenly flies open. Luhan feels like he has been in this situation before as he lands on his and slids a bit on the smooth floor before jumping up and glaring at Jongin with what he hopes is his meanest of glares. However he feels the muscles on his face sort of have a spasm as it quickly morphs from anger to confusion.

Jongin has his hands behind his back and has on one of his dumbest toothy grins.

  “Sorry.. uh are you okay?”

Luhan opens his mouth for a second, very tempted to say something cruel and probably unnecessary, but settles for,

  “Nope.”

“Well then uh.. I’ll get straight to it. Uh sorry for not talking to you today. I was kinda trying to surprise you and it was kind of funny.

Luhan waits, still confused.

  “Uh.. will you go out,
                With me.
  After you clock out,
                That is.”

Luhan blinks.

  “Did.. you just recite some lame poem that barely even rhymes to ask.. me out?”

  “Yup. Came up with it myself. Annd.. I got you these.”

Jongin flourishes a bouquet of orangey-yellow flowers all tied up in a bow with the same brownish-orange ribbon Luhan had stolen on his first day at work.

  “This is not cheesy at all…” Luhan comments, but he feels his nose turning pink and his eyes moistening a teensy bit. He is so relieved.

  “There is more.”

  “Oh god what.”

  “Uh.. since you still haven’t said yes. I have with me – in my head – a list of reasons why you should say yes.

   Ahem.

   Because we say stupid stuff.

   And we hit each other a lot.”

    “-sounds like we are in an abusive relationship.”

   “And you pretend to not get me when I know you do.

    And I know you like my dancing.

    And I know you fell head over heels for me the first day we met.

    And- ,”

    “Alright! Alright. Yes! Oh god. We’ll see what happens to us.”

Jongin grins, pulls Luhan into a quick hug before waving and skipping away happily.

    "SEE YOU AFTER WOOORRKK!!!"

There is a slow clapping from behind Luhan and he turns to see Joonmyun emerge from the storage room.

  “Now that was pretty cute. Definitely a bit cliché, but still cute.”

  “Oh hi Joonmyun, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you this week.”

He shrugs and looks a bit embarrassed.

  “I’ve been kind of busy..”

  “Uh huh, with what?”

Joonmyun jerks his head to the front of the store to an approaching figure Luhan recognizes as Jongdae.

  “What the…”

  “Jooonmyunnie! We are going to late! Didn’t you say that restaurant reservation had like a certain time frame or something? I don’t really know much about these fancy stuff and.. oh hi Luhan.”

  “Oh you guys know each other?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yup.. but how Jongdae?” Luhan gestures to Joonmyun.

  “It’s called getting my together, which by the way I’m hearing from Baekhyun and Tao that you’re getting uh better. You should talk to Kibum sometime after this quarter ends. We really want you back.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ookay Luhan. You don’t mind watching the store for a bit? Amber says she’s running a bit late. You can manage right?”

  “Sure.” Luhan feels like he’s soaring. Everything is going so perfectly today.

  *So that’s how it feels to have my together*

Luhan leans against a shelf and lets his mind wander dreamily of what he hopes would happen after he gets off work. He’d meet up with Jongin and they’d maybe hangout somewhere else other than the mall. He’d get his old job back and..

  *Well *

A boy with silvery blond hair steps into Kim’s Krafts.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Uh.. I’ve come to ruin your life obviously.” The Sehun ignores Luhan’s sharp tone and continues to approaches him.

  “Shooo…”

  “Okay, seriously. I just came to find something to fix this,” Sehun holds up a bracelet band with the black ribbon ends fraying a bit. It’s not seriously broken so Luhan doesn’t budge.

  “Uh.. then go find that something yourself.”

  “Rude. You’re supposed to help me. Lead me to your thread and ribbon section.”

Luhan glares at Sehun and strides off toward a shelf on the other side of the store. He doesn’t miss how Sehun is eyeing the flowers Luhan left on the cashier counter.

  “By the way, I’ve noticed you being kind of really friendly with my roommate.”

Luhan swears his eyes almost fall out of their sockets.

  “What he’s a freshman too?” Luhan figured Jongin was younger than him, just not that much younger.

  “Relax. He’s legal. Like me. Uh why am I sharing this?”

  “I already know that. He works the cashier sometimes.” Luhan snaps. He tosses a spool of black ribbon at Sehun who impressively catches it with one hand before tossing it back with a frown.

  “I changed my mind. I don’t need to fix this.”

  “Then go away.”

  “No… now I’ve come to ruin your life.”

  “What do you want?” Luhan sighs.

Sehun stares at him silently for a moment before shaking his head.

  “You have issues man.”

  “I think we’ve established this…”

  “No real issues. I heard a few weeks back from a guy in my dance team, Yixing. I know what you are and I can’t believe you have to balls to work in a place like this.”

  “Ha. That’s old news. I’ve gotten better.”

  “According to Yixing, you’ll never be normal.”

It’s Luhan’s turn to frown. He feels a familiar block of frustration that he feels whenever he thinks of Yixing and now when he’s dealing with Sehun.

  “So what if I’ll never be normal? I’ll be close. What are you trying to do? Make me lose my job?”

  “I’m going to tell Jongin.”

Luhan tenses up.

  “I think Jongin should know and judging by your reaction you haven’t told him either.”

  “Because it’s not important.”

  “Or because you think he’d judge you for it and you’re right he might.”

The doubt that Sehun is instilling in Luhan is getting him to more forcefully wrap and unwrap Jongin’s bandanna around his hand.

  “You.. you.. Just go away. I’ll tell him myself in due time.”

  “Sure you will.... No. You have issues man and I think I’ll tell him just that along with a few other stuff just because of this customer service was horrible.”

  “Oh now you’re going to tell lies to him? Like hell he’ll buy whatever crap you throw at him.”

  “Bros before hoes man.” Sehun calls out as he slowly starts walking toward to exit, “But you could offer me 'something' for my silence.” He wags his eyebrows at Luhan.

  “No. Get the out.”

---

Luhan is seething. A few minutes after Sehun had left the store it had dumbly hit him that Sehun had been trying to blackmail him and that maybe he should have taken the bait. He feels a familiar rage, similar to the one he had felt when he was fired. The flow of customers is already slow today but Luhan seems to be scaring them away with his silent anger though he is trying his best not to bite off anyone’s head. He is shaking after trying to calmly scan and bag a few items for a certain customer. The others in the store slowly find their way to the exit and less and less dare to venture in.

  “Woooah.. Hi Luhan! Gosh for a second I though Krystal was back. Oh flowers! Luna told me about those and Jongin.”

Ambers cheerful bantering can’t lift Luhan’s spirits and he feels himself spiraling down into further misery at the reminder of the bright flowers that were still lying on the cashier counter.

  “Oh no.. did you say no?”

Luhan shakes his head and buries his face in his hands.

  “Awww. Then what happened? ..Nah, you don’t have to tell me. Come here.”

Amber pulls him into a bear hug. Luhan is about to return the hug when he see something in the tea shop that catches his eye.
Jongin is standing in line to order tea milk and Luhan straightens up at the possible chance to maybe set things right between him and Jongin. Maybe Jongin will treat him coldly like Sehun does now, but at least he was honest.
He pulls away from Amber and heads out of Kim’s Krafts toward the tea shop.

  “I’m sorry.. I got to- ,”

  “No worries man. Go get him!”

Luhan can see Jongin amidst the crowd with his tall frame and platinum blond hair. Luhan is maneuvering around the benches and potted plants when he sees Jongin turn to look at another boy with light hair. Luhan’s heart stops. *It’s over now*

Satan – namely Sehun has made it to Jongin first and all Luhan really has to do really is to run into the shop and debunk whatever crap Sehun is spouting. But Luhan feels rooted to his spot. A familiar tension and anxiety clings to his body and he feels helpless.

He sees Sehun’s mouth moving and Jongin’s neutral face change into a slightly surprised one. Sehun says something else and Jongin shrugs but looks out the window toward Kim’s Krafts.. and his eyes find Luhan. Luhan who is awkwardly halfway between the crafts shore and the tea shop. Luhan who is dumbly hiding behind a potted plant. Luhan who is now running to the nearest exit out of the mall home.

Luhan usually has to take a bus back to his apartment, but he decides to torture himself by running the whole way back. Part of him wants to see if Jongin would run after him. But from the few breather pauses Luhan takes, he looks behind him only in disappointment.. in mostly himself.

Luhan continues to put himself through the wringer as he totally ignores the elevator and climbs the stairs to his apartment on the fifth floor before he yanks open the door to his empty apartment.

He promptly kicks over the shoe rack and shoves all the magazines off the coffee table before flopping face down lengthwise on the sofa. Luhan never really cries however he is pretty damn close right now for the second time today, but for a totally different reason.

He is sticky with sweat and is still breathing heavily when he hears a bedroom door open in the hallway and footsteps approaching. He frowns. He had thought Minseok’s shift ended later today.

  “Go away Minseok. Just leave me in my misery.” The footsteps pause for a second before continuing their pace toward him.

  “Ugh.. I did it again. I thought I found someone special and now I don’t know if he’s going to become a dickhead like his roommate.” He hears the footsteps stop very close by, something drop on the coffee table, and feels someone leaning over him.

Luhan hurls one of the couch cushions.

  “I said go away Minseok! I- oh.. how did you.. get here?”

Jongin lowers the pillow that had come close to battering his face.

  “Minseok’s directions, bus 57 and key under the potted plant. You forgot your flowers,” He frowns, “And I’m surprised you don’t have much faith in me.”

Luhan shifts himself into an upright position on the sofa and looks at the orange flowers now on the coffee table next to two bubble milk teas.

  “Sehun said he was going to say a lot of crap about me.” *And something else that I wanted to tell you first.*

  “Haha.. Well he sure as hell did. But that's also what he just normally does.” Jongin looks down at Luhan with some unreadable expression. Luhan looks away.

  “He uh.. said you were a freak that liked to do y role play – which I don’t really mind – along with a lot of other mumble jumble.”

  “…and…” On a normal day Luhan would either be amused or would freak out and curse the heavens at Sehun’s existence, but it’s
not a normal day and he’s still too worn out from his run.

  “And.. he said to check your closet for dead bodies oh and some where amidst his spew of crap, he said.. you are a kleptomaniac in hiding.”

Luhan cringes at Jongin’s last few words.

  “Well I found no dead bodies in your closet and just quite a bit of junk. Some familiar looking junk too.”

Luhan feels the couch shift as Jongin sits down next to him. Jongin pokes his shoulder and Luhan slowly turns to look at him.

  “…and I don’t really care.”

Jongin has very warm eyes and Luhan is about to let Jongin lean his face closer to his when a gnawing thought just has to erupt. Luhan pushes Jongin away.

  “No, no, no … how can you not care that I am a potentially emotionally unstable person who will steals stuff when they get worked up about things and- ,”

Jongin’s hands suddenly frame Luhan’s face and he effectively cuts off Luhan’s ramble with soft lips.

  “Because you cute..” he whispers as he pulls back a hair.

  “But I’m – ”

Another light kiss.

  “And manly.”

  “Now you’re – ”

Jongin deepens his next kiss and nips at Luhan’s bottom lip playfully before pulling away.

  “And you’re fun to be around.. and honestly I don’t care if you’re into y role play because that’s cool.”

  “That’s not even true.”

Jongin shrugs, “Yet.”

Now Luhan groans and covers his blushing face with his hands. Sehun can go die in a hole.

  “I’ve always wanted to try that..” Jongin comments thoughtfully after a beat, as he plays with a few locks of Luhan’s pink hair.

  “What? Roleplay?”

  “That too. But no, the cutting off someone with a kiss.”

  “It’s cliché.”

  “I know, but it’s also sorta romantic.”

Luhan smack Jongin’s shoulder and shyly looks away.

  “Luhan?”

  “Mmm..”

  “Are you a kleptomaniac?”

  “Yea- what? Now you’re not sure anymore? Or are you confused.”

  “Just say ‘why’ Luhan.”

  “…Why?”

  “Because you stole my heart.”

Luhan smacks Jongin’s shoulder again.

  “Lame.. it’s not something I can steal more that once like a maniac.”

  “Okay, okay. Luhan.”

  “Mmm..”

  “Are you a kleptomaniac?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you steal my breath away. Breaths.. breathings.. something plural for of breath..”

  “You are so lame.”

  “I’m a lamaniac.”

  “Please stop.”

  “Make me.”

  “Okay how?”

  “…Steal my lips away?”

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FIN

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A/N: Thank you all for reading! :3
Have some more Kailu ^___^