“What could possibly go wrong? I mean, I have nothing to worry about.” Jongdae said to his friend as he sat still in front of his laptop. “Dae, you are a grown man, you can step outside of your house and buy milk for yourself,” said the guy with slanted eyes and natural black hair on the screen. “Plus you’ll only be doing this till I get back.”

“Which will take forever.” Jongdae retorted.

“Don’t be such a drama queen, I’ll only be gone for three more weeks, and after I finish my exhibit here I’ll come back and do the groceries again.” Jongdae rolled his eyes dramatically to make sure his friend is seeing how pathetic it sounds. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me, I asked you if you wanted to stock up but you were the one who insisted that you have enough milk to last till I get back.”

“I did but I didn’t expect that I’d have to throw out more than half of it the first week you were gone.” Jongdae looked at the cartons of milk he has to throw out. “I didn’t notice that they were about to reach their expiration dates.” He looked sadder as he stared at the pile of expired milk.

“Why won’t you order online?” Jongdae looked at his friend with a gaze that could kill. “I ordered them online.” He pointed angrily at the pile of expired milk.

“Okay, tell you what,” his friend sighed, “if anything horrible happens to you while you go buy milk, I will live with you forever and do every single thing you need to do outside for you. I will even buy you milk, out of my own pocket, for the rest of my stay with you, which will be forever.” Jongdae raised his hand to tell his friend to stop talking for a while.

“You know Dae,” a new person with dyed red hair and doe eyes showed up on his screen, “Oh good lord, Kyungsoo’s here.” Jongdae rolled his eyes again. “My boyfriend,” Kyungsoo glanced at the other guy lovingly, “is willing to live with you forever if anything wrong happens to you while you buy your milk, which I think is sweet but doesn’t really make me that happy. Might I add that it’s your milk you are gonna buy, not his nor mine.”

“Soo, don’t be mad about it, we can live with Jongdae, he has a big house and he won’t mind your screaming, he heard it more than you can count.” Jongdae once again rolled his eyes at the couple in front of him. “Fine, I practically live there anyway.” Kyungsoo smiled sweetly at his boyfriend first and then at Jongdae.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Jongdae said sounding exasperated. “No, because my life and my life with my boyfriend is at stake here.” Kyungsoo answered immediately.

“Imagine what we can do with the pool, I don’t get why he bought a house with a pool if he’s so afraid to step outside of his house, he can’t even go to his own gar—“

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear your rant anymore. Yifan,” he said to the guy with black hair, “if you don’t keep your word, I swear I will burn every piece of your clothing and I will ban the both of you from using the pool and good lord, I will castrate the both of you so I don’t have to hear you ing.” His friends grinned at him and signaled him to go outside. “Go, shoo, go buy your milk, you might even get surprised with how non life threatening going to the grocery store is which is five minutes away.” Kyungsoo quipped.

Jongdae grabbed Yifan’s jacket and scarf and went to his door and stood there for who knows how long until Kyungsoo’s irritating voice resurfaced. “Jongdae, darling, you can’t buy milk if you just stand there.” He disregarded the latter’s comment and decided to try holding the doorknob.

“Good, next is to—“Jongdae ignored Kyungsoo completely and opened the door letting the cold wind go inside. Good thing I used Yifan’s jacket, it’s warm and big enough for two people. He carefully stepped, one after the other, on the welcome doormat. He turned to check his wallet, keys and phone and once he found them in his pockets, he locked the door and stayed there for a few more minutes to contemplate.

I can do this. This is a win-win situation for me, if something happens, Yifan and Kyungsoo will be staying here with me till eternity and they will be doing all the shopping and whatever. And if nothing happens, then nothing happens, I will be lucky to stay alive for a few minutes outside the comfort of my house. The trip to the store won’t be long, I don’t need to stay out excessively, I’ll just buy as much milk as I can and be back here.

As he walks to the store Jongdae noticed the piling snow. Snow related deaths are high, some drivers can’t control their car and hit pedestrians. There are also cases where a person slips and hits the pavement and his brain scatters. Also the possibility of dying from hypothermia isn’t out of the question.

After how many winter related deaths, Jongdae reached the store. Oh good, nothing happened while I walked; being overly conscious about falling ice, trees or power lines does help. Now I just need to be conscious of falling shelves, short circuits, murderers, robbers, and expired cartons of milk while I go grocery shopping.

He noticed that the store doesn’t have many customers. He smiled knowing that he will be alone while he goes shopping and frowned at the thought that if an accident occurred, his response team will be the elderly lady buying cat food, the store clerk chewing his gum and the guy arranging a tower of canned peaches. He took a cart and headed straight to the milk section and filled half of the cart with milk, checking each and every single one of the expiration date.

Around ten minutes since I’ve been here and nothing has happened so far, why don’t I test my luck and buy something else, I’m sure I’m out of shampoo and tissue paper. As Jongdae finished putting things in his cart, he eyed the tower of peaches. Ugh, I’m craving some peaches; I guess I’ll go buy some.  Since the tower is taller than him, he can’t reach the top. He looked around and no one was there to assist him. He’s afraid that if he picked the cans at the bottom the tower will fall and he’ll die because of it.

The headline tomorrow will probably be like ‘Agoraphobic guy goes out to buy milk but sadly dies from being crushed by cans of peaches!’ Jongdae rolled his eyes for how many times that day, he already lost count. He decided to very carefully tiptoe to reach the top. Ugh, why does the person that arranged the tower be taller than me? It’s bad enough that I have to rely on Yifan to reach the top shelf; I will really make him do all of the grocer—

As he grabbed the top can, Jongdae suddenly felt the ground shake. He was lucky enough to grab the can but was not lucky enough to stand firmly on the ground as he is about to come face to face with the floor. Yifan, ugh, you will definitely be doing the groceries from now on.

He prepared for impact but instead of falling face down he felt someone push him. He saw the employee— Jongin, the name written on his nametag on top of him embracing him. “Sir, are you alright?” Jongin asked frantically, the employee grabbed him and sat him down gently. “Are you not hurt anywhere?” Jongin checked if Jongdae got hurt anymore being careful not to touch the other unnecessarily.

Jongdae grabbed the employee’s hand that were about to reach for his face. “I’m fine; I just forgot to take account of natural calamities such as earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes and snow storms. Otherwise I’m fine, thanks for saving me.” He smiled nervously at the guy.

“I’m really sorry I wasn’t able to save you completely. The cans were about to fall when I dived so lemme buy you a new jacket but I can’t buy expensive ones since I’m still a student and the pay here isn’t really high.” Jongdae looked at his jacket and saw the sleeves torn. “It’s fine, it’s not mine anyway.” He shrugged.

“Oh, then lemme buy your boyfriend a new jacket,” Jongin insisted. “Boyfriend?” Jongdae raised his right eyebrow at the guy. “Oh sorry, I just assumed that it belongs to your boyfriend since it’s bigger than you and almost the length of a dress,” he snickered for a bit and got serious again, “and it doesn’t look like it belongs to a girl. I didn’t mean to assume that you swing that way. Not that there is anything wrong with it, I mean I play for both teams so.” The younger stopped and looked at Jongdae. “You know, I’m really sorry; I’m making this very uncomfortable for the both of us. I can’t stop my mouth once I get nervous and I only get nervous when I talk to a cute guy or—“

“You think I’m cute?” Jongdae stopped the younger’s blabbering. Jongin rubbed the back of his neck and shyly nodded. “I’m a customer, are you sure you’re supposed to be hitting on me while you’re on duty?” Jongdae couldn’t stop his smile from appearing. Jongin raised his right eyebrow and smiled suggestively, “Are you saying that once I get off of my duty I can try hitting on you again?”

“That depends on how quickly you can get off.” He gave the younger a billion dollar smile, the very same smile that made his friends have an exhibit halfway across the world. The younger’s face is as red as a tomato can be. “I-I-I I’ll be off in a minute, I-I I just need to clock out.” Jongin stood up and after three steps returned to help Jongdae stand up. “Uh, your items,” he pointed to the cart. “Cashier,” he pointed himself. “Scan,” he pointed to the counter. “Bye.” He faced the direction of the counter but faced back again immediately, “I mean later.” Jongdae couldn’t help but snicker at the young employee.

Yifan, I think I’ll be doing my own groceries from now on.

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Heeeeey, yeah, it’s been years since I last updated. I’m really sorry for that but I decided to stop writing but then I have some ideas and decided to continue again. I’m not that much of a fan of exo like before but I still am, just not as much. I’ve also seen how my writing skills have deteriorated but I’m glad I got this one up. I’m really sorry if you’ve waited for updates or something, or if you’re still subscribed to this and don’t really want to hear from it anymore but I updated and it popped up in your notifications. And also if you don’t like Kris appearing here, well, I really can’t remove him from my heart, he will forever be my bias and mostly, I didn’t notice before, but the pairing that appear as much as chenkai/kaichen will be krisoo, they are only sides tho, chenkai/kaichen are still the main. Also, if you are going to stay with my infrequent updates, help me by giving me comments or telling me how AFF has evolved through my absence. You can either commet or message me, I don’t bite.