“Hey, bartender, how about a rum and coke over here?”

“How about you the off and stop pestering me,” Lu Han spits, wiping a glass dry with his back turned to the bar. “I just gave you a refill and I know for sure that you haven’t touched that .”

“Lu Han, this isn’t going to do. How many times do I have to tell you to not talk back to the patrons? This isn’t some rinky-dink alley bar. You can’t just give the customers attitude for the prices offered here.”

“Yeah, well, unless you’re about to tell me you’re really the owner of this place, I could care infinitely less about your ty advice, Kris.” Lu Han slips the glass back on the rack and turns around to rest his hands against the counter. His cocked brow dares the suited man sitting at the stool to say something otherwise.

Kris’ eye twitches, a small sign of annoyance that he quickly reins in. Giving up on his weekly attempts to correct Lu Han’s brash way of handling people, he picks up his glass and downs half of the burning liquid. Gingerly placing the glass back on the counter, he rests his chin on the back of his hand. “I raked in a decent amount this past month. How are things with Mrs. Park?”

Lu Han bristles at the mention of his landlady. Pressing his lips together, he rakes his eyes over Kris' appearance — short-cut black hair, a mean-set face, and a suit that was probably more expensive than Lu Han’s small studio apartment — mentally sighing in resignation at how he’ll never be like the successful Chinese-Canadian now that he's left home.

“I’ll be able to make rent this month if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, tapping his nails to a random made-up rhythm. “I don’t know if there’s something in the air or what, but people have been giving me decent tips lately. As unbelievable as that sounds.”

Nodding, Kris absentmindedly swings back and forth on the stool. “Just let me know if your expenses are too high.”

Lu Han rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the charity.”

“It’s not charity,” Kris emphasizes, taking a grand swig of the alcohol sitting before him. “I’m not going to leave you to struggle to pay your rent and watch you possibly end up on the streets.”

“I believe the scientific term for that is charity.”

Kris stares at Lu Han blankly. He really wants to put the older man in his place but he keeps himself in check, refusing to resort to harsh words. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought Bin was supposed to close up the club tonight.”

“The fact that you know our schedules is suspicious,” Lu Han mumbles as he digs his phone out of his pocket. “But if you must know, Bin bailed on me in the middle of his shift like the little that he is and therefore I have to close up.”

Kris nods, leaning back on the stool.

“So I would appreciate it if you hurried the up so I can go home,” the bartender continues. “Everyone left and I’m still ing here.”

“Stop cursing like that,” Kris scolds before knocking back his drink and pushing the glass away.

Lu Han snatches it off the counter with a scowl. “Stop being such a tightass.”

Kris continues his lecture but his words fall on deaf ears as Lu Han washes the glass out. This happens every week, at least once a week. Kris comes in, orders rum and coke or scotch, preaches about how Lu Han needs to clean up his language and fix his attitude, asks if he needs to help Lu Han with his rent or his bills, annoys Lu Han to death in a million and one ways, and then leaves. Returning the glass to the rack, he wipes down the bar counter one last time before tossing the rag over the side of the sink. Walking out from behind the counter, he ignores Kris’ eyes tracking his every movement as he goes through the motions of close-up, making sure nothing will explode during the day, making sure nothing will catch on fire during the day, making sure noone can break in during the day. He hates being the last one to leave, especially when he’s the last one to leave because his coworkers skip out on their shifts. He makes a mental note to punch Bin in the balls that next time he sees that bastard.

When he finishes making sure everything is in order and walks down from the top level of the club to the ground floor, Kris is loitering around the door, standing with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Lu Han snorts. That probably thinks he looks cool. Approaching his tall acquaintance who opens the heavy doors leading to the street, he pats down his pockets, making sure he has his phone and his keys and his wallet.

“There was this one dude who came in just to sit around two nights ago. Freaked the out when I asked if he wanted a drink,” Lu Han reminisces randomly as he locks the doors.

Kris stares at him, something between disinterest and disapproval clear in his gaze. “You didn’t start another fight with a random person, did you?”

Lu Han shakes his head and laughs lightly. “Nah, he looked like a kid. I’d feel like the biggest on the planet if I hit him.”

“You are the biggest on the planet.”

“I’m not even going to grace that with a response. Consider that my good deed for the next decade.”

“It’s just a surprise.” Kris shrugs as they approach his car, unlocking the doors. “You never talk about the patrons unless you’re venting about their stupidity or bragging about how many fights you won. Neither of which appear to be the reason for you to be talking about this guy.”

“Shoot me for making idle chit-chat, will you? He was interesting, okay.”

Kris just shook his head and pat Lu Han on the back, almost shoving him into the passenger seat of his car. “You need to go home and sleep. You’re starting to scare me.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Rolling his eyes when Kris yells out his expectation of Lu Han being the same douchebag he’s come to love when they meet the next time, the bartender walks into his apartment building. As he bypasses the stairs and continues down the hall, a door creaks behind him as he passes. A shadow falls onto the wall beside him and he stops short, groaning inwardly.

“Good evening, Lu Han.”

Good evening, his . He swears this woman is a monster, it’s like she never sleeps. For no reason at all should she be awake right now; it’s nearing on half past four in the morning. People who are at least one hundred years old should get a minimum of twelve hours of sleep a day, Lu Han believes, but this wrinkly is always there to catch him when he walks past and, in all seriousness, he’s convinced her dying wish is to ruin his life.

Turning around to greet the woman, he doesn’t even bother with trying to form a cordial smile. “’Sup.”

Her expression isn’t any better than his, her wrinkles wrapped around the downward arch of her eyebrows and her lips, nose scrunched up like she’s smelled something foul. “I see you’ve paid your rent on time this month. I know all about kids like you. I can report you to the authorities for selling drugs, you know.”

“The are you talking about?” Lu Han fails to censor himself. He hates pretending to be nice to people, especially when he has to pretend to be nice to the great-grandmother of the Crypt Keeper. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re mistaken. Might wanna check out apartment 116 if we’re talking about druggies, though. Sounds like there is some crazy that goes on over there. But thanks for your concern.”

Sharply turning on his heel, he stalks to his door with heavy steps. He whips out his out his keys when he reaches the white door with 125 on it in faded black paint. Wasting no time, he unlocks and rips the door open, slamming it behind him.

“I ing hate her,” he mumbles to himself as he bends over to take off his shoes. Pair of dress shoes in one hand, he loosens his skinny bold red tie with the other.

There is no reason for him to still live here, in a ty studio flat where his bed is six steps away from the front door and his kitchen consists of a fridge, a sink, and a stove as small as a child’s toy. But, he doesn’t have enough money to move out. He can barely pay his rent on time living off his tips and the insignificant wage his boss pays him as it is. A place bigger than this with a, hopefully, more tolerable landlord is out of his budget. He still has student loans to pay off — student loans that were a waste of money because he barely graduated on time, having a scare one year where he almost couldn’t continue going to school because of money troubles, and because it’s not like he’s even doing what he wanted to do. If it wasn’t for his boss who hired him even though he’s not a certified bartender and will never be a certified bartender, he’d be on the streets. Or even worse, back in China.

Stripping off his clothes, he tosses them into the small laundry basket by the front of his bed, grabbing a pair of boxers out of his small set of drawers and heading into his tiny bathroom. He starts up the shower and climbs in, only scrubbing himself enough to remove the smell and the grime of the club from his skin. Soon, he turns off the faucet and steps out of the small shower alcove, snatching the towel he left hanging from the rack and drying off. Tossing the used towel into the sink, he slips into his boxers. He walks out of the bathroom and takes ten steps to his bed and flops down onto it face first, breathing in the fresh scent of his blankets.

He falls asleep just like that.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Lu Han has a love-hate relationship with shopping malls. On one hand, he never has any money to spend and spends hours miserably trotting down the halls to look forlornly into stores he’ll never be able to afford again; and on the other, he can’t let go of his former self who, once upon a time, used to be able to buy whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. But all of that has changed. He knows he shouldn’t torture himself like this anymore, pressing his hands against the glass of brand name shops he used to be able to shop in when now he only has the luxury of window-shopping. His parents would surely be in a state of disbelief if they were to see him now. He’s fallen so far but he refuses to go back and ask them for help.

Nonetheless, no matter how poor he is, he can’t deny the urge to purchase at least something. Even if it so happens to be a pair of socks. And so he finds himself perusing through the racks of a clothing store that doesn’t look out of his budget. Picking through the button-downs in his size, he sighs. He only buys clothes for work these days. Not like it matters; all he does is work. He doesn’t have any friends to hang out with (except for Kris but he and Kris can’t be in the same room for five minutes without finding some way to annoy each other), nine times out of then he walks around his house in either sweats or his underwear, and he throws on whatever is nearby when he goes outside for any other unimportant reason.

Facing the mirror propped up against the wall, he holds up a smoky grey shirt to his chest, tilting his head to the side as he scrutinizes it. Declaring that the color doesn’t fit his complexion, he returns it to the rack and grabs the same button-down in navy. Repeating the process, he imagines what the shirt will look like on his body. He doesn’t try clothes on, not when who knows how many people have put it on before him. Shrugging, he tosses it over his arm, deciding it would look decent enough.

As he wanders around, wondering if he wants to buy a pair of pants as well, he notices a small gathering of people. He raises an eyebrow as he walks over, trying to peer through the tightly pressed bodies of people. Unable to see what all the fuss is about, he taps the closest person on the shoulder.

“What’s going on,” Lu Han asks.

The guy he tapped shrugs, glancing at the collection of people as well. “No clue. But I heard some lady say she thinks a guy is having a heart attack or something.”

Lu Han’s eyes widen. “Did anyone call 119?”

The guy shrugs again. “I don’t know.”

The Beijing man scowls. “Move,” he demands. “And while you’re at it, yourself.”

There are no decent people in this world anymore, Lu Han thinks as he pushes his way through the small crowd, not caring when he knocks people over or into each other as he makes his way to the center. Sitting on the floor is a boy, hunched over, fingers threaded and yanking at his hair, back heaving as he hyperventilates. Lu Han frowns. Maybe he's...

“Hey. You alright?” Lu Han crouches down in front of the hysteric guy.

His eyes widen when the boy looks up. It’s him. The cute guy from the club two weeks ago. Too bad he doesn’t remember his name.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Not a heart attack,” the man manages to get out through his rapid breaths, inhaling twice in a row at the end of his sentence. He removes his hands from his hair to wave them around randomly. “People looking. Too many people.”

That’s just about all the information Lu Han needs to better confirm his earlier hypothesis. He’s having an anxiety attack. Snapping his head around, Lu Han glares at the people still circled around them, hissing at them to disperse. Some of them catch the seriousness in his voice, breaking out of the group and returning to their own business. A few others linger around and while they’re now permanently on Lu Han’s constantly growing list, enough have left for him to the frantic man out of the store and to some place less populated.

He coaxes the poor guy into standing. His legs wobble and Lu Han gently curls his arm around his hips to keep him upright, careful in his efforts to not shock the man even more. Slowly walking him out of the store, Lu Han whispers you’re doing fine, see no one is looking at you as he directs them toward a nearly empty hallway next to a store that sells sporting equipment.

Blocking the other’s — god, what was his name — view of the shoppers rushing behind him, Lu Han drops his arm, releasing him. He waits a couple minutes to see if his breathing will slow down. It doesn’t.

“Can you breathe with me?” he asks. “I need you to breathe with me.” He takes deep breaths himself, demonstrating how he wants the other to copy him. The most important thing is that he gets the other to calm down.

The adorable man blinks at him blankly and nods. He opens his mouth to in air and he spasms, not quite able to breathe as slowly as Lu Han wants him too. Nonetheless, Lu Han smiles encouragingly at him, still demonstrating how he wants the other to calm himself. The other returns the gesture with a smile of his own that’s uneasy and doesn’t last very long. When the frantic wildness leaves the other’s eyes, Lu Han stops pretending to take deep breaths, allowing the other to finish settling down on his own and watching for signs of a potential relapse into hysteria.

“You okay?” His question almost causes something to flare up in the other again but before things can get out of hand again, he grabs the other by the shoulders and comfortingly glides his hands up and down his arms. Lu Han hushes him. “I’m only here to help. You know me, right? I’m not going to judge you. I’m not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. Okay?”

He waits until the other nods his head before offering to take him home. The smaller man nods again and Lu Han guides him out of the shopping mall. Once they’re outside, he asks if he’ll be okay with taking the bus because Lu Han can’t afford to own a car and catching a taxi is expensive as well.

There are two open seats right next to each other in the back of the bus and after they’ve settled in the seats and the Korean looks like he’s calmed down a considerable amount, Lu Han tries to spark conversation.

“I don’t remember your name,” he admits.

It takes two whole breaths before he gets a reply. “I don’t remember yours either,” the other says. “I’ve been calling you That-Angry-Dude in my head since you took me out into the hallway.”

Lu Han ignores the nickname he’s been assigned. “It’s Han. Lu Han.”

“Kim Minseok.” Minseok looks down at his hands in his lap, playing with his fingers idly. “Thanks for helping me. I probably would have passed out if you didn’t.”

Shrugging, Lu Han glances out of the window, watching the people walking around and in and on of buildings. “I wasn’t about to let a bunch of uneducated s potentially let someone die. They all thought you were having a heart attack and none of them had the ing brains to call the hospital. If you were actually in the middle of a heart attack and not an anxiety attack, you would have been ed.”

To Lu Han’s surprise, Minseok laughs. It’s a cute sound that isn’t too loud and boisterous but he doesn’t sound like a mouse either. Confused, he looks at him.

“I was wondering how long it would take for you to turn back into the person I met at the club. You can be pretty nice when you want to be.”

“Excuse you, . I’m always nice.”

Minseok doesn’t say anything and just laughs again. Lu Han scoffs but he’s otherwise glad the other is somewhat relaxed around him even though they’re strangers. Thinking about the night in the club two weeks ago, he’s surprised nothing major happened there, with there being more people packed in the club than there were people in that clothing store.

Minseok straightens up. “My stop is coming up,” he says, looking at Lu Han. “Thanks again.”

Shaking his head, Lu Han waves off his thanks. When Minseok pulls the signal for his stop, the bartender grabs the back of his shirt before he can walk up to the front of the bus and asks for his phone. Quickly, he types his number into Minseok’s phone, not even saving it before handing the device back so the other can leave. “I might not seem like it but I am an aspiring psychologist. If you ever need someone to talk to, you can call me. I'd be more than willing to listen.”

Minseok smiles, waving over his shoulder as he exits the bus. As they pull off again, Lu Han watches Minseok run into an apartment building, turning away when he can no longer see the child-like man. He shakes his head again. This bus goes in the opposite direction of his own apartment building and he didn’t even get to buy that button down he picked out. The sacrifices he makes to help others.