Jongin’s gotten a lot more comfortable with disturbing his privacy after the Incident (as they’d taken to calling it around Kyungsoo), Jongdae thinks, startled out of his wits as the kid bursts into his chambers without so much as a pause before the door.

“Did you hear?” Jongin gasps through his panting (and even that sounds to some degree excited), “the Secretary’s wife came back early! Taemin saw her getting off the train this morning!”

Taemin is Jongin’s best friend in the city (after they grew too old to refer to each other as “bestest friend in the whole entire world) and he’d landed a small job this summer, restocking newspapers down the compartments when the train entered station. Jongdae likes the lanky boy who, at thirteen years old, takes his responsibility as older brother by a year with every seriousness, but who still can’t look a girl in the eye without blushing to the tips of his roots.

Slightly tickled by Jongin’s thoughtfulness, Jongdae refrains from gathering the overgrown kid into his lap, choosing instead to pull Jongin face into his neck, almost smothering him in the heavy folds of his robes.

Finally taking note of Jongdae’s elaborate state of dress, Jongin frowns up at him.

“Do you need help getting out of that?”

Jongdae huffs a laugh, ruffling the boy’s hair so the short strands stick up at odd angles from his scalp. “What makes you think I’m getting out of work today?”

Jongin pauses, hands still frozen in a flattening motion as he looks up from the Travesty’s vanity. “But the Secretary couldn’t possibly still come when his wife is in town right? It wouldn’t be...proper!”

Jongdae wonders what Kyungsoo has been teaching the boy if he’s sprouting references to propriety during his untamable tweens. He really doesn’t want to burst Jongin’s proud bubble but he also suspects Kyungsoo won’t be able to hold off the man downstairs for much longer.

“...Baekhyun came in this morning.”

He tries to bring it up casually but the boy still tenses, suddenly looking far too serious for his age.

“When?”

“When you went out to collect the milk delivery this morning, I think.” Jongdae replies grinning, “We were all glad for it really, you go a bit rabid when you see him don’t you?”

“He deserves it.” Jongin sniffs “He kept you in the palace for four days last time.” He leaves out the part where Kyungsoo had wandered about the place with a rather lost expression of his face, fussing over every little thing and muttering You’re a Man, Kyungsoo under his breath. He’d sworn on his life never to repeat that to anyone, not even to Taemin.

Jongdae pinches his cheeks fondly, looking up as one of the maids, Seohyun he thinks her name is, knocks upon the doorframe.

“See?” He says pointedly, “Manners.” Jongin sticks out his tongue, and Jongdae pushes him towards the door with quiet instructions to occupy himself for the afternoon, drag Kyungsoo outside maybe, do something a little bit fun. Jongin looks fully ready to argue but two more maids materialize out from behind the first, magicking him away in vast swatches of cotton and linen.

Jongdae hitches the heavy fabric of the over-robe into his hands, lifting it clear of his feet as he fumbles his way down the staircase, taking a breath before falling into a practised glide, each step from heel to toe as he makes his way towards the bickering voices coming from the front room.

“...His client for today cancelled which means he’s unscheduled not available.” Sometimes Jongdae wonders whether being the Chancellor’s son robbed Baekhyun of any self-preservation instincts or whether he’d simply never been taught to fear the people below him. He taps gently on the sliding screen, bowing as he waits to be admitted.

It’s supremely degrading to be bent over ninety degrees for such a long time but Jongdae doesn’t rise out of his bow until Baekhyun commands it. The trainers had drilled submissiveness into him so thoroughly it curled around his torso in faint white lines. It was much easier this way, he thinks as Baekhyun hums amusedly in approval, sharp eyes vindictive as he briefly smirks Kyungsoo’s way.

Jongdae keeps his eyes respectfully lowered even as his lord’s pale, slender fingers slide underneath his jaw, jerking his face up so forcefully his composure slips, feeling the sharp bite of teeth against lip seconds after he tastes metal on his tongue. The hands slip down to his wrists, holding them together as Baekhyun pulls the sliding doors open.

With a resounding crash, a man unbalances onto the tatami flooring, an unnaturally large mastiff drooling proudly as it sits atop his legs.

“Wait!” the man wheezes, looking up as best he can. The soft red strands of his fringe fall into his eyes and he blows up at them through pursed lips, groaning in pain as the dog shifts to sit further up his body. Jongdae finds the whole thing strangely endearing, even as the animal is coaxed off of his owner by a charmed Jongin, offering a firm hand to help the winded man off the floor.

Stripped of attention, Baekhyun voices his displeasure at being disregarded in the brittle snap of his voice as he questions, “Who the are you?”

The man staggering to his feet, dips into a performer’s bow, cursing and glaring at his canine companion when his spine cracks loudly.

“My name is Howl,” he grins, wicked and just a little bit cute, “I believe I have a booking made for noon.”

Kyungsoo squeaks as Howl proffers the embossed card, now significantly less pristine and more crumpled, making no move to accept it. Jongin, who’d followed the commotion from behind the side door darts forward to take the paper out of the magician’s hand instead. Kyungsoo makes a noise like a startled cow and shoves Jongin bodily behind him. Baekhyun is hiding his face behind a flower vase and Jongdae can’t resist the urge to giggle.

Kyungsoo’s eyes are opened so far that the whites of his are on obvious display, smushing a hand against Jongdae’s mouth as he begins backing the three of them against the wall.

“Hey now,” Howl raises both hands in a universal gesture of ‘I come in peace’, “no need to get skittish.’

A/N: So you may or may not be able to tell that I posted this during my calc tute. tbh I'm fairly happy with this chapter :D but of course it's still unbetaed