All Luhan wanted to do, was curl up into a ball in his bed and stay there forever. He didn’t want to go out, didn’t want to see people, didn’t want anything. Except for Minseok, that was.

But he knew he couldn’t. Minseok had wanted him to keep working in his place, and if there was anything Luhan could do for Minseok, he would. So the next Monday he showed up at the coffee shop, ready to work. Well, at least he thought he was. He had taken a shower to release some of the tension and guilt that weighed down on his shoulders, but it didn’t help as much as he wanted to believe it did. He had dressed up like usual and came on time, but it was obvious he wasn’t okay anyways.

“You look like ,” was Jongdae’s honest observation when he came in the door, escaping the cold. It didn’t really help Luhan’s mood, and Yixing put down the cups he was putting in place in favour of slapping the back of Jongdae’s head.

“You can’t say stuff like that,” he scolded, sighing. Then he looked at Luhan, giving him a look synonymous to ‘We’re going to talk about this’.

Luhan had already guessed there was no way away around it, and just nodded. It was still ten minutes until they opened, so he walked to the back room at a slow pace. His trademark jacket had been replaced by a light grey duffel coat, and he hung it up on the wall in the staff room beside Jongdae’s. Although the guilt weighed on his shoulders he knew he had to get out of the negative way of thinking, and he rolled his shoulders and cracked his joints before setting his course out to Jongdae and Yixing again. While he was gone they had opened the store again, and Jongdae was serving a customer while Yixing was grinding some of the coffee beans. The stream of people who came and left flowed evenly, and Luhan smiled when he noticed some of Minseok’s friends from university, coming halfway through his shift. He found it a little weird because judging by Minseok’s schedules they should have been in class, but he brushed it off.

“Hi,” a tall, blonde guy he recognized as Tao smiled. Beside him another, just as tall guy stood, someone Luhan knew as Sehun. Seeing how they both stretched towards 180 cm he felt weirdly small, maybe a little extra because he knew for a fact that they were way younger than him.

“Hi Tao,” he smiled. “What do you want today?”

Both Tao and Sehun gave their usual orders, a double Americano for Tao and a simple latte for Sehun, but as they got their orders they hesitated and Luhan sent them a questioning look. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow curiously, knowing the younger had something they wanted to ask. If he could guess, he knew what he’d put his money on as well.

“Uhm,” Sehun’s usual, stoic face seemed uncertain, but he pulled himself together. “Do you know where Minseok is? We had a rather important lecture today, and he never showed up. We tried to call him because he couldn’t miss it if he wants to pass, but he didn’t pick up either… is he ill or something?”

Luhan’s breath hitched and everyone – including Yixing who pretended to arrange the blackboard that hung on the back wall with the menu on it, but in reality was listening intently – knew Sehun had hit a nerve. The latter’s eyes widened, but Luhan quickly regained composition.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “We, I mean… we broke up. I broke up with him.” As soon as the words were actually out of his mouth, they seemed more real than he wanted them to be. It finally hit that Minseok wasn’t coming back. He had been certain in his case but Luhan had met his mother now. He had seen what she was able to do. There was absolutely no way he could escape. It would have been easy to tell the real story, but there were so many details to it that Luhan didn’t know where to start – to explain it all he would need days, something he didn’t have. Instead, he settled for putting the blame on himself. That way Minseok was spared, and his family could hold up the image. If the story about Luhan got out, they would never get peace and the business would lose a lot. And that was something Luhan absolutely didn’t want. He would just have to go on with his life the best he could, and take things as they came.

Yixing, who had just finished writing the coffee of the day on the board and was polishing his writing with a wet tablecloth, fell down from the counter he was balancing atop, accidently wiping away half the menu in the process. He scrambled to his feet and walked over to Luhan, who stared wide-eyed at him.

“What the hell?!” he exclaimed, shaking Luhan’s shoulders. Then he turned to Sehun and Tao, who were looking at Luhan with equally shocked eyes. They knew each other rather okay through Minseok, and knew there was something else going on behind this. No way Luhan and Minseok would break up just like that – they were too cheesy and stereotypical lovers, and Life loved playing with them too much to just let them go.

Jongdae, who had heard the ruckus, came running from the storage to find the counter in a mess and the menu gone, as well as Yixing in a state of hysteria, attacking Luhan with questions. Tao and Sehun also stood there, shocked though not at Yixing’s level… yet.

“Hey, stop it,” he sighed, grabbing Yixing by the waist before practically dragging him away from the now traumatized Luhan. “You’re scaring the customers,” he gestured to a couple of the people in the shop, looking suspiciously at them.

Yixing was breathing heavily, and when Jongdae decided it was safe to let him free, he let the older go in favour of untying his apron and throwing it gracefully at Sehun’s head.

“I don’t know what is going on, but you’re holding the fort while I find out what’s going on and watch out so Xing doesn’t kill anyone,”

Tao wanted to throw in that he had absolutely no experience in making coffee or managing anything else than his time schedule (which he handled rather poorly as well), but before he could interject anything the three owners were gone from his sight.

“I just wanted to get a coffee and find out if Minseok was sick…” Sehun muttered from under the apron, to no use.

“I will give you exactly three seconds to tell me what is going on,” Jongdae announced. There were sitting atop sealed cardboard boxes in the storage room, and although it probably wasn’t the best place to discuss things they didn’t have any options.

“I broke up with Minseok,” Luhan stated. The words seemed to roll easier and easier off his tongue, although he still had to force them through.

Yixing’s eyes went wide, and his gaze turned from Luhan to Jongdae. “See?!” he exclaimed. “That isn’t normal! He broke up with Minseok! He should be a mess by now! But he’s here and Minseok is not!”

Stating the obvious facts, Jongdae shushed him before he said something that could actually hurt him. Yixing was a nice and calm person, but when he got worked up words rolled off his tongue like they were marbles. Instead, he turned to Luhan.
“You,” he declared. “Three seconds to tell me the truth.”

Luhan shifted in his set and his eyes wandered, but when he didn’t say anything before Jongdae’s time limit was up, they knew it wasn’t as simple as just breaking up.

“Luhan…?” Jongdae’s voice softened, realizing this probably was as hard for the older, if not harder.

“I… she came and took him, okay? The cruel witch-mother. She told me to write him off as this shop’s owner, and she’s going to marry him off to some rich girl. I mean, who even does that these days? That’s so cliché. But yeah. He isn’t coming back.” It was the last words that hit them the most, rather than about the Minseok’s mother. Jongdae hadn’t met her before, but he had a clear outline of how she was after listening to Yixing. Yixing on the other hand, had met Kim Minhee on several occasions, and she was never really impressed with him. The feeling was very much mutual, but in respect of Minseok he had never said anything. After listening to Luhan however, the next time Yixing saw Minseok, he would tell him exactly how he felt about that witch.

“I’m going to get him back,” he stated bluntly. “Whether he likes it or not.”

Yixing had actually expected Jongdae to back him up on the case, but surprisingly he was the one that spoke up against it.

“No, you’re not,” Jongdae said. “Minseok is probably well protected and you need a better plan than that. Simply ‘getting him back’ will only get you trouble. Though, I do have an idea about what we could do.” Instead of waiting for an answer he stood up and stretched, shaking his head.

“None the less, we need to get out there again. I think we’ve tortured poor Sehun and Tao enough now.” Then he walked out, not even checking if the other two were following.

Luhan, despite his head feeling like he had run a marathon, looked at Yixing. “He’s deeper than I thought,” he remarked.

Yixing on the other hand, just squinted suspiciously at the door Jongdae had disappeared out of seconds earlier. “It’s new,” he muttered. “I don’t like it.” Luhan was pretty sure it had something to do with Jongdae shutting down Yixing’s plan, but he didn’t comment on it.

“Minseok!” Minhee’s voice rang in the halls, echoing between the big walls. Minseok groaned at the voice, digging even deeper into the sheets of the bed as he hid his head under a huge, fluffy pillow. Definitely not his own bed, and although it was extremely comfortable he didn’t like it. It didn’t have what was a necessity for it to have if he was going to like it, and that necessity was on the other side of the city.

It was morning and still way too early for Minseok to wake up, because his alarm hadn’t even gone off yet. The usual, warm light didn’t shine through his curtains like they usually did, and he realized it was because it wasn’t his normal curtains. There were heavy and thick, in comparison to his own, light ones. Just another thing he hated about the house.

The clicking of heels neared dangerously and Minseok tried to ignore the incoming threat, the dragon in sheep’s clothing (yes, he was aware that it usually was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and not a dragon, but wolf was a little bit tame in his opinion, when it came to his mother).

He could hear the door handle being pushed down, but the normal creaking of the double doors wasn’t heard, and neither was the irritating, high-pitched voice. The handle was tried another couple of times, and Minseok vaguely remembered locking the door in anger last night. At least he had done something right.

“Minseok, are you there? It’s time to get up!”

“The only time it is, is to get out of this house!” he shouted back, his voice muffled by the pillow he was hiding under.

From the other side of the door, his mother sighed. “Minseok, I’m only doing this because it’s what is best for you. I will leave for a beauty procedure in Kyoto now, but I will be back in the evening, okay?” she said in a soft voice, speaking to him like he was three years old. If anything, that made Minseok even madder.

It was morning and although he usually didn’t really manage to get truly pissed until at least 11 a.m., he was almost there now. “Are you going to get your fixed face again?” he asked in a poisonous tone. “What is it? The third time this month?” Minseok was usually respectful towards people even if they deserved to be thrown into the Han River twice, but he had lost every possible filter towards his mother, and now he just said whatever came into his mind. He knew he was incredibly rude, but in one way he felt really good about it. That woman deserved it anyways.

“Kim Minseok, you do not talk to your mother like that!” Minhee said sternly from the other side of the door, obviously shaken up. Not a very pleasant way to start the morning. Minseok had only lived there for two days, but the staff of the house already did what they could to keep the two from each other, not to create unnecessary fights. There would never be a pleasant morning as long as they lived together.

Throwing the pillow to the floor, Minseok sat up in the bed. “Well, maybe I would have talked to you differently if you had acted like my mother the first twenty four years of my life! Now you’re just like the old neighbourhood-ahjumma. Go make some kimchi instead of shouting at me! I heard it’s good for wrinkles, because you have a lot of them!” he was mean, but he had never cared so little. If his mother was picking a spouse for him, he was going to be as difficult as he could until then.

His mother didn’t say anything else, but she huffed upset and her heel, speed walking down the hall again. And so the morning peace resumed.

I said two chapters but I realized that would be a very long chapter so I split it into two... I'm still not sure how long the last part will be. Two days overdue but yeah, in between hospital visits and midterms that's what I ended up with. I'll get the last part of this story done by the end of the holiday! 

In other news, I wrote a one-shot recently, which I would be very happy to get your feedback on! It's Xiuhan as ever, but called 'the galaxies behind your eyelids', it's deeper than this rather superficial (?) story. You can find it here.