"Baozi!" Yixing sighed as Minseok and Luhan entered the coffee shop. "You're lat - wait, who's that?"

Luhan looked questioning at Minseok. "I thought your name was Minseok?" he asked.

Minseok shrugged. "Nickname," he explained, before he turned to Yixing.

"I'm really sorry. I kind of got caught up in something. I was actually going to be on time this time!" he said, half-smiling. There was no way Yixing would believe that, though.

The latter just shook his head. Then he nodded to Luhan. "And that is...?"

"Oh, that's Luhan," Minseok grinned. "He's my new friend!"

Luhan, who had been staring at the bookshelves, quickly turned to Minseok. "Wha-" he started to protest. But he didn't come any further before Minseok put a finger on his mouth to silence him. He was now Minseok's friend, and Minseok didn't care about what Luhan thought about the matter.

Yixing nodded slowly, still a little bit unsure. But then he shrugged.

"We won't get a lot of customers at this time anyways. I'll make him a cup of coffee." He turned to Luhan, and pointed at the sign with all the different kinds of coffee. "What do you want?"

Luhan looked wide-eyed at both Minseok and Yixing, but then turned his gaze to the sign. He scanned it for half a second, before looking up at Yixing.

"Can I have a plain black one?" he asked. And Minseok remembered where he had seen Luhan before. Just this morning! He had been the one to order the black coffee then, as well. How could he possibly have forgotten? Minseok sighed. He had noticed that Luhan's stare had stopped at the shop's specialty, Triple Caramel Cafe Latte, for a nanosecond more than the others. He wondered if Luhan asked for the plain one because it was the cheapest one.

He smiled at Luhan. "I'd advise you to try the Triple Caramel Cafe Latte. It's what Yixing's best at making, and it's not like we're going bankrupt anytime soon, you know. Order whatever you want."

Luhan looked at Minseok, and then at Yixing, who nodded in encouragement. If there was something Yixing was sure of, it was his Cafe Latte-making skills.

But then Luhan smiled, the first smile Minseok had seen. He nodded, and then followed Minseok to the back of the cafe, where he found a table with two chairs around it, while Yxing happily made the coffee.

As they sat down, Minseok took a real look at Luhan for the first time. And what he noticed, was how fair his face was. Yes, it sounded weird and cheesy. But that was what struck him. Luhan had a naturally slim face, with big eyes and brown hair that fell in front of his face every now and then. He looked kind of girly, kind of like a deer. He had a very slim build and wasn't very tall. Maybe on the same size with Minseok. This made Minseok silently sigh. What wouldn't he give to be a couple of centimeters taller.

"Hey, are you there?" Luhan tapped the table, and Minseok snapped out of his thoughts. He wondered what was going on with him today. He was usually much more reserved, but it was like Luhan brought up the almost non-existent talkative side in him. And Luhan hadn't even said that much.

"Sorry," Minseok shook his head. "I must be a little tired. I don't usually space out like that," he said awkwardly, turning in his chair like he couldn’t sit still.

Luhan shrugged. "I don't mind," he said honestly, as Yixing came over with the coffee. He smiled at Luhan, and then raised an eyebrow playfully at Minseok.

"If the boss-lady finds out about this, I'll subtract the coffee from your payment," he joked, before returning to the counter to serve a customer that just came in. Luhan looked at him in horror for a few seconds at the thought of Minseok having to pay for him, but the latter brushed off the threat as nothing. Yixing always said that, but never said anything, and their boss never found out.

"Thank you for doing this," Luhan said and sipped his coffee as soon as Yixing left. And as the hot drink carefully hit his mouth, his eyes widened. Minseok couldn't help to do anything but smile. People expected the coffee to be good, but not this good. They were always surprised.

"No problem," Minseok replied to Luhan, and leant back in the comfortable chair. He really wanted to ask Luhan about why he was chased by a gang of people (who were not the Italian mafia), but wouldn't trouble him either.

So he just let him be, and they talked about the normal stuff instead. They had some of the same interests, and Minseok discovered that Luhan was just a month younger than himself. He had actually expected him to be younger, even with a couple of years, but it was kind of nice to find out that Luhan was closer to his age, after all. When Minseok had mentioned this though, he had laughed.

"Well, you don't look like an old man yourself," he smiled. "When you asked me to come with you, I honestly thought; is this a way to speak to your elders?" Luhan grinned and took a sip of his coffee. His tired features slowly faded from his face, turning him into himself again.

And then they started telling stories on how they were always taken for being younger. It was quite a couple of times, for both. Just last week, Minseok had been asked for ID. Looking young was both a blessing and a curse, they concluded in the end.

And Minseok, after a while, discovered a new friend in Luhan. Their conversation flowed so naturally that it was weird. At first it had looked like Minseok was the talkative and Luhan was the quiet one, but it turned out to be quite different. Not that Minseok minded, though.

But in the end, after Luhan had drunk half the cup, he suddenly put it down. It wasn't really that loud, but it was enough to make Minseok startled. He looked at Luhan, which looked seriously at him back.

"Aren't you going to ask why I was chased?" he asked in a low voice. So there it was. In the end, they'd touched that theme anyways.

When Luhan asked that question, Minseok shrugged. "I decided not to ask, as it's your problem, and you can tell me when you're ready for it," he said, which was the truth. Luhan seemed cool enough, and he didn’t want to push him.

"Well..." Luhan thought for a couple of seconds. "I think you deserve to know. You're the one who saved me anyways, right?"

Minseok nodded slowly, crossing his legs. And so Luhan started his story.

"My brother... He was never the smartest person. As a eighteen-year old he joined a gang. Got all tattooed up. But he was a good guy, really. He just... Anyways. He was four years older than me, so I was only fourteen when he first joined. Then, when he turned twenty-three, he... Disappeared. He's been gone for five years, and not even my parents or me knows where he is. And well... He took with a lot of money. After a while, the gang he was in tracked my family down. If we do not pay them back the money our brother took, they'll... I don't even want to know. I'm going to college right now while trying to earn enough money, but they're getting impatient. Things are kind of difficult, and I am struggling just to pay school-tuition and rent for apartment. Well, it's a difficult situation I guess. They're always after me like blood hounds."

This left Minseok speechless. Not in a thousand years, he would've guessed this. The heavy atmosphere surrounded them both, and Luhan looked worried for some reason, like he wondered if it was okay to put all of his troubles on Minseok. Which for Minseok, was completely okay. That was what friends were there for, right? He looked down, and followed the tracings on the armrest of the old, wooden chair he sat in. How did he continue this? How could one possibly respond to this with an answer that could be tolerated as helping?

"Well, at least it isn't the Italian mafia," he suddenly mumbled after a while, and then cursed himself the second he said it. It was like his mouth had talked on it's own, without consulting his brain first. This happened quite often, actually. He knew he wasn’t good with words, but this really won the prize for most awkward reply ever in the history of replies.

'Italian mafia? Really, Minseok?' he chided himself in his head.

Luhan tilted his head slightly. "What?" he asked.

Minseok shook his head, embarrassed. "No, just, when those guys came after you, I wondered if it was the Italian mafia. Well, I guess it's more logical if they are in Italy though," he said, realizing how stupid it actually sounded. But for some reason, this made Luhan laugh.

"Really, the Italian mafia?" he grinned. "I would've guessed the Yakuza. They're in Asia, at least," he said, laughing so hard he bended over in his chair.

Minseok crossed his arms, and puffed his cheeks like a small child who didn't get what it wanted. It wasn't his fault that he had read too many Italian action-books.

But Luhan laughed even harder when he saw Minseok's reaction.

"You look even younger when you do that. I wouldn't take you for being older than seventeen," he grinned. This made Minseok pout even more, and somehow, the depressing, heavy atmosphere was gone without them noticing.

When Minseok came home, he was dead tired. After closing-hours Yixing had come around and the three of them had been sitting there, drinking coffee and talking until after midnight. Luckily, it was Sunday tomorrow. No work.

As soon as Minseok stepped inside his apartment he threw off his jacket and shoes, and almost stumbled down the few steps to the living room. Without much trouble he found the couch, and fell limp it as soon as he reached it. He wondered if he had the energy to change his clothes and get into bed. He decided that he was too tired, and fell asleep, lying with his face down in the comfortable couch. And then he started dreaming about a weird cat-busdriver with laser-eyes that wouldn’t let him on the bus, and a flying carpet of some sort. But in the end, there was one person he especially dreamed about, a person that was his companion in all his dreams. Luhan.

For the next couple weeks, Luhan came in almost every day to the same time. It was really nice. He would help them out, and they would talk and joke around. It was really fun being Yixing and Minseok, but it was even funnier being Yixing, Luhan and Minseok. And Yixing didn’t seem bothered by it either. Luhan was a really easy-going person, so they clicked pretty well. What was a little bit worrisome although Minseok knew he shouldn't care however, was where Luhan left when they parted. Where did he live? How did he live? Minseok wondered if he even wanted to know.

But something was changing inside Minseok. Whenever Luhan came around, Minseok felt extra happy. Every time, he would get this weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he gradually became more confused. What was going on with him? This wasn’t what he was used to. It wasn’t like it bothered him, though. Maybe it would go over, like most things eventually did.