Sehun slides to an empty chair and places his cup of bubble tea on the vacant table. He has never been to this bubble tea shop before (considering it is quite new in the industry and only approximately one month into the business) so he thinks it is worth the effort to try the drinks out and maybe compare it to the bubble teas in Cofioca.

Sehun is thankful to the only worker of the cozy shop, a male in his teens — maybe 17 or 18 years old. The worker did not recognize Sehun, even though he is only wearing a thin shirt and shorts with nothing that conceals his identity aside from the snapback he may or may not have stole from Tao’s collection. Well, it’s either the worker doesn’t know EXO or he just doesn’t care about an idol being in the otherwise empty shop. Sehun, however, does hope that people who do recognize him from outside the shop doesn’t spread his current whereabouts. Dealing with sasaengs stalking him daily could only be tiring for so long. 

“Where did you find out about this place, Sehun-ah?” A hand hanging by his shoulder startles Sehun, making him jerk forward in reflex. “Sorry for surprising you.” The amused voice continues, dropping his hand back to his side.

“Some girl trainees I saw in the building were talking about this place.” Sehun replies, stopping the black haired male before he could take a seat on the empty chair.

“Let me guess, hyung. Coffee flavoured?” Sehun raises one of his eyebrows for confirmation as he scans the brown coloured liquid in a decorative plastic cup that Minseok holds in his hands.

“You know me too well, maknae.” Minseok chuckles and slides into the seat directly across of Sehun, who follows his hyung’s movements apathetically, the infamous ‘unimpressed Sehun face’ expression plastered in his face.

“You are a creature of habit hyung. It is only natural that I guess you would order coffee flavoured bubble tea as you have always done for a long time.” Deadpans the younger as he brushes a stray strand of cinnamon coloured hair away from his line of vision. Minseok looks as if he is thinking hard about something, a finger comically placed under his chin and head slightly tilted up before he snaps his gaze back to Sehun.

“I wouldn’t call myself someone of habits. Routine, maybe, but not habit.” Sehun only nods absentmindedly, distracted with the way Minseok’s cheeks bunches up adorably and his eye smile very charming to see when he smiles all wide and pretty. The two fall into a lapse of silence.

“It’s been awhile hasn’t it, Sehun?” Minseok continues when the two doesn’t say anything for an amount of time, his eyes casted downwards and a nostalgic smile etched in his lips. Sehun tries to mentally count the amount of long eyelashes Minseok has on each eye while trying to decipher the awfully ambiguous words from his hyung.

Sehun concludes that Minseok is implying that it has been awhile since the two of them had a private conversation and an even longer time since the last time Sehun is with Minseok alone in the public like this.

“It has.” Sehun answers curtly, mind wandering as he thinks of how Lu Han hyung is finishing up filming his scenes in the movie and of how Tao hyung is also somewhere in the Solomon Islands, filming for Law of The Jungle. It seems the other members also had plans on their own, some going shopping, some attending their scheduled activities and the rest using their free time to catch up on precious sleeping hours before eventually heading to the SM building to practice for their next concert again.

“We should do this more often. Going to cafes with Lu Han and Jongdae too often can also be very repetitive and outings like this are a nice and a fresh change of scenery.” Minseok directs a small, thankful smile towards the stunned 21 year old.

‘Minseok hyung rarely speaks out his feelings like this,’ Sehun notices, ‘He mostly keeps these feelings to himself or to Lu Han hyung…’

“Next time, we should hang out. All four of us — You, me, Lu Han and Tao. Maybe Yixing would also like to come with us.” Sehun snaps out from his reverie and glances down on an excited Kim Minseok.

“We should… also hang out more, hyung. Just the two of us like we used to.” Sehun pretends to be interested in playing with his thumbs as he mentally scolds himself over how he shouldn’t be bashful about his own words.

“We should.”



After that, conversation continues to flow out of their mouths easily, months of preparing and training for their Overdose comeback and for their ‘The Lost Planet’ concerts has prevented them to actually, really talk about anything and everything. Of course, they do converse every day, ranging from simple greetings to occasional offers of a cold bottle of mineral water in between practices. But this is the first in a long span of time that the duo had actually talked, catching up with months worth of their daily lives.

"So hyung, remember how I roomed with Tao in that hotel at Taipei?" Sehun sips his chocolate flavoured bubble tea idly, gnawing the tapioca balls in fast chews.

"Sehun-ah, you room with Tao every time." Minseok humorously replies with a hint of a smirk, eyes glinting a dangerously mischievous aura as the elder swirls his cup of coffee flavoured bubble tea in a constant circular motion. The pearls inside the cup slosh right and left with every twist of Minseok’s wrist.   

Sehun scoffs half-heartedly. "That was not the point, hyung." The brunette whines, jutting his bottom lip out into the cutest pout he can muster and Minseok's smirk turns into a friendly grin, lips slightly crooked and gums on full display.

"So what is your point, Hun-ah~" Sehun smiles happily at the private nickname Minseok calls him. He has always so often call Sehun 'Hun-ah' since pre-debut days. Back in 2008; back when Sehun was just a bratty 15 year old middle schooler with a mild interest in singing and Minseok was 19 and fresh out of high school. Those were the days, Sehun thinks.

"What happened is that I was taking a nice warm shower in our room and then all of a sudden the bathroom door slammed open and the curtains were partially pulled open and Tao — God, he was only covered with a towel around his waist — just jumped into the shower with me, saying how scary it will be if he takes one alone. Ugh, I almost had a heart attack that night." Sehun rants like how the young Oh Sehun would do back when he is 15, making wild gestures with his two hands and almost knocking his cup down.   

"Using big words huh, Hunnie. You have grown up now, hyung is so proud of you." Sehun frowns as Minseok teases him dramatically, using his right hand to clutch the fabric of his red sleeveless shirt over his left chest — on top of where his heart lies.

"Hyung please." Sehun exasperatedly says, cheeks warm and tinting a pale pink out of embarrassment.      

"But doesn't Tao always do that?" Minseok inquires when he stops giggling and cooing over how flustered Sehun looks, tone never judging though pleasantly boy-ish sounding.

"He doesn't." Sehun replies seriously, eyes narrowed in displeasure.

"So all those words of asking members to take a shower together is only partially true huh? Ahahaha, oh well, don’t worry he will get over that phase. Ah! Since you talked about what happened to you in Taipei, it reminds me about what happened to Lu Han in our room at that hotel too." 

Minseok takes a long sip of his bubble tea, half of the contents in the cup drunk already. Sehun feels his chest burn when Minseok refers his and Lu Han's room as 'ours'.

Minseok looks up at Sehun and laughs, bright and light, eyes turning into thin crescents. It is very endearing, Sehun thinks.       

"Get rid of your scowl Sehun. You will get wrinkles if you keep on frowning like that." Minseok runs his thumb over the downward curve of Sehun's mouth and smoothes it out manually — though Sehun also helps him by smiling because his hyung is being so attentive to him (and him only) and it makes him feel so special.        

"If I do, will my face be eternally youthful like yours?" Sehun lights up and almost wants to pat himself in the back with words of ‘good job’ when he hears Minseok start laughing his melodious laughter again. But Sehun stops himself before he can do that because that is dumb and weird.

"How cheesy. I didn't think you would be that type of person, Sehun-ah." Minseok rolls the plastic straw between his teeth and Sehun is momentarily petrified until he is rendered dumb because Minseok looks so handsome and y when he does that. The flicker of amusement – almost mockery even – in his dark orbs and the apprehensive smile doesn’t really help Sehun a lot.

Sehun clears his throat awkwardly before muttering, "I am not like that deer hyung. I am good with my words unlike that awkward kid."

"Ah, don't call Lu Han like that! He is still your elder!" Minseok playfully scolds but Sehun knows Minseok really dislikes it when people are not respectful to those who are older.              

 "Alright hyung. Anything to make you happy." Sehun diligently watches as Minseok smile fondly at him, obvious at how the elder has a special soft spot for him as the youngest of the group.

"Anyways, where were we— Ah yes, hotel room incident." Minseok places his cup down. "I was in the bed, playing with my phone with the wifi when Lu Han goes out of the bathroom from his shower, with his hair wrapped in a towel and he was wearing his usual sleepwear you know — shirt and shorts. And I guess he was going to ask me something considering he had opened his mouth and everything but then he accidentally stubbed his little toe into the bed frame and I swear it was hilarious. Lu Han was also swearing at me to not laugh at him or else and I had to bite my lips hard until it bled to stop the laughter." Sehun knows that he should be listening to what his hyung is saying but Minseok looks so cute and much, much younger than his actual age like this — monolid eyes wide and twinkling with excitement and a big smile plastered in his cute round face.

Sehun thinks that Minseok deserves to be happy like this all the time. Sehun, even though young, was not naïve or dumb and he knows how hard the past 2 years — 6 if you include when they were trainees — was for his eldest hyung. Placed in EXO-M even though he didn't even knew a word in Mandarin and close to nothing about China, having to get along with 4 younger Chinese trainees and their broken Korean (and later one Korean trainee with too little training period and too much responsibilities weighing his shoulders). And back then he had to take care of Sehun too, riding the underground train together at the dead of the night to accompany him go home and occasionally treating the younger to late night snacks at the roadside stalls after overdue dance or vocal practices.

Sehun also knows it didn't get easier after debuting too, seeing how much unreasonable hate he gets from fans (can Sehun even call them fans?) and having little to no fans back during MAMA era. He has heard how hard it was for Minseok (courtesy to one deer elder and his all too big mouth) but he had always kept a smile in his face, never wanting to worry fans or staffs or the other members and always being the constant emotional support that EXO desperately needs in times of hardships. 

It breaks a piece of Sehun’s heart when all he can do is just watch from the sidelines as Minseok faces the intense pressure from society to please everybody. Losing so much weight for the fans to like him until Yixing hyung had to say it out loud in the Naver Broadcast for him to stop dieting so hard, singing his heart out with all his might when he sings the chorus of a song — usually the only part of the song where Minseok has lines to sing (though Sehun admits that he, too, doesn’t get much lines but Minseok hyung became a trainee in SM through a singing a contest and it is so unfair that he gets so little lines) and dancing seriously, his movements (particularly his arm movements) always sharp, no matter where and when.                     

So yeah, when Sehun sees Minseok like this — happy and content — he thinks Minseok should never be treated less than he really is and Sehun smiles and laughs along with Minseok, who also snorts in his laughter as he tells the story of how Lu Han cursed so much when he hit his toe to the bed frame.



( Later, somewhere in between Sehun’s second serving of bubble tea — this time a taro milk tea — he randomly blurts out “Love you hyung.” without any second thoughts in the middle of their animated talk and Minseok stares at Sehun, shocked and speechless before he gives a tomato red Sehun a knowing look — feline-like eyes hooded and very, very seductive — and his mouth curls into a sly smile.

“I know.” )