Yixing slowly became grounded in consciousness as a car-horn sounded outside of his window. The digital clock beside his bed read ‘8:26’. With a jolt, he flung himself out of bed in a panic as fear and guilt flooded through his entire body. The sight of his tiny appartment greeted his sleep-sticky eyes; small, peaceful, and slightly cold in the chill of the fall morning. His breathing slowed to normal and his pulse calmed. His first class of the day wasn’t until eleven and he remembered setting his alarm for nine o’ clock, thinking he could, possibly for the first time, sleep in.

Calm down. You don’t have anyone to make breakfast for anymore. You’re not late for anything. No one will be angry with you. He reassured himself, sitting shakily back onto the bed. His long fingers twisted in his sheets and, for a while, he simply watched the minutes tick by on his clock. At 8:34 he stood up again and shivered as his whole foot made contact with the cold floor.

Yixing was eating breakfast when he heard his phone buzz against the narrow kitchen counter. He almost leapt out of his seat in eagerness to answer the text message that his phone informed him had been sent at 8:42 a.m.

Hey, I forgot to tell you something yesterday. It’s a tradition for us to take new interns out to dinner, so don’t pack food!

    <3 Chanyeol <3

Yixing blinked down at the screen. He hadn’t even thought about food for the day yet. Chanyeol, he thought, must be one of those people who is always prepared with supplies to stave off hunger, thirst, and boredom wherever they go.

Okay, thank you very much for telling me. But I don’t want to cause any trouble for any of you.

    -Zhang Yixing

He sent the message spiralling through cyberspace and locked his phone, walking back to his desk which took the place of a kitchen table. When he was just about to sit back down, the phone vibrated again. Bewildered, he decided to keep his phone next to him and fetched it, tapping the icon that indicated a waiting text.

It’s never trouble to do things for your friends! Besides, this is the only time I get to see Tao drunk, so I should be thanking you!

    <3 Chanyeol <3

Yixing worried at his bottom lip as he read. He finally decided to let it go. It seemed like Chanyeol was really looking forward to it, so maybe the event wouldn’t be an inconvenience after all.

Okay, thank you very much, Chanyeol.

    -Zhang Yixing

He typed at last. Immediately after he touched the ‘send’ button with his forefinger, a wave of worry swept through him. What if Chanyeol had only been polite and was really going out of his way for Yixing?

When we meet later today, I think I’ll bring it up again. If he looks tired or annoyed, I’ll make up an excuse and come home. He decided. Yixing sort of did want to go out and meet everyone. It sounded like it would be fun...But inconveniencing someone would far outway the benefits!

Yixing dressed slowly, not out of care, but simply because he preferred to move at a leisurely pace. He’d never had time to relax when he would get ready in the past. He shuffled into the bathroom and assessed his reflection in the mirror. Most of this was to decide whether he needed to wear his hat, or if his hair looked alright enough to be let out on its own. A few pieces curled up rebelliously around the top of his head, giving a feathery, windswept appearance to his black hair. He pulled at a chunk with two fingers and pressed his lips together, puffing out his cheeks. A moment passed.

Good enough.

He brushed his teeth and scrubbed gently at his face with his hands and a generous amount of soap. When he cupped his hands under the faucet and rinsed his face, he wondered idly if he would need to wear his scarf today. It had looked frosty outside, but it might warm up later that afternoon. One of Yixing’s pet peeves was taking an item of clothing with him somewhere that he would only have to take off and carry around with him.

Walking out of the bathroom, Yixing went through the process of flipping through his tatty backpack, making sure he had everything he would need for the day. His favorite purple pen was lying on his desk. After a moment’s thought, he clipped it onto a notebook and stuck it in his bag. He pulled on his coat, deciding against the scarf, slipped on his shoes and made his exit, making sure that all of his lights were off before he let the door shut and lock behind him.

His eleven o’clock class was an Introduction to Literature and Composition course that all Seol University students were required to take before graduation. Most people decided, as Yixing had done, to get it out of the way in their freshman year before the classes relating to their major got too difficult. The class only met once a week and, so, lasted much longer than the normal class; around two and a half hours as opposed to the normal one hour. Yixing already liked the class. He had always loved language and how it could be manipulated to do so many things, but he was good at science, and science would make him money. His grandmother and father would be very disappointed if he couldn’t get a job that would make him money. The class had just finished up and Yixing was walking to Spoons to get a cup of tea while he waited for time to pass before his next class started. In his pocket, he felt his phone vibrate.

I don’t think I told you what time you have to be at SM yet! Do you want to meet me at Spoons around 3 again? We can go over together!

<3 Chanyeol <3

Okay, thank you.

    -Zhang Yixing

He stood in line at Spoons for almost five minutes before he got the opportunity to ask for a cup of black tea with no milk and lots of sugar. He settled himself down at a small corner table with one chair and let his eyes wander around the room. Almost all of the other patrons of the large cafe were there with friends or dates. This seemed to explain why the only table with just one chair had been left empty for Yixing to sit at. He wasn’t quite sure if he should feel melancholy at such thoughts. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to being alone. You couldn’t really miss something you never had. Packing away these musings for further review at a later date, he pulled one of his new textbooks out of his backpack and thumbed through to the chapter he was supposed to review for his next class.

Yixing had almost finished working through the chapter when he heard his name echo across the cafe.

“Zhang Yixing?” Even before lifting his eyes, he had identified the voice. It was Kim Jongin, his interviewer from the day before.

“Jongin-ssi! Hello!” He said quickly, not quite sure how to react to such a lukewarm greeting from a brand-new acquaintance. Especially since this brand-new acquaintance seemed to draw his eyes like a work of art. He could have spent much longer than he cared to admit analysing the angles of the handsome man’s face and the slope of his shoulders.

“Hello. I thought that was you.” Jongin said simply. Yixing wasn’t sure how, or even if, he should respond to this statement. Jongin’s fingers were wrapped around a styrofoam coffee mug and he was wearing a dark green sweater that looked lovely against his skin.

“Yes...” Yixing spoke after a pause. He didn’t really know what to say next. “Are you, um, a student here, Jongin-ssi?” The ‘-ssi’ felt awkward against his tongue. Korean honorifics felt far stranger than any of the other words he had memorized in the language.

“I am. In business. And you?”

“Biochemistry.” There was a longer silence.

“I suppose I will see you this evening then.”

“Yes! Thank you again, Jongin-ssi. For hiring me.” Jongin waved his free hand dismissively and turned to walk away without another word. Yixing felt very uncomfortable in the moments after he left, wondering what he could have said to make Jongin less stiff in his presence. Yixing didn’t deal well with people disliking him.

Three o’clock rolled found Yixing back in ‘his’ corner of the coffee shop, watching the door for Chanyeol to appear, bubbling over with energy. His assumption was correct, he soon discovered, when Chanyeol stormed through the door and immediately spotted him.

“Yixing! How are you today!” Most people would have walked a little closer before exchanging any words, but Chanyeol was not most people. Other customers turned at the sudden shout, half of them seemed to recognize the tall, grinning boy, and turned away with a smile or roll of the eyes.

“I’m well. And you?” Yixing said, waiting for Chanyeol to get close enough for him to be heard at a normal volume before responding.

“Good, good! Ready to go! Oh, I’m so excited!” Yixing noticed that Chanyeol was wearing trousers under his coat, a notable change from the ripped jeans he had been sporting the day previous. Yixing had gone home after his second class to change clothes; jeans and a sweatshirt being exchanged for trousers, a button-up, and a pullover sweater.

Chanyeol, again, led the way out of Spoons and towards the bus-stop, but this time Yixing stayed closer to his side, not wanting to miss any of the words that seemed to be constantly spilling from his lips. The commute to the SM building seemed to pass more quickly than it had before, and before he could fully register the journey, Yixing had arrived at his destination. The elevator dinged and Chanyeol walked out, across the wide hallway and through the door that led to the desk-hub that, apparently housed the interns. The room was visibly empty, but that didn’t seem to bother Chanyeol, who headed straight through the large room and down the hallway that had been the site of yesterday’s interview. The tall young man stopped at a door on his right, opening it and gesturing Yixing through. Entering, the Chinese boy was suddenly the subject of the gazes of the seven people in the room.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Zhang Yixing.” Jongin’s voice told him.