Jinyoung looked at his own reflection through the rear-view mirror of his car, tilting his head slightly to the right as he inspected his appearance. Smoothing out his sideburns with his fingers, he could not resist smirking at how attractive he looked today. Of course, he looked good almost every day (with the exception of the days he woke up with a bloated face after eating ramyeon the nights before), but today, he really looked exceptionally handsome.

His tousled black hair was gelled meticulously in place, giving off the impression that he had just rolled out of bed, and his ed dress shirt was slightly crinkled, as though he had thoughtlessly put together a random set of clothes. He looked effortlessly good, and despite his narcissism, most people could not bring themselves to deny that he was indeed quite a stunner.

As the song he was listening to came to an end, he glanced at the clock on his dashboard, raising his eyebrows at the digital numbers. Had he really been staring at himself in the mirror for so long that he failed to realise how much time had already passed? Rolling his eyes at how they were probably going to be late, Jinyoung pursed his lips as he sounded the car horn twice, before realising that his phone beside him was ringing.

“Yeoboseyo?” He put his phone to his ear, and lowered the volume the radio.

“Park Jinyoung, where the hell are you?”

“At the valet.” Jinyoung lied quickly, almost instinctively.

Over the years they had spent together, it became a known fact to all that Jaebum absolutely hated tardiness, and he hated it even more when he himself was late — when the early bus he had been on was caught in a traffic jam, or when their flight to Japan had been delayed by hours, causing them to scrap the first concert of that particular tour altogether. The scariest part about Jaebum, was that he had too keen an eye for catching latecomers, especially those like Jinyoung who always tried to smoke up a reason as to why he was late or pretend that they were already at the venue when they most likely had just woken up. Part of him wondered why he even bothered lying to his best friend of nearly ten years, when he was completely sure that Jaebum would see through his lie.

“Don’t give me bull.” Jaebum nearly growled into the phone. “I thought I told you to be here at 10AM sharp yesterday, but why aren’t you here yet when it’s almost eleven?”

Jinyoung rubbed his temples while lowering the volume of his phone with his other hand. Talking to Jaebum over the phone always gave off the impression that their conversation was on speakerphone, even though most of the times, it probably was not the case.

“I swear, I was ready to leave by ten, but I’m the good, early boy who’s been waiting for the past half-hour in the car.” Jinyoung protested, trying to shift the blame away from himself.

Jaebum just sighed in annoyance. “Why can’t you both act like a normal married couple and help each other get ready?”

Jinyoung just grinned, as he spied a red-haired figure emerge from their house, struggling to lock the door while juggling a few boxes in his arms in the corner of his eye. “It’s more fun this way. Anyway, I need to go. I’m hanging up on you.”

“Ya, don’t hang up on me, you brat —”

Jinyoung placed his phone back on the dashboard of the car and stepped out of his seat, taking a few strides to walk around his car. He stood on the pavement, his hands in his pockets, as he watched Mark fumbling on the pavement.

Not even realising that Jinyoung had gotten out of the car, Mark took hurried steps down the walkway, both his arms filled with lushly decorated boxes. He had not intended to let Jinyoung wait on him for such a long time, but when Youngjae had called to remind him that they were supposed to bring presents, he flew into a state of panic realising that Jinyoung and himself had completely forgotten about buying a gift. It was too late to go to the shopping centre and purchase a last-minute gift, so Mark began to search every nook and cranny in his house for a presentable gift instead.

Thankfully, they still had a few unopened gifts from their wedding party a few months ago, but that also meant that Mark had to unwrap the presents to see what the contents inside the numerous boxes were before deciding which ones were appropriate to give as a present. Some indecent gifts that made Mark blush uncontrollably and write a mental note to sock Jackson in the arm as hard as he could when he would see him later aside, he found a baseball cap and bat, a set of silver cutlery and a decent lampshade that would make do for Jinyoung and his gift. He threw the jumbled contents into some boxes he found in the storage room and wrapped them with festive paper he dug out from his study. The finishing touch was completed by adding a loud pink bow on top of each box, along with a note with almost illegible handwriting that indicated well wishes from Jinyoung and himself.

Mark had long forgotten about the time, and about how he had only buttoned half his shirt before Youngjae interrupted him with his call. Mark fretted about how Jaebum would probably give him a proper nagging at if he discovered how he did not go out and purchase a proper gift like he had suggested days ago, he decided that it was too late to heed Jaebum's instructions and threw the thought at the back of his mind.

Jinyoung saw the roll of newspaper on their porch where the delivery boy had left it this morning, and he felt a twinge of guilt about forgetting to collect the paper yet again. As he watched Mark walk down the pavement, he realised that that Mark was too caught up in his own thoughts to watch where he was going. From a distance away, Jinyoung opened his mouth to warn him not to trip over the newspaper and walk around it instead.

Naturally, Mark turned to Jinyoung in confusion, but continued walking without stopping and thus tripped over the bundle of papers and landed unceremoniously on his bottom, the boxes in his hands spilling over the floor in the process.

Jinyoung stifled a laugh as he took a few steps towards him, knowing how Mark would just snap at him if he caught him laughing, but he could not resist commenting, “What a hot mess you are, Mark Tuan.”

“Shut up and help me off the ground.” Mark retorted, his ears a deep shade of pink from embarrassment as he grabbed Jinyoung’s firm hand and pulled himself to his feet.

“You didn’t even button your shirt up.” Jinyoung chuckled, his hands moving to the front of Mark’s dress shirt with ease.

“Wait —” Mark started to protest, but was cut off by Jinyoung.

“Relax, I’m putting your clothes back on, not taking them off.”

Mark slapped Jinyoung’s hands away, his face hot with irritation, his heart racing at their close proximity. He hastily buttoned his shirt and picked up the gifts off the floor, carefully shaking them one at a time to hear if anything had broken. Luckily, Mark had wrapped the gifts in bubble wrap earlier on before putting them in their boxes, so none of their gifts had suffered any damage.

“Thank goodness.” He heaved a sigh of relief.

“What’s in the boxes?” Jinyoung asked curiously, eyeing the fancy presents.

“Our wedding gifts, you idiot.” Mark rolled his eyes. "By the way, you forgot to remind me about bringing wedding gifts! If it weren't for Youngjae, we would have showed up empty-handed."

“You’re giving our gifts away?”

“We never finished opening them, anyway. Are we late?” Mark cast a worried look at Jinyoung, wondering if they could still make it on time.

“We’re late because of you.” Jinyoung corrected, and before Mark could interject once more, he ushered the red-haired man into the passenger seat. “Come on, Mark, Jaebum’s going to kill us if we miss the ceremony.”

“Jaebum won’t kill me; I’m his hyung after all.” Mark grinned to himself, strapping on his seatbelt.

“Right.” Jinyoung muttered under his breath. “That just means he’ll kill me for the both of us.”

“That’s what I mean.” Mark laughed, holding his present in his lap as Jinyoung changed the gears, sped out of their street and onto the highway.

~

Youngjae walked back to his table, a glass of orange juice held in each of his hands. He took careful steps as he meandered his way through a crowd of people, murmuring to himself not to spill the juice on the lavish carpeted floor. With much more difficulty than expected, he finally made his way back to his empty seat beside Jaebum, who was pinching the bridge of his nose as he ended his phone call.

If he keeps frowning like that, he’s going to get wrinkles even before he turns forty…

“Do you want some orange juice?” Youngjae bobbed his head up and down as he asked in English, surprising Jaebum with his sudden question.

“Jesus, Youngjae-ah. Don’t scare me like that. And don’t speak any more English.” Jaebum trailed off in a chiding tone as he reached out for one of the glasses, only to have Youngjae pull it out of his grasp, a playful smile stretching from ear to ear.

“No ask, no juice.” Youngjae smirked at Jaebum, his eyes crinkling at his mischievous smile as he continued speaking loudly in his broken English, oblivious to the looks of curiosity that were starting to fall on their table.

Jaebum was a smart man, and he knew through experience that the fastest way to end Youngjae’s overly embarrassing charades was to just comply with his requests and do as he asked. So, he swallowed his pride and managed an almost incoherent response through his gritted teeth, “Can I have some orange juice?”

“No ‘please’, no juice.” Youngjae replied in a sing-song manner, enjoying how a soft blush had slowly dusted across Jaebum’s cheeks. He could see his jaw twitching, but Youngjae knew that as much as Jaebum probably wanted to punch him right now, he would refrain from doing so because they were in a public place. This also probably meant that when they got home later, he would have to endure more of Jaebum’s scolding, but Youngjae was enjoying himself way too much now to think about the consequences. The more Jaebum lost his cool, the cuter he looked in Youngjae’s eyes, so he bit his che