Chapter 13 – Alcohol

酒
（一）Use dominant hand to sign the letter J
（二）The J gets placed in front of the mouth, as if drinking a glass of alcohol

It was quite a walk from Marie’s apartment but it had helped to blow off some steam for the group. When they arrived at their destination, even Yixing managed to laugh at a joke that Chen just had cracked. The bar itself was in the basement of one of the million skyscrapers in Beijing and really was almost empty. Only three more tables were taken and the owner greeted them with a big smile. The Koreans immediately bowed, confusing the Chinese a little.
“Sit down, I’ll bring you the menu!” the guy said and left while the group took the biggest table on the left of the room.
“I’m dying of hunger!” Minseok whined and Luhan patted his head.
“Yeah, me too!”
When the menu cards had arrived, a big discussion on what to order broke out among them and after fifteen minutes or arguing, Sehun took the lead and decided for them – something Yifan had suggested long before.
“Yin Hang, have you ever eaten Korean food before?” Suho asked after they had finally given up the order and Sehun was still checking for the drinks.
The woman bit her lower lip.
“To be honest, I haven’t?”
A disappointed groan emerged and the Koreans looked at her in disbelief.
“But… how?! You’re living at Wudaokou, which is like Little Korea already?” Chen asked.
“I’m not living at Wudaokou,” Yin Hang explained, but realized that was not a valid excuse for never even having tried Korean food.
“Oh, she did once!” Yifan suddenly recalled, “I once took her out to that Korean-Japanese restaurant at the intersection behind the subway station, but she only ate the Mandu that came with my main dish.”
“Girl! Mandu is basically like Jiaozi?!” Chen exclaimed and Yin Hang held up her hands as if she wanted to give up defeat.
“I’m so sorry! I’ll bring this to the owner!” Yin Hang threw in, snatched the menu out of Sehun’s hand and left for the owner who was just about to disappear into the kitchen to escape the situation.
“I haven’t decided on the drinks!” Sehun said.
“Just order some beer and Soju for everyone,” Chen proposed and when he saw Yixing’s alarmed look he added: “And some water for those who don’t drink alcohol.”
They spent the next hours with eating and getting drunk with stupid drinking games, and when Sehun looked at his phone to check the time, he exclaimed:
“GUYS! It’s my birthday!”
The clock showed 00:10 and the group gasped.
“We missed the countdown!” Yin Hang cried out, “Quick guys, we need to sing ‘Happy Birthday’!”
“Korean or Chinese?” Chen asked.
“Do I look like I know the Korean version to ‘Happy Birthday’?” was the counter question Yin Hang shot at him.
When the group had sung the Chinese version in what sounded like five different tonalities, the Koreans still insisted on singing the same song again in Korean so the Chinese, except for Luhan, sat there and listened. Sehun thanked them grinning widely from one ear to the other.
“Wow, Korean sounds really nice,” Yin Hang stated.
“Yeah, much more friendly than Chinese,” Yifan threw in and filled up his glass with Soju and beer.
“You obviously never heard my mother talking. She is sca-ry!” Suho said Sehun nodded frantically.
“He’s right! When he skypes with her it sounds like she’s always mad at him but actually she just asks things like how the weather is or if he eats enough.”
A discussion emerged at the table which language was the most pleasant sounding one and Luhan who was capable of speaking both was consulted for an honest and upright opinion. But Yifan didn’t even listen anymore and turned to Yixing who was basically the only sober one around.
“Are you okay?”
Yixing nodded and Yifan caressed his knee while Tao called out: “LUHAN you are such a TRAITOR! How can you defame YOUR MOTHER TONGUE?!” after Luhan had admitted that he liked the sound of Korean much more than Chinese. Yifan rolled his eyes and Yixing giggled.
“They are so annoying when they’re drunk.”
“Oh I find it interesting.”
“Really??”
Yixing nodded.
“It’s interesting to watch your body languages change with every drink you take.”
Yifan leaned closer and their shoulders touched.
“Tell me more.”
Yixing took a look around the table and started to grin knowingly.
“For example Sehun and Yin Hang. They started sitting next to each other on a solid 20 inches distance. Now look at them. And pay special attention to their arms next to the other one.”
Yifan who had to admit that he had been on that-one-drink-too-much way too long ago focused the two who sat on the opposite side of the table. Their 20 inch distance had been decreased to maybe five while their arms slightly touched. Every once in a while when their hands would brush against each other, they retreated, exchanged some awkward smiles and emerged in the ongoing conversation about language differencies. But maybe ten seconds later their arms wandered under the table again. Yifan’s mouth dropped and he looked at Yixing again.
“You mean…?”
His boyfriend nodded.
“Next example: Minseok and Luhan.”
The two were seated at the head of the table. Luhan was usually someone who didn’t really use his hands to communicate but right now he was pulling off gestures that would’ve made a short tempered Italian proud. Minseok on the other hand sat next to him, head supported by his hands and he watched Luhan arguing with Tao about something much bigger now than languages (“How DARE YOU saying I’m a traitor?! I love my country!!”). He had a really dumb smile on his lips and when Luhan accidentally slapped his face, he jumped a little in his seat. Luhan’s attention immediately snapped to his friend, forgetting about Tao who was already laughing his off. Tao loved teasing Luhan and Luhan was stupid enough to fall for the same scheme everytime.
“Oh my god, Minseok! I’m so sorry, did I hurt you?!”
“No, it’s okay, Luhan!”
Minseok grabbed Luhan’s hands that have cupped his face a few moments before and placed them on the table, caressing the back of his hands with his thumbs.
“Just be a little more cautious where you throw them.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
Their hands rested a little longer than necessary before they parted.
“Minseok is also leaning into Luhan all the time and Luhan doesn’t withdraw. It’s obvious there’s something going on between them.”
“Wow and you picked that up from what you’ve seen the last few hours?”
“People get careless when they’re drunk. And all of you are wasted as .”
“I can’t even deny that,” Yifan mumbled and to prove his point he took a big gulp from his drink.
When he put the glass down he asked:
“Okay what about my body language?”
“You lose control over your impossible long arms and legs. And when you’ve reached your tolerance level you start mumbling and barely move you lips when you talk which makes it very hard for me to understand you.”
An argument over this was useless, because Yifan knew that Yixing was right. His boyfriend had always been the observing type – a few weeks back when Suho and Sehun had invited them over Yixing had given the Koreans a short analysis of their characters and had left them speechless because he had been on point with everything. So instead of denying, Yifan leaned over and said:
“I know something how to get them moving again.”
He locked his lips with Yixing’s, making the younger smile, but they got immediately interrupted:
“Ewwww okay what kind of -signing went down here?!”
Chen’s comment made Yifan face him.
“Seriously Chen? I can’t even kiss my boyfriend without anyone of you butting in?”
“Think about us poor singles, we can’t stand happy couples making out in front of us!”
Yixing ran his fingers through Yifan’s hair and down his neck, which always had a soothing effect on the older one and Yifan let the topic drop.
“Let’s do another drinking game!” Minseok announced, “Everytime we hear the word ‘saranghae’ in one of the songs that are playing we take a shot.”
“We are going to die,” Suho mumbled in horror.
“It was Luhan’s idea.”
It was only logical that they had been hearing Korean music in the last few hours. It was a rather diverse mix with unknown Hip Hop or Rock artists and the newest singles of Korea’s most popular bands.
“What does ‘saranghae’ even mean?” Yin Hang asked innocently.
“Jesus, you don’t even watch Korean dramas, hm?” Tao said and patted her head.
“I’m a busy woman I don’t have time for cheesy TV shows!” Yin Hang shot back, while Sehun turned to her and stated:
“I love you.”
Yin Hang froze and her eyes grew wide.
“But… Sehun, this is the second time we meet?”
Everyone but Sehun burst out into manic laughter; Tao even banged his head onto the table. Sehun needed a moment to process what just happened.
“What… I… NO, no, no! Yin Hang, I did not mean that I love y--- I mean… ‘saranghae’ means ‘I love you’ in Korean!”
“Oooooooooooooh!”
After Yin Hang had apologized to Sehun for the millionth time, Luhan had adjusted the rules a little bit – everything with ‘sarang’ would be fine and when one of them heard the word they all had to take a shot. And when the speakers blasted Super Junior’s “This is love”, Yifan knew he’d be doomed after the second chorus.
“This is love, this is love - you made me realize love is about the small things.”
Oh yes. He would be doomed.

Yifan had no idea what was actually going on when he woke up. He knew that he was lying in Yixing’s bed, which was one good point. On the other hand, he had no clue how and when he got there. When he turned around on his back, it felt like his head was filled with nails that scratched against his skull – not to mention his stomach which made him feel like he was about to get rid of everything he had eaten the last week. To sum it up: He had a terrible hangover. It took him solid ten minutes until he could move enough to sit up and another fifteen to finally get up. He still felt like the alcohol of last night was circulating through his system and he dragged himself out of the bedroom into the living room. Yixing was already up, and it also seemed like he had already taken a shower and was busy with work. When he saw Yifan in the corner of his eyes, he closed his Macbook and looked at him.
“Hello, Darling. How are you feeling?”
“Look at me, I think you can answer that yourself.”
“I thought so. Check the counter.”
Yifan followed Yixing’s pointer finger and saw a plastic back waiting for him to be opened. He found one of Lush’s breakfast burritos (that magically helped to cure bad hangovers), a bottle of water and a pack of Aspirin. When he sat down on the couch, slowly, because every movement made his stomach do weird sommersaults, he said:
“How in the world do I deserve you?”
“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Yixing teased, his hands lingering on his laptop, while he watched the other one unwrapping his breakfast.
The smell of scrambled eggs, bacon and tomatoes were hard to deal with at first but after the first careful bites, Yifan knew this was the only way to get a hold of this horror that his body was going through at the moment.
“I don’t remember anything from the moment we started this stupid drinking game,” he admitted and opened the waterbottle.
“That is no miracle,” was Yixing’s answer and Yifan asked him using gestures to wrap the events of the night up for him, so he started, “First of all, the owner asked us around four o’clock to leave his establishment. I think we could’ve made it home in about twenty minutes but we had to stop all the time because Tao was suddenly very fond of the planted trees and Yin Hang couldn’t walk in her High Heels anymore. Sehun carried her but it still took ages for them to move a few feet forward. And then you wanted to buy some snacks at Seven Eleven so we needed about fourty minutes.”
Yifan groaned, mostly because he fought the urge of throwing up when he tasted the Soju and beer on his tongue. He swore to himself to never drink again.
“By the way, Yin Hang slept at Sehun’s.”
“WHAT?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think something was going on. Both of them were so drunk, I think they couldn’t even peel themselves out of their clothes. No worries.”
Yifan tried hard to remember anything but his head was giving him such a hard time, he decided to grab one Aspirin. After that he turned back to Yixing.
“Did I do anything embarrassing?”
That was his biggest fear – doing something that would end up destroying his reputation and he had to move to another country and change his name. Yixing bit his lip, contemplating whether or not to tell the truth or let him live a little longer. He decided against it.
“When we went to Seven Eleven, you saw that you could get Hello Kitty jewelry if you bought stuff for a certain amount of money, so you bought half of the store to get that Hello Kitty ring.”
“Why the heck would I do that?”
“As soon as the poor cashier handed you that thing over, you unpacked it, turned around to get on your knees and asked me to marry you.”
Some scrambled egg got stuck in Yifan’s throat when he gasped in shock. It took him a while to be able to breath again and with a red face and tears streaming down his face he asked:
“I… DID WHAT?”
“You were really persistent and refused to leave the room if I said no, so I had no other choice than to accept. I had to run around with this ugly ring around my finger until we got home.”
Yixing pointed to the ring that was lying on the table. Yifan leaned over and took a closer look at it – the ring itself was relatively simple, but the flashy Hello Kitty head with pink and white chrystals was obviously made of some cheap material. One stone was already missing.
“Oh my god. Please tell me this happened at the Seven Eleven store where nobody comes around anyways?”
Yixing shook his head no and Yifan made a noise that could have been easily labeled as ‘Dying Whale’.
There were two Seven Eleven stores at Wudaokou – one was located near Qinghua University and was usually the quieter and cleaner store since the only people frequenting it were business men or students on the hunt for a cheap bento. The other store could be found between the Propaganda and Sensation club, therefore a lot of very drunk people hung out in front and inside of the establishment, raiding the shelves for greasy snacks, water or more alcohol. It was normal that drunks fell asleep in a corner of the store or threw up in front of the entrance. Yifan was sure the cashiers doing the night shifts were not payed enough to be compensated for the horrors that went down in this store every night of the week. And of course – Yifan had chosen this location to propose to his boyfriend with cheap and ugly Hello Kitty jewelry as an engagement ring.
“I am so so sorry, Yixing,” Yifan stated, his face frozen in horror.
“It’s okay. I brought you home and you immediately fell asleep that was one good thing.”
Yifan whined, finished his burrito and layed down on his side, curled up in a ball. His head rested on Yixing’s lap, after the other one had placed the Macbook on the table. He started to draw patterns on Yifan’s temple and said:
“It was kind of cute so don’t worry.”
He couldn’t bring himself to answer or open his eyes, so Yifan just patted Yixing’s arm and sighed. They stayed like this for a few minutes, but the peace was interrupted through a knock on the door. Yifan considered not telling Yixing, but the knocking wouldn’t stop so he told him to answer it. When Yixing opened, Yifan wished himself dead immediately. In front of Yixing stood Suho and Sehun, the first carrying some towels and two washbags, the latter carrying Yin Hang piggyback style, because she was not wearing any shoes.
“Hiiiiii Yixing!” they cried out and Yifan prayed that the Aspirin would finally kick in.
“Ummm. Hi?”
“Sorry that we didn’t send you a message, but our heater broke and we don’t have any hot water in our apartment. Our landlord will not be coming until 7pm, so we wondered if we could use your shower?” Suho explained.
“Sure, come in.”
“Aaaah, see? I said we could count on Yixing!” Suho beamed and the three stepped in.
Sehun carried Yin Hang over to the couch and let her down next to Yifan.
“My god, you look horrible!” the girl stated when she saw him.
She, of course, looked like Miss China with her perfect hair, her flawless skin and shining eyes. Yifan hated her because she seemed to be fine, unlike him.
“I’ll go first!” Sehun announced, grabbed one washbag and a towel and disappeared to the bathroom.
Yifan only now realized that Yin Hang was wearing one of Sehun’s shirts that was so big she could use it as a dress.
“Why the hell are you wearing Sehun’s clothes? Do you at least wear pants to that?”
“Relax Mom!” Yin Hang cried out and pulled up the shirt to show the shorts that she was wearing.
It only didn’t fall from her hips because she had made three knots into the straps of the waistband.
“It’s Hip Hop!”
“Hip Hop my .”
“You’re unbearable if you’re hungover, seriously. I didn’t want to sleep in my jeans and Sehun was nice enough to lend me something of his clothes.”
Yifan was too weak to start an argument, so he stayed silent and leaned back. Yin Hang who had never been to Yixing’s place before started to wander around the room.
“Yixing, your apartment is so nice!”
“Thank you.”
Yifan opened one eye to watch what Yin Hang was doing, while Suho was glued to his phone and sat on the floor in front of him. She went over to the sideboard and took an interested look at all the books then she wandered over to the paintings that were leaned up against the wall.
“Woooooow, can I take a look at them?” she asked and Yixing just shrugged his shoulders while he got some glasses and juice which she took for a ‘yes’.
After she had gone through some, she said:
“These are amazing, Yixing!”
“Aaah, no, they’re not that good…” Yixing started, but was interrupted by one of Yin Hang’s gasps.
She had found the painting that Yixing had been working on when him and Yifan had went to Sehun’s and Suho’s place together for the first time. The one that was, according to Yixing, not good and only had been painted to test some new colors.
“This is… oh my god, Yixing! This is really good!”
“It’s no use Yin Hang, he doesn’t think his paintings are good,” Yifan threw in and Yin Hang swirled around, clinging onto the canvas with the Forbidden City drawn on it.
“Are you kidding me Yixing?”
“There are better people than me,” Yixing mumbled and blushed.
Yin Hang pouted and took a closer look at the picture in her hand.
“This would fit perfectly into our living room – may I ask if you could give it to me?”
Yixing seemed to be startled and stammered:
“Uh… ummmm… if you really want to…”
The young woman beamed at him.
“Wow, thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome…”
She put the painting down and took a few steps, eyeing it from every possible angle before she said:
“My purse is at Sehun’s, I’ll be giving you some money later.”
The artist started a protest but Yin Hang didn’t want to hear any of that. It took her five minutes to make Yixing accept her money, even though he wasn’t really happy about it.
“I don’t understand why you don’t sell these? You could make a fortune out of that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Nobody wants to buy my paintings!”
“I’m pretty sure that people want to buy your paintings!”
“That’s what I’ve been saying for months now, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Suho finally looked up from his phone, while Yin Hang looked at Yixing as if he had lost his mind.
“Yixing, I bet my life that I can sell five paintings of yours on Taobao.”
Yifan’s boyfriend snorted and shook his head, indicating he thought she was too optimistic.
“Okay, let’s make a deal: You give me five of your paintings and I sell them on Taobao. If I can’t get rid of them within four weeks, I’ll pay you and Yifan one dinner.”
The chance of getting benefits of a deal with Yin Hang brought Yifan’s spirits back and he sat up straight.
“And if you win?” he then asked.
“If I win, Yixing has to paint me something for our dining room.”
Yixing seemed to think about it and Suho was looking back and forth between the young woman and the artist of the pictures as if watching a tennis match. Yin Hang extended her hand.
“Do we have a deal?”
“If you ask me: I ususally wouldn’t make deals with Yin Hang, but she got me hooked at ‘dinner’,” Yifan advised.
Yixing made a weird noise, then he reluctantly took Yin Hang’s hand and shook it. The girl cheered loudly, making Yifan squint and in that moment Sehun stepped out of the bathroom. She turned around and took his washbag out of his hands.
“I’m next!”
Sehun watched her walking into the bathroom with his stuff, grinning like an idiot. When he plopped down next to Yifan he sighed and poured himself a glass of juice.
“Ey, did you get layed tonight or why are you in such an unbearable good mood?” Yifan asked.
The Korean froze and looked at his friend. It took him a second to break free from his state of shock.
“You-! NO! I slept on the couch, Yin Hang in my bed, what is wrong with you?!”
“Yeah, he’s telling the truth, I’m the witness!”
“Are you sure?” Yifan asked Suho and inspected Sehun from head to toe, “His stupid grin screams ‘I just had ’.”
Sehun threw an angry glance at him and flickered Yifan’s forehead, so fast he couldn’t even react and so hard it made him cry out in pain.
“Ouch! That hurt! I’ve got a headache, you !”
“Serves you right, you ert!”

A/N: SORRY. I'm currently preparing everything for the trip and I spontanously signed up for the HSK which means I need to learn 2500 Chinese vocabulary (*starts sobbing uncontrollably WHY DO I NEED TO LEARN WORDS LIKE 'MAGNETIC TAPE' WHO NEEDS THIS?!), so there's that. Hope you have a great week!