Epilogue

It turned out this lazy Sunday had taken an unexpected turn – after a rather steamy session in the shower and some delivered lunch Suho had called Yixing to tell him they’d be expected for a little get together at a café at the West Gate of their university. Yixing had accepted the invitation which made Yifan grunt in frustration when they put on their shoes and left the apartment.

“Seriously, couldn’t we just have stayed home for today?”

Yixing shot him an angry look which made Yifan shut up immediately. The smaller one had been very touchy about the Koreans in the last few weeks. They were about to get their degrees which meant they’d be leaving the country sooner or later. So naturally, Yixing would seize every opportunity to spend time with them.

Since the weather was nice they decided to take a walk instead of catching a taxi. As they strolled down the street that would lead them to Peking University’s East Gate, Yixing casually linked his arm with his boyfriend’s, a habit he had never gotten rid of. Yifan didn’t mind though. In fact, he enjoyed it when Yixing was looking for this kind of intimacy because this was a thing Yixing only did when he was with him. It was their thing. And it made Yifan’s heart flutter everytime, even though they were long over the head-over-heels-thing for each other.

“Aaaah, these ancient halls of wisdom… it’s been ages…” Yifan mumbled when they walked past the buildings of the philosophy faculty and walked to the university’s park.

The comment made Yixing roll his eyes and trying hard to suppress a laughter by pressing his lips together.

“You’re so lame, you graduated like nine months ago. You never even went into one of these buildings.”

They spent the rest of the way arguing about whether Yifan was, like Yifan himself said, hilarious or just super lame with too many stupid puns up his sleeves, like Yixing said. They couldn’t find a definite answer and Yixing asked him to stop debating about this when they reached the entrance of the café.

“Okay you’ve won this time,” Yifan said while he swung the gate open and entered the front garden of the building, “But this isn’t over!”

“Yeaaaah, okaaaaaaaaay,” was everything Yixing said as he walked past him.

It was almost a pity that nobody had noticed this café earlier. It had been Tao and Chen who had discovered it when they had actually been looking for a restaurant that was said to be in the area. They had never found the restaurant, but instead had insisted on making this café the group’s new meeting spot. Yifan was okay with it. It was further away than the Lush or Helen’s from where he lived with Yixing (he had officially moved in the moment he had graduated from PKU once and for all and wasn’t allowed to stay in the dorm anymore) but he liked the fact that there was barely any traffic since it was located in an older neighborhood of Beijing. A small garden surrounded the bungalow which was the home to two strey cats that occasionally slipped into the house when a customer opened the door. Yifan liked the inside even more – everytime he stepped in, there was a smell of freshly baked pie in the air and the owner, a young woman somewhere in her twenties, would greet them with a smile.

“Your friends are in the back, I’ll be right there.”

She spoke in a low volume, sometimes she’d just come to their table and whispered to ask them if they wanted more tea or another drink because she was afraid she’d disturb other people. The music that played varied on a wide range. Sometimes they sat in one of the armchairs listening to Beethoven for hours, sometimes the owner changed the disks and some Jazz was playing while they sipped on big mugs of coffee, tapping their toes and fingers to the beat. On cold days they got served hot chocolate and soup if they wanted, during summertime they shared fruit salads and cool smoothies with each other while people like Yifan or Luhan, who had long graduated, flipped through one of the hundred books placed in the shelves, Yixing was mostly sketching things and the Koreans were preparing for the HSK exam or doing their homework. Days in that café felt like vacation.

“Yayyyy, you guys made it!” Suho greeted them when the two had found their friends sitting in the back at a big table.

Yifan spotted one of the cats on Tao’s lap – he was sure her fur was supposed to be white but she was rather dirty and scruffy so her fur was in a light shade of grey while the long hair was tangled up badly in some spots. She somehow loved Tao and would jump on his lap the moment she’d see him. And she’d stay there for hours if necessary. Yifan tried to stay away from her, arguing that that thing needed to see a vet first and be dewormed before he’d lay a hand on her. Actually, he was just creeped out by her eyes since one was green and the other one was yellow and it made him uncomfortable to no end. Yixing knew. But he had never told the other ones.

“Look, your friend is here too!” Tao said jokingly while he the cat’s right ear which let out a long and satisfied purr.

“Yeah. I see,” Yifan mumbled and sat down on the chair next to Yixing who patted his knee.

“Have you walked here?” Yin Hang asked the newcomers.

“Yes, we walked over the Beida campus,” Yixing answered while he flipped through the menu, more out of habit than really needing to get through what beverages and snacks were offered.

“Aaaaaah, I bet it hasn’t changed since we left,” Tao said with a smile on his face.

“Not at all,” Yifan answered.

Chen sighed heavily and stirred around in his cup of cappuccino.

“I’m going to miss Beida. I’ve booked my flight back to Korea this morning. It feels so unreal knowing this time I won’t be coming back.”

Tao let out a surprised squeal.

“When will you be leaving?”

“In eight weeks.”

“Why couldn’t you just do it like Sehun and get a job here?” Tao asked, half joking.

“Because I am not dating the daughter of a business man that happens to like me so much he just offered me a job at his company.”

The comment made Yin Hang shoot up in her seat while Sehun just blinked like a lost puppy.

“Well, you clearly met the wrong girls, it’s not Sehun’s fault you only hooked up with s in clubs.”

Yifan and Yixing snorted into their cup of teas that had arrived while Tao admitted:

“Okay she has a point here Chen.”

There was some talk about the Korean’s future plans when they’d be back home. Suho wanted to continue with a Master’s degree, while Chen had already started to apply for jobs in his hometown to be near his family and especially his sick grandmother. When Minseok admitted that he had, in fact, no real plans and only his one way ticket back to Korea, Luhan wailed and threw his arms around him.

“If you don’t have any plans then just make the plan to stay! I earn enough for the two of us!”

“God you are so in love it’s disgusting!”

Luhan threw the package of his cookie that had come with his coffee into Chen’s direction.

“Why do you hate happiness, Jongdae?”

It rarely happened people used Chen’s Korean name so he sunk back into his chair and remained silent. The thing was that Luhan and Minseok hadn’t gone official until late last year. Even though basically everybody else knew they were dating, somehow they had kept it a secret until a drunk Luhan had once called him ‘Darling’ while on a party which had sealed their fate. Minseok had tried to find work, but it was harder to get a work permit than he had originally thought. Luhan was bound to his workplace for at least two more years so they had to give up on the plan of Luhan coming with him to Korea. The only thing left was trying out the horrible concept of a long-distance-relationship and the nearer Minseok’s departure came, the clingier Luhan got.

“I’m pretty sure you two will be fine!” Suho threw in after he had send a scolding look into Chen’s direction.

“Well!” Yin Hang raised her voice and hit the table with her flat hand “Let’s change the topic, shall we?”

“Good idea, even the cat gets depressed hearing all this talk about leaving!”

Tao proceeded to cover her ears and Yifan turned to Yixing.

“But I am the lame one, right? He’s made friends with a demon cat!”

“You better shut up before I tell them why you actually don’t like that cat.”

In the last two years, Yixing had slowly decreased the use of sign language to a minimum. Sometimes he’d slip back into it, sometimes he did in on purpose, mostly when he wanted to tell Yifan something others shouldn’t know about. This habit had lead to really juicy situations in public places when Yixing had thought it would be absolutely funny to start some . Before Yifan could respond to this, Yin Hang made Yixing’s attention snap back to her.

“About that vernissage of yours… I still don’t know what to wear!!”

Sehun sighed, rolled his eyes and said:

“Yeah, Yixing, please give her a dresscode, she’s been driving me crazy for the last two weeks with this.”

“Shut up! This is an important thing for Yixing, we cannot just show up looking like hobos!”

“See what I mean?” Sehun asked and the others giggled.

When Qing Qing had opened her studio in Beijing, Yifan had dragged Yixing to her. The result was that the artist had given him her number, hooked him up with other artists and influential people in the art scene and had helped him to slowly build up his reputation. Yixing was now about to open an exhibition and had, of course, invited his friends to come to the opening. The main thought behind this actually was to keep Yifan busy because he’d be bored as hell and Yixing figured it wouldn’t harm to have some friends of his keep him company while he’d be occupied by other people.

“It’s okay, just wear whatever you want to wear,” Yixing answered and Yin Hang grunted, clearly unsatisfied with this kind of answer.

“It’s just a small exhibition, nothing special!” Yifan mimicked his boyfriend which made Yixing roll his eyes while the others laughed.

A moment of silence followed and it was Tao again who spoke up:

“Man, Yifan, who would’ve thought we’d end up here?”

“Huh, what do you mean, Crazy?”

“It feels like yesterday when we found that flyer for that buddy program and now you’re dating a young and cool artist, this is pretty rad.”

“Oooooooooh. Riiiiiight!”

The pictures of him standing in line for some smoothies with Tao flashed in front of his inner eye and he had to agree with his friend – if anybody had told him that time he’d be falling in love with his buddy at university, he probably would’ve laughed it off. And yet here he was, sitting next to said buddy turned boyfriend.

“Did you know he only signed up because he needed the credits?” Luhan asked.

“Yepp, he told me,” Yixing answered and ruffled Yifan’s hair, “I’m not mad though. It was a win-win situation. He got his credits, I got a boyfriend. I cannot complain.”

“Me neither,” Yifan answered simply.

“Ohhh, by the way, is your engagement still on?” Suho asked and the memory of drunk Yifan proposing to Yixing in a Seven Eleven store while a random stranger had filmed and uploaded made Yifan cringe while the others burst into laughter.

“I will never forget that!” Yin Hang snorted.

Yifan threw her a sour look but it had no effect.

“Of course it’s still on,” Yixing threw in, “I keep the ring in a drawer until he comes up with something better that I can actually wear.”

“Did you hear that Yifan? That was a hint!”

“CHANGE OF TOPIC HERE!”

Yifan’s cry made the other customers who were working on essays and other stuff look up and Sehun shushed Yifan with his index finger pressed to his lips.

“Would you please stop acting like a barbarian, thank you!”

“Before you ask, Yifan: No, he came up with the word one day by himself, I did not teach him,” Yin Hang said when she saw Yifan’s baffled expression.

The Chinese just stuck out his tongue at the Korean and leaned back in his chair to escape the conversation which slowly headed into another direction. Yixing placed his head on Yifan’s shoulder.

“Why do you always get so distressed when someone mentions this?” Yixing mumbled.

Yifan bit his lips and lifted his hands to use them for communication.

“It’s because that was a ty proposal. And if anything, you deserve a proper one.”

His boyfriend squealed and giggled while he signed:

“That is so cheesy and disgusting. I love you.”

No matter what he did or say, he’d always be cheesy or lame. Yifan sighed and accepted his fate.

“I love you too.”

Yixing lifted his head and kissed his cheek and in that moment Yifan was pretty sure that Yixing would get his proper proposal.

One day.

A/N: THAT'S IT. WE'RE DONE. AFTER ALMOST 8 MONTHS AND ALMOST 78K. I CANNOT BELIEVE.
Thanks to every subscription & every comment/nice word, they meant a lot. Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
Keep an eye open to all the other things I'll be posting, my WIP folder is full of stuff and it actually makes me cry because I don't know when to finish all this stuff hahahahahhahahahaha. (Plus I promised sequels to this right xD)
♥