It’s something like 6 a.m when Chorong is already there for early checking, and Kris had arrived fifteen minutes ago, now staring suspiciously at a muffin from which he had taken a bite.

Chorong is counting the beverages stocks when she catches a small spider skittering around.

“Kris, look.” She makes a small steps to Kris so the spider would feel safe in her palm and hands it to him while grinning toothily.

Kris glances lazily, then his muffin drops back into the tray and he jumps like an impressive ninja away from her. “GET RID OF IT!”

Chorong blinks, “…What?”

She stares at Kris hugging the wall looking sincerely scared, and examines the spider again, trying to see if maybe she missed some dangerous greenish glare, but no. All she sees is an innocent spider.

“Don’t tell me you are scared of spider?”

“NO. Just…” Kris says gruffly, combing his fingers through his hair, “Just...get rid of it okay?!”

Kris is getting paler, somehow the view motivates Chorong to be er. “Why, Kris?” She asks innocently as she walks closer to him with the poor spider skittering in her palm wanting to escape.

Kris rushes to get back his muffin and he sprints away through the back door, “I’m going to kill you, Rong. I’m going to kill you!”

Completely ignoring the death threat, Chorong laughs ceremoniously. She releases the spider and bows as she says a formal thank you.

The kitchen smells like a mix of coffee, vanilla and cinnamon, but Chorong sniffs and all she could smell is money.

♦♦♦

“Here’s your medium, iced, nonfat hazelnut macchiato with sugar-free syrup, and a tablespoon of whipped cream.” Minseok repeats before passing the cup to Chorong. “Stop ordering from now on.”

“Thanks.” Chorong sips in and she mentally blesses Minseok as she indulges the taste.

Minseok huffs and slumps against the counter, there’s no customer who needs to be served at this time so he steals some time to catch up with Chorong about ‘Kris’s golden secret’ that she mentioned before she placed her order earlier, “Ok now, what about Kris?”

The bell tinkles from the doorway, and Luhan who got back from buying a bubble tea from the next shop breezes in, whistling. He paused as he caught his friends talking in such a close proximity at the counter. It’s not always that Chorong and Minseok would stand in a gossip setting. Even just by Minseok being part of it is already unusual.

“Yo, nice meeting you guys here.” He greets excitedly and offers a fistbump.

Minseok idly gives his fist in addition. “We just talked to each other ten minutes ago, though. But yo, man.”

Chorong usually has an insult for Luhan for being Luhan but she is busy plotting another plan in her head. Her eyes skimming Luhan and then to Minseok and then to Luhan again before she decides, “Wrong customer. This person would pay more for this.” She then casually drags Luhan to one of the secluded table, leaving Minseok with the bubble tea.

“W-What? Hey, I made you that fussy coffee!”

♦♦♦

Chorong tagged along when Junmyeon went out for lunch. As usual, Junmyeon, being the highly-fictional gentleman character, digging out his wallet to pay.

But Chorong puts a hold on his hand, “I’ll pay today.” She offers, smiling elegantly.

Junmyeon frowns, “Are you sure, Rong? Because this morning I asked you to use your money first to pay for parking fees and you gaped at your wallet sadly so I have to park somewhere free which is like a block away.”

Chorong skips the explanation. She flips her hair superfluously before she pulls out a couple of notes and hands them to the cashier.

As she gathers back her change, Junmyeon questions, “Park Chorong, be honest with me, who did you blackmailed this time?”

“I didn’t blackmail anyone!” (this time), “I just suddenly feel generous today.” Grinning happily, (which is unusual of her) she bustles ahead of him to the car.

“But my parking fees was just 500 won…”

♦♦♦

“When I was a child, I used to hide in the storeroom, so no one can find me and I don’t have to befriend anyone," Kris says, his words are a little shaky that Namjoo, Yookyung and Yixing have to their head in concentration. "So.." his breaths sounds heavier when he continues, "One day, I was sleeping and one ing spider crawled into my hair trying to make its way to my ear."

Yookyung’s face turns horrified, “That sounds traumatizing.”

Namjoo lazily agrees, sympathizing while sipping the straw of her Americano.

Yixing glances at the two girls, wondering if any of them is as clueless as him. “But what does that has anything to do with-?” Yixing interrupts and Yookyung nudges him, her eyes telling him that it promised them a great pain if they don’t let Kris continue.

“So, from that day, I really hate spiders.” Kris sighs, staring at the ceiling dramatically.

Namjoo and Yookyung nodding their heads, humming in understanding – Yookyung sounds genuine, Namjoo sounds otherwise. Yixing is still clueless.

Kris takes a short breath, turning his head to the other three, and smile. “Thank you for listening. It feels great to let that out. Now go back to your work..”

“Finally..” Namjoo groans silently, getting a nudge from Yookyung, telling her god help her if Kris heard that.

But God should help Yixing now as he carelessly asks, “That’s it? That’s what this meeting is for?”

♦♦♦

Tao walks in for his night shift and immediately looking for Kris. He smirks as he spots Kris with Junmyeon, Chorong, Yixing, Naeun and Bomi (also Jongin, if he must be included) discussing what probably the previous shift revenue at one of the table.

Kris is seriously drawing a cat (…or is that a mutilated horse) on top of his notes, when Tao taps his shoulder.

“You can beat me down when I stared at your but you can’t even deal with a freaking spider?” He scoffs, “Pity.” And he walks to the office to punch his card, smirk not leaving his face.

“You’re scared of spiders?” Sehun who was moping the underside of the nearest table drags his mop closer.

Chorong gulps. Yixing blinks, staring at Kris like he has no idea too. Naeun looks up from her phone. Junmyeon halts his speech, looking up from his note book, slides down his glasses and judging Kris like a gramp. Bomi is halfway stuffing with a forkful of spaghetti and half of them slipping back out making Jongin who she shares the spaghetti with groaning in disgust.

“You told him?” Kris points at Yixing.

“..No..” Yixing’s face convinces Kris that he already forgot what even is this whole spider thing about.

“Was it Yookyung?” Kris thinks silently. “Or Namjoo? Must be Namjoo.”

Jongin waves his hand, “Nope. If its Namjoo, she would never tell Tao. They haven’t talk to each other since their dumb contest on who can eat all six slices of pizza at once, Tao won and Namjoo said he’s cheating because is bigger.” Jongin explains long, getting consecutive eyerolls from everyone at the table.

There’s a short silence and Junmyeon takes the opportunity to get back their attention on their meeting, “So, to meet our monthly figure, I’m afraid if we have to cut the cost for –“

“You’re scared of spiders?” Sehun repeats.

“Yookyung and Namjoo know? Yixing too?” Chorong asks, pleased that there’s more people in the line to be the suspect and she’s not the only one.

But Kris doesn’t think about it that way, “I take it from that question and your face that you are behind this, Chorong.”

“Then why do you think I asked?”

“Ah..right…I told them myself,” He nods to himself before restarting, “Who told Tao then?”

“I swear I didn’t!” Chorong quickly waves his hands in the air, Yixing follows.

“Because we got more traffic on our coffee instead of-“

“Oppa, you better private your wall right now.” Junmyeon met a bad timing again when Naeun interrupts, “Baek oppa just posted a spider photo on your wall.” Naeun says, showing Kris her phone screen, internally anticipates what Kris would do to Baekhyun.

“Who told him??”

Yixing and Chorong still haven't dropped their hands so they just shake their heads.

“Ah...Jongdae oppa liked the photo, and Chanyeol oppa commented saying he will put a spider in your hoodie..” Naeun adds.

“And I will put a knife in his lunch.”

“And I’ll make him starves at lunch.” Chorong defends her brother, though her defense sounds even more evil.

“And Kyungsoo liked that comment.” Jongin adds, checking his facebook too.  He taps on his screen and smiles, “I’ve never seen him actually liking something. And to think that he liked something that came from Chanyeol hyung.…”

“Second like is by Jongin.” Naeun notes nonchalantly.

Jongin shudders when Kris squints evilly at him, “I was liking the like Kyungsoo gave…,” he sputters before putting down his phone and gestures a pointy hand towards Naeun warning her he’s going to deal with her later.

“You’re scared of spiders?”

“And our revenue cost today, if we deduct—“

“Who told them?? Yah, Tao!” Kris stands up, hand on the hip as the other hand beckoning Tao to get closer.

Tao is still smirking, clearly still over the moon with his new knowledge when he walks to them, already with an apron on.

“Who told you?”

“Luhan hyung. He sold it with 5000 won each to me, Baek, Jongdae, Kyungsoo and Yeol. And it’s so worth it. I can finally have something to make me feel good about.”

Chorong’s mouth drops, half-gasping.

“Who told Lulu?”

Chorong’s mouth shuts before she gulps.

“Chorong did.” Minseok announces vengefully from the counter and now every eyes are on Chorong.

“So you sell the secret to Luhan, that’s where you got the money?” Junmyeon asks.

“Park Chorongggg….” Kris howls, brushing his fist with his palm, his eyes flashing with blatant menace.

Chorong quickly packs her stuffs and before even zipping it properly, she dashes away and screaming, “I’m going to kill you, Luhan, I’m going to kill you!”

“Hey, come back here, midget!”

“We still haven’t conclude our meeting!” Junmyeon adds as if Chorong (or anyone) would care.

There's some suppression of giggles and as it dies down, there’s a short silence before Sehun breaks it.

“You’re scared of spiders?”

Sehun is not the only one confuses though (Yixing doesn’t count). Bomi finally speaks from her long silence, “But spider is like…” She frowns as she observes all six feet of Kris, looking for a measurement to make up a comparison, “..smaller than half of your fingernail..”

“SHUT UP!”

a/n lol my bias is showing. almost 2k for Kris's chapter.

The appreciation for 90-91 line.

Cho-harem (sort of). Wait,is it just me who doesn’t know how to make Chorong call any of them oppa?

Sehun’s same repetition line is the tribute of his life as Exo Sehun. Without him, I would never know how to spell Exo.

Thanks for reading. ^^