Sulay BONUS: Green Apple White Tea Based w/Ginger Honey
Just Sweet
A/N EDIT: It was kindly brought to my attention that Yixing is already a known character in this universe (It took me so long to finish this story that I forgot half of the details in the beginning--oops!), so it doesn't make sense to reintroduce him as someone new. As such, the Lay Zhang in the following chapters is not the same person as the Zhang Yixing who brought Sehun to Just Sweet in the first chapter. Sorry for any confusion!
If anyone asked, Oh Sehun would say that he did not get paid enough to make up for the number of extra shifts he'd been covering at Just Sweet lately.
He would not say that he really minded, though, because most of those extra hours coincided with Luhan's usual ones, and Sehun figured that if he were going to have spent that time with his boyfriend anyway, he shouldn't be too upset about making money while doing it. Definitely, though, Luhan or no Luhan, Sehun's part-time salary was not nearly enough when it came to most other things—like, for instance, trauma-induced hospital bills over an incident that Sehun wouldn't have had to deal with if he weren't working to cover someone else's shift.
(He liked Do Kyungsoo as much as anyone who wasn't Jongin or the guy's mother could, and Sehun was really, truly glad that his best friend had found romantic happiness around the same time Sehun did. But for real though, if Kyungsoo was going to keep calling in last minute to skip his shifts, Sehun thought he should just quit already and save everyone else—though mostly just Yifan and Sehun—the trouble.)
So really, if it were up to Sehun, he would have been working nothing more than his usual hours, would have spent time with Luhan somewhere that wasn't Just Sweet, and wouldn't have been around when Suho decided to be an airhead earlier by tasting a tapioca or two.
"I just wanted to," Suho paused to gasp at the sensation of the tingles spreading lethally from his tongue to his swelling throat, "check." Gasp. "If," gasp, "they're boi—" Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze. "Help."
"Oh my god, Sehunnie!" Luhan was freaking out, though it was understandable. "Do something!"
"What the hell, Luhan?" Sehun shouted, not even caring in that moment that Yifan could technically fire him for cursing on the job. "What the hell am I supposed to do? I'm a dancer, not a doctor!"
Their panic was too loud to hear a small voice offer tentatively, "Um, I'm a doctor," but Baekhyun's high pitched "Shut up, you idiots! This guy can help!" was enough to attract Luhan and Sehun's attention.
The guy in question was three people from the front of the line, standing with his hand in the air in the universal sign of "I volunteer!" (Sehun wanted to add an amused "As tribute!" but Suho was basically dying, so Sehun saved that joke for another day.)
"Can you do something?" Sehun cried as Suho's face began turning blue and the other customers in the cafe actually started to realize that something wasn't quite right with Just Sweet's newest employee.
"I don't know!" The guy's voice broke as Sehun caught a flash of dimples right before a furrowed brow. "I'm not really a doctor yet! I'm just a medical student!" Despite his denials, though, the man walked forward past the others in line and went around the curve of the counter to approach Suho slowly.
"Liar," Baekhyun coughed loud enough that Sehun could hear it from across the room.
Chanyeol was horrified because he, at least, could recognize the gravity of what was going on. "Baek!" He hissed, but it was also loud and Sehun heard that, too.
Suho's hands came up to grasp his throat before suddenly there was a thump, and Sehun, Luhan, and the non-doctor doctor guy all looked down to find that Suho had collapsed, unconscious, on the floor.
"Somebody call 911!"
"Oh my god, what's happening?"
"Is that guy dead!"
"Where the hell is a scary student manager when you need him?" That particular question came from Sehun as he watched the medical student lay Suho flat on his back before beginning to search his unconscious person for his allergy antidote. Indeed, even Luhan, who still wasn't over the whole Tao thing, could admit that Yifan's imposing person would have been helpful to keep the crowd at bay right about then.
The customer currently saving Suho's life removed the lid of something that looked a lot like an enormous needle before he took a deep breath and plunged what was, in fact, an enormous needle into Suho's upper thigh. Sehun held his breath, convinced that whatever the poser doctor had just done had completed the job the tapioca had started and now Suho really was dead.
Until he wasn't. Suho shot upward with a sudden gasp as the color of his face returned to normal and the population of the cafe breathed a collective start of relief. It was Baekhyun, Sehun believed, who started the slow clap first, and pretty soon everyone in Just Sweet was cheering.
"That guy deserves a Purple Heart or something," Sehun complimented the medical student to Luhan, who was still looking a little harried but had begun to smile again.
"Pretty sure those are only for members of the U.S. military," Luhan pointed out knowledgeably. He nodded his head in Suho's direction, though, and added, "But I don't think the guy will need a Purple Heart when he's clearly got Suho's already."
Sehun followed his boyfriend's gaze to watch as the medical student gently laid Suho back down before placing the Just Sweet employee's head in his lap and beginning to speak to him quietly. "He's just doing his duty as a member of the healing profession," Sehun disagreed.
"I'll bet Suho wants him to "do his member duty"," Luhan chortled.
Sehun just gave his boyfriend a long look while he began cleaning up the mess Suho had unintentionally created with his fall. "I cannot believe you just said that. And what does that euphemism even mean?"
Luhan winked. "You like it."
Though he groaned and tried to disagree, Sehun had to admit to himself that Luhan was, as usual, quite right. That's why it was Sehun who ended up accompanying Suho and the doctor guy to the hospital, and why Luhan was the one who only had to stay 20 more minutes until the end of his shift before he got to go home. (The things Sehun did for lov—immense like.)
"So let me get this straight." Sehun was trying to understand exactly what the medical student, who'd introduced himself as Lay Zhang and was a Chinese-American who'd come to Korea as a high school exchange student and never left, had done to save Suho. "You knew that if he was anaheimically allergic to—"
"Anaphylactically," Lay interrupted to correct.
"Whatever." Sehun didn't really care what it was called because he'd be sure to use smaller words later when retelling this information to everyone else; Kyungsoo was probably the only one who would recognize half the words in Lay's medical explanation anyway. "So you knew that anyone that allergic to something always carries an epidural on their per—"
Suho was shaking, an after-effect of pumping his body with enough adrenaline to combat the reaction, but he caught up fast enough to correct Sehun this time before Lay did. "Epipen."
"Mhmm," Sehun agreed, much more gentle with his coworker than with Lay, "that. So you had that and he," Sehun pointed to Lay, who nodded, "knew you probably would, so he body searched you pretty intimately in order to stab you with a huge needle and now we have to go to the hospital."
"Yep!" Lay's agreement was cheerful, but Sehun was lost again.
"But why, though? You saved him, he's fine now, we all go home happy. Right?" Sehun asked curiously.
"Actually," Suho replied, still shaking, "when someone in anaphylactic shock uses the epipen, it's best to go to the hospital immediately after so that there are no adverse consequences of having so much adrenaline in the system."
"What he said," Lay confirmed, gazing at Suho with a sort of awed look that made Sehun regret ever doubting Luhan.
"Wait," Sehun thought he finally understood, but something was bothering him. "If it's so important that he go there instantly, why did we take the bus?"
Lay shrugged; he didn't have a car. Suho shrugged too because he didn't either. Sehun didn't end up shrugging because he'd asked the question in the first place, but he did think briefly about his bike and how silly it would have been to try pedaling all three of them to the nearest emergency room. The bus, it seemed, really was their best option.
"You're very knowledgeable about this subject," Lay complimented Suho while Sehun's brain processed his bus question and he tried not to gag.
Suho's face flushed instantly, and Sehun did gag then, but neither of the other two heard him because they were much too focused on each other to notice.
"But apparently that wasn't enough," Suho admitted as he glanced at Lay through long lashes. "I would have died today if it weren't for you."
Lay tried to brush off Suho's thanks, but even Sehun could tell it was genuine, so when Suho leaned over Sehun's seat to peck Lay's cheek lightly, the medical student just sort of sat there quietly as he blushed.
"I do what I can," Lay said after a while. "I am a doctor, after all."
Sehun took a play from Baekhyun. "Liar!"
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