When Jongin makes his daily visit, the early morning rush has ended, and Kyungsoo is out cleaning away dishes and wiping down tables whilst Yixing’s left in charge to serve. When he enters, he and Yixing engage in some conversation and out of the corner of his eye, Yixing is sure he can see Kyungsoo pause a little. He makes sure to look away and put his attention back onto Jongin before Kyungsoo notices him and sends him a look which means he’s dead later on.

Watching Jongin take his usual seat by the window, Yixing silently wills Kyungsoo to just make his move already. The closer he gets to Jongin’s table, the more Yixing just wants to scream at him to talk to him already! His attention is drawn away, however, when the front door opens and two very familiar voices instantly flood the place.

“You lied to me Jongdae! You said that place was supposed to be cheap, and yet I feel like I came out ten times poorer!”

“Well excuse me for wanting to get you off the crappy takeaways for a week! Next time I’ll take you to a crappy market or let you starve instead!”

Yixing lets Joonmyun and Jongdae finish their little argument before making any attempt to talk to them. When they finish, he smiles nervously and looks from one the other before talking.

“Hey!” he chirps, slightly louder than he intends it to be. If it wasn’t for the deal he and Kyungsoo had struck up earlier that morning, he was sure that his friend would to no end once the two had left.

“Yixing, help me talk some sense into the guy, please?” Jongdae pleads, making Yixing turn to him in confusion

“H-huh?”

“He’s nagging because I took him out of the house to get some decent food into his cupboards for once, and he thinks I made him pay extortionate prices” Jongdae exclaims, Joonmyun finally butting in to the conversation, Yixing looking from one to the other, still very much confused.

“In my defence” he begins, “Whilst I agree that I haven’t been on the best of diets recently, I was promised cheap foods, not the over expensive stuff I was made to pay” he finishes, double taking at the frown on Yixing’s face. “What?”

“Whilst it’s understandable, Jongdae’s only looking out for you. He wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think you were looking unwell recently” Yixing explains

“Thank you!” Jongdae exclaims, “And, mister, you have no right to complain about prices! You work for Samsung and I know for a fact that they pay handsomely!”

Joonmyun whines and begins his defence on the matter, but Jongdae’s attention turns to his phone, sighing when he reads the message sent to him. “Whilst I would love to stay and prove Joonmyun wrong, I’m gonna need to deal with this”

“What’s wrong?” Yixing asks as Jongdae rolls his eyes, walking over to the door

“Just one of the students I’m tutoring. He’s more trouble than I bargained for. I’ll be with you guys in a bit!”

Joonmyun watches his cousin leave, no doubt grumbling something to himself as he called whoever had messaged him. Turning back around, Joonmyun jumps out of his skin and almost screams when he sees Yixing leaning in, too close for comfort.

“U-uh… what are you doing?” he eventually asks

“Checking to see if you really haven’t been looking well lately” Yixing replies, studying him and nodding his head “Yep, exactly as I thought, you have got bags under your eyes”

Joonmyun gasps but narrows his eyes, playfully nudging Yixing when the latter begins to laugh. He can feel himself blush, but he doesn’t fight it. Seeing Joonmyun like this, Yixing only smiles wider.

“You look nice today. New top?” Joonmyun asks

“New jeans actually” Yixing replies, and this time it’s his turn to blush. Though he had worn more black than usual, he was kind of hoping that if he did then Joonmyun would notice and compliment him again. Even as he did, Yixing still felt flustered from the compliment.

“I was right last time; black does suit you” Joonmyun points out, “Though you never would have struck me as the type of guy who would go for an all-black wardrobe choice”

“Kyungsoo actually joked that we’ve swapped fashion choices; he’s the one who usually goes black and I’m the more colourful one” Yixing replies

“Well then, maybe next time I’ll get to see you more colourfully”

Stuttering his way through asking Joonmyun whether he and Jongdae are eating in or out, he hopes his disappointment is not too obvious when Joonmyun replies with the latter. Jongdae eventually returns, lamenting about how he wasn’t looking forward to his next tutoring session. Whatever it was he explained, Yixing wasn’t paying attention, he was too caught up in making sure he completed their order with minimal idiocy, sighing sadly when he watches Joonmyun leave once again. He really did like Joonmyun too much for his own good.

Deep in thought, Yixing misses the shocked expression on Kyungsoo’s face until his friend almost drops the cleaning spray right onto Yixing’s foot.

“What’s wrong with you?” Yixing asks

“J-Jongin gave me his number”

Okay, I'm gonna admit, this is kind of a filler chapter to lead onto the next one. I didn't realise how short it actually was, which is why I'm probably gonna leave it a couple of hours and then do another update to make up for it. 

Until then!!