Wed, 3 Oct 2018 11 p.m.

Leo was working inside his studio. He knew it was already so late but he didn’t really want to go home for now. N had come earlier to have dinner and they ordered takeaway because both of them were too tired to go out.

“Ahh, I’m so tired.” N said as he yawned after they had finished eating.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked worriedly because N really looked like he was tired. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair wasn’t styled like usual. It meant something if N was too tired to even bother looking after himself. He wondered if the other also had a proper meal.

“I’m okay Leo-ah, don’t worry.” N tried to smile to convince Leo.

“Did you eat properly?”

“Ah, don’t even worried about that. Hongbin kept on reminding me to eat, I wondered if he was an alarm clock. He sometimes came to my place to feed me too, can you believe it?”

Leo was glad that they had friends like Hongbin.

“Now you know how it felt.” Leo commented with a snort.

“Yah, I did it because I knew you would starve yourself to death if you could.” N defended himself.

“When is the competition?” Leo asked to change the topic.

“End of October, it was held on a haloween day.” N said enthustiatically. Meanwhile, Leo spaced out a little when he heard the date.

“Leo, are you okay?” N asked looking worriedly at Leo who was suddenly quiet. After so many years with the other, he could tell the difference between Leo’s silence and this one meant he was thingking or worrying about something. Well, with a little luck he kind of knew what it was about.

“Something happened between you and Ravi?”

Leo was a little shocked when he heard N asked that. But knowing N, he would be able to read him easily so it wasn’t really a surprise. But it was already neared N’s competition day and it wouldn’t be necessary to distract him with his problem.

“No, not really.”

“Well, if you said so.” N said with a disbelief looked but he didn’t press because he knew Leo’s intention on not telling him.

“But if something happen you have to tell me okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll come to my competition right Leo?”

“Don’t know.”

“You’re so mean. Why wouldn’t you come and see your friend? I thought we’re friends Leo-ah, I’m hurt.”

“I thought you were tired.”

“No, I’m not anymore.”

N had left two hours ago and the boutique had been closed an hour ago. Leo gazed outside from his window and looked at the empty street below. There were only a few cars passing by now and then but overall the street was deserted. Glancing at the clock, Leo decided that he didn’t have to go home today and instead stay the night at the studio. He had done it numerous times before, especially if his deadline was already near or if he wanted to make sure the final touch to his clothes were all finished before the released. The couches were big enough to fit him in anyway and there was always a spare unused fabrics below to use as blankets.

Leo were going to get back to work when he saw a shadow moving in the darkness. A figure that he had seen often enough was standing across the street in front of his boutique. Ravi’s silver hair was easily distinguished even in the darkness because it seemed that the moon iluminated his hair. Ravi was staring straight ahead at him and it seemed like Ravi noticed him inside. Leo watched as Ravi crossed the road and walked ahead toward the boutique.

Leo hurriedly walked downstairs and just as he opened the backdoor, Ravi had just arrived while smiling slightly at him.

“What are you doing here Ravi?”

“I was just passing nearby and I thought I saw someone inside so I went here.”

Leo could feel the wind blew and he immediately shivered. Oh, he forgot to wear his jacket when he hurried down just now.

“Let’s go inside.” Leo said and he quickly step aside for Ravi to get in.

Leo locked the backdoor once again and followed Ravi who had gone upstair first. Ravi immediately took off his jacket and flopped down on the couch.

“Leo-ah, why are you still here?” Ravi asked as he closed his eyes and made himself comfortable.

“I didn’t felt like going home.” Leo answered as he looked at Ravi’s somewhat tired expression. Ravi only hummed to indicate that he heard Leo’s answer but he didn’t say anything else.

“What happened?” Leo asked as he closed the window’s curtain.

“I had a headache. Let me sleep here for a while okay?” Ravi muttered.

Leo felt worried and he walked downstair to look if there was any medicine. They had a small kitchen which was usually used when one of the staff was hungry. The fridge was empty but fortunately there were some medicines inside the cabinet. Taking the one that he needed and a glass of water, Leo was just going to go upstair when he remembered something. He went to the storage room and took out some fabrics which wasn’t used anymore.

When he got upstair, Ravi had lied down on the couch and was already asleep. Leo didn’t felt like waking him up so he put the medicine on the table beside the couch. He succeeded to take away Ravi’s jacket which he used as a pillow and changed it with some of the fabrics that he borught. The thickest one, he drapped over the other’s body as a blanket. He hung Ravi’s jacket and walked back to his side.

Leo was browsing through all the racks in the storage room. He was checking all the clothes that he had designed so that he wouldn’t made another same one. Of course he had the sketches of all those inside the books but he liked to see them one by one, the real thing. It reminded him of how he got the ideas for those designs and it kind of inspired him. He glanced at the clock on the wall and realized it was already one o’clock. He didn’t really feel sleepy though for some reason. He decided to rest for a while and made some drinks. Getting in the kitchen, luckily there were still some cofee and tea inside the cabinet. He decided to make the coffee first. A few minutes later he could hear the sound of footsteps and next Ravi’s voice inside the kitchen.

“Sorry I fell asleep. Why didn’t you wake me up?” Ravi asked, his voice a little hoarse from sleeping.

 “It’s okay, you look so tired.” Leo said as he prepared his coffee.

“Did you take the medicine?” Leo asked as he poured the coffee into a cup.

“No, but thank you. I felt better already.”

“Then how about tea? It’s chamomile tea, it’s good for headache.” Leo said as he looked at Ravi with worry. Ravi looked at him for a while, possibly thinking on how to reject Leo but he finally gave up.

“Okay.”

Leo went back to brew some tea and while he waited, Ravi went to stand beside him while leaning on the counter.

“It’s a little cold down here.” Ravi commented as he noticed the temperature in the kitchen.

“Yeah, it was the only room without a heater because we thought it wasn’t needed.” Leo explained, feeling a little bad.

“Did you sleep here often?” Ravi asked curiously as Leo finished the tea and poured it into another cup.

“Yeah. It was convenient when I had a lot of work to do.” Leo answered and handed the cup to Ravi. As Ravi took the cup, their hands touch for a while and it was gone as soon as it happened.

“Thank you.”

“We should move in front, it was too cold here.” Leo said as he took his own cup and lead the way to the boutique’s front.

The room was dimly lited as Leo only opened a few lights. Although the windows were all covered by curtains, he didn’t want to risk getting seen from outside. They moved a small couch in the corner of the boutique where Leo had been working for the past two hours. The small table was messy with all of his sketches around.

“You had been working here?” Ravi asked in disbelief.

“Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t move here just because I was sleeping upstair. I was okay with the lights on though.” Ravi said with a small frown.

“It’s okay.” Leo reassured while he arranged all the papers on the table so they could put their cups.

“Are those your new designs?”

“Yeah.” Leo said feeling embarrassed.

“I’ve never saw a cloth being made directly though. It must be very complicated.” Ravi said as scanned around the boutique.

“No, it wasn’t reall complicated. Do you want me to show you?” Leo asked unsurely.

“If it was okay with you, I’ll be honoured.” Ravi repplied with a teasing smile.

Leo ignored him and proceed to take a new paper and his drawing tools.

“Why don’t you design one for me?” Ravi asked as he took a sip of his tea.

“Eh, but I was just going to make a rough one. If I designed one for you in this short time, it wouldn’t look very good.” Leo tried to reason, suddenly feeling not confident.

“It’s okay Leo-ah. However it looked didn’t matter because you’re the one who made it. Besides, I believed in your skills.” Ravi said with a small laugh.

“Since you insisted, I’m not responsible for the result.” Leo said, giving up. “What kind of clothes do you want?”

“Why don’t you decide one for me?”

“Suits?” Leo blurted out without really thinking and when he realized what he just said, he turned and saw that Ravi had looked at him, his gaze unreadable. They gazed at each other for a while before Ravi broke it and let out a big sigh.

“It’s a good idea. Maybe I could wear it on my engagement.” Ravi said with the word ‘engagement’ with a sneer. Meanwhile Leo was surprised that Ravi suddenly said about the engagement.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner but I haven’t found the right time.” Ravi looked at him and smiled but the smile was sad. Leo only shook his head to show that he didn’t mind.

“It was an arranged marriage made between our parents and the engagement will be held this month on 29. I tried to forget about it but as the date got closer, it was impossible to ignore it anymore.”

“Why didn’t you just cancel it if you didn’t like it? Leo asked curiously.

“There were some circumstances.” Ravi answered but he didn’t look like he would answer more. Ravi leaned back and closed his eyes, there was this expression on his face again where his brows were furrowed. Leo’s hand itched to straighten them but he quickly got back to his own senses and instead tried to focus on his paper.

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know why he said it but he felt sorry for what Ravi had to go through.

“Why are you sorry?” Ravi said with a little chuckle.

“Well, don’t talk about that anymore. How is my suits?”

“I haven’t started on it.” Leo answered embarrassedly.

“Then let’s started now.” Ravi said enthustiastically and then he got up to look around the boutique.

Meanwhile Leo took this chance to look at Ravi’s outfit. He hadn’t really paid attention to what the other wore until now. Ravi wore a simple white collar shirt and black ripped jeans. Now that he noticed that Ravi always wore rip jeans almost everytime they met. His top two button were opened,revealing a slight look of the word tatoo on his collarbone. He wondered what those words were though. The outfit itself was quite simple but what made it became so eyecatching was all the accessories that Ravi wore. He wore a long gold chain necklace and both his hands were full with a lot types of bangle. There were also a few rings on both of his hand’s fingers. Ravi also wore earrings on his left ear. All those things surprisingly complimented his looks more instead of looking too crowded. Leo himself wasn’t quite a fan of accessories and he only wore a simple earring on his left ear. Well, he didn’t know if could make a clothes that suited Ravi’s style.

“Do you like simple clothes?”

“No, not really. If I wore something simple like this then I’ll add a lot of accessories. But if the clothes had enough pattern then I’ll just wear a few of them.”

“Yeah, I could see that you liked them a lot.” Leo continued to talk while sketching.

“I could take you to buy some.”

“I don’t think it suited me.”

“You’ll never know until you try it yourself.” Ravi’s voice was close enough to aware Leo that he was standing beside him and looking at the sketch that Leo was drawing.

“Do you have any color you wanted?” Leo asked as he added some touching to the sketch.

“Choose for me.”

“I think red would suit you, especially with your silver hair.” Leo suggested shyly.

“Then make it red.” Ravi said with a smile.

“Okay.” Leo bowed his head to hide the little smile that threaten to come out from his mouth. It was so hard these days to control his emotions around Ravi.

“I finished it, let’s go find a fabric for it.” Leo said and led Ravi to the storage room.

Ravi was looking curiously around the room while Leo searched the right color for the suit. He gave up trying to ask Ravi anything because he ended up always replying with ‘It’s up to you’.

“You sewed the clothes with this sewing machine?”

“No, actually they’re for the staff. Mine was upstair at my work room.”

After finished choosing fabrics, Leo was just going to go upstair and started sewing when Ravi asked from another room.

“What’s this room, Leo-ah?”

“It was like a gallery. Every piece of my first original designs were in there.” Leo explained as he opened the lock to the room.

Ravi looked around with awe.

“It was cool.”

“Thank you.”

Leo opened his eyes as the sunrays hit his face and the cold temperature kicked in. It seemed like the heater was already turned off. He clutched on to the blanket tightly trying to avoid the cold when he finally realized something. He immedaitely sit up and was shocked to see that he was on the couch. As far as he remembered, he was working on the sewing machine and decided to rest for awhile. He must’ve fell asleep there. Then why was he on the couch? And where did Ravi go? He looked around his work room to find out that it was already 8 a.m. Leo was just going to get up from the couch when he realized that there was a cup of takeaway coffee and burger on the table. Beside them, there was a piece of paper notes on it.

I’m sorry I had to leave first. One of your staff, Ms. Victoria, had come so she opened the door for me. I got you something for breakfast, so eat them before you worked. And don’t overwork yourself, get some rest too.

Ah, and thank you for yesterday, Leo-ah. Tell me when the suit finished okay? I’ll come and get it.

-Ravi-

Leo blushed a little when he realized that Ravi must have carried him to the couch. He must’ve been so tired if he didn’t even noticed being moved.

“Leo-ah.” N called out and the door was opened, revealing a smirking N. Leo groaned at that face, it could only mean one thing.

“Guess what Victoria told me just now.” N said with a teasing tone. Leo rolled his eyes and ignored N, instead went to his sewing machine to check his work.

“Just yesterday you told me you had a problem with Ravi and now you’re sleeping with him?” N asked with a mixed of curiosity and amazement.

“Ouchh, Leo!” N yelped in pain as Leo kicked his leg.

“I did not sleep with him.” Leo grumbled while taking out the clothes from the sewing machine. It was already halfway finished so he thought he would just finish it later.

“Okay, no need to get grumpy.” N whined while rubbing his foot. “You were working on new clothes? I thought your sketches weren’t finished yet though.” N asked as he saw the clothes in Leo’s hand.

“It was for Ravi, he requested it.” Leo answered shortly and folded the clothes on his desk.

“What? Ravi requested for it and you made it just like that. You’ve never taken my request though, I’m so jealous.” N said while pouting and Leo could only rolled his eyes again at the childness.

Leo took the burger and the coffee and walked out of his work room.

“Are you going home?” N asked as he followed Leo downstair.

“Yeah. I’ll come back after lunch.” Leo said the last to Victoria who was in the storage room.

“Okay, be careful.” Victoria said out from the storage room.

“I think I’ll go to the dance studio now.” N said as they came out through the back door.

“Have you eaten breakfast?”

“Of course, it’s not just you who got breakfast from someone.” N laughed and smile teasingly. Leo made another move to kick the other but this time he managed to dodge it.

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 6 p.m.

Leo was gazing outside of his work room while waiting for Ravi to come. He had a lot of designs to finish as his new winter collection will be released on November and he only had a little time to finish Ravi’s suit between those times. These few days he kept on sleeping inside his work room and he might have skipped some meals. The staffs took turns to make sure he was okay and he was blessed to have them. Luckily he managed to finish it a few days ago but since Ravi must also be so busy preparing for the engagement and his new album, they agreed for today.

A few days ago

Leo hesitated whether he should text or call Ravi to tell him that his suit was finished. In the end, he opted to text Ravi just in case he was too busy to pick up his phone.

To: Ravi

Ravi, I finished your suit. When do you have time to come? I need to check if the size fitted you or not.

Leo put his phone on the table and and decided to continue on his work. He was a little surprised when his phone vibrated and rang, showing an incoming call from Ravi. Leo answered the call and put the phone on speaker mode so he could take it while continue working.

“I’m driving now so I couldn’t text you back. How did you finished it so fast?”

“I just had a little extra time for it.”

“Didn’t you had a lot works for the new collection?” Ravi said, sounding suspicious. Leo’s heart sped up a little as he was nervous. He forgot that he told Ravi about his work as they texted each other. They did it sometimes when both weren’t too busy at that moment.

“Well, it wasn’t as much as you thought.”

“We’ll see about that later. I didn’t have time this few days though.”

“It’s okay. Just come when you had the time, I’m here most of the time anyway…” Leo stopped talking when he realized what he had just said.

“Leo-ah.” Ravi called out,sounding stern.

“I’ll come this Friday, is that okay with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s have a break, I want to go look for accessories.”

Leo glanced around the room and at his works which were unfinished.

“Okay.” He replied, feeling a little excited. Well, his works could be postpone for a while.

Leo could hear the sound of people arguing downstair and by the sound of it, one of them belong to Victoria.

“I think there’s a problem, I had to go.” Leo said regretfully.

“Sure, go look at it. I’ll see you on Friday around 6 p.m. maybe.”

“Okay.” Leo hang up and quickly went downstair.

So, right now Leo was waiting for Ravi to show up. He had finished his works for today and he will continue it later after coming back. Now he tried to make himself as presentable as possible but it was so hopeless that he finally gave up. N did try to force him to eat together but with how he himself was busy as well, Leo wondered if N ate well too. Hongbin of course tried his best to help them but his café was crowded as the weather became colder and some of his workers took leave because of final exam. Most of the café’s workers were still in university so it couldn’t be help. So, he had to work extra hard to cover for the workers on leave.  

Leo’s boutique had the same problem too. With how Melody was preparing for the dance competition too and Denise preparing for her final exam, they were short on staff. There were only left Victoria and Jason to attend to the customer while Max couldn’t leave the cashier. Meanwhile, the number of customers kept increasing as many already prepared for winter. These days Victoria was so sensitive that she sometimes exploded and Leo couldn’t blame her as she had the most works to be done. They needed to find new staffs as soon as possible before the released of new collection because it meant more customers will come in. Victoria had posted the announcement in front but so far no one applied was appealing enough.

“Hi.” Ravi greeted as he opened the door. Leo tuned back , startled to see the other.

“I didn’t see you coming.”

“Yeah, I parked my motorcycle quite far from here and came in through behind. It was too crowded on the front anyway.” Ravi explained and walked in.

Leo walked to his desk and took the clothes that he had made then handed it to Ravi nervously.

“Here, I didn’t know if you would like it though.”

Ravi took the clothes but didn’t look at it, instead his eyes didn’t leave Leo, making the other nervous.

“You look like zombie.”

“Don’t worry, I slept too even if it was only a short one.” Leo avoided Ravi’s gaze.

“And did you eat?” Ravi asked, his voice full of worry.

“Sometimes, when it wasn’t so crowded Victoria or the others got foods for me.”

“Well, looking at the crowd below I would say they didn’t got you anything these few days .”

“I didn’t want to burden them more than enough.”

“Then I should just stuff you enough tonight.” Ravi said with a small smile and finally took a look at the clothes in his hand.

“You should try on it.” Leo said and pointed to the bathroom. Ravi chckled and walked to the direction that Leo gave him.

Leo sat on his desk and waited, he bit his lips nervously. After some time Ravi finally came out from the bathroom with the suit on. Leo was breathless for a moment at how the other looked.  Well, Leo was right on one thing, red looked good with Ravi and it made him stood out more with his silver hair. The dark red collared shirt fitted perfectly with Ravi’s body and to make it look not so simple Leo had added a small white polkadot pattern on it. Leo kept the jacket with original color, black, but he added some small beads on the collar and sleeves part, making it not so boring. But the shocking part was Ravi didn’t changed out of his ripped jeans and it surprisingly matched well with the formal collared shirt and jacket. Leo stood in awe for a moment and Ravi waited for him with an eyebrow raised with amusement.

“It looks so good on you.” Leo said finally, feeling himself blushed at being caught staring.

“Thank you, I thought so too. I like it.” Ravi said and looked at himself once more.

“But how did you get my size so perfectly?” Ravi asked curiously.

“I just remembered it from your shirt last time.” Leo answered, feeling embarrassed.

“I felt honored.” Ravi said with a teasing smile.

“Is it okay for you to wear this? I mean shouldn’t you wear the same color with your fiancee?” Leo asked suddenly feeling worried.

“It’s okay, it’s up to me anyway. I want to wear this.” Ravi said stubbornly with a smile. Leo didn’t know why but he felt happy to hear that.

“Now, it only need some matching accessories.” Ravi muttered.

Just then the door opened and Victoria stood in awe at how Ravi looked.

“Wow, you look so good Ravi.”

“Yeah, all thanks to our dear designer.” Ravi said with a wink at Leo and then both him and Victoria laughed at Leo’s blushing face.

“Leo-ah, someone wanted to apply for the job. Will you do the interview for me? I’m too busy downstair.”

“Eh, sure.” Leo agreed as he looked at Victoria’s tired face.

“Thanks, I’ll tell him to come upstair.” Victoria smiled in gratitude and when out.

“I’ll help you as soon as I changed out of this.” Ravi said assuringly and went back to the bathroom.

“Hello.” A man said as he walked inside of Leo’s work room. He was tall and and was fit but his face still had a little of the baby face looked so Leo couldn’t guess his age.

“Sit here.” Leo directed and sat on the couch while the man sat in front of him.

“My name is Mark and I would like to apply for a job here.”

“Why did you want to work here Mark?” Leo asked directly.

“Well, I had just graduated from high school and right now I’m on a break. I hadn’t applied for any university so I could work full time if you liked.”

“Wait, you just graudated from high school? How old are you?” Leo asked didn’t believe what he just heard.

“I was born in 1999, so I was 19.” Mark said and smiled nervously. Now that Leo knew how old the other was, he did still have the child look.

“You’re too young.” Leo said unsurely.

“I could learn and besides I wasn’t bad with computer and Miss Victoria told me that she needed someone to work on the online order.”

“Why don’t you let him try first Leo-ah?” Ravi said as he walked out from the bathroom. Leo noticed that Mark went rigid and his eyes widen in surprised,

“You’re Ravi.” He said in awe.

“Well, looked like we met a fan here.” Ravi said with a chuckle and sat beside Leo.

“I was a big fan of your rap, Sir.” Mark said as he regained his composure and blushed a little.

“Where did you came from?” Ravi asked.

“I’m half Canadian half Korean.” Mark replied nervously and Leo wanted to smile at the cute scene.

“Then just call us hyung.” Leo turned to look at Ravi in shocked.

“I haven’t said anything Ravi-ah.”

“Just let him try Leo-ah, it could be a help for the boutique too and I’m sure Victoria let you interviewed him because she agreed.”

Leo looked at Ravi’s assuring smile and Mark’s expectant look and finally let out a sigh in defeat.

“Fine, you’re accepted. You’ll start tomorrow and you could asked the detail to Victoria later.” Leo’s lip lifted slightly at Mark’s delighted expression but it was only for a brief.

“Thank you hyungs.” Mark said with a big smile and he bowed before going out.

“He was cute.” Ravi said with a chuckle.

“It felt like a conspiracy by an idol and his fans.” Leo muttered. Ravi laughed out loud and patted Leo’s head, it made Leo’s heart skipped a beat again.

“Come on let’s go, we have to feed you first.”