“Remind me again why the four of us are sitting here together,” Jongin deadpanned while his gaze swept over a smirking Sehun, a beaming Yixing, and a disgruntled Jongdae. The four males were gathered around the dining table and a covered white plastic bowl was placed in front of each of them.

“It’s April fourteenth, remember?” Sehun jovially replied as he removed the top and hungrily eyed the jjajangmyeon waiting inside for him to devour. “Black Day is when we lonely and single people get to celebrate, since none of us did anything for Valentine’s Day or White Day.”

“But why are we celebrating our lack of significant others?” Jongin asked as he also lifted away the cover of his bowl. “That makes zero sense.”

“Because friends are still important and it’s a nice excuse for the four of us to spend some quality time together,” Yixing explained while he reached over to grab a handful of napkins from the dispenser that was in the middle of the table and then passed one around to each person, since eating black bean noodles was usually a messy affair. “It’s been a long time since the four of us did something like this, so we should take advantage of the holiday.”

“It’s not even a real holiday though,” Jongdae pointed out, his words slightly incoherent from the mouthful of noodles he had already begun to chew.

Jongin made a face when he saw black bean sauce drip down the sides of his older brother’s mouth. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Jongdae. That’s disgusting.”

“Shut up.” After swallowing, Jongdae reached for his napkin and wiped away some of the sauce before adding, “But yeah, as I was saying, we got lucky that April fourteenth landed on a weekend this year.”

“Aw, you guys are being a bunch of wet blankets,” Sehun complained while greedily grabbing four slices of danmuji from the communal platter that Yixing had unpacked earlier. Jongdae shot a glare at the model for taking so many slices of yellow pickled radish at once. Blatantly ignoring the glower, Sehun continued, “Who cares if we’re single losers or if Black Day is a fake holiday? As long as it gives me an excuse to eat good food, I could care less about the technicalities and you guys shouldn’t care so much either.”

Yixing nodded in agreement as he dipped a piece of chopped raw onion into some chunjang before bringing it to his open mouth. The slightly spicy crunch of onion combined with the sweet bean sauce caused an explosion of exquisite flavor to attack his taste buds. It reminded him of the many times he had eaten Beijing roasted duck when he was a child and the manager found himself thinking of his family back in China. He wondered how they were all doing and resolved to call his mother later that day to check up on her.

Even though the artist still didn’t see the point in doing this, Jongin decided that it wasn’t worth continuing to quarrel over and he grabbed his metal chopsticks to begin stirring the warm noodles. He hadn’t had black bean noodles in years, not since before he had moved to Paris, and its familiar scent was absolutely mouthwatering.

And as he took the first bite, Jongin was reminded of why he had always asked his mother to make black beans noodles for dinner when he and Jongdae were children. The sweet sauce-covered noodles supplemented with savory bits of diced pork were wonderfully satiating. Every few mouthfuls, he added several chopped onions to the mixture and, even though he usually wasn’t a fan of their stinging spiciness, Jongin couldn’t resist tossing more and more into his bowl. It was like an addiction.

The dining room was filled with sounds of crunching and slurping as the four males indulged in their meal. Every so often, Sehun and Jongdae got into a chopstick fight as they tried stealing as many slices of yellow pickled radish as they could before the other snatched them all away, prompting Jongin to egg them on and cheer for his best friend while Yixing sighed and shook his head at their immaturity. It got to the point where the manager decided to stand up from the table and head to the kitchen, which drew curious stares from the other three.

“I’m getting more danmuji for you greedy pigs,” he explained as he opened the refrigerator and searched for a large carton of premade pickled daikon radish that he remembered getting the previous day while shopping for groceries. “Do you guys also want any other side dishes or is the danmuji enough?”

“Well, thanks to Jongdae, we’re also running low on onions,” Jongin dryly called back, sending his older brother a dirty look upon seeing him swipe the remaining vegetables into his bowl of black bean noodles.

“Mind your own business!”

“Wow, real mature of you, bro,” Jongin snarked back before deliberately turning to face Sehun. “No wonder he’s still single. No one wants to date a kid like him,” he sneered, causing his best friend to erupt in a fit of laughter, almost choking on the slice of pickled radish that he was currently chewing.

Jongdae’s cheeks instantly turned scarlet and he hastily shot back, “Well, it’s not like you’re any better! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be sitting here ‘celebrating’ Black Day with the rest of us!”

Sehun snickered again as he elbowed Jongin, who let out a loud hiss of pain, and loftily said, “Y’know, he’s not wrong. Do you need me to wingman for you? I have access to some exclusive clubs in Gangnam and we can have a go at picking up a date for you.”

“Screw off and go find yourself a date before you even think about finding one for me,” the artist retorted. Knowing this would further piss off his best friend, Jongin daringly used his chopsticks to filch two slices of pickled radish and popped them in his mouth before Sehun could do anything. The model let out a strangled screech when he saw his precious food disappear into someone else’s mouth.

“Jongin, that was mean,” Yixing scolded, having returned with two plates topped with dozens of pieces of yellow pickled radish and chopped raw onions. “Here, Sehun, you can have first pick.”

“Yay, thanks, Yixing!” the model cheered as he swept the top layer of pickled radish slices onto his black bean noodles. “You’re the best!”

“No fair! You got most of them earlier!” Jongdae whined while trying to transfer some of the pickled radish into his own bowl.

Listening to them bicker, it was hard to believe that these men were in their early thirties; they could easily pass off as a bunch of rowdy adolescent boys. But, at the same time, it was also nice to feel so young and free. Since they were all working adults, this sort of liberating downtime spent with close friends was hard to come by and none of them were sure when it would happen again. Probably not any time soon, since Jongdae was still working on his company’s jewelry launch and Sehun was booked for several photo shoots in the coming weeks.

“So that’s your excuse for not dating?” Jongin raised his right eyebrow after listening to his best friend detail his upcoming schedule.

“Fine, you caught me. I’m honestly just too lazy to look,” Sehun revealed, eliciting laughter from the other three. “What? Do you know how much time and energy you have to invest in weeding out the crazies from the decent potential partners? I’d rather listen to Donghae lecture me instead of go through all of that trouble,” he said while scrunching his nose in displeasure at the thought of his manager rambling about things he frankly didn’t care about.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Jongdae heartily agreed.

“No, you’re just a lazy sack of bones in general.” The artist quickly leaned backwards when Jongdae tried to punch his shoulder, causing the older male to growl when he only hit thin air. “And kind of slow too, which doesn’t win you any attraction points.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing that I could care less about whether or not you think I’m attractive. Brats like you aren’t my type, even if you weren’t my brother.”

“Ew, is gross, Jongdae.”

Yixing had to intervene before the elder brother could strangle Jongin for purposely misconstruing his words while Sehun laughed like a hyena in the background.

Once he had calmed down considerably, Sehun turned to the Chinese male and curiously asked, “Why aren’t you dating anyone, Yixing? Don’t you have a lot of free time right now?”

Unprepared for the conversation’s sudden shift in focus, the manager stuttered, “I—I don’t have that much free time.”

Jongin stared pointedly at his friend. “Yixing, you have just as much free time as I do and I’ll even be the first to admit that I have way too much free time nowadays.”

“There’s still a lot for me to do!” the Chinese male answered defensively. “Keeping this big house in order, making sure the two of you are fed since neither of you know how to cook,” he brazenly pointed at Jongdae and Jongin, causing the Kim brothers to blush simultaneously, “and maintaining my contacts in the industry are all very time-consuming. I can’t afford to mix in another person to take care of on top of everything I’m already doing.”

“But you could be the one getting taken care of, right?” Sehun pointed out sensibly. “You could have a support system of your own instead of always being someone else’s support system.”

Yixing lightly nibbled his bottom lip as he gave the model’s words some thought and murmured, “I suppose that could happen.” He then hastily shook his head, as if shaking the fantasy out of his head, before saying, “No, it’s too much at this point. I’m perfectly content being single, to be honest.”

“I guess we’re all a bunch of boring ole bachelors then,” Sehun remarked as he leaned back into his chair with his arms crossed behind his neck. “Not that it’s a bad thing, but we’re probably going to have to settle down eventually. My mother keeps asking me when I’ll get married,” he added with a grimace.

“Well, Jongdae has to get married before I do, since he’s the elder son,” Jongin said, mercilessly deflecting the responsibility onto his brother’s shoulders.

“Being older has nothing to do with getting married first!” Jongdae then his pointer finger at Yixing, whose eyes widened considerably upon being targeted again. “He’s the oldest out of the four of us, but he’s just as single as we are!”

The Chinese male’s cheeks were dusted with pink as he mumbled, “I’m a late bloomer, okay?”

“Aw, don’t worry, Yixing,” Sehun said as he reassuringly patted the manager’s back. “I’m sure you’ll find your special someone one day!”

“It’s fine. I’m not worried.” Yixing sent the others a soft smile. “Like I said, I’m not actively searching for romance, so marriage will obviously come much later in the future.”

“Man, all of this talking is making me thirsty,” Jongdae commented as he suddenly stood up from his seat. He then immediately turned to his younger brother and clarified in a threatening tone, “Physically thirsty.” However, despite his attempt to dispel any teasing regarding his choice of words, both Jongin and Sehun snickered like schoolchildren as they loudly whispered to each other.

“I bet Jongdae would date the first person who asked him out, since he’s so thirsty.”

“He’d probably worship whoever it is like holy water, since he’s so desperate to quench his thirst.”

“Okay, that’s enough, you two,” Yixing reprimanded before their mocking words could escalate any further. The manager then looked up at Jongdae and asked, “What’re you getting?”

“Soju, so I don’t have to listen to these pea brains talk nonsense and kill off more of my brain cells than they already have,” was his immediate response.

Sehun perked up straight away upon hearing his answer and began to eagerly wave his hands, almost shouting, “I want soju too! Jongdae, can you also get me a bottle?”

The older male let out a scornful laugh. “You literally made fun of me less than five seconds ago. Why would I share my precious soju with you?”

“It was Jongin’s fault!” the model yelled, pointing accusingly at his best friend, who was throwing daggers at Sehun with his sharp gaze.

“Wow, way to throw me under the bus for a lousy drink.”

The model playfully stuck out his tongue at Jongin before standing up to follow Jongdae into the kitchen. “Do you guys also want some soju?”

“Baby Jongin doesn’t get any, since he can’t control himself around alcohol,” Jongdae said haughtily. This time, it was his turn to rile up his brother and it felt so good to have the upper hand for once.

“At least I’m not the desperate, thirsty—”

“Water for me and Jongin would be great,” Yixing speedily interrupted. God, it seemed like all he had done this evening was diffuse fights from occurring when all he had wanted was a nice, peaceful get-together between the four of them.

Luckily, Jongdae and Sehun weren’t planning to get drunk, so the conversation picked up again once they returned to the dining table with their bottles of fruit soju in hand. The rest of the night was spent playing card games like Egyptian Ratscrew, which Jongin won most of the time due to his quick reflexes and accurate card-counting. It felt good to excel at something again and the artist felt the bubble of satisfaction grow even bigger whenever he witnessed the frustrated expression on Jongdae’s face as he was the first to be eliminated almost every single game.

It didn’t matter that they were all single. Not when they had each other to spend time with.

♈♈♈