Jinki was sitting on the floor, his laptop long forgotten on the bed and papers scattered all over the floor. His mind was far from the script he was supposed to be writing. If he has to be honest, it was instead focused on a tall, handsome theater student who Jinki was now lucky enough to meet every day.

"There's something very strange about it..." Kibum said suddenly, startling Jinki.

"What are you talking about?" he asked looking at Kibum who was lying comfortably on Jonghyun's bed.

"Minho," he said, laying on his stomach and staring at Jinki. "I still do not understand why he's helping you with the script."

"What do you have to understand?" Jinki asked with a pout. "Professor Heechul chose him to help me."

"No, he did not. Heechul chose someone else to help you, Jung Yonghwa, who is one of the best writers in the program right now."

Well, that really was weird.

"Then... then why did Minho say he was asked? I mean, he told me that Heechul talked to him…"

"That's what I'm saying hyung, it's weird. I still haven’t been able to find Yonghwa, but I'm definitely going to ask him what happened."

"What are you going to ask?" Jonghyun asked entering the room and wrinkling his nose when he saw the mess of papers on the floor.

"About Minho." Kibum said sitting up on the bed and sliding his finger through his messy hair, trying to fix it a little.

"What about me?" Minho asked as he entered the room shortly after Jonghyun and Jinki felt his heart skip a beat.

Looking desperately at Kibum, Jinki implored with his eyes so that the younger man not say anything about their current topic. Kibum simply rolled his eyes.

"That you're late," Kibum snorted. "You both are."

"I had class," Jonghyun said sitting next to Kibum. "And you know it."

"What?" Minho asked when Kibum narrowed his eyes at him. "I was working."

This caught Jinki's attention who looked at Minho. "You have a job?"

"Yeah," Minho said sitting next to Jinki, trying not to rustle or move any of the haphazard papers. "In a coffee shop."

"Oh, I did not know that." he murmured thoughtfully and Minho nodded, smiling.

Jinki had no idea that Minho worked.

"I have an idea," Kibum said excitedly, snapping his fingers for added emphasis. "We should meet up at the coffee shop next time, so Minho won’t be late. I mean since he's already going to be there and all."

"That's a great idea." Jonghyun said nodding.

"No," Minho said cutting off both of them. "No way." he seemed a little flustered as he spoke.

"Why not? It would be cool to go to the coffee shop, change the environment, don't you think so Jinki-hyung?" Kibum asked smiling like a fox at him.

"I didn’t know you could make coffee, Minho-ah." Jinki said, trying to look away from Kibum’s eyes.

"Well, actually it's pretty easy." he said scratching his neck shyly and Jinki smiled.

"Not to Jinki," Jonghyun said with a laugh. "He once set fire to the dorm kitchen trying to boil water."

"Hey!" Jinki said scandalized. Minho didn’t need to know that little fact about him.

Minho laughed and Jinki snorted, puffing up his cheeks like a puffer fish.

"And also," Kibum said returning to the subject. "We'll be able to see Minho in his work uniform, wearing an apron." he said, waggling his eyebrows.

"It's not an apron!" Minho said angrily.

But then the image of Minho wearing a cute green apron with bunnies printed on it appeared in Jinki's mind, who smiled cutely at the thought.

"Hyung," Minho almost whimpered. It almost felt like he could read Jinki’s mind recently. "It's not that kind of apron." he said looking at Jinki, his cheeks slightly pink.

"I know," he said with a laugh. "I know, Minho-ah."

Kibum laughed loudly, and Minho glared at him. "In fact the uniform that Minho wears is very y, a white shirt and a black vest, and tight pants. Most customers are girls just because of that."

Jinki definitely wanted to see Minho wearing a barista's outfit, but the part of the girls staring at the younger man bothered him a little.

"It's not like that," Minho said shaking his head, frowning at Kibum who was smirking. "Is not true."

"I really wanted to go," Jinki said biting his bottom lip. "And I love coffee, it would be nice to be able to work with fresh coffee."

"So it's settled," Kibum said proud of himself for getting what he wanted and making Minho grunt. "We'll be there tomorrow."

Jinki kind of felt sorry for Minho but he couldn’t resist. He really wanted to see the younger man working, he wanted to see the younger man in the barista uniform. Jinki's mind was full of images of Minho, it was kind of y.

"So, shall we begin?" Jonghyun said saving the strange atmosphere that had been settling there, one that Jinki had not even realized, lost in his own thoughts about said certain barista.

"Yes, please." Minho said taking one of the papers from the floor.

To be certain, Jinki's imagination had not lived up to Minho's barista uniform and damn if Kibum wasn’t 100% right. Minho was definitely looking y in that outfit. And obviously Kibum was also right about the girls filling the coffee shop just to stay there looking at Minho and the other baristas. It was like a scene right out of a coffee shop drama.

All three were at a table in the corner of the coffee shop talking about the script that was finally almost completed, just a little more and they could finish it and start rehearsing. They had to work quickly.

But the problem was that Jinki could not focus on what they were doing, couldn’t even hear what Jonghyun was talking about at that moment. It was hard not to look at Minho, and without even realizing it, he was there with his chin resting on his hand looking at the younger man behind the counter, taking the order of a woman with a soft smile on his lips. It was like Jinki was a middle school girl pining after he first big crush. He didn’t even realize how obvious he truly was.

He did not exactly have the right to feel jealous of someone, in this case the female costumer, who was receiving the sweet treatment from Minho. Still it did feel hard to ignore. He kind of wanted to be treated that way too… no, he wanted Minho to treat him like he was more important than anything else.

"Jinki!"

Blinking, Jinki looked at Kibum who snorted. "What?"

"Stop staring at Minho and pining like a school girl. Pay attention here on the script." Jinki felt his face flush with embarrassment at being caught.

"I wasn't paying... I was looking at the cakes...” his voice going up an octave and in volume with every word he said; “…maybe I should get a piece!" Jinki finished, sort of shrieking a bit.

Jonghyun laughed aloud and Jinki felt his face burn even stronger with shame, looking away to the window, choosing to ignore the couple who were laughing at him.

"We need to finish this," Jonghyun said after the two of them stopped laughing. "Then we can start the other part, the fun part."

Jinki nodded, taking the forgotten pen on the table and looking at the book in front of him. "There's not much else to write, maybe we should wrap it all up and finish the ending scenes."

"There's a loose end here," Kibum said pointing to the laptop screen. "What are we going to do with her… maybe kill?"

"You want to kill the main character?" Jinki asked with wide eyes. It didn’t really make sense to be honest.

"Well, she almost killed the whole town trying to put the perfect man together." Jonghyun pointed out and Kibum nodded.

"Even so," Jinki said shaking his head. "We can't just kill her. It's a horror/comedy musical, so we're not going to kill her."

"Who's going to die?" Minho asked sitting in the empty chair and placing a plate with a piece of strawberry cake in front of Jinki who blinked in confusion then looked up at Minho. "You wanted cake, right?"

"How did you...?"

"You said it pretty loudly, hyung, I think everyone here heard it." Kibum pointed out and Jinki wished he had a hole to crawl into.

"So who's going to die?" Minho asked again.

"Oh Sunhee." Kibum said pointing to the computer screen.

"I still have my doubts about that name." Jonghyun said shaking his head.

Kibum snorted. "We will not discuss this again, it's already settled."

Jonghyun sighed and Jinki put a piece of cake into his mouth, chewing contentedly, trying to ignore the radiating heat coming from Minho sitting next to him. Recently it seems like the younger man always sat next to Jinki, but Jonghyun and Kibum are always side by side, so it's somewhat normal being the only open seat at times.

Jinki was not complaining though.

"Do you think it's a good idea to kill her?" Minho asked leaning over the table. "What if we did something different? Maybe making her even crazier than before and locking her up in an asylum."

"That's a great idea," Jinki said with his mouth full. "Killing her would be very tragic for the musical."

"I liked it." Jonghyun said nodding, stealing a strawberry from Jinki's plate who almost jabbed him with his fork.

"I give up," Kibum said, dramatically raising his hands in surrender. "You guys win."

Jinki was dragging his feet across the ground, following Jonghyun down the sidewalk. He was feeling like the most idiotic person in the world.

"Why am I always embarrassing myself in front of Minho?" he murmured, his head lowered, looking like a sad puppy.

Jonghyun chuckled, stopped walking to wait for Jinki and then put an arm around his shoulders. "It was not a big deal."

"What are you talking about? I got caught staring at him... "

"Shamelessly." Jonghyun added cutting Jinki off who snorted.

"...and then I yelled for everyone to hear that I wanted cake, trying to disguise it. It just made things even worse because Minho overheard and ended up bringing a piece of cake, strawberry cake, which is actually my favorite." he murmured with a small pout.

The younger man froze, causing Jinki to stumble. "Your favorite cake?"

"Yeah," Jinki said with a frown. "Why did you stop?"

"Have you been to that coffee shop before?"

"Yeah, like everyone else, it's the closest coffee shop to the campus and everyone always goes there."

"To eat cake?"

He frowned again, what was going on with Jonghyun and all those questions?

"I don't think so, just coffee. I had never sat there and eaten anything, just bought coffee and left, which is why I had never seen Minho there."

"So how did Minho know?"

"Know what?"

Jonghyun snorted, starting to walk again. "What your favorite cake is."

"He didn't know, I mean, there's no way. It was lucky I guess." Jinki said with a shrug.

"No," Jonghyun said shaking his head. "He knew. There was at least five different cakes there, but he just so happened to pick your favorite?"

"How would he know that, Jonghyun-ah? It doesn’t make sense, there’s no way."

"Exactly." he said thoughtfully and Jinki decided to let it go.

Jinki really did not want to think about Minho at the moment, not when they were about to hand over the final script to the teachers. He was already nervous enough.

Leeteuk smiled as Jinki handed over the flash drive. "So that's it? Is everything ready?"

"Yeah, everything that we could do, it's on there."

The teacher placed a hand on Jinki's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "I'm sure it's great. You and your friends did a great job with what little experience and time you had."

He smiled, pleased with himself. It had been difficult to write the script, and if it were not for the help of Jonghyun, Kibum, and Minho, Jinki certainly would not have been able to complete it in time.

"I'll read it and send it to Professor Kim Heechul. Then I will let you know what we think, okay?"

"Yes, thank you Mister Park." Jinki said, bowing and leaving the room.

Jonghyun was waiting for him outside the building and smiled as soon as Jinki left. "What did he say?"

"Nothing much," Jinki said with a shrug. "He said he will tell me after he and Professor Heechul read the script. Now we have to wait."

"We should celebrate then," Jonghyun said smiling. "What about soju?"

"Only soju?"

"Barbecue?"

"Yes, yes!" Jinki said, smiling with satisfaction. "But just the two of us?"

"Do you want to call Minho to come? Or I can call Kibum?"

Jinki laughed and shook his head. "No, it's been a while since we went out to drink just the two of us. We could have fun like old times."

"Oh, my cute hyung misses spending special time with me?" Jonghyun said pinching Jinki's cheeks, who laughed, moving away from him.

"Shut up and let's go." he said, laughing and heading toward the dorm.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go."

It had been a while since Jinki and Jonghyun got to go out alone, just the two of them to drink and eat until they could not fit anymore. So Jinki was really enjoying himself.

"So he took a huge hat from the bag, I don’t even know how it fit in that tiny clutch of his..." Jonghyun said with a laugh, showing the size of the hat with both hands

"Kibum really has a unique style of dressing," Jinki laughed. "Do you remember that time he tried to convince me that I should dye my hair?"

"Yeah, blonde." Jonghyun said loudly, laughing even harder.

"Yeah, no thank you, I prefer my hair the way it is. Natural."

"But," Jonghyun said putting soju into Jinki's glass. "It would be nice if you changed a little, maybe a lighter tone?"

"I see that your boyfriend has already begun influencing you." he said, laughing and shaking his head.

"What? It's not so bad. Maybe Minho would like you even more, not that you need it. "

"What are you talking about?" Jinki asked frowning, not understanding how that conversation changed from hair colors to Minho so suddenly.

"About what? Minho? He likes you."

Jinki laughed. "Of course he does."

"Hyung, I'm serious."

"Jonghyun-ah..."

"Kibum told me that Minho practically begged Jung Yonghwa, the guy who was going to help you with the script, to let him do it. Why would he do that if it was not to be by your side?"

The alcohol in Jinki's system was fading away and he realized he was more sober than he wanted to be for this conversation. It did not make any sense, but at the same time, kind of did.

Looking at Jonghyun who was shoving a piece of meat in his mouth, Jinki sighed. "Do you think so?"

"Yeah, he kind of did a lot of the obvious things. I didn’t have said anything yet because I didn’t want to give false hope, but when he put that piece of cake… your favorite cake… in front of you, it was what gave me more sureness. Kibum later told me that he had asked about your favorite sweets before we went to the coffee shop, so..."

Jinki's heart was beating fast inside his chest and he did not even know what to say at that moment.

"What... what should I do now?"

"There are only two options," Jonghyun said with a shrug. "Either you confess that you like him or wait to see if he's going to confess to you."

"Confess?" Jinki basically screamed, making the other customers look at him. "I-I already told you I didn’t..."

"Come on, you've always been afraid of this, you always thought Minho didn’t even care about you, but now you know it's not like that, he likes you and..."

"We're not sure about that." Jinki quickly pointed out.

"That's not the point," Jonghyun cut him off. "You don't have to waste time with silly fears, what are you waiting for? Life does not wait for anyone and if you do not cultivate love, it will end. One or both of you could wind up hurt and I don't want that to happen."

Jinki was silent, looking at Jonghyun who smiled as if trying to encourage him to do this, to confess to Minho, but it was not that easy, not when Jinki himself never thought Minho would feel the same. He needed to think about what he was going to do.

After a few more shots of soju and a lot of stumbling to get to the dorm, Jinki was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling of the room, his mind empty, having that good feeling one gets after drinking quite bit and being unable to focus on or worry about anything.

"Hey Jonghyun." he murmured, looking away, Jonghyun's face lit by the screen of his phone.

"Yeah?"

"Are you happy?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Nothing much, just asking."

Jonghyun was silent and Jinki bit his lip, waiting. "Yeah, I think so, I mean, I have you by my side, my friends, I have my music, I have Kibum. Everything is fine, more than fine."

"Yeah?" Jinki asked looking at him again and Jonghyun turned his head, looking at Jinki.

"Yeah." he said smiling and Jinki smiled back, pleased.

"Great."

The younger man laughed. "What is all this anyway?"

"I already said it, I was just asking," Jinki smiled. "Today was a good day, thank you."

"Ah, so that's it, you're thanking me because I paid for the soju."

"That's not it." he said with a laugh and Jonghyun laughed again.

Jinki had the most stupid grin on his face when he left the theater building the next day, more than proud of himself. He had a meeting with Leeteuk and Heechul who had said that the script was ready, more than ready even! That he and his friends had done a great job and now he could finally move on with the musical.

How could he not be happy about it?

"Lee Jinki-ssi?"

He recognized the person standing in front of him immediately because he had seen him in the theater building a few times.

"Hey, Jung Yonghwa." he said with a smile.

"Were you talking to the teachers? I read the final script and I have to say it was really good. You did a great job."

"Oh, thank you, Yonghwa-ssi, but if it was not for my friends, I definitely wouldn’t have finished."

"Ah yes, Choi Minho helped you, right?!"

"Kim Jonghyun and Kim Kibum also helped me, the four of us did it together."

Yonghwa smiled, nodding, and Jinki bit his lip, uncertain whether to ask or not the question on the tip of his tongue.

"Hm, Yonghwa-ssi, may I ask you something?"

"Of course, what is it?"

"I-I heard that it was actually you who was assigned to help me with the script, is it right?"

"Yeah, Professor Heechul had asked me to help you because I have more experience with scripts and it’s my major, but Choi Minho told me that he wanted to help you, you know, he may be all handsome and manly, but it was really cute the way he asked me and I couldn’t say no."

Jinki smiled but he had to admit that he felt a little jealous that Yonghwa thought about Minho like that. Also that he had seen that side of Minho before Jinki had.

"Thank you."

"I didn’t do anything," Yonghwa said with a smile. "And congratulations again on the script, it was awesome."

His face heated up and Jinki ducked his head. "Thank you."

What Jonghyun had been saying was true after all, Minho had actually asked Yonghwa. Could it be that Jonghyun was also right about Minho’s feelings?

Was Minho also afraid, thinking that Jinki did not feel the same? Did Minho like him too?

"W-what am I supposed to do now?" he murmured, glancing around aimlessly, trying somehow to find an answer, not that there would be any outside the campus theater building.

So Jinki went to the place where he would find answers, the coffee shop where Minho worked in the afternoons.

Jinki stood there in front of the female barista without knowing exactly what to do, Minho was not there.

"Sir, can I take your order?"

"Oh, I... hm... can I have an ice coffee, please?"

The girl smiled and typed the order, accepting the money Jinki handed to her.

"Can I... can I ask you something?"

She looked at him confused but nodded. "Of course."

"Um, Choi Minho... is he working today?"

"Oh, his shift ended about ten minutes ago. He's probably still inside the back room though."

"Can you do me a favor?" he asked chewing his bottom lip, ashamed to involving another person in this. "Tell him his friend is waiting outside."

The girl handed the completed order to Jinki and smiled. "Yes, I can do that."

"Thank you." Jinki muttered and left the coffee shop, sitting at one of the tables outside, directly next to the main door.

Now all he had to do was get up the nerve to say something and see what Minho’s reaction was. Easier said than done, Jinki thought to himself as he sighed and took a long sip of his ice coffee to try and settle his nerves.