second last chapter, never thought this was going to be so long

dejabrew means hangover and deja vu?

jae behaves silly

let's remember geunsoo is noir (newspaper) manager, in real life he was b.a.p's manager. yooa's the restaurant hostess, in real life I liked her in “idol battle likes” with daehyun, sleepy's is a chef here and you know he’s yongguk’s bff in real world

Chapter 67: Dejabrew 3

“I'm a writer, I write poems, I'm so amazing” Youngjae sputtered in a bad mood while he waited for the bartender to make the drinks.

    “Are you imitating Jaehan?” Jongup asked, raising an eyebrow.

    “There's still losers who fall for poems? Poems are the easiest thing in literature! You know, I can write a zillion of them, in fact, I'll write one right now” Youngjae said, banging the table with his fist “Give me a pen”

    “I got zero”

    “Hey you, give me a pen” Youngjae yelled at one of the waiters who fortunately had one “Give me a paper too”

    “No, sir, I don't have any” he said and kept moving.

    “Well, these napkins will work” Youngjae said as he saw a bunch of napkins behind the bar and grabbed plenty.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“I want to thank you again for inviting us to the opening” Geunsoo said to sleepy.

    “It was the least I could do after being late for the interview”

    “I promise that the paper will make a great cover of this night”

    Sleepy smiled and shook the younger's hand “If you have further questions, go ahead”

    “I have a one” Jaehan raised his hand “People always send flowers to wish owners luck, but I saw a giant cactus by the entry, what does that mean?”

    “That was from my good friend and dongsaeng Yongguk” Sleepy said with proud “Last year I was struggling with some of my restaurants overseas, I thought I'd never open a restaurant here in Seoul, but my friends stood by me and believed in me. The cactus always grows flowers, that means perseverance, protection and love”

    “So Yongguk hyung wanted to wish you perseverance, protection and love” Jaehan said.

    “Yes” The chef nodded, and then Yongguk showed up with a tray full of cocktails.

    “Here's some drinks to work up your appetite” 

    “Are you a chef here too?” Jaehan asked Yongguk inquisitively.

    “I'm just helping out” Yongguk said “This is a cocktail made with soju and matcha, honey, mint leaves, bourbon and tonic water”

    “It sounds and it looks appealing” Geunsoo said and took a glass, Jaehan followed, but he handed the glass to Daehyun and then took another for himself.

    “It's supposed to be very fresh and summery, since summer's right at the corner” Yongguk said and everybody took a sip. Daehyun smiled and gave him a gentle hit on the arm “It's really fresh and summery, hyung!”

    “I'm glad you liked it”

    “Daehyun!!!” The said guy shook with fear as he recognized Youngjae’s voice. Everybody turned around to watch him approach them with Jongup, however, Daehyun remained still and pretended he didn't hear anything. Wrong. That just made Youngjae eager to call out his name “Daehyun!!! Daehyun!!! Daehyun!!!” Suddenly not only his friends and coworkers, but strangers stared at the editor (unlike Daehyun, Youngjae didn't feel ashamed at all)

    “Daehyun!!! Daehyun!!! Daehyun!!!” Youngjae reached the photographer and kept screaming like he was still faraway “Daehyun!!! Daehyun!!! Dae...!!!”

    “What?!” The elder gave up and turned around to face him.

    “I didn't know what you wanted to drink, so I got all the drinks from the menu” Youngjae showed him a tray full of drinks.

    “He did” Jongup said behind Youngjae, he also carried a tray with drinks.

    “None of them has grape 'cause you don't like grape” Youngjae said proudly “I pay attention to everything you say”

    “I doubt that” Daehyun sighed in defeat “I already have this” he showed Youngjae the bourbon with matcha.

    “Good, more for me” Youngjae said, upset, and grabbed a random drink from the tray he carried and had a sip “You sure you don't want this? I think it's yogurt with soju and apple”

    “No, I'm ok with this” Daehyun said, drinking his drink, and in reply Youngjae drank his hastily.

    “Hi, everybody, hope you're enjoying the evening” a young woman with long black hair and golden dress walked up to them with a tray full of appetizers “As you know I'm Yooa, the hostess, welcome to the opening of Smoke, a restaurant that specializes in grilled food”

    “To me you'll always be the stupid that didn't let me in” Youngjae said and got dead stares from the others “What? She's mean” he said and took another drink.

    “You're here, aren't you?” she said through her teeth and forced a smile “These appetizers are cherry tomato with feta cheese”

    “Let's eat before Daehyun eats everything!” Geunsoo said and everybody laughed. The appetizers already came with a toothpick, so it was easy to take them. Jaehan took a big one and was about to eat it when Sleepy stopped him.

    “Wait!” The chef snatched the appetizer from him “This isn't a cherry tomato, it's a Carolina Reaper!”

    “That's true” Yongguk said, examining the chili that looked like a cherry tomato, but it wasn't “How this ended up here?”

    “I don't know” Yooa said, nervous.

    “It's the hottest pepper in the world!!! If Jaehan had eaten it, it'd have been the end!!!” Sleepy yelled a la Gordon Ramsay.

    “Oh my God, I've heard about this Carolina Pepper, it's very hot” Geunsoo said.

    “How the it ended up among the appetizers? Is the staff blind? How can't they see the difference between a ing tomato and a chili?!”

    “I'll talk to them right now” Yooa said and rushed to the kitchen.

    “Thank you, hyung, you saved me” Jaehan said “I'd have died, I can't even eat average pepper”

    “It's really that hot?” Daehyun asked in confusion, he loved food, he didn't know where it came from though.

    “Really, not even a real man can eat that” Geunsoo said.

    Mmmh, not even a real man... Perfect Jaehan can't handle a pepper... Youngjae thought and smiled silly in his world (at this point he was drunk)

    “I'll eat it” Youngjae stole the pepper from Sleepy.

    “What are you...?”

    “It's not my first rodeo, I've eaten spicy food since a child”

    “This isn't 'spicy'” Sleepy said “It's the hottest pepper in the world”

    “Potato, tomato” Youngjae said. Yongguk, Jongup, Daehyun, everybody wanted to stop him, but deep down they wanted to watch the world burn, they wanted to watch the editor burn. Youngjae opened wide his mouth and put the pepper inside, he chomped it hard, he felt his face scrunch up, the Carolina Pepper was like a bucket of hot water on his delicate tongue, however, he was too proud to admit it, so he just did a high-pitched whine.

    “Are you alright?” Yongguk asked, worried. Youngjae squinted his eyes and pressed his lips together before doing the whine again.

    “It was delicious, I'd eat more” Youngjae said in a high pitched voice as he grabbed one of the many cocktails in his possession and drank it fast to cool his tongue... that didn’t work. He took a second drink, and then a third... it just cooled his tongue for a few seconds “It’s almost out of drinks here, I'll go for more” Youngjae passed the tray to Yongguk and ran away.

    Jongup tsked, he promised Daehyun that he wouldn’t leave the elder alone, so he gave his tray to Yongguk as well and went after the other. On his way to the bar for something cooler to calm down his tongue, Youngjae checked Naver, the search engine said that milk was good to cool off after eating spicy food.

    “Give me milk!!!” Youngjae screamed as he reached the bar.

    “We have many drinks with milk” the bartender said.

    “I want milk, just milk!!!” Youngjae gasped heavily as he wrinkled his face. The bartender didn't argue and poured him a glass of milk which Youngjae drank as fast as he could... it didn't work.

    “You're really dumb” Jongup said “You should've swallowed the pepper instead of chewing on it”

    “And now you tell me” Youngjae checked Naver for more ideas “I need a piece of bread”

    “You can find plenty at the buffet” the bartender said and Youngjae looked around.

    “I'll never have kids” Jongup said as Youngjae ran to the buffet once he got a glimpse. The younger sighed and followed him, head down as everybody stared at them and laughed.

    “This doesn’t work!!!” Youngjae said as he stuffed his mouth with bread before trying with other food; mushrooms, cheese, pepperonis, cookies..., shrimps with something red on...

    “No!” Jongup shouted out as he realized that the red thing was hot sauce, but before he could stop Youngjae, the editor already had a bite.

    “Aaaah!!! It's hot, hot!!!” Youngjae cried out and spat half shrimp on Jongup.

    “Are you serious?!” Jongup said as the food fell on his right eye.

    “I think I'm going to die!!!” Youngjae was crying literally as he saw an empty glass with ice cubes in.

    “Don’t do that, you don't know where the glass came from” in response, Youngjae grabbed the ice cubes and chewed on them.

    “Don't work” he spat the ice cubes back and eyed up, there was another buffet on the other side, there was a large ice sculpture with the letters LO on VE (LOVE) and two little birds.

    “Whatever you’re thinking, it's a bad idea” Jongup said and Youngjae grabbed a spoon and ran to the other side, once he reached the ice sculpture he stabbed the L unsuccessfully, and then he threw the spoon away and started the L.

    “People are watching” Jongup lowered his head and covered his face with a hand, he wanted the ground to swallow him up as the black-haired man the sculpture and people around laughed their asses off.