The faint knock on his front door made Kris stir awake in his sleep. He didn’t get out of his bed right away, straining his ears instead just in case he had misheard in his sleep-clouded state but there was certainly someone at the front door when he heard another knock knock knock but this time, Kris was surprised by the voice calling his name that followed right immediately after.

He stifled a yawn as he untangled himself from the blankets to jump straight out of the bed. He then bolted out of his bedroom to open the door. It was expectedly freezing outside—as winter had come and no matter how confused he might be right now, he didn’t want to keep Junmyeon, his neighbour, waiting at his front door.

“Hey,”

The way Junmyeon’s eyes slowly brightened upon seeing him didn’t go unnoticed and Kris was secretly thankful for the Heavens letting him see such a beautiful sight as soon as he woke up. If only he could see it every morning… then he looked down to his exposed, bare legs. He instantly felt sorry for Junmyeon to see him like this—truly the sight no one expected to see in the morning, wasn’t it?

And if Junmyeon noticed—which, Kris was dead sure that he did—how disorganized he looked right now, with ash blond hair sticking out in every direction and a visible wet stain of drool on the collar of his white t-shirt, then the shorter male probably chose to keep the details he had observed to himself but Kris didn’t miss the amused smile he gave when he managed to croak out,

“Hey, Junmyeon, uh, please come in,”

Once inside, Kris couldn’t stop fidgeting around to make sure that the heater was working just fine, to make sure that there was no single thing out of order in the living room. When everything was in the right place and the room was a lot warmer than it was outside, he turned around to see Junmyeon standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room.

“Do you need your pan back, Junmyeon?”

Junmyeon was silent for a few moments and it was when Kris becomes aware of the shorter male’s appearance now that he was definitely more awake than earlier. His neighbour was clad in black, slim fit jeans and the sweater, the sweater looked familiar and Kris found himself wondering when Junmyeon started wearing oversized sweaters.

The more he observed, the more familiar the grey wool sweater became and Kris thought it suspiciously looked like the one he owned, his favourite. He had only been inside Junmyeon’s apartment several times and the visit were always brief, no chance of leaving his clothes behind when all he did was borrowing a pan or pot, after all.

Or maybe he was still not awake yet, he thought to himself as he waited for his neighbour to answer.

“Uhm,” Junmyeon bit his lip and looked away as if contemplating on how to break the news to Kris.

Meanwhile Kris was trying to blink the sleep away from his eyes, just in case, but the grey sweater was still there, enveloping Junmyeon’s small figure and made him look even smaller and more…more adorable, he decided. Then again, his neighbour always looked handsome and adorable in anything he wore but Kris had grown accustomed to seeing Junmyeon in white lab coat that he was actually in awe seeing the smaller male looked so appealing out of it.

“I can’t find my clothes,”

Kris raised an eyebrow at that. He regarded the now red Junmyeon with a confused smile.

“I wonder if they’re here?” the smaller male said carefully, “I mean, can you help me look for them? In case they get mixed up with yours,”

He stared dumbly at Junmyeon for quite a while until he remembered the laundry basket he picked from their connected balconies yesterday. Then he ran towards the laundry room after telling his neighbour to wait, regretting that he didn’t tell the shorter male to sit himself down on the couch sooner but Junmyeon brushed it off, using an excuse of being in a hurry. Kris knew he was just trying not to make him feel bad about it.

The laundry room was dry and clean, the red basket nowhere in sight. Where had he put the thing? He hated himself for being so forgetful but he didn’t give up easily. He went to his bedroom but still no sign of the damned red basket. He opened the door to his closet but there was still no flash of red. He stayed a bit longer inside to look for his favourite sweater but to no avail.

Ah, so it really is my sweater, he said inwardly, the thought of Junmyeon wearing his favourite sweater making him feel all giddy inside. He heaved a sigh and left his room to see Junmyeon’s thankfully seated on his couch. He hoped the shorter male didn’t notice how worn-out it had gotten. He approached the smaller male while rubbing the back of his neck anxiously,

“Do you mind waiting a bit longer? I can’t find it anywhere but I think I still have to check the—”

“Kris,” Junmyeon called softly, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence.

“That’s me,” he replied weakly to which Junmyeon rolled his eyes despite the smile on his face.

His smile turned shy when he asked, “Would you let me wear this just for today?”

Kris was lost for a moment before he finally realized what was Junmyeon referring to by this. So, his neighbour was actually aware that he was wearing his wool sweater and that was probably why he came to him in the first place to see if their clothes really got mixed up. But that would mean Junmyeon is pretty observant to the size of his clothes…

He tried not to indulge himself into thinking of something that was more likely wouldn’t happen as he nodded quickly over his neighbour’s request, all while giving him a cool smile. “Sure,”

“You’re the best!”

Kris thought there was nothing that made him happier than seeing the smile lit up Junmyeon’s whole face as the shorter male practically skipped towards the door with him following closely behind. He was going to lend him the sweater anyway—and really, Junmyeon didn’t even need to ask.

“Thanks, Kris.” Junmyeon beamed as he slips into his boots.

That was when Kris noticed the knit-socks the shorter male was wearing.

It seemed like his neighbour was becoming aware of the silence stretching over them because he paused tying his boots to quickly look up at Kris with a nervous smile, “Would you let me—”

Kris let out a laugh before Junmyeon could finish whatever it was he was going to ask of him which he already knew was about the knit socks. He nodded because of course, there was absolutely no reason for him not to let Junmyeon wear them. It wasn’t like he didn’t have tons of sweaters and knit socks in his closet that he could wear to classes and work today.

And later, after Junmyeon left and Kris had gone to brush his teeth and getting dressed, he looked for the red laundry basket one more time and found it in the kitchen—how it somehow ended up there was beyond him.

---

The coffee house was bustling with activities and stayed that way for the rest of business hours that Kris had no time to get his assignments done. Being in the third year of college while juggling two jobs at once makes him physically and emotionally drained.

His laptop was lying forgotten in the staff room and it was still in the exact same position on the table when he went back to retrieve it as soon as his shift ended. It had undoubtedly run out of battery and Kris lost every ounce of will to resume working on his assignments. Now, let’s just hope he didn’t forget to save the last progress he made.

“Flip the sign,”

Sehun was struggling to bring an entire bag of coffee beans into the room when Kris looked up.

“Where’s the Hyung?”

He had long given up in trying to get the younger boy to call him Hyung. He still did it sometimes just to annoy the hell out of him. He thought Sehun deserved it for being a stubborn brat. He’s Chinese so the Korean formalities doesn’t really apply to him and he knew the younger boy was taking an advantage of that. He never had a problem with it. In fact, he wasn’t so fond of the idea of being reminded that he’s old.

“Just flip the ing sign, Hyung,” Sehun rolled his eyes at him.

“Now, Sehun, that’s about enough use of the f word for the day,” Minseok entered the staff room with another bean bag which Sehun hurriedly walked over to help carrying it. “You and your dirty mouth,”

“Mm,” Sehun smiled seductively at the oldest of them all. “Would you clean it? Please?”

Kris watched the exchange in disgust. The older man never really brought up the topic about relationship (if he had someone else to share something about that then Kris was perfectly fine with it) but he was surprised when one day, a few days after he started working (which was two years ago, by the way) in the coffee house, Minseok introduced Sehun to him. He didn’t know what made Minseok fell for the brat but seeing as the older man had a lot of faith in him, no matter how bratty he was, then Kris just had to approve of the relationship.

It wasn’t like he had the right to tell Minseok who he should or shouldn’t date.

“Gross.” He muttered, leaving the room in a hurry before he witnessed things he’d rather not see.

It was expectedly dark outside as the night had fallen and the coffee house was empty, save for one person standing in front of the register. Kris promptly ran towards the register to tell that they were closing up but then again, he hadn’t flipped the sign yet so he couldn’t really blame the person. His steps halted when he saw the person was Junmyeon, his neighbour.

“Hey,” Junmyeon greeted him with his usual soft, angelic smile.

The shorter man was still in his lab coat and Kris noticed how tired he looked, even under those thick-framed glasses his forming eyebags were visible. It could rival the ones under his own eyes and Kris was suddenly grateful that it was just the two of them at the moment (and it seemed like they always met when Kris wasn’t really in his best looks. It would be nice if Junmyeon saw him when he didn’t look like he lost two days of sleep).

“Rough day in the lab?” Kris walked the remaining distance to the register and regarded Junmyeon with a casual, boyish (that Sehun often said he had) smile.

“You could say so,” Junmyeon replied with a shrug and a grin.

“What did Chanyeol do?” Kris asked with genuine interest. He would never get bored of hearing Junmyeon talk because it was honestly the most fascinating thing ever.

“Oh, it was Baekhyun this time,”

As Junmyeon began to tell him how his day became hectic and the lab got lively because Baekhyun almost turned the entire building down to ashes but for once, Chanyeol saved the day and Junmyeon made a promise to keep the dangerous, flammable substances out of the short man’s reach though he had access to them, he would have to let their professor or Junmyeon know first-hand.

“That’s dangerous,” Kris frowned.

He didn’t realize he was reaching out and his palm was hovering awkwardly over Junmyeon’s shoulder. It was when Kris noticed the shorter male was still wearing his sweater beneath the coat. He tried to supress the grin threatening to split up his face because his sweater looked oversized on Junmyeon and it was very cute but his neighbour didn’t seem to notice how cute he looked at all.

“Are you sure you’re okay, though?” he asked and finally decided to give Junmyeon’s shoulder a sympathetic pat.

He caught Junmyeon giving his palm a side-glance before grinning up at him and nodded. “Yep,”

The way Junmyeon told the story was like it happened daily that he wasn’t even worried anymore—he sounded almost fond, too—and he was just dead tired and wanted to have a long-awaited rest at home. Kris knew how hard it could be to manage a place and he found himself wondering if Minseok felt the same way about him as Junmyeon felt about his friends. Nope, he was certain, though, that he was being composed most of the time and it was Sehun who always caused chaos in the coffee house.

“I hate to interrupt but we’re closing up,”

Kris rolled his eyes without turning to see who it was. Sehun stood behind him, looking all ready to go home and it reminded him that he was still wearing his apron and there was an actual costumer waiting to be served in front of him and how could he literally forget that he was at work though it was past work hour but still—

“Can I have the cookies, then?”

When his sight re-focused, Junmyeon was smiling (it seemed like he didn’t stop smiling for th