It was an average day, the sky was pretty clear, a few clouds here and there. Joshua looked out the window of the elevator, looking down at the cars passing below, then up at the few birds that flew by. The chime rang, arriving on ground floor. Walking out with the other folks, he headed straight for the exit, not looking back. 

Sighing at the few eyes he could feel on his back, he wondered why he agreed to this. Picking his car up from the valet, he pulled out his phone to text.

"Next time, I won't be coerced into covering for you again." He spoke, sending the voice message to Seungcheol. Seugncheol replied immediately, thanking him excessively and promising to pay him back and everything.

Today, because Seungcheol couldn't get out of bed, he asked Joshua to fill in for him at the shareholder gathering. It's a gathering not a meeting, as no big decisions were made, just an invitation to socialize with others. Joshua knew Seungcheol just didn't want to hear these people talk to him about taking over, so he readily agreed. It's too bad that Joshua was Seungcheol's distant cousin, they also looked quite brightly at him. Listening to them trying to learn more about him in a not so discreet way, Joshua got tired really fast. Trying to convince Joshua to convince Seungcheol to come back, he wished they knew that was a pipe dream.

Hearing the sound of a notification, he checked the screen and found a text from Wonwoo. 

'Jeonghan hyung went out to meet a client, and I remember the meeting place is close to where you are. If you can, could you pick him up?'

Agreeing without a second thought, he switched to text Jeonghan, asking where he was.

'Wonwoo told me you're nearby, I can pick you up when you're done?'

Joshua started the car and got onto the main streets while waiting for an answer. Jeonghan answered soon after, giving the address.

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After picking Jeonghan up, Jeonghan suggested they go shopping as the weather was getting colder. 

"The difference in temperature between night and day is pretty extreme, I'm worried for the kids."

"Seungcheol wouldn't mind turning on the heat throughout the night."

"But that's expensive."

"Welllllll....."

"And Jihoon wouldn't like it either."

"........"

Having nothing left to say, Joshua followed along silently. Walking into a bedding store, Jeonghan scanned comforters and blankets, looking for warmer alternatives.

Looking at the furry and fluffy blankets, Joshua pointed them out. "Won't these be nice? There's a lot of different colors and they're pretty warm."

Jeonghan touched them for a while but shook his head. "This type would collect dirty easy and is quite hard to clean. Haven't you seen it before/ The fur will all curl in on it's self and look all ugly."

Joshua was speechless. "...Huh? Oh, uh, yea."

"Let's find something else."

Looking at the different descriptions, Jeonghan finally decided on down blankets. They were neither heavy nor light, so the kids wouldn't feel like kicking it off.

"There isn't enough of them, so let's order them and pick them up at a later date."

With that, the blanket search ended. Since it was still afternoon, Joshua suggestion something he knew more about.

"How about we go for a break? Let's go have some pastries and tea."

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Sat in a little cafe, Jeonghan told Joshua to choose everything. "You know best about these things. I'll leave it to you."

Looking at the menu, there was an assortment of afternoon tea sets, Joshua quickly scanned through. This was also an opportunity to do market research so he looked carefully. 

"Hm, there's cupcakes, scones, tea sandwiches and tarts, quite the variety. Are you hungry?"

"No, not really."

"Then let's try these eclairs and these cream scones. Since we're going to eat sweets, let's go with simple black tea, Earl Grey."

"Whatever you say." Just looking at the menu, Jeonghan couldn't tell which was a scone and which was a cake, all their names were quite bizarre. Even though Joshua said Earl Grey, it was called something else in this little shop.

"Why do they use such fancy names?" Jeonghan asked.

Joshua paused as if thinking, but quickly shrugged. "Preference. Or maybe a style. I probably learned the reason why, but I forgot it all. I'm all for straightforward names."

"What's the weirdest name you've heard of?"

"It's definitely 'Swamp Water'. It was green in color too, so it was quite disturbing. It was just a tropical fruit tea, why did it have such a name...."

They laughed at the funny names, enjoying their time. They really shouldn't be questioning a cafe while eating in it, but they were having too much fun.  

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btw, I really drank 'Swamp Water' (the tea) before. It didn't taste tropical. It was really green. Kinda murky too.