Jongdae had the dream last night for the first time in several weeks. As usual, it’s left him unsettled and slightly on edge, twitchy at even the most innocent noises. You’d think that after three years, Jongdae would be used to it, but somehow it never gets any less awful for the repetition, dogging him with a tenacity that would be admirable if it weren’t so horrifying. He tries very hard not to think about it, and most of the time he is successful, but it’s always harder the day after he’s dreamed.

It’s mid-afternoon, and he really should have come down from it by now. He knows he’s safe here, in the familiar little café with its pale brick walls wreathed in strings of fairy lights, the shelves with little packets of coffee beans, green teas and ceramic tea sets for sale. There’s no danger here, no need for hypervigilance. He’s not even alone; the customer sitting on a bar stool at the wooden bar along the front window is a regular he knows well, and he can hear Baekhyun singing along to the afternoon café music mix as his best friend wipes tables in the back area, flawlessly improvising harmonies around a jazz piano refrain. Chanyeol is back there too, helping to clear up from the lunch rush and start to prepare for the evening service.

Jongdae knows there’s no need for the lingering stress that makes his fingers just a little clumsier than they should be, tightens his neck until his head aches, and makes his eyes keep on darting about as if some unknown danger might lurk in the corners of the peaceful little café, but these things have never listened to logic. So when the crash comes, it startles him far more than it should. His heart stutters, and so does his hand, causing the latte fern he’s pouring to sprout an unexpected frond. He finishes the pour and sets the milk jug down on the marble counter, grips the edge hard enough that it digs into his palms. His heart is racing fast enough that he feels breathless and a little lightheaded, and he closes his eyes and hangs his head, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. It’s only Chanyeol dropping something again. Several things, by the sound of it.

His heartbeat slows back towards normal, leaving him shaky with the fading adrenaline rush. He opens his eyes again and sets the latte cup carefully on its saucer, using both hands. The last thing they need is something else breaking.

Baekhyun appears around the counter, shaking the cuffs of his oversized black shirt up his arms to free his fingers and grab the free-standing dustpan and brush.

“It wasn’t me,” he says immediately when Jongdae glances at him, eyes curving in the impish grin Jongdae knows and loves so well. Jongdae laughs, relieved when it comes out sounding normal.

“How bad is it?” he asks. He can’t see over the espresso machine into the back area.

“On the Chanyeol disaster scale? I’d say a six,” Baekhyun says cheerfully. “We lost two plates and three glasses, but at least they were empty this time.” He raises his voice a little. “How many does that make this month, Chanyeol?”

“I’ve lost count,” Chanyeol’s deep voice says dejectedly. Jongdae adds a teaspoon and a miniature flower-shaped yakgwa cookie to his customer’s latte. The airtight container is nearly empty, and he adds a note to his mental prep list to make another batch tomorrow morning as he takes the latte to the man at the front bar.

“Sorry for the noise, Jeongsu-ssi.” The cup rattles alarmingly on the saucer as he extends his arm to set it down, and Jeongsu hurriedly puts out both hands to take it from him, sending him a quick glance. Embarrassed, Jongdae takes a step back and gives him an apologetic smile, hiding his hands behind his back.

“It’s fine,” Jeongsu tells him, setting the drink safely down on the wooden bar. “I’m just glad it wasn’t my coffee that bit the dust this time.”

Jongdae hides a wince. Most of their regulars have witnessed Chanyeol dropping things or knocking things over more times than Jongdae cares to think about.

He leaves Jeongsu to his coffee and heads past the three booths opposite the counter to survey the damage. Café Amaranth is a tiny place, narrow where the counter takes up half the width of the room, but opening out into a cosy back area where two coffee tables are surrounded by low, squishy couches. A tall wooden bookshelf holds Jongdae’s collection of manga from his teenage years, well-thumbed through by the customers, and a bunch of old cookbooks that have been around since long before Jongdae worked here. The bottom shelf is home to a row of thick medical textbooks, less popular than the manga and cookbooks, but still sometimes paged through out of curiosity. Jongdae has stopped feeling guilty when he looks at them. Mostly.

At the sound of his approach, Chanyeol looks up apologetically. He recently dyed his hair an unlikely shade of lilac on a dare from Baekhyun, and paired with his delicate features and sticky-out ears, it makes him look like an overgrown flower fairy.

“Sorry, Jongdae,” he says, stacking the larger chunks of broken plate on a tray, while Baekhyun performs strange bodily contortions with the long-handled brush to get the shards of glass that have scattered under the tables because he can’t be bothered to move the chairs. “I had everything stacked up on the table, it should have been perfectly safe, but then I bumped into the table and the whole lot just went over.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jongdae says as he crouches down to help stack up the broken plates. Chanyeol is always so very sorry about his clumsiness that Jongdae doesn’t have the heart to make him feel any worse about it. “It was an accident.”

Baekhyun, however, has no such qualms. “It’s all because you’re so pointlessly tall,” he says, tapping the dustpan with his foot to knock the glass further inside. “Can’t you learn to control your limbs?”

“Being tall is not pointless,” Chanyeol says indignantly. “If it’s so pointless, you can use the stepladder to get the cans from the top shelf next time instead of asking me to get them for you.”

Baekhyun looks outraged. “That thing is dangerous! I could fall off and hit my head on the floor and die, and then you’d be sorry.”

“I would celebrate. I’d invite everyone over and we’d hold a tribal dance around your corpse nnngh!” Baekhyun has dropped the dustpan and brush to wrap a pointy-elbowed arm around Chanyeol’s neck with all the strength of an unexpected hapkido black belt and knuckle his head, telling him to take it back or he’ll really be sorry!

“Guys, we have a customer,” Jongdae reminds them.

“It’s only Jeongsu, he doesn’t mind,” Baekhyun says, voice deliberately carrying, and Jeongsu’s soft laugh issues from the front of the shop.

“Jeongsu-ssi, I’m being ruthlessly tortured over here and all you can do is laugh?" Chanyeol wails.

Jongdae picks up the tray full of broken plate pieces and carries it back around the long counter, kicking through the swing door into the narrow kitchen and tipping the broken plates into the bin.

“Chanyeol again?” Kyungsoo asks from the prep bench.

“No prizes for getting that right,” Jongdae replies, reaching for the clipboard hanging on the wall and scrawling the losses on the breakage sheet. Large plates, 2; smoothie glasses, 3. He sighs.

“You need to start charging him for what he breaks,” Kyungsoo says, rapidly chopping zucchini without looking up. “He probably costs you half what you pay him in wages.”

“It’s not that bad.” Besides, Chanyeol needs the money. Students always need money, especially media arts grad students trying to break into the ridiculously competitive producing industry.

“You’re too soft on those two.” Now Kyungsoo looks up. “You let them break stuff and eat for free and give drinks on the house to people they like, and then you look all stressed out at the end of every month when you’re doing the reports, like it’s a surprise we’re barely breaking even.”

“That’s because reports are incredibly boring and I hate doing them,” Jongdae says, wishing Kyungsoo didn’t notice things like this. “Not because of their contents. We’re surviving. I’ve never not been able to pay you guys, have I?”

“No,” Kyungsoo admits. “But do you pay yourself?”

“Sure,” Jongdae says, focusing on the clipboard in his hands to avoid meeting Kyungsoo’s gaze. It’s not really a lie. He does pay himself; it’s just not all that often. It’s not like Jongdae needs a lot of money anyway.

He hangs the clipboard back on its hook and goes over to the prep bench to peer over Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “What are you making?”

“Hobak mandu,” Kyungsoo says. Jongdae hooks his chin over Kyungsoo’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around his waist and letting the chef’s sturdier body take his weight. Kyungsoo, used to the way Jongdae goes clingy when he gets tired, just keeps prepping. They serve a single special at lunch and dinner, rather than having a set menu. The café is too small to make a full menu feasible, and this way he and Kyungsoo get to be more creative with their daily specials. It seems to work for them, and Amaranth attracts a niche market of customers who enjoy the fresh simplicity of their temple-inspired food.

“Breaking news,” Baekhyun announces, kicking through the swing door with a bang, “and I don’t mean the latest Chanyeol catastrophe.” He tips the contents of the glass-filled dustpan into the bin with a cascading crash and turns to Jongdae and Kyungsoo, brandishing the long-handled brush enthusiastically. “There’s a couple of guys moving stuff into the empty shop across the road.”

Jongdae takes his chin off Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “Really? That shop’s been empty for the better part of a year.”

“I guess not for much longer,” Baekhyun says.

Jongdae follows Baekhyun back into the café and they go to the front window to peer across the street. Jeongsu has gone, leaving his empty cup sitting in its saucer on the edge of the bar, spoon tidily tucked beside the cup as always.

Sure enough, the ‘For Sale’ sign in the glass front window that has been there for so long Jongdae had stopped really seeing it has vanished. There’s a small truck parked outside the shop in the loading zone, and the silhouettes of the two guys Baekhyun had mentioned can be vaguely seen through the window, moving around inside.

“I wonder what they’re going to do,” Baekhyun says.

The empty shop had been a pizza place before. Amaranth has done better since they closed down, because they’d caught some of the local customers now that they’re the only café in the block. Jongdae hopes it’s not another café. He doesn’t need any more competition. Keeping the business afloat is hard enough as it is.

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

Jongdae checks and restocks the drinks fridge for the evening while Baekhyun and Chanyeol do the dishes in the kitchen and Kyungsoo finishes his prep. They get busy right around six, so instead of clocking off like he does when it’s quiet, Jongdae stays to help, alternating between sous-chefing for Kyungsoo and busing tables while Baekhyun expertly manages the floor. Things start to quiet down again at eight thirty, coinciding with Jongin turning up to do the dishes until close.

With Jongin there to help, Jongdae is free to start his daily task of taking the laundry over to the laundromat next door. He hoists the laundry bag full of the day’s used aprons, chef’s caps, tea towels and dishcloths over his shoulder, heading out the back door into the narrow alley behind the row of shops rather than lugging it through the front where people are still eating. Yixing never minds Jongdae coming in the back way. Outside it’s nearly dark, but still warm, the air thick and velvety on his skin, heralding the start of the stifling summer humidity that will lower down over Seoul for the next couple of months.

A couple of steps up the alley take him to the screen door of the laundromat, and he pushes through into the permanent scent of detergent and fabric softener, the noise of the machines and dryers a constant background rumble. Yixing looks up from where he’s folding clothes on the sturdy counter and gives Jongdae a sleepy smile.

“Hi, hyung,” Jongdae says, hauling his bag over to the nearest free machine. He and Yixing usually see each other at least twice a day, because there’s always the café’s laundry to wash in the evenings, and Yixing comes into Amaranth for coffee in the mornings before he opens. Jongdae shoves everything into the machine and sets it going, then hops up onto the high counter to sit beside Yixing’s neatly folded piles of laundry, head brushing the hems of the pressed shirts hanging from the metal bar above. His back and feet are aching, and he sighs with relief as he slumps back against the wall. He’s used to being on his feet all day, but it still gets tiring.

Yixing is playing mellow dream pop on his ancient stereo, and the warm air and white noise from the machines wraps around Jongdae like a blanket, and the tension in his shoulders slowly starts to ease. There are no expectations of him here; nobody needs him to be in charge, make decisions, solve problems and make sure everything’s running smoothly, and the silence between him and Yixing is never anything but comfortable. The laundromat is like a pocket universe of its own, always the same within the world that’s constantly changing around it.

Yixing’s eyes are half-closed as he sorts his client’s laundry into neat piles of child-sized school uniforms, jeans and sweaters, football gear. Jongdae almost yawns just looking at him. Yixing works long hours, only employing one first-year student from Hong Kong who does a couple of shifts a week, but it’s been a long day for Jongdae too, up at four thirty to start prepping the breakfast menu’s rice, soup and side dishes, ready to open at six. His days are always long, but he doesn’t really consider the café as work. It’s just life.

“Did you know someone’s bought the old pizza place across the road?” he asks Yixing.

Yixing nods. “Yukhei told me. He knows one of the guys who’re opening it. They’re both in the Chinese Society at Hongik, but the guy Yukhei knows is a grad student.”

“He’s Chinese, then?” Jongdae asks.

Yixing nods. "Mainland."

“Did Yukhei say what they’re doing?”

“A café,” Yixing says. He opens his eyes properly for the first time that evening to look at Jongdae, and Jongdae tries to hide the way his heart sinks at the news. He nods and tries to think of something to say that won’t sound freaked out, but it takes him too long, and Yixing reaches over to pat his knee.

“It’ll be okay,” he says.

Jongdae smiles at him. “Yeah, I know,” he says, and does his best to believe it.

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

It’s well past eleven, too late to be accepting a phone call when he has to be up at four thirty, and Jongdae is exhausted. But the phone screen informs him that it’s his older brother calling, so Jongdae releases a sigh and slides his thumb across to accept the call.

“Hi, hyung.”

“Mother wanted me to remind you that it’s grandmother’s gijesa next weekend,” his brother says.

“I know,” Jongdae says. He’s already asked Kyungsoo to cover his shift while he goes home for the memorial ceremony. “You’re picking me up on Saturday morning. I don’t know why she always thinks I’m not going to show up.”

“Probably because unless it’s a ceremonial day, getting you out of that café is like pulling teeth.”

Jongdae bites his lip, worrying at a flake of dry skin. “I do always come for those, though.”

“I know, kiddo, but you know what mother is like. How’s the café going?”

“Fine. How’s lawyering?”

“Busy. We have a big corporate client at the moment. I didn’t get off work until after nine.” His brother sighs. “That’s what it’s like when you have a real job.”

Jongdae makes a non-committal noise, rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. His brother has always told things how he sees it. Jongdae's used to it enough that it only pricks a little bit.

Jongdeok yawns. “Damn, I’m tired.”

“Go to sleep, hyung. I’ll see you on Saturday,” Jongdae says.

His brother ends the call, and Jongdae lies awake for far longer than he’d like after that, staring up at the dark ceiling while dread crawls up and down his arms and legs, the light brush of spider’s legs in the dark.

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

The new café across the road takes shape. Jongdae tries not to be too obvious about staring out the front window as Yukhei’s senior Lu Han, and the other man, still nameless, prepare the place for opening, but Baekhyun unashamedly lingers every time he clears the front bar.

“There’s a girl now,” he says, pausing in his spray-and-wiping to lean on the bar and stare.

“Just go and talk to them, if they’re so interesting,” Jongdae says, flicking his bangs out of his eyes as he sweeps under the booth tables. It’s mid-afternoon, between the end of people’s lunch breaks and the after-school student crowd coming in for drinks and snacks, and the café is empty for the moment.

“But it’s so much more interesting to imagine what they’re like,” Baekhyun says. “They could be secret agents or in the mafia, and the café is a front for all their shady business. The girl looks super mysterious.”

“How is she mysterious?” Chanyeol passes Jongdae to join Baekhyun at the front window. “Oh, nice hair.”

“Nice legs,” Baekhyun says. Jongdae can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Guys,” Jongdae says, exasperated. “Stop ogling the competition and get on setup or you’ll be freaking out when the rush starts.”

“Come on, Jongdae, you can pretend you’re not interested as much as you want but you can’t fool me,” Baekhyun says, leaving his position by the window to seize Jongdae’s arm and drag him over. “They’re putting up their sign, look.”

Reluctantly, Jongdae looks. He sees the girl in question, dressed for the summer heat in a crop top and tiny denim shorts that show off a pair of lean, tanned legs, and her wavy black hair reaches all the way to her waist. Baekhyun and Chanyeol are right, he supposes; she does have nice hair and nice legs.

What really catches his attention, though, are the two men up on stepladders, fixing their signboard above the window with power drills while the girl calls up instructions, probably on whether it’s level. One has feathery blonde hair and is lanky in build, wearing baggy basketball shorts and an equally baggy Hongik University hoodie. The other is shorter and sturdier, and is wearing a sleeveless black gym shirt that reveals a pair of impressively muscled arms. Jongdae can see his biceps flexing even from across the street as the man braces the sign with one arm and drills into the wall with the other.

“Oh my God, Jongdae is staring.” Baekhyun bumps his shoulder, sounding delighted. “She’s pretty hot, right? You should go talk to her.”

“I am not staring,” Jongdae says, tearing his eyes away. “And I don’t consort with the enemy.”

“Your ears are going red!” Baekhyun crows, reaching out to flick them. Jongdae slaps his hand away. “Go on, don’t be grumpy just because they’re opening in our block. I’m sure they won’t overlap with our cuisine anyway, vegetarian temple-fusion isn’t exactly common.”

“I’m not grumpy about it,” Jongdae huffs, “and I’ve told you a thousand times, Baekhyun, I’m not interested in dating right now.”

“Right now and for the last, like, million years,” Baekhyun says, pouting. “You’re so closed-up and boring these days, Jongdae. I don’t get why you won’t have fun anymore.”

That hurt quite a lot more than Jongdae would have expected it to. He laughs to hide it. “I have fun here, with you guys,” he says, but he's failed somehow or other, because Baekhyun's eyes widen, dismay chasing the pout from his face. Jongdae's stomach clenches. He doesn't want to get into this.

“Black Cat Nero,” Chanyeol reads out, and both of their eyes go back to the window. The gleaming new sign is now fixed in place, the name written in a playful font on a pale pink background with a motif of pawprints, and the two men are down from their stepladders and standing on either side of the girl in the street, looking up to admire their work.

“Like the old song?” Baekhyun wonders, draping his entire upper body over the bar to peer closer.

“Maybe it’s a cat café!” Chanyeol sounds way too excited about this idea.

The guy with the arms crouches to pack his tools into a case. His head is lowered, so Jongdae can’t see his face. His short black hair hangs over his forehead in loose, soft-looking curls.

Jongdae should not be noticing things like this. He grabs a fistful of the back of Baekhyun’s shirt and hauls him off the bar, shoving the spray bottle and rag back his hands.

“Work, minions!” he says, then yells indignantly as Baekhyun spritzes his shirt. He grabs the other bottle from a nearby table and squirts back in revenge, and the ensuing chase all around the café ends up with both of them lightly coated in eucalyptus-scented cleaning solution. Then Baekhyun starts to his shirt, announcing that he might as well use it as a rag now that it’s covered in cleaning solution, and Jongdae knows him well enough to know that this is no idle threat and they’re about to have a half- Baekhyun swanning around with the mop. Chanyeol, knowing Baekhyun at least as well as Jongdae does, grabs Baekhyun before he gets past the fourth button, tosses him over his shoulder like a rag doll, and continues sweeping the floor, ignoring Baekhyun’s screeches and beating fists until Baekhyun is bright red in the face and begging for mercy.

All in all, just another day at Café Amaranth.

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

The small city of Daejeon, and his family home, is a two-hour drive south. Jongdae doesn’t have a car, KTX is expensive, and the provincial buses are truly terrible, so he accepts his brother’s offers of a ride, and does his best to keep up a cheerful chatter and not let the atmosphere in the car grow too awkward. His brother has just proposed to his girlfriend—fiancée, now.

“Congratulations,” Jongdae says. “I’m really happy for you, hyung.”

His brother’s smile is broad and bright. His BMW drives smooth and quiet, and smells of new car and expensive cologne. Jongdae pulls at the seatbelt where it keeps rubbing his neck. In the face of his brother's vibrancy he feels pale, brittle; a dried flower no match for a fresh bloom.

“Nobody on the horizon for you?” asks his brother.

“No,” Jongdae says. “The café takes up all my time.”

“I managed, and I’m sure I put in more hours than you,” Jongdeok says. Jongdae doesn’t bother challenging this. He's long since learned to pick his battles. It's less stressful to just let his brother have his way.

They reach their parents’ home mid-afternoon, an elegant, well-kept house in a quiet suburb, with both a velvety front lawn and back garden. Their mother comes to the door to greet them. Jongdae smells the food preparations for the ritual ceremony permeating from the kitchen. His mother and aunt will have been preparing all day. It isn’t as hot here as it was in Seoul, but the air-conditioning is always turned up too high, and their mother hurries them inside so that the cool doesn’t escape.

Jongdae and his brother go into the pristine lounge. Their mother serves them ginseng tea, then disappears back into the kitchen. The atmosphere is slightly strained, the immaculate chill of their childhood home stealing the thread of the cheerful conversation they’d kept up in the car.

Jongdae is aware he’s getting tense, anxiety knotting his stomach and wrapping cold fingers around his ribs, and his head begins to ache. Their father hasn’t made an appearance yet, no doubt working in his home office.

After a few more minutes of painfully silent tea-sipping, Jongdeok takes a business call. He stands up to face the window, gesturing with one hand as he talks in a lowered voice about lawyer things. It might as well be another language for all Jongdae understands of it. He puts his half-full teacup down and stands up, walking into the kitchen where his mother and aunt are cooking.

“I’ll help,” he says, looking around the kitchen, at the marble counters crammed with ingredients and the stove-top with a different soup on every burner. Preparing the ritual table, with all its different kinds of dishes, is a lengthy and laborious job. He goes over to the sink to wash his hands.

“No, Jongdae, this task is for the women of the family to do,” his mother says. “You know that.”

Jongdae focuses on rubbing soap over his hands. “I’m sure grandmother won’t mind.” He dries his hands and goes over to the bracken, bellflower and spinach for the three-coloured vegetables. “I’ll prepare these.”

His mother sighs. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“This is my job,” Jongdae says mildly, not looking up.

“I’ve never understood why you like being in the kitchen so much,” his mother says, but doesn’t take it any further. Jongdae keeps preparing the vegetables, and the sensation of having too-tight bands wrapped around his head and ribs slowly starts to ease. His aunt is folding songpyeon with her fingers. She sends Jongdae a small smile from the corner of .

✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁

Jongdae gets interested in culinary arts when he’s fifteen and in his first year of high school. He’s been sent to Seoul to attend the same academic high school as his brother, who has just graduated among the top 10 percent. No small feat, when the school is one of the best in the country, boasting a record number of graduates getting into SNU, Sungkyunkwan and KAIST.

All students at his school are “strongly encouraged” to take extracurriculars, because the big universities have started paying more attention to these lately and pure academics aren’t such a guarantee as they used to be. Jongdae has always liked helping in the kitchen—at least when his aunt or the ahjumma who cooks for them lets him—so he joins the cooking club, where he finds that nearly every other member is a girl. Jongdae doesn’t mind that; he’s always gotten on well with girls, but the club is run by a sweet-faced, curly-haired boy in third year, and Jongdae quickly finds himself admiring Kim Ryeowook in a way that makes him want to hide, blushing scarlet and hanging his head every time Ryeowook gives him an approving glance or a word of praise.

"You're different from the others," Ryeowook says to him one day. "It's like you have an intuitive understanding for how tastes combine. You can sense when something could work better even when the recipe says differently."

Jongdae blushes, brushing his fringe aside as he forces himself to meet Ryeowook's eyes. "It just makes sense to me. It's fun to try out ways things can taste better."

"I have a friend in college who's like that too," Ryeowook says. He smiles. "You should meet him."

Jongdae is still confused about the fact that Ryeowook has even noticed him, but he finds himself agreeing to meet Ryeowook’s friend Donghae, who is in culinary school. Donghae and his classmate Hyukjae let him do his homework in their tiny single-roomed apartment above Café Amaranth, where they both work, and sometimes they let him help out in the café kitchen. There, Jongdae falls in love with discovering all the ways tastes can transform beneath his fingertips, and with the way people smile when they eat something he's made.

"I really like cooking," Jongdae tells his grandmother one day, as they walk slowly around the public rose gardens near the family home. He's on study leave for the month leading up to the national university entrance exams, and is studying so hard that he's had a headache for three weeks straight. There isn't anyone else in his life right now that Jongdae would agree to take a break and get some fresh air for. "I know it's stupid, but sometimes I wish I could do it for real. Be a chef, I mean, like Donghae-hyung and Hyukjae-hyung are going to be."

“What makes you think you can't?" his grandmother asks.

Jongdae is confused by the question. He rubs his forehead.

"It's not law or medicine," he says, after a slight pause.

"The true measure of success in life is happiness," his grandmother says gently. "Your happiness, grandson."

Jongdae doesn't know how to reply to that.

His grandmother dies