Taemin was sitting on his desk chair, nervously watching as the printer jotted out the pieces of paper with Luna’s picture on it. He had kept the poster simple, with a picture of her and a general description, and his contact info in case anyone saw her.

He let out a loud breath as his phone buzzed in his hand. Jonghyun and Jinki had arrived at his apartment complex, and he quickly typed for them to wait for him outside—he’d be out in a minute. He just needed the printer to finish its task.

When finally, the last piece of paper came out and the machine went silent, he grabbed the pile as well as a stapler and ran outside his apartment, making sure he was locking the door correctly as the new lock was a bit different from what he was used to.

He rushed down the stairs and couldn’t refrain from smiling when he saw his two friends on the other side of the building door. He was so lucky to have them around. Showing up on a weeknight on such short notice was enough proof.

Taemin quickly greeted them and handed them a stack of paper, and he noticed Jinki looking at Luna’s picture with a frown—he had never seen his cat in person. They started to walk around the neighborhood, Taemin looking around himself at the ground in the hopes of spotting her.

“So, what happened exactly?” Jonghyun asked as he stapled a piece of paper on a street pole.

“Someone broke into my apartment,” Taemin answered with a shrug.

“Oh wow,” Jinki muttered. “What did you do? Why didn’t you call us?” he added.

“I didn’t even know it happened until hours later,” Taemin said quickly. “I was… at Minho’s,” he added, feeling his cheeks getting slightly hot.

Jonghyun stopped walking suddenly and turned towards Taemin, who almost tripped on him. He grabbed his friend’s arms to keep his balance, and was confused when Jonghyun didn’t try and help him.

“What?” Taemin asked when he finally found his balance again.

“What happened?” Jonghyun asked with a huge grin on his face. “You never told us how your date went.”

“I guess it went well if he was at his place,” Jinki chimed in, the same smile plastered on his lips, and he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“We weren’t doing that , Jinki,” Taemin said quickly as he rolled his eyes. “It went…” he continued, not too sure of what to say. Memories of his breakdown in front of the pottery shop came back to him, making his heart crazy, and in a split second, he decided that he didn’t want to live through that again. “It went well. It could go somewhere.”

“So what, are you boyfriends now?” Jonghyun asked expectedly.

Taemin pursed his lips and busied himself by stapling another paper to a pole.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he finally answered in a breath.

“What are you, then?” Jinki asked.

“I don’t know… I guess we’re in that weird phase where we know we like each other but we aren’t official?”

“Have you slept together, though?” Jonghyun kept on.

“No!” Taemin said quickly, taken by surprise by his question. It took him a few seconds to fully register what his friend was asking, and then it hit him why Jonghyun even dared to ask that.

They were both men in their thirties with past relationships. Of course, people would expect them to sleep together rather quickly in their relationship—or whatever they had. More even, people would expect the physical aspect to be a foundation of their relationship to start with.

He swallowed heavily, unsettled by this realization. He hadn’t thought about being intimate with Minho at all, and the mere thought of it made him uneasy. It wasn’t that he was afraid of intimacy—he actually liked that a lot—but he knew he definitely needed more time to feel comfortable enough.

“We haven’t even kissed yet,” he said as nonchalantly as possible, avoiding eye contact.

“You’re so prude!” Jonghyun blurted out and Taemin quickly grabbed him by the arm. He stared at him with a frown on his face and saw Jonghyun’s expression change as he realized what he had said.

“Please stop,” Taemin said in a breath, making sure that Jinki couldn’t hear him. “You know the physical stuff isn’t my thing,” he added, looking at him dead in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” Jonghyun said quickly as he broke free from his grasp. “I respect that you’re, ace, aual, whatever you prefer to call it,” he continued but Taemin still didn’t look away. He knew Jonghyun meant it—but then, out of the blue, he would make a snarky comment like he just did. “I swear, I’ll stop.”

“Look, right there!” Jinki shouted from across the street and Taemin looked towards the place his other friend was headed to. “I saw a black cat hide in there!” he added as he went inside a small alleyway.

Taemin followed him immediately, looking for the black cat, hoping from the bottom of his heart that it was in fact Luna. But right when he turned the corner, he saw Jinki crouched in front of the cat with his head held out and a frown on his face.

And for good reason. Even Jinki could tell that this cat wasn’t Luna. It was a small short hair cat, with a thin tail bent weirdly in the middle—nothing like Luna and her flamboyant fur. 

Taemin waited for Jinki to get back up and pursed his lips when his friend glanced at him with a defeated face. He could tell Jinki felt guilty about giving him hope, but Taemin wasn’t angry at all. It meant he actually paid attention and wanted to help him find Luna.

The three of them continued walking around the neighborhood, stapling posters and calling out Luna’s name, checking out side alleyways in case she was hiding. At some point, they had circled around and found themselves back at Taemin’s apartment complex. They checked the place where everybody put their trash as Taemin thought that maybe she would be looking for food there, but it was empty.

“I’m exhausted,” Taemin mumbled as he joined his friends back in front of the building.

“Maybe we could wrap it up for tonight and order pizzas at your place, Taemin?” Jinki suggested, his eyes also