"We just came from there!" Baekhyun whines while we were walking to the garage sale.

"I wanted to check it out…" Chanyeol casually says.

"Yeah, and I should really go say hi to my mom…" Sehun adds. I laugh. He hasn't even seen his mom today.

After I told Taemin I'd go to the garage sale and meet up with him, I focused on getting the table tennis game done and over with. But since I figured Luhan would only ask for a rematch if they lost, I held back. And they won. Not by a lot, though. Lay knew I threw the game… I promised to treat him to a breakfast buffet next weekend.

"So are we going to volt out or…?" Luhan trails off.

"Are we going to look around together?" Lay asks.

"I have to go look for my mom." Sehun says.

"We could go check out the stall." Suho suggests.

"I don't really mind if we split up or not, I just wanna look at what's here." Chanyeol nods.

Baekhyun shrugs, "Then… should we all just meet up somewhere after going around?"

I nod, "I'm gonna fly solo. I'll meet you guys at Sehun's mom's booth?" I tell them.

"Sure." Sehun shrugs and he's off on his way to his mom's booth. Lay and Baekhyun followed. Chanyeol, Luhan, Kyungsoo and Suho went another direction and I went off to look for Taemin.

I'm here. Where you at?

I text him.

I walked around idly, trying to spot Taemin.

At the booth near the net. They sell old books.

Came his reply after a few minutes. I look up to find which net had a table under it that was selling books, to my luck, it was the left, which was the direction I was going. I walk at a leisurely pace to the booth so as to not seem excited.

Finally, I get to the booth where Taemin said he was, and true enough he was standing there looking at the selection of old books. I spot a familiar face standing beside him, browsing the labels as well. It was the blonde barista.

I approach them. "Hey." I greet when I come up to Taemin.

He looks at me and smiles brightly. "Hey!!" He says enthusiastically, pulling me into a hug. My cheeks became hot. The hug didn't last long, Taemin was already pulling back when he asked me, "Are you alone?"

I shake my head, "Nah, my friends are scattered all over the place." I chuckle.

He nods. "Oh!" Taemin's face lights up, "I have yet to formally introduce you to," then he points to the blonde barista. "Kibum hyung. I'm sure you recognize him from Dream Tea." He tells me.

I nod and laugh lightly. "Yes, of course. Hi, I'm Kai." I say facing him.

He smiles at me, "Just call me Key." He nods. "And finally, a name to match the ever-present face." He says.

I bit my lip, a bit embarrassed.

"So, what brings you guys here?" I ask, hoping to start a conversation.

"Key hyung has a friend from this neighborhood, apparently. And she's one of the people selling stuff in the garage sale." Taemin tells me.

"Oh? What's her name? Maybe we know her."

"Nicole Jung?" Key says.

The name was familiar. "I've probably met her once or twice…" I admit.

"Speaking of Nicole!" Key starts, "Maybe I should go check up on her again. She was still so harassed when we were last at the booth." He shoots Taemin a look.

"Okay, good luck with that…" Taemin calls out to Key who was already weaving his way through the crowd.

Taemin turns towards me again, "Wanna walk around?" He offers.

I nod. I start taking steps forward, not sure where my feet would lead me.

"So you're with your friends…" Taemin starts.

"Mhm."

"The ones you were with last time in the cafe?"

"Them, and then some. Sehun's feeling better by the way," I inform him even if he didn't ask. "He says thanks for your concern and all that."

He smiles, "It's no problem. Anything for my regulars." He kids.

I chuckle, "Actually, Sehun's mom has a booth here where she sells her baked goods…" I tell Taemin.

"Oh?"

I nod. "She cooks and bakes really well."

"If Sehun's mom cooks and bakes really well, how come he always eats at the cafe?"

I shrug, "I take him along… if he's hungry he has no choice." I grin.

"Has he said anything about our food?" Taemin seemed pressured.

"He likes it, as far as I know." I admit.

Taemin smiles, "Glad to hear. Maybe I should try his mom's food." He says, "To compare…"

"I didn't want this to be like a competition." I say, still walking along the narrow, crowded spaces in between the booths.

"I'm just curious." He says innocently.

"Sure."

"What? You don't believe me." He feigned an offended look.

I laugh lightly, "I didn't say that."

Next thing I knew, we were face to face with a booth that sold "Home-Made Milk Tea". Taemin and I glanced at each other at the same time and then we both started to laugh.

"You ask!" I tell him when our laughter died down.

As if he read my mind, knowing exactly what I was talking about, he steps closer to the booth and asks one of the people there, "Do you sell malt milk tea?"

And again, I'm laughing.

The one working behind the counter shakes her head. "Sorry, no."

Taemin bows, "Okay. Thank you." He says and then turns away. I follow him.

"You are such a loser, you know that?" Taemin says playfully when we're far enough from the milk tea booth.

"You know you wanted to ask!" I .

He scoffs. "Whatever."

"So how do you find the garage sale so far?" I ask him after a few seconds of silence.

"It's cute." He says. "I mean, if you're into hand-me-downs…"

"What's so bad about hand-me-downs?" I ask him.

He shrugs, "Since I have an older brother, I get a lot of his old stuff…" He tells me, "I don't mind, it just… it gets old." He confesses.

I guess I understand where he's coming from. Probably wants to have things to himself.

"…do you have any siblings?" He asks me.

I shake my head, "Sehun and his sister are the closest I have to what could be siblings." I tell him.

He smiles, "That's nice. You two are really close, aren't you?"

I nod, "Like I said, he's the closest I have to a brother." I tell him, "But since he's younger than me, I wonder what it feels like to have an older brother… or sister." I wonder out loud.

"There's a secure feeling, knowing someone will always be there to look out for you." Taemin tells me.

"Are you close to your brother?" I ask, suddenly noticing the familiar surroundings. We were nearing the booth of Sehun's mom.

"Hmm…" Taemin hums, "Yeah… generally. I can talk to him about stuff. But we don't hang out often." He tells me. "But our relationship is good." He shrugs.

I reply with, "Oh, well. That's good to know." Not knowing what else to say.

"Hey, aren't those your friends?" Taemin asks, after walking a few more steps.

I look towards the direction he was pointing to, a few booths down from where we were was the booth of Sehun's mom. And Taemin had spotted Sehun, Lay and Baekhyun, who were just there hanging around the table.

I grin, "Yeah." He recognized my friends. I should really invite him to Myeongdong with us.

We were quickly approaching the table. I think my friends already spotted us because they were already looking our way. Sehun was raising an eyebrow at mine and Taemin's direction while Baekhyun was grinning. Lay had a polite smile on his face.

"Hey." I say as I got there.

But before they could respond I turned to the lady behind the booth and greeted Sehun's mom. "Hello again aunty." I smile at her.

"Oh, hello Jongin!" She gives me a warm smile. "And who do we have here?" She inquires noticing Taemin's presence beside me.

"This is my friend, Taemin." I tell her. Then I turn to Taemin. "This is Sehun's mom."

He gives her a bright smile. "Hello. It's nice to meet you. Kai would not stop raving about your food." Taemin tells her, "I just had to come and check out your booth."

I could tell Sehun's mom was flattered, "Oh, well…" was the last I heard Sehun's mom say because I was yanked in the arm by one of my friends towards them.

"Explain." Sehun says.

"You guys remember Taemin, right?" I look at them.

Lay nods.

"Of course." Baekhyun says. "He's here, too?"

"Yeah. I bumped into him." I tell them.

"Bumped into or met up with?" Sehun enunciates.

I bit my lip. There was no use in lying to Sehun. "Okay, so maybe I knew he was here. But hey, he doesn't live around the neighborhood so I thought it'd be nice to meet up with him." I say defensively.

"Mhmm. Sure." Baekhyun teases.

Suddenly, Taemin is standing beside me. "Hello again." He says to my friends.

"Hi." They say.

Taemin had a cupcake in his hand.

"Strawberry cupcake?" I ask, looking at it.

He nods, chewing it happily. "It's really, really good." He says. "I have brownies and cookies to go." He holds up a paper bag.

I laugh.

"If my mom cooked this well, I wouldn't leave my house." Taemin says then he looks at Sehun. "Your fever is all gone?" he asks.

Sehun smiles a bit. "Yeah, I'm back to normal."

"So what brings you to this neighborhood?" Baekhyun asks him.

Taemin swallows the piece he was chewing, halfway done with his cupcake. "Oh, my friend knows someone who has a booth here. We came to check it out." He says.

"Oh… which booth?"

"She sells…" Taemin trails off. "Wait. What does she sell? Old clothes and toys I think." He says. "Her name is Nicole Jung…"

"I know her!" Baekhyun suddenly exclaims.

I stare at him.

Apparently, it wasn't just me who was taken aback by his sudden outburst, but so was Taemin, Sehun and Lay.

"She's the girl who lives across from Luhan." Baekhyun says, "They have a lot of Shih Tzu's."

Taemin laughs, "Yeah, they do have a lot of dogs. They sell their puppies, right?"

Baekhyun nods.

Okay, Nicole was the puppy chick we make fun of. Good thing I didn't remember when Key was there. I might have blurted out something embarrassing.

We conversed with Taemin for a while until Key arrives at the booth of Sehun's mom.

"Isn't he the other barista from Dream Tea, too?" Sehun whispers to me. I nod.

But Key recognizes them. "Oh, hey. Look who it is." He chuckles.

"Ah, hyung, these are Kai's friends…" Taemin informs Key.

"Hey, I'm Key. Nice to finally, properly meet you."

Sehun, Lay and Baekhyun all introduced themselves.

"How's Nic doing?" I hear Taemin ask.

"Better." Key chuckles, "But… we gotta get going if we wanna catch that movie."

"Really? It's almost 6?" I see Taemin check his phone.

I check my watch, it was already past 5.

"Hey, umm…" Taemin starts, which got the attention of my friends who were talking amongst themselves. "It was nice seeing you all again, but, Key hyung and I have to get going." He says.

"Sure. Hope you liked it here." Baekhyun says with a smile.

"You should come over to this side of town more often." Lay suggests.

Taemin and Key chuckles. "I'll tell you again if we're around the neighborhood." Was Taemin's reply.

"Hope to see you guys in the cafe again." Key says. The guys nod.

"You can bet I'll be there with Jongin." Sehun comments. I shoot him a warning look. He smirks at me.

Taemin turns to me, "Today was… fun." He says.

I nod.

"I'll see you around?" He asks.

"Of course." I smile.

Taemin pulls me in for a hug which I gladly returned.

"Bye." He says pulling back. Then he looks at my friends, "We'll go ahead." He bids.

They wave. "Bye-bye."

Before Taemin and Key got far enough, though. And before my friends could interrogate me, I decided to chase after them before I lost my nerve.

"Taemin wait." I call.

He stops and turns around.

"Yeah? What is it?" He asks looking concerned.

We step away from Key. I start, "So umm… my friends and I… we're going on this street food thing in Myeongdong, some time at the end of the month and, umm, I was wondering if you'd like to come along." I say not making eye contact with him.

"You sure it'll be okay?" He asks. "I mean, with your friends and all?"

I look up at him, "I think it'll be fine. They seem to like you." I shoot my friends a glance from over my shoulder. When I look back at Taemin, he was smiling.

"Then I'd love to." He tells me.

I flash him a genuine smile. "We haven't really gone over the details so I'll just text you or something, when everything's set in stone."

Taemin nods. "I'll be looking forward to it." He says.

I was smiling when we parted ways.

When I make it back to my friends, they all had questioning looks on their faces.

"Why'd you go after him?" Sehun asks.

"I wanted to invite him to our street food thing in Myeongdong…" I say casually.

Sehun raised an eyebrow. "So you invited him?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"Cause I wanted to…"

"Really? And he said he was going?" Sehun kept going.

I sigh, but before I could answer, Baekhyung interrupts.

"Wait. The one we planned at the end of the month?" He wonders, making sure.

I nod. When they didn't say anything, I add, "That's okay with you guys, right?"

"I'm fine with it." Lay says, "Taemin is nice."

"Wish you told us before hand, though…" Baekhyun tells me.

I give him an apologetic smile. I was waiting for Sehun's reaction but he didn't seem to mind, so I just let him be. Maybe he just found it odd that someone who wasn't in our group would be there. Sehun wasn't particularly a people person. Neither am I, which is why we're usually stuck together, but, I don't know. Taemin was different. We started conversing about random topics after that.

Not long after, Luhan and Kyungsoo were by the booth.

"How long have you guys been standing here?" Luhan asks when he sees us all huddled up.

"A while…" Lay answers.

"What were you guys up to?"

"Nothing much, just chatting… mom gives us free drinks, so we stay here." Sehun says.

Luhan and Kyungsoo quickly turn to Sehun's mom and give her a greeting.

"Oh! Taemin was here. With that blonde barista." Baekhyun tells Luhan the moment they join us in our circle beside the table.

Quickly his eyes turn towards me.

"Who's Taemin?" Kyungsoo asks.

Luhan was still looking at me. Then he turns to Kyungsoo, "You'll meet him soon enough," He says. "At the end of the month, in Myeongdong."

He knew. Luhan knew that any chance I got to see Taemin I would invite him to our group's street food outing.

Whatever. I already did it. And I don't regret it. I had fun hanging out with Taemin. So will they.

BAMBAMBAM! prolly my longest chapter yet!! :D I hope I made you readers happy with this one! I'd love to hear what you thought about this chapter! I'll try to update as soon as I can, but usually, I don't put up any new chapters unless I have the next 2 already written out. So, yeah. I'll try to catch up on writing over the weekend. Thank you to everyone reading the story! <3