His idea was shot down again when he returned to work.

“…hyung?”

YiXing blinked, snapping back to reality. Every time he conversed with his coworker, his ADD mind couldn’t help but think of how sleepy Byun BaekHyun’s eyes looked. From there, his journalist mind started spewing words through his brain in an attempt to come up with something readers would be able to conceptualize and comprehend. How could BaekHyun’s hamster eyes translate well into a column of text?

“…YiXing-hyung?”

Oh, ADD. “Sorry. What?”

BaekHyun lifted his eyebrows in slight disbelief at YiXing’s zero-track mind. Ah, there are the whites of his eyes. “I asked where you got that idea from.”

“Hmmm… I dunno,” YiXing replied easily. “I just thought of it, I think.”

“I see. Well, I’m meeting up with ChanYeollie for lunch. Do you want to come?”

“Sure.” YiXing shut his notebook, the empty document on the screen fading out to sleep. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, I dunno. We’ll just wing it like we usually do.”

Just as YiXing was standing and slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder, he jumped at the sound of an obnoxious – but familiar – voice calling from an adjacent office.

“Are you fruitcakes leaving for your lunch break early right in front of me?” the voice demanded.

So says the King Fruitcake. Before BaekHyun could reply with a respectable answer, YiXing blurted, “Yes, we are, Moon-yeowang. Leaving without having done a pixel of work.”

BaekHyun quickly yanked YiXing backwards as the sound of a rolling chair fiercely cut through the old carpet towards them. An equally-fierce, foreign face jutted out of the enclosed office and sneered at the two.

“Are you giving me lip, Zhang YiXing?”

“No, sir!” BaekHyun said loudly over YiXing’s chuckles. “We’re, uh… going out for reference, obviously!”

“What do you need reference for, byuntae, huh? What work have you done at all, huh?”

“I finished all of the spreads for Issue 127! You’ve been pestering me about it all morning!”

Their boss clucked in response and disappeared back into the office, the wheels of the chair grumbling under the boss’s weight. BaekHyun shot YiXing an angry glare as he shoved the laughing man toward the hallway.

“Why are you so cheeky?” BaekHyun grumbled as they stepped out of the building and onto the city sidewalk.

“It’s always fun to tease JungHyuk when his wife is ignoring him,” YiXing said, his vacant grin still plastered on his face. “He’s extra-touchy to everything. I can’t help but .”

“He’s twelve years older than you! And he’s our boss!”

“He’s not gonna fire us.”

“And PilKyo isn’t his wife.”

“He may as well be.”

Sighing, BaekHyun fiddled with his phone. “Why is everyone gay in your world…?”

YiXing laughed again. “Because everyone is, actually.”

Oddly enough, in the small magazine company where YiXing and BaekHyun worked, everyone seemed to be some brand of homo. When YiXing was first hired, he thought it was a ridiculous coincidence that all of his coworkers – from ultra-flaming JoKwon to closet sugarplum HyungRok – strutted and clucked and gossiped worse than women back home. Then he realized his boss – who, despite what BaekHyun insisted, had to be the draggest of drag queens – made it a point to hire only fruitcakes. Their one female staff member was questionable, as well.

“Stop being so nosy!” BaekHyun had screeched when YiXing had asked Amber if she had a girlfriend or not.

“I like being nosy,” YiXing had replied, unfazed.

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend,” Amber had answered, laughing. “Why, are you trying to set me up?”

“No. But I’d like to.”

Amber’s utterly perplexed expression resulted in a red-faced BaekHyun yanking the Chinese man out the door by the collar before he could scar anyone else with his painfully-honest statements.

The blather of the city brought YiXing to the present again. Perched in the middle of the sky, the late-Springtime sun had already cooked half of the street and was slowly working on the two figures at a standstill on the sidewalk. BaekHyun was shielding his hamster eyes with one hand while the other held his phone up to his ear. Did hamster eyes catch a lot of sun?

BaekHyun slowly looked over at YiXing. “…what?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve been staring at me for a while…”

“Have I? I’m sorry.” YiXing casually averted his empty gaze elsewhere.

To be honest, when YiXing first got the job and was introduced to his deskmate, BaekHyun, he thought he could be attracted to those hamster eyes. BaekHyun was kind of adorable, in a way, and even more so when YiXing realized his eyes completely disappeared when he laughed. However, YiXing quickly changed his mind, though, when he realized the midget was already committed to a giant with huge, gnashing teeth and a rumbling voice.

It was actually a frightening experience when YiXing met BaekHyun’s boyfriend for the first time. He had innocently opened the door to step out for some fresh air and was suddenly face to face with collar bones. The gravelly “Oh, excuse me” that accompanied the collar bones caused YiXing to stumble backwards in shock. BaekHyun had laughed at him then, before properly introducing them.

That still didn’t stop YiXing from ducking when he was suddenly engulfed in shadow.

“Anyone would get scared if a giraffe suddenly appeared behind him,” YiXing insisted.

ChanYeol merely barked out a laugh, clapping like a seal. “Yeah, but you’ve known me for years now.”

The three were sitting at a booth situated by the window in a bright restaurant. Thankfully, the sun had shifted, so its rays weren’t magnified to burning the hairs on their arms. They’d already ordered coffees and entrées, so they sat back and melded with the quietly thrumming atmosphere.

“I may have known you for years, but sneaking up on a person…!”

BaekHyun joined in the laughter. “You scared me, too, ChanYeollie. I thought you’d be coming from the office.”

“I left early for lunch,” he replied. “They’re training a new hire, so I got to escape.”

As hamster eyes disappeared, blinding canines appeared. YiXing liked watching the two banter back and forth. At first glance, YiXing would have never put the two together. BaekHyun looked like a tiny rascal with a shy laugh while ChanYeol was a mad conglomeration of an entire zoo with four left feet. Opposites attract, he told himself, when he realized how easily they conversed, how easily they matched.

They were staring at him expectantly. He brought his mind back to the table. “What?”

“BaekHyun said you said something about… adopting… what?” ChanYeol looked back and forth from YiXing to BaekHyun because apparently he thought he heard wrongly.

“Oh.” YiXing leaned forward over the table. “Do you know anything about adopting a brother?”

ChanYeol blinked a few times. “…a brother?”

“Yeah.”

The large eyes lifted upwards for a bit to search for an answer. “Well… There’s no actual legal binding between siblings, so as far as in legal terms, it’s not possible. If you wanted something official like that written on paper and notarized, it would have to be your parents adopting a child who, in turn, would be your legal, adopted brother.”

YiXing forgot about the giant’s high-up position as a human resources-something in a legal-or-something-services office-somewhere. How did those two even meet? He was glad, though, because disregarding ChanYeol’s doofus face, he was an earnest person who gave honest answers to those who desired honest answers.

ChanYeol continued, “Though I guess there are also mentor programs. You know what I’m talking about, right?” YiXing looked like he either didn’t know or was spacing out too much to register ChanYeol asking him a question, so ChanYeol kept speaking, regardless. “Kind of like the Big Brother, Big Sister program. There are things like that you could look into.”

Contrary to what the other two thought, YiXing was listening well, and he nodded. “Okay.”

The coffees arrived and were set on the table. As BaekHyun and YiXing seized the sugar and creamer, ChanYeol continued staring at YiXing.

“…though I gotta wonder…” he muttered. YiXing looked back up at ChanYeol, missing his mug and spilling half of the sugar packet on the table. “Where did this come from, anyway?”

“Not sure. I just thought of it,” YiXing replied with the same ease he had given BaekHyun as he swept the spilled crystals into a small pile.

“Oh… Um… That’s rather half-hearted. You sure you’re not looking for a boyfriend instead?”

The vacant smile returned. “I assure you, that’s not what I’m looking for.”

YiXing pondered this over his own cup of coffee back at his apartment after the work day had ended. Both times he had brought up his thoughts with his friends – from different countries, nonetheless – they had mistaken his intentions. Did he seem that lonely? And was he really being half-hearted about it?

YiXing’s thoughts were left to fester in the back of his mind as deadlines lurked and the King Fruitcake got more and more high strung. He and BaekHyun chatted less and glared at their computer screens instead, YiXing stabbing away at the keyboard and BaekHyun flinging the mouse cursor across the screen. Lunch dates with ChanYeol were scarce, as well, with the giant either dropping off take-out or sending some with an encouraging note. Even though they slacked off quite a bit, the two were studious when it came to their work; JungHyuk just wished they wouldn’t procrastinate so damn much.

His thoughts were left to fester, but that didn’t mean YiXing didn’t do anything about it.

“Eh?” BaekHyun stopped mid-stretch. “So you’re actually following through with that?”

“Mhmm,” YiXing hummed, amidst his own stretch.

They had finally submitted the last articles to the highly-harassed-looking editor, JongWoon – “Seriously, you little punks just had to wait until the last second, and now I have everything to edit all at once, and I’m gonna die from all of this last-minute work, and I’m gonna kill all of you!” – when YiXing brought up the news to BaekHyun.

“So what all do you have to do for that, anyway?” BaekHyun jerked up an eyebrow when he heard something pop from YiXing’s back.

“Ow. I was wondering where that was.” He let his arms fall to the desk. “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of research and calling around. I had to do a lot of paperwork and interviews and stuff.” At that statement, YiXing took note of a foreign ear suddenly swiveling in his direction.

“Oh, really? So you’ve already started the whole process?”

“Mhmm. I’m just waiting on a phone call now.”

“That’s cool. Let me know what happens.” Hamster eyes looked at the small clock at the corner of his desk. “Well, good work for this issue. I’m gonna go finally see ChanYeol again, so I’ll see you next Monday.”

“Okay. Have fun.”

YiXing watched as BaekHyun scampered out the door, cell phone already to his ear. He smiled faintly to himself before he picked himself up and gathered his things to go home. Just as he rounded his desk, JungHyuk’s foreign face popped out of his office door.

“Got a second, YiXing?” he asked brusquely.

Before the Chinese man could reply no, he didn’t really feel like a second, the foreign face ducked back into the office. Of course he had a second. He slumped into the office where JungHyuk had already taken his seat in his rolling chair.

YiXing took in the office with wandering eyes. He’d only stepped into the small space a couple of times before and only for a few seconds each time. This time, he observed how closed and warm it felt with the numerous personal effects scattered about. Most of all, there were picture frames of people on almost every shelf. The King Fruitcake standing and laughing with five other guys, a lady who looked related to the King hugging a young girl, more pictures of the previous five guys, more pictures of the young girl, a picture of the King with a different guy completely cloaked in a HAZMAT suit…

“Not gonna say anything? Alright, then…”

YiXing looked back at his boss and just realized JungHyuk had been talking to him.

“So what are you asking for?” JungHyuk continued.

YiXing glanced at the heavy desk between them, spotting a picture of the King’s wife aiming a rude hand gesture and screwed-up face at the camera. “Umm…?”

The King pursed his protruding lips. “If you’re looking for a raise, it’ll have to wait until after we publish Issue 126. We’re scraping on our budget right now. What else do you want?”

It took a bit of pondering before YiXing finally connected what he was talking about. He suppressed a laugh and instead put on his vacant smile. “I can wait for that raise. How much are you offering?”

“…1,000 won.”

YiXing cocked an eyebrow. “That’s all? I’m only waiting on one phone call.”

“Yah! I just told you we’re scraping on our budget!”

“Well…” YiXing turned to leave the office.

“Yah, yah… Wait.”

When YiXing turned, he saw the desperate look in his boss’s face and almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

JungHyuk spun a pen on the desk, his duck lips still sticking out. “I don’t have much budget to give you a big raise, but I have even less time to find me a new writer. And quite honestly, our readers like your blather. And they like your face in the staff page, you damn punk.”

YiXing had to laugh in spite of himself. “Oh, I’m flattered.”

“So just… bear with me, alright? I can’t go any higher than 1,500.”

“Moon-yeowang, I’m not interested in a raise.”

“You—What did you just call—You what?”

“If you’re worried about what I was discussing with BaekHyun-sshi earlier, then ignore it. That has nothing to do with my job here. I have no intentions of quitting anytime soon. Have a good weekend, sir.”