Instead of sleeping that night, it was easier just to lie next to each other and rest. I held on to him as if he was the only safe anchor in my life, because in my head my thoughts were all just a jumble. I didn’t really feel scared, even though I knew I should. Instead I let all the new information sink in, making sure I remember every detail he had told me, and spent my time trying to find out how I felt about it all. I felt all sorts of anger towards that Yixing boy, for betraying Luhan like that, and I felt disgust with his parents. But all the same it was hard to ignore what Luhan had rationed; the boy had merely acted in self-defence, saving himself and his career as best as he could – it was selfish but rational; and Luhan’s parents had reacted more or less like I imagine any parent would – finding out their son was gay would be difficult, and knowing it could potentially ruin their respective lives… I still didn’t feel like any of them had done the right thing, the boy or the parents, but I was conflicted about whether or not they were inherently bad reactions. And how did I feel about this Yifan? …Envy. That was all I could come up with. I envied him because he had been able to be there for Luhan when all this was happening, I envied him because he had been able to touch and explore Luhan like had for such a long time – the very thing I wanted more than anything these days, I envied him because Luhan kept saying he was ridiculously handsome, and I envied him because he had a good, loving family. But I was also grateful to him for many of the same reasons. I suppose that means he gets a pass. But then there is the issue of the cousins… I have no idea how to feel about that. Except the obvious anger and disgust and horror, of course. But I somehow couldn’t imagine these two Chinese men running around, following Luhan, trying to hurt me.

“What are you thinking about?” Luhan brought me out of my daze.
“Hm, what?”
“You keep sighing. What is it?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Don’t lie.”
“…Sorry.” I moved around until I found a new comfortable position which allowed me to rest my head on his chest and I looked up at the ceiling, enjoying the comfortable silence.
“…You’re not going to tell me?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure what I was thinking. You interrupted me before I could really get there.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“That’s okay.” I found his hand with mine and laced our fingers together. His scent kept filling my nose and the feeling of him this close to me made me ridiculously happy and a little bit dizzy.
“Did you not have any boyfriends after Yifan?”
“No. Not really. I…” He hesitated. “I tried. A few times. Found someone I liked, began dating them, all that. But then my cousins would always appear. I never got more than three dates with anyone. The first few I left behind when my cousins found me, the next few left me when my cousins outed me and the fifth person I tried dating… Instead of going to me, they went straight to him, Minseok. That is why I am so scared. That is why I didn’t want to be with you, why I didn’t want to get close to you.”
“You didn’t want to be with me?” I could feel him shift uncomfortably underneath my head, so I sat up, crossed my legs and looked at him. He stared up at me with guilty eyes.
“I tried to stay away.”
“You did? …Wait Luhan, how long have you really… uhm… you know? …Liked me?” He shifted his gaze at the speed of light and I could tell he was uncomfortable.
“Tell me Luhan. Honestly. Please?” My curiosity was reaching through the roof, and even though I felt shy asking, I also felt somewhat excited at the thought of him having liked me for a while.
“You won’t kick me out if I answer,” he questioned.
“Unless you’ve followed me for years I swear I won’t!”
“…How about months?” His eyes met mine again for a brief moment before he looked away.
“Wait, seriously?” I felt my jaw drop a little, but also a smile spreading from somewhere deep inside me and all across my face, and he sighed and sat up.
“The first time I went to the Black Pearl was around my second week here in Korea. You were there. You looked pretty. So I came again. …A few times. …A week.”
“Luhan, please look away for a second and don’t bother with anything you see or hear, okay?” A little confused he turned around and sat with his back against me and I flopped down on the bed, grabbed on to a pillow and ing squeed – pillow squeezing and legs kicking, the whole shebang. I felt like a silly teenage girl from one of those horribly cliché films, but I couldn’t help it. Holy crap he has liked me FOR MONTHS! If he wasn’t sitting next to me and could hear everything, and if I hadn’t already let out the squee, I would have begun laughing in sheer happiness. I gathered myself a bit and sat up, but I continued to hold on to the pillow so I could hide my face, and have something to press against the butterflies in my stomach.
“Okay, that’s all – you can turn around now.” I kept my face pressed down into the pillow as he turned around and it took me a while before I dared to look up and meet his gaze again. He sat there waiting patiently for me to stop being embarrassed.
“Did you just do what I think you did,” he asked and a smile started spreading across his face.
“…I don’t know… Maybe?” I tried to sound innocent, but it failed miserably and finally he laughed and I pressed my face down into the pillow again. I felt a pillow being struck over the back of my head and I only let it make me sink deeper into the pillow while murmuring. He was still laughing while he moved across the bed and I felt him sit down on his knees behind me and began rubbing my shoulders.
“Are you really embarrassed about that?” I replied by nodding into the soft fabric.
“Dude, did you not hear me confess that I’ve been after you for months,” he mocked.
“What did you think I was reacting to,” I asked in feigned anger, hugging the pillow closer – it was not helping me with my butterflies at all. Luhan’s arms wrapped around me from behind and he leaned in closer and kissed my cheek.
“Well , you’re adorable.”
“Am not.”
“Yes you a-Nope, I refuse to have this sort of argument – it is overly cute and utterly disgusting and you’re incredibly adorable, but it’s just not worth my dignity.” I snorted at his absolutely brilliant response, and nodded in agreement, letting my hand seek out his before we slowly fell down on the bed, him behind me holding around me.
“So did your cousins really hurt that last man you dated,” I finally asked after a while.
“Broke his kneecaps.”
“Ouch.”
So they didn’t just threaten, they actually did things as well. No wonder Luhan was scared. I snuggled closer to him, yawned and allowed myself to forget everything and just get some sleep after all.

---

“MINSEOK! ! WE OVERSLEPT!” I found myself rudely awoken by someone shaking the living out of me, and I struggled to open my eyes and slowly sat up.
“What? What are you talking about?” I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and stretched.
“Dude, no time to be slow! The café opens in 15 minutes and we’re still here!”
“WHAT?!” I jumped out of bed and threw a glance at my cell phone only to have Luhan’s statement comfirmed – the time showed 07:45 and we were still not out of the house.
“! Luhan, this is all your fault,” I said as I ran into the bathroom with him.
“MY fault? Why the hell is that?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve never overslept before and you’re here so it has to be,” I reasoned loudly as I grabbed a towel, soaked it in water and started cleaning myself up. He snorted as he grabbed for his razor and began shaving ferociously.
“Careful, you’ll cut yourself,” I warned while I took a leak behind him.
“Mind your own business, you’re missing the toilet,” he replied back.
“What? Oh !” I looked down and saw the mess. I had thought I had peeing down by now, but apparently it was still a think I needed to pay attention to and focus on while doing – not staring at the handsome man who might ruin his perfect skin with sharp blades at nearly eight in the morning. I cleaned up, we switched places, ran to the kitchen, decided this was no time to eat, grabbed our stuff, put on shoes and ran as fast as we could. At 08:05 we came stumbling through the door, completely out of breath, sweating and panting and wishing we were in better shape.
“You’re late.” I looked up and met eyes with the boss.
“I know, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to-…” He smiled at me.
“Minseok-ssi. You’ve been working here for quite a few years now, and this is the first time I have ever seen you late. You barely missed five minutes, I’m pretty sure it’s okay to overlook this one incident.” His eyes were warm and his smile genuine and once again I found myself feeling really grateful that he was my boss. He always cared for his employees in such a kind manner.
“Besides,” he noted. “There are no customers here yet. Just go get changed you two,” he chuckled and pointed at the changing room at the back.
“Sure, right away boss,” we both replied and hurried over and changed into our uniforms before we went back into the café.
“Holy ,” Chanyeol spat.
“Luhan, what the hell,” Jongdae followed.
“Oh wow,” Sehun whispered with big eyes.
“What,” we both replied in unison.
“Hyung, your neck,” Sehun began.
“What the hell did you do this weekend,” Jongdae asked while smirking.
“What do you mean his neck-OH.” My eyes grew large. “Oh .”
“What? Minseok, what is it with my neck?” I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten already. I kept racking my brain for ways to cover this up, but I came up with nothing. All I could do was to push Luhan back into the changing room and place him in front of the mirror so he could see for himself.
“OH ! OH OH OH OH !” He gasped at his own reflection and covered his mouth with his hand, while the other hand fumbled, letting the fingers press over the large, dark marks that covered his pale skin. How did we not notice that this morning?
“Oh . Oh . Oh oh oh . You little !” He turned towards me and smacked me across the forehead.
“Wait, what are you..? Don’t blame me!”
“HOW CAN I NOT BLAME YOU??”
“Well, unless he did it, it’s not his fault,” Jongdae pointed out behind us, smiling deviously at us and enjoying Luhan’s panic. I had no response to that. My mind blanked. Luhan’s hand fell from its raised position above my head, and neither of us said anything, we just stared at the boy in the doorway, struggling internally to come up with a good, logical response and we watched as his smile faltered and faded.
“Wait, what?” His eyes opened in surprise and he took half a step backwards.
“No, it’s not like that,” I began.
“Really, we just went out this weekend,” Luhan tried.
“And did what,” Jongdae questioned. “Got drunk and then things happened?”
“Not exactly,” I responded, hoping I could come up with a proper explanation as I was talking. But before I could say anything else, the electronic bell over the door in the café rang to inform us of someone entering.
“We’ve got customers,” Jondae said calmly while inspecting us suspiciously. “You can explain later,” he reasoned and hesitantly walked away to attend to his duties.
“Saved by the bell,” I whispered.
“…Literally,” Luhan added. We took a few minutes to gather ourselves before we re-entered the café and began our shift. By the time the clock struck noon, Luhan had sent me at least 15 glares as he each time had been judged or mocked by the customers for the clearly visible marks he was sporting. I could do nothing but apologise every time, and he would look away disgruntled. I found Jongdae following our every movement and interaction throughout the day, but he never said anything – he only kept thinking to himself. At first it had just made me panic, but the more I thought about it the more I felt angry with myself. Why did I act like I was ashamed? Because I honestly wasn’t. But for some reason I felt it would be best not to let everyone know, and that bothered me because the was no real reason for it and that made me feel like a coward. I liked Luhan. A lot. He was the first person who had made me want to interact with others, he was the first person I had ever wanted to wake up next to in the morning, and he was the first person whose name was all it took for me to be filled with butterflies and warm, fuzzy feeling and the need to have him around. I had always thought that when I found someone who could make me feel like that I would want to let the whole world know, and yet here I was, hiding the truth from my friends. Friends who I knew would accept me and my feelings and my relationship. But I still couldn’t get myself to let them know. Why was that so difficult?
“Let’s eat,” Luhan said when the café was almost empty after the lunch rush, and I felt my stomach howling with hunger.
“Ah, yeah – let’s,” I agreed and clenched my stomach. Luhan left me at a table and went to the kitchen to make us something and I could feel myself being drained, as if my blood sugar was only now falling.
“Uhm, hyung?” Sehun’s voice beside me startled me and I turned to him in surprise.
“Ah, Sehun-ah. Yes?” I smiled up at him, my arms still clenching my rumbling stomach.
“There was something I was wondering about,” he began slowly as he took a seat next to me. My gaze fell to the kitchen door as I saw Luhan exiting with food in his hand and I only partially paid attention.
“The day you yelled at Channie, the day I tried to hand in my resignation…”
“Mhm,” I muttered, reaching for the plate Luhan was carrying before he’d even gotten to the table.
“You asked him if he hadn’t told me he dared anyone to take me away…”
“That’s right…”
“How did you know?”
“Hmm? Didn’t he tell you while you were practising?” I took a huge bite and responded through a mouthful, chewing quickly, eager to get the food in my system.
“Yes, but how did YOU know,” he insisted, and a sudden sharp pain in my shin had me drop my food to the table and growl.
“What the..?” I muttered and looked up at Luhan, whose eyes were huge and he stared at me as he had stopped mid-action when trying to take a bite.
“What are you-“ Oh. Oh . Oh oh oh oh no! Memories flashed through my head of Luhan and me pressing ourselves together trying to avoid being caught while also intensely paying attention to the two boys in the other room. I was not supposed to know that.
“Hyung?”
“Ah, eh… Uhm…” I thought and thought and thought, but nothing but hesitant sounds escaped me and I could feel the blood drain from my face. .
“Hmmmm,” I heard Jongdae’s voice behind me. “It seems this hyung has a lot of secrets recently,” he stated calmly as I turned and looked at him, before he walked away. He was clearly suspicious, and I felt conflicted – I knew I should tell them all everything, but I still didn’t feel like I dared. I don’t know what I was afraid of, but it was clearly something.
“Minseok! There you are!” The boss’ voice sounded like a thousand angels’ choir as I turned to greet him,
“Something came up and I have to run, do you think you could cover for me?” He pointed over his shoulder and to the office, and I jumped up from my seat, grabbed my plate and hurried over.
“Of course! No problem! Not at all! Anything for you, boss!” I kept rambling energetically as I fled into the office, avoiding Sehun and his questions for a while. It took me a while to get through all the papers the boss had left for me, but I managed to finish a few hours before closing time after all – with the exception of a few letters the boss had to deal with himself. But by this point I found myself worried about re-entering the café and facing the others, my heart racing fast with worry and guilt. A short knock on the door startled me, but as Luhan appeared with a cup of coffee I felt myself calm down a little. My body was shaking with nervousness still, but I grabbed the cup he handed me and I looked over to make sure he had closed the door properly behind him. I sat the cup down, got up from my chair, pushed him against the wall and kissed him. He was obviously surprised, and considering our whereabouts I was sure he opened his mouth to protest, but before he could get out a word I let my tongue enter and I pressed myself against him. And so he caved. He gave in to me instantly, wrapped his arms around my waist and allowed me to ravish his lips roughly for a passionate kiss, and I felt most of my distress disappearing with the taste of his tongue. I let go of him and he slumped back against the wall, panting.
“I love you,” I whispered and leaned against him, my face hiding in his neck. I heard him choke on his own breath and hoped really hard that it wasn’t too soon to say that. His arms wrapped around me tightly.
“I wanted to be the first to say that,” he pouted, and I began laughing and playfully punched his shoulder.
“I love you too,” he responded and bent down and placed a soft kiss on my neck.
“Good. I felt really awkward saying that, but hearing you say it back… It feels good again,” I mumbled, too shy to look up at him. I kept asking myself if we were moving too fast, but it honestly felt too natural to continue like this, I couldn’t imagine us going at any other pace. I wasn’t really sure when exactly we had officially started dating, as we hadn’t really been on a single date, but knowing that Luhan had wanted me for as long as we had known each other, and considering I had had no clue that I even liked men – or at least this man – it sort of still felt like we had been flirting all this time instead of building up a friendship.
“Luhan?”
“Mh, yes?” He turned around by the door, his hand on the knob, waiting for me to continue.
“There’s something else I want to say.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing much. Just a word. But I don’t want to say it to you.”
“Okay? I… Don’t know how to help you with that.”
“Just… Try not to be embarrassed, okay?”
“Emb-what? How can I not be when you’re not telling me beforehand? And honestly, out of the two of us, you’re the one struggling not to blush.”
“Well then just be there for me to hide my face against then,” I mockingly snapped, grabbed my cup and stepped towards him. He opened the door and we exited together. The last few of our customers snickered as they saw Luhan and his neck, and his hand unconsciously came up to cover it. I grabbed his hand and pushed it away, making them visible again, and he looked at me confused and a little undermined.
“Damn,” one of the girls commented. “He’s got a chick already? That’s such a shame, he is so good looking.” I smiled at her as I retrieved their empty cups and glasses from the table.
“I don’t think he’s got a ‘chick’,” I commented smugly and left with the glasses. I placed them in the kitchen, grabbed a wet cloth and walked back outside only to find Luhan being held back by the girls as I walked over again.
“Hey, I could totally make you feel just as good as whatever flimsy made those marks, you know,” the previous girl noted and stared him up and down. “Your friend here said you didn’t have someone steady but I could date you.”
“I don’t think he’s interested in that either,” I snickered as I cleaned the table, somewhat enjoying seeing Luhan being distressed by the situation.
“Ah, you’re not a long-term guy, huh? Well I could be your next one night stand,” she suggested, letting her hand run over his.
“Uhm,” Luhan began, not knowing how to respond at all.
“I don’t think that such a good idea,” I replied for him.
“And why is that?” Her eyes shot up at me curiously. “Are you jealous? You could join too if you want, you’re pretty handsome yourself.”
“No thanks,” I chuckled. “I don’t think that’ll work because he’s living with me.”
“Well, we could always just go to my parents’ house, that’s not a problem,” she continued, and I couldn’t help but laugh at her persistency and innocence.
“Sweetie, he’s my boyfriend.” And then she let go. The girls’ eyes grew huge as I turned around, grabbed him by the waist and dragged him along with me, and I only smiled as we passed the three other boys working at the café, staring at us in disbelief, their jaws hanging open and their hands limp by their sides. Hah! Take that stupid vanity and unreasonable shame – I just pissed in your face, I thought to myself as I sat Luhan down on the bench in our changing room and waited for the shock to blow over.
“Did you just say… boyfriend?”