They end up going out to dinner early despite having had lunch not too long ago. Jongin insists that he's hungry again, though, and Sehun is easy to convince when Jongin is the one doing all the pouting. Zitao can always eat so he's fine as well. As they stroll down the boardwalk they soon see two familiar figures ahead of them, walking in the opposite direction. Baekhyun notices them first and he grins widely, grabs Wufan by the hand and starts dragging him along. "Small world, huh?" he says when they're within earshot.

"Indeed," Jongin replies with a matching grin. Sehun is scowling again. Jongin wrapping an arm around him and giving his shoulder a squeeze makes it a little less severe, but it doesn't make it go away completely. "We were just going to get something to eat. Would you like to join us?"

"Would that be okay?" Wufan asks, glancing at Sehun, who doesn't seem happy with the idea.

Zitao gives Sehun's arm a subtle squeeze and when Sehun side eyes him, Zitao shoots him a pleading look. Sehun sighs. "Whatever." Baekhyun and Jongin grin even brighter and Jongin gives Sehun a quick side hug, whispering something in Sehun's ear. Wufan smiles at Zitao, who tries his best to keep the color from flooding his cheeks again. His attempts are mostly unsuccessful.

They find a place that looks pretty nice and order enough samgyupsal to feed a small army. Zitao automatically grabs the tongs to start putting meat onto the sizzling grill in the middle of the table. Wufan seems a bit surprised by this. "You're the youngest?" he asks, probably since it's customary for the youngest to prepare the food.

"Please," Zitao huffs. "I'm older than both of those brats. Sehun is the youngest."

"Our beloved maknae," Jongin coos, pinching his cheek. Sehun swats at his hand.

"I prefer my food edible." Zitao waves his utensil at his friends. "Those two can't cook for so I'm usually always the one who takes care of it." There are no objections from neither Jongin nor Sehun. They both know he's right.

Baekhyun casually slings an arm around Wufan's shoulders. "You're probably the oldest one here, hyung," he says with a deceptively sweet smile. Wufan glowers.

"Oh, you should have the first piece, then." Zitao makes a wrap, rice, meat and grilled garlic stuffed inside a leaf of lettuce, and he reaches out towards Wufan to give it to him. He doesn't expect Wufan to eat it directly from his hand, but that is exactly what he does, lips brushing against Zitao's fingers and eyes staring directly into Zitao's that are widened in shock. His breath hitches and his heart does a weird series of somersaults.

"It's delicious," Wufan says in Mandarin, chewing slowly. "You're a good cook."

"I..." The lump in Zitao's throat acts as an obstacle blocking his speech. With some effort he gulps it down before muttering a tentative: "Thanks?" Wufan's gaze is resting heavily on him. Zitao can't seem to look away. He's not sure whether the flustered feeling creeping over his skin is because he doesn't like it or because he likes it too much.

An elbow digs into his ribs and he starts, snapping his head to the side to look at Jongin, who grins. "Make one for me too," he demands. He lets his mouth hang wide open like an obnoxious baby bird waiting to be fed. Sehun makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and grabs a huge piece of lettuce to stuff Jongin's face and simultaneously shut him up. Jongin coughs and gags and exclaims something about murder and Baekhyun laughs, which makes a small smile spread on Sehun's face. All of this serves as a good distraction for Zitao. He goes back to cooking, careful not to look at Wufan for fear of getting stuck again. He's aware of Wufan's eyes on him, though. The warmth that burns on Zitao's face is totally from the heat of cooking. Totally.

"So..." Baekhyun leans his chin in his palm and he looks at Sehun. "When they say you're the youngest, exactly how young are we talking?"

"I'm nineteen," Sehun answers with pride in his tone.

Baekhyun hums, smile stretching out on his face. "Young."

Sehun sniffs. "Legal."

"But still young."

"Our maknae," Jongin coos again and Sehun glowers.

"Shut up, dickhead, don't act like you're more than three months older than me."

"Are they always bickering like this?" Wufan asks, directed at Zitao.

"Always," Zitao responds with a long-suffering sigh but without looking away from the grill. He flips a piece of meat, shuffles around some garlic and onions.

"It seems kind of unhealthy. How do you put up with it?" This time the question is in Mandarin so Zitao slips into his native tongue as well when he responds:

"They're my best friends, I kind of have to." At this Wufan only hums, but there's something in the way he does it that seems... off. Zitao furrows his brow and he finally raises his gaze to look at the guy sitting across from him. Wufan is studying him, scrutinizing him. Zitao doesn't like it very much. It makes his skin crawl. "What?" he says, guarded.

"Nothing," Wufan responds lightly. Zitao presses his lips into a thin line.

"I thought we agreed on no Chinese at the dinner table, love," Baekhyun chides, flicking Wufan on the forehead before he can say anything else. Wufan playfully snaps his teeth at his fingers and Baekhyun pulls back with a yelp. Once again the affectionate name does unpleasant things to Zitao's stomach. He nearly skewers a piece of samgyupsal.

Someone's foot nicks Zitao's ankle. When it happens a second time he's sure it's not an accident and he raises his head, Wufan is the only one who's looking at him. "Sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to pry." The others go quiet, looking between Wufan and Zitao.

"It's okay, I guess." Sehun sends Zitao a quizzical look. Zitao just shakes his head. Don't ask.

"Where are you guys staying?" Baekhyun asks later after they've paid for their meal and they're walking down the boardwalk again. Jongin coaxes a reluctant Sehun into telling him the name of their hotel and Baekhyun grins. "What a coincidence, that's where we're staying too!" He starts chatting amiably about something that Zitao doesn't quite manage to pay attention to because Wufan has slowed down to fall into step next to him a few feet behind the others. It's distracting.

"Baekhyun is very friendly, huh?" Zitao says to shatter the tense silence that hangs between them.

"Yeah, he's pretty easy to get along with so he makes friends easily as well. You know, when he's not kicking sand in people's faces and all." Zitao chortles. "He won't stop talking about how hot your friends are, but I told him not to bother since they're obviously boyfriends." Zitao glances at him out of the corner of his eyes, finding it odd how he seems so utterly unperturbed by the fact that Baekhyun apparently wants to hook up with others. Maybe they just have an odd relationship. He averts his gaze when Wufan looks at him. "They are boyfriends, right?"

Zitao sighs. "Well. They make out. They ." He shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, clenches his fists. "They have obnoxious, gross, fluffy moments together all the time. I'd say they're boyfriends, yeah." He tried to be cool about it, he really did, but it's obvious that he's bitter.

"Does it bother you?"

"What, you mean being the perpetual awkward third wheel while my best friends are getting it on? Why on earth would that possibly bother me?" Zitao's words are laced with sarcasm, but it's all the answer he's willing to give. Wufan hums just like he had done when they had talked about Jongin and Sehun at the restaurant and Zitao frowns. "Stop doing that." Wufan blinks, looking surprised. "You're doing that thing again. It's like you're analyzing me. I don't like it."

"I'm sorry," Wufan says. "I know I shouldn't pry. It's none of my business."

"I just... I don't want to talk about it," Zitao mumbles. "Just drop it."

Wufan does. Instead he changes the subject. "So if you're older than your friends, how old does that make you?"

"I'm about a year older than Sehun." This time Wufan's hum sounds pleased. Zitao smirks. "What, do you have a thing for younger guys? Or are you just happy that I'm legal?"

"A little bit of both, maybe," Wufan replies levelly with a nonchalant shrug and Zitao can feel his all of attempted cockiness abandon him at once as a flush wells up in his face. If Wufan notices he chooses not to comment on it as he goes on to ask: "So you're in college?"

"Uhm, no, not yet," Zitao says, still trying to fight off the lingering remnants of that damn blush. "I had to retake a year of middle school when I moved to Seoul with my mom so I'm not going to college until after summer break is over. What about you?"

"I'm going into my third year. Majoring in psychology." Ah. Psychology. "Maybe that's why you feel like I'm analyzing you. Force of habit, I suppose." Zitao doesn't say anything about how he was just thinking pretty much the same thing.

They lapse into another while of temporary quiet. As quiet as it can be when they're in the middle of a crowded boardwalk, anyway. Sehun, Jongin and Baekhyun are still walking a few paces ahead of them and Baekhyun has linked their arms together, Jongin on his right and Sehun on his left. Sehun looks like he's struggling to hold back a smile brought on by something Baekhyun said, Zitao can tell from the twitch of his lips. "He's warming up to him."

"Hm?" Wufan looks at him and Zitao inclines his head in the direction of the others.

"Sehun. He's warming up to Baekhyun."

"Oh, that's good," Wufan says and then he smirks, bumps his shoulder playfully against Zitao's. "Now we just need you to warm up to me." Zitao also doesn't say anything about how he's pretty sure that's already happening.

They part ways again not too long after, Wufan citing 'having some things to attend to' as reason for them needing to leave. It was the exact same excuse he gave earlier at the beach, but Zitao keeps quiet about that, figuring that Wufan probably just wants to spend some time alone with Baekhyun. Baekhyun says a heartfelt goodbye to them all, mock-sobbing into Zitao's chest as he embraces him and squeezes the breath out of him until Wufan has to manhandle him away. "I'll call you, I swear," Baekhyun says dramatically right before he's dragged off.

"Good riddance," Sehun mutters under his breath.

Jongin grins. "Come on," he says, wrapping both of his arms around Sehun's waist. "You don't mean that. You kind of like him, admit it."

Sehun huffs as if he's offended. "I do not."

"You like him," Zitao concurs. "I could tell." Sehun gapes and Jongin beams.

"Traitor," Sehun hisses, tearing out of Jongin's grasp. "Traitors, both of you." He motions to storm off like a petulant child, but before he can do that Jongin grabs him and pulls him close and presses a kiss to his cheek and Sehun calms down almost instantly.

As they walk back to the hotel to shower (Zitao), change clothes (Sehun) and nap (Jongin), Zitao thinks to himself that he's thankful his skin isn't as pale as Sehun's. His blush is far too obvious.

~*~

A/N: and here we get a bit of an explanation for why zitao has been so moody. everything hasn't been revealed yet, though. it'll come. this was also the chapter where I started fearing that wufan may be coming on too strong because some of the things he does are... kind of really creepy considering that they've spoken a total of like five words to each other and met exactly twice (at least it's creepy in my opinion orz). his intentions aren't bad, I promise! but something is definitely up with baekhyun, I'm sure you can tell. :b
ah. right now this is more of a sekai story than anything else. cutesy, flirty sekai with taozi being all moody and broody on the side because he's the "perpetual awkward third wheel". poor taozi. /pets his pretty princess face

thank you so much for reading and
I hope you'll stick around for more~