Chanyeol’s laughter radiates all the way to the kitchen — how Baekhyun lives with such an obnoxious sound, who knows — and Minseok smiles just the tiniest bit as he wraps his fingers around one of the many plastic water bottles sitting in the bottom of his fridge. The door swings shut on its own as he backs away from it. Unscrewing the cap and bringing the rim of the bottle to his lips, he pads into the living room. He falls into his desk chair without grace and grunts to alert Chanyeol of his return.

“We gotta call it quits, man,” he says as soon as he’s finished guzzling down half the bottle. “I can’t focus anymore.”

“How long have you been at it?” Chanyeol asks. Minseok can hear him typing over through his speakers.

“I woke up at the crack of dawn and couldn’t get back to sleep so I recorded instead. I guess it’s been about ten hours. My throat is killing me.”

“I thought your voice sounded off. I just assumed you started smoking,” Chanyeol says nonchalantly, as if what he said made perfect sense.

Minseok rolls his eyes. “Oh, no, Chanyeol. How did you discover my biggest secret?” He jokes but his tone is dry. He yawns.

Chanyeol laughs. “Go to sleep, hyung.”

Humming absently, Minseok pushes aside his keyboard, folds his arms, and lies his head down on them. “I went to the mall a couple days ago.”

“Sleep,” Chanyeol emphasizes. “But did you get anything good?”

Minseok scoffs but the forced exhales dissolves into another yawn. “Is a video of me panicking and a pretty Chinese man dragging me out of the store posted all over the internet good enough?” He sounds bitter, but he knows better. Whenever he goes out, there’s always a significant chance of him having an anxiety attack. He shouldn’t be surprised it happened and he isn’t. He’s used to it, sadly.

“Are you okay?” Minseok barely recognizes the worry in Chanyeol’s voice.

“Yeah, Han calmed me down.”

Chanyeol makes a noise of understanding. “Wait. Who is Han?”

“Pretty Chinese man,” Minseok explains.

“Oh. I’m glad you had someone there to take care of you.”

Waving even though Chanyeol can’t see it, Minseok yawns into his other arm. “It was a freak accident. I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” he assures but they both knows it’s a lie.

Chanyeol humors him and agrees which Minseok is grateful for because he’s too tired to argue and discuss his capability to go out in public by himself. They end the call with Chanyeol making Minseok promise to go to sleep immediately after they hang up. The tiny gamer agrees but after he logs out of the software, he opens his internet browser to look up news articles and the release schedules for new games. In the middle of reading an article about an earthquake in Japan, his phone rings. It’s his parents.

“Hey,” he greets, returning to the article.

“Oh, you actually answered the phone. Your father kept saying you were probably asleep,” his mother says. Minseok hears her say something to his father about how she’s always right or something like that.

He yawns. “I probably should be asleep, actually. I’ve been up since five this morning.”

His mother coos. “Well, I’ll let you get to bed. I just wanted to tell you that your father and I are visiting next Thursday,” she explains. “Get some rest and we’ll see you next week. Love you.”

Minseok hums and says he loves her too before hanging up. Placing his phone somewhere on his desk, he clicks on another article.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Shoving his key into the lock, Jongdae pushes the door open and kicks his shoes off. Nudging them out of the path of travel, he walks down the hall toward the living room. It’s awfully quiet he notices, usually there’s some kind of sound when he comes at this time, whether it be the clicking of keyboard keys or enthusiastic shouts of victory. He looks at his watch to check the time, wondering if he’s mistaken about what time it is. It reads a quarter past six. No, this is the correct time.

Lips turned down, he gets his answer as to why it’s so quiet when he catches sight of Minseok at his computer desk as always, asleep. Jongdae shakes his head. He wonders how late Minseok stayed up last night to still be asleep. His poor excuse for a best friend has the worst sleeping habits in the world, but he never sleeps past three in the afternoon. Mostly because Jongdae’s there to bother him into wakefulness, but Minseok’s even said before that he doesn’t like waking up just to see the sun set, knowing he’s missed out on most of the day.

He drops his key and his briefcase on the couch as he passes it by on his way to Minseok.

“You’re gonna end up with horrible back pain if you keep sleeping like this,” he whispers as he slides the chair Minseok’s in away from the desk. He catches the gamer’s head when it starts to fall and lifts it, straightening his back as well. Shrugging off his suit jacket and dropping it to the ground, Jongdae wedges his fingers beneath Minseok’s thighs and behind his waist. Lifting the older man out of the chair, he thinks about all of the ways he can tease Minseok about how heavy he is but notices that none of them are true; Minseok is surprisingly lighter than he used to be. Either that or Jongdae’s gotten a lot stronger in these last couple of months (but that’s definitely not true). He makes a note to question what and how much Minseok’s been eating. He spends so much time here, at Minseok’s apartment, than at his own, making sure Minseok’s okay but he really doesn’t know how well the other listens to his advice when he isn’t there.

When he gets to Minseok’s room, he gently lies the man on his bed. Minseok rolls onto his back and Jongdae smiles, leaning down to kiss his cheek. Ruffling his own hair, Jongdae leaves the older man to rest, heading back out into the living room where he falls onto the couch.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

“Why are you always here?” Minseok frowns as passes by Jongdae on the way to the kitchen. “Go home.”

“You know your life is meaningless when I’m not around!” Jongdae yells from the couch, eyes glued on the paperwork in his lap.

There are somewhat familiar bowls sitting on the counter that weren’t there before he fell asleep. He would never leave those sitting there in the open. Approaching the counter, he realizes they’re bowls of black bean noodles from the restaurant around the corner. They’re still warm, he notices, when he pushes them to the back of the counter, out of the way. He stops by the fridge on his way out of the kitchen, grabbing a can of peach flavored calpis.

“Thanks,” Minseok says as he joins Jongdae on the couch, pressing up close so he can peek at his work.

Jongdae chuckles and nudges Minseok with his elbow. “What was that? Was that a ‘thanks’?”

“Don’t get too proud. I’m not thankful that you’re smothering me, I’m thankful I don’t have to find something to cook later.” Minseok pulls the tab on the can. He offers it to Jongdae who takes a sip before handing it back.

“Are you not going to eat now?”

Minseok shakes his head. Leaning back into the couch, he takes a swig of his own. “Not hungry.”

“You should eat.” Jongdae finally turns to look at Minseok, frowning. “You’ve lost weight.”

“How do you know I haven’t been sneaking off to the gym when you aren’t here?”

“You hate sweating.”

Instead of making up a lie in order to respond, Minseok threw his weight into the other, knocking him over and crinkling the papers between them.

“Wha? Get your fat off of me!”

Grinning down at his disoriented friend, Minseok ruffles Jongdae’s hair with both hands, thoroughly amused at the screams of distress coming from the latter.

“Hey hey hey! I spent thirty minutes making that perfect this morning!” Jongdae screeched, pushing the tiny gamer off of his stomach. Sitting up, he attempts to flatten down his hair, pouting at the laughing Minseok on the floor. “What was that for?”

“At first it was to get you off my case about eating.” Minseok's grin drops. “But then it was revenge for calling me a fat , you jerk.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to attack me like a wild bear.”

“I’m sure a bear would do more than mess up your hair.”

Jongdae kicks Minseok in the arm. “You .”

“And that’s why you love me.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

“Please tell me why we’re here again.” Minseok doesn't hide his groan as he's dragged past security and into the club he never thought he would have to step foot into again. But then again, he should have known better considering Jongdae's been trying to get him out of the house more and apparently a man in his early twenties can't have fun anywhere but a nightclub.

Jongdae tosses his head back as he barks out a laugh. “Relax, beautiful, I’m not going to abandon you this time.”

Rolling his eyes, Minseok stumbles along, tripping of his own feet as he's led away from the entrance and towards the opposite end of the club where the dim light doesn't quite reach as well and the bass pulsates through his very core. The farther they move maneuver through the crowd, the heavier Minseok's steps become. His head whips around as he looks at the mass of people he's fighting his way through and every two steps or so he finds himself meeting eyes with someone. A chill runs over him and he feels sweat gather on the back of his neck. He opens his mouth to tell Jongdae he can't do it, that they need to either move to a less populated area or leave the premises entirely, but the words don't form; there's only the huff of his frantic breathing.

Just when he thinks he's going to start panicking, Jongdae stops walking and turns around to pull him into his arms. Minseok buries his face into his friend's chest and he wills himself to calm down when hands gently rub circles into his back and lips peck butterflies across his forehead.

"You can handle this," Jongdae says, bringing one hand up to leaf through the strands of Minseok's hair.

Minseok knows he can, but he’s still wants to leave.

Cupping the sides of Minseok's face, Jongdae lifts his head. "Dance with me?" He smiles and there's an apology waiting in the curve of his lips that Minseok accepts with an unsure nod. With the agreement, Jongdae's smile widens into a lopsided grin and he loops his arms around Minseok's waist.

Tossing his arms around his friend's neck, Minseok presses his cheek into the other's chest again and closes his eyes, blocking out everything except for the sound of the music he can feel pulsing in his throat. He coaxed into a gentle sway, an out of place side to side movement that helps to return him to emotional equilibrium.

"Is my princess okay?"

Pinching the back of Jongdae's neck, he opens his eyes to glare. Jongdae has this stupid grin still on his face and he wiggles his eyebrows. Minseok pinches him again.

"Hey, that hurts, you know."

"Shut up then. You're lucky I need you to survive this hell you've dragged me into."

"You survived pretty well the last time."

Minseok rolls his eyes and detaches himself from Jongdae, unable to remain so close to the other without feeling like he’s going to kick him in the family jewels. "How would you know? The last time I was sitting at the bar. By myself,” he deadpans, intending to remind Jongdae about how he was cruelly left alone to battle his social anxiety in an environment based on sociability. Yes, he kept himself from having a panic attack but that’s beside the point.

Jongdae laughs and Minseok narrows his eyes because in no way is what happened the last time they were here funny. Minseok trusted Jongdae to stick by him — hell, it was Jongdae’s fault he was even there in the first place — and what happened? He was forced to sit on the dark side of the bar and embarrass himself in front of Lu Han. There's a reason why if he wants to leave the house, he usually makes sure Jongdae's around. Sure, if none of that occurred, Lu Han may not have helped him that day at the mall (since he’s not sure if Lu Han’s rare kindness extends to strangers or if the man just came to his aid because he recognized him), but still.

Speaking of the Chinese man, Minseok wonders if he’s here. They exchanged numbers but they haven't spoken since that day. Minseok had wanted to talk to the handsome Chinese man but every time he picked up his phone to start a conversation, he chickened out.

“You wanna drink?” Jongdae asks.

Minseok realizes he turned to look in the direction of the bar. He feels warm, like internally warm to the point where he thinks he might be a little pink in the face.

He coughs. “I guess I could go for a drink or two,” he agrees. Nonchalance: the key to pretending like you weren’t actually thinking about something else. Minseok’s otherwise terrible at trying to be blasé but the inconsistent lighting of the club masks his awkward attempt to look cool.

Jongdae takes his wrist and Minseok allows himself to be dragged back across the length of the room. He keeps his eyes glued to the floor this time. It isn’t until he’s released and almost falls into a stool that he notices they’re at the bar. Looking up, Minseok scans the area under the guise of looking at the bottles of liquor on the shelves behind the counter, secretly hoping the handsome bartender is working today. There’s no one behind the counter.

Biting into his bottom lip, Minseok folds his arms on the counter. Why is he so curious about Lu Han? He usually doesn’t try to associate with anyone other than Jongdae and the gaming friends he’s made over the internet. It's strange. He hasn't tried to make acquaintances with someone in the flesh in years.

Minseok is not prepared for the man who pops up from behind the counter and he squeaks. The sound is apparently loud enough to draw the attention of tonight’s bartender.

“Oh, it’s you again.” Lu Han laughs. “Just as jittery as last time. You —” He’s cut off by someone down the row of seats yelling his name. “As I was saying are you —”

The same person calls for him again.

With a charming smile, he holds up a finger for Minseok to wait a minute. The gamer nods and watches the smile slip off Lu Han’s face as he stomps away.

“Who the do you think you’re screaming at?! Couldn’t you see I was talking to someone? Sit your down and shut the up.”

Minseok follows Lu Han's figure with his eyes, a bit of worry building in him. He knows an attitude like Lu Han's can lead to trouble and Minseok doesn't do well with confrontations.

“I hope that idiot doesn’t get himself into trouble tonight,” Jongdae says from beside him and Minseok turns around to face him.

“You two know each other?”

Jongdae shrugs, watching as the man who called for Lu Han flip the bartender his middle finger before storming off. “We’ve gotten into a few heated arguments of our own. Lu Han probably has the world record for instigating the most bar fights in a single week.”

That’s…impressive? What else is he supposed to say to that? Minseok starts to ask if any of their arguments had led to fist fighting but Lu Han returns before he gets the chance.

“Some people just don’t know the damn meaning of respect,” Lu Han grumbles, leaning against the counter.

“That’s hilarious coming from you.” Jongdae chuckles.

Lu Han’s head snaps toward Jongdae’s and the fire in his eyes simmers down when he recognizes him as someone familair and not just another face. He smirks. “Back again, Kim? You know I still don’t think I punched you hard enough the last time I saw you.”

“No, you punched me well enough.”

Minseok looks between the two of them, confused. So they did fight before?

“Not exactly,” Jongdae answers and Minseok realizes he thought aloud. “Remember when I was upset about Joonmyun getting the front page story for our magazine instead of me? I came here and got drunk.”

“He got wasted. And then threw up on me so I punched his lights out.”

Looking between them again, Minseok shakes his head, sighing. “Jongdae, I distinctly remember telling you to not drink while you’re upset.”

“What else are you supposed to do?”

“Find a way to —”

“Beat the er who pissed you off to a pulp.”

Minseok huffs and turns to narrow his eyes at the ever so unhelpful Lu Han. He's at least comfortable enough with the bartender to dish a little sass of his own this once. “A vodka tonic, if you’d please. Preferably with apple vodka, equal parts vodka and tonic, and a lemon garnish. Take your time. Take more time than necessary. Thank you. Now leave.”

Surprise flashes over Lu Han’s face. “I’ll be damned. Look at Mr. Heart Attack growing a pair of balls,” he teases before walking off to prepare Minseok’s drink.

Jongdae clears his throat. “What was that about? You're usually really sweet and awkward to people you don't know.”

Minseok flushes. “Nothing.”

It’s clear Jongdae knows there’s more going on than what he’s seeing, but he shrugs it off. Maybe Minseok’s finally breaking out of his shell.

“One apple vodka tonic for the young lad.” Lu Han plops the cocktail down on the counter. “Tab?”

“Nah, I got it,” Jongdae says, handing over more than enough for the drink.

The Chinese man takes the cash to the register, putting the amount for the cocktail in and shoving the excess in his pocket as his tip. He should get a damned good tip. He’s still not over Jongdae vomiting all over him. On the way back, he swipes the empty glasses from where a regular was sitting and drops them in the sink.

When he returns, Minseok is the juice of his lemon wedge and tracing the rim of his glass with his finger. Lu Han honestly didn’t expect to see the small man back here, especially not after what happened earlier in the week at the mall. He’s not sure why he wants to usher Minseok into one of the employees-only back rooms so he won’t be around so many people even though the small Korean man looks like he’s handling himself fine.

Jongdae suddenly gets up. “Hey, I’m gonna take a piss, okay,” he says to Minseok who nods. “You gonna be alright?”

“I’m right ing here,” Lu Han jumps back into the conversation. “He’ll be okay in my hands.”

Something in Minseok’s eyes brightens and he grins behind his barely touched cocktail. Jongdae looks between the two of them, eyebrows raised with curiosity, but he doesn’t say anything before he wanders off to the restroom.

A burly man down the counter asks for another beer and Lu Han whisks out another glass to fill and places it in front of him. Returning to Minseok, he leans on the counter and sits his chin in his palm.

“Got the time?”

Minseok flinches and leans away from him. Lu Han can’t even find it in himself to get angry because he knows Minseok can’t help it. They’ve only met twice. There’s no way they’re on comfortable, familiar terms yet.

The tiny man nods as he checks the time on his phone, relaying the information to Lu Han.

“About ing time.” Lu Han grins. He immediately loosens his tie and undoes the top two buttons of his shirt. As he walks around the counter, his name is called out.

“Can I get a —”

Lu Han doesn’t even bother to look at the woman as he cuts her off. “ off. My shift is over. Ask someone else.”

“But —”

“I’m sure Fei will be more than happy to help you with your alcoholic needs when she gets here.” He waves blindly, focused on sliding into the seat next to Minseok.

“Shouldn’t you keep working until the next person comes to take over?” Minseok asks, blinking those pretty eyes as he glances at Lu Han.

“Uh, no? It’s not my fault my coworkers don’t know the definition of timeliness. Why the hell should I be held responsible for their ups?”

“Because you’re a good worker?”

“Yeah,” Lu Han drawls. “No. I’m not a good anything.”

Minseok blinks again. He takes a sip of his drink before turning the glass in his hands. “I think you’re a good something.”

“That’s because you don’t really know me.”

Minseok shakes his head. “You have a bad temper and a foul mouth but I think —”

Jongdae drops his arm over the smallest man’s shoulders. Their previous conversation is lost.

Lu Han snorts. “What the hell did you do in there? Piss out the entire pacific ocean?”

“I—”

“He probably got distracted looking at his own reflection,” Minseok supplies. He hides his laugh behind his hand when Jongdae smacks the back of his head. He has a glow about him when he laughs, Lu Han notices. The Chinese man blinks, feeling warm all of a sudden. Must be the lights. He's usually not affected by the heat of the club. That’s Lu Han’s cue to leave.

“Well, it was nice being all chummy and but,” Lu Han stands, “I’m going home.” When Jongdae slides over to take the now open stool, Lu Han sidles up to Minseok and pats his shoulder. Bending over slowly (to give Minseok enough time to stop him from getting too close) so he can whisper into the older man’s ear, he says, “I don’t want to hear about you freaking out after I leave, alright?”

Catching his eye, Minseok nods. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

Lu Han looks at him, clearly skeptical, but he lets it go and pats Minseok again.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Eyes glued to his phone, he digs out his key and jams it into the hole. With no real friends, no real job, and no real ties to his family, he doesn’t get many emails aside from the usual spam so he doesn’t check his email often. Unable to remember the last time he did, he logs in on his phone. Out of the ten emails he’s received in the last month, only one of them is important. Clicking on it, he nudges his door open with his knee.

It’s from Yixing. He knits his brow.

“Hey, Deerhan — you’re lucky I can’t fly to China and kick your — blah blah blah,” Lu Han mumbles, skimming over the mail. “How are you doing blah blah blah don’t act like you care. Just thought I’d tell you that I’m coming to Korea next month so you better make room for me. Happy emoticon. Love, your most favorite cousin, Yixing.”

Oh no. No. Yixing cannot come. He hates Yixing. Lu Han looks at the date of the email. It’s from last month. He looks over the text again. Yixing didn’t say exactly when he was coming. That means he can come tomorrow or the next day or two weeks from now. Great.

my life. Lu Han doesn’t even take of his shoes as he walks to his bed, flopping onto it lifelessly.