it's still xmas eve today but i decided to release it now because my spirit has boosted 1000000% thanks to this teaser. nothing is more thrilling than having the exact idols acting your fanfiction in real life. enough from me, please enjoy the update!

Today is one horrible Friday when storm hits the city, the rain has been pouring since previous night and the wind carries the raindrops almost in horizontal position. All and all, even an idiot knows that it's not the day for anyone to come out of their shelters, but the canceled board meeting makes Luhan's mood go awful and he cannot go home with a bold frown on his face since his mother despises that kind of expression the most. So, just like any usual day, he parks his car on the usual spot and walks slowly to his favorite cafe, not minding his tailored pants getting wet from the splash of puddle on the pavement. It's a good thing that he kept a big wide umbrella under the backseat or else he would've got drenched worse than this. The violent wind makes his pace slower and he curses under his breath because it's cold, it's freezing to be exact, and he cannot wait until he arrives at the warm haven a hundred meters ahead. But the closer he gets to the coffee shop, the clearer he sees something in front of shop.

Minseok is crouching on the pavement, under the raging weather.

Luhan jogs as fast as he can through the storm, not bothering the fact that his pants are ruined because why the hell Minseok is under the rain completely unsheltered and drenched to bones. He takes a few more steps until he's almost crashing onto the smaller guy and covers his body under his umbrella. The wet guy looks up to him with his big and confused eyes.

"Luhan sshi? What are you doing?"

"It should've been me who asked that!" he shouts, partly because he's afraid that his voice will be carried away by the storm and half because of his own confusion. His gaze follows Minseok's arm that is trying to reach something under the big flower pots and he squats down to see what it is. "…kittens?"

"I saw them running on the pavement and got under the pots to get a shelter," explains Minseok. "I've been trying to get them out but it seems like they're afraid of getting caught in the rain again."

"Okay," Luhan exhales deeply because he almost doesn't get the whole idea of the situation. "Now I got the umbrella, so they might want to come out this time? Try again."

Minseok scoots closer to the flower pots with Luhan sheltering him and calls the kittens again. This time the cute creatures finally head out from their hideout to sniff on Minseok's fingers. The latter chuckles and sweeps them into his arms, cradling them safely to his chest.

The scene unfolds in front of Luhan looks so heartwarming that he can't help but smile along with the smaller guy.

"Oh my god, you're drenched!" Minseok's panic squeal snaps him out of his reverie and he looks at his arm that's not covered by the umbrella. "Come on, let's get you dried up in the locker room. Come, come!"

"O-okay," Luhan nods dumbly and stands up to follow the smaller guy to the back of the building, still covering him and the kittens. They immediately gets in to the warm and dry room and Minseok gestures him to take a seat on the long bench as he goes around to find a card box.

"What is this room?" asks Luhan out of curiosity.

"Storage room, this room keeps the air stable and dry so the supplies won't easily get bad," answers Minseok while he still rummages into a shelf to pick out some old fabrics. "I brought you here so you can take a shower and get changed into dry clothes, if you want."

Luhan contemplates the option and decides to take it because he cannot afford being sick on weekends as he will always be a whiny little kid whenever he falls ill. And he usually recovers slowly even if he gets hospitalized, so being sick is not really an option.

"That sounds good, thank you Minseok sshi," Luhan answers. He decides to take off his shoes since his socks are wet as well and wet shocks are yucky. "Do you want to get the shower first? I'll take care of the kittens."

"No it's okay, I'll just change my clothes and turns on the water heater for you," says Minseok as he disappears into the row of shelves, maybe to the locker room where he keeps his spare clothes. Luhan pads around the warm room that smells faintly like coffee and vanilla and crouches down in front of the card box filled with old clothes and old newspapers where the kittens they just saved make their den. He doesn't know much about cats, but from the experience with Chanyeol's, his friend from high school, cats, ones with a small bundle at their behind are males and ones without it are females. He picks them out one by one and inspects them, noting that the three kittens are all females. He might have to call Chanyeol later to ask how to treat them properly because like babies, male and female ones have quite different behaviors.

Wait. Did he just imply that he's going to adopt those animals? He's really confused with himself at the moment.

"Um. Luhan sshi," calls Minseok from the shower room, already changed into dry clothes. It might be Luhan's sick vision that he looks beautiful when he ruffles his wet hair with white towel. "These are Jinki hyung's clothes, I borrow them from him since you're about at the same size."

"Thanks," mutters Luhan as he stands up to fetch the clothes. They are white long sleeves and training pants, and although they look too plain to his taste, they're definitely better than his drenched up suit.

"And, Lu-luhan sshi," calls Minseok again before the Chinese guy closes the door, this time his cheeks blush. Luhan tilts his head in confusion. "Is your u-u-underwear…wet?"

"Huh?"

"I mean!" the smaller man almost shouts. "You can give me your u-u-underwear so I can press them to dry while you take a shower!"

Luhan doesn't know how to react since his mind suddenly gets blank, so he only pats his crotch and butts, checking if his lower region gets wet or not. He eventually shakes his head indicating that no, his underwear isn't wet and no, Minseok doesn't need to iron it dry. The other guy only nods, eyes still trained to the floor, and Luhan steps back to close the door.

Minseok just asked for my underwear, he thinks dreamily. That's not something he should be proud of, but progress is progress, right?

After 30 minutes of showering (plus spacing out because, wow, he just got to have a conversation with Minseok that didn't have shop counter in between them), Luhan comes out of the shower smelling like citrus ('like Minseok,' notes him cheerfully). He pads back into the storage room with a bundle of his dirty clothes and finds Minseok caressing one of the kittens' small head. The babies are sleeping and there's a soft smile plastered onto the barista's face. Luhan walks toward him and sits on the floor beside Minseok. "Where are you keeping them?"

Minseok pouts almost instantly at Luhan's question and he wonders if there's any grown up man in this world that can pout as cute as him. "That's the problem," the shorter of the two mumbles, still pouting. "I cannot bring them to my studio since it's not allowed and it's impossible as well to keep them here because they can damage the store's stock. But it's not an option either to let them live on the street again. What should I do?"

Luhan resists himself from ruffling the other's hair although he's being too cute at the moment. Minseok's mumbling and muttering figure makes the inside of his stomach do something funny that he can't help but grabbing the front of his shirt, hoping that the butterflies will calm down soon.

"They can stay with me."

Minseok's eyes go wide, wider than Luhan's are since he himself is shocked to what he just blurted. Adopting cats for real? And stray cats, to top it all? His brain must've been screwed up. He needs to see a doctor soon, although he doesn't know which doctor he should visit to cure his infatuation over a Hollys barista.

"Luhan sshi, are you sure?" Minseok scoots closer and grabs both of Luhan's hands, eyes staring full of excitement. Luhan needs three seconds to regulate his breathing because Minseok is ing touching my hands oh my god oh my god I can die happy right now. "Luhan sshi."

"Yeah of course," Luhan averts his eyes to the box beside them because he cannot stand looking at Minseok's eyes longer than five seconds. They are so sparkly like a moe character's in Japanese anime. "I mean, I live with my parents and they don't mind with animals so that should be okay."

"Are you sure they wouldn't mind?" Minseok bites his lower lip and blinks, and Luhan needs to look at another feature on the latter's face other than the lips but proven to be extremely hard because they're Minseok's lips, after all. Who is he kidding.

"Y-yeah—" but his answer is cut by Minseok crushing him into a tight hug, making his heart skip one or two beats. The cute cafe employee is chanting 'thank you thank you' in gleeful tone and Luhan just screws his face because Minseok is hugging me god blessed. But the heaven's voice immediately fades as Minseok abruptly detangles his arms from around Luhan's shoulder, pale face blushing in deep scarlet.

"I'm sorry I misbehaved," the other mutters, head hanging low and fingers playing with the hem of his shirt. Luhan prevents himself from answering 'it's okay I enjoyed it anyway' because that would just add awkwardness between them. "Anyway, thank you so much for adopting them. Do you want to bring them to your house today, or…?"

"Ah yes, today is okay."

"Okay."

Silence falls between them. Minseok still plays with the hem of his shirt and Luhan just stares at the guy before him. It feels surreal, this circumstance, where it was just in Luhan's imagination a few weeks ago that he could have a conversation with his crush that's not related to coffee and not in worker-costumer relationship. They're now here, in a dry room, sitting on the floor with less than a meter distance and without any table between them, and talking comfortably like friends. Except they're not exactly in friends relationship but somehow they're really close to that.

"Minseok sshi," calls Luhan cautiously, taking the barista's attention. "Do you have to go back to the coffee bar?"

"No," answers Minseok, dragging the last syllable a bit. "It's raining cats and dogs and when I came out to fetch the kitties there was only Hanbyul, so we don't really have any other job to do."

"Hanbyul?"

"One of the fixed costumers here," Minseok grins. "Just like you."

"Oh. So you like to remember costumer's name."

"Nah, just the regular ones. It's one of my ways to thank them for, you know, being the regular source of this cafe's income," Minseok laughs lightly. "But I think it's kind of rude if you have guests coming almost on daily basis but you don't know their names. Think of it as an act of hospitality."

Luhan feels a slight pang inside his heart to the fact that Minseok only knows his name because he comes so often, not because he's special. But it's okay, he thinks, because at least now he knows that Minseok's taking a good care of his costumers. His adoration toward the cafe employee increases tenfold today. "So," Luhan begins. "You know my name but I don't know yours."

"Ah, right," a smile gradually blossoms on Minseok's lips. He looks beautiful. "It's Kim Minseok."

Kim Minseok, Luhan repeats that name thousand times in his heart. He thinks he needs his dairy at that time just in case he forgets, but he doubts he will ever forget the name of his infatuation.

*

Luhan cradles the cardboard box in his arms as Minseok walks beside him. The rain has ceased and costumers have begun coming to the cafe, but Minseok insists to walk Luhan to his car. He also asked to bring the box to the car but Luhan said it's okay, so he ended up holding Luhan's big umbrella instead.

"So this means you need to give me your phone number."

It's a good thing that he already settled the box on the shotgun seat or he would've dropped it to the ground. "P-pardon?"

"Your phone number so I can call you," Minseok fishes out his phone from his jeans pocket. "I want to know about their condition, after all I'm the one who made you take care of them."

Luhan nods dumbly and recites his phone number mechanically because what's wrong with today, I suddenly make friends with Minseok and he asks for my number. Minseok nods for a few times and saves his number before calling it. Luhan's phone vibrates and an unfamiliar number appears on the screen.

"Hello," answers Luhan, although the caller stands just half a meter beside him.

"And your address, too," says the other line with playful demanding tone. Minseok's voice sounds a bit different in the phone, but still in the same pleasant way. "Text me."

"What, why?"

"Because they're my kitties, too!" whines Minseok. "You sound like a mother who doesn't allow her ex-husband to see their kids even on weekend."

"Ex-husband—" Luhan gets baffled by the sudden exclamation. "O-okay. You can come to see them. I'll give you my address."

Minseok grins at him and ends the phone call. "So, see you tomorrow?"

Luhan stares for full three seconds, summarizing all events happened today. He just made friends with Minseok, adopted his kittens, got his number, and got the chance to know more about him during babysitting sessions in his home. It feels surreal, and he'd be ing crying if this is all just a dream in his slumber.

"Yeah," Luhan breathes. "See you tomorrow."

sadly, minseok in real life is actually afraid of cats. i wrote cats here because 1) it's done since the beginning, and 2) idk any other animal better than cats. i'm a cat lady :<

on the other note, after i post this i'm gonna go for a job interview. i'm anxious >_< wish me luck, readers!

merry christmas and happy holiday!