Sanghyuk turned to leave, but as he was taking a step he spun back to face Hongbin.

            “Hey, maybe you could just come with me! I’ll ask Hakyeon but I’m sure he won’t mind, since he knows you too. There’ll probably be a couple other people there too, there are what, five of us? That are usually together, so if you want you can just follow along, it’s only a short ways from here.”

            Hongbin told himself that he should just leave now, not get involved, that whatever was going on should have nothing to do with him, and that he should go. He told himself that even as he nodded his head at Sanghyuk.

            “I might as well.”

            Sanghyuk was very chatty, constantly commenting on their surroundings and reminding himself of things that were funny and then telling Hongbin about them, laughing so hard that he almost fell into traffic more than once. This must be why Hakyeon gets along with this kid, Hongbin thought, watching as Sanghyuk animatedly talked about something, a cat? Something. They were getting further and further away from Hongbin’s apartment, and at this point he had just decided to let chance take him wherever he was going. He knew his way around the city for the most part, but Sanghyuk was leading him into an area that Hongbin was less familiar with. This neighborhood was inhabited mostly by elves, which would explain Hongbin not having been there much. Being populated by elves meant that the space was full of life and energy, and that everything was definitely more beautiful than anything that the humans built.

            Just walking down the center road, Hongbin could turn his head and see what looked like trees shaped into halls and buildings, benches carved from pale wood and embellished with curls and patterns. He saw shimmering fabrics on the passerby, and in the windows of some of the shops. Everything was colorful, but at the same time very natural. The elves were almost as fascinating as the atmosphere, if not more. They walked in a way that was more like a cross between a strut and a glide, moving through space fluidly. There were children weaving their way through legs, never running into anyone, just laughing and spinning through the crowd. Most of the elves he saw had longer, pale hair, although some had shorter and darker hair, and some had beautiful colors and designs. The voices around him were mingling together, but the volume was steady, each voice distinguishable from the rest.

            It really was very interesting, and Hongbin didn’t even notice that Sanghyuk had stopped talking, and it took him more time to notice that he had also stopped walking, and was looking at Hongbin with an amused expression.

            “Yo, dreamer boy, we’re here.”

            Protests formed themselves on Hongbin’s lips but had no chance to fall before the door to the house they had stopped before burst open in a shower of glitter and arms had grabbed at Sanghyuk.

            “Hyukkie, we’ve been waiting on you, where have you been, oh nevermind, just come in, come in.” Hongbin should have been expecting who would be there, but hearing Jaehwan’s voice still surprised him.

            “Oh, is that Hongbin? The guy from the antique store? Yah, Hakyeon, the boy from…” Jaehwan was turning back into the building and his voice trailed off. Sanghyuk turned to Hongbin.

            “Hey, you’ve already met Jaehwan? When? Maybe you know some of the others, too.”

            Hongbin just shrugged his shoulders. It’s not like he went out of his way to meet any of them, they just all had shown up in his path and he had been too dumb to move out of the way. He let Sanghyuk lead him into the building, down a hall lined with pictures that Hongbin tried to look at, only catching glimpses of smiling faces and pointed ears before being dragged onwards. The deeper that they got into the house the more unfamiliar it became, the floor turning soft and earthy, walls losing the sharp lines and the lights turning more into lanterns that cast warm shadows every which way. Jaehwan’s voice came back into hearing.

            “Anyways, Hakyeon, like I was saying- Oh, Hongbin, come on back, here, there’s probably a seat somewhere just make yourself comfortable- Like I was saying, you should have seen the look on his face when I fell out of the window, he looked so surprised! Speaking of falling out of windows, I’ll get some new flowers for your store, Hongbin, sorry about breaking them.”

            Hongbin just nodded, still taking in his surroundings. The room he was in was big, with a high, airy ceiling with several windows spaced throughout, all set into the same wood that was on the walls. He felt like he was inside a tree, like if he looked outside he would be on top of the clouds. So he pointedly decided to not look outside. There was a table in the center of the room that he supposed was a dining table, even though it was covered with all kinds of things that were decisively not for eating. There were books, and papers, the occasional mug or cup, and a pot of flowers that was miraculously untouched by the clutter surrounding it. There were three chairs sitting around the table, two already taken up. The other chair was across the room, over by a wall of paintings, next to a couch and armchair. Was that a piano? Hongbin was pretty sure that there was a piano in the corner, but there was a curtain of vines falling so he couldn’t see clearly from where he was. The other side of the room was a kitchen area that was cleaner than the rest of the room, which Hongbin briefly considered before moving on. There was a hall leading down next to the kitchen, and- how big is this place? It certainly didn’t look this big from the outside. He could see at least two doors set into the hall. Having considered his initial sweep of where he was, he directed his attention back to the inhabitants of the room.

            Of course, as luck would have it, he recognized all of them.

            Wonshik was sitting backwards in one of the chairs by the table, grinning at Hongbin. Jaehwan was sitting on the edge of the couch, looking like he was about to fall off every time he moved. Sanghyuk had left Hongbin and had slouched into the armchair, taking off his hat and glasses, running his hand through his short purple hair before smoothing it back down, blinking to get used to the light change and Hakyeon was sitting in the other chair at the table, with a cat curled up in his lap that he would pet every so often.

            Hakyeon smiled at Hongbin in the same way that he did every day ten minutes before the store closed.

            “Hello, Hongbin! I see you ran into Sanghyuk on his way here, did he drag you into this? He’s such a brat sometimes, I bet he was rude, and harassed you into coming here with him-“ His sentence cut off as he dodged a clump of dirt thrown very accurately across the room from where Sanghyuk was reclining.

            “Yah, Hakyeon, it’s rude to talk behind someone’s back.”

            “It’s not behind your back, you’re facing me, and it’s Hakyeon-hyung to you, kiddo.” A grumble was the only response, and Hakyeon tsked in his direction and turned back to Hongbin.

            “I ran into him earlier too, when you were ing about my hair.” Wonshik piped up from his chair. “He said that you were very rude, and inconsiderate, to bother someone so much about their appearance and life choices.”

            This time the clump of dirt came from Hakyeon’s direction.

            “He did no such thing, you dirty liar. Stop being rude.”

            “I bet he was thinking it. You were, weren’t you, Hongbin? How someone shouldn’t be so fussy about the decisions someone else makes that doesn’t even involve him.” Hongbin didn’t reply, choosing to neither agree nor disagree.

            “See! He’s not saying no, he definitely did.”

            “Hongbin! You didn’t did you? You would probably worry the same about someone, right? I mean, what if I decided to dye my hair such an atrocious color? I’d hope someone would care enough about me to tell me not to make dumb decisions.” Hakyeon directed the last sentence clearly at Wonshik, who huffed and ignored him.

            Hongbin realized that at some point he was supposed to have said something, but it didn’t seem to matter anyways, because Hakyeon just patted at the empty seat next to him.

            “Why don’t you come sit down?”     

i just really like writing dialog im so sorry there is so much of it its just fun lET ME KNOW

thank you all for viewing this wow and subscribing and commenting and everything gosh golly

matter of opinion, i'm not sure if i want to turn this into a shippy thing? like i kinda feel like im setting it up to be chabean but i literally have no full concept of the story im just making it up as i go along haha

idk yet though

would that be weird? i dunno

i'll try to keep updating pretty regularly, hopefully every couple days? nice thing about short chapters is that i can get them to you quicker

anyways!

thanks for reading

~Win

(thats me im the author i'm Win)