panda ice cream {tao/sehun}
panda ice cream
tao/sehun (with mentions of others)
fluff ; pg-13
mentions of sex, coarse language, heavy use of sarcasm
written as entry 26 in sncj_reversebb's 2012 reverse big bang art: here
“Panda?”
Sehun looks up from texting Jongin to see a man with jet-black hair and eyes that could easily scare anyone. He takes a step back, raising an eyebrow, mainly because he hadn’t heard what the customer had said-he rarely does. Jongin has a cruel habit of texting him when he’s working-that’s quality friendship for you-and there aren’t that many customers during his shift of 1pm to 4pm, so usually, he can text his bro and not have people complaining.
“Panda?” the man repeats, pointing at the sign that hangs above the cashier, where in big, baby blue bubble letters, the word ‘Panda’ is written in English. Sehun already knows what it looks like from having passed the little shop for most of his life on the way to school, and then when he was sixteen, finally applying for a job at the small ice cream shop.
“Yep, this is the ‘Panda Ice Cream Parlour’,” Sehun explained, tilting his head to the side and going his aegyo-because supposedly, according to Joonmyeon, aegyo always worked. The customer cocked his head to the side with him, frowning, and Sehun stands back upright-because even if aegyo works, he still looks like an idiot doing it.
“Murderers!” the customer screams at the top of his lungs, pointing at Sehun and giving him a look like he just killed his mother and first born child. Sehun steps back, raising his hands, and he’s sure that his eyes are the size of Kyungsoo’s right now, and if they aren’t, then they must be really close, because his eyelids feel like they’re being ripped apart.
“What?” Sehun asks, and he can feel Kyungsoo slapping the back of his head and asking him where his manners came from.
The customer screams, “How dare you kill and eat panda! They are going extinct and nevertheless, you go out and kill panda only for people to eat! That is murder! You should be killed, hung, stabbed, maimed, and destroyed, just like panda goes through every, single day! How dare you!”
Sehun forgets to blink, and he’s pretty sure that the seven customers in the café are all watching them, now.
“We don’t eat panda here,” Sehun explains once he’s finally regained his breath, “Pandas are sweet, adorable and cuddly creatures-and that’s what we wanted our customers to feel like once they step in, and once they try our ice cream. Sweet, adorable, and cuddly. I’m sorry if you took it the wrong way-we were actually, um, appreciating and complimenting the panda.”
This seems to calm down the customer, as he orders a strawberry ice cream and mocha latte to go, before exiting the café with his sunglasses perched on his nose, and the rest of the customers all watching him walk out.
“Whoa,” a frequent customer of the name Jino mumbles, and a few hums of agreement sound throughout the small ice cream shop.
**
Man, I just found this sexy ass bitch with a Chinese name. Should I talk to him?
- Jongin
Sehun rolls his eyes as he checks his phone. He’s about to text back with ‘no, of course not’, when Kyungsoo obviously clears his throat and gives him a sideways glare that could only mean ‘if you don’t put that away now, I will call Joonmyeon over here and I will get you fired.’ Sehun hates it when Kyungsoo shares the shift with him, as if they need two people working on at this slow shift, because of the way he looks over his shoulder and raises eyebrows and just really pays attention to things that aren’t his business in the first place.
“I’m surprised you still work here,” Kyungsoo says, not too loudly so that the customers can here across from the room, but loud enough so that Sehun could clearly understand what he had said without asking ‘pardon?’, or more realistically, ‘what?’
“I’m surprised you’re still a virgin with lips like those,” Sehun retaliates, cleaning the dishes because Kyungsoo’s hands seem to be way too pretty for ‘cleaning work’. Sehun doesn’t mind, or well, he wouldn’t mind if the gloves weren’t bright pink, but a previous worker named Key had bought the gloves and the other workers didn’t want to let them die once Key left to bigger and brighter things. Or they just really liked watching people scrub ice cream and juice from plates in a light pink apron and bright pink gloves.
Kyungsoo turns around, appalled that the junior would even dare talk back to him like that. He’s about to open his pretty, little lips and bite back with some lame comeback that had begun in the ‘80s when someone clears their throat and asks, “Um?”
Sehun smiles once he recognizes the sunken-eyed customer from before, who had rudely screamed at him for being a panda-assassin. He pushes Kyungsoo out of the way, throwing the pink dish gloves at him and showing him his biggest smile, whilst readjusting his worker’s cap. The customer furrows his brows at this sudden turn-of-events, and Kyungsoo is swearing underneath his breath from on the floor, but Sehun does a wonderful job of completely and utterly ignoring him.
“Yes? Oh Sehun, at your service!” Truthfully, he is never his perky unless Joonmyeon spills the sad news that they’ll have to eat the rest of the ice cream because the due date is coming up, but today is a special day, and because the customer always looks either a) angry or b) depressed, a little aegyo could certainly go a long way.
The customer glances upwards, behind Sehun, to look at the chalkboard, or better well-known as the menu by some people, and scans the words. Around the time that it takes Sehun to read ‘coffee’, the customer reads only a single letter in Korean.
“Do you sell bubble tea here?” the customer asks after like, at least twenty minutes. Sehun knows that they sell bubble tea, and it’s pretty obvious because on the menu there is a big drawing of it, drawn by the best-Byun Baekhyun when he’s not on his fangirly mode-and it takes over at least 17cm of the length of the 30x30cm board, so he nods as quickly as possible. And then Sehun is shocked.
Because the customer smiles. And it is certainly the most adorable thing that Sehun has ever seen. It’s not aegyo, or whatever Joonmyeon thinks Jongin is doing, but pure and utter adorableness, and Sehun is one-hundred-percent sure that his heart must have skipped a beat-because why the hell would he feel like he needs some air, stat?
“Then I’ll have strawberry, then,” the customer replies, and Sehun nods, running off to go do his order. Once and awhile, he looks over his shoulder, watching the customer play on his phone, scrolling through texts or sites or wherever-and Sehun briefly wonders what the guy is into. Pandas, Sehun thinks-why else would he come in the ice cream parlour and call him a murderer if he didn’t like pandas?
“Thank you.” The customer smiles, and turns to leave-and it’s exactly then when Sehun sees his nametag-as he must have popped in during his break from work. Huang Tao it reads, and Sehun smiles-it’s a pretty name.
“Tao,” Sehun rolls the name in his mouth once the customer has left, and Kyungsoo has magically reappeared, armed with a mop. He nudges him with the mop until Sehun finally decides to go mop up the floors.
**
“Bubble tea, again?” Sehun asks him the next day, when he pops in. Tao looks up from his phone-it’s a Blackberry, but Sehun isn’t one to judge when it comes to electronics, and Tao nods, biting down on his lip. Sehun notices how it shines, it gleams, underneath the lights of the ice cream parlour slash café and wonders if he puts lipstick or lip gloss on them or if they’re naturally that way and what they would possibly taste like-
“Um, what?” Sehun asks, having missed the words that Tao has spoken because of his useless and unprofessional daydream. Tao smirks, and Sehun is pretty much one-hundred-percent sure that there is something on those lips-or those lips just happen to be that kissable.
“Peach,” Tao repeats, “I’d like peach flavoured.”
Sehun has to say-his Korean is flawless for someone from a different country. He closes his eyes as the machine makes it, wondering what kind of make-up he might have used to make such misty and alluring eyes. Certainly some eyeliner, for sure. He opened his eyes once he was done, slipping the contents from the blender into the cup, where the black dots already sat-ready to mingle with the peach.
“Here,” Sehun said with a smile, handing over the bubble tea. Tao smiled back, fishing out his wallet and politely handing over the money necessary. “Oh wait-your change!” Sehun looked up to see Tao already out the door, and a phone up against his ear.
**
“I’d like some patbingsu,” Tao orders. Sehun opens his mouth-because really, he isn’t sure that he can make it, but Tao’s eyes are filled with such worry and something else that Sehun nods. “Strawberry.” Sehun has noticed that the customer seems to like strawberry-he’s ordered strawberry ice cream, strawberry bubble tea-and now patbingsu. He adds it to the things in his head-Tao likes strawberry.
Three phone conversations with Kyungsoo later, Sehun walks up to the table where Tao has sat down. His laptop is open on the table and they have to move it a little bit to sit the plate down. Tao takes a bite, and his whole face lights up-and Sehun’s does the same. He makes a mental note to thank Kyungsoo with taking his shifts the next time he saw him.
He feels awkward, just standing there watching Tao eat the dessert, so he turns away to leave. Cold fingers touch his wrist and Sehun looks down to see the biggest, roundest eyes ever-and it takes him a moment to realize that the eyes are Tao’s, and it’s only because of the eyeliner around them. Sehun adds another thing to the list of things he adores about Huang Tao.
“Please, sit with me,” Tao pleads, and Sehun feels like he’s watching TV at home, with the commercials stating that just a dollar a day will help with everything a child will need-because Tao looks so much like one. And like people who just love peace and harmony wall too much-see Kim Joonmyeon-Sehun sits down and accepts the small price of unhappy customers just to sit next to someone like Huang Tao.
“So, Sehun-sshi.” Sehun’s cheeks redden instantly and he wonders-how the hell does he know my name? Tao starts laughing, filling the parlour with his adorable laughter. “It’s your nametag, silly. And plus, you told it to me yesterday. ‘Oh Sehun, at your service!’” Tao adds in the aegyo, and Sehun is ready to give all his life savings and his first born child to this adorable man.
“You’re adorable,” Sehun says before he can think (because, when you’re around Tao, thinking doesn’t happen that often).
Tao looks up from his patbingsu and smiles, licking his lips to catch some of the strawberry flavor before it dribbles down his chin. “I’ve heard that a lot, actually. I do really cute aegyo in order to get the things that I want from my geges,” he explains, and the last sentence practically screams trouble to Sehun-except for that ‘geges’ part-because he doesn’t know how to speak whatever-that-just-was.
“Your um, geges, must do a lot for you then. You must be really close,” Sehun begins, trying his best to pretend that he’s a little bit comfortable in the comfy chair that he’s sitting in.
Tao shrugs, “They buy me Gucci, and I do aegyo, which is really it sometimes. I’ve been getting further and further away from them lately but they don’t seem to really mind. I’ve been working hard at the hotel to try to get a nice place to live, and they know that I’ll be moving out soon anyways. We met up because we were broke, but we broke up because we finally got enough money.”
“You’re just going to leave them?” Sehun whispers, cocking his head to the side. Tao looks up from his ice cream to watch him-and they lock eyes.
When Sehun finally blinks, he looks down, chewing on his lip. “When I first got this job, I hated everyone that worked here. Baekhyun was always spamming me about girl groups he liked, Chanyeol was always breaking the machines, Joonmyeon never really solved any problems, Kyungsoo nagged you like crazy, and Jongin didn’t do anything and you had to do it yourself. But yet-I really grew to like them, and when Jongin left after a while, I realized that I didn’t want this ‘family’ to be ripped apart.” He laughed, “You know what I’m saying?”
Tao leaned into his chair and hummed. “We were all broke, the six of us. Three of us, Lu Han, Yixing and I, came from China together and we tried to get jobs and the cheapest place available. At the viewing we met Kris, and then Minseok and Jongdae happened to become Lu Han and Yixing’s lovers. And everyone just kind of fit, like a puzzle piece. But slowly, piece by piece, we’ll have to go, right? Six people in a small apartment is tight, really tight. Someone needs air to breathe.”
“Stay as long as you can,” Sehun encourages, leaning and touching Tao’s arm, “And if you ever need someplace to go, if it gets too crowded, you can always come over to my place.” He writes down his address, but Tao swats his hand away, standing up and gathering his things.
“I don’t need some stupid ice cream vendor to tell me how to live my life. I hate it there, so I will be moving soon-I don’t give a damn about what you think.”
He storms out of the ice cream parlour, the patbingsu sitting on the table, half-eaten and neglected.
**
“You should probably just give up on him,” Baekhyun comments, looking up from his compact to watch as Sehun sighs the seventh time that ten minutes (he counted), his head on his palm and his eyes looking at nowhere in particular. “Because that is life. Some super awesome guy appears, claiming that his dragon is so big and he’s so damn tall and so sexy, and then in the end, right before you’re going to have sex, he can’t get it up! Life is just like that.”
“I don’t want to hear about Krissss,” Sehun whines, “I want my Huang Tao panda lover!” It was, of course, right after Tao had stomped out of the parlour and Sehun’s heart had actually snapped in two (he wasn’t joking-Kyungsoo had to carry him home because he wasn’t sure if his heart was beating and he was laying out on the floor like a drunkard and Kyungsoo was pretty certain that it wasn’t sanitary for him to do that), and he had realized the utter power of love.
For he was sure that he was in love.
“Come on, make me some bubble tea or something,” Baekhyun ordered, kicking one of Sehun’s calves. Sehun sinks to the floor, clutching his face, because Tao loved bubble tea. He makes clear of this by wailing it throughout the ice cream shop, and Baekhyun is regretting spending his only day off with someone that doesn’t even appreciate it. He could be spending time going through all of his Girl’s Generation albums.
“My life is ruined,” Sehun mumbles, staring at his shoes, a small pout appearing at his lips. Baekhyun sighs-patting Sehun’s head and cooing.
“Call me when your life is back to normal, k? I preferred love-sick Sehun over heart-broken Sehun. You know, Kris told me about some guy that he was friends with, this guy called Lu Han; you two could probably hit it off. He can buy you bubble tea or something.” Sehun glares at Baekhyun, who simply shrugs and leaves melodramatic teenager to his own drama.
“Sehun,” a voice calls, and Sehun grumbles, “Go away.”
“Sehun,” he repeats, and Sehun finally looks up-only to see Tao leaning over the counter, looking at him with wide, worrying eyes. “Are you ok? You don’t seem like the unprofessional typ-”
Tao doesn’t have enough time to finish his statement because Sehun bounds up and wraps him up into a hug. Tao’s eyes widen and he stutters out complete nonsense, but it’s drowned out by Sehun’s girly squeal and “Oh my god, I didn’t think that you would be back! I’m so happy that you’re back, I missed you so much! Like, my heart was broken when you walked away.”
(Ignore the fact that he sounds like a teenage pop song)
Sehun pulls away, tears forming at his eyelids, and Tao smiles.
“Strawberry ice cream,” Tao orders, and Sehun scoops it cheerily. “And make an apple bubble tea, too.” Sehun nods, rushing around behind the counter, finding the ingredients and making a delicious-looking bubble tea.
Tao grabs Sehun’s hand, dragging him over the counter and out the door. Chanyeol is in charge now, and Sehun isn’t one-hundred-percent ok with that, but Tao doesn’t seem to mind-sitting down on the curb and starting to lick his ice cream, the pink lines running down his fingers.
“You words stuck in here,” Tao points to his head and Sehun half-wishes that it was his heart, but it’s the thought that counts, right? “And I decided to stay with them as long as I possibly could. I didn’t want to-but I wanted to see how long it would take me. Slowly, I realized how much I liked the guys. They’re funny and sweet.” Tao smiles bitterly. “Thanks.”
“Are you still going to move out?” Sehun asks, watching Tao shrug and look up to the sky.
“I was thinking of staying at your place, actually,” Tao chuckles. “I’ve gotten most of my stuff packed anyways, and we’ve decided that we’re going to all move out together, as a family. And you did say that I could come over, whenever I needed to…”
Sehun jumps up, “Yes! You can come over whenever you like!” Tao smiles, bringing Sehun back down onto the ground.
“Oh, and the bubble tea is for you, by the way.”
Sehun raises his eyebrows, “How did you know that it was my favorite flavour?”
Tao shrugs, starting to count the cars that go by. “You think I really came in because I thought you guys were panda killers?”
Sehun blinks and Tao smirks.
“Actually-yes.”
Tao laughs, leaning in and softly taking Sehun’s chin in his hand, “Nah.”
He bridges the gap.
--
end.
a/n: thank you to everyone that dealt with me. I still have no knowledge when it comes to writing either Tao or Sehun, so this was.. fun. lol. And don't be a panda killer!
a/n1: nice baekfan in there, jules. i suck sometimes.
tao/sehun (with mentions of others)
fluff ; pg-13
mentions of sex, coarse language, heavy use of sarcasm
written as entry 26 in sncj_reversebb's 2012 reverse big bang art: here
“Panda?”
Sehun looks up from texting Jongin to see a man with jet-black hair and eyes that could easily scare anyone. He takes a step back, raising an eyebrow, mainly because he hadn’t heard what the customer had said-he rarely does. Jongin has a cruel habit of texting him when he’s working-that’s quality friendship for you-and there aren’t that many customers during his shift of 1pm to 4pm, so usually, he can text his bro and not have people complaining.
“Panda?” the man repeats, pointing at the sign that hangs above the cashier, where in big, baby blue bubble letters, the word ‘Panda’ is written in English. Sehun already knows what it looks like from having passed the little shop for most of his life on the way to school, and then when he was sixteen, finally applying for a job at the small ice cream shop.
“Yep, this is the ‘Panda Ice Cream Parlour’,” Sehun explained, tilting his head to the side and going his aegyo-because supposedly, according to Joonmyeon, aegyo always worked. The customer cocked his head to the side with him, frowning, and Sehun stands back upright-because even if aegyo works, he still looks like an idiot doing it.
“Murderers!” the customer screams at the top of his lungs, pointing at Sehun and giving him a look like he just killed his mother and first born child. Sehun steps back, raising his hands, and he’s sure that his eyes are the size of Kyungsoo’s right now, and if they aren’t, then they must be really close, because his eyelids feel like they’re being ripped apart.
“What?” Sehun asks, and he can feel Kyungsoo slapping the back of his head and asking him where his manners came from.
The customer screams, “How dare you kill and eat panda! They are going extinct and nevertheless, you go out and kill panda only for people to eat! That is murder! You should be killed, hung, stabbed, maimed, and destroyed, just like panda goes through every, single day! How dare you!”
Sehun forgets to blink, and he’s pretty sure that the seven customers in the café are all watching them, now.
“We don’t eat panda here,” Sehun explains once he’s finally regained his breath, “Pandas are sweet, adorable and cuddly creatures-and that’s what we wanted our customers to feel like once they step in, and once they try our ice cream. Sweet, adorable, and cuddly. I’m sorry if you took it the wrong way-we were actually, um, appreciating and complimenting the panda.”
This seems to calm down the customer, as he orders a strawberry ice cream and mocha latte to go, before exiting the café with his sunglasses perched on his nose, and the rest of the customers all watching him walk out.
“Whoa,” a frequent customer of the name Jino mumbles, and a few hums of agreement sound throughout the small ice cream shop.
**
Man, I just found this sexy ass bitch with a Chinese name. Should I talk to him?
- Jongin
Sehun rolls his eyes as he checks his phone. He’s about to text back with ‘no, of course not’, when Kyungsoo obviously clears his throat and gives him a sideways glare that could only mean ‘if you don’t put that away now, I will call Joonmyeon over here and I will get you fired.’ Sehun hates it when Kyungsoo shares the shift with him, as if they need two people working on at this slow shift, because of the way he looks over his shoulder and raises eyebrows and just really pays attention to things that aren’t his business in the first place.
“I’m surprised you still work here,” Kyungsoo says, not too loudly so that the customers can here across from the room, but loud enough so that Sehun could clearly understand what he had said without asking ‘pardon?’, or more realistically, ‘what?’
“I’m surprised you’re still a virgin with lips like those,” Sehun retaliates, cleaning the dishes because Kyungsoo’s hands seem to be way too pretty for ‘cleaning work’. Sehun doesn’t mind, or well, he wouldn’t mind if the gloves weren’t bright pink, but a previous worker named Key had bought the gloves and the other workers didn’t want to let them die once Key left to bigger and brighter things. Or they just really liked watching people scrub ice cream and juice from plates in a light pink apron and bright pink gloves.
Kyungsoo turns around, appalled that the junior would even dare talk back to him like that. He’s about to open his pretty, little lips and bite back with some lame comeback that had begun in the ‘80s when someone clears their throat and asks, “Um?”
Sehun smiles once he recognizes the sunken-eyed customer from before, who had rudely screamed at him for being a panda-assassin. He pushes Kyungsoo out of the way, throwing the pink dish gloves at him and showing him his biggest smile, whilst readjusting his worker’s cap. The customer furrows his brows at this sudden turn-of-events, and Kyungsoo is swearing underneath his breath from on the floor, but Sehun does a wonderful job of completely and utterly ignoring him.
“Yes? Oh Sehun, at your service!” Truthfully, he is never his perky unless Joonmyeon spills the sad news that they’ll have to eat the rest of the ice cream because the due date is coming up, but today is a special day, and because the customer always looks either a) angry or b) depressed, a little aegyo could certainly go a long way.
The customer glances upwards, behind Sehun, to look at the chalkboard, or better well-known as the menu by some people, and scans the words. Around the time that it takes Sehun to read ‘coffee’, the customer reads only a single letter in Korean.
“Do you sell bubble tea here?” the customer asks after like, at least twenty minutes. Sehun knows that they sell bubble tea, and it’s pretty obvious because on the menu there is a big drawing of it, drawn by the best-Byun Baekhyun when he’s not on his fangirly mode-and it takes over at least 17cm of the length of the 30x30cm board, so he nods as quickly as possible. And then Sehun is shocked.
Because the customer smiles. And it is certainly the most adorable thing that Sehun has ever seen. It’s not aegyo, or whatever Joonmyeon thinks Jongin is doing, but pure and utter adorableness, and Sehun is one-hundred-percent sure that his heart must have skipped a beat-because why the hell would he feel like he needs some air, stat?
“Then I’ll have strawberry, then,” the customer replies, and Sehun nods, running off to go do his order. Once and awhile, he looks over his shoulder, watching the customer play on his phone, scrolling through texts or sites or wherever-and Sehun briefly wonders what the guy is into. Pandas, Sehun thinks-why else would he come in the ice cream parlour and call him a murderer if he didn’t like pandas?
“Thank you.” The customer smiles, and turns to leave-and it’s exactly then when Sehun sees his nametag-as he must have popped in during his break from work. Huang Tao it reads, and Sehun smiles-it’s a pretty name.
“Tao,” Sehun rolls the name in his mouth once the customer has left, and Kyungsoo has magically reappeared, armed with a mop. He nudges him with the mop until Sehun finally decides to go mop up the floors.
**
“Bubble tea, again?” Sehun asks him the next day, when he pops in. Tao looks up from his phone-it’s a Blackberry, but Sehun isn’t one to judge when it comes to electronics, and Tao nods, biting down on his lip. Sehun notices how it shines, it gleams, underneath the lights of the ice cream parlour slash café and wonders if he puts lipstick or lip gloss on them or if they’re naturally that way and what they would possibly taste like-
“Um, what?” Sehun asks, having missed the words that Tao has spoken because of his useless and unprofessional daydream. Tao smirks, and Sehun is pretty much one-hundred-percent sure that there is something on those lips-or those lips just happen to be that kissable.
“Peach,” Tao repeats, “I’d like peach flavoured.”
Sehun has to say-his Korean is flawless for someone from a different country. He closes his eyes as the machine makes it, wondering what kind of make-up he might have used to make such misty and alluring eyes. Certainly some eyeliner, for sure. He opened his eyes once he was done, slipping the contents from the blender into the cup, where the black dots already sat-ready to mingle with the peach.
“Here,” Sehun said with a smile, handing over the bubble tea. Tao smiled back, fishing out his wallet and politely handing over the money necessary. “Oh wait-your change!” Sehun looked up to see Tao already out the door, and a phone up against his ear.
**
“I’d like some patbingsu,” Tao orders. Sehun opens his mouth-because really, he isn’t sure that he can make it, but Tao’s eyes are filled with such worry and something else that Sehun nods. “Strawberry.” Sehun has noticed that the customer seems to like strawberry-he’s ordered strawberry ice cream, strawberry bubble tea-and now patbingsu. He adds it to the things in his head-Tao likes strawberry.
Three phone conversations with Kyungsoo later, Sehun walks up to the table where Tao has sat down. His laptop is open on the table and they have to move it a little bit to sit the plate down. Tao takes a bite, and his whole face lights up-and Sehun’s does the same. He makes a mental note to thank Kyungsoo with taking his shifts the next time he saw him.
He feels awkward, just standing there watching Tao eat the dessert, so he turns away to leave. Cold fingers touch his wrist and Sehun looks down to see the biggest, roundest eyes ever-and it takes him a moment to realize that the eyes are Tao’s, and it’s only because of the eyeliner around them. Sehun adds another thing to the list of things he adores about Huang Tao.
“Please, sit with me,” Tao pleads, and Sehun feels like he’s watching TV at home, with the commercials stating that just a dollar a day will help with everything a child will need-because Tao looks so much like one. And like people who just love peace and harmony wall too much-see Kim Joonmyeon-Sehun sits down and accepts the small price of unhappy customers just to sit next to someone like Huang Tao.
“So, Sehun-sshi.” Sehun’s cheeks redden instantly and he wonders-how the hell does he know my name? Tao starts laughing, filling the parlour with his adorable laughter. “It’s your nametag, silly. And plus, you told it to me yesterday. ‘Oh Sehun, at your service!’” Tao adds in the aegyo, and Sehun is ready to give all his life savings and his first born child to this adorable man.
“You’re adorable,” Sehun says before he can think (because, when you’re around Tao, thinking doesn’t happen that often).
Tao looks up from his patbingsu and smiles, licking his lips to catch some of the strawberry flavor before it dribbles down his chin. “I’ve heard that a lot, actually. I do really cute aegyo in order to get the things that I want from my geges,” he explains, and the last sentence practically screams trouble to Sehun-except for that ‘geges’ part-because he doesn’t know how to speak whatever-that-just-was.
“Your um, geges, must do a lot for you then. You must be really close,” Sehun begins, trying his best to pretend that he’s a little bit comfortable in the comfy chair that he’s sitting in.
Tao shrugs, “They buy me Gucci, and I do aegyo, which is really it sometimes. I’ve been getting further and further away from them lately but they don’t seem to really mind. I’ve been working hard at the hotel to try to get a nice place to live, and they know that I’ll be moving out soon anyways. We met up because we were broke, but we broke up because we finally got enough money.”
“You’re just going to leave them?” Sehun whispers, cocking his head to the side. Tao looks up from his ice cream to watch him-and they lock eyes.
When Sehun finally blinks, he looks down, chewing on his lip. “When I first got this job, I hated everyone that worked here. Baekhyun was always spamming me about girl groups he liked, Chanyeol was always breaking the machines, Joonmyeon never really solved any problems, Kyungsoo nagged you like crazy, and Jongin didn’t do anything and you had to do it yourself. But yet-I really grew to like them, and when Jongin left after a while, I realized that I didn’t want this ‘family’ to be ripped apart.” He laughed, “You know what I’m saying?”
Tao leaned into his chair and hummed. “We were all broke, the six of us. Three of us, Lu Han, Yixing and I, came from China together and we tried to get jobs and the cheapest place available. At the viewing we met Kris, and then Minseok and Jongdae happened to become Lu Han and Yixing’s lovers. And everyone just kind of fit, like a puzzle piece. But slowly, piece by piece, we’ll have to go, right? Six people in a small apartment is tight, really tight. Someone needs air to breathe.”
“Stay as long as you can,” Sehun encourages, leaning and touching Tao’s arm, “And if you ever need someplace to go, if it gets too crowded, you can always come over to my place.” He writes down his address, but Tao swats his hand away, standing up and gathering his things.
“I don’t need some stupid ice cream vendor to tell me how to live my life. I hate it there, so I will be moving soon-I don’t give a damn about what you think.”
He storms out of the ice cream parlour, the patbingsu sitting on the table, half-eaten and neglected.
**
“You should probably just give up on him,” Baekhyun comments, looking up from his compact to watch as Sehun sighs the seventh time that ten minutes (he counted), his head on his palm and his eyes looking at nowhere in particular. “Because that is life. Some super awesome guy appears, claiming that his dragon is so big and he’s so damn tall and so sexy, and then in the end, right before you’re going to have sex, he can’t get it up! Life is just like that.”
“I don’t want to hear about Krissss,” Sehun whines, “I want my Huang Tao panda lover!” It was, of course, right after Tao had stomped out of the parlour and Sehun’s heart had actually snapped in two (he wasn’t joking-Kyungsoo had to carry him home because he wasn’t sure if his heart was beating and he was laying out on the floor like a drunkard and Kyungsoo was pretty certain that it wasn’t sanitary for him to do that), and he had realized the utter power of love.
For he was sure that he was in love.
“Come on, make me some bubble tea or something,” Baekhyun ordered, kicking one of Sehun’s calves. Sehun sinks to the floor, clutching his face, because Tao loved bubble tea. He makes clear of this by wailing it throughout the ice cream shop, and Baekhyun is regretting spending his only day off with someone that doesn’t even appreciate it. He could be spending time going through all of his Girl’s Generation albums.
“My life is ruined,” Sehun mumbles, staring at his shoes, a small pout appearing at his lips. Baekhyun sighs-patting Sehun’s head and cooing.
“Call me when your life is back to normal, k? I preferred love-sick Sehun over heart-broken Sehun. You know, Kris told me about some guy that he was friends with, this guy called Lu Han; you two could probably hit it off. He can buy you bubble tea or something.” Sehun glares at Baekhyun, who simply shrugs and leaves melodramatic teenager to his own drama.
“Sehun,” a voice calls, and Sehun grumbles, “Go away.”
“Sehun,” he repeats, and Sehun finally looks up-only to see Tao leaning over the counter, looking at him with wide, worrying eyes. “Are you ok? You don’t seem like the unprofessional typ-”
Tao doesn’t have enough time to finish his statement because Sehun bounds up and wraps him up into a hug. Tao’s eyes widen and he stutters out complete nonsense, but it’s drowned out by Sehun’s girly squeal and “Oh my god, I didn’t think that you would be back! I’m so happy that you’re back, I missed you so much! Like, my heart was broken when you walked away.”
(Ignore the fact that he sounds like a teenage pop song)
Sehun pulls away, tears forming at his eyelids, and Tao smiles.
“Strawberry ice cream,” Tao orders, and Sehun scoops it cheerily. “And make an apple bubble tea, too.” Sehun nods, rushing around behind the counter, finding the ingredients and making a delicious-looking bubble tea.
Tao grabs Sehun’s hand, dragging him over the counter and out the door. Chanyeol is in charge now, and Sehun isn’t one-hundred-percent ok with that, but Tao doesn’t seem to mind-sitting down on the curb and starting to lick his ice cream, the pink lines running down his fingers.
“You words stuck in here,” Tao points to his head and Sehun half-wishes that it was his heart, but it’s the thought that counts, right? “And I decided to stay with them as long as I possibly could. I didn’t want to-but I wanted to see how long it would take me. Slowly, I realized how much I liked the guys. They’re funny and sweet.” Tao smiles bitterly. “Thanks.”
“Are you still going to move out?” Sehun asks, watching Tao shrug and look up to the sky.
“I was thinking of staying at your place, actually,” Tao chuckles. “I’ve gotten most of my stuff packed anyways, and we’ve decided that we’re going to all move out together, as a family. And you did say that I could come over, whenever I needed to…”
Sehun jumps up, “Yes! You can come over whenever you like!” Tao smiles, bringing Sehun back down onto the ground.
“Oh, and the bubble tea is for you, by the way.”
Sehun raises his eyebrows, “How did you know that it was my favorite flavour?”
Tao shrugs, starting to count the cars that go by. “You think I really came in because I thought you guys were panda killers?”
Sehun blinks and Tao smirks.
“Actually-yes.”
Tao laughs, leaning in and softly taking Sehun’s chin in his hand, “Nah.”
He bridges the gap.
--
end.
a/n: thank you to everyone that dealt with me. I still have no knowledge when it comes to writing either Tao or Sehun, so this was.. fun. lol. And don't be a panda killer!
a/n1: nice baekfan in there, jules. i suck sometimes.