(for helaas) I'm Only Sleeping
For: helaas
By: Anonymous until reveals
Title: I'm Only Sleeping
Rating: PG-13
Length: 7907
Notes: n/a
Warnings: Mild alcohol use, reference to non-exo character death
Summary: Jongin reminds Yixing that home isn't a place as much as it's a haven for long-lost dreams.
His grandmother once told him that time shifts to revolve around the thing that most occupies your life at that moment. Yixing’s days are measured in the number of orders he’s filled, double espresso shots, and Americanos. He breathes in cake flour and the syrupy aroma of freshly baked pastries, and he relishes the buzz of early morning commuters and hiss of hot steam at the bottom of every cup. If time did suddenly switch tracks to accommodate his new lifestyle, then it happened seamlessly enough for his job at the café to become a routine. So when Yixing opts to pick up a whisk rather than his guitar on certain days, or file away his handwritten compositions to work on improving the latest addition to the menu, he reminds himself that it’s time changing to find its new center of gravity-time speeding up or slowing down in favor of his extended hours or newly discovered recipes-and he doesn’t think twice of it.
The staff at Moonlight Java has established a system before locking up every night. The evenings are comparably calmer than the mornings, mostly due to the absence of rush-hour traffic and frenzied businessmen desiring their caffeine boosts for the day, so when the last customer leaves at the end of the hour, each person takes his time finishing up his final tasks. Lu Han sweeps the floors and makes sure to wipe down the granite countertops and tables well at the end of the day because coffee stains are stubborn little things to clean up the next morning. Minseok usually restocks supplies that have run low, replacing empty containers with ones filled up to the brim with different types of roasted coffee beans, all imported from faraway lands. Yixing stays at the register and records their sales for the day. It’s not a laborious task, and sometimes he wonders why he’s the one dealing with numbers when he’s the worst one at math, but instead of dropping everything to help Minseok store the leftover pastries, he simply squints at his calculator and hopes that his addition won’t drive the café to bankruptcy.
One evening, Yixing’s waiting to print out a new record of their numbers for the day. Through the window, he can see the backlit silhouettes of people in the shops and cafes across the street, rushing to and fro to lock up for the night. The sky seems inkier than usual, a blanket of black draped over a sleepless Seoul, and even without glancing at a clock, Yixing knows that it’s already past their closing time.
“So are we closing up yet?” Lu Han asks, emerging from the kitchen with a smudge of flour on his cheek. He already has a broom in hand, ready to take on the stray napkins and straw wrappers littered on the ground. “We’re running fifteen minutes late.”
“I would say we should close up now, but…”
“But what?” Yixing gestures at the lone customer at table five and Lu Han lets out an exasperated sigh, probably miffed that a stranger is holding him back from his late-night dinner and action movie marathon. The customer isn't a regular from their pool of Monday patrons, and when he first walked in, Yixing assumed he was just another one of those typical artsy university students scouring Hongdae for the perfect iced coffee. He claimed table five after taking his drink, and that was that, but no one expected him to stay the next nine hours. He must have fallen asleep at some point because now his head is pillowed in his arms, and Yixing feels oddly torn. On one hand, he’s alarmed because he doesn’t remember if the boy ordered a normal or a decaf coffee, and if he ordered a normal one, then the caffeine definitely wasn’t strong enough to keep him awake, indicating that the recipe needs some modifying. On the other hand, Lu Han’s nudging him with the blunt end of the broomstick and he knows he’s in a dilemma.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Go wake him up of course,” Lu Han replies, “or else I’ll do it for you.” He begins cleaning and pulling chairs and tables out of the way to reach the space underneath them. They make an awful racket as their legs scrape against the hard wood floors, and Yixing scurries over to the snoozing boy to shake him from sleep before Lu Han reaches his side of the room.
“Um, excuse me.” He prods his shoulder gently, and the boy blinks, eyes glazed and bloodshot. Yixing almost feels guilty for waking him up because it’s immediately clear that he needs rest. “Sorry for bothering you, but we’re closing for the night.”
“Oh,” the boy mumbles, and he rubs at his eyes. Up close, Yixing can see a slight roundness in his face that makes him look even younger than a university student, and the guilt solidifies at the pit of his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head to reclaim some energy. “I’ll be leaving now.” The boy flies out of his seat in a flurry before Yixing can fit in another word, taking his worn backpack with him, and in a matter of seconds, he’s out of the café. He only leaves behind a cool autumn draft that crept through the closing door, and it's as if no one were there in the first place.
Lu Han empties his dustpan into the trash bin with a click of his tongue. “Looks like we can finally close now,” he remarks, and Yixing nods, belatedly realizing that there’s still a cup half full of watery coffee sitting on table five.
The following morning runs its monotonous course, but Yixing does his best to savor every moment of it as per usual, ignoring the rough patches that surface after lunchtime, like the sputtering espresso machine that he’s already brought in to fix two weeks ago or the burned batch of blueberry muffins that had to be trashed. Lu Han never fails to remind him that he’s optimistic to the point of disgust, and Yixing whole-heartedly takes it as a compliment every time.
“For someone who doesn’t have more than five facial expressions, you’re always excited when you’re working,” Lu Han points out mid-afternoon when their influx of customers is at its lowest. “It’s mildly disconcerting. Hasn’t the magic worn away yet? It’s already been a year since Moonlight Java’s opened.”
“Honestly,” Yixing muses, “I don’t think the magic is ever going to disappear.” And it truly doesn’t because Yixing doesn’t believe he can ever grow tired of the rich aroma of coffee or find anything other than reassurance from his customers’ content expressions as they take their first careful sips of cold and hot beverages. The café is the result of his seedling of a dream, brought to life and nurtured until it’s blossomed into something grander and sweeter than dollops of whip cream and sugar-glazed bread. And although Yixing enjoys every minute spent working behind the counter, drawing lotuses in latte foam, the mere idea of something shifting out of place and toppling his modest, little dream hovers over him like a half-forgotten nightmare.
When the café empties out at the end of the day and Yixing’s crunching numbers at the register to the sound of descaling coffee machines, he’s surprised to find a single customer slumped over table five again. Yixing’s fingers hover over the buttons of his calculator as he stares for a beat longer, and he makes out a familiar mop of hair and threadbare bag, both of which belong to the boy from the night before. There’s another half-filled cup of what used to be iced coffee by his side, but Yixing doesn’t recall ringing up the boy’s order and wonders if he slipped in while he was busy rummaging for the new shipment of French roast in the kitchen. By the time he’s finished recording the sales for the day, the boy hasn’t stirred once, still fixed in the same position. He’s using his bag as his pillow this time, and his arms dangle in the air past his seat, seemingly boneless in a way that reminds Yixing of a ragdoll.
It must be uncomfortable. He eyes his watch, and it’s well past 10PM already, so he musters up the right amount of assertiveness needed to subtly kick out sleeping patrons. It falls flat when the boy starts to sit up on his own, drowsiness weighing down his limbs like sandbags. Yixing is already halfway to the table when the boy raises his head to look at him, brown eyes fringed with dark lashes and even darker circles from an unspoken exhaustion, and for a moment, something about his entire image is off because that kind of weariness always precedes a person’s slow crash and burn. The hey, we’re closing now dies in his throat.
“I’m leaving soon,” the boy says, his voice on the gravelly side, and although Yixing wants to tell him to take his time, to dress warmly, and maybe offer him a warm drink on the house because it looks like he needs it, he doesn’t because he remembers Moonlight Java is supposed to be closed at this time, no exceptions. He simply steps back and nods, watching silently as the boy gathers his belongings, zips up the collar of his blue jacket so it covers half his face, and heads outside to brave the chilly fall evening.
“Thank you for coming,” Yixing manages to say, but he’s a fraction of a second too late and the door closes with a resounding chime.
That isn’t the last time Yixing sees him. The boy returns the next day and the day after that and the day after that. Yixing finally takes notice of him in his conscious state when he walks up to the counter one late morning, looking minimally worse for wear, but still put together enough to order his customary iced coffee. Yixing has to lean in to hear his low voice over the high-strung energy of bustling Monday patrons. Lu Han and Minseok have dubbed him the boy who sleeps at table five in their kitchen conversations and sleepy boy when they’re filling his order and need a more concise title to work with.
“He has a name,” Yixing mentions briefly, scrawling said name onto a transparent plastic cup. “It’s Jongin.”
“Jongin, huh?” Minseok takes the cup from him and scoops in a spoonful of ice. “I kind of like sleepy boy more. By the way, the espresso machine is still broken. I think it’s about time we give up on it.”
“I know,” Yixing responds, eyeing the cup in Minseok’s hand carefully as the barista nearly fills it to the brim with whole milk, covering the chilled espresso underneath. “I’ll get it to work sometime. It was perfectly fine a week ago.”
Minseok seems to crack a smile, and Yixing’s half expecting him to make a joke about his stubborn positivity like Lu Han always does, but instead, he tops off the cup with a corresponding lid and places it on the counter. “Iced coffee for sleepy-I mean Jongin!”
Yixing tries not to observe Jongin too closely for the rest of the day, but he has an unobstructed view of table five from his position at the register. Even when he’s counting out change and taking complicated orders, his gaze lingers far too long on the wrong customer. He’s reading a book this time, a surprising change from his long naps, and the title is blocked by his fingers, but it still piques Yixing’s interest, making it even harder for him to look away when he takes his afternoon break and switches places with Lu Han. It’s silly, Yixing thinks, because Jongin’s simply another regular, and he doesn’t pay the same amount of attention to the gossiping middle-aged wives and pensive art students who frequent the café, but something about Jongin demands attention. Perhaps it’s the way he doesn’t quite blend into the atmosphere with his mysterious edge, a little too rough on the surface for the café crowd, so even performing the most mundane activities, such as reading, can’t render him a wallflower.
“You’re staring,” Lu Han tells him, patting his arm playfully. He nudges Yixing aside to handle the register, and Yixing picks up the rag Lu Han’s abandoned on the counter. “Why don’t you talk to him?”
Jongin’s head is beginning to droop in increments until strands of his bangs brush against the top of his book’s pages. “We’re working now.” Yixing, ever dutiful, starts to clear the clutter from the countertop, and he looks away just as the boy’s head falls onto his novel. “Besides, I was only curious. He stays here all afternoon. And all evening.”
“Is there a problem with that? You could always kick him out.” Lu Han unwraps a new tube of coins and dumps it into its designated compartment in the register. “Or I can do it for you. We’re closing later and later each day because of him.”
“No,” Yixing says a little too sharply, hesitating because Lu Han’s turned to him and his eyes are large and searching, a sign that there must be more behind what he’s asking. “I mean, that won’t be necessary. I just wonder why he stays for so long every day. What if he has nowhere to go?”
“What do you mean?”
Yixing pauses, leaving the countertop partially cleaned. As much as he doesn’t want to entertain the thought because Jongin, in all his contradictory youthfulness, doesn’t seem like the type of person to have nowhere to stay-not when he’s lingering in cafes and succumbing to his own dream world instead of hanging out on the streets and mixing with delinquents-Yixing can’t deny that it’s a possibility. “He looks like he’s barely out of high school, but maybe he doesn’t have a place to stay?”
Lu Han shrugs and the corners of his lips turn downwards. “I don’t know.” There’s a lull in their conversation when a young girl walks up to ask them to refill the napkin dispenser, and Yixing all but leaps over the counter to help her. When he returns to finish his tasks, Lu Han’s already done attending to their most recent stream of customers, and Yixing almost doesn't hear him over the hum of mid-afternoon activity. “The world isn't kind to everyone, even to kids like him,” Lu Han says, clearing his throat and giving him a reassuring smile. “Let’s just keep the café open for a little longer today.”
There are a handful of responses lined up in his mind, and the majority of them consist of pointing out Lu Han’s poor attempts to hide his compassion for their customers, but Yixing holds back because he can only think of the sleeping boy at table five, the way his soft inhales and exhales rustle the paper beneath his chin, and the way he doesn’t budge at all when Yixing’s sweeping in a circle around him.
“Let’s do that.”
When Jongin wakes up on his own accord, the lights from the store across the street have long gone out for the night, bathing the sidewalks in a serene dimness. Yixing stirs from his place at the counter when he sees Jongin’s eyes flutter open and focus blearily into space. His arms are numb where they’ve been pressed up against the cold, granite surface, and he tries to shake off the prickling sensation.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
“What time…what time is it?” Jongin squints at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. There’s a stray piece of hair bent out of shape from the way he slept, and it sticks up in a manner that Yixing finds oddly endearing, but he quickly pushes the thought out of his head, rationalizing that the late hour is unforgiving.
“It’s 1AM,” Yixing replies, and just as Jongin bolts up to gather his belongings again, cheeks flushed red with something akin to embarrassment, he holds out his hands to stall for time. “Wait, you don’t have to leave yet. Let me get you a warm drink at least. It’s on the house.”
The book Jongin was reading earlier has slipped to the ground with a muffled clatter during his mad rush to leave, and the boy gingerly retrieves it and sets it back on the table. “I’m sorry. I keep staying late. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“I don’t mind.” Yixing snaps a lid onto the tall hot chocolate he’s whipped up. “It looked like you needed the rest anyway.”
Lu Han and Minseok have left for the evening after Yixing had insisted they take the rest of the night off. Late-night cleaning and checking inventory had become second nature to them, an integral part of the routine they’ve established and honed together over time, but by the time midnight rolled around, they were fighting to stand on their feet.
“Why are we waiting for this kid again?” Minseok had asked, slumped over an abandoned newspaper on table two. He perused the cartoon section and sighed.
“Because Xing’s too nice of a person to disturb him,” Lu Han had mentioned, downing a concoction with a few too many espresso shots, a prelude to a restless night of regrets. “The least we can do is wait with him.”
Eventually, though, with plenty of persistence and some pushing, Yixing had persuaded them to leave first. Halfway out the door, Minseok had turned around and given him a two-fingered salute and a hasty good luck, but Yixing wasn’t sure if luck played a role in this situation. Operating the café alone reminds him of the first opening day barely a year ago, when the machinery had gleamed with a striking newness and the murmur of people shuttling in and out had been a little quieter, like the whisper of rising steam.
Yixing slides the drink towards Jongin and, hesitating for a fraction of a second, decides to sit in the seat across from him. Jongin takes the drink and wraps his fingers around the cup. “Thank you,” he mumbles, words still coated in sleep. “But I don’t deserve this.”
“Why would you say that?”
Jongin bites his lip and takes a careful sip. “Most places would’ve kicked me out at this time, so when someone lets me stay, it’s kind of unexpected. You always let me stay until closing time.”
“I don’t like to kick people out,” Yixing comments bluntly. “Someone once told me that time doesn’t flow the way we think it does. When we’re doing something we like, it ceases to matter.” Jongin is still hunched in on himself, slightly lost as if he’s anticipating Yixing to change his mind, to take back the hot chocolate and order him out, but bit by bit, his shoulders begin to relax and he sinks further into his chair.
“So, you don’t mind it when I stay?” Jongin asks.
“I love it here,” Yixing answers, folding his hands in front of him. The skin is marked in certain spots from the burns he’s accumulated from handling hot liquids, but they’re similar to calluses on fingers from drawn-out hours of guitar playing, badges of honor that define the separation between passions and mere hobbies. “If I could run the café twenty-four hours a day, I would, but that can’t happen yet, so even if you choose to stay, I really wouldn’t mind.”
The corners of Jongin’s lips curl up. He tips his cup back to take another sip, partially concealing his grin, but it still shines through, and with a start, Yixing realizes that it’s the first time he’s seen the sleeping boy at table five smile at all.
He learns that Jongin is only a little younger than he is, but he’s homeless, the result of a series of unfortunate circumstances that Jongin struggles to elaborate on. Although Yixing’s suspected it, he’s still surprised because Jongin doesn’t look the part, but assumptions prove to do more harm than good, so he brushes them aside and doesn’t probe. Some things are better left unsaid, and the way Jongin retreats when curiosity eggs Yixing on to find out more tells him that this is one of those cases.
“You can stay here in the meantime,” he tells him, standing up to stretch and untie his apron. “I live upstairs and I have a sofa you can sleep on. I can guarantee you that it’s more comfortable than wooden surfaces, so you’re welcome to sleep there. Only if you want to, that is.”
Jongin fumbles with his hot chocolate. He must have finished it by now. “I can’t-”
“I’m offering because it’s cold outside and I don’t know if any other places are open now,” Yixing interjects, aware that he’s rambling, but he doesn’t want to leave the wrong impression. “I don’t expect anything in return, so at least consider it?”
When Jongin reluctantly accepts and gives him a small bow from across the table, Yixing feels somewhat elated, and slowly but surely, Moonlight Java’s nighttime emptiness fills up with Jongin’s presence.
“Why do you buy iced coffee?” Yixing asks him when they’re upstairs, pulling out the sofa’s built-in mattress together. He hasn’t had a guest in a while, not since his parents visited for a preview of the café before its grand opening, and the springs groan in protest when they manage to set it in place. “Shouldn’t you be saving up the money for something else?”
“I needed a reason to stay here,” Jongin replies sheepishly, dusting his hands against his faded jeans. “I never actually liked coffee that much, but I’ve always liked sitting in cafés. Yours has to be the nicest I’ve been in.”
“There’s still a lot I can do to improve it,” Yixing declares, slightly confused by the compliment. The café is the manifestation of his dreams, something that can be tweaked and altered gradually as he shamelessly allows himself to dream some more, but the change that occurs is almost undetectable to him when it happens at a crawling pace. “It isn’t perfect yet.”
“Not everything has to be perfect, though.” Jongin takes the sofa cushion out of Yixing’s hands and throws it on the makeshift bed. Yixing feels his hand ghost over his, the warmth vaguely comforting. “Sometimes, nice is more than enough.”
It’s not enough for me, Yixing thinks, on the brink of sinking into a bout of self-doubt, but when Jongin smiles again, a reassuring one this time that isn’t plagued by his habitual drowsiness under the bright overhead lights, he stops and simply nods.
Yixing finds out the next morning that Jongin is the kind of person who stays, but not for long enough. He's in the kitchen preparing a tray of the morning’s pumpkin muffins, beating the first rays of sun that peek in through the wide cafe windows, when he hears the chiming of the bell attached to the front door. With his hands still covered in flour, Yixing steps out to the countertop space and catches Jongin on his way out, a fleeting shadow in the dawn.
“You aren't very sneaky, if that's what you're going for,” he says, grabbing a rag to rid his hands of the white powder, but most of it ends up on the ground. He’ll have to clean it up before the customers begin to come in.
“I couldn't find you this morning, but I didn't want to trouble you any more.” Jongin dips into another bow, and his bag slips off his shoulder and falls to the ground with a heavy, resonating thump. “Thank you again for being so generous.”
“It's alright. You don't have to be so formal with me,” Yixing says, and he doesn’t know where to look or what to say next because Jongin has the air of a lost child while he’s masquerading as a man, a strange combination Yixing doesn’t know how to handle. When it’s just the two of them in the café during these quiet hours, though-detached from Seoul’s busybodies-he thinks that the silence sands down Jongin’s rough edges, leaving behind the first hints of familiarity. And maybe, if he searches hard enough from a certain angle, he can see Jongin melting into the backdrop, corners and edges lined up faultlessly until it seems like he’s another part of Moonlight Java’s ever-shifting picture. “Do you want to stay?”
Jongin hoists his bag back over his shoulder and gives him a quizzical look. “Excuse me?”
“Um, do you want to work here? You still need a place to stay, so you can live here in exchange for work. But if you already have a job, then don’t worry about it. You can still stay, or you can drop by whenever-”
“I’d like to.”
“-you want. You don’t even have to order iced coffee.” Yixing backtracks, noticing that his words are spilling out and bleeding into a poorly orchestrated mess. “What?”
“I’d like to work here if you’re hiring,” Jongin clarifies, allowing the bag to drop to his feet again. He brushes his fingers through his disheveled hair, a nervous tic Yixing’s picked up on. “When do I start?”
“Well, whenever,” Yixing notes, laughing at the way things turned out. He’d never expected sleepy boy to worm his way into the café’s regimen, but Jongin’s managed to do just that without doing anything more than ordering iced coffee and taking up table space. It’s slightly risky to let a stranger in, he tells himself. The café’s still new, barely out of its infancy, but when Jongin steps back inside to sit down at table five, eyes shining with a rekindled interest as if he’s sitting down in the café for the first time, Yixing knows that this is also enough. “Welcome to the team.”
“Sometimes, I don’t think I do enough, and I have to wonder why you’re helping me,” Jongin tells him one day when there’s a gap in the flow of weekday morning patrons. He’s relieving Lu Han of his cashier duties because he’s found out quickly that the register is the only machine he can operate without inducing catastrophic spills or scorching his fingers. Of course, Lu Han doesn’t complain when he switches around the rotation schedule-Jongin’s become a blessing in disguise-and judging by the lapses of inactivity from the kitchen, Yixing suspects that his coworker has taken the opportunity to smuggle manga inside for the hours when business is a little slower than usual. It’s a mutual gain.
“You do enough. Don’t feel discouraged,” he replies, focusing on the latte foam drawing of a cat he’s supposed to finish for the next customer. He falters when Jongin enters his peripheral vision, and suddenly, he’s closer than Yixing’s thought.
“Do you ever think about what you’ve gained, though?” Jongin asks faintly, and he’s so close that the tone of his voice tickles Yixing’s ear. He plays with the gauze taped onto his palm. On his first day, Jongin had nicked himself while slicing strawberries, and from that point on, Minseok had insisted that he should stay by the countertop area for his own good, an unofficial ban from the kitchen. “I wish I could do more to repay you for your help.”
Yixing lets out a sigh and frowns at the uneven cat ears he’s pulled out of the foam. “Everyone has to start from somewhere. We jump at any chances given to us if we want something badly enough. I don’t want to think of offering you a job as helping you as much as it’s providing you a chance.” He feels Jongin’s eyes boring into the side of his head as he balances the latte on a tray and places it on the receiving end of the counter.
“Did someone help you too, then? I mean, did someone give you a window of opportunity?”
“Yeah,” he answers, and he feels a rush of content when the girl picks up her order, bubbling with admiration for the cartoon feline. “But not just one person. I couldn’t have opened up this place if I didn’t have support from my friends and family. Most of the time, support is all you need to open up that window of opportunity. It’s all you need to feel like you can conquer the world.”
Jongin’s face is blank at first, but he eventually grins. “You’re so…hopeful,” he says, crinkling his eyes, and Yixing’s glad that it’s Jongin who’s there listening to him speak with an unabated positivity because the way he smiles so whole-heartedly is a refreshing change from Lu Han’s conspicuous eye rolls. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I could say the same for you,” Yixing replies slowly, wiping down the nozzle of the steam wand. It’s not everyday someone like Jongin passes through and stays without the original intention to stay, but now he’s here, donning a matching white apron and entertaining the customers waiting in line with his peculiar sense of humor, and for a second, Yixing forgets that Jongin’s a new addition to the café to begin with. “Don’t worry too much about those strawberries. I believe you deserve all the chances you can get.”
With that, Jongin finally leaves his gauze alone and turns around to take on a new set of orders. “Alright.”
In his second week, Jongin tries to make Moonlight Java’s signature Americano.
“It’s not that difficult,” Minseok says, diluting his two prepared shots of espresso with hot water. “The machine does all the work for you.”
“But the machine likes you.” Jongin examines the newest set of burns on his knuckles from his previously failed attempt to aim the hot water into the cup. “I don’t think I’m meant to use it.”
Minseok gives him a slap on the back, one that sounds more painful than encouraging from where Yixing’s standing within earshot. “You can’t give up yet. By the time we’re through with you, you’ll be a world-class barista.”
Jongin turns the knob halfway before the machine starts to sputter again. “That’s unlikely.”
It takes a few days, a few rolls of bandages, and a sizeable amount of coarsely ground coffee beans for Jongin to master the Americano, but Yixing’s convinced his effort is worthwhile when the first sip of coffee spreads evenly across his tongue.
“This is amazing,” Yixing exclaims, like he’s come across a treasured secret recipe. “Wow.”
“You weren’t expecting that, were you?” Jongin asks, bordering on smugness, and Yixing can’t help but like this new side of Jongin that reveals itself a little at a time everyday.
“No, I honestly wasn’t.” He smacks his lips and savors the balance of bitterness and roasted flavor. “Maybe you can move on to lattes next. Lu Han’s really good at making tulips.”
Jongin snorts and takes the cup out of Yixing’s hands. “Not a chance.”
The first winter storm of the season blows through Hongdae and knocks out the power on three blocks. Moonlight Java wasn’t spared, so for two days and three nights, Yixing and Jongin make do with extra sets of blankets to maximize the energy from their single space heater and unhealthy portions of take-out that neither of them would admit to consuming.
Yixing suggests they retreat upstairs to eat their dinner because heat rises, or something to that extent-his Chemistry knowledge has deteriorated over the years away from school. To make the area more habitable in the dark, they take turns lighting candles around the perimeter of the center room and lay out Yixing’s quilts to cover the cold, hardwood floors.
“What do you do besides manage the café?” Jongin asks, crossing his legs in front of him and digging into his stir-fried noodles. He pulls out enough for a mouthful with his chopsticks, the oily strands reflective in the ill lighting, and Yixing thinks food has never looked so unappetizing in the dark before.
“You’ve seen me these past few weeks. I don’t do much else,” he replies, taking a bite of his own rice. “I used to compose music when I had more free time.”
Jongin’s eyes widen. “You play music?”
“I…I used to. I haven’t gone back to it in a while,” Yixing admits, and the guilt begins to collect in his chest. “I played the guitar and piano.”
“Why don’t you play anymore? Was it something you were passionate about?” It’s the first time Jongin’s been this inquisitive, and Yixing remembers that, despite living together, they’re still hovering around an uncertain division between strangers and friends. It’s a wall neither of them has climbed over yet, but Jongin’s the one to reach the top and offer a hand first.
“I’m not very good at spreading out my time.” Yixing laughs, scattering a few grains of rice onto the fabric he’s sitting on. “I tend to work on new recipes instead of write songs or introduce new drinks to the menu instead of practice, but it’s what naturally happens when your main focus is always shifting like mine.”
Jongin gestures for the box of broccoli in front of him and Yixing pushes it towards him. “Music was my first passion.”
“I’d like to hear you play someday,” he mentions. “You shouldn’t let a passion like that go.” The tips of Yixing’s ears grow warm and he hopes they aren’t glowing pink in the candlelight.
“Someday,” he affirms.
By the time their dinner has sunken into their stomachs and propelled them into a hazy post-meal coma, the candlewicks have shortened, dimming the room by a fraction. Yixing’s not used to this unoccupied stretch of time. He prefers to keep himself working at his own comfortable pace, running himself through to the end of every task until he’s too tired to continue. The darkness, however, only accentuates the nothingness of the moment, the long, peaceful silences occasionally punctuated by the howling wind outside.
“Did you know I wanted to break into the entertainment industry here?” Yixing says, itching to say anything at all. His words echo loudly in the room, and they sound off, as if the winter storm’s warped the entire world around them in addition to their power supply, and he turns towards Jongin’s general direction. Yixing only sees an indefinite outline of his head from a few feet away. He’s reclining on a stack of pillows, and Yixing thinks he might have fallen asleep, but Jongin abruptly sits up. “Fame is so enticing when you’re young, but you don’t weigh out the consequences until you realize you’re in too deep. Or if you’re like me, you realize ahead of time when you don’t make it, and you steer clear while you can.”
“Are you glad you didn’t make it?” Jongin asks, a disembodied voice in a room full of flitting shadows.
“I didn’t even think about opening a café until years later. So in a way, I’m really happy about that rejection.”
“I’m glad you were rejected too,” Jongin adds, consonants and vowels slurring together as a sure sign of sleep taking over, “or else I probably wouldn’t have met you.” His sentence tapers at the end, disintegrating into a light snore, but the meaning hangs over Yixing for the rest of the night.
He doesn’t fall asleep as easily as Jongin does, but right before he finally allows the ebb and flow of slumber to carry him away, he decides that this is a start, that perhaps they aren’t quite strangers anymore. With every passing day, Jongin’s slowly unfurling and peeling back the layers of his enigmatic exterior, and Yixing genuinely hopes that Jongin’s still here by the time all the layers disappear.
And much to his relief, Jongin does stay. They close the café early one night to celebrate Lu Han’s birthday. Yixing convinces Jongin to come along, even though it should already be a given.
“You’re part of the team now, remember?” he’d told him earlier, slipping an arm into his puffy coat. “Come celebrate with us.”
Jongin had absentmindedly ruffled his hair, moving the strands out of place. “I’ll go with you,” he’d replied, and Yixing had handed him an extra pair of gloves. During times like this, Jongin had the habit of bringing back his inner lost child, and Yixing would fight the urge to reach out and attempt to reel Jongin in a little closer, in case he’d wander off and vanish without a trace.
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” he’d responded, holding the door open while Jongin shuffled outside in his heavy boots.
Minseok brings them to a galbi house after they lose themselves in the complex network of streets and alleyways, and it isn’t until they stop to ask for directions that they reach their destination-later, Minseok claims that he knew where they going the whole time, but nobody believes him. They later head to a reputable local bar when they confirm that Jongin is indeed old enough to drink, and Lu Han beams because no birthday is complete without hearing Zhang Yixing’s drunken rendition of the most recent top ten hits.
“You should hear Yixing sing.” Lu Han chuckles and nudges Jongin with his elbow. “His drunken performances are always better than his sober ones.”
“I’m okay!” Yixing insists, but when there’s heat spreading across his neck and the room seems to tilt at a slant that wasn’t there before, he can’t be too sure.
“He’s a lightweight,” Minseok announces, wrestling Yixing’s beer away from him, and Yixing resolutely tightens his grip. “Good luck taking him home, Jongin.”
Maybe it’s the combination of the bar’s blinding lights and the alcohol thrumming in his system, but the mere mention of a home shared with Jongin instantly grabs Yixing’s attention. Their seats are close to each other-bars in Hongdae have never been spacious-and Jongin rests his hand on Yixing’s forearm.
“I’ll take care of hyung,” he assures them, patting his arm, inciting a slow burn across his skin that spreads like the telltale rush of intoxication. Yixing descends into a fit of hiccups, then, and it goes without saying that he’s excluded from the next round of Son Byung Ho.
Later, when they’ve had enough raucous fun for the night, Yixing braves the frosty air outside to walk home. He’s acutely aware that he has his arm slung around someone’s shoulder. It feels slightly unnatural because of a height difference, but he holds on anyway to avoid tripping on invisible cracks in the pavement. Yixing blinks to clear the fog building up in his mind. When they start walking together, one cautious step at a time, Yixing loses his balance and makes a grab for something, anything to keep himself upright. He ends up grabbing onto Jongin.
“Get back safely,” he hears, and it might be Lu Han chortling at his near face-plant, but he keeps his nose buried in Jongin’s jacket and doesn’t see. It smells of galbi, and upon closer inspection, he detects hints of familiar scents from the café that have long been ingrained in his mind-premium coffee grounds, cocoa, cinnamon, a suggestion of something else. Jongin smells of home.
The walk home is awkward due to his blunders and saved falls. He feels like he’s walking on a new pair of legs while his surroundings swim before him in a dazzle of streetlights and colorful signs. Yixing’s mostly angry with himself for getting roped into Lu Han’s celebratory hype-he should know what to expect from his friend at this point-but he’s still grateful to have Jongin as a steadfast source of support.
He doesn’t realize they’ve made it home until Jongin cracks open the rusty doors to the second floor balcony. “Let’s get some air,” he says, easing him into one of the abandoned chairs in the corner. “Are you feeling alright? Do you need some water?”
Second by second, his alcohol-induced numbness fades into obscurity. Yixing shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
“I should get you something. I’ll be back.”
“No, wait,” he says, acting on instinct. He clutches Jongin’s arm and pulls him back. “Please don’t leave. Just stay…stay for a while.”
Jongin hesitates, but sits down next to him. “Okay, but let me know if you need anything.” Yixing doesn’t relax his grip on Jongin’s arm. He shuts his eyes and tries to fight the building waves of nausea roiling in his stomach. At one point, he drifts off into a tumultuous sleep because moving in any other direction causes his vision to spin and distort. He eventually opens his eyes again when he feels something solid and cool touch his fingers.
“Drink this. It’s water,” Jongin mumbles, and Yixing takes the cup with a shaky hand. He waits for Yixing to finish drinking before continuing. “Do you want to hear a story?”
“About what?” Yixing manages to grunt, licking his dry lips and regretting it immediately when he tastes the remaining bitter sting of alcohol.
“It’s about a boy named Kim Jongin.”
“Is it a happy story?”
“It could be happier, but it’s an unfinished story. I have to work out the ending.”
Yixing laughs. “I want to hear it anyway.”
So Jongin does tell him a story. A glorified, incomplete, autobiography, as he puts it, that will simultaneously put Yixing out of his misery and distract him from his impending hangover. “A long time ago,” he begins, “Kim Jongin had a dream. He wanted to dance. When his mother brought him to see The Nutcracker, a piece of him chose to stick with the theater and never came home that night. A few years later, young Jongin was trying to live his dream, signing up for ballet classes because he wanted to learn how to fly and defy gravity like the beautiful dancers he saw on stage.” Jongin sighs and his exhalation is a cloud of translucency rising into the night sky to mingle with the stars. “Eventually, Jongin came close to reaching his goal. He prepared to apply to a renowned performing arts school in the city and his windows of opportunity were wide open just for him. Unfortunately, good things do come to an end.”
“What happened next?” Yixing asks tentatively. Jongin slouches in his seat as if he’s preparing for the story’s drastic turn drains him of his energy.
“Jongin’s mother fell sick. Or it’s more like she was sick for a long time, but nobody knew. The doctors told him that it was metastatic breast cancer, but to this day, Jongin still doesn’t know what that means. He only remembered visiting the same passionate woman who introduced him to the wonders of dance and not seeing the same person in the hospital bed. She’d changed. She was frail and exhausted, and the scariest part…the scariest part was waiting for the light to snuff out of her eyes. She had so much life in her, but even the strongest aren’t immune to this kind of self-destruction.”
Yixing sets his cup down and inches towards him. “Jongin…”
“I tried to help her, I really did,” he says, voice warbling slightly, and now that Jongin’s unfolding himself before him, Yixing sees that not everything is as beautiful as he’d originally thought, finely fragmented to form a perfect picture from a distance, but still an aggregation of misfit components. “He tried for a long time. He didn’t end up going to that school because he couldn’t afford the tuition. And in the process, he was even evicted from his home due to unpaid hospital fees.”
“You can stay here, Jongin,” Yixing whispers softly, and he’s almost completely lucid at this point.
“Things don’t look good for Jongin,” he adds, “but at least he still has that dream to dance. He’ll show the world when he’s ready. One day, a café owner took him in, provided him shelter and work-everything he could possibly ask for after going through hell and back. Jongin hasn’t been able to express his gratitude yet; he doesn’t know if the Korean language or any language out there has enough words to express it. ”
“Jongin.”
Before he knows it, Yixing’s holding onto him in an embrace, and as he hugs him closer, listening to Jongin’s labored breaths and feeling droplets soak into his shoulder from tears that are long overdue, he hopes he can convey enough comfort, enough understanding to glue Jongin back together again.
“This is your home now,” he promises, “so don’t leave.”
Yixing wakes up wondering if their late-night conversation actually happened, but he finds Jongin in the kitchen instead.
“He was banned previously,” Minseok had told him, “but he insisted on cooking up a hangover cure for you.”
Jongin watches Yixing carefully as he forces down the first few sips of soup with nothing more than a wince, and despite the fact that the food isn’t very palatable, Yixing’s touched by the gesture and relieved that their exchange from the night before hasn’t gone unheeded.
Days at Moonlight Java with Jongin around begin to meld into weeks and months, and in the blink of an eye, a year passes by. Lu Han and Minseok take turns going down the menu, teaching Jongin how to concoct each beverage with precise temperatures and espresso concentrations. He’s gradually allowed access to the kitchen and stockroom, much to Minseok’s dismay in the beginning, but he lets it go because the café is too small for petty grudges over a pile of strawberries. Jongin likes to boast that he’s improved, even though the change may be marginal, and Yixing corrects him. All forms of change-vast or minute differences-count as improvement.
When it becomes clear that Jongin intends to stay for good, Yixing’s initial paranoia dissipates. He’d thought that they were two ships passing in the night, destined to intersect at only one point in life, but life is never quite predictable in that way, and perhaps, Yixing had finally learned that routines are meant to be disrupted and obstacles are meant to be face head-on when you have dreams to chase instead.
“I’ll play a song for you,” Yixing says, resting his guitar on his lap and fiddling with the strings. They’re burning time during their break, a welcome change of pace from the constant monitoring of the café’s state. He runs his fingers across the frets and enjoys the sensation against his fingertips. “Think of it as an exclusive dedication from me to you.” He positions his hand in the right place and strums the first chord repeatedly.
“I’ve only heard you play twice,” Jongin replies, smirking. “Do I have an admirer now?”
“It’s called ‘I’m Only Sleeping.’ Maybe you’ve heard it before.”
“I haven’t.”
Yixing teases him with series of chords, looping the intro an extra time. “Just listen then.”
In the meantime, the story ends here for the café owner and the boy who sleeps at table five, and when the story’s twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees, it begins for a musician and a dancer. But the truth is, there are no definite ends like there are concrete beginnings, so they find the rest of their intertwined story at home, in the dustings of ground coffee beans and at the bottom of every finished cup.
By: Anonymous until reveals
Title: I'm Only Sleeping
Rating: PG-13
Length: 7907
Notes: n/a
Warnings: Mild alcohol use, reference to non-exo character death
Summary: Jongin reminds Yixing that home isn't a place as much as it's a haven for long-lost dreams.
His grandmother once told him that time shifts to revolve around the thing that most occupies your life at that moment. Yixing’s days are measured in the number of orders he’s filled, double espresso shots, and Americanos. He breathes in cake flour and the syrupy aroma of freshly baked pastries, and he relishes the buzz of early morning commuters and hiss of hot steam at the bottom of every cup. If time did suddenly switch tracks to accommodate his new lifestyle, then it happened seamlessly enough for his job at the café to become a routine. So when Yixing opts to pick up a whisk rather than his guitar on certain days, or file away his handwritten compositions to work on improving the latest addition to the menu, he reminds himself that it’s time changing to find its new center of gravity-time speeding up or slowing down in favor of his extended hours or newly discovered recipes-and he doesn’t think twice of it.
The staff at Moonlight Java has established a system before locking up every night. The evenings are comparably calmer than the mornings, mostly due to the absence of rush-hour traffic and frenzied businessmen desiring their caffeine boosts for the day, so when the last customer leaves at the end of the hour, each person takes his time finishing up his final tasks. Lu Han sweeps the floors and makes sure to wipe down the granite countertops and tables well at the end of the day because coffee stains are stubborn little things to clean up the next morning. Minseok usually restocks supplies that have run low, replacing empty containers with ones filled up to the brim with different types of roasted coffee beans, all imported from faraway lands. Yixing stays at the register and records their sales for the day. It’s not a laborious task, and sometimes he wonders why he’s the one dealing with numbers when he’s the worst one at math, but instead of dropping everything to help Minseok store the leftover pastries, he simply squints at his calculator and hopes that his addition won’t drive the café to bankruptcy.
One evening, Yixing’s waiting to print out a new record of their numbers for the day. Through the window, he can see the backlit silhouettes of people in the shops and cafes across the street, rushing to and fro to lock up for the night. The sky seems inkier than usual, a blanket of black draped over a sleepless Seoul, and even without glancing at a clock, Yixing knows that it’s already past their closing time.
“So are we closing up yet?” Lu Han asks, emerging from the kitchen with a smudge of flour on his cheek. He already has a broom in hand, ready to take on the stray napkins and straw wrappers littered on the ground. “We’re running fifteen minutes late.”
“I would say we should close up now, but…”
“But what?” Yixing gestures at the lone customer at table five and Lu Han lets out an exasperated sigh, probably miffed that a stranger is holding him back from his late-night dinner and action movie marathon. The customer isn't a regular from their pool of Monday patrons, and when he first walked in, Yixing assumed he was just another one of those typical artsy university students scouring Hongdae for the perfect iced coffee. He claimed table five after taking his drink, and that was that, but no one expected him to stay the next nine hours. He must have fallen asleep at some point because now his head is pillowed in his arms, and Yixing feels oddly torn. On one hand, he’s alarmed because he doesn’t remember if the boy ordered a normal or a decaf coffee, and if he ordered a normal one, then the caffeine definitely wasn’t strong enough to keep him awake, indicating that the recipe needs some modifying. On the other hand, Lu Han’s nudging him with the blunt end of the broomstick and he knows he’s in a dilemma.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Go wake him up of course,” Lu Han replies, “or else I’ll do it for you.” He begins cleaning and pulling chairs and tables out of the way to reach the space underneath them. They make an awful racket as their legs scrape against the hard wood floors, and Yixing scurries over to the snoozing boy to shake him from sleep before Lu Han reaches his side of the room.
“Um, excuse me.” He prods his shoulder gently, and the boy blinks, eyes glazed and bloodshot. Yixing almost feels guilty for waking him up because it’s immediately clear that he needs rest. “Sorry for bothering you, but we’re closing for the night.”
“Oh,” the boy mumbles, and he rubs at his eyes. Up close, Yixing can see a slight roundness in his face that makes him look even younger than a university student, and the guilt solidifies at the pit of his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head to reclaim some energy. “I’ll be leaving now.” The boy flies out of his seat in a flurry before Yixing can fit in another word, taking his worn backpack with him, and in a matter of seconds, he’s out of the café. He only leaves behind a cool autumn draft that crept through the closing door, and it's as if no one were there in the first place.
Lu Han empties his dustpan into the trash bin with a click of his tongue. “Looks like we can finally close now,” he remarks, and Yixing nods, belatedly realizing that there’s still a cup half full of watery coffee sitting on table five.
The following morning runs its monotonous course, but Yixing does his best to savor every moment of it as per usual, ignoring the rough patches that surface after lunchtime, like the sputtering espresso machine that he’s already brought in to fix two weeks ago or the burned batch of blueberry muffins that had to be trashed. Lu Han never fails to remind him that he’s optimistic to the point of disgust, and Yixing whole-heartedly takes it as a compliment every time.
“For someone who doesn’t have more than five facial expressions, you’re always excited when you’re working,” Lu Han points out mid-afternoon when their influx of customers is at its lowest. “It’s mildly disconcerting. Hasn’t the magic worn away yet? It’s already been a year since Moonlight Java’s opened.”
“Honestly,” Yixing muses, “I don’t think the magic is ever going to disappear.” And it truly doesn’t because Yixing doesn’t believe he can ever grow tired of the rich aroma of coffee or find anything other than reassurance from his customers’ content expressions as they take their first careful sips of cold and hot beverages. The café is the result of his seedling of a dream, brought to life and nurtured until it’s blossomed into something grander and sweeter than dollops of whip cream and sugar-glazed bread. And although Yixing enjoys every minute spent working behind the counter, drawing lotuses in latte foam, the mere idea of something shifting out of place and toppling his modest, little dream hovers over him like a half-forgotten nightmare.
When the café empties out at the end of the day and Yixing’s crunching numbers at the register to the sound of descaling coffee machines, he’s surprised to find a single customer slumped over table five again. Yixing’s fingers hover over the buttons of his calculator as he stares for a beat longer, and he makes out a familiar mop of hair and threadbare bag, both of which belong to the boy from the night before. There’s another half-filled cup of what used to be iced coffee by his side, but Yixing doesn’t recall ringing up the boy’s order and wonders if he slipped in while he was busy rummaging for the new shipment of French roast in the kitchen. By the time he’s finished recording the sales for the day, the boy hasn’t stirred once, still fixed in the same position. He’s using his bag as his pillow this time, and his arms dangle in the air past his seat, seemingly boneless in a way that reminds Yixing of a ragdoll.
It must be uncomfortable. He eyes his watch, and it’s well past 10PM already, so he musters up the right amount of assertiveness needed to subtly kick out sleeping patrons. It falls flat when the boy starts to sit up on his own, drowsiness weighing down his limbs like sandbags. Yixing is already halfway to the table when the boy raises his head to look at him, brown eyes fringed with dark lashes and even darker circles from an unspoken exhaustion, and for a moment, something about his entire image is off because that kind of weariness always precedes a person’s slow crash and burn. The hey, we’re closing now dies in his throat.
“I’m leaving soon,” the boy says, his voice on the gravelly side, and although Yixing wants to tell him to take his time, to dress warmly, and maybe offer him a warm drink on the house because it looks like he needs it, he doesn’t because he remembers Moonlight Java is supposed to be closed at this time, no exceptions. He simply steps back and nods, watching silently as the boy gathers his belongings, zips up the collar of his blue jacket so it covers half his face, and heads outside to brave the chilly fall evening.
“Thank you for coming,” Yixing manages to say, but he’s a fraction of a second too late and the door closes with a resounding chime.
That isn’t the last time Yixing sees him. The boy returns the next day and the day after that and the day after that. Yixing finally takes notice of him in his conscious state when he walks up to the counter one late morning, looking minimally worse for wear, but still put together enough to order his customary iced coffee. Yixing has to lean in to hear his low voice over the high-strung energy of bustling Monday patrons. Lu Han and Minseok have dubbed him the boy who sleeps at table five in their kitchen conversations and sleepy boy when they’re filling his order and need a more concise title to work with.
“He has a name,” Yixing mentions briefly, scrawling said name onto a transparent plastic cup. “It’s Jongin.”
“Jongin, huh?” Minseok takes the cup from him and scoops in a spoonful of ice. “I kind of like sleepy boy more. By the way, the espresso machine is still broken. I think it’s about time we give up on it.”
“I know,” Yixing responds, eyeing the cup in Minseok’s hand carefully as the barista nearly fills it to the brim with whole milk, covering the chilled espresso underneath. “I’ll get it to work sometime. It was perfectly fine a week ago.”
Minseok seems to crack a smile, and Yixing’s half expecting him to make a joke about his stubborn positivity like Lu Han always does, but instead, he tops off the cup with a corresponding lid and places it on the counter. “Iced coffee for sleepy-I mean Jongin!”
Yixing tries not to observe Jongin too closely for the rest of the day, but he has an unobstructed view of table five from his position at the register. Even when he’s counting out change and taking complicated orders, his gaze lingers far too long on the wrong customer. He’s reading a book this time, a surprising change from his long naps, and the title is blocked by his fingers, but it still piques Yixing’s interest, making it even harder for him to look away when he takes his afternoon break and switches places with Lu Han. It’s silly, Yixing thinks, because Jongin’s simply another regular, and he doesn’t pay the same amount of attention to the gossiping middle-aged wives and pensive art students who frequent the café, but something about Jongin demands attention. Perhaps it’s the way he doesn’t quite blend into the atmosphere with his mysterious edge, a little too rough on the surface for the café crowd, so even performing the most mundane activities, such as reading, can’t render him a wallflower.
“You’re staring,” Lu Han tells him, patting his arm playfully. He nudges Yixing aside to handle the register, and Yixing picks up the rag Lu Han’s abandoned on the counter. “Why don’t you talk to him?”
Jongin’s head is beginning to droop in increments until strands of his bangs brush against the top of his book’s pages. “We’re working now.” Yixing, ever dutiful, starts to clear the clutter from the countertop, and he looks away just as the boy’s head falls onto his novel. “Besides, I was only curious. He stays here all afternoon. And all evening.”
“Is there a problem with that? You could always kick him out.” Lu Han unwraps a new tube of coins and dumps it into its designated compartment in the register. “Or I can do it for you. We’re closing later and later each day because of him.”
“No,” Yixing says a little too sharply, hesitating because Lu Han’s turned to him and his eyes are large and searching, a sign that there must be more behind what he’s asking. “I mean, that won’t be necessary. I just wonder why he stays for so long every day. What if he has nowhere to go?”
“What do you mean?”
Yixing pauses, leaving the countertop partially cleaned. As much as he doesn’t want to entertain the thought because Jongin, in all his contradictory youthfulness, doesn’t seem like the type of person to have nowhere to stay-not when he’s lingering in cafes and succumbing to his own dream world instead of hanging out on the streets and mixing with delinquents-Yixing can’t deny that it’s a possibility. “He looks like he’s barely out of high school, but maybe he doesn’t have a place to stay?”
Lu Han shrugs and the corners of his lips turn downwards. “I don’t know.” There’s a lull in their conversation when a young girl walks up to ask them to refill the napkin dispenser, and Yixing all but leaps over the counter to help her. When he returns to finish his tasks, Lu Han’s already done attending to their most recent stream of customers, and Yixing almost doesn't hear him over the hum of mid-afternoon activity. “The world isn't kind to everyone, even to kids like him,” Lu Han says, clearing his throat and giving him a reassuring smile. “Let’s just keep the café open for a little longer today.”
There are a handful of responses lined up in his mind, and the majority of them consist of pointing out Lu Han’s poor attempts to hide his compassion for their customers, but Yixing holds back because he can only think of the sleeping boy at table five, the way his soft inhales and exhales rustle the paper beneath his chin, and the way he doesn’t budge at all when Yixing’s sweeping in a circle around him.
“Let’s do that.”
When Jongin wakes up on his own accord, the lights from the store across the street have long gone out for the night, bathing the sidewalks in a serene dimness. Yixing stirs from his place at the counter when he sees Jongin’s eyes flutter open and focus blearily into space. His arms are numb where they’ve been pressed up against the cold, granite surface, and he tries to shake off the prickling sensation.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
“What time…what time is it?” Jongin squints at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. There’s a stray piece of hair bent out of shape from the way he slept, and it sticks up in a manner that Yixing finds oddly endearing, but he quickly pushes the thought out of his head, rationalizing that the late hour is unforgiving.
“It’s 1AM,” Yixing replies, and just as Jongin bolts up to gather his belongings again, cheeks flushed red with something akin to embarrassment, he holds out his hands to stall for time. “Wait, you don’t have to leave yet. Let me get you a warm drink at least. It’s on the house.”
The book Jongin was reading earlier has slipped to the ground with a muffled clatter during his mad rush to leave, and the boy gingerly retrieves it and sets it back on the table. “I’m sorry. I keep staying late. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“I don’t mind.” Yixing snaps a lid onto the tall hot chocolate he’s whipped up. “It looked like you needed the rest anyway.”
Lu Han and Minseok have left for the evening after Yixing had insisted they take the rest of the night off. Late-night cleaning and checking inventory had become second nature to them, an integral part of the routine they’ve established and honed together over time, but by the time midnight rolled around, they were fighting to stand on their feet.
“Why are we waiting for this kid again?” Minseok had asked, slumped over an abandoned newspaper on table two. He perused the cartoon section and sighed.
“Because Xing’s too nice of a person to disturb him,” Lu Han had mentioned, downing a concoction with a few too many espresso shots, a prelude to a restless night of regrets. “The least we can do is wait with him.”
Eventually, though, with plenty of persistence and some pushing, Yixing had persuaded them to leave first. Halfway out the door, Minseok had turned around and given him a two-fingered salute and a hasty good luck, but Yixing wasn’t sure if luck played a role in this situation. Operating the café alone reminds him of the first opening day barely a year ago, when the machinery had gleamed with a striking newness and the murmur of people shuttling in and out had been a little quieter, like the whisper of rising steam.
Yixing slides the drink towards Jongin and, hesitating for a fraction of a second, decides to sit in the seat across from him. Jongin takes the drink and wraps his fingers around the cup. “Thank you,” he mumbles, words still coated in sleep. “But I don’t deserve this.”
“Why would you say that?”
Jongin bites his lip and takes a careful sip. “Most places would’ve kicked me out at this time, so when someone lets me stay, it’s kind of unexpected. You always let me stay until closing time.”
“I don’t like to kick people out,” Yixing comments bluntly. “Someone once told me that time doesn’t flow the way we think it does. When we’re doing something we like, it ceases to matter.” Jongin is still hunched in on himself, slightly lost as if he’s anticipating Yixing to change his mind, to take back the hot chocolate and order him out, but bit by bit, his shoulders begin to relax and he sinks further into his chair.
“So, you don’t mind it when I stay?” Jongin asks.
“I love it here,” Yixing answers, folding his hands in front of him. The skin is marked in certain spots from the burns he’s accumulated from handling hot liquids, but they’re similar to calluses on fingers from drawn-out hours of guitar playing, badges of honor that define the separation between passions and mere hobbies. “If I could run the café twenty-four hours a day, I would, but that can’t happen yet, so even if you choose to stay, I really wouldn’t mind.”
The corners of Jongin’s lips curl up. He tips his cup back to take another sip, partially concealing his grin, but it still shines through, and with a start, Yixing realizes that it’s the first time he’s seen the sleeping boy at table five smile at all.
He learns that Jongin is only a little younger than he is, but he’s homeless, the result of a series of unfortunate circumstances that Jongin struggles to elaborate on. Although Yixing’s suspected it, he’s still surprised because Jongin doesn’t look the part, but assumptions prove to do more harm than good, so he brushes them aside and doesn’t probe. Some things are better left unsaid, and the way Jongin retreats when curiosity eggs Yixing on to find out more tells him that this is one of those cases.
“You can stay here in the meantime,” he tells him, standing up to stretch and untie his apron. “I live upstairs and I have a sofa you can sleep on. I can guarantee you that it’s more comfortable than wooden surfaces, so you’re welcome to sleep there. Only if you want to, that is.”
Jongin fumbles with his hot chocolate. He must have finished it by now. “I can’t-”
“I’m offering because it’s cold outside and I don’t know if any other places are open now,” Yixing interjects, aware that he’s rambling, but he doesn’t want to leave the wrong impression. “I don’t expect anything in return, so at least consider it?”
When Jongin reluctantly accepts and gives him a small bow from across the table, Yixing feels somewhat elated, and slowly but surely, Moonlight Java’s nighttime emptiness fills up with Jongin’s presence.
“Why do you buy iced coffee?” Yixing asks him when they’re upstairs, pulling out the sofa’s built-in mattress together. He hasn’t had a guest in a while, not since his parents visited for a preview of the café before its grand opening, and the springs groan in protest when they manage to set it in place. “Shouldn’t you be saving up the money for something else?”
“I needed a reason to stay here,” Jongin replies sheepishly, dusting his hands against his faded jeans. “I never actually liked coffee that much, but I’ve always liked sitting in cafés. Yours has to be the nicest I’ve been in.”
“There’s still a lot I can do to improve it,” Yixing declares, slightly confused by the compliment. The café is the manifestation of his dreams, something that can be tweaked and altered gradually as he shamelessly allows himself to dream some more, but the change that occurs is almost undetectable to him when it happens at a crawling pace. “It isn’t perfect yet.”
“Not everything has to be perfect, though.” Jongin takes the sofa cushion out of Yixing’s hands and throws it on the makeshift bed. Yixing feels his hand ghost over his, the warmth vaguely comforting. “Sometimes, nice is more than enough.”
It’s not enough for me, Yixing thinks, on the brink of sinking into a bout of self-doubt, but when Jongin smiles again, a reassuring one this time that isn’t plagued by his habitual drowsiness under the bright overhead lights, he stops and simply nods.
Yixing finds out the next morning that Jongin is the kind of person who stays, but not for long enough. He's in the kitchen preparing a tray of the morning’s pumpkin muffins, beating the first rays of sun that peek in through the wide cafe windows, when he hears the chiming of the bell attached to the front door. With his hands still covered in flour, Yixing steps out to the countertop space and catches Jongin on his way out, a fleeting shadow in the dawn.
“You aren't very sneaky, if that's what you're going for,” he says, grabbing a rag to rid his hands of the white powder, but most of it ends up on the ground. He’ll have to clean it up before the customers begin to come in.
“I couldn't find you this morning, but I didn't want to trouble you any more.” Jongin dips into another bow, and his bag slips off his shoulder and falls to the ground with a heavy, resonating thump. “Thank you again for being so generous.”
“It's alright. You don't have to be so formal with me,” Yixing says, and he doesn’t know where to look or what to say next because Jongin has the air of a lost child while he’s masquerading as a man, a strange combination Yixing doesn’t know how to handle. When it’s just the two of them in the café during these quiet hours, though-detached from Seoul’s busybodies-he thinks that the silence sands down Jongin’s rough edges, leaving behind the first hints of familiarity. And maybe, if he searches hard enough from a certain angle, he can see Jongin melting into the backdrop, corners and edges lined up faultlessly until it seems like he’s another part of Moonlight Java’s ever-shifting picture. “Do you want to stay?”
Jongin hoists his bag back over his shoulder and gives him a quizzical look. “Excuse me?”
“Um, do you want to work here? You still need a place to stay, so you can live here in exchange for work. But if you already have a job, then don’t worry about it. You can still stay, or you can drop by whenever-”
“I’d like to.”
“-you want. You don’t even have to order iced coffee.” Yixing backtracks, noticing that his words are spilling out and bleeding into a poorly orchestrated mess. “What?”
“I’d like to work here if you’re hiring,” Jongin clarifies, allowing the bag to drop to his feet again. He brushes his fingers through his disheveled hair, a nervous tic Yixing’s picked up on. “When do I start?”
“Well, whenever,” Yixing notes, laughing at the way things turned out. He’d never expected sleepy boy to worm his way into the café’s regimen, but Jongin’s managed to do just that without doing anything more than ordering iced coffee and taking up table space. It’s slightly risky to let a stranger in, he tells himself. The café’s still new, barely out of its infancy, but when Jongin steps back inside to sit down at table five, eyes shining with a rekindled interest as if he’s sitting down in the café for the first time, Yixing knows that this is also enough. “Welcome to the team.”
“Sometimes, I don’t think I do enough, and I have to wonder why you’re helping me,” Jongin tells him one day when there’s a gap in the flow of weekday morning patrons. He’s relieving Lu Han of his cashier duties because he’s found out quickly that the register is the only machine he can operate without inducing catastrophic spills or scorching his fingers. Of course, Lu Han doesn’t complain when he switches around the rotation schedule-Jongin’s become a blessing in disguise-and judging by the lapses of inactivity from the kitchen, Yixing suspects that his coworker has taken the opportunity to smuggle manga inside for the hours when business is a little slower than usual. It’s a mutual gain.
“You do enough. Don’t feel discouraged,” he replies, focusing on the latte foam drawing of a cat he’s supposed to finish for the next customer. He falters when Jongin enters his peripheral vision, and suddenly, he’s closer than Yixing’s thought.
“Do you ever think about what you’ve gained, though?” Jongin asks faintly, and he’s so close that the tone of his voice tickles Yixing’s ear. He plays with the gauze taped onto his palm. On his first day, Jongin had nicked himself while slicing strawberries, and from that point on, Minseok had insisted that he should stay by the countertop area for his own good, an unofficial ban from the kitchen. “I wish I could do more to repay you for your help.”
Yixing lets out a sigh and frowns at the uneven cat ears he’s pulled out of the foam. “Everyone has to start from somewhere. We jump at any chances given to us if we want something badly enough. I don’t want to think of offering you a job as helping you as much as it’s providing you a chance.” He feels Jongin’s eyes boring into the side of his head as he balances the latte on a tray and places it on the receiving end of the counter.
“Did someone help you too, then? I mean, did someone give you a window of opportunity?”
“Yeah,” he answers, and he feels a rush of content when the girl picks up her order, bubbling with admiration for the cartoon feline. “But not just one person. I couldn’t have opened up this place if I didn’t have support from my friends and family. Most of the time, support is all you need to open up that window of opportunity. It’s all you need to feel like you can conquer the world.”
Jongin’s face is blank at first, but he eventually grins. “You’re so…hopeful,” he says, crinkling his eyes, and Yixing’s glad that it’s Jongin who’s there listening to him speak with an unabated positivity because the way he smiles so whole-heartedly is a refreshing change from Lu Han’s conspicuous eye rolls. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I could say the same for you,” Yixing replies slowly, wiping down the nozzle of the steam wand. It’s not everyday someone like Jongin passes through and stays without the original intention to stay, but now he’s here, donning a matching white apron and entertaining the customers waiting in line with his peculiar sense of humor, and for a second, Yixing forgets that Jongin’s a new addition to the café to begin with. “Don’t worry too much about those strawberries. I believe you deserve all the chances you can get.”
With that, Jongin finally leaves his gauze alone and turns around to take on a new set of orders. “Alright.”
In his second week, Jongin tries to make Moonlight Java’s signature Americano.
“It’s not that difficult,” Minseok says, diluting his two prepared shots of espresso with hot water. “The machine does all the work for you.”
“But the machine likes you.” Jongin examines the newest set of burns on his knuckles from his previously failed attempt to aim the hot water into the cup. “I don’t think I’m meant to use it.”
Minseok gives him a slap on the back, one that sounds more painful than encouraging from where Yixing’s standing within earshot. “You can’t give up yet. By the time we’re through with you, you’ll be a world-class barista.”
Jongin turns the knob halfway before the machine starts to sputter again. “That’s unlikely.”
It takes a few days, a few rolls of bandages, and a sizeable amount of coarsely ground coffee beans for Jongin to master the Americano, but Yixing’s convinced his effort is worthwhile when the first sip of coffee spreads evenly across his tongue.
“This is amazing,” Yixing exclaims, like he’s come across a treasured secret recipe. “Wow.”
“You weren’t expecting that, were you?” Jongin asks, bordering on smugness, and Yixing can’t help but like this new side of Jongin that reveals itself a little at a time everyday.
“No, I honestly wasn’t.” He smacks his lips and savors the balance of bitterness and roasted flavor. “Maybe you can move on to lattes next. Lu Han’s really good at making tulips.”
Jongin snorts and takes the cup out of Yixing’s hands. “Not a chance.”
The first winter storm of the season blows through Hongdae and knocks out the power on three blocks. Moonlight Java wasn’t spared, so for two days and three nights, Yixing and Jongin make do with extra sets of blankets to maximize the energy from their single space heater and unhealthy portions of take-out that neither of them would admit to consuming.
Yixing suggests they retreat upstairs to eat their dinner because heat rises, or something to that extent-his Chemistry knowledge has deteriorated over the years away from school. To make the area more habitable in the dark, they take turns lighting candles around the perimeter of the center room and lay out Yixing’s quilts to cover the cold, hardwood floors.
“What do you do besides manage the café?” Jongin asks, crossing his legs in front of him and digging into his stir-fried noodles. He pulls out enough for a mouthful with his chopsticks, the oily strands reflective in the ill lighting, and Yixing thinks food has never looked so unappetizing in the dark before.
“You’ve seen me these past few weeks. I don’t do much else,” he replies, taking a bite of his own rice. “I used to compose music when I had more free time.”
Jongin’s eyes widen. “You play music?”
“I…I used to. I haven’t gone back to it in a while,” Yixing admits, and the guilt begins to collect in his chest. “I played the guitar and piano.”
“Why don’t you play anymore? Was it something you were passionate about?” It’s the first time Jongin’s been this inquisitive, and Yixing remembers that, despite living together, they’re still hovering around an uncertain division between strangers and friends. It’s a wall neither of them has climbed over yet, but Jongin’s the one to reach the top and offer a hand first.
“I’m not very good at spreading out my time.” Yixing laughs, scattering a few grains of rice onto the fabric he’s sitting on. “I tend to work on new recipes instead of write songs or introduce new drinks to the menu instead of practice, but it’s what naturally happens when your main focus is always shifting like mine.”
Jongin gestures for the box of broccoli in front of him and Yixing pushes it towards him. “Music was my first passion.”
“I’d like to hear you play someday,” he mentions. “You shouldn’t let a passion like that go.” The tips of Yixing’s ears grow warm and he hopes they aren’t glowing pink in the candlelight.
“Someday,” he affirms.
By the time their dinner has sunken into their stomachs and propelled them into a hazy post-meal coma, the candlewicks have shortened, dimming the room by a fraction. Yixing’s not used to this unoccupied stretch of time. He prefers to keep himself working at his own comfortable pace, running himself through to the end of every task until he’s too tired to continue. The darkness, however, only accentuates the nothingness of the moment, the long, peaceful silences occasionally punctuated by the howling wind outside.
“Did you know I wanted to break into the entertainment industry here?” Yixing says, itching to say anything at all. His words echo loudly in the room, and they sound off, as if the winter storm’s warped the entire world around them in addition to their power supply, and he turns towards Jongin’s general direction. Yixing only sees an indefinite outline of his head from a few feet away. He’s reclining on a stack of pillows, and Yixing thinks he might have fallen asleep, but Jongin abruptly sits up. “Fame is so enticing when you’re young, but you don’t weigh out the consequences until you realize you’re in too deep. Or if you’re like me, you realize ahead of time when you don’t make it, and you steer clear while you can.”
“Are you glad you didn’t make it?” Jongin asks, a disembodied voice in a room full of flitting shadows.
“I didn’t even think about opening a café until years later. So in a way, I’m really happy about that rejection.”
“I’m glad you were rejected too,” Jongin adds, consonants and vowels slurring together as a sure sign of sleep taking over, “or else I probably wouldn’t have met you.” His sentence tapers at the end, disintegrating into a light snore, but the meaning hangs over Yixing for the rest of the night.
He doesn’t fall asleep as easily as Jongin does, but right before he finally allows the ebb and flow of slumber to carry him away, he decides that this is a start, that perhaps they aren’t quite strangers anymore. With every passing day, Jongin’s slowly unfurling and peeling back the layers of his enigmatic exterior, and Yixing genuinely hopes that Jongin’s still here by the time all the layers disappear.
And much to his relief, Jongin does stay. They close the café early one night to celebrate Lu Han’s birthday. Yixing convinces Jongin to come along, even though it should already be a given.
“You’re part of the team now, remember?” he’d told him earlier, slipping an arm into his puffy coat. “Come celebrate with us.”
Jongin had absentmindedly ruffled his hair, moving the strands out of place. “I’ll go with you,” he’d replied, and Yixing had handed him an extra pair of gloves. During times like this, Jongin had the habit of bringing back his inner lost child, and Yixing would fight the urge to reach out and attempt to reel Jongin in a little closer, in case he’d wander off and vanish without a trace.
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” he’d responded, holding the door open while Jongin shuffled outside in his heavy boots.
Minseok brings them to a galbi house after they lose themselves in the complex network of streets and alleyways, and it isn’t until they stop to ask for directions that they reach their destination-later, Minseok claims that he knew where they going the whole time, but nobody believes him. They later head to a reputable local bar when they confirm that Jongin is indeed old enough to drink, and Lu Han beams because no birthday is complete without hearing Zhang Yixing’s drunken rendition of the most recent top ten hits.
“You should hear Yixing sing.” Lu Han chuckles and nudges Jongin with his elbow. “His drunken performances are always better than his sober ones.”
“I’m okay!” Yixing insists, but when there’s heat spreading across his neck and the room seems to tilt at a slant that wasn’t there before, he can’t be too sure.
“He’s a lightweight,” Minseok announces, wrestling Yixing’s beer away from him, and Yixing resolutely tightens his grip. “Good luck taking him home, Jongin.”
Maybe it’s the combination of the bar’s blinding lights and the alcohol thrumming in his system, but the mere mention of a home shared with Jongin instantly grabs Yixing’s attention. Their seats are close to each other-bars in Hongdae have never been spacious-and Jongin rests his hand on Yixing’s forearm.
“I’ll take care of hyung,” he assures them, patting his arm, inciting a slow burn across his skin that spreads like the telltale rush of intoxication. Yixing descends into a fit of hiccups, then, and it goes without saying that he’s excluded from the next round of Son Byung Ho.
Later, when they’ve had enough raucous fun for the night, Yixing braves the frosty air outside to walk home. He’s acutely aware that he has his arm slung around someone’s shoulder. It feels slightly unnatural because of a height difference, but he holds on anyway to avoid tripping on invisible cracks in the pavement. Yixing blinks to clear the fog building up in his mind. When they start walking together, one cautious step at a time, Yixing loses his balance and makes a grab for something, anything to keep himself upright. He ends up grabbing onto Jongin.
“Get back safely,” he hears, and it might be Lu Han chortling at his near face-plant, but he keeps his nose buried in Jongin’s jacket and doesn’t see. It smells of galbi, and upon closer inspection, he detects hints of familiar scents from the café that have long been ingrained in his mind-premium coffee grounds, cocoa, cinnamon, a suggestion of something else. Jongin smells of home.
The walk home is awkward due to his blunders and saved falls. He feels like he’s walking on a new pair of legs while his surroundings swim before him in a dazzle of streetlights and colorful signs. Yixing’s mostly angry with himself for getting roped into Lu Han’s celebratory hype-he should know what to expect from his friend at this point-but he’s still grateful to have Jongin as a steadfast source of support.
He doesn’t realize they’ve made it home until Jongin cracks open the rusty doors to the second floor balcony. “Let’s get some air,” he says, easing him into one of the abandoned chairs in the corner. “Are you feeling alright? Do you need some water?”
Second by second, his alcohol-induced numbness fades into obscurity. Yixing shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
“I should get you something. I’ll be back.”
“No, wait,” he says, acting on instinct. He clutches Jongin’s arm and pulls him back. “Please don’t leave. Just stay…stay for a while.”
Jongin hesitates, but sits down next to him. “Okay, but let me know if you need anything.” Yixing doesn’t relax his grip on Jongin’s arm. He shuts his eyes and tries to fight the building waves of nausea roiling in his stomach. At one point, he drifts off into a tumultuous sleep because moving in any other direction causes his vision to spin and distort. He eventually opens his eyes again when he feels something solid and cool touch his fingers.
“Drink this. It’s water,” Jongin mumbles, and Yixing takes the cup with a shaky hand. He waits for Yixing to finish drinking before continuing. “Do you want to hear a story?”
“About what?” Yixing manages to grunt, licking his dry lips and regretting it immediately when he tastes the remaining bitter sting of alcohol.
“It’s about a boy named Kim Jongin.”
“Is it a happy story?”
“It could be happier, but it’s an unfinished story. I have to work out the ending.”
Yixing laughs. “I want to hear it anyway.”
So Jongin does tell him a story. A glorified, incomplete, autobiography, as he puts it, that will simultaneously put Yixing out of his misery and distract him from his impending hangover. “A long time ago,” he begins, “Kim Jongin had a dream. He wanted to dance. When his mother brought him to see The Nutcracker, a piece of him chose to stick with the theater and never came home that night. A few years later, young Jongin was trying to live his dream, signing up for ballet classes because he wanted to learn how to fly and defy gravity like the beautiful dancers he saw on stage.” Jongin sighs and his exhalation is a cloud of translucency rising into the night sky to mingle with the stars. “Eventually, Jongin came close to reaching his goal. He prepared to apply to a renowned performing arts school in the city and his windows of opportunity were wide open just for him. Unfortunately, good things do come to an end.”
“What happened next?” Yixing asks tentatively. Jongin slouches in his seat as if he’s preparing for the story’s drastic turn drains him of his energy.
“Jongin’s mother fell sick. Or it’s more like she was sick for a long time, but nobody knew. The doctors told him that it was metastatic breast cancer, but to this day, Jongin still doesn’t know what that means. He only remembered visiting the same passionate woman who introduced him to the wonders of dance and not seeing the same person in the hospital bed. She’d changed. She was frail and exhausted, and the scariest part…the scariest part was waiting for the light to snuff out of her eyes. She had so much life in her, but even the strongest aren’t immune to this kind of self-destruction.”
Yixing sets his cup down and inches towards him. “Jongin…”
“I tried to help her, I really did,” he says, voice warbling slightly, and now that Jongin’s unfolding himself before him, Yixing sees that not everything is as beautiful as he’d originally thought, finely fragmented to form a perfect picture from a distance, but still an aggregation of misfit components. “He tried for a long time. He didn’t end up going to that school because he couldn’t afford the tuition. And in the process, he was even evicted from his home due to unpaid hospital fees.”
“You can stay here, Jongin,” Yixing whispers softly, and he’s almost completely lucid at this point.
“Things don’t look good for Jongin,” he adds, “but at least he still has that dream to dance. He’ll show the world when he’s ready. One day, a café owner took him in, provided him shelter and work-everything he could possibly ask for after going through hell and back. Jongin hasn’t been able to express his gratitude yet; he doesn’t know if the Korean language or any language out there has enough words to express it. ”
“Jongin.”
Before he knows it, Yixing’s holding onto him in an embrace, and as he hugs him closer, listening to Jongin’s labored breaths and feeling droplets soak into his shoulder from tears that are long overdue, he hopes he can convey enough comfort, enough understanding to glue Jongin back together again.
“This is your home now,” he promises, “so don’t leave.”
Yixing wakes up wondering if their late-night conversation actually happened, but he finds Jongin in the kitchen instead.
“He was banned previously,” Minseok had told him, “but he insisted on cooking up a hangover cure for you.”
Jongin watches Yixing carefully as he forces down the first few sips of soup with nothing more than a wince, and despite the fact that the food isn’t very palatable, Yixing’s touched by the gesture and relieved that their exchange from the night before hasn’t gone unheeded.
Days at Moonlight Java with Jongin around begin to meld into weeks and months, and in the blink of an eye, a year passes by. Lu Han and Minseok take turns going down the menu, teaching Jongin how to concoct each beverage with precise temperatures and espresso concentrations. He’s gradually allowed access to the kitchen and stockroom, much to Minseok’s dismay in the beginning, but he lets it go because the café is too small for petty grudges over a pile of strawberries. Jongin likes to boast that he’s improved, even though the change may be marginal, and Yixing corrects him. All forms of change-vast or minute differences-count as improvement.
When it becomes clear that Jongin intends to stay for good, Yixing’s initial paranoia dissipates. He’d thought that they were two ships passing in the night, destined to intersect at only one point in life, but life is never quite predictable in that way, and perhaps, Yixing had finally learned that routines are meant to be disrupted and obstacles are meant to be face head-on when you have dreams to chase instead.
“I’ll play a song for you,” Yixing says, resting his guitar on his lap and fiddling with the strings. They’re burning time during their break, a welcome change of pace from the constant monitoring of the café’s state. He runs his fingers across the frets and enjoys the sensation against his fingertips. “Think of it as an exclusive dedication from me to you.” He positions his hand in the right place and strums the first chord repeatedly.
“I’ve only heard you play twice,” Jongin replies, smirking. “Do I have an admirer now?”
“It’s called ‘I’m Only Sleeping.’ Maybe you’ve heard it before.”
“I haven’t.”
Yixing teases him with series of chords, looping the intro an extra time. “Just listen then.”
In the meantime, the story ends here for the café owner and the boy who sleeps at table five, and when the story’s twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees, it begins for a musician and a dancer. But the truth is, there are no definite ends like there are concrete beginnings, so they find the rest of their intertwined story at home, in the dustings of ground coffee beans and at the bottom of every finished cup.