across the galaxy, across the town (for homiten)
For: Homiten
From: minchievous
Title: across the galaxy, across the town
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Tao/Chen
Length: 2.6k~
Summary: For all they knew, they lived across the world from each other.
Warning(s): -
Author’s Note: I hope you don’t mind that I (sort of) combined two of your prompts, recipient! The idea of a familiar just seemed too cute to pass up. I hope you like it nonetheless!
Jongdae steps into his house and is immediately assaulted by his pet dragon. He laughs, putting his stuff down onto the coffee table before he’s bowled over onto the couch, Kris nuzzling his way into Jongdae’s arms and huffing a puff of hot air at his neck.
“Hey, silly,” He greets, scratching Kris behind his ears, and the black dragon’s tail thumps happily on the couch as he arches and flops onto his back, squirming to get Jongdae to scratch his tummy. Jongdae, of course, being the best owner, does. “Get me my laptop, please?”
Kris huffs indignantly, but he flies away with and comes back down with Jongdae’s laptop in his claws, careful not to damage it. Jongdae grins, happily, and scratches Kris’ tummy a little longer than he normally would, his fingers summoning a dragon treat from his kitchen and watching Kris gobble it down.
He laughs as he turns his laptop on, Kris wriggling his way in between Jongdae’s lap and the laptop. The heat of the laptop always keeps Kris warm, and no matter how many times Jongdae’s tried to convince Kris that the radiation of the machine might be harmful to it, the dragon refuses to listen. At this point, Jongdae’s pretty much given up.
HZT-ao: Hey, Dae!
Jongdae brightens up when Skype starts itself up as his laptop finishes its own start up process and the message pops up. He grins, leaning back against the couch as he replies.
Daelight: Hey Tao.
The conversation goes from there, and Jongdae gets more and more comfortable with it. Even though he has no idea where Tao lives in the world, it doesn’t matter, because they know each other online. Tao’s one of his best friends, and even when he’s told repeatedly by his parents that friends online aren’t real friends, Jongdae doesn’t really care. Tao’s been a better friend than a lot of the people he knows.
HZT-ao: Wanna video call?
Jongdae doesn’t even bother replying, fixing his hair just slightly before he clicks on the video call button. A ring later, Tao picks up, and the screen darkens with the grainy image of Tao’s beautifully bronzed skin, sharp eyes and signature cat smile.
“Hey, Dae!” Tao greets, forever using the same phrase when he speaks to Jongdae, either in a video call or merely typing it out. It’s something that Jongdae has learned to associate with Tao, and it’s something that he holds near and dear to him.
Jongdae grins, his own kitten lips pulling up. Kris huffs and immediately zips away from under his laptop at the voice, quickly moving to Jongdae’s shoulder and hissing at the screen. It’s no secret that Kris doesn’t really like Tao, since he believes - or Jongdae thinks he believes. He’s not very sure that Kris actually thinks this way, considering the fact that sometimes Kris only comes near him when he has treats - Tao is going to take Jongdae away from him one day, leaving him without said treats.
He reaches up to gently scratch at Kris’ head, right between his ears, where he likes it just as much as his tummy. Kris melts into it, almost purring - if dragons could purr - at the feeling. It allows Jongdae to concentrate on the conversation that he’s having with his friend, even if his arm starts to get numb pretty quickly from being stretched out behind him.
Tao continues to babble on about how university life has been treating him, and how he got a new job at this coffee shop where the owners won’t stop making out. Jongdae laughs and indulges his friend, listening to his complaints and his whining. It’s not as if Jongdae is above doing that himself. Tao is more than used to his own whining about a week or a day that’s been bad.
“I wish I could meet you,” Jongdae blurts out before he can stop himself. Tao stops speaking at the words, and his face takes on a wistful but accepting expression. It’s one that they’re both used to. As good friends as they were, they’d agreed to never tell each other where they stayed, because they were probably half the world apart, and actually knowing how far apart they were would only make it harder on them, knowing that one of their best friends was miles and miles away.
“I do too, Dae,” Tao replies, and he tilts his head slightly. “Dae, should we-”
Jongdae quickly shakes his head, knowing what Tao was going to suggest. Perhaps when Tao was older, not tied down by responsibilities - school, work, the likes - that they could finally reveal where they lived. Until then, knowing that they couldn’t meet would be torture, and Jongdae preferred it that way. At least then he wouldn’t have the insane urge to say ‘fuck it’, buy a plane ticket, and fly over to where ever Tao lived.
They chatt for a little more, Kris occasionally hissing down at Tao’s face on the screen even when Jongdae was scratching him. It leads to Jongdae taking away some of Kris’ treats for being rude to his friend, and Kris sulks at him for a couple of hours, but Jongdae refuses to yield. In the end, it’s only after the video call with Tao had ended, and Jongdae had made dinner that Kris slithers over a little sadly to apologize.
He snakes his way up to the dining table and noses at Jongdae’s hand pitifully. There’s a stretch of silence, Kris continuously rubbing his head apologetically against Jongdae’s hand before his owner gives in with a sigh. “It’s okay,” He says, forgiving his familiar. “But you can’t keep doing that, you know. I don’t know why you’re always antagonizing Tao, but you really need to stop that, okay?”
Kris huffs at him, but Jongdae refuses to stand down this time. He stares his familiar down until the dragon dips his head in understanding, and Jongdae smiles. He stretches his arm out so that Kris can clamber on and curl around his shoulders, nuzzling into his neck cutely. He waves a hand and that’s his dishes done, then grabs a few dragon treats on his way back to the couch.
“Maybe one day,” He sighs to himself, absent-mindedly feeding the treats to Kris, who’s nipping them up like a dragon starved, like he hadn’t had his meal alongside Jongdae. “One day, we’ll get to meet.”
Kris bumps at his throat in sympathy.
He’s having a very strange dream.
Unlike most of the dreams he has him with his family, or has him meeting Jongdae, this one is a lot different, for lack of a better word. He doesn’t know where he is, for one, and looking around him provides no details whatsoever. He thinks he might be in the sky, considering the fact that he doesn’t think that he’s standing on anything.
“You,” A voice says, and he jumps, instinctively moving to a defensive pose. He spins around to where the voice had come from and sees a tall man, even taller than him, and that in itself is an impressive feat. “You don’t look like much.”
Entirely confused as to why he was here, in the middle of nowhere, being insulted by this man, Zitao relaxes his posture. The man had a pretty scary face, if you asked his opinion. He looked like a pretty strict man, with his angry looking eyebrows. Zitao supposes that he was very handsome, too, but considering the fact that he looked about 30 seconds away from murdering Zitao, that wasn’t at the front of his mind.
“Thank you?” He tries, backing away slowly. Even though he was trained in martial arts, that didn’t mean that he could take this man on. For all he knew, this man was an assassin.
It was then he remembered that this was a dream.
“I’m warning you,” The man starts again, his eyebrows furrowing, and it’s at this point that Zitao’s a little wary, dream or not. “If you ever dare to hurt him, I’ll hurt you. Got it?”
Zitao, utterly bewildered, stares at the man in confusion. “What? Hurt who? Why are you hurting me? I mean, I guess I get it, but what are you talking about? Who am I hurting? Or going to be hurting? Or not hurting? You’re not- I- What?”
Very eloquent, Huang Zitao.
The man continues to keep his gaze on him as though entirely unbelieving of how stupid he is. Zitao stands his ground, but the man says nothing else, preferring to sigh and turn away.
“You’d better not hurt him,” Is the last thing Zitao hears before he jerks awake in his bed.
Jongdae drags himself out of bed and decides, at the very moment that he stands up, that he needs coffee. Today’s a terrible day, he muses, looking at the dreadful weather outside his window. At least, he thinks, he doesn’t have work today, so he can go outside, get coffee, maybe laze about.
“Kris,” He calls, and the dragon perks up from where he’s buried underneath Jongdae’s blankets, eyes blinking blearily and ears flat on his head. Jongdae laughs at how adorable his familiar is being, holding out a hand for the dragon to fly towards him unsteadily, and Jongdae quickly catches Kris and cradles him in his arms before his familiar falls flat on his face. “Good morning to you, too.”
Kris gives a snort and puffs out breath of smoke. Jongdae scratches behind his ears as he moves to the bathroom, brushing his teeth while Kris preens in the bathroom mirror. Jongdae wonders where he found such a narcissistic familiar, but really, he wouldn’t have Kris any other way.
He changes into ripped jeans, his high top Converse and one of his many graphic tees, grabbing his laptop, phone and wallet as he leaves. Kris glides towards him from where he’d been hiding on one of the higher shelves, latching himself onto Jongdae and wrapping his body around his neck, evidently wanting to tag along.
Well, Jongdae wouldn’t say no to that, really.
He stretches the kinks out of his shoulders and neck, quickly searching for a coffee place - speaking with Tao last night combined with his want for caffeine led him to want to go to a coffee place that wasn’t actually Starbucks or Coffee Bean. He found a place a couple of blocks away that had pretty good reviews and set off in that general direction.
“What should I have, Kris?” He asked his familiar. Kris gave him a look, nipping at his fingers likely, as though saying that he didn’t care as long as Jongdae gave him more dragon treats. Sticking his tongue out at his familiar, Jongdae threatened not to give Kris any that had the dragon whining low in his throat.
Walking into the coffee shop, Jongdae was hit instantly with the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the sweetness of desserts. He went up to the counter and ordered a white chocolate mocha, a raspberry cheesecake for himself, and a croissant for Kris, who had plastered himself onto the glass case and refused to leave until Jongdae had ordered said pastry for him.
“Interesting familiar you have there,” The barista - Minseok, his name tag reads - comments in amusement.
“He’s a menace,” Jongdae sighs, long suffering. Kris gives him a glare, quickly winding himself back around Jongdae’s neck. “But you can’t help but love them.”
Minseok laughs as he takes Jongdae’s cash. “I understand,” He replies. “My familiar is the same. Aren’t you, Luhan?”
He directs this towards the small fawn curled up at the end of the counter, who raised his head and blinked at Minseok. As though he instinctively knew he was being insulted, he huffed and stood up, butting Minseok in the side with his head.
“Have a seat,” Minseok directs, smiling as he hands Jongdae his change and receipt. “Our waiter will bring your food and drinks to you. Luhan, lead them to a nice table, won’t you?”
The fawn looks up at them, as though sizing them up, then pads away to a cozy looking spot in the corner of the cafe. Jongdae takes a seat in one of the bean bag chairs, watching as Luhan ignores all propriety and settles himself in the bean bag next to Jongdae’s, staring at him through his doe eyes. Kris, evidently finding him interesting, slid off of Jongdae’s neck to sniff at Luhan.
“Don’t be rude, Kris,” Jongdae laughs, but Luhan doesn’t seem to mind, letting Kris burrow into him with a snuffle. “I swear, you already like him more than you like me.”
“Here’s your mocha,” A voice says. “As well as your cheesecake and croissant.”
Kris lifts his head immediately at the word ‘croissant’, flying over to the table where the waiter had laid down the plate. Jongdae watches him and shakes his head, looking up to thank the waiter when his throat runs dry.
“T-Tao?”
The waiter startles, almost spilling the scalding hot coffee. No one calls him that. Everyone calls him Zitao, and the only person that he had ever introduced himself as Tao to is-
“Dae?”
“Tao!” Jongdae exclaims, and this time Zitao does spill the coffee. Jongdae hisses in pain and Kris quickly flies over to tend to Jongdae’s wounds. He channels his energy into Jongdae’s hand despite Jongdae telling him that it’s okay.
The dragon takes his usual place atop Jongdae’s shoulder, and Zitao shudders, even though he’s delighted that his friend - he’d thought Dae lived across the world! - was here, right here, in front of him. The dragon was glaring at him, baring its teeth, and while he was used to it when the dragon was a mere image on his laptop screen, it was a lot more terrifying now that said dragon was real and could very well rip his face off if he so wanted to.
“Kris, stop that, I’m fine, really,” Jongdae reprimands. “Remember what we talked about? Go back to eating your croissant.”
Kris huffs, and does as his master says, but even as he eats, he keeps sending these looks of contempt towards Zitao that reminds the waiter very much of the strange man that had told him “not to hurt him”.
Wait, was the man…?
“Tao!” Jongdae says, snapping his fingers when Zitao seems to be drifting away. “Tao!”
“Oh!” Zitao snaps back to his sense when Jongdae’s fingers snap right in front of him. He blinks, rapidly, then shakes his head to clear his mind. “I- You’re- Dae?”
“You live here?” Jongdae asks, and Zitao nods, almost shaking his head off with how much and how hard he’s nodding. “We could have- Met- Why didn’t we say anything?”
“I don’t know!” Zitao replies. “You didn’t want to, last night!”
“Last night?” A new voice comes, and it’s then that Jongdae and Zitao realize that Minseok has somehow come right up to them without either of them noticing. “I don’t know what kind of shenanigans you’ve been up to with my waiter, dear customer,” He says, smiling. “However, said waiter really does have to get back to work. I’m sure he’d like to talk to you more when his shift is over. Is that not right, Zitao?”
“Ah, yes,” Zitao admits, ashamed. He quickly scrambles back to work, a blush rising up his face. Minseok watches him go, patting Luhan on the head.
“He gets off at 5 today,” Minseok comments airily, but the smirk on his face says something else, and Jongdae chokes on his coffee at the innuendo. “If you’d like to wait for him. Until then, do enjoy our coffee.”
Yeah, Jongdae thinks. I will.
From: minchievous
Title: across the galaxy, across the town
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Tao/Chen
Length: 2.6k~
Summary: For all they knew, they lived across the world from each other.
Warning(s): -
Author’s Note: I hope you don’t mind that I (sort of) combined two of your prompts, recipient! The idea of a familiar just seemed too cute to pass up. I hope you like it nonetheless!
Jongdae steps into his house and is immediately assaulted by his pet dragon. He laughs, putting his stuff down onto the coffee table before he’s bowled over onto the couch, Kris nuzzling his way into Jongdae’s arms and huffing a puff of hot air at his neck.
“Hey, silly,” He greets, scratching Kris behind his ears, and the black dragon’s tail thumps happily on the couch as he arches and flops onto his back, squirming to get Jongdae to scratch his tummy. Jongdae, of course, being the best owner, does. “Get me my laptop, please?”
Kris huffs indignantly, but he flies away with and comes back down with Jongdae’s laptop in his claws, careful not to damage it. Jongdae grins, happily, and scratches Kris’ tummy a little longer than he normally would, his fingers summoning a dragon treat from his kitchen and watching Kris gobble it down.
He laughs as he turns his laptop on, Kris wriggling his way in between Jongdae’s lap and the laptop. The heat of the laptop always keeps Kris warm, and no matter how many times Jongdae’s tried to convince Kris that the radiation of the machine might be harmful to it, the dragon refuses to listen. At this point, Jongdae’s pretty much given up.
HZT-ao: Hey, Dae!
Jongdae brightens up when Skype starts itself up as his laptop finishes its own start up process and the message pops up. He grins, leaning back against the couch as he replies.
Daelight: Hey Tao.
The conversation goes from there, and Jongdae gets more and more comfortable with it. Even though he has no idea where Tao lives in the world, it doesn’t matter, because they know each other online. Tao’s one of his best friends, and even when he’s told repeatedly by his parents that friends online aren’t real friends, Jongdae doesn’t really care. Tao’s been a better friend than a lot of the people he knows.
HZT-ao: Wanna video call?
Jongdae doesn’t even bother replying, fixing his hair just slightly before he clicks on the video call button. A ring later, Tao picks up, and the screen darkens with the grainy image of Tao’s beautifully bronzed skin, sharp eyes and signature cat smile.
“Hey, Dae!” Tao greets, forever using the same phrase when he speaks to Jongdae, either in a video call or merely typing it out. It’s something that Jongdae has learned to associate with Tao, and it’s something that he holds near and dear to him.
Jongdae grins, his own kitten lips pulling up. Kris huffs and immediately zips away from under his laptop at the voice, quickly moving to Jongdae’s shoulder and hissing at the screen. It’s no secret that Kris doesn’t really like Tao, since he believes - or Jongdae thinks he believes. He’s not very sure that Kris actually thinks this way, considering the fact that sometimes Kris only comes near him when he has treats - Tao is going to take Jongdae away from him one day, leaving him without said treats.
He reaches up to gently scratch at Kris’ head, right between his ears, where he likes it just as much as his tummy. Kris melts into it, almost purring - if dragons could purr - at the feeling. It allows Jongdae to concentrate on the conversation that he’s having with his friend, even if his arm starts to get numb pretty quickly from being stretched out behind him.
Tao continues to babble on about how university life has been treating him, and how he got a new job at this coffee shop where the owners won’t stop making out. Jongdae laughs and indulges his friend, listening to his complaints and his whining. It’s not as if Jongdae is above doing that himself. Tao is more than used to his own whining about a week or a day that’s been bad.
“I wish I could meet you,” Jongdae blurts out before he can stop himself. Tao stops speaking at the words, and his face takes on a wistful but accepting expression. It’s one that they’re both used to. As good friends as they were, they’d agreed to never tell each other where they stayed, because they were probably half the world apart, and actually knowing how far apart they were would only make it harder on them, knowing that one of their best friends was miles and miles away.
“I do too, Dae,” Tao replies, and he tilts his head slightly. “Dae, should we-”
Jongdae quickly shakes his head, knowing what Tao was going to suggest. Perhaps when Tao was older, not tied down by responsibilities - school, work, the likes - that they could finally reveal where they lived. Until then, knowing that they couldn’t meet would be torture, and Jongdae preferred it that way. At least then he wouldn’t have the insane urge to say ‘fuck it’, buy a plane ticket, and fly over to where ever Tao lived.
They chatt for a little more, Kris occasionally hissing down at Tao’s face on the screen even when Jongdae was scratching him. It leads to Jongdae taking away some of Kris’ treats for being rude to his friend, and Kris sulks at him for a couple of hours, but Jongdae refuses to yield. In the end, it’s only after the video call with Tao had ended, and Jongdae had made dinner that Kris slithers over a little sadly to apologize.
He snakes his way up to the dining table and noses at Jongdae’s hand pitifully. There’s a stretch of silence, Kris continuously rubbing his head apologetically against Jongdae’s hand before his owner gives in with a sigh. “It’s okay,” He says, forgiving his familiar. “But you can’t keep doing that, you know. I don’t know why you’re always antagonizing Tao, but you really need to stop that, okay?”
Kris huffs at him, but Jongdae refuses to stand down this time. He stares his familiar down until the dragon dips his head in understanding, and Jongdae smiles. He stretches his arm out so that Kris can clamber on and curl around his shoulders, nuzzling into his neck cutely. He waves a hand and that’s his dishes done, then grabs a few dragon treats on his way back to the couch.
“Maybe one day,” He sighs to himself, absent-mindedly feeding the treats to Kris, who’s nipping them up like a dragon starved, like he hadn’t had his meal alongside Jongdae. “One day, we’ll get to meet.”
Kris bumps at his throat in sympathy.
He’s having a very strange dream.
Unlike most of the dreams he has him with his family, or has him meeting Jongdae, this one is a lot different, for lack of a better word. He doesn’t know where he is, for one, and looking around him provides no details whatsoever. He thinks he might be in the sky, considering the fact that he doesn’t think that he’s standing on anything.
“You,” A voice says, and he jumps, instinctively moving to a defensive pose. He spins around to where the voice had come from and sees a tall man, even taller than him, and that in itself is an impressive feat. “You don’t look like much.”
Entirely confused as to why he was here, in the middle of nowhere, being insulted by this man, Zitao relaxes his posture. The man had a pretty scary face, if you asked his opinion. He looked like a pretty strict man, with his angry looking eyebrows. Zitao supposes that he was very handsome, too, but considering the fact that he looked about 30 seconds away from murdering Zitao, that wasn’t at the front of his mind.
“Thank you?” He tries, backing away slowly. Even though he was trained in martial arts, that didn’t mean that he could take this man on. For all he knew, this man was an assassin.
It was then he remembered that this was a dream.
“I’m warning you,” The man starts again, his eyebrows furrowing, and it’s at this point that Zitao’s a little wary, dream or not. “If you ever dare to hurt him, I’ll hurt you. Got it?”
Zitao, utterly bewildered, stares at the man in confusion. “What? Hurt who? Why are you hurting me? I mean, I guess I get it, but what are you talking about? Who am I hurting? Or going to be hurting? Or not hurting? You’re not- I- What?”
Very eloquent, Huang Zitao.
The man continues to keep his gaze on him as though entirely unbelieving of how stupid he is. Zitao stands his ground, but the man says nothing else, preferring to sigh and turn away.
“You’d better not hurt him,” Is the last thing Zitao hears before he jerks awake in his bed.
Jongdae drags himself out of bed and decides, at the very moment that he stands up, that he needs coffee. Today’s a terrible day, he muses, looking at the dreadful weather outside his window. At least, he thinks, he doesn’t have work today, so he can go outside, get coffee, maybe laze about.
“Kris,” He calls, and the dragon perks up from where he’s buried underneath Jongdae’s blankets, eyes blinking blearily and ears flat on his head. Jongdae laughs at how adorable his familiar is being, holding out a hand for the dragon to fly towards him unsteadily, and Jongdae quickly catches Kris and cradles him in his arms before his familiar falls flat on his face. “Good morning to you, too.”
Kris gives a snort and puffs out breath of smoke. Jongdae scratches behind his ears as he moves to the bathroom, brushing his teeth while Kris preens in the bathroom mirror. Jongdae wonders where he found such a narcissistic familiar, but really, he wouldn’t have Kris any other way.
He changes into ripped jeans, his high top Converse and one of his many graphic tees, grabbing his laptop, phone and wallet as he leaves. Kris glides towards him from where he’d been hiding on one of the higher shelves, latching himself onto Jongdae and wrapping his body around his neck, evidently wanting to tag along.
Well, Jongdae wouldn’t say no to that, really.
He stretches the kinks out of his shoulders and neck, quickly searching for a coffee place - speaking with Tao last night combined with his want for caffeine led him to want to go to a coffee place that wasn’t actually Starbucks or Coffee Bean. He found a place a couple of blocks away that had pretty good reviews and set off in that general direction.
“What should I have, Kris?” He asked his familiar. Kris gave him a look, nipping at his fingers likely, as though saying that he didn’t care as long as Jongdae gave him more dragon treats. Sticking his tongue out at his familiar, Jongdae threatened not to give Kris any that had the dragon whining low in his throat.
Walking into the coffee shop, Jongdae was hit instantly with the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the sweetness of desserts. He went up to the counter and ordered a white chocolate mocha, a raspberry cheesecake for himself, and a croissant for Kris, who had plastered himself onto the glass case and refused to leave until Jongdae had ordered said pastry for him.
“Interesting familiar you have there,” The barista - Minseok, his name tag reads - comments in amusement.
“He’s a menace,” Jongdae sighs, long suffering. Kris gives him a glare, quickly winding himself back around Jongdae’s neck. “But you can’t help but love them.”
Minseok laughs as he takes Jongdae’s cash. “I understand,” He replies. “My familiar is the same. Aren’t you, Luhan?”
He directs this towards the small fawn curled up at the end of the counter, who raised his head and blinked at Minseok. As though he instinctively knew he was being insulted, he huffed and stood up, butting Minseok in the side with his head.
“Have a seat,” Minseok directs, smiling as he hands Jongdae his change and receipt. “Our waiter will bring your food and drinks to you. Luhan, lead them to a nice table, won’t you?”
The fawn looks up at them, as though sizing them up, then pads away to a cozy looking spot in the corner of the cafe. Jongdae takes a seat in one of the bean bag chairs, watching as Luhan ignores all propriety and settles himself in the bean bag next to Jongdae’s, staring at him through his doe eyes. Kris, evidently finding him interesting, slid off of Jongdae’s neck to sniff at Luhan.
“Don’t be rude, Kris,” Jongdae laughs, but Luhan doesn’t seem to mind, letting Kris burrow into him with a snuffle. “I swear, you already like him more than you like me.”
“Here’s your mocha,” A voice says. “As well as your cheesecake and croissant.”
Kris lifts his head immediately at the word ‘croissant’, flying over to the table where the waiter had laid down the plate. Jongdae watches him and shakes his head, looking up to thank the waiter when his throat runs dry.
“T-Tao?”
The waiter startles, almost spilling the scalding hot coffee. No one calls him that. Everyone calls him Zitao, and the only person that he had ever introduced himself as Tao to is-
“Dae?”
“Tao!” Jongdae exclaims, and this time Zitao does spill the coffee. Jongdae hisses in pain and Kris quickly flies over to tend to Jongdae’s wounds. He channels his energy into Jongdae’s hand despite Jongdae telling him that it’s okay.
The dragon takes his usual place atop Jongdae’s shoulder, and Zitao shudders, even though he’s delighted that his friend - he’d thought Dae lived across the world! - was here, right here, in front of him. The dragon was glaring at him, baring its teeth, and while he was used to it when the dragon was a mere image on his laptop screen, it was a lot more terrifying now that said dragon was real and could very well rip his face off if he so wanted to.
“Kris, stop that, I’m fine, really,” Jongdae reprimands. “Remember what we talked about? Go back to eating your croissant.”
Kris huffs, and does as his master says, but even as he eats, he keeps sending these looks of contempt towards Zitao that reminds the waiter very much of the strange man that had told him “not to hurt him”.
Wait, was the man…?
“Tao!” Jongdae says, snapping his fingers when Zitao seems to be drifting away. “Tao!”
“Oh!” Zitao snaps back to his sense when Jongdae’s fingers snap right in front of him. He blinks, rapidly, then shakes his head to clear his mind. “I- You’re- Dae?”
“You live here?” Jongdae asks, and Zitao nods, almost shaking his head off with how much and how hard he’s nodding. “We could have- Met- Why didn’t we say anything?”
“I don’t know!” Zitao replies. “You didn’t want to, last night!”
“Last night?” A new voice comes, and it’s then that Jongdae and Zitao realize that Minseok has somehow come right up to them without either of them noticing. “I don’t know what kind of shenanigans you’ve been up to with my waiter, dear customer,” He says, smiling. “However, said waiter really does have to get back to work. I’m sure he’d like to talk to you more when his shift is over. Is that not right, Zitao?”
“Ah, yes,” Zitao admits, ashamed. He quickly scrambles back to work, a blush rising up his face. Minseok watches him go, patting Luhan on the head.
“He gets off at 5 today,” Minseok comments airily, but the smirk on his face says something else, and Jongdae chokes on his coffee at the innuendo. “If you’d like to wait for him. Until then, do enjoy our coffee.”
Yeah, Jongdae thinks. I will.