Monday I'm Your Hollaback Boy, for capturedhear_t
Title: Monday I'm Your Hollaback Boy
For: capturedhear_t
Word count: 7000~
Rating: NC-17, for language and the rated scene that turned into actual sex.
Summary: Normal people respond positively to puppies. Chocolate cookies. Winning the lottery. Kris responds positively to having his dirty college secrets hung out for the world to judge. Finally having the guts to confess after eight years of longing is Kris' hollaback at Zhang Yixing.
"I mean, yeah, I got committed couple of times, but nothin' serious or anythin'!"
The man sitting across from Kris is not a good candidate. For one, his hair is a bit greasy. For another, he's rather skinny. Not good for lifting the many boxes and crates of groceries that Kris needs to stock everyday. The criminal record doesn't really bother him all that much.
"They booked me on a number of breakin' an' enterin', though. But you can trust me, boss! 'S-long
as I get my proper wage on time I'll be good."
"That's...good to hear." Kris supposes he could do worse. With a good shampoo and conditioner those unruly poodle curls would be bouncing with life. With a good feeding of cheese toast and blueberry muffins everyday he'd even gain some muscle on those lanky limbs. And if the beanpole needed a little straightening out with any sticky fingers, Baekhyun was always available.
"Alright...Chanyeol, you're hired."
Chanyeol cheers and stands up and reaches over for a hug. Kris tries not to breathe in the fumes wafting from his hair. He pats his new employee on the back, albeit a little awkwardly.
"Um. Okay. You start on Monday. See you."
Kris wanders to the back on the staffroom, where he finds Kyungsoo and Joonmyun snuggled together on the couch, a travel magazine spread on their laps. They're looking at Bali as a potential honeymoon destination. Typical. Gay couples never seem to possess any originality. He says so out loud.
"Do you guys have to goooooooooo?" he whines, plopping down in the armchair. Joonmyun is the only one who glances up and dignifies his boss with a sympathetic smile. Kyungsoo is circling out the best cruise deals but doesn't miss a beat when he replies: "The only reason we worked here in the first place is out of pity for you because you were a college dropout and would've died on the streets if you couldn't find anybody to work for you and your café investment for free. Now that you are no longer in danger of taking a bath without Amouage shower gels, we are getting the hell out of here."
"Honey, don't be so mean," Joonmyun chides gently, while pointing at a ship he particularly likes the look of. ("Ooh, hot tub on the private balcony! That sounds nice!") Kyungsoo grunts noncommittally and jots down 'Hot tub sex?' on a notepad lying on his other side that Joonmyun can't see.
"I've been through ten interviews today and they were all disgusting except the last one, who I hired because he was salvageable. I've got one more position to fill and only one more interviewee left. Why is my life so haaaaaaaaard?"
"Shut up. I'm doing calculations in my head and you're being a dickless wimp. And your last interviewee is here, I heard the bell."
Kris gets up and sails away with a dramatic sigh. He resigns himself to having absolutely no reliable help once Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are gone, but they were at least nice enough to put off their honeymoon until two months after their wedding so Kris would have enough time to hire new workers and get them used to the ropes.
He's not prepared for whom he finds in his shop, eyeballing the cakes in the display case with obvious interest. The stranger straightens his back and gives Kris a little wave before his eyes widen in recognition.
"Kris!" Yixing greets happily, eyes crinkling into little half moons and oh, god, out pops the dimple.
The taller man stumbles. He takes a good hard look and turns on his heels to duck back into the staffroom, heaving. Both Kyungsoo and Joonmyun look up at his dishevelled state, confused.
"He'shired," Kris wheezes, making shooing motions with his hands. "TellhimhestartsonMonday. Go!"
When Joonmyun complies he rushes out the back door and calls Lu Han, who picks up after the third ring."
"If you're desperate enough to call me before three in the morning, it's gotta be bad. But you still better make it quick because Minseok is naked in my bed and every second of my time you're wasting is a carat of diamonds dropping into an active volcano."
"Yixing!" Kris manages to get out, and Lu Han must be really interested in his oncoming suffering because Kris can hear him calling: "Hold on baby just one more minute!" and Lu Han never makes Minseok wait for anything. Making Minseok wait for sex would be like Lu Han letting a capuchin monkey castrate him with a rock.
Kris is only mildly jealous that Lu Han is sexing it up at four in the afternoon, by the way.
"Sixty diamonds go!"
"Hnnnnngheeeeaaaaaaaaar," and even Kris himself has to pause, because that's a new one. "Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are quitting to go on their honeymoon and I have to hire two new people and I finally hired one after passing most of the others during the day and I had one more person to interview but I'm really regretting turning down all the people before because it turned out to be Yixing and he recognised me and he smiled and he did the despicable dimple thing and his hair is black now and he had a diamond on his left ear and he had a tattoo of a snake coiled around his collarbones and I didn't realise before but now that I'm a little more sentient I think- yep. I have a boner. WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOOOOO? DOES ICE ON HIS EAR MEAN THE SAME THING AS ICE ON HIS FINGEEEEEEER? WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE GET A SNAKE TATTOO DOESN'T HE KNOW I'M FUCKING SCARED TO SHIT OF SNAKES? AND I HIIIIIIIIIIIIRED HIM, OH MY GOOOOOOOD, LU HAN, MY LIFE IS RUIIIIIIIIIIINED! AND HE STARTS ON MON-"
"Sixty seconds are up I'll call you back bye."
Kris stares forlornly at his phone screen. It takes a few minutes for his breathing to go back to normal and he trudges back into the shop, where Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are waiting with arms crossed over their chests.
"That was Yixing."
Hearing his name, even coming from Joonmyun's mouth, is distressing.
"Yixing, who you fell in love with at first sight and joined the swimming club for even though you sink in anything that's not a kiddie pool?"
"Yep." There's no shame in admitting true facts about your first love. Or crush. Or infatuation. From the moment he first laid eyes on glorious Zhang Yixing his gilded college life became a plastic bowl filled with empty plans of cosy coffee dates and stressful nights catching up on missed lectures because after the fiasco of the disastrous swim team tryouts he was relegated to being cheerleader. The coach appreciated his enthusiasm, though.
"Yixing, who didn't really notice your giant existence until three months later when you showed up to the swim meet with a rubber ducky lifesaver?"
"He thought it was cute."
"Yixing, who went through girlfriends and boyfriends like you do tissues when you're sick with flu?"
"Hey, he had a relationship that was for four months, okay."
"...were you miserable?"
"Like you wouldn't believe."
"Okay well, we're gonna head home now and judge your failure in private. Bye. Have fun Monday." Ouch. But Kyungsoo either stays put or boxes you down for the count. It's never anything in between for the small man.
Kris waves them off and pops open a beer from his personal cooler stash. He's probably going to need a lot more, so he stays in the shop nursing beers on the bar until well in the morning, when Lu Han finally decides to call him back. He sounds thoroughly pleased with himself. Those sex marathons that he suggested and Minseok tolerates are doing wonders for his stamina. Yesterday he ran around the park four laps more than he did pre-sex marathon training.
"So, Yixing." Lu Han whispers. He's probably on the balcony having a smoke and he doesn't want to wake Minseok up. Kris counts seven bottles of beer and one bottle of whiskey on the counter and predicts a hell of a hangover later on this morning. Luckily the shop is closed for the day.
"Yeah, Yixing."
"Oh man, he was the personification of your dirty little college secrets. You had a bucket list to show people and another, private bucket list for Things to do Together with Yixing. Number one on that list was marrying Yixing with your parents' blessing in the biggest and best church in Canada on a sunny summer day with ten flower girls and flower boys and a newborn baby as ring bearer with a release of white doves when you guys finally kiss. Number two was honeymooning in the Maldives and swimming with dolphins and sipping fruity cocktails with umbrellas in them while suntan-ing and he reads erotic poetry to you in a sultry voice and you guys go for a nice romantic moonlit walk along the beach after a seafood feast discussing books and music and movies!"
Kris winces. He's going to have to apologise to Kyungsoo and Joonmyun for the jibe at their chosen honeymoon destination, because the Maldives are even worse than Bali. Even after almost eight years since writing that particular bucket list he still wants to go with Yixing to swim with dolphins and sip colourful cocktails with little umbrellas and have poetry read to him while he suntans himself into a sun-kissed bronze god.
"Okay you fuck. I'm not Miss Rhode Island and you're not Miss Congeniality and I might be inebriated but I know I didn't write anything about discussing books or music or movies, so shut the hell up," Kris snaps, but then he has a memory flash to the vow made in blood he took with Lu Han to never bring up anything about their appreciation for chick flicks, so he asks: "How the fuck can you still remember all that anyway?"
"You know how you threw away the Yixing bucket list in a fit of despair and woe after graduation? I fished out of the trash and I've had it ever since. I'm just reading it word for word right now."
Kris groans and buries his head into his gigantic hands, but he listens on anyway. He's actually smiling a little, recalling the (many) stupid things he did in his early twenties.
"Number three! You surprise Yixing with a puppy on his birthday and you two will take it on walks together while holding hands! Number four, you socialise with your neighbours in your American Dream cul-de-sac and attend and invite other couples and their families over for barbecues and holidays and go carolling with everybody on Christmas. Number five, build blanket forts in the living room and tell each other secrets about yourselves while having thumb wars. Jeez fuck your inner teenage girl is terrifying. It's like the closeted gay man suddenly just gave over to an ugly girl with delusional dreams of the hunky quarterback choosing her over the hot cheerleader."
"..."
"You're the ugly girl, in case you missed it."
"...I'm just too drunk right now to be properly offended. I'll punch you when I'm sober."
"You still get boners when you smell chlorine because you associate it with wet and dripping Yixing hauling himself out of the pool. Also, you stole his speedos once and bought the exact same pair so he wouldn't get suspicious. Freak."
"You copied Minseok's dorm room key from Jongin just so you could sneak in and sniff his bed sheets when he was in class. Creep."
Lu Han coughs and chokes on a cloud of smoke. He puts out the Marlboro in the ashtray and looks back into their bedroom, where Minseok is sleeping peacefully covered in head to toe with bites and hickeys. He's got the covers hugged to his chest and squeezed between his soft fleshy thighs, looking just as adorable as the first time Lu Han set his eyes on the man and it suddenly felt like his heart expanded to a dozen times bigger, filled with all the warm and fuzzy things in the world. Lu Han suddenly feels mellowed out by the extreme goodness that is Kim Minseok and so decides to take pity on his best friend.
"Hey Kris. Good luck Monday."
Kris accepts his uncharacteristic generosity with an affirmative grunt. Lu Han has been known to grow a separate heart for loving things other than Minseok once in a while.
"You want me to drop in?"
"No."
Lu Han scoffs from the other side of the line and hangs up, muttering under his breath about ungrateful bastards. He's probably going to go back to spooning Minseok and get what sleep he can before soliciting a morning quickie when his boyfriend wakes up. Kris listens to the dial tone for the time it takes his phone to lock and then glances at the clock on the wall. Two in the morning isn't too late, but Kris feels comfortable enough to make a decision to just sleep on a barstool, sprawled over the counter with his emptied bottles. He'll shower in the morning.
---
Monday comes around way too fast for Kris' liking (and/or mental wellbeing).
By the time he's gathered enough courage to go downstairs to the café, it's already ten-thirty. During the two or more hours that Yixing's been within his twenty-metre radius he'd been hiding in his bathroom, going over every aspect of himself with a fine-toothed comb, from the wax in his painstakingly styled hair to the best match of brow gel shade to the most pleasingly scented cologne he'd spritzed behind his ears and on his wrists. Kris' narcissism took on a whole new level this morning.
Joonmyun is the one who opened up shop and let Chanyeol and Yixing in around eight.
"From five to eleven is the morning shift, from nine to three is the midday shift, and from one to seven is the night shift. But we're open for two extra hours on Thursday and Friday nights and of course you'll get paid for the overtime. To ensure that everybody has a break we work on daily alternating shifts, so if you work the morning shift on a particular day you'll also work the night shift that day, but the next day you'll only be coming in for the midday hours. You'll have two days off a week unless we're short on staff, and even though we work on a rotating roster system you can ask for shift swaps if you have an emergency." Joonmyun explains to the two new employees in the staffroom. He's the only man in the shop kind enough to have offered them coffee while he takes them on a tour of the premises, because Kyungsoo damn sure wouldn't have. Baekhyun isn't too hospitable, either.
"Morning shift people come in a little earlier than when they officially start to open up shop, because the boss is a lazy man and demands to have uninterrupted beauty sleep. So in the morning you'll put all the chairs down, load up the register, start grinding the coffee beans and always keep an eye out if you need to bring in another bag. Once that's done you'll need to turn on the oven and heat up all the morning run pastries. And then you can just sign off the morning cake deliveries and we're open!"
Yixing nods, smiling. Chanyeol is taking some serious notes, but while he remembered to bring a pen he's forgotten his notebook, so he makes do with a brown paper bag they use for pocketing pastries.
"The midday shift is always busy because we're catering to both late breakfasts and lunches. It'll be too busy sometimes for us to eat lunch so I'd suggest a snack before nine just to keep you energised. Lunchtime is also popular for mothers out with kids, so be a bit more careful and you'll be okay. Night shift is pretty easy so don't worry about that. When it's time for lockup you'll just need to put all the chairs up, mop the floors and wipe down all the tables. Clear out the register and slip the cash into an envelope and slip it under the boss' door upstairs with the receipt roll. And that's it!"
Joonmyun leads them to the back of the café and up the stairs to Kris' apartment above the shop, so they'll know where to put the money. He also shows them the alley behind the store where they take out the trash, and the half a dozen or so metal bowls filled with leftovers, occupying the attention of several stray cats and dogs. Chanyeol whoops in delight, immediately squatting down and generating interest from a large pitbull who is curious enough to come sniff his face but bounds away at the first sight of grabby hands. Chanyeol frowns unhappily.
"Yixing, you'll be permanently stationed on coffee duty because you have a barista certification." Joonmyun says, leading them back into the shop and into the changing room, where he taps a boy with cotton candy pink hair on the shoulder and introduces him as Sehun.
"He's the barista you'll be working with today. We have two coffee machines so you have your own working space. The order will be written on a post-it and stuck on the left side of the machine, and once you finish the order you can stick it onto the cup so the servers know what the order is without any mix ups."
"Hi, Sehun. Tell me if I do anything wrong, okay?" Yixing grins and offers a hand to shake. Sehun stares at it long enough that Yixing believes he's not all that into handshakes when the boy takes Yixing's right forefinger between his own forefinger and thumb and mumbling a shy "Hi," back. Apparently, that's the Sehun handshake.
"And Chanyeol will be working in the kitchen with my husband, Kyungsoo! Don't worry Chanyeol, he'll teach you everything you need to know. Just ask him anything you're not sure about, he's a really patient man."
When Kris is finally satisfied with his appearance Yixing has already gone through fifty orders for coffee. He thinks himself prepared, but nothing could have warned him about just how good Yixing looks dressed in a pressed white shirt with a navy blue apron tied around his waist over his black slacks. He's in the process of pouring frothed milk into what looks like the base for a cappuccino, with the metal jug lifted high for the actual milk and then lowered to just above the rim of the cup for the foam. He sieves some cocoa over the top and pops a plastic lid on before sticking the yellow post-it to the side.
Kris takes a deep breath. He can do this. He stared himself down in the bathroom mirror and gave himself a really determined pep talk before descending down the stairs to face the rather frightening object of his (long overdue) affections.
It's been nearly a decade. Kris thinks that he's grown some balls filled with overflowing testosterone since, but then Yixing sees him coming through the storefront through the crowd and gives him the dreaded self-confidence destructing Dimple.
"Hi, Kris, good morning!"
It's not that hard to reply, so Kris opens his mouth and is just about to say "Good morning," back when Yixing continues: "How come you ran away from me the other day?"
Kris freezes. "Um," he says intelligently, starting to shake in his Italian leather oxfords. "Ham?"
Yixing raises an eyebrow slightly, but he keeps the small smile on his face. "No thanks, I already ate. Thanks for offering, though." He sidles up to Kris and settles himself comfortably into his side.
"Hey."
"Nnngh?" Yixing's proximity is making Kris' head spin. Pretty soon there'll be chirping canaries and flower petals dancing around his head if the younger man keeps disregarding personal space bubbles.
"Are all your employees so weird? Sehun's shy but he's a cutie though. Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are so homosexual you can almost see their rainbow halos. Jongin's had that rose in his mouth since he nicked it from one of the tables and he's been doing The Eyebrow Wriggle at all the female customers. And I thought Baekhyun was normal until his boyfriend Jongdae came in and wow I haven't heard lines that greasy since frying bacon in bacon fat. What about you? Are you gonna infect me with your crazy too?"
"I have an apple tattooed on my arm," Kris blurts out, and slaps a hand over his mouth when he realises what he's done. The shock and horror and regret are washing over him in tsunami waves. There isn't a floor of hell deep enough to compare to the hole he's just dug in the span of eight words because the response "I'm perfectly normal", while being a lie, would have been perfectly acceptable. His brain, however, seems to enjoy disclosing embarrassing secrets. He'd rather Yixing didn't know about his short-lived but disturbing fixation for McDonald's hot apple pie as a freshman in college. In his defence, he was fantastically drunk when he got inked.
Yixing giggles, but doesn't comment on it. Instead he reaches up on tiptoe and breathes into Kris' ear: "I have snakes on my shoulders, but they're kinda hard to see when I'm all buttoned up. I'll show you sometime?" The diamond stud on his left earlobe glints in the artificial lighting from overhead, refracting some luminosity onto the younger man's face, and Yixing suddenly looks a little ethereal.
"Um," Kris' coherency tries its best. "Okay?"
"Okay."
Then Yixing goes back to his coffee machine, humming a tune softly and Kris is called away to help out with taking and delivering orders for the lunch hour rush. The rest of the early afternoon passes by in a blue, until at three-thirty when everybody is having a quick break Lu Han shows up in his tailored three-piece Ralph Lauren suit in taupe grey and a pair of Ray Bans perched obnoxiously on his nose bridge despite being indoors. Chanyeol's jaw drops at the Ferrari parked outside the café and Kyungsoo eyes the Roger Dubuis watch on Lu Han's left wrist with more interest than it is socially suitable.
"Yo wassup my favourite worker ants!" is the way that Lu Han greets them. Being Lu Han, he really has nothing better to do but spend an inappropriately large amount of time on the Internet, trying to keep up with today's youth. 'Swag' is a foreign concept that he has only recently come to comprehend as the new 'hip' because, yes, Lu Han is that old. He knows how to be 'hip'.
(But apparently not how to have swag, because the one time he moonwalked into their bedroom with hiphop jeans riding waaaaaaaay too low on his hips, Minseok had laughed at him outright.
"Those jeans are hideous and an abomination to denim and aren't sexy in the least."
Lu Han considered carefully. Then he flung off the offending pants with a flourish. He's always been a go-commando kind of man.
"Much better," Minseok approved. Lu Han beamed and brandished a hot pink lacy thong at his boyfriend, for which he was then slapped.)
"Worker ants," Lu Han nods solemnly at the employees, and then he nods to Kris. "Queen ant."
Kris grits his teeth.
"New Ferrari?" he asks, and Lu Han preens because usually Kris doesn't bother acknowledging his impressive wealth. Kris' family isn't poor by any means (millionaires in their own right), but Lu Han comes from old oil money, labeled as the upper-upper class by anthropologists. His wealth has been running on itself for generations, and after a lot of underhanded murders that were kept secret by the family, Lu Han is now the sole heir to the entire fortune. Buying sports cars might as well as be shopping for groceries in his book. Just last week he dropped in to show off his new Lamborghini.
"The 430," Lu Han announces proudly.
"Ohhh. The idiot's Ferrari."
Lu Han hisses. "What?"
"Uh-huh. Top Gear tested it out against the 458. The 430 is now known as the idiot's Ferrari. Good afternoon, idiot."
Lu Han looks livid and ready to upend a trashcan over Kris' head, so Kris silently passes him a mug of his favourite beer and motions for everybody to wait until Lu Han has finished the whole thing before speaking again.
"Yixing!" Lu Han crows excitedly when he's done. "It's been too long! We have to catch up over drinks sometime, give me your phone!" he dials his own blackberry and saves down Yixing's number before entering his own contact details into Yixing's phonebook. Kris is furious at his best friend for being such a smooth sonofabitch and getting Yixing's phone number in the span of ten minutes. He's also upset with himself for getting nowhere despite having a six hour head start. Mostly he's just pissed at Lu Han though. He fully expects the guy to send him Yixing's details later.
Lu Han floats out as airily as he floats in, as the afternoon picks up once again for the impending dinner rush. It becomes a full house and for the next four hours they're swamped with orders for meat dishes and salads and desserts and coffee. When the last customers leave it's nearly eight. Luckily, they stopped serving at seven and have been progressively doing dishes since, so there's not a lot of washing up that needs to be done. Chanyeol and Jongin are mopping the floors while Joonmyun puts up the chairs after giving them all a wipe. Yixing is helping Kyungsoo dry the dishes as Baekhyun puts them away. Sehun had gone home earlier on to feed his cat.
"Well, that's your first day done. Yixing and Chanyeol, you both have the midday shift tomorrow. Good job guys, see you!"
Yixing says goodbye as everybody starts heading back home. He finds Kris in the ground floor office going through the numbers for the day.
"Hey."
Kris drops his pencil.
"Um, hey."
"So, any more secrets you feel like sharing? I'll go first if you want. I got a bellybutton piercing right after I had my ear pierced, but it hurt like hell. The ruby cost me three month's pay. But it was worth the money. Everybody wants to play with it."
"...huh."
"Come on, your turn. Tell me something about you that I don't know."
"...uhh..."
The younger man doesn't poke or prod him, waiting patiently with crinkled eyes and a gentle curve to his mouth.
"Um after a party during sophomore year in college I threw up on my pillow and then flipped it to the other side and went back to sleep. Um."
Yixing widens his eyes. "That's gotta be bad for your oxygen. Now I'm a little grossed out. But thanks for telling me anyway." Yixing comes up beside Kris again and bumps shoulders with him playfully. "See you tomorrow. Goodnight!"
Kris waits until he hears the front door close before he fishes in his pockets for his phone and sends a frantic text to Lu Han.
To: unnecessary best mate
YIXING JUST SHOULDER BUMPED ME
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
IS THAT THE BROZONE
HAVE I BEEN BROZONED
YIXING WISHED ME GOODNIGHT OMG
I DIDN'T SAY GOODNIGHT BACK OMG
MY LIFE IS RUINED OMG
Lu Han is in the middle of giving Minseok a blowjob when his phone buzzes. He rolls his eyes as he reads the message and prepares to leave Kris to wallow in self-pity for as long as it takes Minseok to reach his fifth orgasm.
("No more," Minseok is sobbing, tears running tracks down his round cheeks and Lu Han licks them off with a swipe of his tongue. "No more, no- no more, Han!"
"You can do it, baby. You got another one in you." Lu Han croons, because after almost ten years together Lu Han knows Minseok's body better than he does himself. At this point, Minseok's no really means yes. He says thank you with an extra long and heated good morning kiss and allows Lu Han breakfast in bed.)
Kris Wu? Kris who?
After half an hour of fruitlessly waiting for Lu Han to come to his rescue Kris gives in and hauls out another six-pack from the cooler. Inspiration for his art and love life epiphanies seem to come around faster when he's drunk, anyway. Just look at the caricatures he's drawn of his employees, framed all around the café. They bear uncannily resemblances to the persons in question.
Kris is deviating from his strict dietary principles when Lu Han rings him at three-forty, frying bacon in the pan and eating them dipped in a cheddar cheese spread. He's also whipped himself up a quick white chocolate ganache and is eating that right off the spoon. He's adhered to a self-enforced beauty regimen of no fried fats whatsoever, no processed sugar during weekdays and no food intake after six for a good many years. To have digressed so severely means a world of hurt on both his health and skincare. No Guerlain or Methode Swiss is going to stop the oil army having a temporary camp on his T-zone.
Clearly, Yixing is a detrimental force to be reckoned with.
"Is that the sounds of your teeth chomping I hear?"
"Mmhmm." Kris grunts, shoving another piece of crispy bacon into his mouth just as it drips a drop of salty grease onto his shirt. "Shit."
"Holy fuck you're worse off than I realised. Hang in there, man. One day you and Yixing are gonna be just like me and Minseok. Super lovey dovey and horny all the time. But still not as lovey dovey and horny as we are."
Trying to wipe off the oil stain with a napkin doesn't work, so Kris figures he'll just throw it in the wash later.
"Eww fuck no. I don't want us to be like you and Minseok. When you condense your successful love life down it's nothing more than money and porn. And the worst thing is Minseok doesn't even like you for your money. He made you sleep on the couch for two weeks when you showed up to his workplace and tried handing him keys to the Lexus you bought him as a random surprise. What have you got besides your pretty face and black credit cards?"
Lu Han actually sniffles, because that's his only sore spot in his otherwise bulletproof armour. If only Minseok was a gold-digger their relationship would be cemented in titanium. But sadly Minseok just likes his face and the occasional act of kindness he commits to alleviate his heavy conscience. Plastic surgery can only go so far; what's going to happen when he turns ninety and his brain is riddled with Alzheimer's? Lu Han's Minseok obsession doesn't work on a sane level. Kris experienced the madness firsthand when he caught Lu Han treasuring one of Minseok's socks he missed from the washing machine. He still has the thing hidden in the glove box of his first Lamborghini.
"I want my relationship with Yixing to be based on equality wherein he worships me as much as I worship him. Maybe a little more just to compensate for all these years because you know I'm a petty man. We're gonna respect each other with kindness, selflessness and trust, be the best person we can be, pull through hardships together, grow old with each other, love without reservation and still be best friends and hopefully he'll die before I do so he can't find someone else if I happen to die first. Touchwood touchwood." Kris taps the timber barstool a couple of times for good measure.
"Oh my god, your teenage girl is showing again. Have you been planning your wedding since you were a boy? Because that sounds like an awfully detailed wedding vow."
"You're just mad Minseok turned down all four of your proposals."
"Okay, now you shut the hell up. Look just go to bed and stop freaking out whenever Yixing looks your way. Act cool. Be normal. No, actually, act normal and be cool. You'll be alright. And that's it I'm going to go sleep now see you later loser."
Kris hopes that Lu Han's version of alright is the same as his own.
---
The next two weeks manages to pass by without incident, apart from Kris inadvertently telling Yixing that his mother was the one who gave him the sex talk complete with the banana dildo and mint condom and the one time he tried to go fishing with his uncle he got pulled into the water by a Bluefin tuna. In return, Yixing tells Kris about his other tattoo. It's a Monday when this happens, and Kris has given everybody the day off for the monthly workers' picnic. It's really not a picnic, because for one, there's no picnic basket, and two, they're not at the park. Instead they're just sitting inside the café and watching the basketball game on TV.
"I got a tramp stamp after I graduated."
"...a what?"
"Tramp stamp. You know," Yixing takes Kris' hand and guides it to his lower back, just above the rounded swell of his pert ass. Kris tries to ignore the tickle of what is probably blood inside his nostrils. It's one thing to have Yixing notice the hair iron burn on his neck, but another thing entirely to nosebleed at him. "The universal ticket where you show it off in a club and somebody will buy you a drink in hopes of a sexual encounter. Apparently I didn't grow out of my partying phase until I was twenty-five. That's just three years ago."
"Um."
"Aren't you gonna ask me what it is?"
"Um."
"Well I'm gonna tell you anyway. I feel pretty stupid now but back then I thought it was really clever. It's the handlebars of a Harley Davidson motorbike. It's not that big, but it sure is pretty."
"Did it hurt?"
"Nah, I was too drunk to feel a thing. I'll probably regret it when I'm older but inks are permanent, so what can you do? Removal sounds way too painful. Anyhow it's supposed to mean that I'm always ready to go for a ride. Maybe if you ask nicely I'll show it to you."
Kris nods. He pretty much nods at everything that Yixing says. The younger man looks up at him from where he'd been snuggling against Kris before narrowing his eyes and sighing.
"Oh my fucking god," he mutters under his breath, and then stands up and drags Kris into the staffroom, pushing him in and locking the door after himself. "You're a kind of dumb I've never had to deal with. You're lucky you're cute, otherwise this would've been done my usual whambamthankyouma'am way and we'd be finished by now."
Yixing backs Kris up against the wall and unbuckles the Tommy Hilfiger belt with practiced ease and nimble fingers, sneaking his hand under the waistband of Armani boxers and grabbing Kris' dick with no hesitation whatsoever. He's giving Kris a handjob in the staffroom. Holy shit this is how Lu Han and Minseok's kinky relationship started. Holy shitter they really are turning into a less sexed version of Lu Han and Minseok.
"Ask nicely," Yixing tiptoes and breathes into the taller man's ear, before putting his mouth onto smooth skin and suckling a trail of tiny hickeys from jawline down to the little hollow at the base of Kris' throat, nipping the bobbing Adam's apple when Kris gulps.
"Ask," Yixing repeats, stilling in his ministrations to smile, and Kris FINA-FUCKING-LLY gets it.
"Yixing," he breathes reverently. "Will you please show me your tramp stamp."
The smaller man rewards him with a big fat kiss on the lips. "I'll show you my snakes first." He wriggles out of his navy blue and white striped long-sleeved pullover to reveal nothing underneath. His snakes are more amazing than he let on. Two red and black snakes, entwined around each other, have their tails wrapped around Yixing's right bicep and stretch over the back of Yixing's neck to his left shoulder. One snakehead is poised and ready to strike, with jaws open and sharp fangs looking to bite into his collarbone. The other snakehead is positioned lower, right over Yixing's heart, a forked tongue darting out as if to taste a pink nipple.
Kris has to admit it looks very appetizing. Yixing shimmies out of his jeans and falls back onto the couch, pulling Kris over him so they can kiss again. He's shoving a condom wrapper into Kris' hands and he hopes Kris know what to do with it, but obviously his partner is distracted by the way he's pressing light kisses on his cheek. So he turns himself over and gets on all fours, raising his ass up so Kris can appreciate the tattoo on his back. He hears Kris wheeze and grins.
"Come on, hurry, just put the condom on your dick and get inside me. It's okay, I'm okay, I don't need fingers I don't need prep, I like it fast and hard and dirty and I've been waiting a whole week for you to get a clue because it feels like anything short of me stripping naked isn't going to get that lightbulb above your head turned on. I'm the Luxor light beam and you're Antarctica in its six-month long winter."
Kris rolls the condom over his cock and lines himself up, sliding into the beckoning pink hole in one smooth glide. Yixing evidently prefers the kind of condom already coated with lube and he's now feeling very satisfied, if the long, drawn-out moan he releases is any indication. Thrusting roughly into the squeezing tight heat, he cups Yixing's jaw and turns his face to the side so he can push his tongue in to taste Yixing, swallowing down every keen and breathless cry. The sexual tension that has been building up unconsciously in Kris for the past week reaches a point where it finally boils over.
They don't last long. It's probably only ten minutes before Kris clamps his jaws down on Yixing's unmarked shoulder and comes with a grunt into the condom. Yixing's arms give out below him and he's coming too, all over the couch, his insides getting impossible tight and spasming uncontrollably. Suddenly he laughs.
"Thank god that's over, the wait was killing me."
Kris mumbles something unintelligible and closes his eyes. He's going to need a couple of minutes to recover, but he drops to the side so as to not crush Yixing underneath his weight and spoons him from behind.
"Hey."
"Mm."
"After we're done with round five you should really call Lu Han and say thank you."
"...why?" the idea of round five is pleasing to Kris. However, he's a little suspicious about how Lu Han comes into play.
"...he sent me your bucket list."
"..."
"Last Monday."
"No," he's mortified. He really is.
"Yep. He's a really nice friend, huh?"
"He's fucking dead is what he is."
"Aww, baby. Can I call you baby now? Since your dick is still in my ass. But baby, did you really write that list in college? Like right after you met me? Really?"
"..ngggggggggh."
Yixing squeals.
"Ohhhhh gosh you're one adorable motherfucker. Does this maybe mean you wanna keep me? Because I sure as hell want to keep you."
"...really?"
"Really really."
"...kay."
"You're really fucking ecstatic right now, aren't you? But you're just a cute little stoneyface. That's okay too. I'll learn your stoneyface language. I have all the time in the world now. This time next week I'll know what it means when your right eyebrow is raised three millimetres above your left eyebrow. This time next next week I'll know what you're thinking when the left side of your face is pinched together a little but the right side of your face still stays the same."
"...my face doesn't do that."
"Sure, whatever you say, honey. Hey."
"Mm?"
"You wanna know another secret?"
"What?"
"I have a bucket list too."
"Oh."
"That's not the secret."
"It's not? Then what is the secret?"
"The secret is what's on the bucket list. My bucket list is super short. It only has one thing to do on there."
"Then it's not a bucket list. It's more like a bucket dot point."
Yixing turns so he can kiss Kris' nose.
"My bucket list is to complete your bucket list."
He leans back a little from Kris' hug to gauge his reaction. Kris is staring at him the way he sometimes stares at the leg of champagne roasted honey ham they have hanging in the smoker in the kitchen. Or the chocolate truffles that Kyungsoo makes with crunchy toffee pieces and a soft salted caramel centre. It's a look of longing, but something always seems to hold him back from tackling the leg of ham and gnawing it down to the bone. Probably out of fear for his wellbeing. When he first read through the Things to do Together with Yixing bucket list he was pretty amused, but his heart started feeling comfortably warm. Yixing's had enough boyfriends and girlfriends to know that it's genuine affection he's feeling.
After what seems like ages Kris ducks his head down, refusing to meet his eyes but nuzzling his head under Yixing's chin.
"You said it. Not me. No taking back."
"Wouldn't dream of it. You wanna get a house with a white picket fence? Get a dog? Adopt two-point-five kids? Do the dirty on every available surface in your apartment? You're on, baby." Yixing brings his face up and kisses him again, dimple sinking deep with happiness.
"I actually have one last secret. It's the most embarrassing one yet."
"That's fine with me. I was kinda taking your awkward college confessions as pickup lines, anyway. But I have admit I got a little weirded out last Monday after you told me you used to get up on the dormitory roof to talk to the galaxy. Like, talking to the moon I can understand, talking to the stars, that I get too. But the entire galaxy...how do you even find so many things to say?"
"Are you gonna listen?"
"Okay yepyep."
"It's been a secret for eight years. It's probably only a secret to one person, though. And the secret is, I fucking love you."
"..."
"And now it's not a secret any more!"
"..."
"Yixing you better say I love you back."
"..."
"Yixing!"
"Alright, okay. Okay. I do. I love you too."
THE SAPPY END ♥.
screw you MSword i'll dictionarise pitbull as a legitimate word if i want to how dare you not recognise pitbull as a legitimate canine breed.
also how dare you not recognise ganache as a legitimate word.
for capturedhear_t, who sounds absolutely fluffy from her prompts.
For: capturedhear_t
Word count: 7000~
Rating: NC-17, for language and the rated scene that turned into actual sex.
Summary: Normal people respond positively to puppies. Chocolate cookies. Winning the lottery. Kris responds positively to having his dirty college secrets hung out for the world to judge. Finally having the guts to confess after eight years of longing is Kris' hollaback at Zhang Yixing.
"I mean, yeah, I got committed couple of times, but nothin' serious or anythin'!"
The man sitting across from Kris is not a good candidate. For one, his hair is a bit greasy. For another, he's rather skinny. Not good for lifting the many boxes and crates of groceries that Kris needs to stock everyday. The criminal record doesn't really bother him all that much.
"They booked me on a number of breakin' an' enterin', though. But you can trust me, boss! 'S-long
as I get my proper wage on time I'll be good."
"That's...good to hear." Kris supposes he could do worse. With a good shampoo and conditioner those unruly poodle curls would be bouncing with life. With a good feeding of cheese toast and blueberry muffins everyday he'd even gain some muscle on those lanky limbs. And if the beanpole needed a little straightening out with any sticky fingers, Baekhyun was always available.
"Alright...Chanyeol, you're hired."
Chanyeol cheers and stands up and reaches over for a hug. Kris tries not to breathe in the fumes wafting from his hair. He pats his new employee on the back, albeit a little awkwardly.
"Um. Okay. You start on Monday. See you."
Kris wanders to the back on the staffroom, where he finds Kyungsoo and Joonmyun snuggled together on the couch, a travel magazine spread on their laps. They're looking at Bali as a potential honeymoon destination. Typical. Gay couples never seem to possess any originality. He says so out loud.
"Do you guys have to goooooooooo?" he whines, plopping down in the armchair. Joonmyun is the only one who glances up and dignifies his boss with a sympathetic smile. Kyungsoo is circling out the best cruise deals but doesn't miss a beat when he replies: "The only reason we worked here in the first place is out of pity for you because you were a college dropout and would've died on the streets if you couldn't find anybody to work for you and your café investment for free. Now that you are no longer in danger of taking a bath without Amouage shower gels, we are getting the hell out of here."
"Honey, don't be so mean," Joonmyun chides gently, while pointing at a ship he particularly likes the look of. ("Ooh, hot tub on the private balcony! That sounds nice!") Kyungsoo grunts noncommittally and jots down 'Hot tub sex?' on a notepad lying on his other side that Joonmyun can't see.
"I've been through ten interviews today and they were all disgusting except the last one, who I hired because he was salvageable. I've got one more position to fill and only one more interviewee left. Why is my life so haaaaaaaaard?"
"Shut up. I'm doing calculations in my head and you're being a dickless wimp. And your last interviewee is here, I heard the bell."
Kris gets up and sails away with a dramatic sigh. He resigns himself to having absolutely no reliable help once Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are gone, but they were at least nice enough to put off their honeymoon until two months after their wedding so Kris would have enough time to hire new workers and get them used to the ropes.
He's not prepared for whom he finds in his shop, eyeballing the cakes in the display case with obvious interest. The stranger straightens his back and gives Kris a little wave before his eyes widen in recognition.
"Kris!" Yixing greets happily, eyes crinkling into little half moons and oh, god, out pops the dimple.
The taller man stumbles. He takes a good hard look and turns on his heels to duck back into the staffroom, heaving. Both Kyungsoo and Joonmyun look up at his dishevelled state, confused.
"He'shired," Kris wheezes, making shooing motions with his hands. "TellhimhestartsonMonday. Go!"
When Joonmyun complies he rushes out the back door and calls Lu Han, who picks up after the third ring."
"If you're desperate enough to call me before three in the morning, it's gotta be bad. But you still better make it quick because Minseok is naked in my bed and every second of my time you're wasting is a carat of diamonds dropping into an active volcano."
"Yixing!" Kris manages to get out, and Lu Han must be really interested in his oncoming suffering because Kris can hear him calling: "Hold on baby just one more minute!" and Lu Han never makes Minseok wait for anything. Making Minseok wait for sex would be like Lu Han letting a capuchin monkey castrate him with a rock.
Kris is only mildly jealous that Lu Han is sexing it up at four in the afternoon, by the way.
"Sixty diamonds go!"
"Hnnnnngheeeeaaaaaaaaar," and even Kris himself has to pause, because that's a new one. "Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are quitting to go on their honeymoon and I have to hire two new people and I finally hired one after passing most of the others during the day and I had one more person to interview but I'm really regretting turning down all the people before because it turned out to be Yixing and he recognised me and he smiled and he did the despicable dimple thing and his hair is black now and he had a diamond on his left ear and he had a tattoo of a snake coiled around his collarbones and I didn't realise before but now that I'm a little more sentient I think- yep. I have a boner. WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOOOOO? DOES ICE ON HIS EAR MEAN THE SAME THING AS ICE ON HIS FINGEEEEEEER? WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE GET A SNAKE TATTOO DOESN'T HE KNOW I'M FUCKING SCARED TO SHIT OF SNAKES? AND I HIIIIIIIIIIIIRED HIM, OH MY GOOOOOOOD, LU HAN, MY LIFE IS RUIIIIIIIIIIINED! AND HE STARTS ON MON-"
"Sixty seconds are up I'll call you back bye."
Kris stares forlornly at his phone screen. It takes a few minutes for his breathing to go back to normal and he trudges back into the shop, where Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are waiting with arms crossed over their chests.
"That was Yixing."
Hearing his name, even coming from Joonmyun's mouth, is distressing.
"Yixing, who you fell in love with at first sight and joined the swimming club for even though you sink in anything that's not a kiddie pool?"
"Yep." There's no shame in admitting true facts about your first love. Or crush. Or infatuation. From the moment he first laid eyes on glorious Zhang Yixing his gilded college life became a plastic bowl filled with empty plans of cosy coffee dates and stressful nights catching up on missed lectures because after the fiasco of the disastrous swim team tryouts he was relegated to being cheerleader. The coach appreciated his enthusiasm, though.
"Yixing, who didn't really notice your giant existence until three months later when you showed up to the swim meet with a rubber ducky lifesaver?"
"He thought it was cute."
"Yixing, who went through girlfriends and boyfriends like you do tissues when you're sick with flu?"
"Hey, he had a relationship that was for four months, okay."
"...were you miserable?"
"Like you wouldn't believe."
"Okay well, we're gonna head home now and judge your failure in private. Bye. Have fun Monday." Ouch. But Kyungsoo either stays put or boxes you down for the count. It's never anything in between for the small man.
Kris waves them off and pops open a beer from his personal cooler stash. He's probably going to need a lot more, so he stays in the shop nursing beers on the bar until well in the morning, when Lu Han finally decides to call him back. He sounds thoroughly pleased with himself. Those sex marathons that he suggested and Minseok tolerates are doing wonders for his stamina. Yesterday he ran around the park four laps more than he did pre-sex marathon training.
"So, Yixing." Lu Han whispers. He's probably on the balcony having a smoke and he doesn't want to wake Minseok up. Kris counts seven bottles of beer and one bottle of whiskey on the counter and predicts a hell of a hangover later on this morning. Luckily the shop is closed for the day.
"Yeah, Yixing."
"Oh man, he was the personification of your dirty little college secrets. You had a bucket list to show people and another, private bucket list for Things to do Together with Yixing. Number one on that list was marrying Yixing with your parents' blessing in the biggest and best church in Canada on a sunny summer day with ten flower girls and flower boys and a newborn baby as ring bearer with a release of white doves when you guys finally kiss. Number two was honeymooning in the Maldives and swimming with dolphins and sipping fruity cocktails with umbrellas in them while suntan-ing and he reads erotic poetry to you in a sultry voice and you guys go for a nice romantic moonlit walk along the beach after a seafood feast discussing books and music and movies!"
Kris winces. He's going to have to apologise to Kyungsoo and Joonmyun for the jibe at their chosen honeymoon destination, because the Maldives are even worse than Bali. Even after almost eight years since writing that particular bucket list he still wants to go with Yixing to swim with dolphins and sip colourful cocktails with little umbrellas and have poetry read to him while he suntans himself into a sun-kissed bronze god.
"Okay you fuck. I'm not Miss Rhode Island and you're not Miss Congeniality and I might be inebriated but I know I didn't write anything about discussing books or music or movies, so shut the hell up," Kris snaps, but then he has a memory flash to the vow made in blood he took with Lu Han to never bring up anything about their appreciation for chick flicks, so he asks: "How the fuck can you still remember all that anyway?"
"You know how you threw away the Yixing bucket list in a fit of despair and woe after graduation? I fished out of the trash and I've had it ever since. I'm just reading it word for word right now."
Kris groans and buries his head into his gigantic hands, but he listens on anyway. He's actually smiling a little, recalling the (many) stupid things he did in his early twenties.
"Number three! You surprise Yixing with a puppy on his birthday and you two will take it on walks together while holding hands! Number four, you socialise with your neighbours in your American Dream cul-de-sac and attend and invite other couples and their families over for barbecues and holidays and go carolling with everybody on Christmas. Number five, build blanket forts in the living room and tell each other secrets about yourselves while having thumb wars. Jeez fuck your inner teenage girl is terrifying. It's like the closeted gay man suddenly just gave over to an ugly girl with delusional dreams of the hunky quarterback choosing her over the hot cheerleader."
"..."
"You're the ugly girl, in case you missed it."
"...I'm just too drunk right now to be properly offended. I'll punch you when I'm sober."
"You still get boners when you smell chlorine because you associate it with wet and dripping Yixing hauling himself out of the pool. Also, you stole his speedos once and bought the exact same pair so he wouldn't get suspicious. Freak."
"You copied Minseok's dorm room key from Jongin just so you could sneak in and sniff his bed sheets when he was in class. Creep."
Lu Han coughs and chokes on a cloud of smoke. He puts out the Marlboro in the ashtray and looks back into their bedroom, where Minseok is sleeping peacefully covered in head to toe with bites and hickeys. He's got the covers hugged to his chest and squeezed between his soft fleshy thighs, looking just as adorable as the first time Lu Han set his eyes on the man and it suddenly felt like his heart expanded to a dozen times bigger, filled with all the warm and fuzzy things in the world. Lu Han suddenly feels mellowed out by the extreme goodness that is Kim Minseok and so decides to take pity on his best friend.
"Hey Kris. Good luck Monday."
Kris accepts his uncharacteristic generosity with an affirmative grunt. Lu Han has been known to grow a separate heart for loving things other than Minseok once in a while.
"You want me to drop in?"
"No."
Lu Han scoffs from the other side of the line and hangs up, muttering under his breath about ungrateful bastards. He's probably going to go back to spooning Minseok and get what sleep he can before soliciting a morning quickie when his boyfriend wakes up. Kris listens to the dial tone for the time it takes his phone to lock and then glances at the clock on the wall. Two in the morning isn't too late, but Kris feels comfortable enough to make a decision to just sleep on a barstool, sprawled over the counter with his emptied bottles. He'll shower in the morning.
---
Monday comes around way too fast for Kris' liking (and/or mental wellbeing).
By the time he's gathered enough courage to go downstairs to the café, it's already ten-thirty. During the two or more hours that Yixing's been within his twenty-metre radius he'd been hiding in his bathroom, going over every aspect of himself with a fine-toothed comb, from the wax in his painstakingly styled hair to the best match of brow gel shade to the most pleasingly scented cologne he'd spritzed behind his ears and on his wrists. Kris' narcissism took on a whole new level this morning.
Joonmyun is the one who opened up shop and let Chanyeol and Yixing in around eight.
"From five to eleven is the morning shift, from nine to three is the midday shift, and from one to seven is the night shift. But we're open for two extra hours on Thursday and Friday nights and of course you'll get paid for the overtime. To ensure that everybody has a break we work on daily alternating shifts, so if you work the morning shift on a particular day you'll also work the night shift that day, but the next day you'll only be coming in for the midday hours. You'll have two days off a week unless we're short on staff, and even though we work on a rotating roster system you can ask for shift swaps if you have an emergency." Joonmyun explains to the two new employees in the staffroom. He's the only man in the shop kind enough to have offered them coffee while he takes them on a tour of the premises, because Kyungsoo damn sure wouldn't have. Baekhyun isn't too hospitable, either.
"Morning shift people come in a little earlier than when they officially start to open up shop, because the boss is a lazy man and demands to have uninterrupted beauty sleep. So in the morning you'll put all the chairs down, load up the register, start grinding the coffee beans and always keep an eye out if you need to bring in another bag. Once that's done you'll need to turn on the oven and heat up all the morning run pastries. And then you can just sign off the morning cake deliveries and we're open!"
Yixing nods, smiling. Chanyeol is taking some serious notes, but while he remembered to bring a pen he's forgotten his notebook, so he makes do with a brown paper bag they use for pocketing pastries.
"The midday shift is always busy because we're catering to both late breakfasts and lunches. It'll be too busy sometimes for us to eat lunch so I'd suggest a snack before nine just to keep you energised. Lunchtime is also popular for mothers out with kids, so be a bit more careful and you'll be okay. Night shift is pretty easy so don't worry about that. When it's time for lockup you'll just need to put all the chairs up, mop the floors and wipe down all the tables. Clear out the register and slip the cash into an envelope and slip it under the boss' door upstairs with the receipt roll. And that's it!"
Joonmyun leads them to the back of the café and up the stairs to Kris' apartment above the shop, so they'll know where to put the money. He also shows them the alley behind the store where they take out the trash, and the half a dozen or so metal bowls filled with leftovers, occupying the attention of several stray cats and dogs. Chanyeol whoops in delight, immediately squatting down and generating interest from a large pitbull who is curious enough to come sniff his face but bounds away at the first sight of grabby hands. Chanyeol frowns unhappily.
"Yixing, you'll be permanently stationed on coffee duty because you have a barista certification." Joonmyun says, leading them back into the shop and into the changing room, where he taps a boy with cotton candy pink hair on the shoulder and introduces him as Sehun.
"He's the barista you'll be working with today. We have two coffee machines so you have your own working space. The order will be written on a post-it and stuck on the left side of the machine, and once you finish the order you can stick it onto the cup so the servers know what the order is without any mix ups."
"Hi, Sehun. Tell me if I do anything wrong, okay?" Yixing grins and offers a hand to shake. Sehun stares at it long enough that Yixing believes he's not all that into handshakes when the boy takes Yixing's right forefinger between his own forefinger and thumb and mumbling a shy "Hi," back. Apparently, that's the Sehun handshake.
"And Chanyeol will be working in the kitchen with my husband, Kyungsoo! Don't worry Chanyeol, he'll teach you everything you need to know. Just ask him anything you're not sure about, he's a really patient man."
When Kris is finally satisfied with his appearance Yixing has already gone through fifty orders for coffee. He thinks himself prepared, but nothing could have warned him about just how good Yixing looks dressed in a pressed white shirt with a navy blue apron tied around his waist over his black slacks. He's in the process of pouring frothed milk into what looks like the base for a cappuccino, with the metal jug lifted high for the actual milk and then lowered to just above the rim of the cup for the foam. He sieves some cocoa over the top and pops a plastic lid on before sticking the yellow post-it to the side.
Kris takes a deep breath. He can do this. He stared himself down in the bathroom mirror and gave himself a really determined pep talk before descending down the stairs to face the rather frightening object of his (long overdue) affections.
It's been nearly a decade. Kris thinks that he's grown some balls filled with overflowing testosterone since, but then Yixing sees him coming through the storefront through the crowd and gives him the dreaded self-confidence destructing Dimple.
"Hi, Kris, good morning!"
It's not that hard to reply, so Kris opens his mouth and is just about to say "Good morning," back when Yixing continues: "How come you ran away from me the other day?"
Kris freezes. "Um," he says intelligently, starting to shake in his Italian leather oxfords. "Ham?"
Yixing raises an eyebrow slightly, but he keeps the small smile on his face. "No thanks, I already ate. Thanks for offering, though." He sidles up to Kris and settles himself comfortably into his side.
"Hey."
"Nnngh?" Yixing's proximity is making Kris' head spin. Pretty soon there'll be chirping canaries and flower petals dancing around his head if the younger man keeps disregarding personal space bubbles.
"Are all your employees so weird? Sehun's shy but he's a cutie though. Kyungsoo and Joonmyun are so homosexual you can almost see their rainbow halos. Jongin's had that rose in his mouth since he nicked it from one of the tables and he's been doing The Eyebrow Wriggle at all the female customers. And I thought Baekhyun was normal until his boyfriend Jongdae came in and wow I haven't heard lines that greasy since frying bacon in bacon fat. What about you? Are you gonna infect me with your crazy too?"
"I have an apple tattooed on my arm," Kris blurts out, and slaps a hand over his mouth when he realises what he's done. The shock and horror and regret are washing over him in tsunami waves. There isn't a floor of hell deep enough to compare to the hole he's just dug in the span of eight words because the response "I'm perfectly normal", while being a lie, would have been perfectly acceptable. His brain, however, seems to enjoy disclosing embarrassing secrets. He'd rather Yixing didn't know about his short-lived but disturbing fixation for McDonald's hot apple pie as a freshman in college. In his defence, he was fantastically drunk when he got inked.
Yixing giggles, but doesn't comment on it. Instead he reaches up on tiptoe and breathes into Kris' ear: "I have snakes on my shoulders, but they're kinda hard to see when I'm all buttoned up. I'll show you sometime?" The diamond stud on his left earlobe glints in the artificial lighting from overhead, refracting some luminosity onto the younger man's face, and Yixing suddenly looks a little ethereal.
"Um," Kris' coherency tries its best. "Okay?"
"Okay."
Then Yixing goes back to his coffee machine, humming a tune softly and Kris is called away to help out with taking and delivering orders for the lunch hour rush. The rest of the early afternoon passes by in a blue, until at three-thirty when everybody is having a quick break Lu Han shows up in his tailored three-piece Ralph Lauren suit in taupe grey and a pair of Ray Bans perched obnoxiously on his nose bridge despite being indoors. Chanyeol's jaw drops at the Ferrari parked outside the café and Kyungsoo eyes the Roger Dubuis watch on Lu Han's left wrist with more interest than it is socially suitable.
"Yo wassup my favourite worker ants!" is the way that Lu Han greets them. Being Lu Han, he really has nothing better to do but spend an inappropriately large amount of time on the Internet, trying to keep up with today's youth. 'Swag' is a foreign concept that he has only recently come to comprehend as the new 'hip' because, yes, Lu Han is that old. He knows how to be 'hip'.
(But apparently not how to have swag, because the one time he moonwalked into their bedroom with hiphop jeans riding waaaaaaaay too low on his hips, Minseok had laughed at him outright.
"Those jeans are hideous and an abomination to denim and aren't sexy in the least."
Lu Han considered carefully. Then he flung off the offending pants with a flourish. He's always been a go-commando kind of man.
"Much better," Minseok approved. Lu Han beamed and brandished a hot pink lacy thong at his boyfriend, for which he was then slapped.)
"Worker ants," Lu Han nods solemnly at the employees, and then he nods to Kris. "Queen ant."
Kris grits his teeth.
"New Ferrari?" he asks, and Lu Han preens because usually Kris doesn't bother acknowledging his impressive wealth. Kris' family isn't poor by any means (millionaires in their own right), but Lu Han comes from old oil money, labeled as the upper-upper class by anthropologists. His wealth has been running on itself for generations, and after a lot of underhanded murders that were kept secret by the family, Lu Han is now the sole heir to the entire fortune. Buying sports cars might as well as be shopping for groceries in his book. Just last week he dropped in to show off his new Lamborghini.
"The 430," Lu Han announces proudly.
"Ohhh. The idiot's Ferrari."
Lu Han hisses. "What?"
"Uh-huh. Top Gear tested it out against the 458. The 430 is now known as the idiot's Ferrari. Good afternoon, idiot."
Lu Han looks livid and ready to upend a trashcan over Kris' head, so Kris silently passes him a mug of his favourite beer and motions for everybody to wait until Lu Han has finished the whole thing before speaking again.
"Yixing!" Lu Han crows excitedly when he's done. "It's been too long! We have to catch up over drinks sometime, give me your phone!" he dials his own blackberry and saves down Yixing's number before entering his own contact details into Yixing's phonebook. Kris is furious at his best friend for being such a smooth sonofabitch and getting Yixing's phone number in the span of ten minutes. He's also upset with himself for getting nowhere despite having a six hour head start. Mostly he's just pissed at Lu Han though. He fully expects the guy to send him Yixing's details later.
Lu Han floats out as airily as he floats in, as the afternoon picks up once again for the impending dinner rush. It becomes a full house and for the next four hours they're swamped with orders for meat dishes and salads and desserts and coffee. When the last customers leave it's nearly eight. Luckily, they stopped serving at seven and have been progressively doing dishes since, so there's not a lot of washing up that needs to be done. Chanyeol and Jongin are mopping the floors while Joonmyun puts up the chairs after giving them all a wipe. Yixing is helping Kyungsoo dry the dishes as Baekhyun puts them away. Sehun had gone home earlier on to feed his cat.
"Well, that's your first day done. Yixing and Chanyeol, you both have the midday shift tomorrow. Good job guys, see you!"
Yixing says goodbye as everybody starts heading back home. He finds Kris in the ground floor office going through the numbers for the day.
"Hey."
Kris drops his pencil.
"Um, hey."
"So, any more secrets you feel like sharing? I'll go first if you want. I got a bellybutton piercing right after I had my ear pierced, but it hurt like hell. The ruby cost me three month's pay. But it was worth the money. Everybody wants to play with it."
"...huh."
"Come on, your turn. Tell me something about you that I don't know."
"...uhh..."
The younger man doesn't poke or prod him, waiting patiently with crinkled eyes and a gentle curve to his mouth.
"Um after a party during sophomore year in college I threw up on my pillow and then flipped it to the other side and went back to sleep. Um."
Yixing widens his eyes. "That's gotta be bad for your oxygen. Now I'm a little grossed out. But thanks for telling me anyway." Yixing comes up beside Kris again and bumps shoulders with him playfully. "See you tomorrow. Goodnight!"
Kris waits until he hears the front door close before he fishes in his pockets for his phone and sends a frantic text to Lu Han.
To: unnecessary best mate
YIXING JUST SHOULDER BUMPED ME
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
IS THAT THE BROZONE
HAVE I BEEN BROZONED
YIXING WISHED ME GOODNIGHT OMG
I DIDN'T SAY GOODNIGHT BACK OMG
MY LIFE IS RUINED OMG
Lu Han is in the middle of giving Minseok a blowjob when his phone buzzes. He rolls his eyes as he reads the message and prepares to leave Kris to wallow in self-pity for as long as it takes Minseok to reach his fifth orgasm.
("No more," Minseok is sobbing, tears running tracks down his round cheeks and Lu Han licks them off with a swipe of his tongue. "No more, no- no more, Han!"
"You can do it, baby. You got another one in you." Lu Han croons, because after almost ten years together Lu Han knows Minseok's body better than he does himself. At this point, Minseok's no really means yes. He says thank you with an extra long and heated good morning kiss and allows Lu Han breakfast in bed.)
Kris Wu? Kris who?
After half an hour of fruitlessly waiting for Lu Han to come to his rescue Kris gives in and hauls out another six-pack from the cooler. Inspiration for his art and love life epiphanies seem to come around faster when he's drunk, anyway. Just look at the caricatures he's drawn of his employees, framed all around the café. They bear uncannily resemblances to the persons in question.
Kris is deviating from his strict dietary principles when Lu Han rings him at three-forty, frying bacon in the pan and eating them dipped in a cheddar cheese spread. He's also whipped himself up a quick white chocolate ganache and is eating that right off the spoon. He's adhered to a self-enforced beauty regimen of no fried fats whatsoever, no processed sugar during weekdays and no food intake after six for a good many years. To have digressed so severely means a world of hurt on both his health and skincare. No Guerlain or Methode Swiss is going to stop the oil army having a temporary camp on his T-zone.
Clearly, Yixing is a detrimental force to be reckoned with.
"Is that the sounds of your teeth chomping I hear?"
"Mmhmm." Kris grunts, shoving another piece of crispy bacon into his mouth just as it drips a drop of salty grease onto his shirt. "Shit."
"Holy fuck you're worse off than I realised. Hang in there, man. One day you and Yixing are gonna be just like me and Minseok. Super lovey dovey and horny all the time. But still not as lovey dovey and horny as we are."
Trying to wipe off the oil stain with a napkin doesn't work, so Kris figures he'll just throw it in the wash later.
"Eww fuck no. I don't want us to be like you and Minseok. When you condense your successful love life down it's nothing more than money and porn. And the worst thing is Minseok doesn't even like you for your money. He made you sleep on the couch for two weeks when you showed up to his workplace and tried handing him keys to the Lexus you bought him as a random surprise. What have you got besides your pretty face and black credit cards?"
Lu Han actually sniffles, because that's his only sore spot in his otherwise bulletproof armour. If only Minseok was a gold-digger their relationship would be cemented in titanium. But sadly Minseok just likes his face and the occasional act of kindness he commits to alleviate his heavy conscience. Plastic surgery can only go so far; what's going to happen when he turns ninety and his brain is riddled with Alzheimer's? Lu Han's Minseok obsession doesn't work on a sane level. Kris experienced the madness firsthand when he caught Lu Han treasuring one of Minseok's socks he missed from the washing machine. He still has the thing hidden in the glove box of his first Lamborghini.
"I want my relationship with Yixing to be based on equality wherein he worships me as much as I worship him. Maybe a little more just to compensate for all these years because you know I'm a petty man. We're gonna respect each other with kindness, selflessness and trust, be the best person we can be, pull through hardships together, grow old with each other, love without reservation and still be best friends and hopefully he'll die before I do so he can't find someone else if I happen to die first. Touchwood touchwood." Kris taps the timber barstool a couple of times for good measure.
"Oh my god, your teenage girl is showing again. Have you been planning your wedding since you were a boy? Because that sounds like an awfully detailed wedding vow."
"You're just mad Minseok turned down all four of your proposals."
"Okay, now you shut the hell up. Look just go to bed and stop freaking out whenever Yixing looks your way. Act cool. Be normal. No, actually, act normal and be cool. You'll be alright. And that's it I'm going to go sleep now see you later loser."
Kris hopes that Lu Han's version of alright is the same as his own.
---
The next two weeks manages to pass by without incident, apart from Kris inadvertently telling Yixing that his mother was the one who gave him the sex talk complete with the banana dildo and mint condom and the one time he tried to go fishing with his uncle he got pulled into the water by a Bluefin tuna. In return, Yixing tells Kris about his other tattoo. It's a Monday when this happens, and Kris has given everybody the day off for the monthly workers' picnic. It's really not a picnic, because for one, there's no picnic basket, and two, they're not at the park. Instead they're just sitting inside the café and watching the basketball game on TV.
"I got a tramp stamp after I graduated."
"...a what?"
"Tramp stamp. You know," Yixing takes Kris' hand and guides it to his lower back, just above the rounded swell of his pert ass. Kris tries to ignore the tickle of what is probably blood inside his nostrils. It's one thing to have Yixing notice the hair iron burn on his neck, but another thing entirely to nosebleed at him. "The universal ticket where you show it off in a club and somebody will buy you a drink in hopes of a sexual encounter. Apparently I didn't grow out of my partying phase until I was twenty-five. That's just three years ago."
"Um."
"Aren't you gonna ask me what it is?"
"Um."
"Well I'm gonna tell you anyway. I feel pretty stupid now but back then I thought it was really clever. It's the handlebars of a Harley Davidson motorbike. It's not that big, but it sure is pretty."
"Did it hurt?"
"Nah, I was too drunk to feel a thing. I'll probably regret it when I'm older but inks are permanent, so what can you do? Removal sounds way too painful. Anyhow it's supposed to mean that I'm always ready to go for a ride. Maybe if you ask nicely I'll show it to you."
Kris nods. He pretty much nods at everything that Yixing says. The younger man looks up at him from where he'd been snuggling against Kris before narrowing his eyes and sighing.
"Oh my fucking god," he mutters under his breath, and then stands up and drags Kris into the staffroom, pushing him in and locking the door after himself. "You're a kind of dumb I've never had to deal with. You're lucky you're cute, otherwise this would've been done my usual whambamthankyouma'am way and we'd be finished by now."
Yixing backs Kris up against the wall and unbuckles the Tommy Hilfiger belt with practiced ease and nimble fingers, sneaking his hand under the waistband of Armani boxers and grabbing Kris' dick with no hesitation whatsoever. He's giving Kris a handjob in the staffroom. Holy shit this is how Lu Han and Minseok's kinky relationship started. Holy shitter they really are turning into a less sexed version of Lu Han and Minseok.
"Ask nicely," Yixing tiptoes and breathes into the taller man's ear, before putting his mouth onto smooth skin and suckling a trail of tiny hickeys from jawline down to the little hollow at the base of Kris' throat, nipping the bobbing Adam's apple when Kris gulps.
"Ask," Yixing repeats, stilling in his ministrations to smile, and Kris FINA-FUCKING-LLY gets it.
"Yixing," he breathes reverently. "Will you please show me your tramp stamp."
The smaller man rewards him with a big fat kiss on the lips. "I'll show you my snakes first." He wriggles out of his navy blue and white striped long-sleeved pullover to reveal nothing underneath. His snakes are more amazing than he let on. Two red and black snakes, entwined around each other, have their tails wrapped around Yixing's right bicep and stretch over the back of Yixing's neck to his left shoulder. One snakehead is poised and ready to strike, with jaws open and sharp fangs looking to bite into his collarbone. The other snakehead is positioned lower, right over Yixing's heart, a forked tongue darting out as if to taste a pink nipple.
Kris has to admit it looks very appetizing. Yixing shimmies out of his jeans and falls back onto the couch, pulling Kris over him so they can kiss again. He's shoving a condom wrapper into Kris' hands and he hopes Kris know what to do with it, but obviously his partner is distracted by the way he's pressing light kisses on his cheek. So he turns himself over and gets on all fours, raising his ass up so Kris can appreciate the tattoo on his back. He hears Kris wheeze and grins.
"Come on, hurry, just put the condom on your dick and get inside me. It's okay, I'm okay, I don't need fingers I don't need prep, I like it fast and hard and dirty and I've been waiting a whole week for you to get a clue because it feels like anything short of me stripping naked isn't going to get that lightbulb above your head turned on. I'm the Luxor light beam and you're Antarctica in its six-month long winter."
Kris rolls the condom over his cock and lines himself up, sliding into the beckoning pink hole in one smooth glide. Yixing evidently prefers the kind of condom already coated with lube and he's now feeling very satisfied, if the long, drawn-out moan he releases is any indication. Thrusting roughly into the squeezing tight heat, he cups Yixing's jaw and turns his face to the side so he can push his tongue in to taste Yixing, swallowing down every keen and breathless cry. The sexual tension that has been building up unconsciously in Kris for the past week reaches a point where it finally boils over.
They don't last long. It's probably only ten minutes before Kris clamps his jaws down on Yixing's unmarked shoulder and comes with a grunt into the condom. Yixing's arms give out below him and he's coming too, all over the couch, his insides getting impossible tight and spasming uncontrollably. Suddenly he laughs.
"Thank god that's over, the wait was killing me."
Kris mumbles something unintelligible and closes his eyes. He's going to need a couple of minutes to recover, but he drops to the side so as to not crush Yixing underneath his weight and spoons him from behind.
"Hey."
"Mm."
"After we're done with round five you should really call Lu Han and say thank you."
"...why?" the idea of round five is pleasing to Kris. However, he's a little suspicious about how Lu Han comes into play.
"...he sent me your bucket list."
"..."
"Last Monday."
"No," he's mortified. He really is.
"Yep. He's a really nice friend, huh?"
"He's fucking dead is what he is."
"Aww, baby. Can I call you baby now? Since your dick is still in my ass. But baby, did you really write that list in college? Like right after you met me? Really?"
"..ngggggggggh."
Yixing squeals.
"Ohhhhh gosh you're one adorable motherfucker. Does this maybe mean you wanna keep me? Because I sure as hell want to keep you."
"...really?"
"Really really."
"...kay."
"You're really fucking ecstatic right now, aren't you? But you're just a cute little stoneyface. That's okay too. I'll learn your stoneyface language. I have all the time in the world now. This time next week I'll know what it means when your right eyebrow is raised three millimetres above your left eyebrow. This time next next week I'll know what you're thinking when the left side of your face is pinched together a little but the right side of your face still stays the same."
"...my face doesn't do that."
"Sure, whatever you say, honey. Hey."
"Mm?"
"You wanna know another secret?"
"What?"
"I have a bucket list too."
"Oh."
"That's not the secret."
"It's not? Then what is the secret?"
"The secret is what's on the bucket list. My bucket list is super short. It only has one thing to do on there."
"Then it's not a bucket list. It's more like a bucket dot point."
Yixing turns so he can kiss Kris' nose.
"My bucket list is to complete your bucket list."
He leans back a little from Kris' hug to gauge his reaction. Kris is staring at him the way he sometimes stares at the leg of champagne roasted honey ham they have hanging in the smoker in the kitchen. Or the chocolate truffles that Kyungsoo makes with crunchy toffee pieces and a soft salted caramel centre. It's a look of longing, but something always seems to hold him back from tackling the leg of ham and gnawing it down to the bone. Probably out of fear for his wellbeing. When he first read through the Things to do Together with Yixing bucket list he was pretty amused, but his heart started feeling comfortably warm. Yixing's had enough boyfriends and girlfriends to know that it's genuine affection he's feeling.
After what seems like ages Kris ducks his head down, refusing to meet his eyes but nuzzling his head under Yixing's chin.
"You said it. Not me. No taking back."
"Wouldn't dream of it. You wanna get a house with a white picket fence? Get a dog? Adopt two-point-five kids? Do the dirty on every available surface in your apartment? You're on, baby." Yixing brings his face up and kisses him again, dimple sinking deep with happiness.
"I actually have one last secret. It's the most embarrassing one yet."
"That's fine with me. I was kinda taking your awkward college confessions as pickup lines, anyway. But I have admit I got a little weirded out last Monday after you told me you used to get up on the dormitory roof to talk to the galaxy. Like, talking to the moon I can understand, talking to the stars, that I get too. But the entire galaxy...how do you even find so many things to say?"
"Are you gonna listen?"
"Okay yepyep."
"It's been a secret for eight years. It's probably only a secret to one person, though. And the secret is, I fucking love you."
"..."
"And now it's not a secret any more!"
"..."
"Yixing you better say I love you back."
"..."
"Yixing!"
"Alright, okay. Okay. I do. I love you too."
THE SAPPY END ♥.
screw you MSword i'll dictionarise pitbull as a legitimate word if i want to how dare you not recognise pitbull as a legitimate canine breed.
also how dare you not recognise ganache as a legitimate word.
for capturedhear_t, who sounds absolutely fluffy from her prompts.