Reply: Mystery Number

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/30406014.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandom: VERIVERY (Band)
Character: Lee Dongheon, Yoo Kangmin, Hong Minchan, Kim Yongseung, Bae
Hoyoung, Jo Gyehyeon, Ju Yeonho
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, hoyoung owns a café,
yongseung is a part-timer, minchan is a bother, the other three are
college students, dongheon is a mess, Chatting & Messaging, red
haired gyehyeon rise, dongheon makes a mean cappuccino, minchan
masterplans (because hes the smart evil friend)
Stats: Published: 2021-04-01 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 8717

Reply: Mystery Number

by Toward_The_Horizon

Summary

[Unknown Number:]

I’m too shy to say this to your face, but

I like you

Think about responding?

 Sorry, Who Is This?

Hoyoung’s café is the centre of their world.

He’d bought it just after college, when they’d all been depressed about the end of an era, uncertain
what to do with themselves now the routine of classrooms and exams were gone. The three of them
had spent all that summer sweating through overalls in the close four walls, traipsing paint across
floorboards and getting splinters and blisters and scrapes until it had looked like the pictures
Hoyoung had shown them- every wall a different colour, the counters and tables and chairs all
white, distressed wood, a little white neon sign hanging above the door (Minchan had almost
electrocuted them all getting it working, and even now it’s a little squint, but none of them have any
plans to straighten it.) Donghun had been scared about that being over too, suddenly having no
excuse to linger around the group when it’s all he really wanted to do, but then Hoyoung had
treated them to dinner as thanks, and they’d stayed up late talking, and in the end Dongheon
landed himself a job- assistant manager of a cute little cafe not far from his old college. It wasn't
something he’d ever imagined for himself, but he’d agreed and shown up the next day anyway
only to find he loved it more than he ever thought he would. He’d learned- shakily, and with many
near-poisonings- how to make everything on the menu, how to manage the accounts, how to calm
Hoyoung down when they had their second blackout in that first week. He’d learned their regular
customer names, that he had a surprising talent for charming all of the old ladies, and now he can
make a mean cappuccino with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. It’s been three
years since he started working here, and he’s loved every day, every second. They’d hired a part-
timer last year, a younger boy called Yongseung that had been sweet enough to win over Hoyoung
and strange enough to join in with Dongheon’s sudden, ridiculous skits. Minchan is still a regular
customer, fighting his way through a masters degree in computer science with at least three coffees
a day and the largest slice of chocolate cake he can badger Hoyoung into keeping aside for him.
Life’s good.

But it gets more complicated one afternoon in April, when the weather has really started heating up
again, and three college kids stepped through the doors to Hoyoung’s cafe with their school bags
slung over their shoulders. Hoyoung had been away, a rare vacation to spend time with his family,
and the heat had meant it was a busy day, everyone in their neighbourhood seemingly rushing
through the doors at the same time, demanding ice cream and iced coffees. Yongseung was busy
trying to wrangled a jammed cash register open again-Dongheon had saw a spanner in his hand and
left him to it, figuring Hoyuong couldn't blame him for any damage if he wasn’t a witness- and so
it had been Dongheon who'd turned to them, already pulling up a smile, trying to ignore the gust of
heat that follows the group inside.

“Can we get an iced latte and two strawberry ice creams, please?” one of them had said, shuffling
closer to the counter. He was clearly the leader of their little group, his hair a shock of red against
the all-black outfit and biker gloves- he'd seemed unaffected by the heat.

The other two behind him looked less lucky, hair starting to stick to their foreheads, wiping trails
of sweat from their necks and looking a few seconds away from passing out right there in the
doorway of the café. Dongheon had only glanced at them, pitying, until one of them had caught his
eye, and he’d spilled an entire venti iced americano all over the white counter, making the
customer who’d been waiting for it sigh and the bright red-haired boy leap back, startled but
laughing.

Dongheon had apologised profusely and scrambled to make up the order again, desperately turning
his back on the little group of students and letting Yongseung deal with them, escaping into the
backroom as soon as possible to rest his head against the wall and groan.

The same group of boys had showed up the next day, and the next, and Yongseung had been
pushed toward them every time, until even he had noticed Dongheon’s avoidance and told
Hoyoung, and Hoyoung had told Minchan. Now every time the boys show up, there are knowing
looks thrown around the café from all directions, and Dongheon’s easy, perfect summer gets a little
more complicated. Yongseung starts making excuses to leave the counter when the familiar faces
show back up, and Dongheon spills a few more coffees, and then Minchan comes up with a crazy
idea that Dongheon would never, ever have agreed to had he been sober- it just so happened to be
the day Yongseung turned legal drinking age, though, and he’d insisted they all join him for drinks.
A lot of drinks. Dongheon hadn't realised he was a sad-drunk kind of person until then.

“You haven’t even spoken to him yet,” Minchan had said, pointing a finger in Dongheon’s face.
“You can’t possibly know he won’t like you if you’ve never spoken to him.”

“I’d just make an idiot of myself,” Dongheon had whined, clinging to one of Yongseung’s arms,
feeling the other boy laughing against his side. “I always do!”

None of them argue with that to make him feel better, but Minchan doesn't seem deterred, anyway.
“Do you even know his name?”

“Of course I know his name!” One of them had said it the first few times they’d visited, and
Dongheon had hear it everywhere since, hadn’t realised he’d been listening out for it until it was
said and his heart would tumble around in his chest, and he’d look up to see Gyehyeon- the red
haired boy, the only one he’d ever spoken to- skipping toward the counter.

“If I find his number for you, you should text him.”

“What- how would you find his number? That’s impossible.”

Minchan had snorted, and told him he’d just about agreed, and then he’d spent far too little time
tapping away at his laptop and pulled up a sequence of digits, typed them into Dongheon’s phone
and thrusting it toward him.

“There! Now you can talk to him without messing up. Easy!”

Dongheon had gaped at him, his phone slipping from his hand. “You-you creepy stalker!”

Minchan had yelped and tried to leap away from the hands suddenly trying to grab him, and then it
had somehow escalated into a series of snapshot memories- Hoyoung’s eyes growing wide in slow
motion, Yongseung knocking over his drink, Dongheon’s hands closing around Minchan’s collar-
and then blissful blackness.

Dongheon had woken up the next day with a little gremlin jumping up and down on his brain and
had checked his phone to find that he’d sent a text message the night before to the boy’s number,
anonymous and short and almost definitely what Hoyoung had told him to say.

I’m too shy to say this to your face, but

I like you

Think about responding?

The messages had gone through at a little after two o’clock that morning- Dongheon had checked
the time then and found that it was already past noon- and had been read some time. No response.
No response the next day either, and Dongheon was just trying to decide between packing his bags
and moving to Hawaii or just finally letting himself kill Minchan when a ding had sounded, and
he'd finally gotten a reply.

Sorry, who is this?

That had been two months ago, and now the early April heat had transitioned into a sweltering
June, the schools out for the summer, though the trio of students still showed up every other day.
There had been many texts since then, on both sides- Dongheon had kept himself anonymous, tried
to show he was well meaning, and the younger boy had been understandably hesitant at first, but
had started replying more, answering Dongheon’s questions, even asking some of his own. They’d
joked around, and gotten to know each other, and Dongheon’s heart jumps for a different reason
when he sees the younger boy stepping through the café doors now, certain he’s giving himself
away in a thousand little ways, that too long a glance will bring the whole, fragile thing crashing
down around him. But the boy gives him polite smiles, and shuffles with his friends to a table by
the windows, and doesn’t say anything. He seems shy- Dongheon doesn’t think he’s ever really
heard his voice, not from his spot behind the counters, though when they text the boy seems
bubbly, sociable even, plays along with Dongheon’s joking sometimes.

A strange disappointment starts to grow every time Dongheon sees him. If the boy hasn’t guessed
it might be him, that means he hasn’t got a shot, right? He hasn’t even been noticed. The same trio
of boys come to the café at least once a week, and Dongheon is yet to speak to any of them but
Gyehyeon, hasn’t said anything to any of them except ‘here’s your orders’ and ‘have a nice day’s.
He starts to wonder whether he should just give up on the whole thing, whether his next message
should just be an admittance, his name, his introduction, risking it all instead of keeping on as
they’re going. It’s great, but somehow so great that it’s frustrating. He wants to know the boy, not
just through a screen, wants to finally hear his voice, see him smile at one of his jokes, wants to be
known. He wants to destroy the barrier between them, the cold, impersonal glass of his phone
screen, wants to stop living digitally, in the tiny speech bubbles of text they share, wants to bring
whatever it is that's grown between them into the light so it can really bloom.

And then, just as he’s really started to contemplate revealing himself, the boy stops replying.
 Avoidance

If I said something I shouldn't have I’m sorry

Just

Stop avoiding me?

Kangmin re-reads the messages for the hundredth time and sighs. Just like every other time, this
re-read offers no obvious resolution. He still doesn’t know what to say. His fingers hover over the
keyboard of his phone uselessly, refusing to move, his mind doing nothing but replaying the words
again and again and again. Countless lines of text come before this one, countless long
conversations, jokes, compliments, worries and questions, but he can't seem to reply like he used
to, this time.

“What’s up?”

His phone almost goes flying from his hands. Yeonho, wide-eyed, flinches and stops walking
toward him, then narrows his eyes suspiciously and looks between Kangmin and the phone.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Kangmin says, too quick. He locks his phone quickly and shoves it in his back pocket,
giving Yeonho a smile he hopes looks casual and unbothered as the older boy takes the seat
opposite him. He slides the sunglasses in his hair back over his eyes- now that college is out for the
summer, the park had started getting busier, and the bench they usually sit at, under the shade of a
willow tree by the gates, had already been taken when Kangmin got here, forcing him to take one
in the sun. He’d been almost too distracted to notice the heat when he’d been worrying over his
phone, but now it hits him again, full force, and he sighs.

Yeonho drops an iced coffee and a bag of chocolates onto the tabletop without taking his eyes
away from the younger boy’s face. “OK, there’s definitely something going on.”

“I said it was nothing!”

Kangmin bites his tongue as Yeonho’s eyes narrow even more.

“Maybe if you yell that louder, it’ll be more convincing,” he says, and the younger boy snatches a
chocolate from the bag and starts unwrapping it, more for something to do with himself than
because he really wants to eat; it’s already half-melted with the heat when he shoves it into his
mouth.

“Can we drop it?” he mumbles, and one corner of Yeonho’s mouth quirks up into a knowing grin.
More than Kangmin’s tone, more so even than his words, the fact that Kangmin’s already
unwrapping another chocolate gives him away. He always binges on sweets when something’s
bugging him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure, if that’s what you really want,” Yeonho shrugs, stirring his straw through his coffee, making
the ice clink together, and Kangmin tries not to notice it, tries to think of someone other than the
person it reminds him of, barely hearing his friend as Yeonho keeps speaking, easily shifting topic,
but he only gets a few words in before Kangmin is groaning, and giving in.

“What?” Yeonho laughs, like he’d been expecting this change of heart.

“Just…What would you do if someone told you they liked you through text?”

Yeonho splutters, almost tipping his coffee all over the table, face reddening as he coughs.
Kangmin, wide-eyed, smacks him on the back a few too many times, until Yeonho's yelping and
hitting him away.

“Doesn’t that happen to you like every day?” the older boy asks eventually, voice still husky, and
Kangmin rolls his eyes.

“This is different,” he says, knowing he’s whining, knowing he’s pouting, and Yeonho laughs at
him, sliding his coffee to the side of the bench and leaning forward, elbows on the tabletop, a
secretive grin on his lips now that Kangmin has saw too many times not to recognise.

“Oh? Who is it?”

Kangmin shakes his head, even though he can’t stop smiling. “I can’t tell you.”

Yeonho’s mouth drops open. “What? But I’m supposed to be helping you out!”

“No, Yeonho, I really can’t tell you.”

The older boy huffs, arms dropping to his sides again. He doesn’t say anything for a while, just
frowns, looking somewhere past Kangmin’s shoulder. Kangmin’s half way through the bag of
chocolates by the time he asks, “Do you like them back?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Don’t be dumb, Min, how can you not know?”

“I don’t!” Kangmin insists. “I-I don’t- I didn’t expect it to be him, is all, and now I don’t know
how to respond, but I also don’t want to keep leaving him on read, but-but-ugh, I don’t know! I just
don’t want to ruin anything.”

Alarmed at the way Kangmin’s voice had risen, Yeonho stares at him, blinking owlishly.
Kangmin’s usually quiet, shy, polite (well...to strangers) and it’s been a while since he’d saw this
side of him. “It sounds like you like him to me.”

“It-it does?”

“Hmm,” Yeonho nods. “And it’s not like we have to tell each other everything, right? So if you
want to keep mystery boy a secret, then I guess that’s-”

“What are you talking about?” It's Kangmin's turn to narrow his eyes now, eyes flickering over the
older boy's face. Yeonho can't stand not being in on a secret, normally. “Is there something you’re
not telling me?”

“W-me? No. Of course not.”

Kagnmin doesn't buy it for a minute, but he doesn't push it. “I guess I can’t force you to tell me
your secret if I don't tell you mine.”
Yeonho grins, eyebrows rising cheekily. “Nope.”

Pouting again, Kangmin looks away, gaze landing instead on the plastic cup at the edge of their
table. The ice is tempting, an obvious choice for a day as sweltering as this one, but Kangmin
frowns at the drink, picking it up, swirling the contents around as he looks back at his friend.
“What’s with this, anyway? Don’t you hate coffee?”

Yeonho, already distracted by his phone, just shrugs without looking up. “Though I’d give it a
try.”

“And?”

His nose scrunches up distastefully. “It’s like drinking diesel.” He shakes his head, pocketing his
phone and staring at the cup with a little disgust. “I don’t know how Gyehyeon can drink these
things.”

“Huh?”

Both of them turn toward the sound of a familiar voice, noticing the red-haired boy strolling up to
them for the first time, a leather jacket the same shade as his hair draped over his shoulders despite
the heat.

Yeonho swipes a chocolate from the table and chucks it at him, and Gyehyeon giggles, dodging it,
and takes a spot on the bench at his side.

“What were you guys talking about?”

Yeonho glances at him, uncertain, and Kangmin kicks his shin sharply under the table, throwing
up a smile and hoping beyond all hope that it’s convincing. “Just wondering when you were finally
going to show up.”

Gyeheon laughs again, and they go back to their usual routine, complaining about the heat, making
plans for the summer, complaining about the heat some more, and Kangmin tries his hardest to
forget about the conversation they’d been having before the red-haired boy had got here. But his
phone burns a hole in his pocket all day, and Yunho keeps glancing at him, and he can’t sit still.
Gyehyeon doesn’t mention it, but he must notice, and Kangmin can’t even force himself to look the
older boy in the eye.

When he finally escapes inside again, waving away Yeonho's attempts to draw him into a game
and excusing himself without dinner into the cold relief of his bedroom, he takes out his phone
immediately, stares at the messages on his screen, and re-reads them again and again.
 Should Have Known

“He just stopped replying?” Minchan’s asking. The café is closing up for the day, and he’d gotten
there just in time to order an iced tea. Now he’s hovering by the counters, asking Dongheon too
many questions when the older boy is trying to lock up, distracting and noisy like a bluebottle
buzzing against a windowpane.

“Yes,” Dongheon groans, slamming the cash register shut with more force than necessary.
Minchan winces. “Nothing for a week now!”

“Maybe he’s just busy,” Yongseung shrugs, stepping out from behind the counter to Minchan’s
side.

“School’s out for the summer,” Dongheon says immediately. He must have thought about every
possibility already, Minchan thinks. This isn’t good.

The door to the backroom swings open, and Hoyoung steps through, swinging a set of keys around
his finger, having somehow heard the entirety of their conversation through the wall. “Summer
job?”

“Or maybe he lost his phone,” Yongseung adds, pointing at Hoyoung as if to say see? It’s not just
me arguing with you. So many possibilities.

Dongheon grumbles, and Minchan stops chewing at his straw to sigh and fix him with a frown.
“What was the last thing you said to him?”

“You think it’s my fault?”

Minchan scoffs, speechless for a second. “How should I know? You never let us see the
conversations.”

Hoyoung tuts, watching Dongheon fidget behind the counter, and steps forward to grab him by the
arm, marching them both back into the café despite Dongheon’s grumbling. More softly, he says,
“You said you were getting along.”

“We were,” Dongheon mopes, as they all step out onto the street, groaning as the heat hits them. “I
don’t know what went wrong.”

They wait for Hoyoung to lock the door, check it and check it again, and then they start wandering
down the street, lazy and slow, none of them in any hurry to get to the restaurant Hoyoung had
suggested, just like always, sticking close together, just enjoying each other's company.

Dongheon snatches Minchan’s cup and takes a sip before the younger boy can stop him.

“Hey!”

“What do I do?” The oldest boy cries, his voice going high-pitched like it does when something’s
really bothering him, not the husky, deep kind of yell they’re more used to hearing, the weaker side
of Dongheon showing through for a moment. Minchan and Hoyoung- the two who’ve known him
the longest- exchange a hasty glance, but Dongheon sounds more like himself when he goes on,
“He still comes to the shop all the time, I know he isn’t busy. He’s just avoiding me.”
Minchan wants to point out that you can’t really avoid someone you've never spoken to in real life,
but that’s hardly a helpful contribution, so he just bites his tongue and nudges Yongseung in the
side, knowing the younger boy’s better at this. The part-timer stumbles, caught off guard, but then
shrugs, giving Dongheon one of his barely-there smiles.

“Just don’t spam him. Maybe he needs some time.”

Dongheon scuffs a boot across the asphalt, temporarily falling behind before they all stop and wait
for him to catch up. “For what? We’ve been talking for two months. Two months, Yongseung.
Why does he suddenly not want to talk to me anymore?”

“He’s right,” Hoyoung says, hands in his pockets. Minchan hadn’t even been sure he was listening
to them all until now. “Continuing to text him without any replies won’t get you anywhere. There’s
nothing to do but wait for him to respond.”

The boy at the end of their little row raises his head. “Well, there is one more thing-”

Dongheon shoves him in the side, almost sending him skittering onto the road. “Shut up,
Minchan!”

To avoid any casualties, they turn the conversation away from the texting for a while, and when
they’re finally stepping through to the air-conditioned entrance of a restaurant, collapsing
gratefully into the first seats they see, they’re on another topic, and Dongheon stops being so
grumpy, Yongseung joking around with him, Hoyoung scathing and quick, Minchan talking about
everything he can think of as distraction, music and his classes and what he’d been reading, and the
hours tic down to midnight before they know it.

The next day is Dongheon’s free day, but all that really means is he’s not behind the counter- he
still shows up at the café like every other day, a habit Hoyoung seems to find infuriating, though
Minchan catches him smiling every time Dongheon fights him away, stubbornly staying in his seat.
Dongheon had found Minchan himself that morning, just before noon, sitting at one of the little
tables they’d shoved outside in the sunlight, already clicking away at his laptop, and the older boy
had flopped into the seat opposite him.

Usually, Dongheon chatters away, makes joke after joke and doesn’t slow down, but today he’s
pensive, quiet, and he lets the silence stretch uncharacteristically long between them. Minchan isn’t
complaining- he had almost given up hope of getting his work done when he’d saw the other boy
walking toward him, but it’s only an hour later that he’s shutting his laptop with a snap and stuffing
it back into his backpack. He picks up a coffee cup and realises it's empty, and leans back to wave
at Yongseung through the glass, signalling something. He sees the younger boy roll his eyes, but
then he steps out with two tubs of ice cream, sets them on the table between them, and goes back
inside.

Be nice, Minchan. He bites back a groan, and then forces the words out of his mouth: “You’re
quiet. It’s not like you.”

Dongheon’s eyes flicker to his, startled when Minchan pushes a tub toward him. “Hmm? Oh. Just
thinking.”

“That’s really not like you,” Minchan says, and then smiles at the angry glare this gets him. “Go
on, then,” he sighs, reclining back in his seat, “I’m sure I know what this is about anyway.”

“What’d I miss?” Yongseung says a while later, finally on his break, taking the only other seat at
their little table. There’s an iced coffee in his hand, and Minchan spares a moment’s glance at the
ice swirling around inside, mutinously envious of the relief it would bring. The sun shines down
onto their little table, and too many cups already litter it’s surface, too much caffeine in his system
already.

“Same old, same old,” he mutters, trying to preserve his energy, stretched out onto the wooden
tabletop, head resting in the crook of one elbow. “Dongheon’s just been acting like a p-”

“Would you stop saying that?” The dark-haired boy cries, throwing the plastic spoon that’d been in
his ice cream tub at Minchan’s hair. “I am not. I just asked you very nicely what I should do
about-”

Yongseung laughs, one short burst of sound, interrupting him. “He’s still not texted you back?”

“No!”

Irritably, Minhan rubs at his eyes behind treacle-coloured glasses, already knowing where this
conversation is headed, despite the multiple times now he’s provided a solution to this very
problem.

“I can’t figure it out,” the dark-haired boy’s moping. “I thought we were getting so close, and the
next day he just stops replying.”

Minchan nods, somehow finding the will to push himself up off of the table. “And I said, Oh yeah,
Heon, seems difficult, have you thought about maybe just speaking to him yourself? You know, in
real life? Because you see him every week? But no, that’s too much, apparently.”

“That defeats the whole point!” Dongheon opposes. “He’s not supposed to know it’s me-”

The heat has made Minchan agitated in a way nothing else ever really succeeds in doing- usually
he’s quiet, patient, even a little cold, without meaning to be, but now it’s clear he’s not letting
Dongheon lie through his teeth without argument. “He wasn’t supposed to know it was you,” he
corrects, voice firm. “Starting out anonymous was the plan, sure, but it was never supposed to end
like that. You’re just scared to face him now.”

Dongheon rolls his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Alright,” Yongseung says suddenly, slightly too loud. “Go on, then.”

Dongheon’s head whips around to face him. “Huh?”

The younger boy shrugs. “It’s a Friday, and it’s boiling outside. They’re bound to show up some
time today.” He glances at his watch, pouting thoughtfully. “Usually it’s just after noon, but it’s
never after three. That means if they’re going to show, they’ll be here in an hour or less.”

Both of them stare at him, Minchan eyebrows raised, Yongseung silently watchful, sipping at his
coffee, back to his usual blankness now he’s said his piece. A breathy laugh slips out before
Dongheon can push it down.

“Hang on a second.”

Minchan straightens, pointing to a completely random spot over Dongheon’s shoulder, squinting.
“Hey, is that them-”

Yongseung giggles uncontrollably as Dongheon spins to look behind him, realises Minchan had
been lying, and slams his head down onto the table below him.
“Why are you doing this to me!” Deongheon yells, but it comes out more like a whine than he
wanted, his reaction already showing his cowardice, his voice muffled by the tabletop. As
Yongseung giggles happily again, he groans and drags his forehead from the table, slumping back
in his seat. “Alright! I can’t do it, you know I can’t do it!”

Minchan thaws a little, staring at his friend’s sullen expression. “What’s the worst that could
happen?”

“He’ll reject me and laugh straight in my face and I’ll die of embarrassment?” Dongheon tries.

Yongseung frowns. “I don’t think that can actually happen.”

“He won’t reject you.”

“You know,” Yongseung says, “you can’t actually promise that.”

Dongheon points in the younger boy’s direction. “Thank you! Wait. You think he’s gonna reject
me?”

Yongseung shrugs. “How am I supposed to know?”

For a long moment, Dongheon just blinks at him. Briefly, he looks like the boy Minchan had met
so many years ago, the kind of stone faced toughness he'd exuded then returning only for a second
before his lip quivers and he puts his head in his hands, dissolving back into the true version of
himself, the one that's all jelly. “No. No, I can’t do it. Yongseung’s usually right- if he thinks I’m
gonna get rejected, I’m never mentioning it. Let’s just forget about it.”

Minhan's mouth drops open. “You’ve- but- two months, Dongheon! You’ve wasted too much time
to give up now.”

“It wasn’t me that stopped replying! It doesn't seem like those two months meant much to him,
anyway.”

"You know what?" Minchan throws up his hands. “Fine! Fine.” He stumbles to his feet, almost
immediately regretting this rebellious act as the heat hits him again. “Stew in your self pity! I’m
going inside!”

He spins on his heels and steps through the cafe door, forceful, though the distance isn’t great
enough that he can really throw much of a tantrum, and Dongheon helplessly looks back to the
table to see Yongseung biting down on an ice cube and studying him with narrowed eyes.

“Hey-”

It’s all it takes to bring on another mood swing. “I know,” Dongheon groans. “But I can’t do it.”

Yongseung stops squinting at him only to pull his sunglasses out of a back pocket and go on
squinting at him behind them. “Sure you can. You’ve been talking to him for ages, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, sure, but I don’t think he’s so much as glanced at me, here.”

We should have known this was going to happen, Yongseung thinks.

They’d been together when Dongheon sent that first text, keeping it short, polite, a little distant, not
too invested. They’d worded it together, fretted over every syllable until Hoyoung had to snatch
Dongheon’s phone and press send himself, endure the beating afterwards, and they'd shared in the
victorious feeling when the other boy had replied. A few days later, but politely, nicely, and
Dongheon had seemed so happy when their conversations had gotten longer, had been caught so
many times since smiling down at his phone, completely, hopelessly distracted. But it’s been so
long since then. Dongheon could have given his name so many times, introduced himself so many
times.

Should have known. Dongheon’s not nearly as tough as he seems.

“What’s so bad about him knowing it’s you?”

The older boy looks so stricken he can’t form words for a moment, just opens and closes his mouth
like a goldfish, before eventually babbling out- “Because he’ll be expecting someone else!”

“You’re not so bad.”

Dongheon fiddles with a string dangling from the rip in his jeans, winding it around his fingertip.
“Thank you- I think- but talking face to face wasn’t supposed to be like this. He’s never just
stopped responding before. What if he’s bored of me now, and then I just keep bothering him-”

Both of them startle as a dark shape ducks into the empty seat beside them, Dongheon’s words
cutting off in a strangled sound. Minchan sulks at them, shoving sunglasses back on his nose.
“Hoyoung kicked me out. We’re still on this, are we?”

“At least Yongseung is actually trying to help me,” Dongheon grumbles, and Minchan rolls his
eyes.

“What is this, couples therapy with Yongseung now?” Both of them blanch at the word, and
Minchan chuckles.

The youngest boy recovers first, some of his usual sharpness flooding back into his voice. “I don’t
have enough time to solve whatever’s wrong with the two of you. I’m just trying to enjoy my break
in the sun without being bothered by customers. ”

Top-of-his-class Minchan doesn’t show his brightness very often- awkward and quiet, he seems to
prefer letting the others steer the conversation, content to sit back. That only makes the rare
moment when he says something perceptive and clever feel all the more like betrayal.

Now, he turns on Yongseung, head tipped thoughtfully to the side, and says, “That means you
haven’t spoken to Hoyoung yet, doesn't it?”

Yongseung ducks, as if something where suddenly racing toward his head, and throws an anxious
glance through the window of the café. “Keep your voice down, would you?”

Dongheon blinks dumbly, looking between them. “What? What’re you talking about?”

Exasperated, Minchan shakes his head, huffing. “If you’d been off of your phone enough recently,
you’d have noticed-”

Yongseung is already swinging one leg out from under the table and getting to his feet. “I’m going
to go get a coffee.”

“There’s one in your ha-well, he’s gone.” Minchan turns back to the table, and Dongheon meets his
eye for less than a second before he’s standing too, and following Yongseung back inside.

Hoyoung looks up from behind the counter, seeing them making their way towards him. “Yong-
you’re break isn’t over yet-”

“It’s fine,” the younger boy growls, storming past him.

Perplexed, Hoyoung turns to Dongheon for an explanation, only to see the older boy’s scowling
too. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing, stop asking!” The door to the back room swings shut behind them with a loud bang, and
Hoyoung hesitantly turns back to the café. “What...what just happened.”
 Reply: Mystery Solved

“-just to get an ice cream or something,” Kangmin’s saying, and Yeonho, who’d been lying with
one cheek pressed against the cushion of their sofa, suddenly explodes upright and throws his
hands in the air.

“What is it with you and that café?” he shrieks, and Gyehyeon winces at the way his voice booms
around the tiny living room of their little flat, the crappy college-accommodation drywall thin
enough that he hears the yelling as if he was standing right next to them rather than in the next
room, trying to avoid them. It’s a hard thing to do- they’re constantly together, ever since they’d
started renting this place. Even in the summer, when they could all be staying with their families
over the break, they’re here, suffering in the heat together, hiding in the shade at the nearby park,
always a trio, making it almost impossible for Gyehyeon to get away, Yeonho whining whenever
he says he wants to be alone. Like now, sitting on his bedroom floor and listening to them argue,
the slushie he’d just bought when they’d gotten lunch at a diner down the street pressed to his
forehead, his eyes half-closed.

The red haired boy shuffles, spread out on his carpet with his back against the edge of his bed,
feeling the metal frame chill his skin. But the voices continue, Yeonho yelping, Kangmin talking
lower as if trying to calm him down, and Gyehyeon sighs and lowers the slushie, pulling himself to
his feet. Both of them look up as he steps out of his room.

“The café again?” he asks.

“It was Kangmin’s idea,” Yeonho says, crossing his arms. “We only just got back here.” Gyehyeon
glances at the other boy, brow raised, but Kangmin looks away, eyes fixed on the wall somewhere
above Gyheyeon’s head.

“I was only asking Yeonho to go with me,” he mumbles. “We don’t all have to go.”

It stings, but Gyehyeon tries not to pay any attention to that, shaking his head and starting towards
the front door. He doesn’t enjoy the idea of being out of the house again so soon, either, not when
the sun is still high in the sky, and it’s probably- definitely- a little hypocritical of him to be
annoyed at Kangmin not inviting him when he’d just been avoiding them both, but he still doesn’t
like it, so he invites himself anyway.

Yeonho’s still sulking when they step out of the apartment, squinting in the sun, a frown line
between his brows. “Why don’t we go for frozen yogurt or something? Somewhere closer.”

Kangmin huffs. “What have you got against the place I suggested?”

“Nothing,” Yeonho counters immediately, shrugging, “I just don’t know why it always has to be
that café.”

Gyehyeon doesn’t know what they’re arguing about, but he’s usually the moderator anyway, and
they’re starting to talk fast and their voices are getting rougher in the way they always do before
things really blow up between them, and he doesn’t have the energy for it today, distracted and
irritable already.

“We could go somewhere else,” he shrugs, before it can go any farther, and both of them whip
their heads to look at him.
“See?” Yeonho demands, and Kangmin’s mouth open and closes a few times, his eyes flickering
around the street they’re walking down as if looking for an escape route.

“But-but-”

Yeonho pounces on the hesitation: “Let’s just go somewhere else.”

“But Gyehyeon likes the coffee there!”

They stop, Kangmin doing his best to avoid their eye, his cheeks blooming pink, the sound of his
voice practically still echoing off of the asphalt, croaky as if the words had been ripped from his
throat, like he’d surprised even himself by yelling them.

Gyehyeon coughs into a hand, a funny feeling stirring in his stomach. “I guess I do,” he says, trying
to keep his voice even. Honestly, it was usually Yeonho pushing them out of the house, tempting
them to fight the heat for a while in exchange for more powerful A.C and a few ice cream tubs, but
he had been the one suggesting the place once or twice.

Yeonho groans and storms off down the street ahead of them. Kangmin rushes after him, skittish,
and Gyehyeon runs a hand through his hair, tries to stop replaying Kangmin’s words in the back of
his mind, turning them over and over in search of something, and follows in the direction of the
café.

Minchan spots them first, still stationed outside the café when a familiar trio of boys becomes
visible down the block, the vibrant scarlet hair of the boy at the back sticking out against the store
fronts and apartment buildings. There’s a matching bright red slushie in his hand, and Minchan
considers the possibility of them just passing by for a while, until they get closer, and he can hear
what they’re saying.

“Why would I order?” the boy Minchan knows as Gyeheon is saying, waving his drink in the air,
“I don’t even want anything.”

One of the other boys seems to be arguing with him. “Then Kangmin-”

“Kangmin’s too shy and you know that.”

“Well maybe I’m too shy, too!”

Gyehyeon snorts as if this is the funniest thing in the world. “You’re kidding, right?”

Minchan looks up at them, trying not to make it too obvious- they’re only a few feet away from the
café now, the red haired boy that’s usually in the lead still lingering behind. Kangmin and Yeonho,
Minchan thinks, as they stop just shy of the café window, huddled together. Their voices are quiet,
and Minchan can’t make out anything no matter how much he focuses, unable to discover what it
is exactly they're arguing about, until one of them breaks away from the group, the pretty-featured,
delicate looking boy that’d become a familiar sight here sulking past him and inside, leaving the
other two on the sidewalk.

The red haired boy sighs, shuffling his weight, and then nudges the other boy in the side. “Go on,
go help him out.”

“Wha-why would I-”

Gyehyeon kicks him in the back of the shin- Minchan has to scramble to cover his laughter, biting
desperately to the inside of his cheek- and the other boy groans and shuffles inside too.
Minchan’s leg jumps under the table, his eyes narrowed and fixed somewhere down the block
beyond the remaining boy, trying not to make his observation obvious. When he clears his throat,
the red-haired boy’s clever eyes find his immediately, brows furrowing slightly as Minchan offers
a friendly smile.

“Hey- it's Gyehyeon, isn't it?”

Inside, Dongheon has been making coffees and serving ice creams without stopping for almost an
hour, no matter how many times Hoyoung reminds him it’s his off-day and he’s not paying him
for good deeds, trying to distract himself in work that’s become second nature.

“Um-exc-can I order, please?”

The stuttering makes him turn, ready to face another customer, pulling up a smile, and then
realising who’s staring back at him, the familiar, fine features, and Dongheon’s stomach does a
horrible flip and he thinks he might just pass out on the spot, here, behind the counter of the damn
café he should never have agreed to work in because Yongseung was right, and now they're here.

The boy looks nervous, though, and once Dongheon takes a breath and realises he isn’t, in fact,
actively dying, he feels a twinge of sympathy and shuffles up to the other side of the counter.

“Of course,” he says, forcing a smile, and the younger boy clears his throat, eyes sticking to the
menu above Dongheon’s head despite the fact that he and his friends are here every week and
always order the same thing. “What can I get for you?”

“Just an iced latte, please,” the boy says, in an impossibly small voice. Dongheon nods and turns,
and has just started digging ice out of the icebox when he hears the same voice again, and
instinctively turns towards it, before realising it isn’t speaking to him anymore. There’s another
boy stepping up to the counter, rubbing at the back of his neck, gaze focused on the ground below
him.

“Did you order?”

No, no, no, this can’t be happening. Both of them? Where’s the red haired guy?

The boy Dongheon had been talking to laughs breathily and turns away; Dongheon turns his back
quickly before either of them can catch him staring. “It was you that didn’t want to come here.
Order yourself.”

Dongheon’s hands shake as he hands over the take-away cup, but the boy that snatches the coffee
doesn’t seem to notice- there must be an argument there Dongheon doesn’t know about. The
younger boy slides a note over the counter, spinning on his heels before Dongheon even has time to
accept it, and then it’s just the two of them, Dongheon fiddling with the register for too long,
unable to force himself to turn, and the boy on the other side of the counter, silent as always.

Yongseung takes this time to come back out of the backroom, looks up and sees the two of them,
and immediately turns back the way he’d came. Dongheon makes a note to strangle him later.

“Um,” the boy behind him says.

“Yes!” Dongheon spins too fast, almost catching his hip on the edge of a counter, and the long-
haired boy stares at him, not blinking, not saying anything, so Dongheon can hear the horrible
thundering of his heartbeat in the silence.
“Um,” he says, right back to him, “your order-

“Right,” the younger boy says, a little breathy, almost laughing through the word. “Can I get an
iced americano?”

Huh?

“Uh, sure.” It takes Dongheon a moment to remember what to do, when he spins around to all of
the machines and cups and iceboxes, though he’d made that order millions of times before, and he
hovers in one spot like he’d hit an invisible wall for a second before springing forward, suddenly
on autopilot. He takes a plastic cup from a stack, reaches for the little shovel for the ice again, and
doesn’t let himself think about how he’s going to have to turn around eventually and face the boy
again when this is over.

Then there’s a quiet ding, and he jumps practically out of his skin.

Ding.

His ring tone. Before he can think about it, he’s fishing for his phone, taking it out of his pocket to
see the screen already alight with two new messages- and then he sees who they’re from.

“O-Oh,” the other boy says. Dongheon already knows what he’ll see when he turns around, but
he’s unable to help himself now, even as he cringes through the motion, spinning to find the boy at
the other side of the counter holding his own phone in both hands, his eyes locked on Dongheon’s
phone screen, seeing the notifications of his own messages there.

Oh, God.

Dongheon opens his mouth to say something, but no sound comes out.

“I...I thought it might have been you.”

Dongheon, mouth suddenly dry, a cup full of ice still in one hand, glances down at his phone
again.

It’s Dongheon

Right?

His mouth drops open, and the long-haired boy laughs self-consciously, like he’d tried to swallow
the sound. Dongheon can do nothing but stare at him, stricken, and the younger boy taps a spot on
his own chest with a fingertip, where Dongheon’s nametag is pinned.

“How- I- you didn’t text me back.”

It sounds so pathetic, to his own ears, and he regrets it as soon as it’s out, but the other boy winces,
and crosses one arm over his chest, making himself smaller. His words come out in a rush, a
tumbling mess, and Dongheon knows he’s staring but he can’t look away, can feel himself
stepping closer, soaking up every word now that he’s finally, finally hearing the other boy’s voice,
no matter how nervous and clumsy it is.
And Yeonho hadn't planned to do it this way, but Kangmin had for some reason insisted on
coming here, and arguing more than he already had would definitely have raised suspicion, and
now he's here and standing in front of him, really speaking to him for the first time, it's as if a damn
breaks, and suddenly he's spilling all of his secrets.

“I, um...I caught your eye last week and thought-well, maybe I just hoped that it was you, and I did
plan on saying something in person instead, but then I couldn’t think of anything to say, and there'd
been such a long break in the conversation and I didn't have an excuse, so…”

A few silent seconds pass as Dongheon’s brain tries to process what’s happening, and then snags
on one word in particular- “H-hoped?”

The other boy looks away immediately, a hand flying to the back of his neck again, nervously
tugging on a strand of long, coppery hair. “Maybe.”

“Um.”

The silence goes on stretching, neither of them knowing how to break it, the long-haired boy
nibbling at his bottom lip, Dongheon distractedly staring, turning around immediately when he
meets his eye, conscious of a gaze on his back as he rushes around behind the counter, turning back
around only when the drink in his hand is completed, and he can push it over the counter.

Then he stops, seeing the boy hesitating to pick the cup up, and snatches it back. On a whim, he
grabs the marker sitting by the til and holds it up to the plastic.

“A name for the order?” he says, glancing up nonchalantly, trying to make this seem normal.

But the other boy smiles like he knows what he’s doing- and really, he must do, because he’d seen
his friend accept an order without giving a name, and there are no other customers waiting in the
line, the order already completed. He laughs, his expression lighting up with a smile.

“Yeonho,” he says, and Dongheon is used to the name by now, has memorised the rise and fall of
it, listened out for it every second of every day for far too long, but it's different now. Now it
sounds real in a way it hadn't before, a substantial thing he's been given, like a gift, a far prettier
melody as it falls from the other boy's lips, is shaped by the other boy's voice. Just a name sends a
shiver across Dongheon's skin.

Dongheon can’t fight back a smile of his own as he scribbles onto the cup and passes it back over
the counter. Despite the nerves that are making him lightheaded, he meets the other boy’s gaze, a
thrill running up his arm, electric, when Yeonho accepts the cup and his fingers ghost past
Dongheon’s own.

“It’s nice to meet you, Yeonho.” Another dazzling smile lights the boy's face, and Dongheon feels
his stomach flutter with butterflies. Nervously, Yeonho takes a gulp of his drink, forgetting for a
moment what he'd ordered, and then his expression twists in disgust. Dongheon can't help himself-
he throws his head back and laughs, too loud for the quiet atmosphere of the café, and Yeonho
whines and hangs his head.

"You hate coffee," Dongheon says, dropping the charade, remembering one of the first
conversations they'd had, pleased to see surprise fly over the younger boy's face.

"I thought it was a cool thing to order," Yeonho admits, lips twisting up in a wry, self-deprecating
smile, and Dongheon laughs again and takes the cup from him, raising it to his own lips and taking
a sip. Yeonho blinks at him, eyelashes fluttering in a way that Dongheon thinks- hopes- is
flustered.

"I'll make you something else," he says, and turns his back again. Only this time, he keeps
throwing glances over his shoulder, this time he doesn't dread spinning back to see the other boy in
front of him, this time he can't keep the smile from his face as he fusses around behind the counter,
feeling eyes on him the whole time.

Kangmin, only a few feet away, is staring down at a phone screen too, in the partial shade of the
café doorway, trying to squint enough to make out the letters of his keypad. When he presses send,
he steps outside, hearing the chirpy sound of a ringtone as he steps up to a table, seeing Gyehyeon
laughing with an unfamiliar boy, already sitting down. The red-haired boy glances up at him, sees
the single coffee in his hand, and stops laughing.

“Aren’t you going to check that?” Kangmin asks, nodding his head, and Gyehyeon blinks at him,
confused, before realisation flashes over his face, and one hand jumps to the pocket of his shirt
where his phone sits.

“It’s probably nothing-”

Kangmin’s voice sounds tense, to his own ears. “It’s from me.”

As if sensing what’s going on before the other boy, the stranger in the seat opposite stands and
ducks into the café, leaving them alone. Gyeheon frowns as he watches him go, but he pulls the
phone from his pocket without a word, eyes flickering over the screen. Then he sits back,
unlocking his phone and spending another few moments staring down at it, though Kangmin’s
message was definitely short enough to be read as a notification.

I like you too.

Gyehyeon reads it a few times, and then laughs breathlessly, lowering his phone and staring up at
him, already grinning.

“But-”

“I didn’t want to ruin anything,” Kangmin says, suddenly unable to pull his gaze from the concrete
below his feet. “I’m sorry for avoiding you.”

It’s ridiculous to be this nervous when he already knows how Gyehyeon feels, when he’d replayed
his words again and again ever since the older boy had said them, so casually in the middle of a
conversation, when Yeonho had left to get a glass of water and it was just the two of them sitting
on the couch in their sweltering living room, Kangmin exhausted and irritable after losing too
many games in a row. Gyehyeon had laughed at him, laughed at him again after he’d confessed,
but Yeonho had come back before he could tease Kangmin’s surprised expression, the way his
mouth had dropped open. And Kangmin had realised so, so long ago that how he thinks about
Gyehyeon is a little past the boundaries of friendship, but he’d been scared, and he’d never
imagined being the one confessed to. He’d spent so long convincing himself it was better not to
risk their friendship like this that he hadn’t known what to do.

But here he is, stomach in knots as he waits for Gyehyeon to say something, holding an iced coffee
out in front of him like it’s a bouquet of roses, feeling too young, too shy, too much like himself.

Gyehyeon laughs now, too, and Kangmin looks up at the sound just as Gyehyeon reaches out and
takes the coffee from him, answering without even having to say anything, everything he wants to
say plain in his expression. And Kangmin laughs too, unable to help himself, as Gyehyeon pulls
him into the seat beside him and slings an arm over his shoulders, the tension breaking, the pieces
of their little puzzle falling perfectly into place again. Despite the heat of the sun scorching the
street around them, Kangmin leans into the warmth of the boy at his side, able to breath freely for
the first time in weeks.

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