“I’ll have the iced coffee with a shot of vanilla,” YoungSoo orders and then truns to his brother.

“Usual,” YoungJae says.

I look at the red headed twin.

“Will you let go of my hand now?” I ask trying to pull us apart.

He gives me a half smile.

“Why would you want to let go?” he says cheesily.

I look around. Did anyone else hear that?

The employee taking our order covers his mouth and when he notices me looking causally whipes an invisible stain off his cheek.

“YoungJae,” I begin to growl.

“Jae, let her go,” YoungSoo says.

He must have some sort of power over his brother.

I let out a sigh of relief and then look at the menu.

“Is that your boyfriend?” the employee asks after the twins pay and sit down at a table.

I laugh.

“No he’s a friend. I think he misunderstood me.”

The employee leans over the register, “I can see why.”

…you too?

“I’ll have a strawberry smoothie,” I say ignoring him altogether.

I reach for my wallet.

“No need, it’s taken care of.”

I look back to the twins.

“Really?”

“Yeah, on the house.”

I look at him. He is trying way too hard.

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” I whisper and he leans forward. “I’m not interested.”

I slip him 5,000 ₩.

“Keep the change.”

“What were you and that guy talking about?” YoungJae asks as I sit down next to them.

“He was hitting on me, but I think I took care of it.”

YoungSoo starts to laugh and I look over at his brother who is pouting.

“If I had stayed with you then he wouldn’t have.”

I laugh at him.

“I can take care of myself. Plus if I let you do that people will get the wrong idea.”

“What do you mean?”

I clear my throat.

“People will think that you and I are dating.”

He makes a duck bill face.

“What’s so bad about that?”

I lean a finger against my nose.

“YoungJae, do you want to debut?”

“Yeah,” he smiles.

“Then you can’t do that.”

“But you were the one being all touchy earlier,” he whines.

I cover my face.

“You were taking too long. I don’t know about you but I have a schedule and I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Seriously?”

I nod at him.

“Seriously.”

I look at my phone.

“Hmmm, I’ve got maybe an hour before I need to leave.”

“We should exchange numbers,” YoungJae says pulling out his phone.

“Of course!” I smile.

I glance at the two of them leaning across the table to put their numbers into my phone.

“So how old are you two?”

“You mean, who’s older?” YoungSoo teases.

I laugh, “I’m curious to know you’re age. I can’t tell. You look older than me, but YoungJae acts like a kid.”

“I suppose we’re younger than you since you’re leader, right Nuna?” YoungJae says putting his phone on the counter. “We only just turned twenty.”

I bit my lip. “I guess the oldest isn’t always the leader. I’m eighteen."

He grins, "No way!"

A girl comes and sets our drinks down on the table.

“Can I get you anything?” she says looking at me.

“Thank you,” YoungSoo smiles and she covers her face with the tray.

I look at him and he’s still wearing that smile.

“Hyung, stop that. If I can’t hold MiSun’s hand then you can’t tease the waitress,” YoungJae reasons.

YoungSoo takes a sip of his drink. 

So YoungSoo is the lady killer and YoungJae is a kid...great.

---

“Where have you been?” Onew asks when I finally get back to the apartment.

“I was working on something for my group,” I say.

I need to keep things as ambiguous as possible.

“Hyung you totally missed it!” Taemin yells running toward me.

“Missed what?” I laugh setting my gym bag down and taking my shoes off.

“We ran into a few trainees,” Key says and I freeze.

Damn. I’ve been caught on the second day.

“Yeah, the Jung twins were there, but you missed the new trainee. She was really cute,” Taemin twerps.

I laugh uneasily. “Dang, I missed it.”

“Yeah. She was so pretty that she stunned Minho. That guy has a built in shield against girls but this one was different,” Onew explains. “She looked a little familiar though.”

I start to cough.

“Hyung, are you okay?” Taemin asks patting my back.

I cover my mouth.

“I just need to get a drink of water.”

I move past the three of them and shoot Key a don’t-you-dare-tell look.

When I get to the kitchen Jonghyun is sitting down at the table eating an orange.

“So, what did you do after practice?” he asks as I pour myself a glass of water.

I sit down across from him and take a sip.

“Talked to some people about my group, nothing much.”

“Huh, your lip-gloss got on the glass,” he says as if it’s nothing.

I rub the print off the rim.

“It’s just my chap stick.”

He looks at me and hands me an orange slice.

“Your makeup looks nice.”

I rub my face. Sh-t! I thought I got all of it off.

“You can’t keep this up forever.”

I take the orange slice.

“I don’t have a choice in the matter,” I say and then pop the fruit in my mouth.

“I’ll help you.”

My jaw drops.

“What?”

He looks up at me.

“I said, I’ll help you.” He brushes his hands together and then stands up. “Key already knows, but I’m going to do whatever I can to help. The point of you being here is so that you can learn. I intend to keep my promise.”

I jump up and bow.

“Thank you so much.”

He pats me on the shoulder.

“My first bit of advice is to be careful around Minho. He won’t say anything, but he was really attracted to the trainee from earlier.”

I can feel the temperature in my face rising.

“Where is he anyways?”

Jonghyun laughs. “Taemin and Onew were teasing him so much that he went to his room.”

His eyes meet mine.

“I meant what I said. Be careful. Minho’s pretty quiet about his feelings, but none of us have ever seen him like this.”

I blow my cheeks up with air. I should feel a bit nervous, but I’m kind of excited.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

i plan on writing bunches for a while...hope i can.

xie xie subies / readers / whoever :))

much love,

meng.