-•☆•-

"Look at the doorway."

That shocking mandation made Daeseong’s heart skip a beat. He took down the phone from his ear, nervously rolling to look at the door,

"Jihyo hyung??" The younger's uttered feebly with a gaping jaw.

"Hi, cutie!" Jihyo winked, unwinding his elbow at the hinge stile of their panel, "How did you like the surprise?" He stood with his legs crossed, leaning against the same. 

Visibly blanching, Daeseong's steady gaze raked his surroundings, hither and yon— the trepidation overtook his wits,

"Jihyo hyung, if someone sees us we both are going to be in trouble!! You should leave immediately," his mannerism of speech was too distraught, "Please go back!" Even though subdued, Daeseong kept incanting the only phrase. 

Jihyo shrugged off, "So what? Isn't it fun to get into trouble?" A dallying smile filled out the handsome face of his, "Together??" 

Daeseong carried on to look back, confirming that none saw them, 

"Jihyo hyung please leave, or you have not the faintest idea of what might be awaiting us."

"Aishh," Jihyo mended his precise bearing, then standing with crossed arms in place of legs, "After a lot of consideration, I have concluded that…"

Daeseong held tight, "That?" He tilted his head quizzically. 

"That I will only leave if…"

"If?"

"If you agree to hangout for a while with me!" Jihyo crossed his arms, pouting his lips perkily, "What do ya say?" 

Daeseong was nonetheless too hasty in his response, "That's alright. We might hangout sometime later."

"I don't mean some other day, though. I mean on this day, at this very moment," the older man riveted his mind steadily towards the black hairs, "Now if you deny, I feel too sad to say that I won't be leaving this place, then…" he reshaped his countenance in the guise of grimace. 

Daeseong sighed, rubbing his brows together, "Fine! Wait outside, I'll take some time to change into formals," he spoke using a sharp tone. 

"Uh- huh, that trick is not going to work on me, pretty boy! You already look too cute in these casuals. Get cracking already, cutie pie!"  Jihyo whispering the former fraction, seized Daeseong’s delightfully slender and otherwise tanned wrist, hauling the younger with him,

"And stop making my heart explode!!" He chuckled.

"Geez!! Were you always this frisky to anyone you meet?" Daeseong's prying was bona fide, "Or only to those you haven't met before?" 

Jihyo laid aside the aforesaid with a contemptuous giggle,

"Get in, cutie!!" He opened the door of the passenger seat beside the driver's to his Genesis Electrified G80, "Let me tell you, I am a really good driver!" The older man winked, after speaking in a raunchy tone.

Daeseong, getting the drift, went astray, climbing into the four-wheeler, closing the front door beside him, almost immediately. 

With a smile of complacency, Jihyo engaged the driver's position. Daeseong watched as Jihyo put the key in ignition, turning it all the way down— Daeseong's eyes furtively looked to his right, his arm sneaking on the doorknob. 

"Cutie, put on the seat belt," Jihyo gave instructions. And when the older man rerouted his attention in buckling himself up, Daeseong rammed hard enough on the doorknob inside for it to be broken into pieces— by dint of Daeseong’s hard work, the car door did not open. 

The younger could hear the unrestrained giggle from his seat across the car. Bashful, Daeseong heaved his eyesight back into Jihyo’s. 

"You thought I wouldn't lock the door as soon as I got in?" Jihyo burst out into such boisterous laughter. "Idiot! Put on the seat belt now."

"Jihyo hyung, in case you have any not-so-good intention, I shall warn you that I know self defence, alr- alright?" Partially withdrawn, Daeseong pulling the shoulder strap, 

"Argh! This is as irritating as you!" He exclaimed, "This is jammed. Kindly help me now, Mischief maker hyung!" Sarcasm dribbled through all those words.

"Really? I love that name," his grin broadening again, Jihyo leaned his body over the black haired younger male, approaching closer with each passing minute, "You know self defence but don't know how to buckle up! Hilarious!!" He placed the shoulder strap across Daeseong’s chest, away from his neck, "Didn't you know you should never put the shoulder belt under an arm?" His eyes alighted at the small face of Daeseong, who on the other hand sat, sustaining his stare on the other man— for what felt like an eternity. 

-

The road was over— Leia thought she should have talked to Wooshik, she should have blabbered anything. Quite the contrary, none of them breathed a word for the entire bike trip.

"Leia, we are here," which was Wooshik breaking the first ice since the commencement of their day, "I'll go park this somewhere. Wait for me here, alright?"

Sorting through the art cafe, Leia was in disbelief, "Woo, didn't you use to say art and food should not be mixed? Art is divine and food equals devouring? One is creation and the other is ruin?" She was wreathed in smiles. Departing from Wooshik's Hyosung.

Wooshik could only flare a smile at her— before he retrieved the place after parking his treasured motorbike somewhere safe, and at an eye's distance. 

"Come with me. There is a table for two left empty," Wooshik led the way for both of them to a suitable place to sit, "Here. The location is also good, right?" He pulled out the chair for Leia, "Please take a seat."

"Thank you!" Leia had always found such etiquettes chivalrous, "Make yourself comfortable too, please!" Tucking herself in the chair, Leia urged the other man. 

Making himself seated comfortably, facing his woman to the opposite side, Wooshik outstretched the menu to her, "You can make your order first."

Leia grabbed the card and put it down on their very table, "You didn't answer me yet, Woo. About what I asked you outside, near th-"

"Leia…"

Leia juxtaposed with her reply, "Yes?"

"I remember that I used to say ruins and creation can never be united but…" he breathed out profoundly, smiling in a morose frame of mind.

"But what would you do when you know that you are a ruin and a creation shapes you everyday??" 

Leia chose to be reticent. 

"Leia, I hope you haven't forgotten how we met? And what did I say to you then?"

-Flashbacks-

"Ma, calm down, please!!" Wooshik's mental might was being tested everyday, persistently his energy was sapped by his mother's individualistic worries— "Tell me where should I meet her?"

"Really?? You are really willing to meet her?" Mrs. Lee's heart couldn't be any more fulfilling, "I will drive you to the location myself. She is probably already there."

They reached the location, a coffee shop Mrs. Lee picked on her own— it took them nearly twenty five to thirty minutes. 

"I will wait outside, okay dear? Take as much time as you need, and drink the minutes to their lees," she scrunched her nose after she had uttered those last phrases— she was a great Ulysses enthusiast, thus occasionally percept the words said by him as her motto of life; which continuously kept altering. 

"Ma, you don't need to wait for us. Just tell me her name and table number, I'll figure out everything else. You should go home," Wooshik patted his mother's back and dissolved into the coffee shop after gathering information about another of his blind dates.

Looking through the tables for a while he finally found the one he was looking for— Wooshik moved in the direction of that pretty brunette lady,

"Hi! Lee Wooshik here. Are you Doh Leia? My mother asked me to come on a blind date with you," he bowed to array his signature of respect, "Nice to meet you."

The lassie stood up, returning the gesture, "Yes, that is me. I am Doh Leia. Nice to meet you too, Wooshik! Please sit." 

"Thank you," Wooshik bowed two more times before he made himself comfortable, "So, why would you agree to do a blind date with me without knowing anything regarding who I am or what my background is?"

Leia twinkled softly, her eyes modestly looking at the menu card in front of them instead, "I think there has been a misunderstanding. This is, in fact, not a blind date. Our profiles on a matrimonial site matched and thus this meeting was planned," she said humbly. 

Wooshik was dumbfounded, "A what site?"

"Matrimonial."

"There is no way I created an account on any dumb site such as that!" Wooshik kept cursing under his breath, "Ma lied to me!! Ugh!" 

"Uhm Wooshik," Leia crammed the brunette locks behind her ear before speaking any ahead, "Mrs. Lee has told me everything. She has told me that you were a man who might die a bachelor but will never create an account on dating sites. So, please don't be angry with her. In fact, after our profile matched, I gave her my number because I am really interested in you," she lowered her head, 

"So I hoped that we could progress to something more, and if Mrs. Lee had any such plans, I deeply desired her to ring me back. Do you…get what I am saying?" The blush zeroed in on her cheeks and her intelligible portions of face, despite her face being caked with a dozen of makeup. 

Wooshik listened to what the women had to say attentively, before making any comment, 

"Well Leia, I understand that. However, that doesn't explain why my ma would lie to me telling me that she set up a blind date for me." 

"She has remained partially true though," Leia wrinkled her face, the linings of her makeup strenuous, "You have not seen me before, it is indeed a blind date on your part. Apart from that, if your mother told you to meet your possible fiancée, would you have come here today? Or be conversing with me right now?" 

Wooshik had prepared nothing in his mind that could quench that rhetorical question,

"........"

"Well, there you get your answer!" The woman held forth the menu card, "Anyway, let's make our orders first. We can continue talking, then. It's on me, alright?"

Wooshik grabbed the menu card and put it down, "Leia…let me tell you the truth…"

"Let's make our orders first, I will listen to all lies and truths thereafter. I shall call the wai-"

"Leia!!" Seemingly uninviting, Wooshik pronounced her name again, "You have to listen to me. I don't want to give you false hopes or want you to have expectations about anything."

Conceding the gravity of the situation, Leia's buoyancy successively disappeared— she sat twiddling her thumbs for Wooshik to do the rest of the talking. 

"Leia…" Wooshik guiltily peeked at the brunette, touching his face often, "I am sorry but I don't think we will ever work out. In fact, that is the sole reason my mother acts too worried for me. She says this is abnormal," he looked at the woman to present her disquiet. 

"What- what is abnormal?" Leia was bothered. 

"That I don't feel any attraction towards women. Whether mentally, physically, sexually, I barely feel any attraction towards the opposite sex. Back in my high-school, I found my classmates of the other gender pretty, some of them attractive, the rest of them seductive. But typically whatever is known as that romantic connection, I- I just don't feel it!" 

"Are you meaning to say you- uhm, I am not sure if I should say this since it could be offensive to some, but are you into men?" Leia began to bite her lips as soon as she had speared the words, "I am sorry. I meant no offence."

Wooshik assuaged the environment with his heart lifting chuckle, "These things sounds offensive to some certain cluster of idiots who are usually termed as," he quoted with his pair of fingers from both the hands, "homophobes." 

Leia gawky nodded her head, "So are you one of them?" She said with much more boldness than last time now that she could evaluate Wooshik was not half as judgemental. 

"Well…I wouldn't say I am an absolute gay, since I sometimes do feel attracted to some women I see around me, especially female artists like Ariana, Taylor, Blake Lively and others. As for Korean artists, I don't know many of them, I feel really uninterested but I don't like the girl group SNSD, apart from that I have neither shown, nor felt any attraction towards any women, celebrity or not. 

But at the same time, all my celeb crushes are male— starting with Leonardo Dicaprio and ending at Zee Pruk Panich, the Thai actor. Now you decide what I am?" Wooshik allocating the task of figuring him out to Leia, prepared to take a hasty look at their menu.

"Well…all you told is about actors and celebrities. What am I supposed to decipher from that? Crushing on popular figures isn't the same as having feelings for a person truly from the bottom of your heart, though, unless that is just one popular figure you stick to. And from your words I feel like that is not the case." 

"That's exactly how I feel, too. I, myself don't know what I am and when I am not certain about my own certainties, how can I ruin some other woman's life? But one thing I can say for sure is that the thought of marriage or establishing a family with any woman creeps me out. It's not that the thoughts of creating a family with a same-sex person makes me any happier or calmer, but that is because I am never even let to think about it. If I am let, I might figure out my orientation," 

Wooshik let loose of his grave mien, "So that is all about me. Usually my other dates or more prominently blind dates rushed away from me after hearing this. I would like to seek your reaction, Miss Doh."

"I would prefer you to call me Leia," she put both her forearms on the table, getting up— Wooshik conceived the idea that Leia was leaving too, alike his past dates.

"Leia, don't leave yet! At least let me treat you to-"

Bringing a pause at Wooshik's offerings, Leia put his chummy hands on the man's shoulder, "I feel like…" she launched into whispering, "You already have someone in that place, you're just either too shy or too afraid to admit," she identified Wooshik's breasts.

"Leia, that's not…"

"Wooshik, right?" Leia bit in her lower lip, "So, let's be friends, at least, Wooshik? I am not running away, I would never. Let us give a chance, maybe now we will be friends but who knows the future, right?" She shrugged insouciant.

"Even if we don't work out, I don't care. You can leave me whenever you please!!"

Wooshik shook off, "No, Leia. Even if we do not work out as a couple, I promise to be your friend forever. None stayed after hearing the truth about me, none except…you." 

Leia accorded with, "And I promise to be with you until you find your love, whether it is me or somebody else," she said, smiling pleasantly.

-End of flashback-

"I haven't forgotten, Woo," Leia appeared dull, as he buzzed with her response, "I would like an Espresso," she blinked insistently, trying her best to endure the threatening tears which formed a lump at her throat. 

"Waiter, one Espresso and one café mocha, please," Wooshik gave instructions to the waiter, afterwards returning to Leia.

"Leia…I think it is time for us-" he halted, "No, it is time for me to remind you that we are not exactly what is usually understood by a couple. So…"

"Why are you beating around the bush?" The brunette woman got rid of the tiny sparkle which emanated at the corner of her eye, flicking it away, "You want to break up, right, Woo?" She forced a chuckle— a very mundane one,

"And you have feelings for the boy I complimented while you were stalking his profile, right?"

"Leia…"

"Sehun. That is his name right?" 

Wooshik was steeped in guilt, "Leia, you look really beautiful today!" 

"It is not your fault, Woo. You stayed true to your words, you are the perfect gentleman anyone could ever lay their eyes on. It was me, it has always been me. I messed up my feelings, I began to confuse our friendship for love. And I know somewhere you did begin to believe that our platonic bond might end at a loveless marriage since you had no other option,"

Leia yet then couldn't help but blush at her ex boyfriend's words, "I only will ask for one last request from you. You cannot turn me down."

"What is it?" Wooshik became too eager to listen to her.

"I want to meet the boy who won over your heart so easily. I want to…meet Sehun."

Ensuing, the waiter arrived with their orders— Mun Hosung. At the notice of Wooshik's sight, the waiter's arm began to falter— as a result, both Leia's Espresso and Wooshik's café mocha was spilled on the lassie's dearest black jumper, leaving some 'hard-to-get-rid-of' caffeine blotches. 

"HIYA!!!" Leia stood from her seat, giving an i ingenious push on the burly waiter, "ARE YOU BLIND OR WH-"

"MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!!" Hosung prepared a fist to hit on the woman's nose, gradually lowering it however.

"HOW AM I GOING TO GET RID OF THESE STAINS NOW, YOU BUFFOON?"

"MA'AM IF YOU DON'T STOP YELLING LIKE THE BUFFALO YOU ARE, I'LL MAKE SURE TO BRING TWO OTHER CUPS OF COFFEE AND PURPOSEFULLY SPILL IT ON YOU SO THAT YOU CAN NEVER GET RID OF THEM!!

And the both kept incessantly hollering at each other. 

Wooshik stayed put at his place, wondering why Hosung was not expelled yet since the last time he caused the blunder— he couldn't recall however, when was a time when 'The Mun Hosung' did his job without giving rise to a clanger. 

He held back his disdainful simper, prying over them,

"It always starts with a cup of spilled coffee."

-

"Watch your steps. Careful!" Sehun put an arm around Minhyuk's neck line because the older felt upstairs to be too muggy and wanted to relax for a bit. They soon arrived at the riser and Sehun came to the aid of Minhyuk walking to the rugged divan,

"Are you feeling better now, Minnie?"

The blue barnets nodded, a defiant assurance—

"Don't worry about me, Eve. You should do your work now. Thank you for helping me!" 

"It's nothing praiseworthy. I just did my job,"  the younger one put the jacket which Wooshik slipped to him that morning around Minhyuk, "I will go check on Daeseong hyung, he said he will be making breakfast today."

It went without saying, Minhyuk felt envious of seeing Sehun having the possession of their Captain's jacket— he couldn't let slip of those days when Sehun would demand for his shirts, and wore them in front of anyone, untroubled about everything. 

In lieu, Sehun was welcomed with an emptiness and chopped red chillies at the kitchen. Presupposing what might the case be, Sehun walked out of their kitchen,

"Uhm Minnie…Daeseong hyung had gone out for some important matter to settle, I believe. May I make breakfast in place of him? I mean, none of us could work efficiently with empty stomachs, so…" he stood, fidgeting with his brown locks.

"Do you know how to cook?" Minhyuk presented his concern, "Are you familiar with fire and all the hazards cooking might cause?"

"Err…" Sehun picked on his nails awkwardly, "To be honest, I don't. I really don't have any experience in cooking. But I might try-"

"Forget it!" The older man went off half-cocked, "Joon will do it for us. You should focus on your case."

The remaining day went haphazard— Chris and Daeseong stayed out for the day in that episode. Joon looked after Minhyuk, who was again playing video games on his laptop. Sehun, overworking himself on the sketches, felt drained, furling himself into a ball due to the cold. 

Sehun was all ears to hear the door unsecure, and he knew his Captain would come in— he waited for the whole day just to encounter that only moment. 

And the youngest's bliss knew no restrictions after the man had appeared into what Sehun now might term as his 'abode',

"Are you really going to just take care of me silently? Always?"

He held Wooshik's wrist when he grasped that his Captain has covered his little psyche to keep him warm, and that he had also taken off the glasses Sehun was wearing—

Without uttering a word, Sehun parted his lids leisurely, sitting upright, tugging the older man by his wrist. Even though Sehun did not undergo any speech, his mind was too chaotic, 

"Why are you not petting my head, even after wanting to do it?"

Sehun, thus, took up the initiative himself to make his Captain pet on his brown barnets.

By degrees, he turned around to shed a glance at the younger boy who was reclining just awhile ago in deep slumber, 

"Sehun?" Wooshik's eyes widened, while his arm was being persistently rubbed over by Sehun on his own feathery hairs. 

Sehun put a finger on his own lips.

"S- Sehun??"

Sehun's grey eyes were unflappable, his smile sculpted into adoration, a yearning— "Captain? Where were you? I missed-"

Wooshik put an imprudent palm over Sehun's lips, "I went to…meet my girlfriend."

Putting in words, Wooshik rapidly fled from the place, leaving Sehun with his eyes loaded with tears. 

"Captain??" A grief came in waves for the younger, as he watched the senior walk in the detention room, closing its door— crushing Sehun's soul.

"You…love someone else?" He slumped into the divan, streams of tears flooding perpetually from his eyes with occasional sniffles. He took a last look at Wooshik's highlander before plunging it away from him and curling himself against the soft vinyl seat again, while he felt that the world came crashing down on him, putting an end to everything even before they had began— closing his eyes, trying to sleep, as a tear escaped from the corner of his left eye. 

Wooshik held the door tight behind that desertion— tears welled from deep inside and coursed down his cheeks. He squeezed his eyelids shut in the hope his tears would stop— they did not, no matter how much Wooshik endeavoured. He sat on the floor, despondent. Wooshik's choppy breathing and watery eyes remained, as he sat there unmoving, hiccuping, oftentimes even hitting himself, 

"I am sorry. I am sorry, Sehun!!!" 

-•☆•-