"Here," Changbin turned around to set the lavender boba drink down on the front of the counter, a light smile tossed to the young businessman standing on the other side. To his chagrin and slight curiosity of what exactly he had been looking at, Hyunjin was dazed out; Staring at something as his gaze tipped down to the older's chest and arms.

Hyunjin lurched as he returned to Earth from the cloud nine he was gawking at or the alternative dimension he let his mind roam free inside. He blanked as his eyes snapped back up to Changbin's face, "Huh?"

"Your drink," He pushed the plastic cup over to him, the familiar purple hue of the liquid sloshing as it inched closer to the other's hand.

"Oh," Hyunjin gaped at the drink for a moment, the realisation seeming to clear his features with a swift slap to the face. He shook his head. The drink was in his grip in the next moment, swooped up into a tight grasp that turned his knuckles white with it's strange insistence. Without another word or anything to explain his odd gaping, he scanned Changbin over one last time, looking at him from head to toe before trudging off to sit down at one of the tables adorning the decorative inside of the boba shop.

Changbin quirked an eyebrow at the back of his head while he shuffled away, coming to fold his arms and prop them up on the counter as he delved into his thoughts. The young business man had been staring at him from the moment he stepped into the shop to order his drink, constantly shifting between shameless gaping and trying not to stare at him at all. Anyway, why had Hyunjin been staring at him so violently? Was it his shirt? Was something stuck to it?

He touched the fabric of his black T-shirt, checking it over as he pinched it between his fingertips and stretched it away from his chest. Nothing was stuck to the fabric. Nothing was staining it, not that they would have been able to see any stains that ruined the shirt since it was the deepest shade of black he had owned in his closet without any sense of color. There weren't logos on it either, so the other hadn't been trying to read any lettering or brands that may have been ironed into the threads. He let go of his inch on the fabric, allowing it to fall back to his skin with ease. Maybe he looked silly in the shirt. Maybe that's what it was.

He knew he shouldn't have worn this shirt. He knew it was too tight on him when he first put it on, but no, he had to convince himself that no one would notice as long as he acted like everything was fine with the world.

"Pst. Babes."

Changbin perked up at the name and shifted to the source of the noise, coming to stare at Jeongin leaning out of the door of the employee backroom. His head was half shoved out, only a single eye peeking from the threshold as if he was a ghost from a horror movie creeping around in the dark of a haunted house to murder the unsuspecting side characters of the theiller. A hand peered from around the edge as well, the fingers shaking as it waved at him. Violently. It took a moment more for him to understand Jeongin was telling him to come to him with the rapid flopping of his hands trying to wordlessly becon him to the backroom. If he was trying to be slick and secretive with the summoning, he wasn't.

And still, for reasons unknown to him, Changbin shoved himself from the counter with a sigh and trailed over to the younger.

As soon as he stepped into the employee backroom, Jeongin was  shoving him against the wall parallel to the door to hide them as they talked. His hands flailed in the air as he raved, "You absolute fool, he was checking you out!"

Changbin scoffed, "You say that about everyone who walks through those doors. Not everyone checks me out."

"Uh, yeah! Because, guess what! Most people do!" Jeongin hissed lowly to him, his voice keeping quiet as to not disturb or alert anyone of their topic of conversation while still maintaining the aggressive angle of his words to stab the line of thought into his being as deeply as the black ink lodged underneath his skin. He backed up from him, his open hands gesturing up and down to the older's disbelieving scoff as another onslaught of quiet lectures barraged him, "You're hot. Really, really hot. People have awakenings just by making eye contact with you. You're not my type in the slightest and even I can admit you're a walking masterpiece."

Changbin crossed his arms over his chest, his legs following suit of the fold. He drawed the tone long to the other, the lengthened syllables accenting his doubt to the younger and his words, "Right."

Seriously, checking him out? No way. That man, Hyunjin? He seemed like a complete idiot with minimal to no thought behind those eyes. If he even thought about another person on a day to day basis was truly a miracle and the work of an all-powerful being. Even if he was thinking about him, even if he did check him out from the other side of the counter, it didn't matter to him. 

"I know what I saw! I know when someone is checking out someone else, and babes? He's not being subtle at all. He was biting his lips and shit when you weren't looking," Jeongin continued to disclose to him, the fierce snaps and bites coming from him pressing the older to lean farther into the projection of the wall. Regardless of if Changbin knew he could suplex the younger at any moment, that didn't make his indignant raging about the young businessman any less concerning. The younger narrowed his eyes into a scowl and jammed a finger at him, "I get paid jack shit at this damn boba tea shop to do a job and simultaneously be your emotional support bra. I've seen too much to not know. Mark my words. That fucker is into you."

"Okay first, you never do your job. You leave it to me always, and yeah? How do you know for sure? There's probably an extremely reasonable explanation for it without it being him checking me out," Changbin slapped the finger shoved into him away. It came back. He swatted it away again. It came back. He swatted it. It came back. He grabbed the finger, and held it off to the side as he argued back, "Why would I believe you?"

"Who of us is sandwiched between two hunks of roast beef every night and who is crying into their pillow from their crippling loneliness?"

"I did not cry into my pillow from crippling loneliness, I cried because I stepped on a cockroach with my bare feet."

"Your company at night is cockroaches."'

"I just don't see it," Changbin finalized with a huff. He leaned over to the open door to peer through and catch sight of the man sitting at the table; His focus concentrated on typing on his phone with one hand, the other wrapped around the top of the boba drink as he sipped on it, his body relaxed back into the chair with his legs folded over, oblivious to the one scrutinizing him from the threshold. Changbin forced himself to say, "Plus, he's probably as straight as they come."

Jeongin leaned over as well, following suit to peer at the one they were talking about. He laughed, "That is not a straight man."

"That is a straight man."

"Straight men do not sit like that."

"They can if they want to?"

"He's not straight."

"Okay, and if he wasn't not straight then he still wasn't checking me out."

"He was devouring you alive, Babes. He was gawking at you and your arms and your tattoos and your body like he would've taken you over the counter then," Jeongin projected. He grabbed onto Changbin's shoulders to pull them both to stand upright and press him back ainto the wall, the same furiousness about him as his grip tightened impossibly on the shoulders. His eyebrows wiggled at him as he simpered, "Look. I'm not saying I'm right, but I'm fucking right."

"Okay, then, how about this," Changbin started. He knocked the hands off him with a bump to the wrists and a solemn shrug, "I don't want a relationship."

"Bin," He tried, his face falling with a sorrow the older recognized immediately.

"No," Changbin insisted. The arms folded over his chest tightened their grip, fingers digging into the flesh of his forearms as he dropped his gaze to the comfort of the floor in front of him. He shook his head, a light breath tumbling from his lips as he tried to ease the pinch which tried to play his heartstrings as if they were a harp that chimed their broken song. He glowered at the tile floors, and the pair of converse which sat patiently in his line of sight, "I can't. Even if he was checking me out without the idea of a relationship in mind, I refuse. I don't want it."

Jeongin countered, "I don't want you to get more Lorde lyrics tattooed on your ankle either but we all make sacrifices."

Changbin's gaze snapped back up to the younger, a bewilderedness causing him to furrow his eyebrows.

He opened his mouth to respond.

Then closed it.

His mind was empty.

How was he supposed to respond to that?

While the younger stared at him with a finalizing confidence that argued for him to say nothing else, all Changbin could do was stand with his jaw slack.

"I get you're still reeling or whatever, but at least let me prove it to you."

"You're not going to prove anything because he isn't. He isn't into me. He comes here because he likes boba tea."

"Sure. Fine. Believe that," Jeongin leered. He set his hand on his hip, the other waving him off as he walked away with the grumble of, "Lavender boba tea too? That's shits disgusting. There's no way he likes it."

Changbin just snorted at him, brushing his antics off as he pushed off from the wall and returned to the counter.

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