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SUMMER
There’s nothing in the world that Chenle hates more than grocery shopping. First, it required going outside and going outside meant he should probably shower if he doesn’t want to die of heat stroke.
Chenle hates showering. It’s not because he’s disgusting like Renjun had snidely commented—no, he just hates the feeling of dousing himself in cold water. One could argue that he can just turn on the heater but he’s too lazy to do it. Plus, Donghyuck loves showering with cold water especially now when the summer heat has been driving everyone crazy. It has especially been making Renjun even more cranky. Or maybe that’s just because of the tension between him and Donghyuck that Chenle refuses to get himself involved in. It was too messy.
Second, grocery shopping meant he had to carry a lot of things by himself. He’s perfectly capable of lifting a weight—he’s not Renjun—but he’s not Jeno either. He can carry the groceries well enough if it was only for one person but he’s in a flat share with four other men who eat a lot. He has a lot to buy which means he has a lot to carry back home as well.
Lastly, he could never remember to keep track of his cart. Like now.
He parked it in one spot to look at the wall of haribos, wondering which brand Jeno liked the most. Once he got at least three variants, he turned back to place the candies there but his cart was suddenly nowhere to be found.
He looked away for a minute, and when he looked back, it’s suddenly gone. Like magic.
Instead of his cart, there’s a cart near where he parked his.
He looks around and wonders who’d be stupid enough to steal something that hasn’t even been paid for yet and his eyes narrow when he spots someone a few feet away, pushing a cart with at least ten packs of bokchoy. His cart. Chenle was a hundred and one percent sure that it was his cart. No sane person would shop and put ten packs of bokchoy and asparagus in their cart, as Mark has kindly put it before.
The man must have mistaken his cart for his because the cart near him now wasn’t there earlier when Chenle left his.
“Ya!” Chenle screamed. The man pushing the cart—his cart—didn’t stop. Chenle took the cart that was parked near his and runs to the man, hoping to God he didn’t just take someone else’s cart. “Hey!”
The man still does not stop which prompted Chenle to run as fast as he could with 5 kilograms worth of junk on the cart he’s carrying to weigh him down. He couldn’t even help but judge the content of the whole cart because it really was nothing but pure junk foods and candy bars.
“Hey,” he screamed as loud as he can. Some people turn to look but the man continues to ignore him so Chenle does the only thing he could do to stop the man. He pushes the cart he’s holding until it hits the back of the man’s legs.
He hears a squeak as the man topples down to the floor, clutching the back of his legs. “What in the world—”
“Yah! That’s my cart, idiot.” Chenle said, hurrying to the man’s side to hold on to his cart. Thankfully, every bokchoy, asparagus, and Renjun’s barley tea were intact. The man hasn’t touched anything from his groceries.
He looked down and immediately closes his mouth from blubbering as the man removed his airpods and turns to look at him with an astounded face.
“Wh—Why, what are you doing? Who even are you? Why would you hit me like that?” The man sputtered before he stood up, brushing himself. “And what are you doing with my cart?”
Chenle blinked up. He’s tall. Chenle’s a fairly tall person (and he always lorded this fact over Renjun) but this man is extra tall—so tall that Chenle even has to look up. It was quite intimidating but Chenle’s never been one to back down so he puffed his chest as best as he can.
“This is my cart. And you took it from me. You weren’t stopping even though I kept calling you so—”
“So you pushed a cart on me?” The man looked at him incredulously before his eyes flicker to the cart that Chenle’s currently holding. His face became red once he sees that it’s full of bokchoy and asparagus, instead of the one from his (hopefully, it is his) that’s full of junk. “I’m sorry, I didn’t notice I took the wrong one. But couldn’t you have tapped my shoulder like a normal person?”
It was Chenle’s turn to blush. He clears his throat and tries his best to sound as sure as he can. “I panicked and I thought you were trying to steal my cart away.”
“It hasn’t even been paid for yet.”
“I’ve spent an hour collecting those things! I don’t wanna go through the trouble of going through it again.”
“You spent an hour collecting…” the man looks at his cart. Chenle almost wanted to put his body in front of the cart to hide the things he’s put in there but he remained where he is. He’s a strong person. A little judgement from a stranger won’t hurt him. “Bokchoy and asparagus?”
“And barley too.”
The man looked at him in disbelief but before he could say anything else, Chenle harrumphed and leaves for the counter with his cart in hand. Doesn’t matter that there’s nothing else in his cart but bokchoy, asparagus, and barley tea. He didn’t even get the haribo. Jeno can get his own haribo if he wants it so bad. Chenle thought to himself.
There’s nothing more he hates than grocery shopping.
AUTUMN
Chenle’s in a bad mood today which isn’t exactly a rare sight these days. University has been eating him alive and no amount of reassurance from Mark could ever make him feel better.
He’s got a paper to turn in later and although he usually loves talking bullshit in his papers, his brain has been bled dry of any words and creativity lately, what with the pile of things he has to write to even dream about passing his classes.
He curses his past self for choosing to major in English when he could’ve just went to art school like Renjun. Not like he’s doing better either. In fact, he looks the worst than all five of them combined.
The stress of being in University has made everyone around the flat share so tense lately that the idea of coffee sounds especially good today. He closes his eyes as he rolls his head, hearing a small crack. He really could use that coffee.
Thankfully, the cafe that Donghyuck is working on isn’t far off from his building which is why he immediately made his way there. He just hopes Jaemin, Donghyuck’s scary manager isn’t there today so he can snag a free bagel.
He rushes to the café and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees from the glass walls that the line isn’t long today. He’s about to enter, following a tall guy in, when the tall guy stops and tries to pull the door open to no avail. He tries to pull again but it still doesn’t budge.
Chenle raises a brow. This continues on for a minute. The sight is just so ridiculous that Chenle couldn’t help but snort which eventually turns into a laugh.
The guy startles and turns to him. “What are you laughing at?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just that the sign says to ‘Push’.”
The guy stares at him, eyes widening for a bit. “You—it’s you again!”
Chenle blinks. He what? He looks around warily. “Me?”
“Yes you! It’s you! That guy from the grocery!”
Chenle frowns at him. “I don’t work at the grocery store.”
“No, no, I mean you’re the guy who pushed the cart on me!”
Chenle gapes. “Oh,” he grins sheepishly. “Geez, I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
“Of course I’d remember you, you harassed me!”
Chenle scowls. “That wasn’t harassment. Plus you stole my cart, remember?”
“I didn’t steal it. You know you could have approached me like a normal person, right?”
“You weren’t listening!” Chenle puffs his cheeks, feeling them turning red. He looks away. “Plus it was a long time ago. You have to like move on or something.”
The tall man scrunches his nose, shaking his head. “How am I supposed to move on when you didn’t even say sorry?”
Chenle looks at him incredulously. “Dude, I’m sorry, okay? Are we good now? Can you just get inside so I can get my coffee?”
“No. I’m not going inside until you say sorry.”
“I just did.”
“That wasn’t even sincere.”
Chenle raises his arms up disbelievingly. “Well, if you aren’t going in, I am.” He sidesteps the guy and goes inside the café. Chenle could hear him sputter behind him but he pays him no mind and proceeds to go to the counter where Donghyuck is stationed.
“I’m not giving you a free bagel.” Donghyuck greets.
“Wasn’t gonna ask you to.” Chenle lies, and proceeds to prattle on his order. He hears the bell from the café door chime but he doesn’t turn to look at it.
He feels someone settle in beside him. Chenle absolutely does not look.
“You’re a very rude person. I hope you know that.” The person who stood beside him suddenly says.
Chenle doesn’t answer and keeps his mouth shut.
Donghyuck blinks at the new guy. Chenle does his best to pretend he doesn’t notice the guy but his efforts are broken when Donghyuck turns to him instead. “Uhm… do you know—”
“What’s rude is telling a stranger that they’re rude.” Chenle rounds on the guy, completely ignoring Donghyuck.
The guy looks down at him and Chenle hates the fact that he has to look up because it’s not exactly making him look intimidating right now.
“You at least owe me coffee for always being so rude to me. First at the grocery and now here.”
“How was I rude to you today?”
“You laughed at me instead of just helping me out like a normal person.”
Chenle wanted to hit the guy. “I laughed because you were being stupi—”
“You know as much as I would love to see this mating dance of yours,” Donghyuck cuts in, looking like he wants to be anywhere but behind that counter. “You’re holding up the line.”
Chenle huffs, giving him his card. “Here you go. Just get whatever he wants to.”
The man beside him perks up. “Really?”
Chenle rolls his eyes. “Yeah so just shut up and stop bothering me about the grocery thing.”
“Okay,” the man grins and offers his hand. “I’m Jisung Park, by the way.”
Chenle looks at it and (up) at the man’s face and turns away instead. “I’m not telling you my name, weirdo.”
The guy scoffs and is opening his mouth to say but stops with a frown instead.
Donghyuck smirks. And because he’s a menace, he says, “Introduce me to your new friend, Chenle.”
If he didn’t need Donghyuck alive to help them pay rent for the flat share, he would’ve killed him years ago. But alas, being an English major doesn’t give him unlimited access to money and despite the quite popular belief, Chenle doesn’t actually live off of his parents money so with that, he’s stuck with having to keep Donghyuck alive.
At least for a couple more years anyway because trust him, there’s no one else in the word that he wants to kill more than Donghyuck.
WINTER
The third time Chenle runs into the guy, it’s in his apartment elevator.
They blink at each other in shock, obviously not expecting to see each other again.
Chenle huffs and enters the elevator, situating himself in the farther end of the small space. It’s a cold day out today so he burrows the lower half of face in his scarf, hands hidden by his sweater sleeve.
“Are you following me?” The guy suddenly says after a second of silence.
Chenle looks at him with an incredulous expression. “Me? I should be asking you that! I live here.”
He probably shouldn’t have revealed that to a stranger but it’s not like there’s any reason why he’d be in an elevator of an apartment unless he lives there anyway.
“Oh. I haven’t really seen you around here.” The guy—Jisung, Chenle recalls—comments, his hands clasped in front of him.
Now that they’re standing in a cramped space, Chenle couldn’t help but notice how much taller the guy is. He’s aware that the guy is tall but he didn’t really expect him to be this tall. Who even needs that much height anyway? Selfish of him, keeping all that height to himself when there are people who need it more.
Like Renjun.
Chenle snorts at his thoughts before clearing his throat because snorting out loud for no reason probably makes him look a little bit unhinged.
“Do you live here too?” Chenle asks instead, peeking at him before going back to staring straight at the doors.
“Uh… I actually don’t.” The guy says sheepishly, rubbing his neck briefly before clasping them in front of himself again. “But a close friend does so I visit a lot. His name’s Jaemin, do you know him?”
Chenle knows a Jaemin—Donghyuck’s café manager, but there’s lots of Jaemin’s in the world so he shakes his head instead.
They stay silent after that, both having run out of things to say.
It’s awkward and he’s cursing the elevator in his head because for some reason, it’s moving quite slow today. It stops on a floor but Jisung makes no move to get out. It opens and number of people go in. Chenle has to move in deeper into the room to make space.
He moves, and moves, and moves—until he bumps into someone behind him. He looks back and sees Jisung raising his brows at him. Great.
“Sorry,” Chenle mumbles, trying his best not to be so conscious of how close they are but it couldn’t be helped—not when the elevator is suddenly so packed that he really has nowhere to go.
A person suddenly grabs the door and enters despite the space already being full.
Chenle refuses to move back even further even though he needs to give space to the man that just entered but he stays rooted on his spot instead.
That’s when he feels two hands gripping him by the waist, pulling him back a step. The next thing he knows, he feels a warm body pressed up behind him.
“Make room for other people. Don’t be so selfish.” Jisung whispers in his ears. He has to bend down to do that but Chenle’s not focusing on that part—nope, he’s definitely not.
Chenle shushes him, face and neck feeling oddly hot despite the cold weather.
Thankfully, it’s not long before the elevator door opens at the ground floor where the people scatter out. Chenle follows suit, hurrying to get away from the heat of the body behind him when he hears a squeak from Jisung.
“What?” he turns to the guy, ready to bolt, when Jisung points at his hand that is still pressed on Chenle’s waist.
Chenle’s about to admonish him for still holding him when he follows his gaze and realizes that Jisung’s silver brecelet has snagged his sweater.
“Are you kidding me?” Chenle grumbles, tugging Jisung’s wrist away from his waist
“Don’t do that. You’re gonna ruin your sweater.” Jisung murmurs before softly removing Chenle’s hands on his wrist and trying to slowly extract the bracelet.
“Faster. The door’s gonna close, idiot.”
Jisung scoffs and rolls his eyes at him. Once he successfully removes the bracelet, Chenle immediately darts out of the elevator, not even bothering to say goodbye.
It was getting too hot in there for some reason.
“Aren’t you even going to say thank you? Or even say good bye?” He hears a voice call out.
He turns to look at the man with an annoyed face. “You wish, Park.”
The man stops walking, grin blooming on his face. “Hey, at least you remember my name.”
Chenle feels his face heat up. He huffs and walks away.
SPRING
Chenle impatiently looks at his watch. He’s been waiting for an hour now and yet Renjun still hasn’t arrived.
The shorter guy was supposed to pick him up about an hour ago and honestly, Chenle wouldn’t have even bothered waiting this long for him if this were any other time anyway. Problem is, he couldn’t exactly just up and leave when his phone has decided to die thirty minutes ago because he was stupid enough to not charge it beforehand and even stupider for watching NBA highlights knowing he doesn’t have a charger with him. Aside from that, he didn’t even bring his wallet with him in the first place because he thought he’d just pay for everything using his phone.
He really just proved how Gen Z he is—barely functioning without a working phone with him.
So now, he’s standing in front of a random clothing shop, hoping that Renjun would get his ass here so he could go home and lock himself in his room to wallow about a grammar exam that he just tanked earlier.
He looks around impatiently again. Maybe Renjun’s being stupid and is walking instead of driving or something. Knowing him, he’d be the type to say how romantic the weather is, especially considering how he never shuts up about his boyfriend telling him how he knows everything about spring because Renjun was born in spring or something.
Chenle shudders at the thought. He still can’t believe that Mark came up with that sickeningly romantic line but a man in love is a man in love. You can’t really do anything to cure homosexuality. Not when said homosexuality involves a three-way with Renjun and Donghyuck anyway.
Chenle’s about to say fuck it and just walk home when his eyes catches a familiar face. He immediately lights up and runs towards the tall man walking in the opposite direction.
“Ya, Park!” He calls out. The man doesn’t turn around. He feels a sense of deja vu—running after the same man who’s probably too engrossed in listening to a song to even pay attention to him. “Park! Park! Hey—Jisung!”
He manages to catch up and taps on the man’s shoulders.
Jisung turns to look at him—startled.
Chenle breathes heavily, leaning on his knees after running. It’s the most he’s been active this week because Jeno has unfairly banned him from playing basketball. Maybe it had something to do with him breaking Jeno’s computer monitor from playing basketball around the house but that’s besides the point.
“You again?” Jisung groans but Chenle sees a smile forming on the corner of his lips anyway. “What, are you stalking me?”
“You wish, Park.” Chenle breathes out before standing straight, holding out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
Jisung furrows his brows. “Are you a thief? Wow, you’re lousy at stealing. Aren’t you supposed to threaten me or something?”
“Do I look like a thief to you?” Chenle waves to his whole body before holding out his hand again. “I need to borrow your phone.”
Jisung rolls his eyes and gives him his phone anyway, mumbling under his breath, “So bossy.”
Chenle takes the phone, dials Renjun’s number and immediately calls him. The fucker picks up after two rings.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“I’m on my way, be patient, would you?” He hears on the other line.
“I’ve been waiting for an hour already.” Chenle irritatedly says, glancing at Jisung who’s pretending not to listen to the conversation but is doing an extremely bad job of it.
“I texted you I’m near already. It took me a while to make my way over because Donghyuck asked me to pick him up first.”
“Well, just hurry up. My phone died and I don’t have any money with me.” He whines.
He hears a sigh from Renjun and another voice pipes up, “You’re an idiot.”
Chenle rolls his eyes when he recognizes that it’s Donghyuck.
“Whatever, just ask Renjun to drive faster.” He grumbles and ends the call, glaring at Renjun’s number from the screen.
“Do you want me to just drop you off to wherever you’re going? I have nothing to do today, anyway.” Jisung suddenly offers, causing Chenle look up at him with a surprised face.
“What? That’s—”
Extremely sweet, is what he thinks.
“Stupid. I can’t accept car rides from a stranger.” Is what he says.
“Rude. I’m not even a stranger at this point.” Jisung comments, moving to snatch his phone back but Chenle dodges him and moves his phone out of the way. “What are you doing? You’re done with it, aren’t you?”
Renjun’s car suddenly pulls up in front of them. The window from the front seat rolls down and Donghyuck is staring at him with a raised brow, smirk on his smug little face. “Oh, look, it’s your little friend again.”
Ironic he’s saying that when he’s dating someone smaller than all the adults Chenle has had the pleasure of knowing.
“My ride’s here.” Chenle says to Jisung instead, choosing to ignore Donghyuck.
But instead of giving Jisung’s phone back, he looks down at it again and types something in. After he’s done, he gives it back to him with a sly grin. “Here, thanks. See you around, Park.”
“I’m sure I will. We always bump into each other anyway.” Jisung says, amused and slightly amazed at the realization that they really do meet at extremely random places.
As soon as Chenle enters the car, he eyes Jisung through the tinted car window and sees him look down to see what Chenle has typed in earlier.
Jisung scoffs, face breaking out into a grin and Chenle feels his heart flutter because he knows he’s definitely the reason for it.
He knows that on Jisung’s phone, there’s a newly created contact staring back at him.
Curry’s #1 Fan 😎, it says.