black coffee | soonhoon

Thirty Two

He hears the familiar tinkle of the café's bell and Jihoon shakes the fine flakes of snow from his boots.

It's the first snow he's seen in a couple of years, since the freezing winter when he was 14. Before that, he was 13, then it was when he was 10. He glances around the café, looking for a particular face but not finding it. Eventually he walks up to the counter, where Kihyun greets him.

After sitting down, he pulls his phone from his pocket. No texts have come through. Noticing the low battery, Jihoon scans for a charger port but sees none available.

He shivers, wrapping his coat tighter around him. All of the seats by the fire are taken, full of people trying to melt their toes and regain feeling in their fingers. Jihoon's fingerless gloves do nothing to help him do that, so he settles for wrapping them around the steaming coffee when it's finally placed on his table.

"So...." Kihyun begins, swinging a leg over the stool next to Jihoon. "What's up?"

"The sky."

Kihyun rolls his eyes, "No shit, Sherlock. I mean, what's up with you? You look like you just got broken up with by the love of your life."

Chuckling, Jihoon lets out a broken sighs, "Feels like it. I'm fine, just not having a great day."

Kihyun nods, unconvinced. "Is it about Soonyoung?"

The younger nearly chokes on his coffee, so surprised by the statement that he has to take a minute to regain himself.

"W-what? What do you mean?" He laughs.

Again, Kihyun isn't convinced.

"Please, I see the way you look at him." He leans closer, smirking, "Your little ass thinks no ones watching, but I'm always here - in the background. Observing..."

"Stop being so creepy."

The both of them turn to see a guy standing behind them. The guy grins at Kihyun before collapsing into the chair across from Jihoon.

"I hope he's not intimidating you. I'm Hyunwoo, this asshole's boyfriend."

Kihyun's Jae drops open and he glares at Hyunwoo, "Hey! That's mean! This is the kid I was telling you about."

This time it's Jihoon's turn to frown, "I'm not a kid!"

Kihyun brushes him off, "Oh for God's sake, you're basically fresh out of the womb."

"You're only three years older than me!"

"And three years wiser my friend. My friend, who - I can say for sure - has a fat crush on my other friend, who can't stop talking about him." This is new news to Jihoon, and he finds himself blushing against his will.

He attempts to hide it, but Hyunwoo notices, "HAH! He's blushing!" The two boyfriends begin whooping and clapping, attracting attention from other customers.

"I'm just cold..." Jihoon tries to cut in, but they don't listen.

"Kihyun! I swear to god if I catch you slacking once more you're out!" Chankyun's angry voice comes from the back, and Kihyun's eyes widen.

"Shit, gotta go lads." With that, he runs off.

Once he's out of earshot, Jihoon turns to Hyunwoo. "Does Soonyoung really talk about me?"

The older smirks, "So you're admitting it?"

"Pfft, no. I'm just curious."

"Sure you are." Kihyun and Hyunwoo seem to share the same lie detector skill and also their intolerance for bullshit. The way Hyunwoo sighs makes it obvious to Jihoon that nothing he can say will cover it up.

"I don't know, ok? There, I admitted it."

Hyunwoo finally smiles. Not a smirk or disbelieving twitch, but a genuine smile.

"Why are you smiling?"

"Because admitting it to yourself is the first step in admitting it to him," Hyunwoo answers like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Okay, so what's the next step?" Jihoon ponders, suddenly intrigued in this all mighty scheme that Hyunwoo has.

"Second," the older holds up two fingers, "You need to spend more time with them. It's the only way you're gonna find out if they like you back," he smiles smugly.

Before Jihoon can reply, Kihyun appears in a flash. "I would normally finish in fifteen minutes, but your brother's being a dick and holding me back for another half hour. Can you go talk to him please." He runs off again, going straight into the back room.

Sighing, Hyunwoo stands up, "Well, I need to go. We're going on a date tonight and Changkyun is not going to ruin that." He gives Jihoon one last smile before the chair legs scrape back under the table and he leaves Jihoon alone with his thoughts. His thoughts, which he seems to have quite a few recently.

His phone buzzes, breaking the silence in his head with its screeching alarm. Hurriedly, he picks up his phone but sighs when it's just Yoongi.

I'm not gonna be home for two days. Don't burn the house down.

Jihoon replies briefly with a K before he stands up as well, finally deciding to leave the café and it's dulled lights as it misses the one thing that brightens the whole building.

No, fuck the building. It's missing the one thing that brightens the world.

Ew.
He hits himself on the head as he walks into the crisp cold. That's cheesy as fuck. But he can't help the small, sickeningly sweet smile that appears only moments later.

If updates start to slow a bit or get shorter or get messier and have more mistakes (hopefully they won't) I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time and it's not helping that school is getting harder and adding more pressure. The days are flying by and I'm losing track of things.