Mystery Tattoo | Norenmin

Chapter 13: Na Jaemin

Jaemin gave Ten a big smile as he walked into the tattoo parlor, the bell on top of the door dinging faintly. Ten returned the smile and Jaemin made his way over to the reception desk.

"Jaemin, how's my favorite gay doing?" Ten smiled and Jaemin laughed at the greeting.

"Do you even need to ask?" Jaemin smiles, taking one of the wrapped candies off of Ten's desk, popping it quickly into his mouth before Ten can yell and snatch it out of his hand.

"That's coming out of your paycheck," Ten grumbles and rolls his eyes at Jaemin's pouty face, "I'm not swayed so easily, you devil. Jeno and Renjun may be whipped but I see the type of person you are." Ten threatens and Jaemin laughs, almost evil like.

"They'll never believe you." Jaemin smiles, almost too sweetly, and plops himself into one of the waiting chairs. "Do you know when Sicheng is going to be here? I was supposed to meet him at 2 to shadow him instead of Renjunnie?"

At this Ten lets out a small gasp and shuffles around the papers scattered around his desk until he finally found what he had been looking for; a small, pink sticky note. He quickly handed it over to Jaemin who glanced at Ten's calligraphy and let out a sigh.

Call from Sicheng, Train is running an hour late from the city, one of the gears broke off, be back around 3-3:30 give or take, tell Jaemin sorry and chill until back

"Great," Jaemin grumbled, crumpling up the sticky note before throwing it in Ten's garbage can. He stood up and Ten gave him an apologetic look.

"You can hang around in the backroom until then, I'm sure Renjun has some snacks that he left in there, just take off the note that says 'Renjun's DO NOT TOUCH' and you won't feel guilty." Jaemin laughed at Ten's antics which he was quickly becoming familiar with and grabbed his bag off the floor where he had dumped it. He gave a small wave to Ten before heading down the hallway which was slowly becoming more acquainted with.

He placed his bag on the circle table that took up the middle of the backroom, chairs haphazardly placed around. He looked over to the kitchen counter, walking to pull open the offwhite fridge, only to be met with a carton of almond milk, a container of something suspicious, and a bunch of sauces in the fridge door.

Sighing, he closed the fridge before looking over the counter for something to eat. He quickly spotted a box of cookies from the bakery a couple of stores down and happily approached them, taking a chocolate wafer covered with sprinkles and popping it in his mouth. He munched happily on the desert and sat down on one of the chairs, completely missing the sticky note that read "there better not be a single one of these cookies gone, I've counted every single one and specially picked them - Renjun."

Jaemin wiped his hands from cookie crumbs before pulling his bag open, taking out his treasured sketchbook. The front cover had rubbed of edged and a tear from the one time he had to wrestle it out of Hyuck's hands when he grabbed it. He hadn't talked to Hyuck for days afterward, only forgiving the boy when he offered to buy the coffee-addict as much coffee as he wanted for the week. Haechan's pockets were considerably lighter and bumped back his college loan payments by a week.

Jaemin flipped the book open, quickly flipped through his progress. He was specifically working on the human body, their functions, and emotions. Many of the pages were limbs and faces drawn countless times until they seemed almost perfect to Jaemin. Many of the faces and bodies were actually people who he saw at the coffee shop. He had picked up the habit of sitting there and observing the students passing in and out, drawing those who would stay long enough for him too. So far he only had a couple of full pages of people, his personal favorite being a young boy who he guessed was a freshman. The boy had walked into the shop with striking blue hair and he had immediately stopped his drawing to flip the page and start a new sketch of the boy.