In the debate world, there are five unspoken rules. The first four are trivial; simple social laws that every sane person would understand.
But the last one. Now that's something.
Rule Number Five: Never, ever, under any circumstances, date your d...
In fact, it was usually the other way around, because he was the social one in this family. His brother would always be the one urging them to get going, or mulling around school while he finished up the last of his conversations with some newly-made friends.
So when it was his turn to do the waiting, when Minho was finally the one with something to do, it made him bored out of his mind.
Jisung was with Minho and Hyunjin had a family dinner party, leaving Felix to wander the Academy alone and aimlessly after Physics, because he had been stupid and forgotten to get the numbers of everyone else.
Thus, he considered it a stroke of luck when he found Chan and Changbin by the steps of the English department, and it was a tantalizing miracle when they decided to take him out into the streets of Macmillan. A "necessary trip" for anybody new to the Academy, they said.
He went along willingly, obviously. Anything was better than staring into the tinted glass windows of one of the classrooms and spending an hour or two counting his freckles.
So, nearly an hour later, Felix found himself on the second floor of Blue Caramel, sitting on the most comfortable public chair he had ever come across, and staring at the prettiest arrangement of food ever.
Never mind the latte art, or the cat-shaped macarons. Was it even possible to make pancakes so perfectly? They were unnervingly round and not a single spot was off-coloured. "The trick is in the butter," Bella had told him, winking, when he asked her about it.
Bella's hands were made of magic. There was no other explanation.
"You know, staring at it won't make it go away," Changbin said as he picked up another spoonful of curry.
"It's too pretty. I can't touch it."
"That's actually the exact same thing almost all of us said our first time coming here," Chan chuckled. He picked up his sandwich. "The great thing about Blue Caramel is that is never gets old. You haven't lived if you haven't tried everything in Bella's cookbook."
Felix broke the staring contest he was having with his pancakes to switch his gaze to Chan. "You've tried everything?" he sputtered out. "That menu is massive."
The captain shrugged. "Took quite a few trips over the last few years."
"It turned into a competition between us and Bella at some point," Changbin said. "A race for whoever got to the end of the menu first. It's also the reason why Bella started adding weekly specials and limited edition desserts—to slow us down.
"We had to eat those as well to complete the challenge, and if we missed even one after they disappeared off the menu, then we'd be disqualified. Hyunjin went on vacation to the Bahamas one time last summer, and he paid Bella three hundred dollars a day to suspend the weekly specials for a month. Seungmin also once tried to bribe her by saying he'd do her taxes for a year."
