Dark Purple Rose [YiZhan FF]

Chapter 35

Zhan was sitting to Yibo's left on the sofa and to Yibo's right was Seungyoun, who came over with his boyfriend Wooseok the evening after Zhan had given his okay to invite Youn to his apartment. Wooseok had made himself comfortable in the armchair and set about decrypting the USB stick. He had even brought his own laptop, on which all the decryption software was stored, to hopefully speed up the decryption process. However, he was distracted by his work on the laptop and so Zhan sat next to the two best friends, who were talking animatedly about past missions, while Yibo held Zhan's hand so tightly that it almost hurt.

As soon as they arrived, Yibo had taken Zhan's hand and told them, "Zhan and I are a couple now." That was the end of the topic, no questions or anything else on the subject, and they were able to move on to the snacks that Zhan had prepared after he and Yibo had gone shopping. Zhan served a few cocktails, wine and beer with the snacks. Almost everything was available, depending on taste. Zhan himself avoided alcohol and mixed himself a non-alcoholic cocktail. He wanted to get through the evening with a clear mind. Somehow he thought it was better. Because he was still all too aware of how jealous he had been of Seungyoun and feared that this jealousy could come through again if he wasn't careful, despite his knowledge that Youn was in a relationship with Wooseok.

The jealousy did not return that evening. But a good dose of envy did. Envy that Yibo and Seungyoun had known each other since they were young and had many stories to share. Zhan, on the other hand, had not even known Yibo for a month. At least not the real Yibo. And Seungyoun knew the stories that he and Yibo had experienced just as well as if he had been there. Of course, he is also an agent at the same agency as Yibo. So of course he knows exactly what happened with Zhan and Yibo.

So Zhan just sat next to the two of them and listened with envy to their shared stories about their youthful sins, their training, their first missions and so on. A few times, while listening to them, Zhan thought that the two sounded like two old war veterans as they recounted their missions. But these stories clearly demonstrated something to Zhan. They were not as experienced as Zhan had initially assumed.

Yes, the two best friends have had a few successful missions. But none of their missions could even begin to compare to the mission now. This was not just a different house number, as they say, but a whole skyscraper, as Zhan thought. This mission has taken on a dimension where the experience of the two of them is far from being enough. Nevertheless, Zhan is sure that at least Yibo will manage to make the mission a success. As for Youn, he couldn't say much. He hardly knew him. He knew the idol Kim Seungyoun better than the agent Kim Seungyoun. Or rather, the real Youn. So he couldn't allow himself to judge.

When Yibo and Youn started talking about another of their stories, Zhan cursed inwardly. He was annoyed that he hadn't invited any of his closest friends. If he had, he could have put on exactly the same show as these two. He could have brought out old stories, talked about them at great length and simply carried on talking without any care for the listeners in the room, without explaining anything to the others. But of course he couldn't invite any of his close friends. After all, they weren't supposed to know who the idols were, what they actually did for a living and why all three of them - Wooseok is also a K-pop idol - were interested in Zhan. And Zhan would have had no idea how to explain it to MuMu, for example.

At some point, an hour and a half to two hours must have passed, Wooseok looked up from his laptop and asked, "Why are you guys talking about your old stories all the time? Don't you realize that Zhan is bored? Besides, the way you tell your stories, nobody understands what you're talking about. Except you yourselves, of course. Which gives me and I'm sure also Zhan the impression that you're excluding us. So what's the point?"

Zhan swallowed hard as Yibo looked at him with wide eyes and asked, "Am I really boring you? Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's not like that. You go on talking." Zhan replied hastily. At the same time, he wished that Yibo wouldn't get lost in a conversation with Youn again and that the two of them would keep talking about their old stories. Because yes, Wooseok was right. It was BORING! So boring that Zhan found himself counting the seconds until Yibo and Youn took a breath between their stories so as not to choke while talking. Sure, the body does that automatically. But Zhan imagined it wouldn't be like that. They would talk and talk until they were blue in the face and then gasp greedily for air. This idea amused Zhan as the two of them were talking about some mission that had something to do with a microphone. Zhan wasn't listening.