Back To Square One

Chapter 6 - Extra

🎵Don't keep my love on the low low

Keep my love on the low low

You can throw me like a yo-yo

But I promise I won't let go🎶

A lively beat can be heard throughout the whole house and Ten swings his hips a bit, following the rhythm while inspecting himself in front of a full-length mirror.

"Hair, check. Clothes, check. Face, check. Damn, I look fabulous!" He said and winked. "Lele! I'm going out for a while!" He called for his younger cousin but he didn't get a reply, so he decided to knock at the boy's room before opening it.

Ten saw the boy curled up on the bed back-facing him, gaze directed at the window. He's bed-rotting yet again, it's not always like this but it's getting frequent... just like the first few months when they left Seoul.

"Are you alright there, sweetie?" He asked in his usual cheerful tone.

The younger one stirred in surprise as if he hadn't heard the door opening before. He sat up and stared at him "Ten hyung!" Chenle exclaimed with a forced smile. "Are you calling for me? You're wearing a new shirt! Are you going out?"

Instead of answering all the questions, Ten approached him and took a seat on the bed. "I guess you're stressing yourself again! You should come with me!"

Chenle scanned Ten with his eyes and pouted. "I'm okay here, it looks like you'll be going on a date."

The older chuckled at his cousin's cuteness, he pinched the latter's cheek and pulled on them. It earned him a loud 'Aww' before getting smacked in the face.

"Yah, hyung!"

"Yah! Hyung!" He mimicked. "Who said I'm going on a date? I will only date girls who are prettier than me which I never had a chance of encountering. I'm always the prettier one." He followed it with a sassy eye roll. "Yet even with boys, I'm always more handsome. Most of them smell like ball sacks too. So date? No, there's no date... there is, however, a thing I need to buy."

"Eww, Hyung! Ball sacks? Who are you hanging around that smells like that?" Chenle's face contorted. "Maybe you're just destined to grow old alone."

"I don't mind living alone, dear cousin but what I do mind is dying as a virgin."

Ten laughed so hard when Chenle rolled his eyes.

"Your tactless hyung!"

"Nyeh nyeh!" He got up, yanking Chenle's arms, forcing him to stand up. "Come on! Take a shower 'cause you're going with me!"

"I don't want, hyung!"

"Don't be stubborn!" He widened his eyes and once again tried pulling Chenle up with much more force than before. It's a success. He smiled to himself when Chenle lazily left the bed, dragging his ass to the closet to get some clothes while wearing a very ugly expression.

"For the record, Lele, you look ugly when you pout. Stop that."

"Where do you really plan on going?" Chenle whined and jutted his lower lip some more.

"I'm just gonna buy some school supplies. Then we'll be going to Aunt Yeppeo's sweet shop!" Ten helped his cousin get ready by folding the blanket the younger used. "It's better to eat some sweets than to lie on your bed for the whole day, asking yourself why everything's the way they are, it will just make you sad. Don't let sadness eat you or you'll get ugly like that! I don't like an ugly cousin!"

Chenle shook his head as he watched Ten make the bed while talking non-stop. He can never win over his older cousin's persistence, besides, the latter is right, thinking of things all over again will just make him lonely. He needs to pull himself together because at the end of the day, overthinking won't solve his problems.