The 12th Floor of Apartment E

Preview

Chanyeol squints, hands stilling over his keyboard. "Really?" he asks, head at an angle, peeking over the top of his laptop. "You don't think it's a good idea?"

Kyungsoo shakes his head rapidly, widening his eyes in response to Chanyeol squinting his eyes even further at the negative response.

"I think it's a good idea," Chanyeol shrugs. He lifts his eyes to the ceiling momentarily why Kyungsoo tries to think of an argument that Chanyeol will actually listen to—an argument that will actually deter Park Chanyeol. It's a hard task but Kyungsoo doesn't have much of a choice because Chanyeol is his friend and Kyungsoo doesn't want to see his friend possibly get called down to the police station. "Don't you like flowers?"

"I do like flowers," Kyungsoo says slowly, trying not to wince, "but I don't like them if someone who I've never spoken to in my entire life suddenly sends them to my apartment door and expresses interest without finding out my sexuality."

Chanyeol blinks. "I know his sexuality," he says.

"No, you don't—"

"Didn't you say that one time you were manning the security cameras, he came in wearing eyeliner—"

"You've seen the security cameras at the desk—they're tiny—I was just saying that—"

Chanyeol waves Kyungsoo off airily. "It's okay," the journalist says, "everyone likes flowers."

Sometimes Kyungsoo wants to save Chanyeol by slapping him, but then there's the height thing so Kyungsoo decides against that. Instead, he decides that he'd be a better friend if he just advises Chanyeol on lilacs over daisies and gets ready for a phone call from the local police station in a day or two.

Jongdae rests his head back on the top edge of the couch, looking up and backwards at his two roommates shooting rapid-fire Mandarin at each other. "I don't like it when you guys do that," he says, "I feel excluded. Except I know you're talking about hitting on someone."

Wufan and Yixing stop talking long enough to spare him a glance. "I saw Minseok-shii helping some kid move in yesterday," Wufan says. "I think it's his new roommate—I asked Kyungsoo-shii about it when he was on shift."

"He's studying abroad here," Yixing says, hopping over the back of the couch and taking a seat next to Jongdae. Their eyes meet. "He's from Qingdao," Yixing's voice rises significantly, grinning at Jongdae.

Wufan kicks the back of the sofa hard enough for Yixing to almost fall to the floor.

"Are you going to hit on him?" Jongdae asks, turning around.

Wufan snorts. "Just because he's Chinese doesn't mean I'm interested—it's not—like—"

"But he's hot and Chinese," Yixing cuts him off easily.

Wufan kicks the back of the sofa again—this time, hard enough so that both Jongdae and Yixing have to hold onto each other to keep from falling off—before he storms out of the living room, into his bedroom, and slams the door shut.

Jongdae glances at Yixing. "Why's Minseokie rooming with a Chinese kid?"

"Luhan probably," Yixing shrugs.

Jongdae thinks of exactly every single thing Kim Minseok would do (has done) for Luhan and hides the sigh that comes out of his mouth as best he can. "Probably."

"I know you're frustrated," Joomyeon says, hoping that Jongin's shoes haven't actually damaged the wall in any way, shape, or form, because then they'll have to pay for damages to the apartment complex, "but that doesn't mean you can take it out on the plaster."

Jongin ignores that, shuffling into the kitchen and irately opening the refrigerator. Joomyeon watches as the dancer rummages around until he emerges with a half-eaten sandwich, soju, and leftover rice from two nights ago. It's right about then that Sehun has to walk out of his bedroom, into the main room, eyes moving from Joomyeon to Jongin.

"What's wrong with you?" Sehun asks, frowning as he passes by Jongin's less-than-appetizing attempt at eating the sorrow away.

Jongin ignores that too, sitting down on the kitchen floor with the secondhand food and soju surrounding him, and begins to eat irritably. "I just don't understand," he says around a mouthful of cold rice and (possibly expired, but Joomyeon doesn't want to say anything) cheddar cubes, "why he can't look up for—like—two seconds. Two seconds. An axe murderer isn't going to burn the building down in two seconds."

"Doesn't he go to university with you guys?" Joomyeon asks, as Sehun opens his laptop up, sitting on the opposite side of the dining table from the older man. "And whenever I go by the desk, he's doing homework on his shift, so maybe—"

"Two seconds, hyung," Jongin says, nursing the bottle of soju. "Two seconds."

Sehun gets off the chair, kneeling down to plug in his laptop charger. "Get over him," he says. "You don't even know him and you're trying this hard. He's not even hot. You only want him because he doesn't want you."

"I hope you fail chem tomorrow," Jongin says, and adds more cheddar cubes to his rice.

Sehun merely continues turning on his laptop, and Joomyeon decides that he should probably buy some stomach medicine for when the expired cheddar cubes take their toll.

Luhan snorts, grinning. "Dorms are boring," he says, holding his phone between his ear and his shoulder, as he tries to cut the tape off of the box flaps. "A lot of the students at the university stay at the apartments across from it. You could move in with my friend. He's not a student anymore, but I think he'd be cool with it."

"Really?" Zitao's voice is somewhere has a mix of doubt and consideration. "It's close to the campus?"

"Right across," Luhan says brightly. "And there're university kids on my floor that I can get to show you around."

"Gege," Zitao says, and Luhan can hear the faint hum of computers and typing in the background, "I'm on the page for the apartments. Which building's yours?"

Luhan finally manages to get the blade of the scissors through the tape. "Building E," he replies, "I'm on the twelfth floor."