the doppelganger | xiuchen

× 1 ×

"Hello," Minseok said as best as he could in Chinese. "I am Kim Minseok. I came from South Korea."

He nodded. "Kim Minseok? If you're in China, you'll need a Chinese name. Do you have one?"

"Um . . ." He had honestly tried to come up with a good Chinese name, but it had been hard to find one that really suited him. "No."

"That's fine." Minseok felt his gaze run over him. "How about . . . Xiumin?"

Xiumin. Minseok processed the name through his head. "It sounds great," he said, meaning it. "Thank you."

"No problem," he shrugged. "Now, let me introduce myself properly." He stood up and extended his hand for Minseok to shake. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Chen."

xxx

Minseok looked up at the coffee shop. It had been a while since he last stepped foot in here, but everything still looked familiar. Without hesitating for any longer, he opened the door and stepped in.

"Minseok hyung!" Baekhyun, one of the other baristas, greeted him excitedly from behind the counter. "You're finally back! How was your trip?"

"Long time no see, Baekhyun. My trip was great, thank you," Minseok half-lied. "How was the shop without me?"

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. "It was fine, but Suho was being such a mom about everything. And there was also your temporary replacement. He was my age, so it was easy to get close to him. But I guess he'll have to go, now that you're here."

"Who has to go?" Suho, the assistant manager, came into view from the back. "Hey!" he exclaimed when he saw Minseok. "I thought you were coming on Monday. How was China? Did you learn a lot of Chinese?"

"It was fine," Minseok said again. "And I knew Chinese before I went to China."

"You can always learn more," Suho waved off. "Anyway, what do we do? The replacement is still coming today, because we thought you were starting on Monday."

Minseok shrugged. "It's fine, I wasn't planning on working today, anyway. I just thought I'd drop by and see how things were going."

"Well, things are going great," Baekhyun said. "The replacement has a great personality, is really nice, and doesn't look that bad either, so we've been attracting more customers lately."

"Not as many male customers, though," Suho commented. "But now that you're back, we can put you in a wig and send you out."

"Says the person who wore a wig and red dress and danced to Girl's Day's 'Something,'" Minseok shot back.

Suho rolled his eyes. "That was because I lost a bet, and you know it." He looked out the window. "Hey, he's here."

Minseok turned to face the door, where a young man stepped in. He seemed to be a little on the shorter side -- which was good for Minseok, considering he was the shortest of the group, although he was the oldest. However, something other than his height caught Minseok's attention.

"Hello, everyone!" he said cheerfully. "Oh!" He looked momentarily taken aback when he saw Minseok. "Ah, are you Kim Minseok? The one I'm replacing?"

Minseok couldn't reply. He was too busy trying to find out the identity of the man in front of him.

"Yes," Baekhyun finally said when the silence grew too long. "This is Minseok hyung, the oldest out of us four."

"Oh, you're a hyung!" He stood straighter. He began talking, not that Minseok could concentrate. No, he was too focused on the fact that someone who looked like Chen was standing in front of him, in Korea, speaking fluent Korean.

"I'm sorry, what is your name?" Minseok interrupted. He couldn't take it anymore.

He looked momentarily surprised, but quickly recovered. "Oh, I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself first." He stood straighter and extended his hand for Minseok to shake. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Jongdae."