the doppelganger | xiuchen

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"So, how are you liking China so far?" Chen asked.

"It would have been great if we weren't lost and separated from the others," Minseok answered truthfully.

"Yes, I thought you might mention that. But don't worry, I know what to do."

xxx

The next day, Minseok breathed in and out nervously. Relax, he told himself. There's nothing to worry about.

After his phone call with Yixing yesterday, Minseok first fell into a state of shock before watching Suho scold Sehun for not showing up to work and having "partied till the sundown" the other day, which brought Minseok back to normal. By the time he was about to leave the cafe, though, he was wondering if it would be better if he didn't meet Jongdae at all. Maybe some things were better left unknown.

With this in mind, at the end of Jongdae's shift, Minseok walked over to the man and asked, "Do you have time tomorrow?"

Jongdae had said yes, and the two set up a time and place.

Now, Minseok exhaled softly as he waited for Jongdae to arrive. This idea was stupid. He would gain nothing from learning anything about Jongdae. He should probably come up with a good excuse to leave --

"Hello!"

Minseok turned and saw a cheerful Jongdae running up to him. He was smiling brightly as he waved his right hand back and forth.

"Oh, hi," Minseok said in his usual quiet tone. He was slightly taken aback by Jongdae's . . . excitement.

"So, why did you want to meet?" Jongdae asked.

"Uh . . ." Minseok tried to come up with a good response. "I just . . . wanted to get to know you more. Since the others know you but I don't." Well, there went the plan of leaving right away.

Jongdae nodded. "Cool! Okay, do you want to go somewhere while we talk, then?"

Minseok smiled. He may as well enjoy this. "Yeah, sure. Let's go."

***

"Do you have any siblings?" Minseok asked. Maybe Jongdae and Chen were related somehow.

"I have one. An older brother." Jongdae took a bite of a lamb kebab they had bought from one of the street carts. "Do you?"

"A younger sister." Minseok paused. "Does your brother live in China?"

Jongdae shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't think anyone in my family has ever been to, let alone lived, in China."

Minseok nodded. "I see." So he wasn't aware of a lookalike in China. That left two explanations: Chen was Jongdae's long-lost family whom he didn't know about, or he was a doppelganger.

Which made more sense?

"But you went to China, right?" Jongdae suddenly asked. "That's why you were gone? I think Baekhyun said something like that."

"Oh, yeah," Minseok answered. "I do really well in my Chinese Language & History class at my university, so I was picked to go to China for a month."

"Wow." Jongdae stopped to face Minseok. "You must be really good at Chinese, then. You're lucky. I want to learn Chinese."

Minseok shrugged, looking away. "I wasn't that good from the beginning," he said. "I was just better than the others, and actually living in China improved my Chinese as well."

"Right, there must have been nobody there who spoke Korean, right?"

"Not quite. Luhan, the person I stayed with, was pretty good at Korean. And his roomates, Kris, Tao, Yixing, and --" Minseok stopped. He didn't think he could say Chen's name out loud to someone who looked just like him.

Jongdae turned to face Minseok. "Why did you stop?"

"Oh, I . . ." Then, Minseok realized something. "Where is this place?" He didn't recognize anything around him.

Jongdae also looked around. "Oh, we must have taken a wrong turn or something." He laughed. "Isn't this great? Lost on our first meeting together."

Minseok merely nodded. "Right. But you know what to do, right?"

Jongdae looked alarmed. "Me?" he asked teasingly. "But you're the older one!"

"Oh, right. Haha, sorry," Minseok took out his phone and went onto Google Maps. As he tried to find out where they were, Jongdae had finished his kebab and tried to throw the stick into the garbage can which was on the other side of the path.

They look so alike, yet they act so differently, Minseok thought. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea to meet Jongdae.

"Did you figure out where we are?"

It would've been better if they weren't lost, though.