the doppelganger | xiuchen

× 7 ×

Minseok woke up the next morning to the loud slamming of a door. He sat up from the sofa where he had slept from the night before. Tao, Yixing, and Luhan were still knocked out; only Kris was sitting up, though he let out a big yawn and looked half-dead.

"Chen left for his job interview," Kris mumbled before falling backward and passing out again.

Right, that was why Chen had only drunk one beer last night and turned in early.

Hopefully, the interview went well.

xxx

"That -- Chen -- what --"

Minseok sighed. Even after five minutes of explaining, Yixing was still confused. It was a good thing Minseok had sent Baekhyun off a long time ago.

"He's not Chen," Minseok explained again. "He is Kim Jongdae, a full Korean."

Yixing frowned. "But he looks just like Chen!"

"Yeah," Minseok said. "But he's not Chen. I think he's a . . . doppelganger or something like that."

Now Yixing looked even more lost. "Then why didn't you say anything when you first met Chen?" he asked.

"I didn't know Jongdae when I was with you guys," Minseok answered. "I met him after I came back."

Yixing nodded slowly, looking slightly less lost than he did before. "Okay. I think I get it now." Then, his expression turned more serious. "Does he know?"

Minseok shook his head. "I don't really see the point in telling him," he said honestly. He was going to leave it at that, but he saw Yixing open his mouth to ask more questions, and Minseok thought it would be better to cut him off before he started, for the sake of time. "Anyway, why are you here? And your Korean is much better than it was two weeks ago."

Yixing smiled. "We had all agreed to act like we were terrible at Korean. So you could improve your Chinese."

"So, you all knew Korean?" Minseok had thought Chen only knew the few Korean lines from a Korean drama, or something like that.

"Well, Tao wasn't acting. What you heard from him was the best he could do. But the rest of us are pretty good."

Minseok nodded. "Okay. Um, not to be rude, but why are you here? How did you know I worked here?"

"I didn't. I just came in here because it was hot and I wanted a cool drink."

"Well, sorry you couldn't get your drink," Minseok said with a small smile.

Yixing laughed. "It's okay. Anyway, it's good that I met you here. I wanted to talk to you soon."

The small smile on Minseok's face turned even smaller when he saw Yixing turn serious. He didn't want to talk about what had happened now. It was too soon.

"Hey, the others and I are going to this festival thing on Sunday," he blurted out quickly before Yixing could speak. "Do you want to come with us? Right now, there's only six of us."

Thankfully, Yixing did not understand why Minseok had suddenly changed the subject.

"A festival?" He thought it over and suddenly narrowed his eyes. "Is Ch-- is Kim . . . is that doppelganger or whatever also going, too?" he asked.

Minseok hesitated. "Yeah," he said slowly. "His name is Jongdae. The other guys are Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Suho, and Sehun." Noting the look on Yixing's face, Minseok quickly added, "They're people who either work at, used to work at, or constantly visit the café. I think you'll get along with a lot of them. You're even the same age as Suho, who's the assistant manager."

Yixing gave Minseok a skeptical look. "Are you sure ab--" He stopped midway and sighed. "I . . . I don't want to intrude," he finally said.

"It'll be fine," Minseok said. "Think of how I felt when I met all of you in China. It's now my turn to show you to my friends."

After a long silence, Yixing finally nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll go. It's this Sunday, right?"

Minseok nodded. "Yeah. We're going to meet here at the café at 1:30."

"Alright." Yixing smiled and stood up. "So, I guess I'll see you in six days."

"Yeah." Minseok also stood up. "I have your number, so I'll text you if something happens."

"Got it. Wait, what's your Korean name?"

As Minseok typed it into Yixing's contacts, he couldn't help but feel relief.