The Long Game//XiuChen [UAU II]

XII / Applications

WARNINGS: Mild language

-Day 41; Monday, July 10th, 2017-

The next little bit of the summer flew by quickly.

Kim Minseok started regular, full-time hours at the translation company. Kim Jongdae tried his best to get up early every morning to see Minseok before he left, especially since he wore suits he looked good in. However, he often found himself stirring at close to noon, and Minseok was long gone.

Sometimes he would pop in for lunch, and a few times Jongdae took the bus into town to meet the older boy.

When Minseok came home in the evenings, he often brought a lot of paperwork with him, but work he quickly worked through. Jongdae tried to have a homemade dinner ready for when Minseok arrived home the first few nights, but stopped after Minseok came home to burnt chicken and the fire department.

"Why don't you just stick to simple things?" Minseok had said. "Like instant ramen."

Some nights when Minseok came home, he brought takeout with him, and other nights they had small date nights and went out to restaurants.

Other nights Minseok came home to Jongdae asleep again on the sofa, dozing off while he binge-watched just about anything he could find on Netflix.

During the day, while Minseok was gone, Jongdae spent his days in front of a screen, conducting small snooping investigations via text.

He found out that Park Chanyeol had returned to his family home for the rest of the summer, having been 'located' as Kris Wu said.

Byun Baekhyun saw a doctor and therapist regularly, and Huang Zitao often harassed him via text. There were little to no updates on his brother, but Baekhyun seemed to be coping with it better as time progressed.

Do Kyungsoo's family had returned, and Jongdae had gotten quite a few texts from his younger siblings (who routinely stole his phone) asking about a Kim Jongin, what 'fucking' meant, and invitations to tea parties. Kyungsoo also worked at a small café, and his hours took up most of his time.

Kim Junmyeon got a job at a small clinic, and got dragged out regularly by Kris to do odd things Kris insisted were helping him with his investigation. No one knew who or what he was exactly investigating.

Oh Sehun had left for Australia, and seemed to be enjoying himself, besides the one (accidental) video call they all received of him crying over a snake, if that's even what it was. Both Minseok and Kris cannot decipher the questionable accent his English has developed.

Zitao left with some friends from his home in China to travel to LA and other nice places. There were multiple drunken uploads to his Instagram, some distinguishable, others not.

Zhang Yixing didn't have a lot of service in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but did manage to find some good wifi when they made stops in Bali and Taipei. He said he was bringing gifts back, and overall seemed to be having fun, despite his terrible bouts of seasickness.

Xi Luhan went back to China, and already had a small team to start working on a small movie they were going to submit to a film festival. Luhan claimed he didn't want to release much information about it, but it was quite easy to get stuff out of him in his excitement about it.

It was the beginning of July when Jongdae stepped out one morning after Minseok had left to grab the mail from the box attached outside the front of their house.

He sifted through them at the table, separating the bills from the flyers when he came across an envelope addressed to him.

He quickly ripped it open, not bothering to check who had sent it. Inside lay a folded piece of crisp paper, which he removed and unfolded.