ɴᴄᴛ ᴏɴᴇ sʜᴏᴛs/ ᴘʀᴏᴍᴘᴛs | ʀᴀɴᴅᴏᴍ sʜɪᴘs

ᴀ ᴄᴜᴘ ᴏғ ᴄᴏғғᴇᴇ

Markhyuck

"Okay, pick one," Yuta said as he held up a cup filled with straws. An unimpressed expression plastered his face as Taeil eyed the cup, bringing his shaky hand to it and he pushed a few out of the way, almost as if by doing that he'd get the longer straws. "Oh, come on! It's not that hard."

"Okay, okay," Taeil huffed before randomly pinching one of the straws and pulled it out, turning to Johnny as he did it and he hoped that it wasn't the shortest.

They were at Taeyong's cafe, a normal occurance for them ever since the cafe had been built and Taeyong had allowed them to loiter around in it. But one thing had finally caught their eyes. Amidst the crowd of noisy and busy people, there was a small boy, who had probably just finished high school, sitting on the couch (the one Taeil had personally chosen) huddled up in multiple layers. He had gloves on, fluffy socks, a large blanket and a hat to cover half of his head. He looked soft and cute, but also sad.

The boy had been visiting their cafe (they say their but it's honestly only Taeyong's) for the past week now, and they had no idea why he wore a frown on his face for the whole ten hours he spent there. He would arrive in the morning, as soon as Jaehyun would open up the cafe, and then leave in the night when Sicheng would be closing up. A laptop would be in his clutches and the boy would occasionally order a latte, sipping through it as slowly as he could. It would end up cold and they could all see the distaste on his face when he drank the latte, but the boy would pretend as if it was alright.

"I'm safe," Taeil sighed out of relief once he realised that his straw was longer than Johnny's. "You're last."

Taeyong rolled his eyes, muttering a small, 'I do all the work here yet I'm also participating in this', before leaning forward and pulled out a straw. He pointed it to the rest of them and let out a quiet groan. The rest of the group cheered to themselves, glad that it wasn't them who had to talk to the boy - the straws was what decided it - and Taeyong shuffled away from them, mumbling some words of motivation to himself (since he wasn't exactly sure what he should say to someone when they looked sad).

"Hey," Taeyong said softly, a little surprised when the boy snapped his head up and stared at him with wide eyes. "Are you okay?"

"No," The boy answered almost immediately, his mouth clearly betrayed his mind as he grimaced at the sudden confession. "I mean yes, sorry. Do I not look okay?"

"Uhm," Taeyong blinked at the question, not expecting one and had been still processing what the boy had previously said. He glanced over at his friends, who simply shrugged their shoulders before looking back down at the boy. "Yeah?"

"Shit," The boy cursed, running a hand through his hair and he leaned back on the couch, the blanket falling just below his waist and Taeyong only then realised that he was in his pyjamas. "Well, thanks for telling me."

The boy then pulled the blanket back to his chest and squeezed himself deeper into the couch, holding the laptop in one hand and tapped away. Even as Taeyong remained still in front of him, awkwardly standing by the couch, the boy seemed to forget about his presence and found something more interesting on the screen. Taeyong's eyes raised from the boy and he saw his friends holding their hands to their faces, clearly trying to muffle their laughs. With a huff, Taeyong bent down by the couch and gently pushed the laptop away.

"Why aren't you okay?" Taeyong asked, and the boy seems to be going through some inner conflict as they stared at each other. "You've been here for some time now...and you don't seem to be happy. What's wrong?"

"I'm that obvious, huh," The boy finally replied after a few moments of silence (which Taeyong was dreading since he could already hear the teasing he was going to get from Ten). The boy looked down and fiddled with his fingers as he muttered, "If I was this obvious, why didn't Mark catch onto it then?"