Chapter 17

My life has now become centered on Nine Knots and Subway.

A very unusual combo.

Clearly, I love Nine Knots a lot more than Subway. I don't hate Subway, but I also don't exactly like it. I don't feel fulfilled when I come back from a shift making sandwiches. I just feel kinda gross.

I get along well with all of my coworkers so far, so I'm lucky, but I haven't met everyone yet either. Some of our schedules don't coincide.

Frank is also fine, most of the time, which is odd. I do want to throw a chair in his face from time to time, but as I've realized, I am fuelled by rage.

This week's been busy. One of my coworkers hurt her back during spinning class, and she wasn't able to come to work, so I took most of her shifts.

I was happy about the money, but now I've worked none stop for eight days, and my next day off is only in two days, and it might have been too much.

And today I had a lot of weirdos come into the restaurant, and it's been a sucky day so during my fifteen minutes lunch break, because I kinda feel miserable, I do the one thing I know will cheer me up, and start a vlog video from Nine Knots from their tour.

"Tell us Scotty, what are we doing right now?" Thomas asks him, pointing the camera in Scotty's face.

"We're out in Shanghai, in the middle of night looking for Jae-sang and Xufeng because they got lost," Scotty replies.

"Can you repeat this for the camera please?"

"Jae-sang and Xufeng, the only two idiots in our idiot group that can speak Mandarin got lost in Shanghai."

I snort, while eating and almost make a mess.

"I can speak a bit of Mandarin," Luan suddenly says, from behind.

Thomas turns the camera to him. "You can curse at us in Mandarin, that's very different."

"We can all curse at each other in Mandarin," Kiaan adds.

"It's the only thing Xufeng knows how to teach," Ibrahim agrees.

"Wait, guys, I think the cab that just passed us was theirs," Scotty says.

The cab stops a few feet from them.

From it emerges Xufeng. "OHMYGOD GUYS!" he yells and faceplants getting out of it. You can see Luan at the corner of the screen slapping his hand on his face, discouraged, while Ibrahim and Kiaan rush to him.

"Fēi cháng gǎn xiè nǐ!" Jae-Sang says, getting out of the cab and literally grabs the driver's face and kisses him.

"JAE-SANG!" Luan reprimands him.

Jae-sang ignores Luan and tells the driver, "xiè xiè."

"Get back here!" Luan says. "What the hell happened?" he asks, once the two guys are standing in front of him.

"Look, I really wanted to eat steamed crab because it's the time of year for it, and I remembered that a friend of mine said I had to get it from Xinguang Jiu Jia, but I couldn't remember where the restaurant was, and long story short," Xufeng explains.

"I might have accepted to marry the cab driver's daughter," Jae-sang ends.

"What?" all the guys say in unison.

"Look, we're idiots together, y'all know this," Jae-sang says like that's good enough of a reason.

"And he's got a dreadful accent, everyone knows he's a k-pop idol," Xufeng adds.

Jae makes a face. "I never wanted to be a k-pop idol. I never could have done aegyo on screen."

Xufeng gasps, offended. "Lies. You're always making baby faces at me."

Jae croons at him, pinching his cheek. "But that's not on demand, that comes from my own sincerity, darling."

"Oh, honey, you're going to make me cry," Xufeng replies, in a sing-sing voice.

"Don't cry baby," Jae says, patting his cheeks with both his hands.

The guys are all looking at them, discouraged.

"Did you at least eat steamed crab?" Thomas asks from behind the screen.

Xufeng slaps his hand over his mouth, realization in his eyes. "Oh man, that's what we forgot to do."

I pause the video because I'm laughing. Just like that, my mood is lifted.

I watch one last video before going back to work to give myself some motivation.

It's from their Daily Life videos.

Luan walks out of his room, yelling, "Everybody, in the living room, in a line, right now!"

All the guys come out of wherever they were hiding and comply with the demand. They're all pressing their lips together to keep from laughing, so clearly, they don't take their leader's menacing tone seriously.

"This is going to be easy. Whoever knows who stole my crocs and tells me will not get in trouble. Everyone else will be in a world of pain," Luan says, arms crosses, glaring at them.

He looks intimidating to me, but like, not in a threatening way, because you know that guy wouldn't hurt a fly.

The guys totally don't take him seriously though.

"Why are you even still wearing those?" Aleksey asks.

"Yeah, stop wearing the traffic cones." Xufeng adds.

"No, no, guys don't say that, he's always wearing black. If he goes out at night those crocs are the only thing keeping him alive," Jae-sang says.

"I will not accept any mocking of the crocs. I trust those crocs more than I trust you guys," Luan tells them.

They all say "Whaaaaat?" in the exact same tone at the exact same time.

"The crocs have never disappointed me. You do on a daily basis," Luan says, pointing at each of their faces.

"When have we disappointed you? When?" Jae-sang says, making a face.

"You just had the smoke detector screaming at four in the morning."

"I was making pop corn..." he replies sheepishly.

"That's exactly my point Jae. Who makes the smoke alarm go off over pop corn?" Luan says.

"Someone with very little skills, but a lot of determination?" Jae offers.

Luan rolls his eyes. "That's not the point right now. Where are my crocs? Who hid them?"

"You know what? Now that you've told us you don't trust us, I don't know, I think I don't want to help you find your crocs anymore," Xufeng says pouting.

"I just don't want to see those flashy shoes again. Whoever stole them, shut your trap. We're all in this together," Aleksey adds.

"Yep, nobody speaks. That's the only way we survive through this interrogation," Matias agrees.

"As long as Kiaan keeps his mouth shut, we're good," Thomas points out.

"Hey! When have I not kept my mouth shut?" Kiaan whines.

All the guys laugh. Ibrahim pats his back. "Like, aaaaall the time. You spoiled all our new albums. You can't keep a secret."

"I can!" Kiaan disagrees.

"You can't," Ibrahim repeats.

"Guys!" Luan says, and whistles really loudly to get their attention. "Stop it! Where are my crocs? I swear to god, I will make your lives miserable."

"I wish I knew where they were so I could prove to everyone that I can keep a secret. But as it turns out, I don't, so you traitors are safe," Kiaan says, pouting, his arms crossed over his chest.

"That's good, we've got a chance," Matias adds.

"Wait, where's Scotty?" Jae-sang suddenly asks, looking around, and that's when their front door opens and Scotty walks in wearing the crocs.

"Scotty?" Luan says, glaring at him.

"What?" he asks, raising his hands, like he's about to get arrested.

"My crocs?" Luan presses.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I was in a hurry, I wanted a snack. Hey, these aren't that bad, I don't know why we always give you shit about them."

"Unbelievable," Luan groans while all the guys burst into uncontrollable laughter.

I smile at my phone, fighting against a bubblinh laugh, and then hype myself up.

I can do this. I'll be off at three. I can survive until then.

"So? Big plans tonight?" Frank asks me when I come to the front to help fill up the little fridge.

Oh right. It's Friday night. Technically if I had friends, I would have plans. I think my cousin and her friends are studying. At least, they didn't invite me to do anything.

"No big plans, just watching videos and ordering more food than I need from the Famous Owl of Minerva."

"That sounds like a fun evening," Frank chuckles and I'm not sure if he's being sarcastic or not. "I'm having a party at my place. You're welcome to come if you want to," he adds.

My first reflex is to say no. I have Nine Knots videos to watch. I actually wanted to watch them watch Lokillo, a Colombian movie. It's always fun when they watch something in Spanish because they repeat what they hear, but they roll their Rs too much and Matias keeps hitting them for it.

But that can't be my whole life, right? That wouldn't be healthy. I need to go out and hang out with people and make friends with people whose whole lives aren't centered on boys who don't even care about their existence.

"Alright, count me in."

_____________________

Hello my little Pretzels!

Sorry again there are no comment threads. I'm in Toronto right now and we had no time to make them.

It's fun to be here right now though, because I'm sleeping in the same building make Naree live in, I passed by the Subway she works at a little earlier today and I just ate leftovers from Famous Owl of Minerva I ate earlier. This is the sweet life.  

This chapter was fun because I'm trying to share more and more the reason behind some of their inside jokes. It's a lot of job creating a whole fandom out of nothing! XD I always wish everything is fun and believable. 

Anyway! I should sleep now. I'm tiiiiiiired. 

I hope you'll have a wonderful day, and I'll see you all tomorrow! <3