Cat Boy

21 | hot water

Joshua's on his fifth fake spiderweb of the day when Vernon speaks up (again).

"Can I ask you something?" comes the brooding, hesitant voice. Joshua pauses in the middle of spreading the glue, and rolls his eyes privately before turning to the boy with a persevering look.

Vernon is looking towards him—not at him, since there is that faraway, glassy look in his eyes that tells Joshua that he's not really focusing on him. The halfway-done cutout in the blond's hands doesn't seem to have done much progress since the time Joshua last checked it out, which was only a little less than ten minutes ago. Suppressing a sigh, the pink-haired barista retracts his hands from the corner of the ceiling and nods.

Unsurprisingly, the nod goes unnoticed.

"Yes, you can," Joshua says a little too fast, trying his hardest not to be annoyed. He knows how Vernon can be when he's in one of his moods, and the frequency of these moods has only increased in the past few months. The reason is barely a secret. "Is it about the batwing cutouts?" he asks hopefully, already knowing the question is futile.

"What?" Vernon blinks, seeming to come out of his trance. His eyes focus on Joshua's for a split second before flitting away again, avoiding and nervy. "Um, no. It's—it's actually about Jeonghan."

"Jeonghan?" Joshua echoes, his interest piqued once more. He likes his friends interacting, of course, but he has to admit this is an interesting development. He leans forward unconsciously, then springs back as the ladder wobbles dangerously under his feet. "What about him?"

Vernon takes a moment before answering, kissing his teeth and scrunching up his nose. "Is he trustworthy? I mean, does he go through with whatever he says?"

Joshua stares at him with parted lips, trying unsuccessfully to determine what could be the cause of this sudden interrogation. "Well," he starts with difficulty, mind still wandering in search of a connection, then realizes duly that he's supposed to have an answer. He shrugs, slowly turning back to the fake cobweb. "Mostly."

"Mostly?" Vernon repeats sharply. Joshua faces him again, placing his hands on his hips and raising an inquisitive eyebrow. It's a second too late that he realizes that there's still a whole lot of not-yet-dry glue on his fingers, and winces.

"Yeah, mostly," Joshua mutters, trying to pull his hands away from his hips, then realizes that the glue is a tad too strong and his fingertips are stuck to the apron. "Ah, fiddlesticks. Hansol, can you get me some hot water from the basin? My hands are glued to the cloth."

"That quick?" Vernon asks, but obeys, jumping off the oak table and disappearing behind the counter.

Joshua tries in vain to pull his hands away and not fall off the ladder at the same time, but Newton's laws don't seem to be on his side (when are they ever?). The glue must have been much more powerful than he realized, because not only does it refuse to free his hands, but also causes his skin to sting when he tries to do anything to free them.

"Oh, for god's sake," Joshua mutters with a scowl, bringing his stuck hands to his mouth in an attempt to chew through the stuff, but stops at the last moment out of respect for his hygienic duty. He cranes his neck trying to lean back and see past the counter to note the progress Vernon has made in procuring a glass of hot water, roughly trying to grasp the sides of the ladder with his finger-apron contraptions, but leans a bit too far.

The ladder teeters.

Joshua yelps at the sudden feeling of having the very ground rumble beneath his feet, and attempt to propel himself forward to counter the torque he remembers Vernon speaking so highly of. Regrettably and predictably so, gravity betrays him, and the entire thing tumbles to the floor, with poor Joshua sandwiched between the floor and the ladder at the end.