The next day after your classes, you found yourself thinking about your trip to Lenticular Café yesterday. The restaurant had been pretty banged up, Johnny and Renjun probably needed help. As soon as you entered your apartment, you were given your standard greeting by Taeyong—which consisted of him attacking you within your first five steps into your apartment: if in his cat form, he would wrap himself around your ankles, making it impossible for you to walk without first stopping to give him ear scratches; or if in his true form, he'd throw his arms around you and press his head against your neck, hair tickling your skin. Today was the former, and with a playful sigh, you knelt down for him to immediately push his head underneath your hand.
"Hey, Yonggie, have a good day?" You cooed down at the cat.
"Yep!" He answered in his normal human voice, startling you from the reverie with your pet. Right, he was not your pet, he was a human-adjacent man.
"I was going to head down to Lenticular and see if the guys need any help with putting the café back together. You coming?" You asked as you stood up to head into your kitchen.
Taeyong turned into his true form to follow you into the kitchen, "Sure!"
"Great, let me get a glass of water then we'll go."
You passed by the open kitchen pantry and caught sight of something. Or rather, a certain lack of something.
"Taeyong, did you eat the rest of the Goldfish?"
"No!" He whined in his defense. "I poured myself a cup... then spilled the rest."
Flipping open your garbage can, sure enough, most of the contents of your new container of Goldfish were in there, "Oh my god..."
"You always throw food away that's been on the ground!"
"Yep, yep, you did the right thing, Yong," you assured him, turning back to your glass of water.
☆
Once again in front of the yellow 'X' of caution tape over the doorway of Lenticular Café, you called out into it, "Johnny! Renjun! Are you guys there?"
You heard sounds from upstairs, then Johnny was emerging from the hallway that you could clearly see now without the purple curtain. He grinned at you two, "Hey! You guys can come in, duck under the tape."
Doing so, you met the Domeki halfway, where the holes in the floorboards had been fixed. Your friend gave you a hug, and after pulling back, you looked around at the café. The debris had been cleared out, but apparently most of the furniture had been destroyed as well, as it was pretty barren. White patches sharply contrasted the purple walls, holes that had been fixed up.
"Hey, little lady, Taeyong. What are you two doing here?" Johnny asked.
"We wanted to see if there was anything we can do to help with the café."
"Right now we're just waiting on furniture shipments, those are coming tomorrow and the day after, and we're hiring people to help install everything. Renjun's out finding replacement décor right now and we'll probably put them up the same day we install all the furniture... so nope! There's nothing you can do to help with the café right now."
Your face fell, "Oh, are you sure?"
"I said, 'nothing you can do to help right now,'" he repeated, making you perk up. "But if you come back tomorrow morning, I can give you some flyers announcing our grand re-opening. It'd be a real help if you put them up around campus or something, and tell all your friends, and tell your friends to tell their friends."
"I will!" You promised with a bright grin.
"Wonderful. What time's your first class tomorrow?"
"Nine."
"Can you pick them up before going? I'll be up anyway, the delivery guys are coming at six."
"Sure!"
"Great, see you then!"
☆
The next morning you were at Lenticular Café bright and early, and there was a door again! You pushed open the lilac door hesitantly. There were a few guys carrying in a table from the back entrance, and you looked around for either of your friends.
Renjun was directing the guys on where to put the table, and he seemed to have noticed you by the door.
"Wait there, unless you want to get hit by a table," he called out to you before disappearing into the hallway. He emerged once again with a thick stack of lilac papers. Avoiding the burly men who were going back out—presumably to get the next table—Renjun walked over to you and held out the stack, "Here."
"Thank you!" You accepted them, reading over the flyer.
Lenticular Café Grand Reopening!
March 24, 20XX, 10am – 10pm
777 Bell Street
$5 a plate*
*senior and student discounts available
"You guys have student discounts?"
"What does it matter to you? Johnny always feeds you for free," Renjun snorted. "You better give out all of those."
"I will!" At the bottom was a rather artsy picture of the café, one that brought a smile to your face, "Who took this? It's amazing."
"Don't you have somewhere to be?" He snapped at you, redness crawling up his neck to his face and ears.
"Yep, class!" You answered, not letting his harshness faze you. "See you later, Renjun!"
☆
You spent your day at school between classes pinning up as many flyers as you could with the box of thumbtacks and stapler you'd brought from your apartment, and giving them to any classmates who questioned the giant stack of papers you had with you. By the time you left your Chemistry lab, you only had about ten or fifteen flyers left, and felt rather proud of yourself. You figured you'd hit up the buildings you hadn't gone in for your classes that day to hang up the rest of them.
The Literature and Foreign Language building was right next to the Science building, so you headed over there first. Pinning one on every bulletin board you came across in the two-story building, you were just heading down the stairs, counting how many you had left when you nearly ran right into someone.
Screeching to a halt, your apology was stopped before you could say a single syllable by the man you'd almost hit, "Sorry! Y/N, hey!"
"Oh, hi Jae," you were relieved that it was him and not, worst case scenario, your World Literature professor that you'd almost body-slammed down the stairs.
"What are you doing in here?" He questioned, putting his thumb between the pages of the book he'd been reading to save his spot. "You don't have a class now, do you?"
"No, I'm putting up some flyers!" You held one out to him. "Café reopening."
He skimmed it over quickly, "Does the student discount apply to grad students?"
"Uh, I don't know about that, you'd have to ask Johnny or Renjun."
"Johnny and Renjun?"
"Johnny's the owner and the cook, Renjun is the host and waiter."
"Friends of yours?"
"Yeah, they're finishing up a big remodeling right now of the whole restaurant. Johnny's food is really good. Renjun's service is... well, let's just say Johnny's food is so worth it."
"We should go then," Jaehyun suggested. "We can invite Jaemin and Yuta too, bring out the whole quad squad. And maybe uh—what's Jaemin's roommate's name?"
"Jeno."
"Jeno..." He repeated the name, as if to commit it to memory, "Have Jaemin bring Jeno along too."
"Sounds like a plan to me," you agreed. "I'll make a group chat and text everyone."
"Great," he smiled, a bright grin that always made you feel warm inside. "I've got to get going to class, see you."
"Bye, Jae."
☆
Monday of the next week found you leaving your World Literature class early, a rarity. Your professor had gotten frustrated about fifteen minutes into his lecture because nobody was answering his questions, mainly due to the fact that none of the students had actually done the required reading for class that day. You'd skimmed the text, but didn't feel like answering his questions. So in a rage, he dismissed everyone to "give you time to actually read the fucking story" and that he'd finish up the lecture on Wednesday, during which you'd be given a reading quiz as well. Closed book.
Feeling rather guilty yourself, you left with your head hanging low, fully intending to find a quiet spot on campus to read at. Instead, Mark Lee grabbed your elbow in the hallway just outside the classroom, and you looked back at him with a tilted head. In his other hand was the navy-blue penny board with red wheels that you always saw sticking out the top of his backpack.
"What's up, Mark?" You asked as he let you go, falling into step with you.
"Dr. Kwan was intense today," he said with wide eyes.
"Yeah. But I mean, I think we as a class kind of deserved it."
"Maybe," he shrugged. "Anyway, I was going to spend this free time skating before my next class, you want to come?"
"I'm going to actually do the reading. He gave us the time, the least I can do it utilize it the way he intended us to."
"Wow. You're like... actually a good student, huh?"
"This conversation explains the very noticeable difference in your grades," came a musing voice from behind you. You whipped around to see Jaehyun there, looking between you and Mark with an eyebrow raised. He was in his typical TA attire: a pair of dress slacks, button-up shirt cuffed most of the way up his forearms, and a dark belt around his waist. He readjusted his bag strap from where it crossed over his body as he spoke, your eyes briefly focused on the motion.
Mark chuckled as he adjusted his circular glasses, "Probably. Anyway, I'll see you later, Y/N! You too, Jaehyun!"
And with that, your classmate took off down the halls, pushing the front doors of the building open. You watched him run and hop onto his board, skating through the campus. With a fond shake of your head, you started down the hall once more with Jaehyun. Your friend stopped to open the door for you, following you out into the bright sunshine.
"It's nice out," you observed. "I might read out here instead of in the stuffy library."
"You should," Jaehyun agreed, basking in the warm rays as well for a moment. "Alright, I'm going to grab breakfast before my next class."
"What class?"
"Composition I. I've got a good lecture for today."
"For what professor?"
"I am the professor. It's a required General Education course, so they let graduate students teach it by themselves."
"How did I not know that?"
"Don't know, Y/N," he patted your shoulder as if giving his condolences for your ignorance. "Anyway, I'll see you Wednesday!"
"Bye, Jae," you waved goodbye to him, still surprised at your own lack of awareness.
☆