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“kim donghyuck, i swear to god if you are not stood in front of me in five seconds i am leaving you in this wardrobe hell hole.”
five seconds pass, and, unsurprisingly, donghyuck isn’t stood in front of dongyoung like a good child would be. no, actually, if he were a good child he wouldn’t have even run off in the first place.
dongyoung sighs, starting to walk again, albeit slowly just in case donghyuck is somewhere behind watching him leave. if he is, he clearly doesn’t care, because he manages to make it all the way to the lightbulb section without interruption. this is the last fucking time he listens to their mother’s suggestion of going shopping together.
he figures donghyuck’s probably just distracted with another kid or something, so he walks all the way back through the showrooms and yet, there’s no sign of his brother. he’s maybe starting to worry just a little.
now donghyuck’s not stupid; he’s definitely capable of looking after himself for shorts amounts of time, mostly because he has a tendency to get lost in shops but he’s still only eight and dongyoung can’t stop the anxiety that grows inside him as minutes pass and his brother is still nowhere to be seen.
when he does three whole circuits of the showrooms and there's still nothing, it’s safe to say that dongyoung is a more than a little stressed.
“excuse me, have you seen a little boy anywhere? he’s wearing a pokemon tshirt and has dark brown hair.” every person he asks just shakes their head and oh god, his mum is going to kill him because he’s totally lost his brother in ikea.
he makes his way down to the soft play area, near the miniature food court and there’s plenty of kids in there, but none of them are the one that he needs.
dongyoung takes in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down but it’s not really working. his chest feels tight and it’s kinda hard to breathe and all he wants is to find his little brother. he drops down onto one of the shitty plastic chairs outside the crèche, leaning his head in his hands as he re-runs over all the places his brother could be.
“hey, um– are you okay?” someone asks and dongyoung practically jumps out of his skin as a hand lands on his shoulder. “sorry, sorry, i just– you look kinda stressed.”
understatement of the year, dongyoung thinks.
“yeah, okay is definitely not the word i would use to describe myself right now,” dongyoung says. he fidgets with his hands in his lap, scratching at the skin of his wrist as he speaks. “my brother– i lost my brother somewhere and he’s only eight and i haven’t seen him in like half an hour and what if he wandered out of the shop and got lost? fuck, what if someone took him?”
dongyoung squeezes his eyes shut as he considers that idea and god, he feels sick.
“okay, it’s gonna be okay,” the random guy says. dongyoung’s head shoots up, ready to tell him to be realistic but his words get stuck in his throat when he realizes how fucking hot this guy is. all that comes out of his mouth is a pathetic, little whine and it’s all ridiculously embarrassing.
hot guy doesn’t seem to notice however. “what does he look like?”
“uh– well he’s got dark brownish hair and uh, he’s wearing a pokemon tshirt and he’s stupidly tan, like the complete opposite of me. honestly you wouldn’t even think we were related,” dongyoung rambles, tailing off with a nervous giggle and hot guy’s expression softens.
dongyoung can’t tell whether the sympathy in hot guy’s eyes is because he’s lost his brother or because he’s such a mess of human being. it’s probably a bit of both.
“wait, does the tshirt have a big gengar in the middle of it?”
“how did you know that?” dongyoung asks, eyes squinting suspiciously.
hot guy just laughs and moves his hand from dongyoung’s shoulder, using it to grab his wrist before he’s up and walking and dragging dongyoung behind him.
dongyoung splutters at the audacity of this guy, but he doesn’t try and pull back because this guy has clearly at least seen donghyuck recently.
they don’t go far, only walking to the other side of the food court and dongyoung is confused because the only people here are two little kids. one of them has hair similar to his brother’s, as well as wearing almost the same tshirt and- wait, no, that is his brother.
“KIM DONGHYUCK I AM GOING TO MURDER YOU,” he yells before yanking his wrist out of hot guys hold and running towards his brother.
donghyuck looks decidedly disinterested (yet somehow apologetic at the same time) about this whole debacle and he lets his body flop as dongyoung pulls him into a bone crushing hug. it lasts for an unnecessarily long time but dongyoung needs to make sure that this is actually his brother and not just an anxiety induced illusion.
“okay, okay jeez, you can get off me now,” donghyuck huffs, trying to wriggle out of his brothers grip and both hot guy and hot guys brother laugh at the sight.
dongyoung pulls back, but he stays close to donghyuck, crouching next to the chair he’s sat on.
“so i take it, this is your brother,” hot guy says and dongyoung nods fervently.
“i owe you so, so much. like you don’t understand how much you helped me. i forgot to take my meds this morning and i was like halfway to a full blown panic attack when you found me so just, thanks. a lot.”
“he rambles a lot, i’m sorry,” donghyuck says and suddenly, dongyoung regrets feeling so worried about him before.
“seriously it’s fine, me and mark found him wandering around the kitchen section looking lost so it only made sense to bring him with us.”
hot guys brother, mark, smiles down at him and dongyoung smiles back before turning back to hot guy.
“and uh– what’s your name? because i really can’t keep referring to you as hot guy in my head.”
hot guy looks down at him with slight shock and dongyoung slaps his hands over his mouth, because he hadn’t meant to say that. shit.
“i, uh– i, i didn’t me–”
“my name’s chittaphon leechaiyapornkul, but you can just call me ten,” he says, effectively cutting off dongyoung’s stuttering. “or, yknow, you could just keep calling me hot guy if you wanted. that’s far better than what i’ve been calling you in my head.”
dongyoung’s feels his face warm up and he shakes his head a little to try and stave of his blush before asking a question he’ll probably regret in a moment.
“so, what have you been calling me?”
ten just smirks at him. “it would be inappropriate for me to say it in front of the kids,” he says. his voice is calm as he speaks; a complete juxtaposition to how dongyoung feels right now and he doesn’t even bother to shut him up when donghyuck wolf whistles at the two of them.
it falls quiet after that. mark and donghyuck make conversation between themselves but dongyoung can’t tear his eyes away from ten and it seems that other is in a similar situation.
“hyung, why do you look like that?” mark asks, and both dongyoung and ten turn to look at him. ten shrugs his shoulders, prompting mark to clarify what he actually means. “i meant why do you look like you wanna eat donghyuck’s brother?”
both dongyoung and donghyuck choke a little at the question, but ten just crosses his arms and unsubtly checks dongyoung out before replying to mark. “i guess i’m just a little hungry.” he says it almost wistfully and yeah, it’s time for dongyoung to back out of this situation because they have kids with them.
“ooookay, well, i think it’s time me and donghyuck should be getting off. mum’ll start wondering where we got off to.”
ten’s face falls a little, but he quickly regains his composure before nodding and smiling, saying the same for him and mark.
“me and mark are gonna go to the toilet before we go,” donghyuck says, shooting a look at dongyoung before they’re gone.
it’s silent between for them for a moment, before ten sticks out his hand with his phone in it. dongyoung just stares down at it blankly and ten giggles and god, it’s cute.
“put your number in my phone dumbass,” he says, and dongyoung blushes a little before reaching out for the phone. it doesn’t have a passcode and he easily fills in his contact details before handing ten his phone back.
“you know, when i asked for your number i kinda also hoped you’d give me your name too,” ten sighs and this time it’s dongyoung’s turn to laugh. “sure, you look like a bunny, but your name is most definitely not a kaomoji.”
“text that number and take me out first, then i’ll tell you my name,” dongyoung says, turning around when he sees donghyuck walking back towards him. “oh, and just to let you know, i almost always put out on the first date.”
with that, he’s gone, and he revels in the spluttering noises that ten makes as he walks up to his brother. they call the elevator and when they step into it and turn around, dongyoung is happy to find that ten still looks a little ruffled from his words. he waves teasingly as the doors close and smiles to himself all the way home, ignoring the weird looks that donghyuck is shooting him.