"this is your favorite store out of all of those in the mall?" joshua asked as they both stepped foot into the music store that jun had brought them into. unlike many other mainstream stores, this music store had a very homey sense to it. by the name of the store joshua could infer that the store was indeed family-run. the purple haired male smiled cheekily as joshua looked at him weirdly before he pulled the brunette right to the front desk of the store (yes they were still holding hands, joshua had forgotten about it after a few minutes). "well this and the lego store. I loved playing with legos as the kid, even if I had no patience for stacking blocks half of the time."

as they waited for who knows what, jun tightened his grip on joshua's hand. he figured that if he was holding the brunette's hand without getting scolded, he might as well go all the way and try to last as long as he could. for his sake, jun was very lucky that joshua was too occupied with observing the music store and their surroundings to get angry at the purple haired individual.

their waiting was then ceased when a voice could be heard from behind the counter. that was when the manager of the store came out to greet the pair. he smiled warmly at them both despite not knowing who joshua was. he brushed back his front curly bangs before spotting how the pair of high school students joined hands with each other, that was when the older male smirked at the pair. "jun! it's good to see you! oh and who's this cute looking friend you have here?"

"first of all seungcheol, I called dibs on joshua so get your eyes off him he's mine. secondly we're not friends yet, give it a week though." the purple haired male furrowed his eyebrows at seungcheol who only laughed at his playful reaction. within the same moment, joshua released his hand from jun's grip and awkwardly looked downwards before seungcheol cleared his throat to bring attention to the way he held out his hand for joshua to shake.

"I'm seungcheol, the manager of this fine establishment." joshua grabbed his hand and seungcheol gave him a nice firm shake. jun frowned at how nice seungcheol was being to him. when they had first met as children, seungcheol pulled a prank on him by pretending to not be able to hear him. jun had spent a good few hours trying to use sign language, or some weird form of sign language, before his mom cut in and seungcheol proceeded to speak normally to her. "I'm joshua. you guys seem to know each other well?"

"yup! my uncle owns this store so I used to hang out here as a kid which is when I met this troublemaker." seungcheol smiled proudly. he spent his whole life basically dwelling in the music store, helping out his uncle whenever he could. now at age nineteen he was the manager and got to oversee every aspect of the store compared to when he was a kid and basically did every thing his uncle told him to do. "speaking of which, did your uncle get the thing yet?"

"yeah you bet he did, it's over here in the back I'll show you!" seungcheol gestured both jun and joshua to join him behind the store counter. he led them to the backrooms, past the storage room to where seungcheol's uncle gave piano lessons to children. this was a place jun was very familiar with, he spent a good amount of time playing piano in the old extra room seungcheol's uncle decided to make use of years ago. in the corner of the old room though was a brand new piano that gleamed. its black surface and shiny white keys beckoned jun over instantly as he zoomed right up to it, leaving joshua and seungcheol behind "she's beautiful! I'm going to miss betsy though, she was a real fighter."

"you play the piano?" joshua asked after seungcheol left the two alone to go greet another customer. the brunette felt oddly okay with jun in this element compared to a school setting where he was always bothered by the purple haired male's carelessness. maybe jun wasn't that bad outside of school, or maybe he was just having a good day and would continue to have the same annoying personality as he usually did on a daily basis.

"yeah I didn't tell you?"jun looked upwards at joshua who shook his head promptly. the purple haired male stared down at the piano keys, gliding his fingertips on them with enough force to barely press down on them. joshua watched carefully, observing how jun calmed down while touching the piano. it was like he was a whole different person, it really was strange. "I've been playing like forever!! my mom signed me up for piano lessons instead of sports, I got really mad at first because all the other kids got to play soccer and basketball, but then I fell in love with the piano."

"I understand how you feel, I learned to play the guitar when I was younger. although I still went out to play with friends, it's how I met chan and seokmin." joshua spoke as well. it was one of the first times joshua voluntarily opened up to jun, and vice versa it was one of first times jun's felt comfortable enough to say anything about himself to joshua. honestly it was enlightening to see jun in a whole new light, or it was until jun's playfulness came back into play. "you play the guitar? this is perfect, we have to play together now!"

"jun-" joshua trailed off as jun stood up immediately and went off into one of the other back rooms. the brunette could hear the chinese male fumble around with a few things, joshua could hear the sounds of instruments falling to the ground, before jun returned holding a wooden acoustic guitar. it looked very similar to the one joshua had at home, well except it was much newer and more expensive looking.

joshua held the guitar in his hands, playing around with its strings while jun sat down and ran his fingers through the b-flat scale on the piano. the purple haired male, once satisfied with himself, looked over and smiled at how involved joshua got with playing around with the guitar strings. when the brunette noticed jun watching and observing him, he stopped playing around with the acoustic instrument and maintained eye contact with the chinese male.

"now try to keep up with me okay?" jun said confidently as he faced the new piano once more. he skimmed over the keys, going through the song he was going to play in his head before pressing the beginning note. joshua listened attentively, wondering why he was even agreeing to play along with this until he realized that the piece that jun was playing wasn't even close to what he expected. he expected a soft, gentle piece perhaps composed by beethoven or mozart, but instead jun was playing something more upbeat and happy. it was very fitting of him to do so actually, joshua was surprised he didn't expect this sooner. "are you seriously playing the spongebob theme song? how the hell am I supposed to keep up with that, I can't play that!"

joshua laughed at jun. standing up and setting the guitar in his hands down as jun hummed along to the theme song. when he finished the song up, jun turned to joshua and shook his head while crossing his arms. "I may have been inside most of my childhood, but it turns out I had a way better childhood than you! what kind of kid doesn't know how to play this iconic masterpiece?"

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double update cuz I'm in a good mood today! I can't wait to ditch my morning classes to watch gose