chapter four

Jinhyuk sighs in relief as he slides into a seat in a local dumpling shop- din tai fung, if he remembers correctly. Since getting off of the plane, everything was a blur- the flashing lights, hearing fans at the airport chanting their names as if they were idol singers- Jinhyuk was quickly ushered into a rather large and sleek black van with the rest of his fellow models but before he knew it they were stopping again.

Ever since it was announced that SM's models would be present for the 'Superhuman Sportswear' launch in Shanghai, their fans have been going crazy, spamming SM's social media platforms with comments on what food stops and attractions that the models have to visit, and even if they were only in Shanghai for 24 hours, Jinhyuk plans to make the most of every second.

Jinhyuk pulls out his phone, checking the restaurant's name off of the list he made in his phone's notes, before tapping on his twitter icon.

They order their food just as Jinhyuk switches to Instagram and he smiles at all the notifications coming through, scanning all of the comments under his latest post from Miami, watching in amusement at all the keyboard smashes and the capitol locks with the most random emojis littered in between the words.

He goes straight to his direct messages and shoots a message to Ren telling him where they are and that they'll be back on the road soon. But just as Jinhyuk's about to click off the app, another message catches his eye, and out of curiosity he clicks on it.

'alexlee.99 has requested to send you a message'

Underneath the request, Jinhyuk could make out the word 'beautiful' and something about hopefully not coming across as creepy, to which he finds his finger hovering over the 'accept' button, wondering if he should engage just for the fun of it or not.

Despite getting tons of messages like this, Jinhyuk still finds them quite amusing.

"Should I be worried?"

Jinhyuk's head snaps up as he sees Jaehyun eyeing him curiously from across the table as he nurses his ice cold drink in his hand.

"I don't know, should you?" Jinhyuk responds, to which the older smiles.

"You've got one of your looks on- the one you and Minseok share when you're about to do something that'll stress the heck outta Taeyong"

Jinhyuk muses over that remark for a moment, before showing a toothy grin to his friend, "It's nothing, hyung, I'm just messaging some friends"

Jaehyun nods his head, not completely believing the boy but alas he pushes no further, instead opting to go back to his conversation with Doyoung instead of trying to derail what could be another disastrous plan that could get the younger two in trouble.

Minseok scoffs before leaning over to look at Jinhyuk's phone, finding whatever was displayed as rather funny, "Oof he types like a het"

Jinhyuk splutters, pulling his phone back as he looks to his friend with wide eyes, "He just called me beautiful--"

"Hey I didn't say he was blind" Minseok defends cleanly, before reaching over to take his friend's phone again, "Is his account on private?"

Jinhyuk shrugs, having not checked, "I don't know"

Clicking on alexlee.99's profile, both boys are relieved to see that he is in fact not on private- meaning that until their food arrives, they're free to snoop on his account.

As soon as the profile loads, both boys are faced with an oddly aesthetic feed- pictures of study books and oak desks along with candid shots of a group of boys, some photos of the boys in matching jerseys, and some with them in jumpers. There's a few videos, and from the cover photos, it looked like someone on a basketball court, just them and the ball...

"What were you saying about him not being hetero?" Minseok teases, looking through the reams of basketball and skateboarding videos.

"That doesn't prove anything" Jinhyuk grumbles, cringing slightly as Minseok pulls up a photo of who Jinhyuk guesses is 'alexlee' with a friend, the caption reading 'bestest bro'

"Suddenly I can't read"

Minseok chuckles as he gives Jinhyuk his phone back, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly as he turns his attention to his glass, condensation dripping down the side, "I agree he's cute-"

"I didn't say anything-"

"But just be careful-"

"I haven't done anything-"

"Yet"

"Yet"

Jinhyuk looks from Minseok back to his phone, scanning a couple more of the photos.

He's got a fair few followers- 1,170- which Jinhyuk deems as quite a fan base for a regular student... except he's clearly not.

He's clearly a popular student as he seems to be the 'basketball captain' from both his bio and his numerous related posts, and from his more studious pictures, he seems to be quite intelligent too. Jinhyuk can tell he's somewhat of a decent guy from his shy smile and big eyes- he's cute, the model muses, he sees the appeal.

As he keeps scrolling, looking passed snapshots of Marvel DVDs and busy evenings with pizza boxes and leather jackets, Jinhyuk finally comes across a fair few photos of 'alexlee' in a sort of recording studio- possibly only school equipment, but still, Jinhyuk is quite impressed.

There's two photos in the uploaded post, in one he's at the mic, headphones on and smiling brightly. In the other, he's got a book with him, and although Jinhyuk can't read what's inside it, from the looks of things, it seems like his admirer is a singer- songwriter.

Looking over the post once again, Jinhyuk fells the corners of his lips turn upwards... maybe there was more to this 'alexlee.99' then what meets the eye...

Now suddenly intrigued, Jinhyuk clicks the 'accept' button on the chat, taking a moment to organise his thoughts before he responds.

The food comes quickly and so before Jinhyuk could type out a well thought out reply, he just opts for a shy thank you before he's shoving his phone back into his pocket before Taeyong employs the 'no phones at the table' rule.

Over their dumplings, Jinhyuk remains quiet, mulling over 'alexlee.99'- he doubts he'll even get a reply back, brushing off the intrigue as a one time thing or a spur of the moment message- Minseok was probably right, it might've just been an off hand comment, and so Jinhyuk tries not to get his hopes up.

There's a fair chance that he won't get a reply, and anyways if he does get one, 'alexlee' probably doesn't live in Shanghai and therefore he'll be in a completely different time zone and it'll be a while until he responds.

Having said that, Jinhyuk almost chokes when his phone buzzes, everyone at the table then looks to him, asking if he's okay. He passes it off quickly, fumbling with his phone as he unlocks it only to see Ren's text in bold capitals 'OMW'.

"Hyuk?" Taeyong rubs his back soothingly, waiting for a response.

"Oh- er- it was just Ren, he said that he's on his way here" He answers, trying his best to mask his disappointment.

He was happy that he was finally getting the opportunity to meet with his friend again... he should be focusing on that, on how good it'll feel when they're finally reunited with one another.

"Well we better finish up here then if we want to explore a little before heading to the launch"

In agreement with their leader everyone quickly finishes off their food.