“Well, if you had broken your ass, it wouldn’t be my problem,” he stated. “I would just feel bad because it was my fault,” he clarified, deciding his old friend didn’t have to know he was genuinely concerned for a moment there. Wrinkling his nose, Jaeshin disappeared into his kitchen again to prepare a small snack for them to share. “Just because you’re so smug about that, I’m going to try now,” he called out from where he was, selecting Xavier’s favourite type of cheese and slicing it up, as well as grabbing some crackers - even if Xavier didn’t know he had a favourite kind of cheese, Jaeshin definitely noticed which one he tended to enjoy more, after years of preparing snacks for the two of them. He placed it on a little tray with a second can of coke and a little sippy cup of apple juice, walking into the room and setting it down on the coffee table, a cracker hanging out of his mouth as he settled down. “She damn well better be your favourite. All she does is talk about you and ‘Unc-y Nyx’,” he stated dryly, opening his own can of coke. He sighed, tilting his head onto the back of the couch and stretched out his legs. “Just a long day,” he commented wearily. “The last person who I was driving around ordered an Uber to take them not too far from here - so I thought, yeah, I’ll take it, last customer of the day or whatever. And then I found out that they made a mistake typing it and they meant to say that they live near here and they wanted to go all the way to the other side of town! And I had already picked them up by then, so I just - ugh. That’s why I was late,” he explained, rubbing a hand down his face. He turned his head to squint at Xavier. “Chacha didn’t give you too much trouble, did she?”
“ 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄, 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐄. good luck with that. ” the lifeguard waved off jaeshin’s determination to prove him wrong with his eyes glued to the screen, even though it only played chaewon’s favorite cartoon. he liked those, too — spending a lot of time with kids will do that to you. xavier was absentmindedly rocking the little girl on his lap as he waited for jaeshin to return from the kitchen and he was happy to notice that the pain had been NUMBED enough by the ice pack to be no longer felt. he decided to keep it there for a bit longer anyway in case it returned. when his friend came back to his peripheral vision, xavier turned his head curiously to see what he’d brought in with himself and he was elated to see snacks, specifically, cheese. of course, it would’ve been better to have a can of beer or at the very least a glass of wine despite not liking it too much, but he understood the need to be an exemplary role model for chacha and for that reason alone he did not complain. how could he when jaeshin was nice enough to provide all that in the first place? “ thanks, man. ” it was a little surprising how his friend always had his fridge stacked up with cheese, but again, it wasn’t something he could moan about. when jaeshin took his time to talk about his day, xavier gently nudged his friend’s daughter to lean a bit to the side so he could reach the table and get himself some cheese on a cracker before settling back down comfortably. “ that’s okay, we had fun. didn’t we, cha? ” he tilted his head in the other direction to take a look at the girl’s face and her luminous smile was enough to wipe all the stress and tension away. “ we went on a walk and she decided she wanted to go to my house to play with jian a bit. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a happier pair. ”
