"Western devil!" Yao shouted, waking Francis up from his daydreams of green eyes and blond hair.

"Oui?"

"This is the fiftieth time you've zoned out! After Monday's incident, any more of this might get you fired!"

"But Yao! That was four days ago! And I cannot stop thinking about my one true love-"

"废话," Yao snapped.

Francis blinked, "Pardon?"

"You know this isn't going to last."

"I've been told that enough already," Francis groused, "What's the harm?"

"What's the harm?" Yao shouted, his voice like a roaring tiger. He glared at Francis with fury, eyes burning with rage. Several of the customers jumped, startled, and glancing at Yao in worry.

Kiku, who was sitting in a chair near the cash register, looked at Yao in alarm. In the same table as him sat the rest of Yao's younger siblings. There was Yong Soo and Hyung Soo, a pair of 13-year-old Korean twins whom Yao had adopted. Mei, Andre, and Leon were Yao's blood siblings. Mei and Li Xiang were 10, while Cheng was 11.

"Aniki!" Yong Soo (who was extremely attached to Yao) whined, "What's wrong?"

Yao scowled, "Nothing, Yong Soo. Do you want more food?"

"Yeah," Mei coursed in, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Yao repeated forcibly.

Mei and Yong Soo pouted.

Yao rubbed his forehead, putting on a faux smile as another customer came in.

"Hello, may I take your order?"

The customer, a tall man with eerie violet eyes, beamed at Yao in delight.

"Pryvet, comrade!" He giggled, "You look pretty!"

Yao reddened, "Shu- I mean- aiya- Gah! I'm a man!"

The new customer giggled again, "Then you are a very pretty man!"

He pulled a sunflower out of the long beige coat he was wearing, and handed it to Yao.

"Here! For you!"

Yao gaped at him, "Uh… 我..."

Then he quickly recovered, perhaps from all his practice with having to deal with Francis's flirting.

"What would you like? Hurry up, I don't have all day."

"Your phone number!"

"啥?" Yao shrieked.

Kiku was taking pictures, and Mei was staring at the two intensely. Yong Soo looked like he was ready to smack someone. Andre had an indecipherable smile on, while Hyung Soo and Leon watched on with detached interest.

Francis was smirking as he watched the Yao and the tall stranger.

"This will be interesting," He thought, before letting his thoughts wander back to Arthur.

He wondered why Yao had looked so angry on Arthur's behalf. Francis had been under the impression (from things Leon told him) that Yao wasn't too fond of Arthur.

Francis had known Yao for about a year. During all that time, never had he seen Yao look so angry at him being fickle in relationships.

Was there something he didn't know?

Instinct told him that Arthur was interested in men, and his "amor instinct" (as he dubbed it) rarely lied. So what the big deal? They were young, and they could have some fun. Maybe Yao was too traditional.

But that didn't make sense either. After all, Yao had never raised protest to Francis's many flings.

It simply didn't make sense.

"臭老外!" Yao yelled at him, snapping Francis from his musings, "Our shift's over! And you did absolutely nothing. I took every single 该死的 customer for you! At this rate, you'll be fired in a week!"

Yao was standing in front of Francis, in regular clothes. His younger siblings were gathered behind him, occasionally peering at Francis with expression ranging from disgust to annoyance to indifference.

Francis tried for a winning smile.

It didn't work.

Ah, well. Points for effort.

"I'm sorry, Yao. Thank you for covering for me."

"You're welcome," Yao said, "It's fine, really. Of course, you still need to give me some of your pay-"

"I'll give you all of it," Francis said quickly, "Really, thank you, Yao. It was very kind of you."

Yao smiled, "没有问题. And don't worry, I didn't tell boss."

"I did," Hyung Soo announced.

The group fell dead silent.

"Why did you do that?" Mei finally wailed, "Now Mr. Francis will get in trouble!"

"He should have been working," Hyung Soo said stubbornly, "It wasn't fair of him to make Yao-hyung do all that work."

Francis winced at the reminder.

Yao rubbed his head, "Alright, alright. We'll sort this out tomorrow. Want to have dinner with us, Francis?"

Francis nodded, smiling gratefully, "Sure. I'll tell my friends."

Yao nodded, "Okay. We can walk to my home, it isn't far."

Pulling out his phone and hurriedly writing his text, Francis quickly went into the changing room and changed out of his uniform. Walking back out, he saw that Yao's family was waiting at the door.

Hyung Soo scowled at him.

Francis gave his most charming smile, but not even that worked.

"Well," Yao said, "Let's go."

11/15/2016

Another chapter done! I might be able to finish this thing in a couple of months!

Hyung Soo is a name for North Korea, and Andre is the name for Macau. I intend for his Chinese name (the one his family will likely use) to be Cheng. Hong Kong's Chinese name will be Li Xiang (it kinda sounds like his English name to me when I say it using Chinese pronunciation. Or I might be just going crazy).

I got the "western devil" nickname idea from reading Countryball comics. Yes, I know, I'm turning traitor. Forgive me.

Thank you to Ima cat ****** and the guest who reviewed!

I'm glad that you're intrigued, Ima cat ******.

And to the guest… yeah… I have dark and violent thoughts…

To those who favorited and followed this: 谢谢你们! It makes me really happy!

I have a social studies quiz (I need to memorize the location and spelling of all the countries in the middle east!) and a bigger test for a private school coming up, so I might not be able to update as much.

When I finish the entire story, I intend to go back over it and revise, then I'll mark it complete. I recommend that you read it again after I do the final edits. I will also try to constantly edit and revise chapters, so some details might not match up from what you remember.

I'm really sorry about that. 请原谅我!

For the Chinese:

废话 (pinyin: fei hua) means… uh… I don't know a good way to say it in English… it kinda means "nonsense…"

Go to this link, and you might get a better idea:

我 (pinyin: wo) means "I"

啥? (pinyin: sha?) means "what?"

臭老外 (pinyin: chou lao wai) means "stinking foreigner" or "foreign pig" 老外 (pinyin: lao wai), the part of the phrase that means "foreigner" is used as a derogatory term in China.

该死的 (pinyin: gai si de) means "god damn" or "stinking."

没有问题 (pinyin: mei you wen ti) means "no problem."