Archive of Our Own

If anyone had warned him about what would happen today, Halilintar would have just skipped the cafe delivery entirely and handed the task over to Taufan, the one who often handled delivery when he was busy with something else. 

Well, maybe not Taufan, anyone else preferably. His younger siblings, Gopal (though that would require some bribery), heck, he would even ask the girls to do the job for him. 

Definitely not Taufan.

Taufan would be drooling over the view in front of him right now.

He tried very hard to stare at the wall just to the right of Fang who was standing in front of him.

Fang. Goddammit.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” the raven-haired boy asked as if on cue, hand waving in front of his face. “Hali?”

“I’m still here,” he slapped away the offending hand without much effort and crossed his arms again. “And yes, I’m listening.”

“So, what’s your answer?”

“Definitely a no,” he said, still not looking at the guy.

“Hali, come one,” Fang’s face suddenly appeared directly in front of his face and Halilintar instinctively stiffened in his seat. “Help me just this once, please? I promise I’ll repay the favour with anything you want after this.”

Halilintar could feel the traitorous burn crawling up his cheeks and hastily leaned backward to put some distance between their faces. His spine dug into the chair’s back but no matter how much he backed away, Fang leaned in even closer.

“Hey, back off,” he stuttered. His hand shot out to push the guy away but it froze seconds away before it made contact with Fang. His eyes dropped down to the outfit the raven-haired boy was wearing and… Halilintar swallowed.

He didn't know his face could get any hotter than this.

“Hey—” Halilintar’s eyes snapped back to the other person when he heard him speaking, “are you okay?”

There was now a considering look on Fang’s face as he peered at his expression from under the fringe and a bad feeling sunk into Halilintar as a mischievous grin bloomed on the raven-haired boy’s face.

He had to stop the guy before Fang got any other brilliant idea. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, hands surreptitiously clenching harder on his elbow from where his arms were still crossed in front of his body. 

Fang clearly did not take the threat seriously and—

Dropped down to the floor on his knees in front of Halilintar.

If Fang ever tried to bring up this incident in the future, Halilintar would deny the undignified squeak that came out of his mouth. 

“Hey, what are you doing? Get up—” he ditched his embarrassment momentarily to push the guy back up but Fang snatched both his hands in a tight grip in between them and looked at Halilintar with pleading eyes.

What a horrible moment to regret that he never took Gempa’s advice to stop manspreading so much to heart because now Fang was kneeling in between his tights and—

“Lili,” Fang said and pressed closer. “Please.”

It should be illegal to use the cutesy name his siblings gave him with that voice. The aborted breath he was about to take got stuck in his chest and butterflies exploded in stomach. “Wait, I already said—”

Fang sniffed and tilted his head cutely. “Please do this for me? I don’t really have anyone else to ask.”

Halilintar smartly shut his mouth up and averted his eyes again. He would not have a chance of winning the argument if he kept on staring at that face.

Not that he didn’t already feel like he’s losing the argument.

“F–Fang,” he cursed his own stuttering inside his head. “Look, I would like to help—” 

Shit, no! That wasn’t what he was trying to say!

“Really?” gone was the pitiful look Fang gave him, replaced with a triumphant grin. “Well, okay. You’ll start work within two weeks. Do arrange your working hours at Kokotiam with Tok Aba so that it won’t clash with this. Ask me anything if you have questions.”

The boy didn’t take any more time staying in that position and stood up to pat away the nonexistent dust on his uniform. Fang flashed him a smile along with a thumb up before making his way to the back, busy with the task assigned to him.

Halilintar slumped back to his chair and groaned, covering his face with his hands. How is he going to explain to Taufan and Gempa about the mess he just got himself into?

They might sympathise with him or they might be jealous and try to kill him. To be honest, Halilintar had no idea which one would be worse.

That’s it, he decided, he will just stay quiet about this whole shenanigan until it dies down and try to not to suffer from a premature heart attack looking at Fang with that outfit for the foreseeable future.

Surely he could do that much.

Fingers crossed he hoped so.

—

1st instance

Halilintar had been acting weird lately.

Not weird weird like that one horror movie they just watched the other day (Gempa had to stop Halilintar from choking Taufan to death for changing their movie ticket from a family-friendly movie about sheep to a horror movie about supernatural wish fulfilling toy at the very last minute), but weird as in he spent too much time in his own head with a blank look on his face.

Gempa and Taufan exchanged a glance with one another as they looked at Halilintar who was clearly out of it mopping the same spot of the cafe for almost ten minutes now.

“Is he okay?” Taufan nudged him with his elbow. “He’s been like this since four days ago. He didn’t even realise I changed the movie ticket until we sat down on our seats.”

Gempa looked again at the triplet (Halilintar’s face looked even more dead than usual) and sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong even when I cornered him yesterday.”

Not that he expected much from the oldest who had a penchant for running away from situations he didn't like. Even Taufan couldn’t catch up with Halilintar if he ever decided to peace out from a conversation.

To make it worse, it wasn’t just Halilintar who was acting weird. Lately—

The bell above Kokotiam’s door jingled as someone opened it from the outside. 

“I’m sorry, dear customer,” he said automatically, “but it’s past our closing time and—”

“Fang, it’s you!” Taufan said excitedly, cutting off his words and Gempa stopped placing the chairs on top of the table for a moment to turn around and look at the door too.

Fang gave them a smile and waved his hand before saying, “can I borrow Hali for a second?”

The mentioned triplet stiffened on the spot and without any warning, glowed bright red from neck up to the roots of his hair.

That kept on happening too, lately.

He narrowed his eyes at the duo as Fang dragged their oldest by his wrist just outside the glass door and spoke to Halilintar about something while the raging blush on Halilintar’s face got worse and worse over time.

Look, Halilintar, Taufan and Gempa are triplets. Their family, even the extended ones, had repeated incidents of multiple births and the three of them shared the same birthday, same toys growing up, same school, same circle of friends and quite unfortunately, same crush.

Fang. 

Of course, who else other than the same squeaky boy who used to challenge them to see who’s better whenever their different school organised friendly matches. They grew up butting heads with one another but after years and years of seeing one another, the animosity began to wane and they grew closer.

Not that having the same crush was ever a great issue for them. The triplets never really fought about it and the only thing they ever did to one another about the whole same-person-to-have-a-crush-on issue was just ruining the other triplet’s chance of confessing.

It turned into a game of who can confess first without the other two ruining their chances and so far, nobody won yet. It was damn entertaining if it wasn’t so annoying at the same time.

But back to Halilintar, Gempa had no idea what changed but recently, the two of them had been spending more time together, bowing their heads down and whispering secretly about something (Taufan said they would immediately change the topic whenever someone approached. He knew because he had tried). It would have been alarming if not for the beet-red colour staining Halilintar’s cheeks all those times and the fact that they never really did anything else other than discussing something.

So, no confession yet.

Good. That meant he still had a chance (and so did Taufan, unfortunately).

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Taufan asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. He glanced at the older triplet and looked back at the counter to see that Taufan had finished cleaning his work station.

“Who knows?” Gempa began working faster to lift all the chairs on top of the table and grabbed the mop Halilintar left behind to finish their task Tak Aba gave them for closing. “Let’s just hope it’s just university workload. They shared a few classes together, after all.”

“Yeah, university classes would definitely make Lili blush that hard—” and then Taufan gasped very loudly.

Gempa swivelled around just in time to see Fang laughing from the other side of the glass door. One of his hands moved from holding his stomach to poke at Halilintar’s cheek and their eldest swatted the hand away, pulling his cap lower on his face. Fang laughed harder at the reaction.

“Okay, wow. He never laughed that hard in front of us before,” Taufan muttered and like it or not, Gempa had to agree with him. He felt a sense of crisis inside of him looking at those two.

When Fang didn’t stop laughing at Halilintar, the oldest triplet raised his hand and—

Ruffled Fang’s hair, pressing the raven-haired boy’s head down, probably to stop the other boy from looking at his red face.

They both gasped at the action, Taufan even clutched at his chest dramatically.

Halilintar had never been the most tactile out of them three and to see Fang not biting or hissing at the hand that touched him was eye opening to say the least.

“Gempa,” Taufan said severely, the older triplet already turned around to face him with a serious face. “We have to figure out what’s wrong with them.”

Gempa nodded his head back and looked back at the duo who clearly looked like they were in their own world, not noticing two pairs of eyes observing the interaction.

The sense of crisis blared a very loud siren inside his head the longer he looked.

Halilintar had been acting weird lately and they wanted to know why.

(And preferably ruin Halilintar’s chance of confessing for the nth time).

—

2nd instance

Not only had Halilintar been acting weird lately, he even asked Tok Aba to adjust his work time at Kokotiam for the foreseeable future. Tok Aba didn’t really mind since he knew how busy his grandchildren’s life could be, but—

Taufan cared about it very much, thank you!

First of all, he knew the oldest triplet’s schedule wasn’t even that busy. He had a way of snooping around even when Hali majored in Sport Science and he took up Entomology with specialisation in Ecology  (honestly, Halilintar should realise by now that using their birth date as password was a bit silly since they shared the same birthday). Halilintar barely ever did anything else other than the part-time job at Kokotiam. He didn’t join any society or any clubs—so how the heck could he even be busy?!!

Busy flirting with Fang that is!!

Taufan still found that baffling. How did the most emotionally constipated between the three of them get ahead in the rat race? 

If it was Gempa, he could understand—the youngest triplet had that adorable sweetheart-next-door vibe to him and he knew just how much people rely on him, even Fang too, sometimes. Strong, level-headed and reliable; Gempa would be the ultimate campus sweetheart if he wasn’t head over heels for Fang since high school. Unfortunately for everyone else, the man’s taken.

Heck, even he would be a reasonable option for his bright and bubbly personality. His only weakness was the fact that Halilintar could deck him in the face whenever he got too touchy-feely with the raven-haired boy and Gempa, although he didn’t really show it, Taufan got chills just looking at his customer-service smile whenever he was pissed.

So, yeah, that was the only reason none of his flirting worked before.

Not that he ever chickened out at the very end. Nope, that didn’t happen. Taufan would never do that.

It’s called strategic retreat, he said to the snickering voice that sounded suspiciously like Halilintar in his own head.

But back to the agenda on hand, Taufan wanted to confront Halilintar to ask him what changed for him to request a time adjustment from Tok Aba. It got to have something to do with Fang, since that was the only reasonable change in his life recently, but the details were still a mystery for Taufan.

Gempa had asked Halilintar the other day, but the youngest would never push the topic if Halilintar looked uncomfortable with it, the ever bleeding heart he is. Luckily for him, whatever made Halilintar uncomfortable would make Taufan want to do it even more.

Pressing all of Hali’s buttons (nerves) is just too fun to pass up on! 

(Hence all the bickering and maybe one or two scuffle that they got into every single month).

There was no better time to jump Halilintar without any notice than the time the eldest triplet finished showering and Gempa was still in the kitchen, preparing dinner. The moment Halilintar got close enough to their shared room, he grabbed his arms and threw Halilintar inside the room.

He locked the door (come on, he didn’t want to be a bad example to the twins and his two youngest siblings. Gempa would kill him if he did that) and turned around to look at Halilintar.

Halilintar looked back at him with an unimpressed expression, arms crossing.

“So,” he copied Halilintar’s posture (to give himself more courage facing the death stare dead on) and tilted his chin up. “Spill.”

Halilintar huffed and tried to walk past him back to the door. “What’s there to talk about? You see me every single day as always.”

He was suspiciously looking at everywhere else other than Taufan’s eye. This bastard knows what Taufan is talking about, alright.

Taufan blocked his path. “Not that fast. What’s up with you and Fang lately?”

The name brought an instant blush on Halilintar’s face and Taufan would have cooed and poked the eldest on the cheek but something else caught his attention: Halilintar’s eyes immediately went to the paper bag by his bedside before looking back at him. There was a logo Taufan had never seen before on the bag, but that was not his main concern right now.

The grin on his face was immediate. So the bag could give him a clue? 

Neat. 

He just needs to snatch that from Lili’s hand.

Halilintar clearly saw the shit-eating grin on his face because in the next second, they both dashed for the paper bag at the same time. 

They knocked their heads together on the ground and Halilintar smacked the bag away to put some distance between the poor paper bag and Taufan’s grubby hand. “Taufan,” Halilintar gritted his teeth and pushed his head away as Taufan wiggled like a worm beside him to get to the bag. “Taufan, stop this bullshit and leave that bag alone.”

Of course he would never listen to that, seniority be damned. His fingers were almost, almost, reaching the paper bag if Lili would be nice enough to move his weight away from pinning him on the ground then that would be—

“Taufan.”

That was the last warning he received before a strong arm curled itself around his neck and—

Fucking choked him.

“Lili,” he coughed and tapped on the arm as fast as he could, their signal of stop fooling around. “Lili, let me go.”

The arm did not loosen up.

“Lili,” he was now scratching on the arm tightening up around his throat. In hindsight, he knew that Halilintar would never really harm him but his lizard brain was almost out of oxygen and he could feel the panic rising up inside of him. “Li—”

“Promise you’re not going to snoop around my items first.”

He shook his head instinctively just because he often did the exact thing Halilintar warned him not to do and the arm tightened up again. Taufan panicked. Okay, will it really be worth it to die now before finding out what Halilintar is hiding? If he’s willing to go this far then it have to be something huge and—

Halilintar sighed, cutting off his line of thoughts. “Taufan, you little piece of shit, just promise—”

The doorknob to their shared room rattled then. “Hali, Taufan? Are you guys in there? Why’s this door locked?”

Gempa! His savior!

“Gempa,” he wheezed out with the last of his strength. “SAVE ME!!”

“You, tsk—”

“Taufan?” the door rattled again before the sound of keys could be heard.

Halilintar smartly let him go the moment the door swung open and stood up from where they rolled down on the floor, snatching the paper bag along the way and placing it on top of his bed. Gempa walked in and took in the scene in front of him: Taufan coughing on the floor as pitifully as he could and Halilintar with his arms crossed, looking at Taufan with judgemental eyes.

Gempa narrowed his eyes on them and put his hands on his hips. There was a scary smile on their youngest triplet’s face.

They both gulped at the same time.

“What. In. The. World. Did. You. Guys. Do?”

“He started it first,” they both pointed at each other and Halilintar had the gall to look offended when he was the one who started choking Taufan first!

“No, really, it was him!” 

“What did I even do? You started it first!”

“You’re the one who choked poor innocent me without any warning!”

“You’re the one who tried to take my stuff first!”

“It’s not like you tried to hide it in the first place! I was just taking a peek!”

“Why do you even need to snoop around my stuff like that?"

“Because you won’t answer my question!”

“Why do I need to answer your question?!”

“Because you never really hide anything from us and now you’re doing all these suspicious—”

“ENOUGH!” Gempa pulled them apart by their shoulders when they started jabbing each other’s chest. “Enough, you two. What is this I’m hearing about choking and taking other people’s stuff?”

They both stayed quiet and stared at the floor. Gempa might be the one who choked them if they confessed.

Gempa sighed and put his hands back on his hips. “All those screaming and now suddenly none of you want to speak up?”

“Abang Hali choked Abang Upan again.”

They turned to look at the door and saw their younger siblings all there, heads poking out behind the door.

“Solar,” Halilintar said in a warning tone. Solar stuck his tongue out at their older brother. Somehow, despite Halilintar being scary and unapproachable to everyone else, that kid never seemed to be terrified of their eldest.

“Well, because Abang Upan tried to take something from Abang Lili,” Duri added to Solar’s words cheerfully. “We could hear both of them from the corridor.”

Taufan paled and looked back at Gempa. He loved their gremlin second youngest with all his heart but he swore one of these days Duri would be the death of him.

“So you guys are fighting again?” The scary smile was back on Gempa’s face. “In front of all the little ones?”

“It’s a one-sided massacre at best,” Ais spoke up softly.

“Yeah!” Blaze jumped up and down behind his younger twin to look inside the room. “I wish I could have seen the fight though. It would have been so cool!”

The room’s temperature lowered by a few more degrees as Gempa's smile twitched at the end. Taufan and Halilintar exchanged a glance once before swinging their arms around each other’s shoulder. “It was a joke!”

“Yeah,” Taufan laughed. “We’re just fooling around as usual. Gempa, you don’t have to be worried about it.”

“But it doesn't sound like that though?” Duri spoke up again. Taufan gave his favourite brother a pleading look but Duri’s bright face clearly meant that he missed the message Taufan tried to signal him entirely. “It sounds like Abang Upan’s about to die just now.”

“I’m still alive!” he laughed nervously. “See—” he swung his arms around and began bending his body here and there to showcase the point “—all fine and dandy. Ha-ha-ha.”

“Yeah, look, your Abang Upan is fine.” Halilintar grabbed his shoulder and began shaking him like a piece of paper.

“Hey!” he was getting dizzy from all the motion. “Are you trying to kill me for real now?”

“Oh, come on,” Halilintar scoffed. “You won’t die from that much. The worse you’ll get is brain damage, but with how you are, I think you’re already born with one.”

“You—”

“Are you two done?” Gempa’s face looked even scarier now, if that was possible. His head was tilted to one side, a smile stretching across his face yet his eyes looked cold. “Ais, Blaze, take Duri and Solar down and prepare the dining table for dinner first. We’ll come down in a few minutes.”

The two teenagers let out a chorus of “okay~” and ushered their younger siblings away to the stairs.

Taufan and Halilintar gulped.

“What did I say about roughhousing in front of the kids?” Gempa approached them with a menacing smile on his face.

Taufan and Halilintar hugged each other as Gempa loomed over them.

—

3rd instance

To be perfectly honest, Gempa had no idea why his siblings were so terrified of him sometimes. He sighed again as he swept their front yard from all the dried leaves.

He got the full story from both Halilintar and Taufan the other day and it appeared to him that they went overboard with their tussle once again. He nagged both of them to death (while being mindful that they still need to eat their dinner, so it wasn’t that long) and made Taufan promise that he would not snoop around Halilintar’s stuff without their eldest permission first (not that Hali would ever let him).

Taufan would follow through with the promise. As much of a gremlin he is, Taufan never broke a promise once he made them. 

But now they were back to square one. 

He had tried asking Halilintar why he was acting weird recently and the eldest dodged the question like a pro. Taufan had tried asking(?) and failed too.

Halilintar was definitely hiding something from them.

Not that Gempa would not respect Halilintar’s need for privacy, it was just that…what would Halilintar even need privacy for?

The only time they ever kept secrets from one another was when they first realised they had a crush on someone (their self-proclaimed rival from the school in the next town over), not realising it was the same person anyway. That time was filled with them childishly sneaking around trying to meet Fang and ended up bumping into each other as they head over to the neighbouring town to hang out with the raven-haired boy. The cat went out of the bag just like that.

No, actually if he really thinks about that time again, it was more because of Fang getting tired of arranging three separate times to meet each of them and deciding that the four of them should just hang out together since the triplets are, well, triplets.

Gempa didn’t know whether he wanted to feel amused or frustrated over Fang’s obliviousness. 

Well, he supposed he should be grateful nonetheless because it gave them more time to spend with the boy and allowed them to know the person who had made his way into their heart better, regardless if it was by accident.

His face warmed up from the thought alone and Gempa cleared his throat to stop himself from thinking about Fang too much. Right, he was supposed to figure out what Halilintar was hiding, not moon over their crush.

Although… he supposed whatever the eldest triplet was hiding would have something to do with the raven-haired guy anyway.

Fang took up Zoology and it was only by coincidence that he took university compulsory classes with Halilintar (what a lucky guy, Gempa sighed again) this semester. Gempa’s own classes for Archaeology students was on the other side of the campus for Social Science studies, farthest from the Natural Sciences department like Fang and Taufan or even the Applied Science department like Halilintar.

Bummer.

At least he had a reason to hang out at the Natural Science department whenever he visited Taufan in between classes. It would have been awkward if he randomly appeared there without any reason. The students who often approached him didn’t seem like they mind seeing him there but, well, Gempa’s too embarrassed to look at bit desperate to spend more time with his (their) crush.

Never mind about that. Since asking Halilintar directly did not bore any result, he guessed he should try asking him through text first before he tried any other method.

Halilintar should be doing whatever he asked Tok Aba for a time-off from the cafe at the moment, so technically, he shouldn’t be too busy. Gempa worded his text messages properly before sending it to Hali, humming under his breath and pocketing the phone again.

The reply shouldn’t take too long. Hali would never ignore text messages from family without giving them some kind of a notice if he would be busy.

After about fifteen minutes and the lawn was finally sparkling clean, Gempa took out his phone and… there was still no reply from Halilintar.

Huh, weird, he thought. 

Forget about a reply, the message was still unread by Halilintar so it wasn’t as if the eldest triplet was deliberately avoiding his messages either.

Well, maybe Hali really is busy right now, he scratched the back of his head. He could just check back again after he did his chores around the house.

But even after he finished doing the laundry, rearranging his younger sibling’s school books back to the shelves, swept and even mopped the whole house, Halilintar did not read the message.

Gempa was getting worried by now.

Taufan, he messaged the middle triplet. Can you contact Hali right now?

There was an immediate question mark sent by Taufan before the online indication changed to offline again.

After a few minutes of waiting, Taufan called him.

“Gemgem,” Taufan whined from the other side of the line. “I can’t seem to contact him right now. I’ve tried messages and calls. Nothing came in.” 

That meant at least fifty text messages and twenty calls from Taufan. Halilintar would usually be pissed enough to pick up the phone when Taufan kept blowing his notification like that.

“I see,” he pursed his lips. “I tried messaging him too a few hours ago and he still hasn't seen the message.”

“Is Lili getting abducted by aliens? Do we need to rescue him??” Taufan screamed and Gempa winced as he pulled the phone away from his ear.

“No,” he sighed. “I’m sure he would have beat up those aliens first.” All those years learning martial arts would not fail Halilintar.

“Oh, yeah, that sounds like Lili alright,” laughter spilled from the speaker, loud enough that he did not need to put it back to his ear to hear everything perfectly. “I’ll ask around if anyone’s seen him. Try asking someone else that Hali trusts. He might be sulking because of what I did the other day.”

He said his goodbye and stared at his phone again.

Okay, so Taufan did not hear anything from Halilintar either. He scrolled down through his contact list. Who else could he ask?

Someone that Halilintar trusts other than them.

And then his finger stopped on his cousins’ contact number.

Glacier. 

Halilintar looked up to Supra, one of their elder cousins who also happened to be a triplet just like them. IF Halilintar did not want to talk to them, he would usually go to either one of their cousins and that usually meant none other than Supra.

It wouldn’t hurt to ask Glacier if Supra had heard anything about why Halilintar has been acting weird recently. Glacier’s pretty fond of him (and he looked up to the man in return), so usually his cousin would entertain any favour that he asked.

Hey, Gempa typed into their private message.

The answer was immediate. Glacier sent a sticker of one of his famous comic characters, Gargantuan, with a question mark on its head.

Gempa chuckled when he saw the new sticker. Glacier reminded him of Ais sometimes. The man would rather send a sticker than type an answer because that takes too long.

Did Supra ever mention anything new about Halilintar recently?

Glacier sent a sticker of his cartoon saying “hmm” before he went offline.

Just like Taufan, it only took him a few minutes for Glacier to be back online.

Bless his family for being chronically online and always quick to answer any messages. 

Unfortunately, the only answer he got was a sticker of Gargantuan shaking its brown-bluish head and shrugging his shoulder in an approximation of “no”.

Gempa sighed again. So, Halilintar didn’t tell Supra either.

It would be unlikely for Hali to tell Gentar then, despite being the only cousin the same age as the triplet. Halilintar was weirdly fond of the boisterous cousin of them, but if Supra didn’t know, then his younger brother wouldn't either.

Just as Gempa was about to pocket his phone and continue worrying about their eldest triplet’s abnormal silence, his phone vibrated from a new text message.

He whipped his phone out only to be disappointed that it was just Glacier again, not Halilintar.

He opened the chat to see Glacier finally sending him a proper text (proper by Glacier’s standard, not normal human’s standard). 

Bel & Rim coming over in 2 w. Sem break – Sori.

Gempa perked up. Their other cousins will be coming over for their university’s semester break. That reminded him that their own university should be close enough to the scheduled semester break and school holidays should be around the corner, too.

It had been a while since they had a full house where everyone was present. It wasn’t a problem for the oldest triplets in the family—Frostfire, Glacier and Supra—to make time for them since they were already working and could just apply for a leave, but the rest was still in university or in school, so they couldn’t just ditch their classes (even if he knew Blaze and Nova would rather be anywhere else other than in class).

It would be nice to have a family gathering, Gempa thought as he sent an Earth golem sticker (courtesy of Glacier being an illustrator and a comic artist) doing the “terbaik!” pose. Maybe being surrounded by family would allow Halilintar to be comfortable enough to share what had been making him acting weird lately.

That sounded a bit unlikely, but Gempa could dream.

—

4th instance

Halilintar. Has. Been. So. Damn. Annoying!!

Taufan would like to stomp his foot and roll around on the ground throwing the biggest tantrum known to mankind, but that would lead him nowhere so he only allowed himself the permanent pout on his face and continued holding up the two thick branches on both hands as he moved from one bushes to another bushes in a very crude attempt of espionage.

In his defence, it was his baby’s attempt to trail after his target (Halilintar), so he could be forgiven for his lack of professionalism in the matter.

Halilintar’s weird behaviour had gone on for too long, it turned suspicious.

They’d use the soft approach of asking nicely (well, maybe not so nicely on Taufan’s part, but Halilintar knew a long time ago how his brain operated) and Gempa even went the extra mile to ask the people Halilintar’s close with just end up with no answer still.

He was about to suggest tackling Halilintar down (even though he was pretty sure Halilintar would not go down if it was just him tackling the eldest triplet to the floor, Halilintar having more muscle compared to Taufan’s lanky frame and everything) but Gempa put his foot down at physical violence (never mind that they have been going at each other since they were literal babies. Taufan was so proud to know that Baby-Taufan once socked Baby-Halilintar in the face when they were just two years old before the oldest triplet grew up to become an absolute monster and Taufan lost all chance to ever enact his revenge).

That was until they opened the door one night to see that FANG HAD WALKED HALILINTAR HOME.

LUCKY BASTARD.

Halilintar got to be the universe’s favourite child. 

Taufan, on the other hand, would be the universe’s forgotten child.

He and Gempa watched the two of them in front of the gate with Halilintar jerking his thumbs in the direction of the house and Fang shook his head in return, looking back at the road. Taufan supposed Halilintar was inviting the raven-haired boy inside (good move, Taufan would forgo one of his pranks on Halilintar later just for that) and Fang saying he could not stay over because he need to go back home quick because it was late and his family would be worried.

How did he know? Well, Taufan had no idea, that was just the conversation he conjured up inside his head. They were too far away for him to hear the exchange properly.

It ended with Fang waving at Halilintar before he walked back where he came from. Halilintar watched the raven-haired boy’s back until the streetlights were no longer enough to illuminate his figure from a distance.

And then he turned around to see both his younger triplets gaping at him.

“What?” Halilintar huffed, arms crossed. It would work on practically anyone else but they spend too much time around each other to know that Halilintar was just trying to cover up his embarrassment.  

They didn’t have the chance to get a word in before they realised their younger siblings were behind Taufan and Gempa, looking at Halilintar with interest.

“Who’s that?” Duri, the one with the survival instinct of a five years old despite his age reaching double-digit for almost a full six years now, asked with a straight face. He gripped the back of Taufan’s clothes and bounced on his feet excitedly.

Taufan commended his younger brother’s bravery and prepared his eulogy in the same breath.

“Ooooohh,” realisation seemed to dawn on Blaze’s face (that was never a good thing) and he also gripped the back of Taufan’s clothes in his excitement. “Is that the one you guys have been—”

Ais kicked his twin from behind Gempa’s back, maintaining his straight face at the same time. Blaze crumpled to the floor and groaned, holding his side.

Taufan pitied the boy, but now was not the time he wanted to confess his deep undying love for his crush in front of his family.

Ais changed the topic to when they were going to eat dinner and Gempa, oblivious to what just happened behind him (Taufan had a feeling Ais was smarter than he let on, kinda like their cousin Glacier, if he wasn’t feeling so lethargic all the damn time, also pretty much like Glacier), ushered them all to the dining room to eat now that Halilintar was back home.

Of course Taufan wasn’t about to let the issue die down just like that, though!

Fang walked Halilintar back home!

That meant that whatever Halilintar was doing out there which made him ask for an extended leave from working at Kokotiam really had something to do with Fang that the guy could walk him back home!

Or maybe they really had nothing to do with each other and just happened to bump into one another one fine night (that didn’t sound so impossible with how much the universe favored Halilintar. Bumping into your crush in the middle of the night just screamed romantic encounters—or creepy, but that wasn’t the genre they were in right now—to Taufan) and the whole being-walked-back-home-like-an-ultimate-gentleman thing might just be a one time thing. Who knows?

Taufan knew.

It happened more than once.

Gempa could no longer deny that Halilintar was hiding something big behind them and therefore Taufan finally got to wheedle out a permission to tail after Halilintar from the youngest triplet without the whole thing blowing over in his own face if it ever got out later on (which meant he would have a valid reason to hide behind Gempa when Halilintar discovered what Taufan had been doing and wanted to sock him in the face afterward).

But that was for Future-Taufan to worry about!

Present-Taufan was still crouching down somewhere in the middle of their town’s well maintained bushes and  looking at Halilintar’s back that was growing smaller every time he took a breath.

Why is this guy always moving so damn fast?? 

What’s he running away from? His inner demons?

He would have cackled at his own joke if not for the fact he didn’t want to expose himself to the public via howling like a witch and making the bushes shake alongside his shoulders at the same time.

That would just create more urban legend for their town and Halilintar would kill him if he knew Taufan was the reason more and more horror stories kept popping up in their hometown. Halilintar had enough reason to end his life already, he didn’t want to add more to the list.

Taufan did his best to follow Halilintar’s path but it was proving to be far more difficult than he anticipated. He left his skateboard back home because it would be too conspicuous and Halilintar would recognise him the moment he saw the skateboard (of course, it was a joint gift from Halilintar and Gempa when they entered university, after all) so he had been going around crawling on the dirt for a few days only to lose sight of the eldest triplet the second he got distracted by something else (look, he was an Entomology student; those insects crawling on the dirt beside him was really interesting, you see).

Today he swore he would figure out where Halilintar had been skedadling away to the sunset with Fang (he knew he had been telling himself the same thing for the past few days but there was nothing wrong with giving himself pep talks and patting himself on the back for his hard work) and all his blood, sweat and tears of snooping after his eldest triplet like a creep would finally paid off (oh, look, another colony of ants; he should be mindful not to squash them) and—

HALILINTAR WAS GONE FROM HIS SIGHT AGAIN!!

Taufan shot out from the bushes, hands still holding on to the random tree branches that he picked along the way, never mind that they weren’t even the same type as the bushes he was hiding in (oh no, he moved too fast and ruined a spiderweb. His former science teacher at school that kept this huge tarantula would be so disappointed in him) and checked the road Halilintar just breezed through aaaaand yep, he's gone alright.

That doesn't mean Taufan couldn't make a chase though!

Halilintar had been using the same road every single day. Taufan did manage to tail him far enough a few days prior before losing sight of the eldest triplet, so right now, he just needed to follow the same trail and maybe (if the universe was feeling kind enough towards him today) he would find Halilintar again.

Fingers crossed he could do this!

Taufan ditched the tree branches in his hands and started running on the pedestrian walk.

Halilintar had always been a fast walker so he shouldn’t waste any more time second guessing himself. He must find the answer today!

He reached the end of the path and veered left, trying not to slip as without slowing down his momentum either. He should enter the road leading right after this. If he ran as fast as he could, maybe he could see the eldest triplet’s back somewhere in the distance, so right he went and—

Taufan crashed into someone.

He fell down on his butt a mighty yelp and the other person also crashed down to the ground. All the papers the stranger had been holding scattered around them, some still floating down in the air.

“I’M SO SORRY,” Taufan stood up immediately to help the stranger. “Hey, are you okay? Did the fall hurt any— Bel??”

The blue haired stranger stopped groaning and moved the hand in front of his face a bit to look back at him. “Taufan?”

“It’s really you!” Taufan offered his hand to get Beliung back on his feet. “I thought you’re coming over this weekend. Why’re you here?”

“Well, most of my classes finished their syllabus last week and this week is just filled with common tests. Somehow my lecturers decided it was a good thing to cram everything on the same day so I got nothing else to do at campus after I’m done with it. Might as well head home now.” Beliung gave him a thumbs up and bent down to start collecting all his scattered papers.

Taufan helped him collect the papers (there were a lot) and glanced through some of them. There were some diagrams that he understood and some that clearly flew over his head. Once everything had been collected, he passed it over to Beliung and then Taufan froze. He finally got a clear look at his cousin.

He knew he should chase after Halilintar’s trail right now before his effort for the day went to waste again but…Beliung looked dead on his feet. 

They don’t have that much age difference, being only three years apart from each other, so among all his cousins and extended family, he was the closest with Beliung. Beliung was the one who taught him how to ride the skateboard, the one who dragged him to the small clearing behind their grandparents house to go and catch insects and of course, the one who helped him decide he wanted to pursue Entomology after high school.

Rightfully, Beliung should have ended his university life a year ago but majoring in Medical Parasitology meant that he had another year to suffer through university. University life…hadn’t been kind towards Beliung.

If Taufan is the universe’s forgotten child, it felt like life itself got something against Beliung in particular. There would always be something terrible happening to Beling each semester. Shitty teammates, his computer exploding in front of his face a few hours before his deadline, unforgiving lecturers (the amount of time he had heard Beliung rage about Professor Retak’ka and Assistant Professor Reramos was impressive), missing books and stationeries (although for that one Taufan had a feeling that was just another one of Beliung’s scary die-hard fans stealing his stuff. Beliung always had those kinds of fans unfortunately, but with his face, Taufan could understand) and of course, the heavy course material too. There was a reason Beliung recommended him to take up Entomology instead of Medical Entomology as he originally planned.

There were heavy eyebags decorating the underside of Beliung’s eyes and he looked a bit pale to be healthy. His dyed hair showed its roots; clearly Beliung didn’t have enough time to touch it up even when his hair had been his pride and joy (apparently Beliung and Rimba looked too similar when they were young and people often mistook them for each other despite their one year age gap so Teenager-Beliung swore one day that he would dye his hair a different colour than Rimba just to make the difference even more stark. Not that he had to, honestly, since they looked so different from one another now but Beliung is nothing if not a stickler to his promise. He learned the habit from his cousin, if anything).

He had a feeling that Beliung was just five steps away from snapping and summoning a huge ahh tornado like his namesake to destroy the world sometimes. At that point, the blue-haired guy would be too far gone from reality and would just laugh maniacally at the chaos around him.

The world can’t end yet! Taufan hasn’t confessed to the love of his life!

“Hey,” Taufan decided to snatch half of the papers from Beliung (it was either someone stole his bag or somehow the bag decided to commit suicide midway back home) and tilted his head to where he came from. “Let’s hang out at Kokotiam. You haven’t told me how your last project went.”

Beliung looked at him in surprise before his eyes started watering. “Upaaaan,” he said, lips trembling. There was a grateful look on his face.

“Come on,” Taufan looked away, embarrassed. “Gempa would be happy to see you here early. He’s at Kokotiam right now.”

They began walking back before Taufan remembered. “Hey, where’s Rimba?”

“Oh, RimRim? He said he’s going out for food hunting. I don’t exactly know where, though. He zoomed away the moment the bus dropped us at the neighbouring town’s bus terminal.”

Taufan frowned. “Why not this town’s bus terminal? It’s closer.”

“Last week was so busy I forgot to buy the bus ticket before it all sold out,” his cousin sighed. “I feel a bit bad about it but Rimba’s just excited to have more places to hunt for food so I guess it all worked out fine,” Beliung shrugged.

“On that note, though,” Beliung looked at him. “What are you doing halfway to the next town?”

To catch a family traitor!

“Eh, I was just trailing after Lili,” he said.

“Is this about Lili acting weird again? I thought you guys would have figured out why by now.”

“Yeah, no,” he groaned and wished his hands were free so that he could swing them around to prove his point. “Lili’s not spilling anytime soon.”

Beliung hummed under his breath, thinking. “Well, want me to ask Rimba to snoop around? They’re close, aren’t they? Rimba owes me a favour, after all.”

“I’ve tried. Rimba said Hali already bribed him before I approached him with the same offer. He only ever listens to the person who feeds him first.”

“Shucks,” Beliung laughed. 

Taufan sighed again before he checked Beliung’s complexion. His blue-haired cousin did look marginally better than a few minutes ago, the laughter easing up some of the heavy air around him.

He hummed and nodded to himself. He would need to trail after Halilintar again tomorrow, but for now, he was just glad that his cousin was feeling better.

—

5th instance

Halilintar was…baking?

Gempa stared at the eldest triplet fluttering around the kitchen. He rubbed his eyes a few times too to make sure it wasn’t just Taufan acting as Halilintar again but…nope, the one in front of him is definitely Hali.

Taufan couldn’t replicate that impressive frown on his face even if he died and got resurrected. He was just too carefree to have a face that severe.

“What are you making?” Gempa decided he should release the eldest triplet from his misery and help. Why not? Halilintar might be willing to talk if Gempa showed that he had nothing against him and was just worried about his well being.

Halilintar jumped a few inches into the air like a spooked cat and turned around to face him, surprise colouring his face. “Gempa! What are you doing here?” he stuttered.

Gempa cocked his eyebrow. “Why? Is there anywhere else I’m supposed to be at?”

“No, I—” Halilintar averted his eyes, his voice getting smaller and smaller, “I thought you’d be at Kokotiam right now.”

“Ah, Bel said he would like to take over my shift as thanks for the drink I gave him the other day,” he shrugged. “It’s not like I’m going to say no to a free day. Taufan’s with him so it should be fine.”

There was bound to be some incident when both Taufan and Beliung were on shift, but their eldest cousins—the triplets; Frostfire, Glacier and Supra—would drop by in the afternoon so the cafe should still stand by then. They could deal with whatever the two decided to do. Gempa just hoped that no customer ended up with food poisoning from the two of them mixing the drinks like potions. 

“I see,” Halilintar nodded his head and hesitated a bit, before making space for Gempa beside him. “Well,” he scratched the back of his head and pushed the recipe book that definitely belonged to Taufan towards Gempa before saying, “I was trying to make cinnamon rolls. I owe Rimba a favour.”

“I see.” Of course, Rimba only accepts payment in food. Gempa studied the recipe for a moment before looking at the ingredients Halilintar had gathered on the kitchen counter. “I can help. When do you plan to meet him?”

“I was just planning to practice first,” Halilintar shrugged. “I’ll find some time before the family gathering to pass him the goods.”

Gempa was just there to help, so he guided Halilintar through the motion and when they waited for the dough to proof, Gempa finally had enough courage to ask, “so…why not just buy something instead of making it yourself?”

Rimba wasn’t that picky with what kind of food he received, anyway. Why the extra effort?

Halilintar stiffened by the sink and his hands stopped washing some of the used baking tools before he forced himself to resume his movement. “Nothing much. I just feel like it.”

That was one big bald-faced lie coming from Halilintar if Gempa ever spotted one. He frowned. “Lili, I’m not mad. It’s just that you’ve been acting weird for almost a full month now and, well, I’m just worried.” 

Halilintar placed the washed bowl on the drying rack and turned to face him. The frown was back on his face, but he wasn’t looking at Gempa. He was looking down at the floor, face troubled.

Gempa felt a little bit bad now. He waved his hands and decided not to push it too much. “I get it if you have a secret you don’t want to tell us, but Lili…talk to us, will you? You don’t have to spill everything. Just give us a reason not to worry too much why you’ve been really silent and barely ever stick at home anymore.”

Halilintar immediately raised his face when he finished talking. “Gempa, wait, I wasn’t trying to make you worried,” he hesitated on his words then, “but, well, I’m sorry. I— I don’t think I can explain about it right now. It’s a bit too embarrassing to say it out loud, you know.”

Halilintar shifted his eyes away again, hand raised to scratch at his reddening cheeks. Gempa tilted his head at the reaction.

“Are you dating Fang right now?” 

“WhAT?!” Halilintar spluttered. “No!” 

The eldest triplet was fully glowing red from head to toe, so Gempa figured that must be the truth. He narrowed his eyes at the eldest triplet, “are you planning to confess anytime soon, then?”

If so, then like always, he will ruin Halilintar’s chances of doing so. He should tell Taufan the news too so they could take arms against Halilintar.

“No!” Halilintar waved his arms before pulling his cap lower in front of his face. “Not even close! It…has nothing to do with confessing whatsoever! It would be nice if that’s the case but, no. Just no.”

Gempa pursed his lips and observed Halilintar’s reaction. Hmm, he seemed genuinely embarrassed to be lying through his teeth right now. 

Maybe he’s really telling the truth.

“But it has something to do with Fang?”

Halilintar hesitated before nodding his head.

“Are you being forced to do something you don’t like, though? Do you need help with it?” his voice came out colder than he anticipated, but it got the message across.

Crush or not, he will prioritise his siblings first. If Halilintar needs help, then he will not hesitate to do what his brother asked him.

Halilintar shook his head, which surprised Gempa a bit because if that was the situation, then why was their eldest triplet being so secretive about whatever he had been doing?

“Well, I’m guessing you’re not doing anything dangerous then?” he asked just to be sure. Halilintar had been suspiciously silent and off the radar lately, so he might as well just ask.

“I’m not,” Halilintar shook his head again. “And don’t worry, I’m surrounded by people I can rely on if it ever turns sour.”

That didn’t sound reassuring, but Gempa already pushed enough for that day. He nodded his head and turned back to the kitchen counter to check the proofed dough. “If anything goes wrong,” he poked the dough that was twice its original size in the glass bowl, “you know you can find us, right?”

Halilintar huffed and Gempa could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “sure, GemGem. I know you guys will always have my back.”

Taufan came back (he was kicked back home by Glacier for adding blue colour dye to every single drink that was ordered that day; Frostfire on the other hand was just impressed that Mocha could be blue) as they were rolling the dough to add its inner filling. The middle triple stood at the entrance of the kitchen and dramatically pointed at Halilintar, “who are you and what have you done to my brother??”

Halilintar gave him an unimpressed look and flipped him the bird.

“Gempaaaa,” Taufan sobbed and draped himself all over Gempa’s shoulders (while Gempa chastised their eldest triplet for being crude). “What’s Lili doing in the kitchen? Baking is supposed to be my thing.”

“Don’t worry, Upan,” he patted the arms around his neck. “You’re still the best baker in our family.”

“Really?” Taufan cheered up quickly enough, beaming at him and tightening the hug without suffocating Gempa. “See, this is why you’re my favourite triplet.”

“As if I want to be your favourite triplet,” Halilintar rolled his eyes.

“GEMPA!” Taufan screamed even though Gempa was just standing beside him. “Look at Hali! He’s not being cute right now!”

He winced at the volume of the voice. “Taufan, don’t scream.”

“Yeah, Taufan,” Halilintar snickered, a mocking grin on his face. “If you keep on screaming like that you’ll singlehandedly be the reason we’ll suffer from hearing loss so early in life.”

“That’s it,” Taufan straightened up and put both hands on his hip. “My honour has suffered enough attacks today.”

And then a shit-eating grin bloomed on his face.

Gempa did not have enough time to warn Taufan not to do stupid before the middle triplet swiped some cream cheese frosting that they had put aside and smeared it on Halilintar’s face.

Halilintar, not expecting the attack, backed into the kitchen counter and slipped on a wet tile (Gempa had nagged his siblings many times over and over again not to wring their wet hands after washing something carelessly or someone would slip on the floor, so, as much as he pitied their eldest triplet, serves him right). He fell on the floor but not before his hand accidentally hit the flour container and the whole thing tumbled down with him too.

They both looked at Halilintar on the floor, eyes wide and caked with flour all over his body, the container falling neatly into his lap.

Taufan snorted (Gempa tried very hard to muffle his laughter) and pointed at Halilintar. “Hah, serve you right!” 

As the middle triplet continued to clutch his stomach and bent over himself laughing his heart out, Gempa watched with dread as Halilintar began trembling on the ground. His hands by his side slowly clenched into tight fists.

“Uh, Taufan,” he nudged the older triplet beside him using his elbow slowly, eyes still watching Halilintar on the floor. “You might want to run away now.”

It was like watching a volcano erupt—calm with barely a hint of a little warning, before sudden disaster.

Halilintar was already on his feet when Taufan stopped laughing. The eldest triplet tilted his head to the side and smiled menacingly at their middle triplet, eyes blazing bright red from under his (flour dusted) cap. “Well, why did you stop laughing?”

Taufan gulped and watched as Halilintar’s hand slammed down on the unused stick of butter that was already at room temperature on the kitchen counter.

“Uh, Lili…” Taufan backed away one step.

“You better fucking stay at that spot, you little—”

Gempa could barely see the two of them as Taufan did a mad dash towards the main door and Halilintar close by on his heel, hand still gripping that stick of butter.

He would like to remind them not to waste food, but, eh. 

Gempa shrugged and turned around to finish making the cinnamon rolls. Taufan did start it this time around.

—

+ 1

Everyone was back for the family gathering this weekend, so Taufan and Gempa had free time to just hang out together as their cousins agreed to watch over Kokotiam. Halilintar was yet again not with them.

Taufan sighed. “So Hali’s really not telling us, huh?” 

Gempa followed along wherever Taufan led him (which seemed to be nowhere in particular if he was being honest) and shrugged. “He said it’s embarrassing. Give him some time. He’ll come around and tell us eventually.” 

“But I want to know now,” Taufan whined. “And it wasn’t just him too. Fang’s been seeing him a lot more than before and I’m dying to know what they’re talking about.”

Semester break just started so that meant they no longer had any reason to accidentally bump into Fang at campus either and the lack of chance encounter with a certain raven-haired guy made everything felt a bit slow. Halilintar was so lucky to be able to spend so much time with him!

Taufan wanted to scream life is unfair to the sky but that would lead to Gempa looking at him weirdly and after the whole butter-to-the-face fiasco, he didn’t feel like lowering his impression in Gempa’s head anymore.

Taufan sighed again. “Hey, do you think—”

“What are you two doing here?” a new voice interrupted them.

They both swivelled around at the same time to see a familiar face staring back at them.

Fang.

The raven-haired guy tilted his head. “Are you guys just going to keep staring or am I supposed to repeat the question again?”

“No, we—” “Oh, you see—”

They both snapped their mouths shut and looked at each other when they began to talk over one another.

Fang huffed and crossed his arms in front of him. “I thought triplets are supposed to be more well coordinated than this. Why do you guys always talk over each other?”

That was when Taufan realised the paper bag the raven-haired boy was holding in his hand. “Hey, that’s—” his voice died in his throat. 

Technically, there was nothing wrong with the bag itself, but the logo on the bag looked familiar.

He had seen Halilintar’s stuff with that logo before (well, duh, the three of them shared the same room, after all) on the day Gempa made him promise not to snoop around Halilintar’s stuff anymore.

He glanced at Gempa to see the youngest triplet recognised the logo too.

“Oh, this?” Fang lifted the paper bag. “I guess you guys might’ve seen the same paper bag with Hali before.” 

“Where did the bag come from?” Taufan decided to bite the bullet.

“What?” Fang looked at them with confusion. “Hali didn’t tell you?”

At their twin blank looks, Fang sighed and muttered “that idiot” under his breath. “Alright, I’ll just take you there. It’s easier than explaining the whole thing anyway,” the boy said and then he looped his arms with them and started dragging them away.

They had been doing this a lot already for Taufan to stop getting heart attacks whenever Fang linked their arms together but that didn’t stop his confusion from growing. “Hey, where’re you taking us?”

“To Lili, of course.”

He felt a little bit alarmed that Fang had started calling Halilintar with his cutesy name so casually like that, but Taufan was also thrilled to finally be getting answers.

Who knew Fang would have just told them straight away if they asked? Should have thought about that from the start, really.

Or maybe not, since he still gets butterflies in his stomach whenever they talk for too long.

But now that he was mindlessly letting Fang manhandle him down the road…the path did feel a little bit familiar to him. 

Hmm…

Oh! Taufan thought he was just mindlessly walking around earlier but apparently his feet decided to trace the path that Halilintar had been going to while he trailed after the guy.

“Hey, if you’re willing to tell us the moment we ask you, why’s Hali being so damn secretive about it? What are you guys doing actually?”

Fang snorted at his question. “We’re not doing anything dangerous, if that’s what you’re wondering about. He’s probably just really embarrassed about it.”

“About what?” Gempa added.

“Just wait— we’re here.”

They had stopped in front of a building and Taufan looked up at the shop sign to see that it was a… cafe?

“A cafe?” Taufan and Gempa said at the same time. The red and black signboard “Gur’latan” in proud golden blocky words.

“It’s my neighbour’s. I’ve been helping around since she decided to continue her grandmother’s work.”

“Hey, I think I’ve heard of the name before.” Taufan looked at Gempa to see the guy holding his chin, thinking deeply, before recognition lit his eyes. He snapped his fingers and looked back at Taufan. “Yeah, I’ve seen them in the list of deliveries I passed to Hali. You know, for the cocoa powder Tok Aba sometimes sells to other establishments.”

“Now that I think about it, Hali started acting weird on the day he did one of those deliveries, didn’t he? That’s the day before we watch that horror movie.”

“But if Hali’s just working at another cafe, then did he really need to hide it from us?” Gempa frowned. “It’s not like Tok Aba minds. It’s a cafe from a neighbouring town, after all. It’s not like it’ll affect Kokotiam much.”

“That,” Fang’s voice took their attention back to the guy and there was a mischievous look on his face, “might be because of the recent challenge Kak Kira did to boost the cafe’s traffic.”

“What—” but Taufan did not have enough time to finish the line because the next moment, Fang dragged them inside, yelling “Kak Kira, I’m here!” and then—

And then Taufan instantly understood why Halilintar didn’t tell them about working at another cafe.

Halilintar came out from the back with his hands fixing his hair, clearly not realising their presence in the cafe yet. “Fang, you shouldn’t make it a habit to come in just a few minutes before opening. There’s still a lot we need to—” and then he abruptly looked up and spotted them linking hands with Fang.

Halilintar froze.

Taufan gaped at him.

Fang grinned.

“Ha– Hali?” Gempa stuttered. “What are you—”

Halilintar, well, Halilintar being himself glowed beet red in the very next second and then his hand slammed down on one of the thick booklets on the counter that Taufan could only assume was the menu. Bad premonition immediately made itself known inside of Taufan—they had done this song and dance plenty of times before—and he raised his hands in alarm. 

“Wait, Hali—”

And a thick ass menu promptly hit Taufan straight to the face with a loud “SMACK”.

Taufan never knew getting hit with a menu would hurt that much, but he supposed that was thanks to Halilintar’s impressive arm strength more than anything.

He fell backward and passed out.

—

If anyone had warned him about what would happen today, Halilintar would have just skipped his shift at the cafe entirely and done something else. 

Anything else was better than this.

Sitting in front of his two other triplets and trying—and failing, mind you, but at least he tried—to act normal.

Gempa was looking at him sympathetically while Taufan was doing his best (which was still a horrible job anyway) at trying not to burst out laughing.

The next time he heard an aborted snort from Taufan, Halilintar gritted his teeth and his hand subconsciously inched closer to the menu. “Do you really want to die today?”

There was a very audible “eek” from Taufan and the middle triplet shook his head as fast as he could. The bump on his forehead still spotted an angry red which Taufan slapped with a cutesy banana band-aid plaster courtesy of Gempa.

“Hali, calm down,” their youngest intervened as always. “This all…has been very eye opening.”

He made a dying sound in his throat and looked away again. “You don’t have to mince your words like that, Gempa. Just say that I look weird.”

“Hali, don’t say that. I’ve told you before that you looked cute,” a feminine voice interjected into their conversation. A woman with beautiful long red hair placed a mug in front of all three of them before standing up straight again and smiling down at Halilintar’s two younger triplets. “After all, you wouldn’t get repeated customers who come here just to see you if you didn’t rock the outfit.”

Taufan made a scandalous gasp and Halilintar kicked him from under the table. “It’s not what you think. Those customers are girls.”

Kak Kira’na giggled. “Lili’s quite popular with the girls here, you see.”

“Kak Kira, stop,” he covered his face with a hand. “It’s not like I was doing it on purpose.”

“And that’s the best part,” the owner of the cafe was fully laughing now. “I was quite worried that the maid cafe theme would attract unsavory people in the beginning, but I guess I no longer have to worry about that with Halilintar’s here. Nobody dared to look at us weird the moment Hali glared at them.”

Halilintar could feel his brothers’ eyes on him again and resolutely tried to ignore the embarrassment crawling up inside of him. He wished he had his cap with him but that would clash with the red wig he was wearing at the moment and Kira’na wouldn’t accept anything that would ruin the image of her employees.

So, Halilintar suffered almost daily having people coo and shower him with praises. It was the most embarrassing thing he ever did in his life. There was a reason he never said a word about this job even after almost a month working there.

Truthfully, the uniform wasn’t that bad on him, if he really had to be honest with himself. The maid uniform looked closer to a victorian maid uniform with its long sleeves and long skirt, rather than a gaudy modernised short skirt version. The long sleeves pretty much covered his muscles and the long red wig that he fashioned into a single strand of french braid behind him made him look a bit similar to the cafe owner. The outfit even had gloves that could cover his calloused hands. People would have to look at him twice to realise he was a guy. Kak Kira was trying to avoid attracting the wrong people to the establishment, in the first place.

After all, her cherished little neighbour worked there too. 

“Are you guys done with the explanation?" Halilintar stiffened when he heard that familiar voice coming from the back of the cafe heading towards them. Here comes the devil.

He removed the hand from his face to see his siblings’ reaction aaaand, yep, that’s another reason why he didn’t tell them.

Taufan and Gempa were both openly gaping at Fang.

Of course, who wouldn’t?

The raven-haired guy was wearing the same uniform as him, the only difference being the colour of the wig. Fang was wearing a long dark purple wig instead of red and he fashioned it into twin braids resting on his shoulders.

“So,” the boy grinned, “how do I look?” He twirled on the spot once and gave them a peace sign.

Taufan and Gempa still hadn’t picked their jaws from the floor.

Halilintar kicked them from under the table once before turning to face Fang. He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes too for maximum effect. “Are you done fishing for compliments, narcissist?”

Fang shrugged. “It’s not like I can wait for you to compliment me. Might as well ask someone else.”

“How many times do you need me to say you look nice?”

“Nice, Lili, is not enough. I need to know I look even better than you.”

“Yes, say that to all the customers who choose me over you.” A smirk pulled on his lips when he saw the incensed look on Fang’s face. “We all know who they come here for.”

He couldn’t really help it. Working here almost every day for a month made it easier to throw jabs like that to each other, almost like the time when they were younger and he hadn’t realised he had a crush on the most annoying person in the universe.

“You know what,” Fang put his hands on his hips and glared at him. “I’m starting to regret asking you to help. Why does it have to be you who’s doing delivery on my first day here back then? Why can’t it be Taufan or anyone else for that matter. Taufan would be far more supportive than you.”

Halilintar could hear Taufan squeak in his seat, his mind finally back online, but he ignored that in order to glare back at the guy.

“Oh, Pang,” Kak Kira hid her smile behind one polite hand. “You were so glad you didn't have to be the only one crossdressing back then. You can’t work in the kitchen and you’ve been begging me to give you other tasks before Hali walks in on us. Don’t take back your words now.”

“Kak Kira—” is that a blush Halilintar sees on Fang’s face? “—no, first of all, why do you have to make a weird bet with Abang and dragged me along in your shenanigans,” the raven-haired boy huffed. “I swear this is the last weirdest thing I’ll help you with.”

“Come on,” Kak Kira poked her little neighbour on the cheek, “we won the bet, didn’t we? Kai should have known from the start that he couldn’t beat me when it came to business.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Fang blew raspberries at her as Kak Kira laughed and made her way to the kitchen. “Also,” he turned back to the three of them seated in front of him, “I kinda dragged you two here. Want anything in particular? It’s my treat.”

“What’s the customer’s favourite?” Gempa asked, although Halilintar wasn’t so sure he was entirely here yet or not. Gempa had the best ability to work on autopilot between the three of them. 

Taufan, on the other hand, was still blinking rapidly but at least he was now staring at the mug in front of him rather than at Fang. At one point, Taufan touched the plastered bump on his forehead and frowned. Halilintar secretly laughed at him inside his own head.

“Our customers like to order our strawberry waffles and strawberry souffle pancakes,” Fang hummed. “Well, anything strawberry related, actually. The quality’s guaranteed. Sa'riya is pretty good at what she’s doing, after all.” 

“Oh,” Taufan finally spoke up, and then a grin bloomed on his face as he looked up at Halilintar. “No wonder you’re well suited here, Lili. Strawberry suits you well.”

Halilintar flipped Taufan his middle finger but he didn’t have the chance to reply before Fang laughed. “You know, our customers said that too. For someone who’s so gruff, he sure treats the girls nicely.” 

“It’s basic manners,” he huffed and tried his hardest not to blush again. “You’re supposed to treat customers nicely and it’s not like they’re making my life harder. I've helped Tok Aba at his cafe since I was little, remember?”

“Yes, yes, you’re the pro here. I’m so glad to be under your guidance, your excellency.”

“Don’t be a prick. You’d have a harder time talking with the customers if I wasn’t here.”

“Gee, I’ve thanked you for your pointers, didn’t I? Do you really have to bring that up every time?”

“It’s hard not to when you’re being even more annoying than usual.”

“You know what? Next semester, don’t choose the same class as me. I won’t lend you my notes anymore.”

“Now who’s using threats just to get their way? I thought you said you’re better than this.”

“You—”

“Wow,” Gempa’s voice cut their argument short. Halilintar turned to see that his younger triplets were looking at him with wide eyes. “You two are really close now.”

“Who’s close with him?!” they said at the same time. Halilintar exchanged a look with Fang before they turned to the opposite direction and huffed.

“Wow, you can even do synchronised movement now,” Taufan’s annoying voice was back. Halilintar missed it when his mind couldn’t even work a simple sentence just a few moments ago. “And you refused to do any synchronised action with your own triplets, Lili. How could you?” he sobbed dramatically.

“We’re not doing synchronised movements,” Halilintar clenched his teeth and stood up from his seat. “You know what, I’ll go back and get you two some waffles. Fang, focus on your job.”

Fang stuck his tongue as he walked past him and Halilintar kicked his leg lightly in retaliation. 

He made his way to the kitchen and waved at some of the staff there. Halilintar went to the waffle maker and snatched the pre-made batter that had been prepared for the day and poured some into the machine. 

He hummed to himself as he waited for the waffle to cook. 

So Taufan and Gempa already know now… that’s good. 

He did feel a little bit uncomfortable sneaking around behind them like that. Gempa had been rightfully worried when he didn’t reply to any messages during his work hours at the cade and he knew that Taufan had been trying to tail him for days (not that little shit was being subtle at all), so now that they knew what he had been doing, the worry should lessen considerably.

Hopefully. 

His siblings could be a wild card sometimes, so Halilintar didn’t really know if this was actually a good thing or a bad thing. He wanted to be optimistic and choose to bet on the former rather than the latter.

It all felt a little bit funny, in hindsight. He got roped in by his crush to help become a server at a maid cafe and even after a whole month, Halilintar was still no closer to confession than when he started.

He did become the customer's favourite server though, so he guessed that was something. Working at the cafe did help with his skills around the kitchen too, so at least now he had something new to rub on Taufan’s face whenever their middle triplet was being too annoying.

The deal was to help Fang until the start of the end of the semester, when the cafe had established itself enough to have a steady flow of customers coming in and rightfully, Halilintar should have started bringing the topic up to Kak Kira’na for them to find his replacement when he stopped working there, but…

Something had been bothering him as of late.

Lately, Fang had been acting weird.

He did ask the guy the other day what was wrong but the only explanation that he got was that during one of Halilintar’s days off (couldn’t really help it. He was helping his cousins with their stuff since they all decided to come back on the same day), Fang got harassed by a random person while he was on an errand for the cafe.

The idiot decided that it was a good idea to step out with his uniform since the place was close enough, but according to Kak Kira, a kind stranger helped him out of the situation.

If Halilintar ever caught the fucker who dared harassed any worker from that cafe they would be dead. There was a reason why nobody dared to mess with servers here whenever he was on shift. His glare was warning enough.

The waffle machine beeped and yanked him away from his thoughts. Halilintar sighed.

Well, there’s no need to think too much about this. If Fang wants to tell him what’s wrong then he will explain. They’re close enough to be sharing their troubles now.

But apparently, Halilintar didn’t have to wait long for his answer.

It didn’t even take a whole month like he did with his siblings, instead, the answer waltzed in the cafe himself.

The answer was a person, apparently.

A very familiar person. Someone with green hair, a thousand megawatt smile and an endless appetite.

His damn cousin. Rimba.

“Rimba, what are you doing here?” he stared at the guy who had taken his seat in front of his siblings. The alarm in his head was blaring.

“Lili! My favourite cousin!” Rimba perked up and turned around. “Whoah! New hobby?”

Fang was…blushing. Hard.

Halilintar checked his other triplets to see that that also had the same realisation as him, a twin pair of alarmed looks on their face.

“Ah, so you guys are cousins? No wonder your face reminded me of someone,” the raven-haired boy—his crush, mind you—said bashfully. “Well, this is the savior that I mentioned the other day. You know, the one who saved me from the people who tried to harass me on my errand."

Halilintar could see his coworker’s face better now that he had put down the two plates of waffles in front of Taufan and Gempa. Yep, that’s definitely a blush on his cheeks and it’s steadily warming up the boy’s entire face.

Halilintar looked between Rimba, who was smiling brightly with his chin resting on his palm, looking at Fang (there was food in front of him?? Halilintar never knew there would ever come a day where a food would lose Rimba’s attention in his entire life??), and Fang himself, who started fidgeting on the spot the longer Rimba smiled at him.

Fuck.

Halillintar exchanged a look with his siblings and closed his eyes, taking a deep, deep breath.

Why is it always his own family that will be his greatest enemy??

Somewhere in the depth of his mind, he could hear an excited voice that sounded suspiciously like Duri saying:

“A new challenger has appeared!!”