At age twenty eight, Kyuhyun wasn’t one to be doing something like this but here he was, at the banquet room of the Ritz Hotel, sitting at one of the table for two amongst the many set up perfectly in a circle.

Speed dating

How had he arrived here? You could blame it all on his best friend and possibly his worst enemy Changmin, who had heard about the beauty of speed dating from his other friend Yunho who had found the love of his life, Jaejoong, at one such speed dating session and apparently Jaejoong could cook up a storm…yes that’s right…Changmin was here looking for a chef/boyfriend instead of the love of his life. And because he thought doing it alone would make him seem lame, especially on Christmas eve - Kyuhyun had told him that everyone already thought he was lame regardless of which day it was- he had asked (begged until Kyuhyun couldn’t take it anymore) Kyuhyun to join him.

Kyuhyun signed as he looked around the room decorated in red and green with touches of fairy lights. It looked so pretty and festive and how Kyuhyun hated it. Its not that he hated Christmas, its just that this was right now connected to him being dragged to come here and sit through..well this!

He sipped on his glass of water as the animated lady entered, introducing herself and then hand out little sticker sheets while telling them in a peppy voice – which grinded on Kyuhyun’s nerves –to write their name on it and paste it onto their shirts for them to be identified. She also went around with a little box with sheets of folded paper inside, shaking it and asking them to pick one out in an excited squeal as though it was the answer to all their dreams.

It unfortunately turned out to be numbers which denominated which table he was supposed to be seated at. He didn’t understand why that was needed. Weren’t they supposed to meet all the partners so whichever table they sat at, they would still meet everyone.

Changmin however, had squeaked and run to his table as though the table was about to grow legs and run away, not forgetting to snag the menu from one of the waiters and had already started listing out the things he would like to have to the wide eyed waiter who was telling him that the family banquet room was next door and this one was for gay speed dating so if he was meeting his friends, he might have entered the wrong room.

The waiter, of course, was told by the unfazed Changmin that he was indeed here for the gay speed dating experience and that the food was for him alone.

The waiter then reminded him, much to Changmin’s indignation that the table was only for two people and not big enough for the elephant size buffet he was ordering.

Kyuhyun sighed once again seeing the organizer lady clapped her hands to herself as she welcomed them and told them that the potential dates were ready and that this monstrosity in the name of speed dating was about to begin. Kyuhyun could do nothing but roll his eyes at Changmin who clapped his hands and bounced in his seat like a retarded seal. Changmin seriously needed his gene pool checked.

That’s right. Kyuhyun was NOT excited to be here. He saw nothing wrong with being single at the age of 28 and with no inclinations towards finding anyone. It wasn’t because he was a nerd that he couldn’t find anyone.

Well he was a nerd but he rocked those pin striped shirts and wide framed glasses like a model on the run way. He looked too good be called merely a nerd. It also wasn’t that he hadn’t gotten any offers, he had…loads of them but they never seemed to interest him. Nothing piqued his interest. He was happy just the way he was. He didn’t like crowds. He didn’t like talking.

He simply didn’t do people.

They grinded on his nerves with their fake smiles, annoying laughs and hideous schemes and he preferred to be left alone with his games and a nice bottle of wine to keep him company. It may seem pathetic yes but Kyuhyun liked it.

And he found no reason to want to change.

The double doors at the other end of the hall opened and a bunch of people walked in. Kyuhyun noted some to be mildly attractive but none stood out to him except this bright pink haired man who grinned like a fool despite the way he tripped in. He laughed like he was dying and his nose looked like it was competing with his eyes on what could wrinkle more. Kyuhyun though thought no more of it and simply rolled his eyes at the loose clothes he wore, which might have been considered fashionable maybe in America where the whole ‘ghetto’ style was in but here in South Korea, the boy looked like he was drowning in the giant T-shirt that read “Boy.’

‘Well atleast knows his gender.’

His eyes roamed amongst the new, excited and some even scared, faces before looking down again, wondering why the hell he had let Changmin talk him into this.

“Okay gentlemen, we will begin now,” the peppy woman announced in voice that depicted high excitement and Kyuhyun wondered how it could be possible for the organizer to be more excited than the participants themselves. Were they here for speed dating or were they going to look for the lost Atlantis? It wasn’t that big a deal!

Another sigh.

Kyuhyun looked at the red light blinking on the digital clock placed on the table near the woman. It indicated 9pm and the start of his horrendous night.

‘Let’s just get this night over with’

~

Kyuhyun heard the chair opposite lightly scrape back and he looked up to see a pretty man sitting down, his lips pulled up in a suggestive smirk as he batted his eyelashes at him. He looked seductive from the way he had one leg drapped over the other, right hand resting on the elevated knee, and chin resting on the back of his manicured hand and eyelashes still fluttering.

“Well aren’t you handsome?” he purred as he held out the other hand, palms down. Kyuhyun stared at it for a bit before blinking up at the diva in front of him. The girl/boy raised a sculptured eyebrow before withdrawing the hand, “My name is Heechul but you can call me beautiful.”

Kyuhyun snapped out of his daze and raised his own eyebrow, “Hello Heechul, I’m Kyuhyun and you can call me Kyuhyun.”

Heechul however didn’t seem fazed by the snarky reply or the wary look of his date for the next ten minutes. “So what do you do Kyuhyunnie?”

“It’s Kyuhyun and I’m a computer programmer.”

Heechul seemed to become a little excited at that, “Really? Maybe I should ask you to look at my computer. I wanted to type up a letter but I didn’t know how and when I called the help-line they asked me open the window for writing and I opened my bedroom window but I still can’t get it to write my letter. I opened all my windows and it still didn’t work and the ert across the street saw me practicing lap-dancing so I had to close my windows again-”

“Wait…why are you practicing lap-dancing?” Kyuhyun asked, a little mortified to even know what the answer might be.

“Why because I’m a stripper silly!” Heechul answered with a roll of his eyes as though Kyuhyun was the dumbest person on earth not to know why one practices such things, “It’s so much fun, especially when they stuff money in my .”

“P-?”

“Yes they don’t like boxers…though I think my looks good in anything. There is no fun in it. I usually wear thongs or . get the most reaction, especially those frilly g-string types unless of course if I’m wearing my leather black thongs. Then it’s just wonderful. I think they like how the leather stretches tight on my making it pop out on the sides…it’s like dental floss really…it’s wonderful.” Heechul finished his little speech with rapid clapping of hands and giggles while Kyuhyun sighed again, wondering when the hell those ten minutes would be over.

He almost cheered when he heard the clear ding of the bell indicating time was up and it was time for a change of partner. Kyuhyun gulped down the rest of the water while signaling to the waiter to bring him something stronger and waited for the next person to walk over, hoping and praying that it would be better than the first one – whatever his name was.

~

Kyuhyun smiled (twitched his lip) and bowed a little when the next person walked up and sat in front of him. “Hello, my name is Yesung.”

“Hello Yesung, I’m Kyuhyun.” He answered, voice a little cautious as to what this new specimen would be like.

“It’s a lovely weather today isn’t it? The sun is shining so brightly.” Kyuhyun wondered where the hell Yesung could see the sun at 9:15PM and again he cursed Changmin for bringing him to this damn thing. He could have done something useful, like perhaps show that pompous online who the real gamer was.

“Yesung-shi, its night time…the sun has set already.” Kyuhyun offered quietly to the boy who was looking around in mild curiosity.

“Yes but you see, the sun is shining somewhere…just not here…so it’s still shining brightly.” Well he was right - Kyuhyun though preferred to say nothing at all.

“Do you like turtles? What about bugs? Snakes?” Kyuhyun cringed as a memory resurfaced of when he was little and his older sister had put a ginormous spider in his bed…okay it wasn’t all that big but to a five year old it was huge! And then there was that class trip to the zoo when his friends had dared him to hold that snake. He of course didn’t want to but at the age of ten, he still had a sense of male pride and he wanted to show his class that Cho Kyuhyun was afraid of nothing. He still remembers the feel of cold slimy muscles slithering slowly along his arm

That night, Kyuhyun had wet his bed.

“I think that they are beautiful. I collect them. I have a black widow spider. I love the way they eat their mate after mating. I have a boa constrictor and its biggest circumference is 15cm but it’s still growing so I’m sure it will be bigger. It’s my baby. Would you like to see it sometime? Or maybe the Indian tree frogs, they are so pretty and colorful. But we have to be careful, it’s poisonous. Indians used to dip their arrows in their poison when they wanted to kill people or animals. I haven’t tried it yet though…maybe later.”

‘Oh my God, I have a future psychopath in front of me.’

 If the bell hadn’t rung on time; Kyuhyun himself would have gotten up and rung the crap out of it.