It starts with a break up.

            Mingyu sighs, not bothering to glance at the person he’s speaking to. He lets his fingers curl around the cup of soda that is in his hands, ignoring the bustle of the restaurant around him. He’s broken up with people a million times before and he lets the same coldness go over his heart as he looks down at the small boy. The boy is younger than Mingyu, at least that’s what Mingyu thinks, but he never bothered to ask. Wonwoo and him have a date tonight, so he figures he should break up with this boy in front of him sooner or later.

            He was only using him as a distraction until he got Wonwoo. He doesn’t need him now.

            “Anyway,” Mingyu is saying, brushing his bangs away from his forehead, “it’s been fun.”

            Mingyu ignores the tears glistening in the other boy’s eyes. “But… I don’t understand, I thought you liked me!”

            Mingyu finds his lips twitching in wry amusement. “I like everybody.” The door to the restaurant opens and Mingyu’s eyes light up in recognition as he catches the familiar twinkling dark eyes. His dark hair falls into his eyes and he brushes it back impatiently as he scans the restaurant. As soon as his eyes catch Mingyu, his eyes light up in a smile and he his head in question, sitting at an empty table.

            “Listen,” Mingyu says as he starts to stand up. His date and new ex-boyfriend glances at him with watery eyes. Mingyu ignores this, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. “I have to meet a friend. So, bye, I guess.”

            The boy hardens his jaw, his eyes spitting fire as he stands up. “ you, Mingyu.” His eyes flash as he assesses Mingyu from head to toe. “I hope he turns you down, you’re pathetic.”

            Mingyu smiles, ignoring the pain in his heart as he hears the words, and tilts his head. “Didn’t seem so pathetic last week when you said loved me, huh? Whatever, I have other things to do.” Mingyu starts walking away but pauses, not turning around, and says, “I really am sorry.”

            As soon as Mingyu walks up to the guy, the guy says, “Well, that was a breakup if I’ve ever seen one.” His lips twitch in amusement as Mingyu gives him a droll stare. The boy laughs, ruffling his hair and glances at Mingyu with a wide, friendly smile. “I’m kidding, Mingyu.”

            “Very funny,” Mingyu takes a seat by him, playing with the salt and sugar packets on the table. “This place , why did we have to meet here?”

            The boy raises a brow. “We can’t go back to my place, you know that. And we certainly can’t go to the café.” His lips twitch. “Unless you want to risk Wonwoo-ssi seeing us, in which case…” He gestures towards the door.

            Mingyu flushes, throwing a sugar packet as the other boy, who laughs and dodges the flying object.

            “So I heard you got a date with Wonwoo.” He rolls his eyes, playing with his thumbs. “Finally,” he mutters under his breath.

            Mingyu flushes again, but this time in happiness at the mention of the older boy. His face immediately breaks out into a smile at the thought of his date tonight. He can’t help the adoring tone his voice takes as he says, “You don’t understand, I’m so ing excited.”

            The other boy frowns and before Mingyu knows what’s happening, he’s reaching out and grabbing onto Mingyu’s hip tightly, right over where his mark lies. His brows rise. “Does he know about your mark?”

            Mingyu brushes the other boy’s hand away. “No, I don’t want to push him away.”

            “Please,” the other boy rolls his eyes. “Just tell him about your mark, Mingyu. If he hasn’t run away already, I doubt he will now.”

            Mingyu bristles at the words. He knows that Wonwoo is scared of relationships and Mingyu knows that his dating habits haven’t exactly helped, but he’s finally decided to wise up. He’ll be faithful to just Wonwoo. “But we don’t know if he will accept me. What if I scare him away? I don’t want that.” Mingyu clears his throat, not allowing the other boy to respond. “Anyway, I just called you here to tell you that I don’t need you to figure out who Wonwoo’s mate is.”

            The other boy frowns, ruffling his hair. “I figured as much. That’s good though, because I wasn’t getting anywhere.” He glances at his watch and then uses his palms to push himself up out of his seat. “I should get going, gotta get home to my mate, and you have a date to get to.” He smiles down at Mingyu, his eyes shining. “It was nice talking to you, Mingyu. Remember, if you need anything, I’m here.”

            Mingyu frowns as the other boy starts walking away and he yells out for him. “Doyoon-hyung!”

            Doyoon pauses, turning his head to gaze at Mingyu curiously. “Yes?”

            Mingyu smiles. “Thank you – for helping me with everything. You’re a great friend.”

            And Doyoon smiles, winking as he ruffles his hair. “I’m a great ex-boyfriend, you mean. Don’t mention it, Mingyu. Have fun on your date.”

⚘❁⚘

            Mingyu has never been one to get nervous on a date – but dammit, Wonwoo looks so good in his crisp sweater sitting across from Mingyu at the restaurant. His hair is falling down in his eyes as he focuses on his menu. His lips are pursed as he looks down at the prices and he absently reaches out to grab his cup of water, his lips curling around the rim of the glass.

            “Everything is really expensive here, don’t you think?”

            Mingyu blinks slowly, releasing the vice-like grip he has on his own menu. Expensive? He hadn’t even looked at the menu at all, to be honest. He’s too busy assessing his date. “What?”

            Wonwoo frowns, setting his menu down on the table. “Everything here is really expensive, haven’t you noticed?”         

            “Oh, I doubt it’s that expensive….” he snorts, opening his menu and his eyes immediately bulge. “Oh my ing god.”

            Wonwoo smiles into his glass as he takes another sip from his drink. He raises a brow as Mingyu starts flipping through the menu, laughing every time Mingyu stutters at the prices. “I mean, I know you get a lot of tip money but this is a bit much.”

            “Oh wow,” Mingyu shuts his menu closed and leans back in his seat. “I did not know it was this expensive.”

            Wonwoo gestures to the lavish restaurant they’re in, raising a brow in question. “Really? I feel like I need a suit and tie to just walk by this place, Mingyu. It kind of screams of being expensive.”

            Mingyu winces, not wanting his nerves to overcome his senses. He only chose this place because he wanted to impress Wonwoo. Every other time Mingyu has a date, he doesn’t even have the decency to take them out beforehand. Usually, he just ends up in the backseat of people’s cars, so this is like a first date for him too. He wants to do things properly.

            “Mingyu,” Wonwoo sighs, “why are we here?”

            He frowns. “Because we’re on a date… Do you not like it here?”

            Wonwoo shrugs. “I mean, it’s fine but I’d rather be somewhere else. Somewhere not so uptight, you know?”

            Mingyu smiles, and he reaches out to grab Wonwoo’s hand. He stands up, bringing Wonwoo with him. Screw doing things properly. He tugs Wonwoo away from the table, leaving just a couple of bills for the drinks they ordered. He throws Wonwoo a huge smile. “I know just where we can go.”

⚘❁⚘

            So, the sky is dark, and Mingyu drags Wonwoo to a loud and crowded restaurant that’s b with people despite the time of night. It smells greasy and absolutely heavenly and Mingyu pushes past people until he and Wonwoo are pressed against the counter.

            “Where are we?” Wonwoo screams through the noise of people talking.

            Mingyu smiles, reaching out to pluck a menu from behind the counter. The server by the register doesn’t seem to mind; instead she smiles at Mingyu before she’s turning back to the customers in front of her. Mingyu says something to Wonwoo, but he can’t hear because of the noise.

            “What?” he yells, frowning.

            Mingyu rolls his eyes and then before Wonwoo knows what’s happening, Mingyu is planting a hand on Wonwoo’s hip, tugging him closer until his lips are at Wonwoo’s ear. His breath tickles the hair at the back of his neck. “I said we’re at my favorite burger place. Order anything you want, the people here know me.”

            Wonwoo frowns and he plants one hand on Mingyu’s chest to push him away so he can look at his eyes. “Do you come here a lot?”

            He grins, all beaming white teeth and sparkling eyes. “Just when I’m too lazy to go all out and cook.”

            Wonwoo raises a brow. “You can cook?”

            “Of course, I’ll have to cook for you sometime.”

            He grins down at Wonwoo with a sparkle in his eyes, making Wonwoo blush and duck his head. He grumbles as he steals the menu from Mingyu, the taller boy laughing and tugging him closer.

            “I’m just going to get a cheeseburger, I think.” Wonwoo glances up at Mingyu, noticing that the younger boy is already staring at him. Wonwoo colors and shoves the menu into Mingyu’s chest. “Hurry up and order.”

            Mingyu grins, taking the menu and nodding toward the door. “Okay, you can wait outside and I’ll get our food real quick.”

            Wonwoo nods, shuffling past the group of people until he finds himself outside. He has just relaxed against the building when Mingyu bursts out of the building with a steaming bag. Wonwoo’s mouth starts to water as soon as the smell hits him. He blinks at the bag, reaching out to grab it but Mingyu holds it out of arms reach.

            “Ah, not so fast. Let’s go to the park and eat, yeah?”

            Wonwoo grumbles, hugging his arms closer to himself and shuffling forward. Mingyu laughs and reaches out to place his unoccupied arm around Wonwoo’s waist, walking with him in his arms.

            “So, that was fast,” Wonwoo says.

            “I told you, they know me.” He tugs him closer. “Come on, I think I see the entrance.”

            And Wonwoo doesn’t know why he was so scared of dating Mingyu in the first place, because he’s so so fun. They sit down on the grass and Mingyu delicately unwraps Wonwoo’s burger, takes a huge bite, and hands it to Wonwoo with a wide grin on his lips. Wonwoo rolls his eyes, muttering about how rude he is. When Mingyu pulls out his own burger, Wonwoo steals it and takes a quick bite, handing it back to Mingyu with the same wide smile Mingyu had given him.

            They’re already best friends, so there’s not much more to learn, and yet they still manage.  Mingyu tells Wonwoo about his family and Wonwoo tells Mingyu about his brother. They talk about life before they knew the other existed and things get serious for a brief second as Wonwoo asks the question he’s been wanting to know for years.

            “So, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I was just wondering… what caused you to date around a lot?”

            Mingyu freezes. “I don’t think we should talk about this,” he mumbles darkly.

            Wonwoo brushes his hair off his forehead. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine. Just, you know, morbid curiosity.”

            Mingyu leans back on his hands. They’ve already finished eating and it’s become late into the night if the chill of the air is anything to go by. “Well, okay – it’s not that interesting.” He shrugs. “I like people. I always thought that the mark was bull.” Wonwoo flinches at this, but Mingyu either doesn’t see or he ignores it because he continues speaking. “I thought, what’s a stupid mark going to tell me what to do? I’ll date who I want. My parents were always pressuring me, you know, to save myself or something for my mate and it just made me so angry. I guess I wanted to prove to the universe that I can make my own decisions, so I started dating as many people as I could.”

            Wonwoo is silent and Mingyu grins, trying to appear not affected.

            “See, it’s not that interesting.” He tilts his head. “Any chance you’ll tell me about this mysterious mate of yours?”

            Wonwoo feels his mark burn on his skin, thinks of this awful deception he’s built for himself and pushes away his feelings of guilt. Scared, eighteen year old Wonwoo is still there – in the back of his mind – screaming at him to run away from anything that has to do with love and possible heartbreak.

            But the Wonwoo right now wants to give himself a chance.

            He opens his mouth, finally ready to tell Mingyu the truth about his mate but a harsh voice that doesn’t belong to either of them speaks from the dark.          

            “Hey! You two can’t be out here!”

            Quick as a flash, Mingyu is tugging Wonwoo up. They’re running, the cold air biting into Wonwoo’s cheeks, and he can hear whoever was calling them chasing after the pair. It makes Wonwoo laugh and soon enough Mingyu follows.

            Wonwoo doesn’t know how far or how long they run, but by the time they stop, his heart is beating fast against his bones. Mingyu presses him to the side of a building, his chest falling and rising rapidly as he looks over Wonwoo’s head to see if they’re still being chased. His chest brushes against Wonwoo’s, making the older boy’s heart race – and okay, maybe the running isn’t what’s making his heart beat this fast.

            “I think we lost him,” Mingyu whispers against Wonwoo’s hair. He glances down at the empty street and frowns. “What time is it?”

            Wonwoo reaches for his phone, placing it between his and Mingyu’s chest. The numbers on the screen jump put at him and he blinks slowly. When did it get so late? “It’s two in the morning.”

            He knows there’s no reason for Mingyu to be this close but he doesn’t protest as Mingyu presses closer, his hand reaching up to rest against Wonwoo’s collarbones. “Oh,” he says softly, his breath moving Wonwoo’s hair form his eyes.

            Wonwoo bites his lip, looking up at Mingyu’s dark eyes. “I guess I should be heading home now.”

            Mingyu brings his other hand up to tug at Wonwoo’s bottom lip, releasing it from his teeth. “Hmm,” he hums distractedly and he presses his hips harder into Wonwoo.

            He becomes flustered. He can feel his heart racing and his entire body feels positively warm as Mingyu presses closer to him. Sure, Mingyu is touchy, but he’s never been this close before. He doesn’t know what to do – this close up, he can see the slope of Mingyu’s lips and the shadow of his eyelashes.

            Mingyu touches Wonwoo’s cheek, his eyes soft. “Wonwoo,” he breathes out and the way he says Wonwoo’s name makes Wonwoo want to sigh. It sounds so nice, like it was always meant to be whispered from those lips.

            “Yes?” Wonwoo whispers and he subconsciously presses closer to Mingyu, his own hand coming up to tangle in Mingyu’s hair.

            His eyes are dark, his voice low. He says softly, “Can I kiss you?”

            Wonwoo gives just one small nod, his eyes focusing on the smile that curls on Mingyu’s lips as they come closer and closer and closer –

            And when their lips finally touch, Wonwoo swears that he sees goddamn fireworks.

a/n: so rememeber the boy from chapter 14 that jeonghan saw walk out with mingyu? this is him, it's doyoon. so, yeah, that happened. hope you enjoy this.