Oh wow......I didn't expect people subscribing to this when I only have the foreword. Now I'm nervous of what you guys will think of this *sweatdrops* Hope you enjoy reading this~ :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone knows that ChangMin is a level-headed, rational, sensible young man. Quiet and a little shy, he likes to think through his words and actions, always keeping his temper and emotions in check. He’d describe himself as a realist, who doesn’t believe in anything that couldn’t be explained with pure logic. That’s why it was with quite a large amount of skepticism that he listened to YooChun’s ramblings.

Perhaps it was the fact that the coffee shop where he worked at was empty of customers at the moment and he was quite bored out of his mind that he managed to listen (though only with one ear) as long as he had to his best friend’s going on and on about some girl that he met.

“I’m telling you, Min, she’s the one! There I was minding my own business when suddenly it was BAM!” YooChun spread his arms wide. “I met ‘the one’.”

ChangMin just nodded absentmindedly, wondering whether JaeJoong would let him have one of the mocha éclair from the assortment of cakes displayed at the counter. Sometimes the pastry chef let him take a little snack and tidbit, and his stomach had been grumbling for a while now. He made a mental promise to never let his co-worker take the lunch break first. JunSu is nice and all, but this is his stomach he’s talking about!

YooChun frowned when there was no reaction from his so-called best friend and nudged him hard. “Hey! Pay attention, I’m talking about the love of my life here.”

ChangMin rolled his eyes. “Hyung, taking into account this girl, that means you’ve already met your ‘one’” and he emphasized the word with a sarcastic air quote, “the fourth time this month only.”

YooChun blinked. “And your point is?”

“Isn’t your ‘one’ supposed to be that, only one?”

YooChun shrugged easily. “Well yeah, I was wrong about the other ones before. But this one is different, I’m sure of it. Because with her, it was love at first sight.”

At times like this ChangMin wondered why he’s friends with YooChun. For someone who oozes grease everywhere he goes, the older man can be such a naïve. Then again, the man does like to watch chick flicks and cries a river over them.

“Hyung, there is no such thing as love at first sight.”

The other man gasped, a hand pressed to his chest in mock outrage. “Of course there is!”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Yes, there is!”

ChangMin scoffed. “No, there isn’t. You meet someone, you’re attracted to them, most of the time it’s because you have ‘lust’ at first sight. You may even have ‘like’ at first sight, but there is no such thing as love at first sight.”

YooChun opened his mouth to retort back but apparently had no good comeback, so he kept quiet and glared as ChangMin smirked victoriously.

“What are you two lovebirds arguing about now?”

They turned to see JaeJoong coming out of the kitchen, holding a tray full of freshly made cinnamon bread. ChangMin quickly ran over to help the pastry chef put them on display, hoping that the other man would reward him with some afterwards.

“Jae hyung! Min here doesn’t believe in love at first sight!”

JaeJoong raised an eyebrow. “And that surprises you? You know he’s a cynic.”

“And a skeptic? A pessimist? A non believer?”

“Well… that too.”

“No, I’m not! I’m just rational and don’t believe in things that doesn’t exist. And stop talking like I’m not here!”

“Aww….don’t worry Minnie-ah, we still love you in spite of all that.”

ChangMin growled as he swatted YooChun’s hand that was patting his head. “Stop being an annoying sap, hyung. Why don’t you go home or something? Seriously, why do you even come here all the time? You don’t even work here!”

“I like to grace your day with my presence.”

“What presence? In case you forgot, we take the same course at uni and share a dorm room!”

The older man shrugged easily. “So I like to come here and bother you.”

ChangMin felt his eyes twitching, feeling his fingers twitching along with it, but unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re looking from YooChun’s point of view) his boss came through the cafe’s front door before he can do anything, namely strangling YooChun to death.

“Hey guys. How’s business today?”

ChangMin sent a glare at YooChun first before he answered the question. “Hi YunHo hyung. The rush hour was hectic, but nothing we can’t handle.”    

YunHo looked between ChangMin and YooChun, one still sending murderous glares while the other one just grinned (fake) innocently. He raised an eyebrow before turning to JaeJoong. “What’s with them?”

YooChun cut in before the pastry chef could answer. “ChangMin here doesn’t believe in love at first sight.”

“Who doesn’t believe in love at first sight?” JunSu came in the shop’s front door, smile the usual mile-wide long as he looked back and forth between them. “So who are we talking about?”

JaeJoong jerked his head towards ChangMin and JunSu’s mouth turned into a wide ‘o’. YooChun’s grin grew wider and JaeJoong hid a smile behind his hand while YunHo just looked on indulgently.

ChangMin rolled his eyes seeing his friends’ reaction. “What’s the big deal about it? There’s no such thing anyway.”

YunHo continued to smile indulgently, strangely reminding ChangMin of his own father, which is weird and kind of disturbing considering the other man was only two years older than him, not twenty years. “What makes you sure about that, Min?”

“Because it’s impossible, hyung! You love someone after you know them, not at the first second you set sight on them.”

“Well, if you looked at it from a logic point of view, then I must admit that such a thing is impossible-

“See?”

“But then again,” Yumho continued on calmly as if Changmin didn’t just cut him off, “those things do happen, Min-ah.”

Changmin scoffed. “Pft! Those are just the result of some clueless hopeless romantic who have too much imagination.”

“You’re trying to explain something which is already a hard feeling to define and explain.”

“Love is all that, but not love at first sight, because there is no such thing, hyung.”

“Told you he’s a cynic, YooChun.”

“Well, I thought sharing a dorm with me might change him a bit, Jae hyung.”

JunSu tilted his head to one side, scrutinizing his colleague intently, before chuckling softly. “Wouldn’t it be funny if after all his vehement disbelief, ChangMin would be the one being crazy mad, head over heels, fall in love at first sight out of us all?”

The others laughed out loud at the musing, and ChangMin resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. Really, with the amount of eye-rolling he does whenever he’s with his friends, he should be careful that his eyes wouldn’t just roll to the back of his head permanently.

 

~~~~~~~~

 

It was a quiet early evening at the coffee shop, the afternoon’s rush hour had passed and they don’t have any more customers. ChangMin sat alone behind the counter, bored out of his mind since JunSu had left him to help JaeJoong in the kitchen. He’d volunteered for the job, but YunHo had stopped him, saying that they’d end up with no cakes to sell if the younger boy step foot in the kitchen. ChangMin had pouted, flashed pitying eyes and followed his boss around even when YunHo went back to the back office, until YunHo relented and promised him that he’d ask JaeJoong to save him a slice of the cherry pie the pastry chef’s making right now.

And so ChangMin counted the minutes until the cakes are ready, busying himself with some crossword puzzle he’d found in the newspaper one of the customer had left behind. When he was in the middle of figuring out the next question (the capital city of Zimbabwe), he’d heard the slightly annoying ring of the door’s bell that signaled a customer entering in.

The answer (six letters, ends with an e) was just at the tip of his mind, so he’d waved at the new customer distractedly. “Hello, welcome to Sweet Delights.”

“Hi.”

ChangMin looked up at the greeting and his jaw hit the floor. This pretty, cute, beautiful, gorgeous girl just walked in and his heart skipped a beat and mind turned to mush and body changed from hot to cold to hot again.

The girl (if ChangMin was a hopeless romantic like YooChun, he’d probably call her something corny, like an angel or a vision or some other mushy things like that but he’s definitely not YooChun so she will remain to be called as the girl) walked until she was in front of ChangMin. She smiled and he could see that she have a bit of crooked teeth on her upper left side, and yet somehow her small physical mistake just made ChangMin thinks that he was looking at perfection.

“I’ve never been here before. What do you recommend?”

ChangMin blinked. And blinked again. Nope, she was still standing there, so that established that his mind was not playing tricks on him and the pretty, cute, beautiful, gorgeous girl was really there. And that she was asking him a question. Now, what was it again?

“Uh….”

Really, was that the only thing his mind can supply right now? ChangMin opened his mouth and tried again.

“…umm….”

ChangMin had to remind himself that he was 21 years old and not 2, because with the way his mouth and brain stopped functioning he sure sounded like that.

The girl glanced at the menu above their heads and ChangMin was free to kick start his brain and wording out sentences to say to her. Okay, what do people say to other people they just meet? Oh yeah, ‘Hello’ would be nice.

“Hello. Can I help you?”

Yes, that should be the right thing to say. But how come it sounded so high-pitched and squeaky? Come to think of it, ChangMin doesn’t even remember opening his mouth to speak. So where does that came from?

He turned his head slowly to the side and growled in his mind. ChangMin really, really wanted to throttle JunSu for coming out at that exact moment, more so when the pretty, cute, beautiful, gorgeous girl turned to his co-worker.

“Ah, no thanks.” She nodded to JunSu before turning back to ChangMin with a smile, and he found that all was right in the world again. “He….” She leaned a bit to reads the shiny name tag pinned to his chest. “ChangMin-sshi, is it? ChangMin-sshi is already helping me.”

His name has never sounded so good before and ChangMin made a mental note to call his mom and thank her for giving him that name.

“What would you recommend to go with a Sumatran blend coffee?” Her smile reached her eyes, making them sparkled and curved in the prettiest manner and Changmin would’ve melt into a puddle of goo, but like he said before, he isn’t YooChun.

The girl was waiting so he collected every cell of his brain that haven’t dissolve to mush yet and opened his mouth to answer.

“Umm…...Err… Umm. …. Uh…... Ah.”

The girl looked like she was about to burst out laughing and from the corner of his eyes he saw JunSu facepalmed. ChangMin was not a religious person, but now he was praying fervently for the earth to just open up and swallowed him down.

“Uhm...I’m sorry,” she said with an amused smile (ChangMin thank God, Buddha, Jesus, Allah, Vishnu and every other deities out there that the girl hasn’t run off screaming out of the coffee shop). “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Could you repeat it again?”

ChangMin was slightly surprised that she didn’t just roll her eyes at him and ask for JunSu to help her instead. So, he took it as a good sign and a bit of the common sense that he’s known for came back. That, and the not-so-discreet pinch JunSu laid on his waist.

“I-I-I’ll rec-reccomend y-you the-“

Okay, so he still stammered. At least it was a start.

“Yes?” She grinned.

“CHEESY WHEEZY CHOC RUM GOO GOO!!!”

It just came out of his mouth like word vomit and ChangMin would’ve bang his head on the counter if JunSu hadn’t beat him to it. The girl giggled and he could feel his face burning red with embarrassment with nervous sweat coming down his face.

“I’m so sorry for my colleague here. I’m sure he meant the chocolate cheesecake.” JunSu finally lifted up his head from the counter and patted ChangMin’ shoulder, giving the younger guy a sidelong pitying gaze.

“It’s alright, I’m completely fine with ‘cheesy wheezy choc rum goo goo’, whatever that is.” She winked at ChangMin while her hand came up to cover her smile. “I’ll take that to go with my coffee then, please.”

Somehow the girl’s easy attitude over his idiocy gave ChangMin enough confidence to make the coffee and wrapped the cake for her. He was hyper aware of the girl’s gaze on his back but still managed to do his work well.

Well, if you count almost spilling the coffee, dropping the carton of milk not once, but twice, and banging his head on the overhead menu signboard when he caught the girl looking at him intently can be count as a work well done.

He can hear Junsu sighing from somewhere behind him and almost tempted to growl at the other man, but all his irritation faded when the girl smiled as she took the coffee.

“Thank you, ChangMin-sshi. See you around.”

ChangMin wanted to say something witty, something that will make sure the girl will come again, but all he can come up with was, “Uhm….ah….”

The girl laughed in amusement and just waved, before exiting the café. When she was out of sight ChangMin practically fell to the floor, his knees was so weak it couldn’t support him anymore. JunSu laughed his signature ‘eu-kyang-kyang’ laugh so loud that YunHo came out from the back office, eyebrows raised in question while JaeJoong ran in from the kitchen, brandishing his rolling pin.

“What happened, what happened??” he screamed.

JunSu laughed some more while pointing at ChangMin. “Min-ah’s in love!”

YunHo’s eyebrows rose so high it almost disappeared into his hairline and JaeJoong stopped his screaming. As one they both turned to ChangMin.

“….what?”

“It’s true!” JunSu still guffawed, clapping his hands in glee. “You should’ve seen it! This girl walked in and he was all dumbfounded and stupid. He’s falling in love at first sight!”

ChangMin would’ve like nothing better than to kill JunSu right now, but somehow he doesn’t think that YunHo would appreciate losing one of his employee.

Besides, bloodstains are such a hassle to clean.

~~~~~~~~

 

“So, what’s this I heard about you liking a girl?” YooChun’s sing-song voice greeted his ears as the other man suddenly appeared besides him.

ChangMin was ready to retort a witty reply but instead sighed, smiled, blinking dreamily, legs turned to jelly, head cradled in his hand in a dreamlike state when he thought back to the pretty, cute,…….well, you should know the gist by now…. girl.

“Whoa,” YooChun said with his trademark smirk, “I can see the stars in your eyes.”

The dopey expression on ChangMin’s face quickly disappeared and he tried to resume a normal one, which was glaring because that’s what he does to YooChun on a daily basis anyway.

“Uh, I don’t have stars in my eyes!” he tried to say convincingly. “And, how did you get here so fast?? I only met her like,” he looked down at his watch, “37 minutes ago!”

“AH-HAH!” YooChun pointed a finger at him victoriously. “So you do admit you like the girl!”  He ignored the younger guy’s splutter of indignation and sidled even closer. “More than that, I think you’re in love with her, aren’t you Min-ah?”

“No I’m not! I just met her!”

“That’s called love at first sight, Min.”

ChangMin opened his mouth to protest but his traitorous mind went back to the girl and he could only sighed, smiled, blink dreamily, legs turned to jelly, head cradled in his hand in a dreamlike state.

YooChun raised an eyebrow. “Yup. You got it bad, man.” He shook his head amusedly before nudging his roommate. “So, what’s her name?”

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

*SCREEECCCHHH!!!*

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was the sound of a record being scratched.  The record that have been playing the girl over and over again in ChangMin’s mind.

“……Min?”

ChangMin groaned and dropped his head to the counter with a loud thump. “I don’t even know her name……”