Jongin sighed as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand. It had been a long day at his bakery, he had gotten three cake orders that morning and two of the customers decided it would be fantastic to make Jongin have them done by closing. Sure, they paid the same-day fee, but who ordered a custom made cake that needed to be done that day? Jongin thought these people needed better time management. Especially the woman who ordered a birthday cake. She knew a year before the birthday that it was going to happen, but she couldn’t give Jongin a week to do it? Hell, even two days would’ve been better. Contrary to popular belief, custom made cakes need more than a day to plan, make, and frost if you want good quality. They’d better not put any bad reviews on Jongin’s website.

Currently, both cakes were boxed up and in his walk-in fridge because Jongin was amazing and got them both done with a half an hour to spare. Okay, he had help from his friend Chanyeol who also happened to run the bakery with him, but Jongin did most of the work. Chanyeol was really just there to look pretty and charm the customers when Jongin got annoyed. It was sad that Chanyeol had already left because it was fifteen minutes to closing and neither customer had come to get their cake and Jongin was very annoyed. He did not work all day to make them perfect just to not have them picked up today.

Jongin impatiently scrolled down his Facebook feed while he waited. Suddenly the bell on the door chimed and he let out a breath. At least one of the cakes would be gone.

“Hello, sir,” Jongin greeted. The man who walked in was wearing a scarf that covered half his face and a large coat and Jongin raised an eyebrow. Sure, it was a little chilly for an August day but it wasn’t close to being cold enough for that. “Are you here to pick up a cake?”

The customer walked a couple of steps in before removing the scarf and Jongin’s breath caught in his throat. This was by far the most beautiful man Jongin had ever seen. Really, he was the only beautiful man Jongin had ever seen although he’d seen quite a few handsome ones. But with his flawless skin and wide eyes and cute heart shaped lips, this man was definitely beautiful.

“No, I’m actually here to place an order.”

And, god, Jongin didn’t even care that he was left with two cakes still because that voice made his knees weak. Jongin watched as the man came up to the counter and noticed how he looked even better up close.

The man looked at Jongin expectantly. “Is that okay or should I come back tomorrow?”

Jongin shook his head and realized that he hadn’t actually replied. How embarrassing. “No, no, it’s completely fine. Please tell me you don’t need it today at some point.”

The man gave him a confused look. It was really cute. “Who orders a cake on the same day they need it?”

It was official. Jongin was in love. This man understood him in a way no one else had before.

“Two customers today, I’m afraid.” Jongin sighed to show how displeasing this fact was. “But what can I get for you?” He grabbed an order sheet and clicked his pen.

“I need a cake that is shaped like a bee.”

Jongin hummed and wrote it down. “Will there be anything written on it?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay. Do you have any special requests? We can decorate the area surrounding the cake as well. For example,” Jongin set down his pen and quickly grabbed one of the cakes from the fridge. He opened the box and showed the man. It was a birthday racecar cake and around the cake itself was a road made from fondant and icing.

The man looked surprised. “Oh that’s nice. Can you just do like some grass?”

Jongin made a note. “Of course we can.”

“Just don’t make it too cute okay? This isn’t for a party, it’s for a formal get together and I don’t want it to seem like we’re at a little girl’s birthday. Do like a manly cute.”

Jongin scribbled down manly cute and glanced up. “May I ask what the cake is for? I was just expecting it to be for a birthday party.”

“I’m speaking at an event for national honey bee day, as the leading bee expert in this area.”

Jongin tried, he really did, to keep his laugh from slipping out. But the man just looked so proud and it was honestly not what Jongin would’ve expected. Ever. A tiny chuckle escaped and the man sent him a deadly glare.

“I’ll have you know that bees are very important for our community. They help pollinate 80 percent of the plants worldwide and one colony can pollinate 300 million flowers a day. Do you want the bees to die and lose all the plants because no one is pollinating them?”

Jongin aggressively shook his head. He wasn’t laughing because the man was talking at a bee event. He was laughing because the man called himself a ‘bee expert’ and that was just weird. Surely the man had to have an actual job that did not include bees. Right?

“I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean to laugh. I think bees are great.”

The man squinted at him as if he thought Jongin was lying before nodding. “Good, you should think that. So I’ll need pick up the cake one week from today at opening, is that alright?”

“Yes that’s perfectly fine. What’s the name for the order?”

“Do Kyungsoo.”

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin muttered under his breath. It was a nice name and it rolled off of Jongin’s tongue easily.

When Jongin glanced back up, Kyungsoo was staring at him with one questioning eyebrow raised. That’s when Jongin realized that, yes, Kyungsoo could hear him creepily say his name because he was literally five feet away. Luckily, Jongin didn’t have to explain himself because the door chimed.

A flustered looking woman came through the door and quickly apologized for being late before stating that she ordered the racecar cake.

“One moment please, ma’am, let me just finish up here.”

Kyungsoo took a step back. “Oh, no, please go first. I’m not in a rush and I understand that you must be in a time crunch if you only ordered this morning. I mean it’s not like you had the entire year to order this birthday cake or anything, so by all means go right ahead.”

The woman turned red and looked like she was torn between cussing the man out and just paying for the cake and leaving. When Kyungsoo just kept giving her an unimpressed stare she turned her attention to Jongin.

“I hope you know that this is highly unprofessional and I won’t recommend or buy another cake from you.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but he is just a customer. I can’t control what he says and it shouldn’t reflect the professionalism of this bakery.”

“Well someone had to tell him that the cake was ordered today.”

“Ma’am, I had the box out as I was waiting for your arrival and the receipt is taped to it. He probably glanced at it as he was ordering his own cake for next week.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Jongin as she noticed how he clearly stated that cake Kyungsoo ordered was for the next week but just slid her credit card over to him. He swiped the card and she grabbed the box before rushing out. Jongin really did wish Chanyeol was here, he was better at dealing with the less than happy customers.

“Sorry about that.” Kyungsoo sent him a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “It just really bothers me when people don’t plan ahead.”

“Don’t worry about it; you just said what I was thinking.” Jongin was surprised that he got out a coherent sentence because Kyungsoo’s smile was the literal best thing Jongin had seen all day. Perhaps all year. Jongin didn’t care that he just heard Kyungsoo sass the hell out of a customer who would probably never come back now (not that Jongin even wanted her to come back); he thought Kyungsoo was an actual angel sent from God. And Jongin wasn’t even religious.

Jongin handed Kyungsoo the stub that listed the date and time agreed upon for pick up and tried not to be sad that Kyungsoo was probably leaving now. He met the guy fifteen minutes ago and he was already weirdly attached. Great.

“See you next week then, Jongin.” Kyungsoo gave him a small smile before turning away to leave.

“Wait! How did you know my name?”

Kyungsoo turned back around and laughed, pointing at Jongin’s chest. “You are wearing a nametag.”

Jongin felt his face heat up and hit his head on the counter. He always made himself look like an idiot when attractive people were around. Of course he had to be an idiot when his actual soulmate was here. Jongin realized the other customer never came to pick up the cake he worked so hard on all day. He wanted to die.

***

Jongin practically skipped to work the next week. He finished making the bee cake the night before and he had to say it was pretty manly cute. He hoped Kyungsoo would be impressed.

If you asked him, Jongin would say that he had definitely not spent all week thinking about the beautiful customer and ways to ask him on a date. Nope. That would be ridiculous. However, if you asked Chanyeol, he would say that Jongin was a creep who spent all week doing just that.

Jongin was practically bouncing as he waited at the counter he was so excited.

“Dude, you have to calm down. If bee guy sees you like this he’s gonna think you’re insane and he’ll never date you then.”

Chanyeol barely had time to finish his sentence before Jongin was hitting the countertop and saying, “he’s coming in oh my god oh my god.”

Kyungsoo sent Jongin a smile when he walked into the bakery. Jongin tried to return the smile but he couldn’t when there was an almost-but-not-quite-as-beautiful man next to Kyungsoo. Was this guy his boyfriend?

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo greeted when he was at the counter. “This is my friend Baekhyun; he wanted to see if your cakes were any good because his niece is having a party in a few weeks.”

“Oh that’s fine. He can just take a look at yours and see if he’s impressed.” Jongin slide the boxed cake over to them.

Kyungsoo gasped when he opened the box. The body of the bee was covered in yellow fondant and Jongin used a special tip while icing the black and yellow stripes to make it look fuzzy. He gave it eyes and a smile, but not in a childish cute way. In a manly cute way. Jongin put grass and flowers and ladybugs around the area of the actual cake.

“It’s perfect,” Kyungsoo declared. “You’re the best cake decorator ever.”

Jongin gave him a proud smile and sent Chanyeol a look that said see I can totally get him to date me. But Chanyeol was too busy being awestruck by Baekhyun to notice what Jongin was doing.

Baekhyun hummed and nodded in agreement. “It’s alright. I’m honestly too lazy to find someone else so even if it I still probably would’ve ordered a cake here. I don’t know what the theme of my niece’s party is going to be yet though, so I’ll have to come back.”

“That’s fine,” Jongin assured him. “Do you, uh, like bees too?”

Baekhyun snorted as Jongin started ringing up Kyungsoo’s total. “Hell no, I hate those ers. Kyungsoo lectures me on how basically life as we know it will fall apart if they die but I swear I get stung like every spring.”

“Yeah, I hate bees too.”

Every eye in the room turned to Chanyeol who looked half embarrassed half glad to have gotten Baekhyun’s attention. It was quiet for a few seconds and Chanyeol gave Jongin a look that clearly screamed help me but Jongin just lifted an eyebrow. He lived off of Chanyeol embarrassing himself.

Baekhyun studied Chanyeol before replying, “Well aren’t you… tall.”

Jongin could practically feel how horrified Chanyeol was and had to take deep breaths to keep himself from laughing at his friend. Kyungsoo looked like he was about to burst out laughing too and Jongin decided they were going to get married. It was destiny.

Kyungsoo and Baekhyun left the bakery a few minutes later and Jongin let out a disappointed breath. He was never going to see Kyungsoo again, unless he came in with Baekhyun to order his cake.

“I thought you had a plan.”

Jongin scoffed. “Yeah, I did until you talked and I realized it was as ridiculous as you are.”

“Sure, I looked stupid. But I tried, which is more than what we can say about you.”

Jongin really hated when Chanyeol was right.

He left the bakery and hoped that Baekhyun and Kyungsoo hadn’t gotten far. Luckily, they were just a little ways down the sidewalk.

“Kyungsoo!” Jongin called out, hoping to get his attention so he could catch up. It worked and Kyungsoo gave him a confused look when Jongin finally reached them, completely out of breath. He really should work out more.

“Yes?”

Jongin was still breathing hard and Baekhyun was eyeing him like he was some sort of crazy person. Which maybe he was, Jongin honestly couldn’t tell anymore.

“I just,” Jongin took a deep breath. “I wanted to say that I think you’re-” God Jongin hated himself so much; he couldn’t believe he was doing this. “I think you’re bee-autiful.”

There was a stunned silence and Jongin couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than when Chanyeol spoke earlier. And then Baekhyun was laughing so hard it almost sounded like he was dying and Jongin would’ve been concerned if he wasn’t so mortified. This is the last time he will ever listen to Chanyeol ever, Jongin decided.

Just as Jongin was about to turn away in shame, Kyungsoo smiled shyly up at him. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Baekhyun wheezed out a, “Seriously?” but Jongin didn’t care because Kyungsoo thought he was sweet.

“Would you say it was sweet like honey?”

Kyungsoo laughed. “You’re cute. I was kind of hoping you would ask for my number, but this works too. You should come to the presentation later, here’s a flyer.” Kyungsoo shoved the cake into Baekhyun’s hands so he could grab a flyer out of his back pocket.

Jongin took it and nodded “Yeah, I’ll definitely bee there.”

Kyungsoo snorted. “That one was horrible. You should stop while you’re ahead.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “He was never ahead.” He turned his attention to Jongin and said, “Tell your tall friend to come too. I’ll need someone to hate bees with while I’m there suffering.”

Jongin watched them walk away and thought that maybe bees really weren’t was bad as everyone thinks. 

So my friend had to do a speech about something for class and he chose bees and then I couldn't get bees out of my head and then this happened. And this is the manly cute bee cake I based Jongin's creation off of. 

As always, thanks for reading and upvotes/comments are always appreciated! I love you guys <3 xx