Jihoon had always thought he was somewhat lucky in his life. His parents had always been supportive of him and would constantly shower him with compliments, such as, “Oh, honey, it’s okay that you didn’t pass your standardized test! They aren’t important anyway!” or, “Wow, my son is such a friendly guy!” or (his personal favorite), “Oh please, our son is way more handsome yours!”

Jihoon was starting to think they’d been lying the entire time.

Because within the five hours he’d been awake, Jihoon had managed to forget his printed works cited for his essay, he’d been late to his second class (because he’d been printing out the works cited), and he’d completely forgotten about the standardized mathematics exam he had. And Jihoon despised standardized testing.

And to add to the excitement of his Thursday, he’d already planned on going out for lunch with Hyungseob and Woojin, which basically meant he got to third wheel on another one of their flirting sessions. (YAY)

“Hurry up Jihoon! We all know that you can run on five hours of sleep and Starbucks, remember Saturday?”

Jihoon sighed and quickened his pace to catch up with Hyungseob and Woojin.

“I’m sorry my speed today doesn’t fit your standard, Hyungseob.”

Hyungseob simply smirked and latched onto Woojin.

Jihoon sighed. Sometimes (most times) he wondered why he ever decided to befriend someone like Hyungseob. “Where are we going to eat?”

Jihoon’s question went ignored by both Hyungseob and Woojin, who were shooting heart eyes at each other so diligently that it was a wonder that they hadn’t wandered into traffic due to their lack of attention. Of course, Jihoon wouldn’t have let that happen.

After a solid three minutes of walking with those two looking at each other grossly, Woojin turned towards Jihoon. “So, did you manage to meet Bae Jinyoung without peeing yourself?”

Both Jihoon and Hyungseob stared at Woojin with shocked expressions (for different reasons though).

“Uhhh…” -Jihoon

“Shhh…” -Hyungseob

Jihoon looked past Woojin to see Hyungseob. “Did you guys plan all that?”

Hyungseob sighed. “Well, we planned on having you and Jinyoung meet somehow, but I promise we didn’t just shove Daehwi’s head into a fence if that’s what you’re worried about…”

Jihoon stared at him. “I actually hadn’t even thought about that. What I am wondering is why you trusted my to meet an incredibly attractive guy by myself. I legit killed any chance that I might have had with that guy…”

Woojin laughed. “Is that what you’re worried about? Don’t worry about it. Jinyoung loves quirky guys.”

Hyungseob nodded eagerly. “It’s true! He actually dated Daehwi for a full two weeks because of his adorable quirks. Of course, after two weeks they got sick of it and decided to stay friends...so basically a happy ending!”

“It’s true,” added Woojin (a bit to dramatically for him to not have been bribed). “Thanks to Jinyoung, Daehwi and Samuel are practically a thing. But the poor boy still hasn’t gotten himself a boyfriend…”

Jihoon looked at the two weirdly. Although they were practically dating, Woojin never really tangled himself into Hyungseob’s schemes to get Jihoon a boyfriend.

“And...Isn’t Jinyoung, like, the definition of your type? I mean, you always like the cute ones. Jinyoung is the definition of cute if you change the pitch of his voice...”

Jihoon glared at Hyungseob. “What do you mean? Even his voice is cute.”

Hyungseob grinned. “That’s what I wanted to hear! And guess what? We’ve arrived at our destination!!!”

Jihoon looked up to see the shining blue lights of the Wanna Slice Pizzeria. “Oh no, why are we here?”

Hyungseob and Woojin grinned. “You really need a boyfriend, Jihoon.” Woojin opened the door and Hyungseob walked in.
‘I guess I have no choice…’

~~~~~~

Good news: They’d been sitting at their booth for a solid five minutes and he hadn’t seen a cute Jinyoung walking around waiting tables. Which was great. Amazing. He definitely didn’t want to see Jinyoung after what had happened yesterday (which Jinyoung may or may not remember).

“Hey, Jihoon. Don’t look now but Jinyoung is walking this way.”

Jihoon practically jumped out of his seat across from his favorite couple and looked around while Hyungseob began laughing hysterically. “Dude, I seriously can’t believe that you’re this whipped when you only talked to him for, like, two minutes!”

Jihoon sighed and sat down. He wasn’t going to bother denying the fact that he was whipped. He knew it probably seemed really stupid and superficial for him to like someone so much after just meeting them, but he had seriously felt something when he met Jinyoung.

And he wanted to feel that again.

Sadly for Jihoon, though, he knew that if he met Jinyoung today, he’d probably make an even bigger fool of himself and end up giving a fifty dollar tip to him because he didn’t have small change on him.

Of course, Hyungseob and Woojin weren’t too worried about Jihoon’s mental well being or whether or not he actually had a chance with a hottie like Bae Jinyoung. In fact, it seemed like those two wanted him to make a fool of himself in front of Jinyoung so they could get his failure on camera and post it on YouTube for the whole world to see. But perhaps he was wrong. One could never know with them.

“Yeah he’s definitely whipped…”

Jihoon quickly turned back to his two friends. “Shut up…”

Hyungseob grinned. “Why? Are you worried he might hear or something?”

Jihoon glared at him. “No, I just don’t want you announcing my ‘crush’ to the entire restaurant, so please shut up.”

Both Hyungseob and Woojin laughed at that.

“So you admit that you have a crush?”

Jihoon scowled and turned to Woojin. “I never said that I didn’t have a crush, so…”

“Hehe...Sorry to interrupt, but your food is here…”

The trio’s heads shot up to see their waiter standing above their table holding two large pizzas.

(Was it bad that Jihoon wished that the guy was Jinyoung?)

"Wow Seonho. You actually made it to the table without eating the pizza this time!"

Seonho sighed sadly. "Yeah, it was really hard not to…Minhyun said that if I kept doing that, he'd report me to our manager."

Hyungseob laughed. "It must have been hard."

"Well, it usually is hard, but…you guys ordered pineapple on both of these. Those don't belong on pizza."

Jihoon stared at Seonho. "Seonho, I know that I haven't known you for a long time, but I know for a fact that you love Hawaiian pizza…"

Hyungseob nodded. "He'd right. What happened?"

Seonho placed down the pizzas. "Guanlin said they were bad, so I decided to believe him."

Woojin scoffed. "Why the hell would you listen to Guanlin? Kid barely knows what a pineapple is, much less how it tastes on pizza."

Seonho frowned. "Don't diss my Guanlin. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to work."

The three friends stared after Seonho, who had moved on to annoying Minhyun, the cashier.

“Finally, we can eat,” said Hyungseob.

Woojin glared at him. “Shut up, that’s mean.”

“Fine.”

~~~~~~

If Jihoon was the type to fall in love with a pizza delivery guy, Hyungseob and Woojin were the type to devour the entire pizza themselves.

Jihoon wasn’t even quite sure what had happened. All he knew is that he had taken two slices of pizza and the next time he looked up from his plate, there was nothing left on the tray.

“Are you guys freaking kidding me?”

“No,” said Hyungseob. “We’re not freaking kidding you.”

“So you finished two large pizzas in the time it takes me to eat two slices.”

Hyungseob let out a small burp. “Yup.”

“You are disgusting.”

“Hey, don’t talk about my boyfriend like that,” exclaimed Woojin. “Just for that, you get to pay!”

Jihoon stared at Woojin in shock. “You guys literally ate both those pizzas by yourself, why do I have to pay?”

“Cuz you’re mean. Now go.”

Jihoon sighed and began to stand up. (Jihoon still didn’t think it was fair, seeing as he’d already bought Hyungseob’s pizza and made a fool of himself, but he went with it.)

As he was walking toward the cash register, he made eye contact with Minhyun.

Apparently, that was a bad idea. When he was just three feet away from the register, he saw Minhyun’s face spread into a grin before he turned and walked away.

‘Oh great,’ Jihoon thought. ‘Minhyun is being a bad friend again.’

(Jihoon had grown a bit used to Minhyun’s constant meddling and rudeness, but it never failed to stun him that he was willing to turn his back on a customer to go yell at people in the kitchen but oh well.)

Jihoon turned back to look at his friends, who were both looking at him and winking. (Jihoon would have to tell them off later for stealing his job.) He sighed and turned back toward the counter.

‘Still no Minhyun,’ he thought. ‘I might as well just leave him to pay for it…’

Just then, a very pretty boy quickly walked out of the kitchen. Nope, definitely not Hwang Minhyun. It was Bae Jinyoung.

“Sorry for making you wait,” said Jinyoung. “And that’ll be $20.95…”

Jihoon simply stared at Jinyoung for a moment. ‘Nice, the boy I’ve been desperately hoping to avoid all day is in front of me. And he’s still really cute. And he’s asking for my money. Right.’

Jihoon quickly fumbled around for his wallet. “Yeah, uh...here.” He quickly handed Jinyoung some money before trying to leave the restaurant.

“Wait-Jihoon! Your change!”

“Keep it.”

“What? No, I can’t-don’t you leave now!”

Jihoon walked out of the restaurant and sighed. ‘Why can’t I ever take my change away from Jinyoung,’ he thought.

“Maybe because you’re more whipped than you thought, bro.”

Jihoon turned to his friends, who had followed him out of the restaurant. “You think so?”

“Oh, we know,” said Woojin. “You literally just gave the guy a thirty dollar tip.”

Jihoon groaned. ‘There goes my laundry for the month…’