Minseok hated taking the graveyard shift at IHOP. Why? Well for one, he was tired as . Two, it was lonely as . And three, the people who came to eat waffles at ungodly hours in the middle of the night scared him slightly.

 Who eats waffles this early in the morning anyways? Minseok wondered to himself.

The only people he didn’t mind coming in during these hours were travelers or middle-aged men and women who’d stumble in half asleep in their pajamas (they’ve actually proven themselves to be quite friendly people, Minseok noted). It was the crack heads and the stoners he had to watch out for.

This night, however, was particularly slow.

So slow, that both of his co-workers had drifted off to sleep, leaving Minseok to run the restaurant by himself.

Luhan, the Chinese boy sprawled out over booth 2, had passed out about an hour ago. He was currently choking up loud snores and mumbling incoherent Korean-Mandarin phrases with a physics textbook draped over his shoulder as a makeshift blanket. He was a pretty noisy sleeper (good thing no one was in the restaurant at the moment) and every other minute or two he’d undergo violent leg spasms.

Baekhyun, on the other hand, had fallen asleep in the kitchen somewhere. He was a dangerous sleeper, so Minseok never attempted to wake him up. He was a sleep fighter, that kid. It was a case almost like sleepwalking, but instead of strolling around in the middle of the night he’d have random spurs of aggression where he’d mindlessly begin to slap anyone within arm reach.

Baekhyun claimed himself fine but Minseok thinks he should really go see a doctor.

Minseok left them be, however. They were both college students and he cared about them, a little (not so much Baekhyun, he was sort of an ). But Minseok knew how they felt. He would have been in college too, but he dropped out, long story short, because he couldn’t pay it off. So now, working at IHOP was his main job.

Minseok pulled away from his thoughts when the front door suddenly swung open to reveal a man not much taller than himself with a biker helmet in one hand.

The boy had sharp features and a strange aura that gave Minseok a bad feeling.

He had almost called Luhan to stay on the look out for him, but the oh-so-helpful Chinese boy was peacefully asleep, shoving his fingers into his mouth and gurgling.

If Minseok were to die during his time here serving the strange customers of this 24-hour IHOP, his last wish would be for Luhan to finally return his copy of the Titanic and bury it with him because maybe that was his favorite movie in the entire world and maybe Minseok had a huge crush on Leonardo DiCaprio.

But honestly, who didn’t.

“Good morning and welcome to IHOP” Minseok stated to the boy, possibly his murderer, in the best smile he could muster up. “Right this way plea-”

“Wow you’re cute.” Was how the boy unexpectedly replied.

Minseok, confusedly flattered, blinked at the menu he was currently trying to pick up and turned to look at the other. He was staring directly at Minseok, the statement clearly aimed at him (which puzzled Minseok slightly), and a small smile played across the boy’s thin, cat-like lips.

“Oh my god I knew it,” Minseok whispered, mostly to himself, “You’re on drugs. LuhAN I-”

“I’m not on drugs!” The cat boy, Minseok had dubbed him, snapped. “Check me.”

“Open your jacket”

“You do it”

“Fine I will!” Minseok retorted without much thought. Pretty soon, he was ping cat boy’s coat and yanking it open to reveal a thin, black wife-beater Minseok didn’t really care about at the time before he began to rummage through whatever was inside the other’s pockets.

Near the end of his search, however, all Minseok had found were keys, random assortments papers, and a wallet belonging to the man, which he too opened revealing the name of the boy, Kim Jongdae, and a few credit cards.

“You’re so eager I might as well let you inspect my pants as well, little detective.”

Upon hearing this, Minseok flushed a deep shade red and finally realized what he was doing.

He took a quick look at how exposed Jongdae was because of him and cleared his throat awkwardly as he began to zip the other’s coat up.

Minseok peeked up and was greeted with Jongdae’s cheeky grin that he had probably been wearing since the moment Minseok had ripped open his jacket.

“I’ll, uh, take you to your table now, yeah.” Minseok muttered, stumbling forward, and ushering the still smirking customer to his booth.

----

“Oh man you practically the guy” Luhan said, laughing so hard Minseok thought he was going to have to call an ambulance soon.

“DID NOT” Minseok protested, aggressively cleaning the tables.

The sun was beginning to rise and their shifts were almost coming to an end.

“You so did, oh God, you’re so oblivious all the time. What did he do next?” Luhan asked.

“Well he tipped me,” Minseok began, trying to recall what had happened, “and gave me his number on this slip of paper.”

Minseok dug the said item from his pocket to examine it. I’ll accept your unspoken apologies with unlimited service from you and only you at this IHOP was what it said on the back.

“That’s gold, I wish I was there to watch” Luhan said, still partly laughing and wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.

“You were there face.” Minseok growled. “You were asleep.”

“Oh yeah huh, you’re right.” Luhan replied passively.

Minseok sighed. The people who came to eat waffles at ungodly hours in the middle of the night scared him slightly, but maybe Minseok found them interesting too. A little.

A/N: wow okay I just had to get a ton of information out of the way :’D sorry if this chapter was a little boring. I have to prep u all with the proper information in order for this story to move along well. (im sorry im so unskilled lol)

anyways /cough promos my blog /cough

I promise u the next chapter will be cooler than this. yea. I hope.

I should also tell u that I have no idea where im going with this fic actually I just want to build their relationship to the point where it’d be okay for them to have lol

ta-ta cuties don’t run away yet mkay /straps u all down for the second chapter.

ps. sorry I have the tiest grammar in the world