Park Chanyeol wasn't as irresponsible as everyone made him out to be, and if he had a job, he naturally felt the urge to do it well. In school he had at least tried, and if not for the mess during his last year, he probably would have been accepted into a fairly decent university. He maybe wasn't the smartest, but wasn't lazy either.

So when Kris gave him the job that would supposedly decide their future, he wanted it to go well, no matter how ridiculous it was. He had to make someone's parents believe that he was their son's lover? Fine. They would have to dislike him? No problem. He was the master of making people hate him. Even his parents wouldn't let him into their house for a while.

But then his doubts came. Nothing ever worked for him, so what if other people only disliked him if he didn't want them to?
So he asked for help.

"Well, maybe they chose you because you're such a nice fellow," Jongin's mother mused at the dinner table. "The boy's parents maybe are a little stiff, so they would surely feel put off if their son's boyfriend," Chanyeol cringed at the word, "is just really awfully friendly."

"Act like a sissy," Jongin's father barked between slurps and other eating noises. "No one wants a useless son-in-law."

"Get drunk," Kris said matter-of-factly, when Chanyeol was about to embark on his journey to the town's only fancy restaurant. "Don't overthink it, be yourself, and drink every drink they offer you."

"No need to lie about anything concerning yourself," Kim Joonmyun said, when they were almost at the entrance. "Except for this job, of course."

And he understood that everyone expected him to be disliked simply for being himself. Maybe he just had to try and make them like him by going overboard, and they would naturally hate him. Maybe that was it. This probably was the only job he was suited for.

But then again was he probably really not able to make anything work the way he wanted it to.

Kris narrowed his eyes and had his arms folded in front of his chest, when he sighed like a man who had spet all day building a table, only to realize that its legs were kind of crooked. Chanyeol tried to become a small and as sorry-looking as possible, and when Kris finally spoke, he expected the worst.

"I mean, I hope you at least were so smart to decline their work offer," Kris said.

"I'm not crazy," Chanyeol meekly said, and when Kris looked as if he highly doubted that fact, he added, "I obviously wouldn't accept."

Kris frowned, and let out another sigh as he shook his head in exasperation. "Brilliant," he said. It was odd, because he didn't appear to be really angry, not as he usually was when Chanyeol messed up his work. This time he just seemed  done with the world. "Brilliant, really," he muttered, mainly to himself. "You absolutely had to turn out to be a likeable person after all the mess you caused."

"Look," Chanyeol said, not sure what to make of the remark. "I did what you said. I drank a lot, and I mean, really, a lot. And they were really sceptical at first, but then, I don't know, I think they're just really cool parents."

Right after they had entered the restaurant they had been just as stiff as Jongin's mother had predicted, and when Chanyeol had tried to act in an effeminate way by complimenting Kim Joonmyun's mother's dress and by allowing Kim Joonmyun to choose all his food for him, at least his father had seemed a little put off, just the way Jongin's father had guessed.

But then he had followed Kris' instructions, and had started to drink. First a cocktail, then a few glasses of wine, in the end beer straight from the bottle. It was then that everything had gone wrong, because he had just acted like himself. He had forgotten to be nice to Kim Joonmyun, had laughed a lot and had drunk a lot. He had talked about his temporary homelessness and his search for lost cats and dogs, and his awful friends, and his neighbour's mother who looked like a good housewife but was the reason why he looked even messier than usual, because he apparently probably should have learned how to iron his clothes himself.

Normal parents probably would have been disgusted by then, but Kim Joonmyun's mother had just jokingly said, "That would be a great help. Our Joonmyun probably doesn't even know what a flat iron looks like."
Chanyeol had laughed, at that point already perfectly oblivious of the implication.

He had cracked up when Kim Joonmyun's father had told him boring jokes and had told his mother that she definitely was one of the prettiest mothers he had ever seen. Compared to her his mother totally looked like an auntie.
That he was in the middle of making a great mistake, he had only really realized when Kim Joonmyun's father had poured him a glass with beer, while roaring, "Just call me 'father'!"

"All right, father," he had laughed and they happily downed their liquor, when Kim Joonmyun had suddenly elbowed him with a surly expression. Chanyeol had been about to complain, when he remembered just what he had been doing. He wasn't supposed to get along with the parents.
But the damage had already been done. It was properly because he was overly excited to meet people who seemed to enjoy his company, but by the end they had loved him and he had loved them.

Kris sighed once again. "Great. Why don't you just marry him then?" he asked dryly, and Chanyeol pulled a face.

"I like his parents, not him," he said. "And I mean, I don't get it. They're awesome parents. It makes me feel awful to lie to them, because, I mean, they're told that their son's gay lover is unemployed and what's their first thought? They try to find him a job. Why doesn't that guy  want them? I mean, even my own parents threw me out and they just..." Kris gave him that weird pitying look again he had shown a couple of times by then. It honestly unnerved him, because it had come with all his friends and family members who suddenly decided to talk to him again. "You should meet them," he continued and tried not to sound miserable. "They're cool."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Kris said glumly.

It didn't make sense. Nothing did. It was as if Chanyeol was cursed. No matter what he tried, the result would forever be the contrary of what he had meant to achieve.
He was supposed to play a girl's date, and embarrassed her by blacking out on a party, although he couldn't even remember drinking that much. And now that he was supposed to repeat the whole show, he could recall every drink he downed, but no one was appalled at what he did. Instead they liked him.

It still felt as if he was caught in a nightmare. The moment he thought he understood the rules, they suddenly changed. The people around him were like puppets. One day they hated him, the next they were friendly again, as if their whole personality constantly shifted.

"Why didn't you call?" his mother had asked in a worried tone, although she had denied knowing him when they last met.

"I didn't know you were working here now," Baekhyun had smiled, already forgetting that he had previously sneered at him when Kris was supposed to solve one of his problems.

His friends and family members acted weird, but complete strangers suddenly accepted him. Kris allowed him to stay, although he had no reason to, Jongin's parents constantly invited him for dinner, and the parents of Kim Joonmyun, too, seemed happy to meet him.

And the more he thought about it, the more he wondered whether he maybe really had gone crazy at some point.