Sehun’s never really put much effort into dental hygiene.
 

It’s not that he didn’t care, per say; he just figured that some mouthwash every now and then would revive that dull white-ish shine of his less-than-healthy teeth and hey, as long as they looked fine, they were fine.
 

But then again, that's probably the reason why he’d had so many cavities throughout his childhood, and why his mom banned him from eating candy after 5pm and hid the soda in the back of the pantry, but he was a smart kid, and a little rebellious, and often hid in the laundry room after 11pm eating Reece’s Pieces and gummy worms and forgetting to brush his teeth afterwards.
 

Even now, he'll find himself sprawled out on his couch at 2am during the weekends, candy wrappers stuck to his face and entire bags of candy emptied out.

("Do you even eat actual food?" his friend, Zitao, had once asked while he was over on a Saturday night and found his cupboards filled with nothing but KitKats and Hershey's kisses.

"No," Sehun smiled proudly, "No I don't.") 

-

Besides his Dirty Little Secret, he liked to consider himself as being a relatively normal guy; fresh out of college with his bachelor's degree in accounting, working a regular 9am to 8pm job at the building 15 minutes away from his apartment in the heart of Seoul where he spent hours bent over a bright laptop screen, documents, and high-tech calculators that probably cost more than his entire life. Not to mention he was painfully attractive, which he fully knew and often whined about for days upon days, about how hard it was to be 'so so hot but so so single'. 
He'd also had a couple girlfriends and boyfriends here and there, a couple flings and flirty friendships, but none of them ever lasted long enough to call them real Relationships because, well, secrets can't be hidden forever.

The only person who really seemed to want to stick around, despite knowing about his problem, was his ever-loyal and ever-mischievous best friend and co-worker: Kim Jongin. They had known eachother for 4 years more or less, meeting in their sophomore year of college and sticking together ever since, even choosing to live in the same dorm together. It was in the middle of their junior year when Sehun let Jongin know about his hygiene problem, and when Sehun expected the other to leave and never come back, he looked up to see Jongin's lopsided grin and hear him say "You are one nasty er."
 

They laughed, and laughed, and Sehun knew he chose the right friend. 
 

Jongin every now and then about it, and Sehun never really took it to heart because he didn't care, and he knew Jongin didn't mean it (at least he didn't think he did).
-

So he wasn’t nearly as surprised, or offended, as he should’ve been when he was eating lunch with Jongin in the office break room, leaning over to whisper something playfully, only to have Jongin retch back with disgust and topple out of his chair, shrieking “don’t you dare try to whisper in my ear when your mouth smells like " followed by an even louder "THE LORD DID NOT SACRIFICE HIMSELF FOR YOUR BREATH TO CONTINUE SINNING.”
 

“Dude, my breath is fine,” Sehun shrugged nonchalantly and continued ripping pieces off of his Supreme Wrap and shoving them into his mouth.
 

 “ THAT I CAN SMELL THE CAVITIES FROM HERE.” Jongin yelled from his new seat on the carpet, reaching to pull his Big Mac out of the deadly line of fire otherwise known as 'Oh Sehun’s Breath' and mumbling something along the lines of 'don't think I won't febreeze your mouth in your sleep'.
 

“I only have like…” Sehun trailed off, eyes glazing over in thought for a few moments, “..like 4 cavities right now. That’s an improvement, Jongin, the most I’ve ever had at one time was like 9. When I was 15,” a warm smile spread on his face in remembrance, “Good times. They were a to fix though, my mouth hurt like a motherer afterwards and I had to survive on baby food, soup, and applesauce. Did you know they make avacado and dorito flavored baby food? I didn't.”
 

Sehun sighed wistfully and dipped his wrap in taco sauce.
 

Jongin silently watched him out of the corner of his eye with disgust, his lip curled as he felt a little vomit threaten to make its way up his throat.
 

“Dude, shut up, I’m eating.” Jongin groaned and took another small bite of his burger before deciding he had lost his appetite and setting it aside.
 

Sehun finished his wrap and balled up the remains, throwing it at the trashcan in the corner and missing by at least 10 feet. He kicked up his feet and put them on the table, leaning back to straighten out his dress shirt and gaze thoughtfully at the ceiling before letting his eyes slide down to Jongin.
 

“Are you gonna finish that or...” Sehun nodded his head towards the burger.
 

“Normally I would say ‘No, I’m not finished’ just because I don’t want your foul, decaying teeth anywhere near my food, but your revolting lifestyle has finally rendered me sorta speechless-”
 

“My lifestyle is beautiful, you-”
 

“-and as well as hunger-less, so I’m just going to let you have this out of the kindness of my heart and because maybe the burger will taste so bad that it’ll spur you to want to brush said decaying teeth and make the world, and this office, a better, nicer-smelling place.”
 

Sehun stared at the white walls in front of him as Jongin stood up and picked up a ruler from the cabinet to push the burger closer to him, all the while keeping his distance and coughing and gagging dramatically when he came near.
 

He rolled his eyes, almost feeling offended until he saw Kyungsoo shuffle past the room with a stack of papers in his hands and snapped his head up.
 

“Kyungsoo-hyung! Could you come here for a second?”
 

He stopped and smiled, and somewhere in the background Jongin swooned dreamily, before nodding and coming close.
 

“Okay, I trust you to be 100% real with me and I’m going to ask you a serious question,” he paused to make sure Kyungsoo understood the seriousness of the situation, only continuing once Kyungsoo placed the papers on the table and nodded seriously in return.
 

He gulped hesitantly.
 

“Does…does my breath-”
 

“Smell like you ate several dead animals over the course of like 4 years straight? Yeah, sometimes. I never said anything about it though, figured it’d be rude.” Kyungsoo shrugged. 
 

Sehun choked on his spit and Kyungsoo took it as a cue to leave, bending over to gather his papers (Jongin suddenly started singing some song about hips not lying) and shutting the door behind him.
 

‘Maybe…I should…get my teeth checked.’ Sehun thought unhappily. He breathed into his hand and sniffed, his eyes immediately becoming watery and nose stinging and 'damn, I should really get my teeth checked'.
 

“Jongin, once you're done singing about Kyungsoo, could you make me a dentist appointment?” he mumbled while dabbing at his teary eyes, scoffing when Jongin stopped in the middle of Mario's "Let Me Love You", his face twisted into a mischievous smile.
 

"What was that?"
 

Sehun scraped some dried glue off of the table.
 

"I said, could you make me a dentist appointment?"
 

"One more time?"

Sehun nearly growled in response.
 

"Make me ing dentist appointment or I'll-"
 

“Of course I will! Dude, you’re making the right choice. For yourself. For me- for the world.” Jongin interrupted with a grin and darted over quickly to pat Sehun on the back before dashing away to the nearest phone.
 

Sehun blinked sadly at the remains of Jongin’s burger, beginning to wonder where he went so terribly wrong when Jongin’s head popped back around the corner.
 

“Plus, there’s this really cute dentist guy there, and being the kind, caring friend that I am, I’ll hook you up so you can finally get laid and stop telling me about last week's episodes of Jersey Shore.”
He smiled sweetly before popping his head back around the corner and yelling a loud ‘KYUNGSOO-HYUNG, good god your looks fine in those jeans, WHERE’S THE PHONE?’

-

 

The following Saturday at exactly 11:00am (he was always a stickler for being on time), he found himself seated in one of the uncomfortable black chairs lined up against the wall near the reception counter of the dentist’s clinic that was lined with photos of flowers and pamphlets reading "Amazingly Beautiful Teeth in 5 Easy Steps!"
 

He hated clinics.
 

He thought they always smelled like cleaning supplies and sterilized kitchen utensils, and his self-proclaimed sensitive nose usually got irritated from the strong scents. Not to mention the fact that kids always ran around like rabid animals while their parents just sat there, laughing and letting them drool all over the place and the lady at the counter's fake laughter made him want to cry. Yeah, he really hated clinics.
 

The TV in the corner was turned to some boring news channel, so he zoned out and nearly fell asleep until he hear a loud “Oh Sehun” called from somewhere beside him and he looked up to be met with one of the most beautiful faces he had ever seen in his entire life, and he had seen some pretty great faces, his own included. He had his doubts at first, but Jongin definitely wasn't lying when he said 'cute'.

The man in front of him was breathtaking, to say the least; his practiced smile was obviously fake and forced, but his teeth sparkled and his golden hair fell into his eyes in the most graceful way and it was almost too perfect. Sehun found himself thinking 'did it hurt when you fell from heaven?' and wiping his sweaty hands on his slacks.
 

The owner of the beautiful face wasted no time at all as he turned and motioned for Sehun to follow along, quickly leading him to the X-ray room and making quick small talk.
 

“So how are you, Mr. Oh?” the man asked cheerfully, and 'wow', Sehun thought, 'his voice was almost as pretty as his face, he’s probably like 21 years old at the most even though he looks like 16 and that starchy blue outfit really isn’t doing him justice but his neck is so flawless look at that mole wow-'
 

“Mr. Oh?” he stopped and turned, an amused and slightly uncertain smile on his face.
 

“O-oh” he stuttered, “yeah, yup, that’s me. Mr. Oh. Yeah. But you can just call me Sehun. If you want.” He said while scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.

“Alright, Sehun,” his smile brightened, “So you’re here for a normal checkup and cleaning?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He shrugged.

The dentist nodded and continued leading Sehun down the long hallway, aligned with various fake plants and portraits of old Italy and other memorabilia that really had nothing to do with clinics or teeth and a lot to do with tricking kids into thinking the dentist was a fun and peaceful place before they were strapped down to their fluoride-filled deaths.
 

He stopped abruptly once he reached the correct door, opening it and walking inside, motioning for Sehun to come in.
 

“You can take a seat right over there,” He said in amusement as Sehun awkwardly maneuvered himself around the room, clearly uncomfortable.


“Will I get a sticker after this? With the toothbrush and floss in the goodie bag?” Sehun asked suddenly.

“Maybe, if you’re a good boy.” He winked and laughed to which Sehun blushed a slight pink and sat down on the large chair with a loud plop, “No but seriously, we usually only give stickers and goodie bags to kids under the age of 16, and you’re,” he paused to look at the patient file, “23.”

“Oh.” Sehun pouted and sighed exaggeratedly.
 

“But you can have one if you want? We only have Spiderman and princess stickers though, maybe a Dora one if you’re lucky.” The other quickly spouted, obviously flustered, and Sehun laughed under his breath.

“Alright. I’ll be a good boy. Bring it on, Doctor...”

“Lu Han.”

“Doctor Luhan. The stickers are calling out to me. Game on.”

-

Minutes later, after Dr. Luhan finished checking his patient file and scanning his X-rays, he turned back to face Sehun, his face pale and grim.

“What is it Dr. Lu? Am I going to die?” Sehun asked and feigned death.

“No, but at the rate your teeth are going, you’ll probably get some disease that will result in your entire mouth deteriorating and succumbing to a sad, painful demise," he said disappointely, "we’ll have to remove the residue afterwards to give you dentures.”
 

Sehun’s eyes grew wide and he grimaced at the thought.

“I ed up.”

“I would scold you for foul language, but you’re right,” Luhan shook his head sadly before whispering, “You truly fricked up.”

“Anywho, it’s part of my job to clean your teeth, so maybe they don’t look as bad as I’m thinking. Lay back, turn the TV on if you want, and I’ll get the cleaning supplies-”

“Does that include the thing that they use to scrape your gums and make them bleed and then blame it on you not brushing right?” Sehun asked with clear distaste.
 

Luhan laughed loudly, mostly out of surprise from Sehun’s blunt comments, and nodded.

 

“Yeah, but I’ll try to go easy on you,” his eyes gleamed mischievously, “can’t make any promises though.”

-

Luhan finished cleaning Sehun’s teeth in 30 minutes and stood up with a disturbed expression, walking straight over to his computer without uttering a word.

The silence was thick, and Sehun was uncomfortable.

“Your gloves smelled like mint.” Sehun stated conversationally while sitting up and staring at the back of Luhan’s head. He took a second to admire the soft-looking hair and the way the sun shone on it through the window; even in his starchy outfit with a headband holding his hair out of his eyes, he looked unreal. He made mental note to thank Jongin later.

Luhan swiveled around in his chair to face Sehun and stare back. 

Sehun blinked himself out of his thoughts.

Luhan slowly lifted the gloves to his nose and sniffed, then lowered them back down just as slowly while maintaining eye contact.

“I, uh. I guess they do?” Luhan said.

“Why do they smell like mint?” Sehun pressed.
 

“I. I don’t know?”
 

“Because I was lying down and while you were picking at my teeth, I was inhaling the scent and I was like ‘wow these smell like some strong mint’ like, you know that mint gum? Spearmint? Yeah like that and I was wondering if it was meant to be therapeutic and relaxing so I wouldn’t drool as much or make that much spit so you wouldn’t have to use the spit-er thing but then I thought maybe it was to make me sleepy because mint kinda makes me tired but I wouldn’t know why you would want me to sleep unless you were planning on fixing my cavities in which case, go ahead, but a heads up would’ve been cool.” Sehun breathed out rapidly and suddenly stopped, shutting his lips tight and never breaking eye contact.

“I..I mean I just got them this way? And we can work on your cavities today if you want, but I was going to schedule another appointment for next Saturday with one of our more qualified dentists for that…” Luhan trailed off and turned back to his computer to pull off his gloves and finish typing.
 

“Could you fix them?”

“Well, I can, I have enough time before the next appointment if that’s what you’d really like, but seeing that you have about 6 or so cavities and some awful buildup, it may take a while, and you might have other things to do..” he ended, sounding inquisitive.

“I’m not busy- I don't really have any friends except for this guy named Jongin who works at my office and this other dude named Kyungsoo but I don't really know what he does other than carrying stacks of paper sometimes and Jongin once cried over him when he was piss drunk and even though he denies– “ he caught himself before he rambled on and scratched his throat again in embarrassment, to Luhan’s amusement.

“Uh, no, I’m not busy. Yeah.” Sehun finished lamely before looking at Luhan again.
 

“Alright, then I guess we’ll be spending the next hour or two together, and I’m a decent conversationalist so I swear it won’t be that boring.” Luhan smiled playfully and stood up, beckoning Sehun to join him.
 

“I wouldn’t mind spending two hundred hours with you to be honest,” he muttered quietly under his breath in hopes that Luhan wouldn’t hear.
 

But unfortunately, Luhan has always had great ears, and he whipped his head back and looked at Sehun with wide eyes before flushing pink and mumbling to himself.
 

It was quiet as Sehun followed the dentist to the adjacent room, and even more so as he clipped the bib around his neck and watched Luhan gather the supplies in a rush, so quickly that he dropped a ‘gum scraper’ (as Sehun called it and refused to call it any other way) and mumbled a soft “gosh darn it” before throwing it away and finding a new one.

Sehun smiled fondly at the other and decided to break the silence.
 

“Dr. Lu.”
 

Luhan ignored him and continued searching for the drill.
 

“Doctor.”
 

He was once again met with silence.
 

“Hey doctor,” he drawled in his best impersonation of that one kid from that one group that strangely kinda looked like him.
 

“You listen to EXO?” Luhan paused and whispered accusingly.
 

“What can I say. They’re hot.”


Luhan shook his head and pulled out a pack of floss from the drawer silently.
 

“Luhan.”
 

He finally stopped and turned to face Sehun, still visibly pink-faced and nervous.
 

Sehun grinned nervously.
 

“Hey um, I know we just met like an hour and 15 minutes ago and I've embarrassed myself at least 5 times- I mean, I know my teeth aren’t that great, which probably disgusts you seeing that you’re a dentist and whatever, but once you fix them, I swear I’ll keep them clean, and I don't even know if you're gay but I think you’re really cute and you’ve got these really pretty eyes and I was wondering if-"

Luhan finally sighed and chuckled, causing the tension to dissipate and Sehun to stop and look down at his feet. 
 

“Yes, Sehun," he spoke after a thoughtful silence, "I’ll let you take me on a date.”
 

Sehun whipped his head up, his eyes sparkling with a childish excitement. 
 

"Really? Oh wow, uh, thank you, wow, I honestly thought you would reject me because I’m really not that great and I ramble a lot and I like stickers and Jongin says I have intimidating hawk eyebrows and-"

He stopped as he met Luhan’s soft gaze.
 

“Let’s just get your teeth fixed, and you can ramble and sing EXO songs all you want another day when you take me out, yeah?”

Sehun blushed and played with the bracelet hanging loosely on his wrist, a shy smile making its way onto his face.
 

“Okay.”

-

The next few Saturdays were completely filled up with dates with his new favorite person (to Jongin's dismay), Luhan.

He learned that not only was Luhan sorta kinda really cute and kind of dense, but that he loved soccer, hated being called pretty, doesn't use 'bad words', and was 4 years older than him.

‘A whole 4 years? That means you’re my hyung, hyung. Haha. Hyung-hyung.’

‘That’s darn frickin’ right I am, you better respect.’

They’d gone to see the movies once, which Sehun soon realized was possibly a really bad choice when he tried to order 2 tubs of popcorn, a box of skittles, a large pack of m&ms, and a thing of nutella (since when did movie theaters sell those anyways?) only to glance over and see Luhan glaring intently and shaking his head in disapproval.

He sighed and forced himself ordered water and a bag of pretzels instead, quietly mourning the loss of his favorite sweet treats.

The next Saturday started off just as bad when they went to the carnival and Sehun dragged Luhan all the way to the back of the park, whining about cotton candy and strawberry-kiwi slushies (‘they’re ing amazing hyung they taste like heaven and sunshine and all things good in this world’) and skipping like a child, stopping when he felt Luhan’s gaze boring holes into the back of his head and muttering a threatening “I didn’t slave over your dying mouth for 3 hours for nothing, Oh Sehun.” Luhan couldn't stay very angry when Sehun bounced over with a pout on his face and promptly decided to kiss it right off.
 

But after that, things were okay, and Sehun learned to stop eating sweets (at least around Luhan) and Luhan grew to accept that Sehun was just a little kid inside who talked too much for his own good and ate too much candy.

Things were okay, and they were falling in love.

-

Sehun never really cared much for dental hygiene- at least, not until he met Luhan.

Now, 10 months later, his teeth are sparkly clean, Jongin doesn’t avoid him like the plague, Kyungsoo is too busy blushing furiously 24/7 from Jongin's continuous declarations of love through song to bother him about the stack of papers piling up on his desk, and best of all:

He has a cute boyfriend that makes sure he brushes every night and supplies him with copious amounts of floss, toothpaste, and minty goodnight kisses.

a/n: this is all really bad wow but i got inspiration when i went to get my teeth cleaned a couple days ago and the dentist’s gloves smelled like some serious hardcore mint. i suddenly thought of dentist luhan and sehun telling him his gloves smelled like mint and somehow this garbage came out of it oh god 

i was going to make this better and longer but i lost inspiration and after re-reading it like 50 times i started disliking it so i might as well put it out there before i delete it all together ;;; enjoy!