Donghae waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Thirty minutes later, he was still waiting. The nervous barista kept stealing glances at the inspector, absent-mindedly rubbing too hard at his fragile glassware with a cloth and causing squeaky sounds to reverberate in the room.

Donghae checked his watch for the umpteenth time, sighing to himself. If Hyukjae didn’t turn up in the next five minutes, he was going to leave.

* * *

Hyukjae finally showed up nearly ten minutes later, just when Donghae was about to give up. An impatient frown was showing on the inspector’s face, obviously not amused at having being stood up for nearly an hour.

Wish a sheepish smile, Hyukjae tugged his long-term boyfriend towards a seat, the exact one Donghae just stood up from two minutes ago. He covered the inspector’s hand with his own, caressing the rough calluses on his palm in an attempt to soothe Donghae’s slight irritation.

“I’m sorry for being late, Hae. I was stuck in the traffic for over an hour.”

Donghae’s scrunched eyebrows didn’t even lift when he gave his reply.

“Liar.”

Hyukjae gulped. “W-What do you mean?”

Crossing arms over his chest, Donghae pushed the officer back against the seat and stood up. He stood directly in front of Hyukjae, who suddenly looked nervous. Donghae let out a sigh and bent down to adjust Hyukjae’s collar.

“Please don’t lie to me. You at that,” he whispered directly into the elder’s ear, before standing upright again. “You arrived at least an hour earlier, and no you weren’t stuck in traffic. In fact you’ve been downstairs all this time while I was up here, waiting.”

The officer looked up at him with wide eyes. “H-How did you know…?”

“First of all, if you really were stuck in the car for over an hour as you stated, your dress shirt would be creased around your shoulders where the seatbelt goes. But your shirt is absolutely flawless, so that was obviously a lie.”

Donghae paced in front of the other. “Secondly, you have a habit of charging your phone in the car. But when you came up just now I heard the tiny notification sound telling you that the battery was at a critically low level, which further proves that you were lying.”

Hyukjae was speechless. He sat up, looking worried. “You—you can’t be serious about this.”

Smirking, the inspector gave Hyukjae a flick to the forehead. “In fact, you were looking for something downstairs because you have tiny grey patches on the knees of your black pants you didn’t manage to brush away. I’m thinking it was something tiny, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have been down on your hands and knees looking for it. You arrived here earlier before me to arrange something with the owners of this café, don’t pretend I don’t know it. The lack of customers on a bright Saturday afternoon during lunch hour in a popular café is highly suspicious. Besides, the barista was acting very suspiciously too all the while I was here.”

An adorable pout was forming on Hyukjae’s mouth. So much for wanting to surprise his boyfriend. He got up and caught the wandering Donghae, firmly seating him down on a chair.

“Okay, okay, I got it. You’re the best ever sleuth and investigator in the whole of Korea, alright? But can’t you even give your boyfriend a break? I planned this for so long and you ruined the surprise just by being you. Wait no, that’s not what I meant—”

“So somehow this is my fault?” Donghae asked, raising an eyebrow. “Should I be sorry about it?”

“Yes—NO!! Goshdammit Hae why are you making this even more difficult for me? Arghh!!” Hyukjae asked, collapsing to his knees