A Date for DO
How to Say (It) Though Kyungsoo could have spent the next week daydreaming about the perfection that was Kim Jongin—and done so happily—he was a university student above all else, and ended up studying instead.
As for Junmyeon, Kyungsoo often said while they were growing up that his best friend was too easily distracted; as it turned out, the coffee boy with dimples was proving more distracting to Junmyeon than anything ever had in his whole life.
When the two met again for their regular studying on Tuesdays, and once they’d completed their usual routine of “Hyung, it’s so far” and “Deal with it,” Junmyeon slumped down dejectedly in his chair, something about having too strong a craving for coffee to be productive on his school assignments. (Kyungsoo allowed Junmyeon the pretense and chose not to ask what kind of coffee it was that had finally suited his best friend’s taste buds.)
“Hyung,” Kyungsoo said, internally amused but outwardly stone-faced. “Study.”
Junmyeon groaned and Kyungsoo relished the fact that probably all of his friends could benefit from a lesson in linguistics and/or communication. Mostly the latter, actually. And courtesy of himself, obviously.
“You’re so cold, Soo,” Junmyeon lamented. “If I hadn’t seen you so uncharacteristically tongue-tied over Yixing’s tanned replacement last Thursday, I’d think you didn’t even have a heart!”
The words were harsh, but Junmyeon had never explicitly called Kyungsoo heartless, and anyway, Kyungsoo knew Junmyeon didn’t really mean any of it. He also knew that it was physically impossible to live without a heart, and since Junmyeon remained literal to a fault, it was unlikely that the older boy would ever say something so impractical. Still, Kyungsoo was really only looking out for his friend’s best interests, so he chose to look slightly put out at Junmyeon’s words—even though he really wasn’t.
Kyungsoo pouted and said “You’re so mean to me, hyung.”
Confronted with the full strength of his best friend's owl eyes and heart lips, Junmyeon felt a little sheepish all of a sudden. He was fully prepared to apologize, but then Kyungsoo followed up with a scowl and an insulted “And didn’t I teach you better insults than that? Seriously!”
Junmyeon decided that the feelings he had toward the Do boy in that moment were actually the farthest thing from apologetic, so he chose to just ignore Kyungsoo—as he so often did when Kyungsoo was unintentionally arrogant like that—and start on an essay instead.
Kyungsoo smirked to himself at a job well done before he, too, started studying.
Two afternoons later, Kyungsoo was already sitting in the campus café when he got a frantic text from Junmyeon. Kyungsoo’s class had ended abruptly when the professor’s wife had suddenly gone into labor. As a result, the students were let out early and Kyungsoo had arrived almost an entire hour before he and Junmyeon usually met.
Honestly, Kyungsoo had tried studying by himself while he waited, but he soon found that looking over boring texts—which weren’t even particularly challenging for him, by the way—was only bearable with Junmyeon around to annoy.
Yixing was here though—that at least promised interesting things to come.
Well, it would if the texts Kyungsoo had just gotten weren’t first a panicked “I can’t do it, Kyungie!” immediately followed by an “I know! I’ll just be single for the rest of my life, okay?” (Kyungsoo had a terrifying moment of clairvoyance in which he saw a Junmyeon who was 30 years older, smelled like manhwas and cup noodles, and was surrounded by cats. It was shudder-inducing, to say the least.)
“Nope,” was Kyungsoo’s unfeeling response.
He was formulating some convincing argument that would be strong enough to get Junmyeon to stop being such a coward, when Jongin walked in. The Kim boy smiled at Kyungsoo in recognition as he passed on his way to the employee room, and Kyungsoo literally spluttered. (How embarrassing.) The next message he sent to Junmyeon was quick, but to the point: “KIM JONGIN IS HERE”
(It was incredibly rare for language snob Kyungsoo to communicate in anything less than perfect grammar, so the lack of punctuation in his text was enough to indicate to Junmyeon that his best friend had entered total panic mode—as if the asive caps lock weren’t already enough.)
Kyungsoo took a moment to breathe, hoping Junmyeon had gotten the somewhat subliminal message that Kyungsoo needed him to get to Cacoepy. ASAP. He then sent a string of follow-up text messages.
From Kyungsoo: “Jun-hyung.”
From Kyungsoo: “Get here.”
From Kyungsoo: “Now.”
From Kyungsoo: “Seriously.”
From Kyungsoo: “He’s perfect and I can’t.”
From Kyungsoo: “Ughalkdfjaseaadfa”
By that point, Junmyeon had already started walking from his lecture hall to where Kyungsoo was waiting, but his pace increased to a run as Kyungsoo’s text messages began arriving in full force. Although, it was admittedly hard to move at a fast pace while dying of laughter—which is how Junmyeon felt, especially after receiving supposedly articulate Kyungsoo’s last keyboard smash of a message.
When he finally arrived, Junmyeon was completely out of breath—though he couldn’t help still trying to laugh anyway. Kyungsoo, who was waiting anxiously for his friend to appear, grinned gratefully and waved Junmyeon over, asking with his eyes why Junmyeon was wheezing like a dog with bronchitis. (At least, that’s what Junmyeon thinks Kyungsoo wanted to know—he could never be completely sure where Kyungsoo and non-verbal communication were concerned.)
Before Junmyeon could corral enough air into his lungs to explain, though, Yixing himself approached their table and asked with obvious concern, "Um...Are you alright?"
Junmyeon lost all his air again.
But Kyungsoo, like the good friend he was, replied smartly instead and said, "Oh him? Yeah, he's fine."
Yixing nodded at that, as if pleased to hear that Junmyeon wasn't actually dying of asphyxiation. Kyungsoo, however, didn't stop there. "It's just that you," he said, taking a short pause for dramatic effect--his favorite drama character did that all the time and Kyungsoo was a fan--"you take our Jun-hyun's breath away."
A furiously blushing Junmyeon kicked Kyungsoo's shin hard under the table, but since Yixing was also blushing and smiling shyly at Junmyeon's indirect confession via Kyungsoo, the Do boy wasn't exactly sure what it was he'd done to deserve such violence. (He'd always been a believer in talking about his feelings. It just didn't make sense to Kyungsoo that people who could speak often chose not to. Junmyeon pulled the age card at that and said it was a matter of maturity so, of course, Kyungsoo wouldn't understand. Kyungsoo had retaliated by asking if that wasn't gray in Junmyeon's hair; revenge was sweet when the Kim heir had rushed to the hairdresser and dealt with a bad buzzcut for an entire month.)
Junmyeon was still redder than a tomato when Yixing pulled his lip between his teeth and admitted to Kyungsoo--probably because he couldn't currently look Junmyeon in the eye--"Actually, it's your Jun-hyung who leaves me breathless."
Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at the excessive level of cheese, but didn't waste the opportunity to mouth a smug "You're welcome!" in Junmyeon's general direction. Also in that general direction, however, was a recently-emerged-from-the-back-to-start-his-shift Jongin, who thought that he was the person with whom Kyungsoo wanted to communicate. Jongin tried to figure out what Kyungsoo was saying, but the layout of Cacoepy was long and thin, and it was unexpectedly easy for Jongin to get long-term distracted by Kyungsoo's pink lips.
Though he saw none of Jongin's struggle to understand something that wasn't even meant for the barista in the first place, Kyungsoo still chose that moment to go order his and Junmyeon's drinks, conveniently leaving his best friend at coffee boy's mercy. When he arrived at the bar, Kyungsoo mulled over his choices and wondered how to one might order a chai tea latte in Thai.
His Thai was a little rusty, though, so Kyungsoo was thinking about settling for a white mocha in Korean instead, when Jongin finally finished helping the previous customer. "What were you trying to say to me?" Jongin asked Kyungsoo curiously.
"Huh?" was Kyungsoo's extraordinarily eloquent reply. I wasn't trying to say anything to you, he thought at Jongin. I can't even formulate complete thoughts in your presence; how do you expect me to mouth you a message from across a room?!
"Oh," Jongin said. "So to clarify, you weren't talking to me because," he paused dramatically and Kyungsoo decided he really really liked this guy, "you can't think when I'm around?" Jongin grinned and Kyungsoo thought he was going to pass out, especially once he realized he must have thought out loud because there was no way Jongin could know that about Kyungsoo otherwise. Kyungsoo swallowed hard, but Jongin continued. "I thought you were supposed to be some communications jjang or something, but I don't see it."
Linguistics, Kyungsoo thought helplessly. It's actually linguistics.
Evidently, Jongin made Kyungsoo lose his brain because Kyungsoo said that out loud, too. Jongin just shrugged, said he was a dance major so people who got degrees in talking didn't make a lot of sense to him, and then asked if Kyungsoo was ready to order yet.
Kyungsoo just nodded dumbly, shocked at himself that he could have a crush on someone who had literally just insulted basically the entirety of Kyungsoo's life skills. It was likely unintentional, but still. "Uh," Kyungsoo ground out, "single?"
Jongin chuckled, because linguistics or communication or whatever, but Kyungsoo still wasn't saying anything coherent and Jongin thought that was so freakin' cute. "A single what?" Jongin asked, gently leading Kyungsoo through the order process so the Do boy would stop feeling as embarrassed as his blushing face seemed to suggest he was.
In that moment, though, something changed on Kyungsoo's face, and Jongin watched Kyungsoo nod once with determination. "I wasn't referring to beverage size," Kyungsoo breathed out quickly, "I meant you."
Jongin's equivalent to Kyungsoo's language ability was being a dancing machine. That's not to say Jongin wasn't intelligent--it took a lot of brain power not to trip over one's own feet, thank you very much--because he was. But he certainly wasn't on Kyungsoo's level of verbal expression, so when Kyungsoo referred to Jongin and single--Cacoepy's name for the size of a small drink--Jongin was initially confused. Before embarrassing himself and Kyungsoo by being defensive over his size, however, Jongin thankfully caught on. "Me?" he asked in slight relief, "Yeah." He smiled at Kyungsoo, "I'm single."
"Date me?" Kyungsoo managed to request, still partially blinded by the beauty of Jongin's eye-crinkling grin.
"Can you dance?" Jongin asked in return.
Kyungsoo bit his lip anxiously and both were startled by the small moan Jongin unconsciously emitted at the sight. Jongin blushed and something about that returned to Kyungsoo the confidence he always seemed to lose with Jongin around. "Not at all," he admitted. "Then again, you insulted my chosen field and I've heard you're hopeless at learning foreign languages."
Jongin chuckled, but didn't argue. "Does that make us even?" He asked curiously.
"Hmm," Kyungsoo thought for a moment. "If I say yes, then will you go on a date with me?"
Jongin's eyes twinkled as he pretended to contemplate Kyungsoo's question. "Maybe."
Kyungsoo smirked. "In that case," he said triumphantly, "Yes, si, nei, dui, okay-kap, hai--"
"Okay, okay!" Jongin said with a laugh. "I get it! Yes, I'll go out with you! Happy?"
"Actually, no," Kyungsoo said, much to Jongin's surprise. Kyungsoo continued, cheekily."I still haven't ordered, so..."
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