one-shot is . Whatever. I’m trying to remember how to write new things and failing.

One-shot – Making Excuses

Taekwoon has never been so panicked in his life. He hurries into the local vet with his precious cat gathered in his arms. He’s flustered and the woman behind the desk seems to sense his urgency and shows him right in to the vet.

“What seems to be the problem?” the vet asks.

He’s tall and really handsome but Taekwoon can’t focus on that right now, his baby is dying.

“She’s been gagging on and off all afternoon,” Taekwoon says, placing her on the metal table.

The vet nods and begins to inspect her, rubbing his hands over and managing to get open so he can have a look for blockages. Through all of this she sits patiently.

“Do you know if she’s eaten anything she shouldn’t have?”

Taekwoon shakes his head, clenching his hands while he taps his foot nervously. “She’s an indoor-cat right now because I just moved. She only eats what I feed her.”

“Hmm.”

The vet turns away to grab a thermometer and the cat, finally unleashed from grabbing hands, arches and gags again. The two men watch as within seconds she’s coughed up a hairball.

Taekwoon feels his mouth fall open and the vet can’t help but laugh, flashing the most amazing dimples the other man has ever seen.

“Well, there you have it. She had an abnormally large hairball. Nothing to worry about after all.”

Taekwoon sighs in relief and his whole body seems to relax. He slumps down into a chair, running his hands through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

The vet waves it off, beginning to clean up the mess his patient had made. “Don’t worry about it. This happens more often than you think.”

“Really?” Taekwoon asks, looking up to meet the handsome vet’s eyes.

“Oh yeah,” the vet chuckles as he runs a hand over the cat’s fur, smiling when she pushes up into it. “What’s her name?”

“Mystery,” Taekwoon mutters.

“That’s an interesting name.”

“I got home from work one day and she was just in my kitchen. She was just a kitten and I don’t know where she came from and there were no answer to the posters I put up.”

“I see,” the vet mumbles.

He looks over Taekwoon, noting how relieved the man looks. Obviously this cat meant a lot to him despite the way she barged into his life. He also can’t help noticing how good looking Taekwoon is and he tries to shake away the thought. It’s a small clinic he can’t risk scaring away clients by getting involved with them.

“Anyway, I won’t charge you for this. I’m just glad you brought her in when you thought something was wrong.”

“Don’t people normally do that?” Taekwoon asks, standing up.

“You’d be surprised by the number of people that don’t bring their animals in when they’re sick. I can’t tell you how many times lives could have been saved if they’d been brought in earlier.”

Taekwoon scratches Mystery under the chin and gathers her up in his arms. “Thank you.”

The vet shakes his head. “I’m glad it was nothing.”

Taekwoon nods his thanks and begins to leave, only to come to a stop next to the door. “I’m Taekwoon, by the way.”

The vet smiles, once again showing off his dimples and causing Taekwoon’s heart to start doing stupid in his chest. “Hongbin,” he replies.

The older man tries to keep the stupid grin off his face. “Okay.”

And then Taekwoon leaves before he can embarrass himself in some way.

Taekwoon is looking forward to eating dinner and collapsing on the couch when he gets home. However the undeniable sound of Mystery’s wheezing stops him from doing that. Frowning, Taekwoon seeks her out and finds her perched on the kitchen bench – somewhere she’s not supposed to be – waiting to be fed.

Even as he’s walking towards her she sneezes and Taekwoon sighs. Was it just hayfever? Could he give her antihistamine? If so, how much?

Groaning, because it was a long day and he’d worked late, Taekwoon checks the time. The clinic was open until nine and it was seven now. He picks up Mystery and puts her in her carrier. She hates it, prefers to just be carried everywhere, and the look she gives him shows that.

“It’s for your own good,” he tells her, placing the carrier in the car.

The veterinary clinic is only five minutes away and it has a surprising number of people waiting considering what time it is.

He joins the line, pleased that it moves along fairly quickly. After nearly an hour it’s their turn and Taekwoon picks up the carrier and enters the office.

“Oh,” Hongbin says when he recognizes Taekwoon. “It’s you.”

Taekwoon reminds himself not to ogle and pulls Mystery from the carrier. She gives him another dirty look when her paws hit the cold metal.

“Hello, Mystery,” Vet Hongbin greets. “You sound a little congested.”

Taekwoon nods. “She always gets that way around this time of year. She gets itchy too.”

He pauses. “Well I mean that… um. I-I’ve only had her since last year but she was like this then too…”

Way to stutter, Taekwoon scolds himself. Really cool of you.

Hongbin takes no notice of it however and rubs the cat between the shoulders soothingly. “Have you ever given her anything for it before?”

“I wasn’t sure how much to give her…”

“Well I’m glad you came to check first.”

Mystery does not want to be weighed they soon find out. After much struggling and a fair amount of hissing Hongbin lets Taekwoon know the correct dosage.

“Just over the counter antihistamine?” Taekwoon questions.

Hongbin nods. “Yep. Pretty simple. It should clear up the itching and sneezing in no time.”

“Thank you,” Taekwoon says. “Again, I guess.”

It had only been a week since their last visit and Taekwoon still feels a little embarrassed he’d brought Mystery in over a hairball.

“No problem,” Hongbin grins. “It’s my job after all.”

“Still,” the older man mutters. “Thanks…”

“No charge this time too.”

“What?” Taekwoon demands in disbelief.

“You’re the last one for today and I didn’t really do anything this time either.”

“I… But I–”

“Seriously,” Hongbin cuts in. “It’s fine.”

Taekwoon leaves with a weird feeling in his chest and he hopes he doesn’t do something embarrassing because of it.

Because that would be a change, Taekwoon snarks himself.

“What’s wrong with her this time?” Hongbin asks with a smile as Taekwoon enters the office.

He won’t deny that he’s happy to see the older man. There was just something about him that made Hongbin want to ask him to stick around a little when his shift was over.

Taekwoon on the other hand is trying to control the blush on his cheeks. This week’s visit was something he could have done himself at home… yet here he was.

“She’s got a scratch that I thought needed cleaning,” Taekwoon mumbles.

Hongbin bites his lip to hold in a smile and gets to work. The scratch is tiny and all he needs to do is wipe over it with some betadine. Mystery looks unimpressed that she’s here again.

“Was she in a fight?” Hongbin asks when he’s finished.

“Um, yeah. I let her go out this week.”

“At least it isn’t an abscess or something like that,” Hongbin says. “Did the antihistamine tablets work?”

Taekwoon nods. “Yeah. She doesn’t like taking them though.”

Hongbin laughs. “No cat does.”

He doesn’t know how they start chatting but they do. They go from talking about Mystery to talking about the neighbourhood since Taekwoon doesn’t know much about it. Finally they end up talking about their jobs.

Reluctantly, when Hongbin’s shift comes to an end and the clinic is closing, Taekwoon forces himself to go home.

Hongbin isn’t even surprised when he walks out of his office to see if there are any more patients and sees Taekwoon entering the clinic.

As always Taekwoon had come close to the end of his shift so not many people were around. Hongbin waves him into his office and Taekwoon pulls Mystery from her carrier.

Taekwoon can’t even meet the vet’s gaze. “She has a burr stuck between her toes,” he explains pathetically before Hongbin even asks.

He’d really been reaching for an excuse and he was pretty ashamed of this. Admittedly he’d gotten scratched trying to remove that burr himself but it didn’t make him feel better about fabricating ways to be able to see Hongbin again.

Hongbin has no trouble removing the little burr and he does it with a smile, eyes constantly flickering over to land on a blushing Taekwoon.

“Are you doing anything after this?” Hongbin wonders.

The older man’s eyes flash up to meet his and Hongbin refuses to look away. “Because I’m free,” he adds.

“Um, I’m free,” Taekwoon replies.

Hongbin grins. “Great. Want to go eat something?”

Taekwoon nods despite the fact that he’d eaten dinner a little over an hour ago. “I’d love to.”

“Great.”

As had become their ritual, Taekwoon shows up at the clinic just after close the following week. For the first time Mystery gets to stay home and the two men know she's happier that way.

This fic was sort of inspired by something I saw on tumblr a while ago. It was like ‘if Hongbin wasn’t a singer he’d be a vet and people would take their pets for check-ups ‘just in case’ so they could see the handsome vet’. Idk, something like that.