chapter 1

“He’s looking at me,” Jongin whispers. “Look, Sehun, he keeps glancing at me.”

Jongin cups his chin in his palms and smiles, ignoring Sehun rolling his eyes in obvious disinterest. He’s staring over Sehun’s shoulder, watching the cute waiter making drinks at the counter, flushing red when the young man looks over and meets his gaze.

“I’m not going to turn around and stare like a freak at the poor worker,” Sehun retorts, “unless it’ll make him bring my cheesecake faster.”

“He can take all the time he wants,” Jongin sighs, watching the young man with dreamy eyes. Sehun clicks his fingers in front of his friend’s face, shaking his head.

“Dude, don’t get all sentimental on me.”

Jongin smiles and takes his elbows off the table, wrapping his fingers around his hot chocolate and sipping from the edge of the mug. It’s relatively early and Jongin’s a little weary, but he doesn’t tolerate caffeine well, and he still hasn’t developed a taste for coffee. Instead, sugary hot chocolate (with extra cream) is his favourite morning fix – particularly when it’s paired with a gorgeous waiter.

“We should come here more often,” Jongin suggests. “I like this café.”

“You can’t judge a restaurant just by its waiters.”

“The hot chocolate is good too,” Jongin retaliates defensively. “And the atmosphere. And the…chairs and tables are nice…”

Sehun raises his eyebrows, and Jongin takes a long sip from his hot chocolate, sheepishly hiding behind the mug.

He can’t help it, he’s a er for cheesy love. He fantasises about meeting ‘the one’ on a park bench on a drizzly evening, or on the balcony of a tall building under a starry night, or perhaps in a comfortable little café making shy eye contact over mugs and cheesecake. But every time he’s comes across an opportunity like this one, it’s never worked out. Whether it be Jongin hoping too much and not actually capturing the interest of the person he’s eyeing, or his modest attempts at flirting are directed at someone of the wrong uality, it always leaves Jongin with a heavy heart. But perhaps this man could be different?

“Well, in my opinion, you can only tell whether a café is good or not by how quality their cheesecake is. And at this rate, I won’t even have a slice to judge by.”

“Sehun, he’s looking at me again,” Jongin whispers. “I think—oh, my God, I think he’s coming over.”

Jongin grips his mug tightly and stares into the foam, inhaling deeply and pushing his bangs out of his face. Amused, Sehun leans back in his seat and waits for Jongin to completely embarrass himself, as he always does, in front of the waiter.

A delicate plate with a slice of cheesecake is placed in front of Sehun beside his coffee, and he looks up and thanks the waiter, suppressing a smile at the dazed look on Jongin’s face.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” the waiter says suddenly, turning to face Jongin, “you’ve been staring at me for the past ten or so minutes. Is there something I can help you with?”

Jongin, bright red to the cheeks, looks up from under his eyelashes to face the handsome waiter and gulps. Sehun smirks and takes a bite of his cheesecake, highly entertained.

“A-Ah…um…” he stammers, unable to catch his breath. The waiter raises an eyebrow.

“It’s—I, uh, I—”

“Were you checking me out?”

Sehun blinks in surprise, quickly looking up and staring at the staff member. His tone is sharp, too sharp for his liking, and he immediately knows this isn’t going to go down well. Jongin looks mortified, and all the colour has now drained from his face.

“Because if you were,” the waiter continues, just as rudely, “I’m not gay. And I think that’s disgusting.”

Jongin’s bottom lip trembles, knuckles white around his mug, and Sehun silently prays the tears b in his friend’s eyes won’t fall.

“Sorry,” Jongin whispers, lowering his chin to stare at the table.

“Excuse me,” Sehun snaps, gaining the waiter’s attention. Jongin looks up at him, the desperation in his eyes begging for him to help.

“I don’t know who the hell you think are,” Sehun says, “but you’ve got an awfully big ego to think that my boyfriend was checking you out. If anybody’s disgusting here, it’s definitely you.”

The waiter scoffs. “So you’re both fags. I should have known.”

Outraged, Sehun stands up, loudly scraping his chair against the floor as he pushes it back. Jongin looks like he’s about to burst into tears, and Sehun is desperate to get out of the café before he punches the waiter in the face.

“You’re disgusting,” Sehun spits. “You’re absolutely disgusting. I’d request for the manager so he can boot your job out the window, but I’m not going to waste any more of my time on your useless .”

He shoves past the waiter, who stands dumbfounded at the outburst, and grabs Jongin by the elbow, pulling him to his feet.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

The waiter balls his fists as Sehun turns back to glare at him before yanking Jongin’s arm and storming towards the exit.

“Good riddance!” the waiter calls after them, “I wouldn’t want filth like you to infect our customers.”

Sehun turns back, breathing shallowly, ready to walk back and throttle the guy, but Jongin squeezes his arm, silently pleading for them to leave.

“Your cheesecake was , anyway!” Sehun yells, slamming the door open and pulling Jongin out of the café.

The moment they walk away from the glass windows and find a relatively secluded corner, Jongin collapses onto a bench, exploding into tears.

“Oh, God, that was so embarrassing,” he wails. “I hate myself so much. I’m s-so embarrassing, oh God, I’m so sorry, Sehun, I’m so—I’m so sorry.”

Sehun shakes his head, sitting beside Jongin and putting an arm around his friend’s shoulder. He lets Jongin cry into him, equally as upset – but, thankfully, possessing the ability to control himself – at how cruelly the waiter treated them.

“It’s not your fault,” Sehun says, trying to console his hysterics. “He was so rude. Like, crazy rude. And hey, we didn’t even pay for the food.”

“You didn’t have to c-cover up for me,” Jongin sniffles, wiping his tears messily.

“Aw, come on, it’s not that bad. We’d make a cute couple, anyway. If I was into .”

Jongin smiles weakly. “T-Thanks, Sehun.”

Sehun shrugs modestly, and sighs, waiting for Jongin to calm down so they can leave.

“You really need to stop fantasising so much,” Sehun murmurs, “and start looking for love realistically.”

Not like Jongin will ever learn.

[] [] []

Sehun props his feet up on the coffee table, completely focused on his phone, disinterested in what’s playing on the television before him. He’s revisiting his day with Jongin in his thoughts, and the incident with the rude waiter from the café is still on his mind.

Jongin has, unfortunately, dealt with those kind of situations before. He relies on eyeing strangers and hoping for the best to find a potential partner, and – evidently – it never works. Jongin is Sehun’s best friend, and Sehun cares about him a lot – it’s painful to watch him have so little success finding somebody to love. He’s too stubborn to ever try online dating or allow his friends to set him up on blind dates, yet he still whines and complains about his constant failure to find a boyfriend.

Sehun, ultimately, is fed up.

He’s had a plan in mind for a while, and he knows Jongin would hate him if he ever found out about it. But he can’t help it – he doesn’t have much of a choice.

He’s downloaded a dating app – or, really, a hit-me-up-and-lets- app – specifically for homouals. He knows Jongin would never sign up to it himself, so instead, Sehun has taken control and decided to do it for him.

He enters all of Jongin’s details, a slight tinge of guilt attempting (and failing) to hold him back. There’s not much of a filtration system, evidently, as the little questionnaire at the beginning is primarily about insignificant hobbies that Sehun has no trouble answering, with no security blockades to cause him difficulty. Once he’s finished uploading the most attractive photo of Jongin he has as the profile picture, he confirms the details and waits for the app to load.

Once he’s sent to the homepage and is faced with a massive ‘match me!’ button, he really starts to reconsider, until he remembers how Jongin complains to him about his sad love life every other day and drives him up the wall.

He taps the button.

A loading wheel spins in hilariously fitting rainbow colours, before a small collection of matches pop up and list themselves down the screen. Sehun winces at the sight of it, but scrolls down and sifts through the faces anyway.

His eye is caught by a modest profile picture that differs from the shirtless beach selfies and party-animal snapshots – just a simple, smiling photo of a young man standing over a mixing bowl, wearing a crisp white apron, a floury wooden spoon in his hand. Sehun taps on the profile, and the man’s biography pops up on the screen.

Name: Do Kyungsoo

Age: 22

Hobbies: Reading, cooking, cleaning, writing, watching movies

Sehun rolls his eyes. Compared to the other profiles, Do Kyungsoo sounds like the only person on the app that isn’t looking for a quick , and is a genuinely lonely, socially inept loser. He’s the perfect match.

Sehun nervously presses the “message” button, and the chat box opens on the screen.

[7:48] Kim Jongin: Hey.
[7:50] Do Kyungsoo: Hi
[7:51] Kim Jongin: What’s your name?

Sehun’s anxious smile immediately drops when he realises what he’s done, and for the first time, he finally understands how Jongin manages to stuff up every single time he tries to flirt. Talking to guys romantically is harder than it seems.

Sehun is about to exit the chat, convinced he’s deterred the guy with his stupidity, when Kyungsoo responds.

[7:52] Do Kyungsoo: Wow, I’m glad I wasn’t first to make a fool of myself
[7:52] Do Kyungsoo: Thanks, I was nervous about that!
[7:53] Kim Jongin: Sorry. I’m not so good at breaking the ice.
[7:53] Do Kyungsoo: Me neither :)
[7:54] Do Kyungsoo: Do you live around Gyeonggi-do?
[7:54] Kim Jongin: In Seoul
[7:54] Do Kyungsoo: Me too!

There’s nothing stupid about illegally revealing Jongin’s location online to a perfect stranger, of course there’s not. Because there’s no chance Kyungsoo could be faking his profile like Sehun is faking Jongin’s.

Sehun dislikes how much he trusts Kyungsoo already. There’s something so genuine and charming, yet oddly suspicious about his humble profile and friendly manner. Maybe falsely putting Jongin up for grabs to the public was a bad idea.

[7:56] Do Kyungsoo: You seem really nice from your profile, but I just want to get it straight that I’m not looking for a one-night stand
[7:56] Kim Jongin: How about a two-night stand?
[7:57] Do Kyungsoo: Please tell me you’re kidding...
[7:57] Kim Jongin: I’m just messing with you :p
[7:58] Do Kyungsoo: You’re the first guy on here that hasn’t asked for so I’m kind of hopeful you’re looking for a serious relationship
[7:59] Do Kyungsoo: Is it too early to say that?
[7:59] Kim Jongin: Not at all
[8:00] Kim Jongin: That’s exactly what I was looking for actually.
[8:00] Kim Jongin: And I think you’re pretty cute.

Sehun grimaces as soon as he sends the message. True, Kyungsoo is kind of adorable, but he’s definitely digging himself a hole by pretending Jongin is confident enough to be even remotely flirtatious, especially online. He can only hope Jongin will actually find the stranger attractive, because he definitely doesn’t go for the cute-little-chef kind of guys.

[8:01] Do Kyungsoo: I’m so glad I signed up for this stupid app
[8:01] Do Kyungsoo: Go on, tell me more about you
[8:01] Kim Jongin: I’m gay as hell?
[8:02] Do Kyungsoo: We’re just a bundle of obvious coincidences today

And for the first time, Sehun laughs. He’s making himself look like a moron – hell, the app is made for gay people, and bases matches off location – but Kyungsoo is taking his awkwardness hilariously well.

“You chose well, good man,” Sehun murmurs, patting himself on the shoulder proudly.

✏ ( a/n ) haha I WARNED U THAT THIS WAS !!!!! sorry if this is fast paced or lame or there's typos or errors idk make sure you leave your brutal and mean criticisms in the comments because i love being dragged like that. also yes im still vegan even tho i'm writing about (presumably) non-vegan food, i started writing this years ago and i didn't want to change it just to fit my morals idk i feel guilty about that?? but anyway :// lets just pretend its a dairy free cheesecake ok HAHA thanks @ all u cutie subbers + commenters + upvoters so far I LOVE U ALL especially u shawn ur the bae
ALSO LETS ALL TAKE A MINUTE TO ADMIRE THE ADORABLE GODDAMN NEW POSTER IM IN LOVE!!!!!! LINK TO THE SHOP IS IN THE FOREWORD IF UR INTERESTED

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