The door to the flower shop was slammed open with a BANG, startling Daehyun so badly he almost dropped his watering can. The silver-haired florist turned to look at the entrance ready to yell at the rude intruder, only to stop when he saw a man no older than him storming in with a face that screamed murder. This was new. For as long as he worked at the shop, Daehyun had only seen variations of two basic emotions in his customers: happiness and melancholy, but never anger. And this particular customer seemed to be especially enraged. As soon as the man reached the counter, he slapped several bills onto the surface and gruffly asked, "How do I passive-aggressively say ' you' in flower?"

Daehyun blinked.

"Excuse me?"

--

It turned out that the man ('my name's Youngjae by the way, nice to meet you and sorry about the door') and his family had caught his fiancé cheating, so he planned to give the bouquet to the fiancé on their final date ('the loved giving me flowers so I thought why not give that two-timing jerk the same thing in return when I end our relationship').

Now that he had somewhat calmed down and his frowns had disappeared, Youngjae actually seemed like an okay guy, if not extremely attractive. He had a small face framed with short brown hair, a pair of cat-like brown eyes and an adorable button nose. His lips were a soft pink, which complemented his fair skin nicely. Objectively speaking, Daehyun thought his customer's fiancé must have been either blind or just plain dumb to have chosen someone else over this attractive guy.

Anyway, Youngjae was still a little angry, which was understandable, but at least Daehyun knew that he was not the one on the receiving end of that anger. 

The date that the younger man mentioned before was scheduled to happen in a few hours and Youngjae was willing to wait there while Daehyun arranged the bouquet for him. So the florist carefully went through the list of flowers in his head and was relieved to find out that he had the relevant plants in stock. He decided to walk his customer through the process of choosing the flowers while explaining their meaning.

Daehyun carefully snipped several purple flowers from one of the pots using a pruning shears he kept in his apron's pocket and started talking. "These are geraniums. They represent stupidity," he then picked another purple funnel-shaped flowers and creamy-white flowers that were clustered together, "Petunia and meadowsweet symbolise resentment and uselessness, and last but not least," he paused, bending over to pick the last two flowers, "Yellow carnation means rejection and disappointment, while orange lilies mean hatred."

The florist stood up and showed the collection to his customer, who nodded his approval. Daehyun remarked that the bouquet would be quite striking due to the brightly colored flowers, and it would also be filled with absolute loathing, which would hopefully help Youngjae to get his message across. The smile of the chagrined groom-to-be was near sinister. "It's perfect."

Daehyun almost felt sorry for the fiancé. Almost. The guy totally deserved it, though.

Youngjae patiently waited at the counter as he watched Daehyun prepared his bouquet of intense hatred. Once the florist rang his purchase at the cash register, he thanked Daehyun before leaving the shop with a look that only promised extreme misery for the man who scorned him.

Daehyun visibly shuddered as he watched the man leave the shop. Boy, he would hate to be the recipient of such thing in the future.

He silently wished his customer good luck before resuming his tasks of watering his precious plants.

--

Later, Daehyun had considered putting the bouquet as part of the shop's package and pitched the idea over a FaceTime call to Himchan, his cousin and co-owner of the flower shop. He dubbed the arrangement the "F You Bouquet", which was not exactly a creative name and Himchan made sure to let Daehyun know that. He wasn't deterred and pressed on.

"Okay but this bouquet is like the classy way and less subtle way to passive-aggressively say you to anyone who has wronged our customers, especially a two-timing partner. I bet you people will love it,"

The suggestion was met with a terribly unimpressed look from Himchan, who promptly shut down the proposal with a firm "no" and hung up on Daehyun.

Well, at least he tried.

--

The part-time worker that Himchan hired came in to take over Daehyun's evening shift, so he decided to swing by the Starbucks across the street for his usual venti caramel macchiato before calling it a day. Daehyun smiled when he saw his favorite barista, a very tall teen with a cute smile and a weird name, was manning the register.

('Jello?' 'It's Zelo' 'Ah okay that makes even less sense'.)

He always ordered the same thing so when Zelo saw him coming in the teen grinned and logged his order into the cash register without a word. The coffee place was quiet during this hour, allowing for some small conversation. Daehyun leaned against the counter and passed his card.

"What would you like to eat for your early dinner?" Zelo asked.

"Surprise me," Daehyun winked. 

Even though he ordered the same drinks every time, Daehyun loved to let the baristas – either Zelo or the others – chose his meal for him. He wasn't particular to anything, being the gluttonous foodie he was, so he was bound to inhale anything the baristas picked with gusto. Because of that, the staffs became very fond of Daehyun and declared him their favorite patron (but shhh he didn't know that).

(It should explain why he always got extra caramel in his drinks though.)

Zelo suggested the baked chicken teriyaki sandwich, which got Daehyun salivating just from the mention of it. The florist waited for his order to be ready at a small table near the counter, taking out his phone and mindlessly checked his news feed. He barely registered the sound of the door opening when he heard Zelo greeting the newcomer. 

"Oh, hi Youngjae-hyung!" Daehyun perked up at the familiar name and shifted his focus to the man walking towards the counter. His eyebrows shot up in recognition when he saw who the person was.

"Hey jelly belly", Youngjae, his client from months ago, stood on his tippy toes at the counter and reached out to ruffle Zelo's head, much to the teen's annoyance.

"I told you to stop calling me that!" Zelo pouted as he attempted to fix his hair, eliciting a small chuckle from the shorter man, whose eyes turned into adorable crescents when he laughed. Huh. Daehyun didn't notice that before. (Maybe because Youngjae was mildly fuming the entire time he was in the flower shop but, whatever.)

"I will when you tell me your real proper name," Youngjae, the adult in this situation, playfully stuck his tongue out at the young barista, before the two of them laughed at his silliness. They bantered while Zelo took Youngjae's orders and it was hard for Daehyun to pretend he was not eavesdropping. He kept his eyes on his phone, scrolling and tapping without seeing as he listened to their exchange, which was mostly just Youngjae asking Zelo about his school-life and other mundane topics. 

A few minutes later, Daehyun heard his name called. He strode to the pick-up counter where his orders were handed over by a staff whose name tag read D.Ana (seriously, what's with the workers here and their affinity towards weird names?). Youngjae was there too and he narrowed his eyes when he saw Daehyun approaching as if trying to figure out where he had seen the latter before. Daehyun shot him a small smile and took his cup and the paper bag, ready to leave before Youngjae snapped his fingers and pointed to Daehyun. 

"You're the florist from across the street! Daehyun, right? Do you remember me?" 

"It's kinda hard to forget a customer who ordered a very specific type of bouquet," Daehyun snorted. "How did the date go for you, anyway?"

"Eh, I threw the bouquet in his face along with the stupid ring, effectively ending our engagement," the younger man shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal.

Daehyun's face fell when he heard how his flowers were treated. Sure, the meaning they carried was unpleasant and he already sold them, but they were still his flowers that he tended to. Youngjae seemed to notice the change in his expression and tried to backpedal. 

"Oh, hey don't worry about it! The idiot might be a two-timing jerk but he's also a hopeless romantic and he loves flowers regardless so he managed to catch the bouquet before it reached the ground and he took it home. I'm sure they are well taken care of. I think," Youngjae finished, unsure with his last statement. Daehyun seemed to be satisfied with that though, and Youngjae grinned sheepishly. They were interrupted when D.Ana called Youngjae to give him his order (a grande salted caramel mocha frappucino). Youngjae thanked her and made to leave before pausing. He looked at Daehyun thoughtfully and held out his palm. 

"Can I borrow your phone for a while?"

Daehyun stared at him incredulously, but he handed his phone anyway after he unlocked it. He waited as Youngjae tapped on the device, and then a ringtone could be heard from the younger man's pocket. He handed the phone back to Daehyun with a cheeky grin on his face.

"Umm..." Daehyun stared at the phone in his hand dumbly.

"I saved my number on your phone,"

"Oh," 

"This is me flirting with you," Youngjae giggled when Daehyun's eyes widened comically as his brain finally caught up to what was going on. 

"Ohhhh," Daehyun repeated, then he narrowed his eyes at the other man. "Wait, let me just ask this before we get all friendly and stuff,"

Youngjae nodded patiently.

"If I ever piss you off – accidentally, of course – you promise you won't surprise me with a ' you' bouquet?"

The honest, innocent, question had Youngjae doubling over with laughter. It was a goofy sort of laugh that Daehyun would find extremely cute if not for the fact that he was being very serious about the question. Youngjae finally calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes and looked at Daehyun mischievously. 

"No promises, Daehyun-sshi. No promises." He patted the florist and sent him a wink, before sauntering out of the coffee shop.

Daehyun's gaze followed Youngjae until the younger man disappeared amongst the crowd outside. He blinked a few times before chuckling to himself, thinking this was the first time he met someone feisty enough to shamelessly flirt with him. A cough startled Daehyun from his reverie and he turned towards Zelo, who was smirking and wiggling his eyebrows at him. 

"Oh, shut up,"

"Hyung, I didn't even say anything!"

--

And so, florist Jung Daehyun walked out of Starbucks that day with more than just a sandwich and an overpriced coffee.