The sound of rubber slapping linoleum echoes in the empty hallway as Kim Jaejoong runs as fast as he can. He hates being late for rehearsals.

He makes it to the auditorium just in time for a break, and his best friend Choi Sooyoung beelines for him as soon as she sees him. "Where have you been?!"

He huffs as he deposits his bag and jacket on the closest aisle seat. "The guidance counsellor wanted to see me after school to talk about my college applications." It's a bad day when has to be reminded he actually goes to this building to lay the building blocks of his life and not just hang out with his friends and vie for a speaking role in the spring musical, but needs must.

Sooyoung gives him a sympathetic frown which he waves away easily. "You texted earlier that you need to tell me something. What's up?"

She directs them to two available seats and doesn't beat around the bush. "Yunho and I broke up."

Jaejoong almost jumps back up. "Already? Didn't you guys just start dating earlier this month?"

"Yeah, but it had to be done," she says with a sigh.

He quirks an eyebrow at her word choice. "You did the dumping? What's wrong with him; was he too perfect?" he jests.

Weirdly, Sooyoung's aura goes wistful. She reclines in her seat and stares forward at the stage where students worked on the set pieces while the actors were off. "He just isn't like what I thought he'd be," she says at last.

"What does that even mean?"

She answers his question with one of her own. "When you think of Yunho, what do you think he's like?"

Jaejoong can't say that he thinks of Jung Yunho often. In fact, until Sooyoung mentioned she had started dating him, he kinda forgot the other student existed at all. They may be in the same year, but they just run in completely different circles. "I don't know?" he hedges. "I'd hope he was kind."

"Oh, he is. Polite to a fault."

"That sounds like a good thing."

"To a fault, Jaejoong. He has, like, no personality. He's not that funny, he's not that romantic, he's not even that interesting! All he has going for him is that he's super hot and super accommodating."

When she says that, vague memories resurface in Jaejoong's mind. "Someone in geometry with me dated him last semester; and when I played badminton last year, someone on the team did, too. I don't think either of those lasted long either; and they cited similar concerns, if I remember correctly."

Sooyoung nods. "My friends that had dated him warned me about this, too. The same thing happened to them."

He makes a face. "How many girls has this guy dated?"

"Probably too many, but I swear it's not as bad as it sounds!" she is quick to correct his impression. "I'm pretty sure my story is the same as everyone else's: we do the asking; we do the dumping; none of us get hung up about it. He's not categorically plowing his way through the school's population of women, breaking hearts left and right; he's way too nice for that. Actually, I'm pretty sure most of us only try simply because he never says no."

"Do you expect me to blame women, then? In 2023 AD?" He's joking, but he's not. It sounds like this Yunho guy has a major problem.

Sooyoung giggles at least. "It's no one's fault, really."

The faculty advisor announces that the break is over, so Jaejoong gets up and stretches his arms and shoulders. He ends the conversation with a casual, "If you say so." This characterisation doesn't make any sense to him, but he's got better things to do than ponder the mysteries of Jung Yunho's unsuccessful romantic life.

Sooyoung is clearly fine about the breakup. Now that he's listened to her tale, he's completed the required extent of duties as her friend. He might invite her out this weekend under the guise of unbreaking her heart, but the two of them have never needed a reason to hang out anyway.

He and Sooyoung head back to the stage and easily pick up a new thread of conversation, her brief stint with Jung Yunho already being relegated to a footnote in their minds.

At the end of the week, Jaejoong decides to get some fast food after school as a treat to himself. There's a Lotteria more or less equidistant between the school and his house, so he orders on his phone and takes the bus there.

The food isn't ready yet when he arrives, so he takes a seat at an empty booth near the door to wait it out, which gives him a direct line of sight to Jung Yunho and some girl he doesn't recognise sharing a table together.

Jaejoong snaps his attention away in a panic, hoping he wasn't caught staring; but he is quickly preoccupied with analysing the parts he did see. It looks like they're on a date, but he hopes he's wrong. If Yunho was openly dating a new girl so soon after his last girlfriend dumped him, Jaejoong bets he was probably cheating on Sooyoung for at least part of their time together. He never fully believed her "he's way too nice" propaganda, after all… Then again, the girl with Yunho today could be his sister, or cousin, or something.

Maybe it's because he isn't looking anymore that his hearing gets better because a snippet of their conversation happens to reach him.

"So, Yunho-oppa, what do you like about me?"

Well, there goes the relative theory.

"I'm sorry, but what do you mean?"

"Oppa, don't be silly! You agreed to date me, right? What about me made you say yes?"

Despite himself, Jaejoong is intensely curious about Yunho's reply. If this is the girl Yunho replaced Sooyoung with, Jaejoong wants to know what on earth makes her better than his best friend.

"Because you asked me, of course," is Yunho's plain response.

"That's it?"

"Should there be another reason?"

Jaejoong doesn't smack his palm into his forehead, but it's a near thing. He's never had a girlfriend, but even he knows that there are better responses to the girl's question than that.

Just then, a cashier calls for him to pick up his order. He eagerly rushes towards his reason to get the heck out of here; but when he picks up his food, he stops short, attention focused on the bag. The red Lotteria logo looks back up at him.

So this is clearly a date, but why Lotteria of all places? As far as cheap high school dates go, this is definitely on the lower end of the scale, especially for a first date. And if it isn't their first date, then he could build a case against the bizarre mythos that Jung Yunho isn't a womanising dirtbag who pretends to be mild and boring just so that he can sample as many girls with as little effort as possible.

He doesn't necessarily want confirmation that someone could treat Sooyoung so terribly, but her story just doesn't add up! Since he's already here, he might as well get to the bottom of this.

He elects to resituate himself at one of the bar seats against the window that looks toward the street. It's closer to the couple, better hides his intention to eavesdrop, and allows him to pass by and sneak a peek at the two of them.

From the vantage point he has as he crosses the restaurant, he can't see the girl's face that well, but he gets a good look at Yunho. The arrangement of his face is kind of small compared to the size of his head, but the features are all individually handsome. His blazer is slung over the back of his chair, and the snug fit of the sweater vest over his collared shirt highlights a torso shape which Jaejoong frequently likens to an inverted Dorito. He begrudgingly sees the appeal of dating someone with only one non-distracting imperfection which further highlights existing conventional attractiveness.

Like him, they're both still in their school uniforms, which means they came just after school let out. Considering they were here before Jaejoong arrived, he surmises Yunho must have a motorbike or equivalent. Jaejoong begrudgingly sees additional appeal in dating someone with his own means of transportation regardless of his reputation. The buses in this district could be better.

None of it is enough, though.

Over the next excruciating hour, he learns that a) this is definitely a first date, b) she asked him, c) Yunho took her to Lotteria because this is where "the team" hangs out, and d) the boy is utterly incapable of maintaining a conversation. Jaejoong isn't even the one who has to come up with direct responses to anything Yunho says, and he is still mentally exhausted from their date. Sooyoung was absolutely right to break up with him.

Sooyoung was right about everything, it turns out.

Jaejoong is so baffled that someone could have so much dating potential and absolutely squander it that he needs to say something. Just like his emotional support character, Glinda from Wicked: when someone needs a makeover, he simply has to take over.

The poor girl declines Yunho's offer to drive her home and leaves the restaurant first, swiftly and without looking back. Before Yunho could even reach behind him for his blazer, Jaejoong slides into the seat she just vacated. "I gotta tell you, Jung. That was the worst first date I have ever seen."

Yunho only blinks at him. "Pardon me, but who are you?"

Jaejoong expects an affronted look for his brazen comment, but full-on confusion over his identity? It offends him so much he loses track of his self-appointed mission. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, 'Who are you?' You dated Sooyoung, and you don't know who I am?!"

Yunho has the wherewithal to turn sheepish. "I didn't get around to meeting her friends."

"You were dating for almost a month!—Okay, okay." Jaejoong forces himself to abandon his offense in favour of a more productive emotion. "I'm just going to add this to the list."

"List of what?" Yunho gets up from his seat a little to peer at whatever Jaejoong is typing on his phone.

"List of reasons you can't keep a girlfriend."

He plops back into his seat. "Excuse you?"

Jaejoong pockets his phone and looks seriously at the other student. "Don't worry. I'm going to fix you."

"Hold on a second," Yunho demands with the most emotional tone he's used all day. "Who are you, and what exactly about me do you think you're going to fix?!"

He smiles in a self-satisfied way his friends have come to understand means he is definitely winning Uno.

"My name is Jaejoong, and I'm going to teach you how to date."

A/N (4.1.2023): Pretty short, but it's just the premise set up. The next chapters are, like, much longer lol. Thanks for reading! I hope to update twice a week, but we'll see how that works out for me.