The rest of the day was pretty slow at the store, with only a couple more customers coming in. It wasn’t too bad though, when there was no one around Hongbin would just pull out his sketchbook and keep doodling.

            As his pencil scratched across the paper, he went back to thinking about lunch. It had been good, to spend some time outside of the room in the back that he usually stayed in for breaks, and the donuts were really good. His mind drifted from donuts to Hakyeon, and he remembered him gently wiping the jelly from his face. He hadn’t really thought much of it at the time, distracted by the sprite who approached them. Thinking back on it though, he felt his face heat up. It’s not that it bothered him, it was just that Hakyeon had been… pretty close to him. As Hongbin mulled over the event, he was startled by a voice right next to him.

            “Hey, are you spacing out? I can’t believe you weren’t even paying attention to the time until I was coming, I’m offended.” Hongbin glanced up to see Hakyeon leaning on the counter in front of him.

            “Oh, yeah, sorry, I was just drawing.” He looked down at his sketchbook, and immediately tried to pull it back off the counter, unconsciously having drawn…

            “Yah, is that me? Were you drawing me? Lemme see it, give it here.” Hakyeon pulled the book out from his hands despite Hongbin’s efforts.

            On the page was a sketch of a face that Hongbin hadn’t been intending on become anyone in specific, but apparently his wandering mind had channeled itself into his art, because the face did have Hakyeon’s figures. The same wide almond eyes, the same style hair that the elf almost always had, the same defined cheekbones, the same smile on the same lips.

            “Wooooow, this is really good! Do you draw a lot? I bet I don’t really look like this, this picture’s too pretty. Why’d you draw it?”

            Hongbin didn’t really have an answer.

            “I guess it was just what came to mind, I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention.”

            Hakyeon beamed at him and handed the book back to him.

            “Well it’s really good, and I’m very flattered, even though I’m pretty sure it’s mostly exaggerated.”

            Hongbin held back a comment about how no, he didn’t think so, he thought it was pretty on point, that he might even say it wasn’t good enough.

            Hakyeon pulled a little brown bag out, handing it over the counter.

            “As promised!”

            Inside the little bag was a donut, presumably jelly-filled. Hongbin grinned and nodded.

            “Thanks, I’ll save it for when I get off work.”

            Hakyeon fell quiet for a second, and Hongbin could tell he was thinking, so he waited.

            “Bin-ah, do you want to come out to dinner with me? Like a date?”

            “Like a what?”

            “No no no, I mean just like dinner, like go out to eat somewhere. If you want to, there’s this little place where I’ve heard they have the best tokki stew, and I’ve been meaning to try it, but Taekwoon of course won’t go with me, Sanghyuk obviously doesn’t eat a lot of food on account of the whole drinking blood thing, and Wonshik and Jaehwan have terrible table manners, so I wouldn’t bring them. So I was wondering if you wanted to come with me!”

            Hongbin was still a little caught up on the wording, debated for a second what he should do. He figured it wouldn’t hurt, he would have just microwaved something back at his apartment, and so real food would be good. He’d never heard of tokki anything, so he guessed that it wasn’t a human-run restaurant. He’d never been to one, much less with an elf or any other non-human, so he just nodded.

            “Sure, that sounds fun, I’d just have to let Hyuna know I’m leaving right after we close and-“

            Hakyeon’s face light up.

            “Great! I’ll go tell Taekwoon I won’t be escorting him home tonight. I’ll meet you outside, yeah?”

            “Sounds good,” Hongbin said, watching as Hakyeon was already turning and leaving.

            As the door shut behind him, Hongbin heard someone come out into the front and jab him in the side.

            “Hongbin! Did he just ask you out? And you said yes? That’s so exciting, I can’t believe someone would ask, especially an elf, you’re lucky, I hear they don’t interact with humans often! You’ll have to tell me all about it, details and everything. Ahh, I’m so proud of my little bean.”

            Hongbin turned to smack Hyuna’s hand away.

            “It’s not a date, it’s just dinner.”

            “Yeah, sure, whatever you say. Make sure to have fun, okay? You can go ahead and leave, I can finish up here. Have a good time!” She was practically ushering him out at this point, directing him towards the door. “See you tomorrow!”

            Hongbin followed her directing, almost tripping over the doorstop, and stumbling out of the door, just catching his balance.

            Hakyeon was waiting outside, laughing at Hongbin as he oh-so-gracefully made his appearance. He had put on a jacket, covering the loose white shirt that hung just past his hips, with a button undone at the top, over simple black pants. He looked nice, Hongbin idly thought, straightening up. Hakyeon was on the phone, and gestured at Hongbin to fall into step next to him as he started walking.

            “Jaehwan, no, I’m not going to grow you an entire field of dandelions, why would you even want them?” He paused, listening. “I’m not enabling you to fill Wonshik’s house with dandelions, anyways, just go pick a whole bunch on your own. You’ll have to figure out how to get them there by yourself too, you have magic, Jaehwan, do you just forget sometimes?”

            Another break.

            “You’re hopeless. Just do it by yourself. And hey, don’t forget you have to replace Hongbin’s store’s flowerpots. Yes, you totally could have done it today, what else do you do during the day except for sit on your couch and watch centaur dramas? So no excuses from you. Just do it tomorrow, okay? I have to go, I’m going to dinner with Hongbin, I’l- no, it’s not, don’t make assumptions- No, that’s not what- Jaehwan stop interrupting me- Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking abou- this is a dumb conversation, I’m hanging up. I’ll talk to you later, okay? Have a good afternoon.”

            Hongbin could vaguely hear Jaehwan’s voice through the phone, but it was unintelligible. He wasn’t sure exactly what the conversation had been about, but he had started to get used to that, now knowing him.

            “Ah, sorry about that, he’s just being dumb and passive-aggressive to Wonshik again, it seems as though they are still arguing about dandelions.”

            Hongbin started laughing.

            “He was right though, dandelions don’t make the best tea.”

            Hakyeon glanced at him sideways and grinned.

            “No, I suppose they don’t.”

            The restaurant they were going to wasn’t far, and it was nice outside, with the sun just casting shadows on the buildings, reflecting off some of the windows like mirrors. Hongbin looked over at Hakyeon, paying attention to something he was saying about his day at work, distracted by the way the sun hit the bright red hairs that fluffed up in the wind. He shook his head a little bit. Since when had he become so attentive? He went back to focusing on the conversation, and not on how Hakyeon was walking and the shadows cast on his face from both sides because of the sun and the reflections, and definitely not on how close he was to Hongbin.

            They had walked closer to Hakyeon’s neighborhood, and he stopped in front of a little building that looked more like a house than an establishment, and tilted his head towards it, smiling at Hongbin.

            “Let’s go, hmm?”

            The inside of the building was as quaint as the outside, with a counter at the front with an elf smiling at them, particularly at Hongbin, welcoming them and directing them back through several different rooms into an open space with a couple of tables ranging in size, most already occupied. The elf lead them to a booth along the side of the room, and handed them menus, bowing and telling them he would return as soon as they were ready.

            Hongbin settled back in the firm but comfortable seat, slipping off his jacket and piling it next to him. He reached for the glass of water that was on his side of the table, and noticed that Hakyeon was watching him.

            “What is it?”

            “Nothing, I was just going to tell you that I like your shirt better without the jacket, it looks nice.” Hakyeon said, reaching for his own glass.

            Hongbin had to fight to keep his face calm, and laughed.

            “Eh, I guess.”

            He looked down at the menu, and realized that he recognized none of the names of any of the dishes.

            “What would you suggest? Since I don’t know anything about this kind of food.”

im tRYING

i have this whole plan going but im not sure if it will work or not so i went over the whole thing like five times in the shower

i'm glad no one walked into the bathroom to hear me talking to myself about dumb elves and boys HA

i hope everything still works? as of now? we are getting to the romance-y parts i guess

WE WILL HAVE TO SEE, HMM

is it too much? i cant decide if its too fast or not or if it makes sense or anything and ugh like is this too sappy or what what am i doing

i don't know how to come up with names of things so i just use random korean words the dish hakyeon is talking about is called rabbit bc idk it seems legit

thanks for reading and subscribing!!!

~Win