Pairing: het!minkey (minho x gwiboon)

Rating: PG-13

A/N: originally posted to tumblr

"my best friend owns a restaurant and you wrote a bad review of it in the local paper so it has become my goal to track you down and fight you” au

Minho knew something was wrong as soon as he entered his friend’s office. Jinki was sitting at his desk; his head resting in his hands with his shoulders slumped. Brows furrowing in concern for his usually jovial friend, Minho strode forward and walked around Jinki’s desk.

“What’s up, hyung?” he bent down to wrap Jinki in an awkward hug, his arms barely long enough to encompass both Jinki and his high-backed chair.

Jinki sighed, shaking his head and replying, “I got a bad review.” Minho moved around to sit across from his hyung and listened while Jinki told him everything. He explained that there was a hotshot food critic who visited last week and had been contacting Jinki for months, telling him how excited they were to write a review of Jinki’s well-known and beloved family restaurant. Nothing, however, had worked out as they had both hoped when two days after their visit, a very negative review had been printed in the top food magazine in the city, spreading over social media like wildfire.

Minho grabbed the magazine off of Jinki’s desk, riffling through until he found the bookmarked page and read through the rather short review. How could something so small – only two paragraphs – be so damaging?

He looked back up at Jinki, who had worked so hard to go through culinary school even while working two part time jobs to help his parents pay for their bills. Jinki, who was one of the kindest, most loveable people he knew – and by far one of the best chiefs – did not deserve this.

“It’ll be okay, hyung,” Minho said, standing up abruptly and patting the older man on the shoulder. He intended to make sure that this huge error of judgment was rectified immediately…even if he wasn’t fully sure how….

~

Gwiboon sat at a comfortable booth at her favorite restaurant. The waiter, a rather cute boy with silvery blonde hair, smiled brightly at her as he refilled her wine and asked if she needed anything else. Shaking her head, she smiled back at him, enjoying the way his cheeks reddened at the slight smirk that she knew highlighted her dimple. He scurried away and she sniffed her whine, rotating her wrist to let the scent wash over her before she took her first sip. Delicious.

Then again she knew it would be. Being the top food critic in the city wasn’t an easy job but she had more than earned the title. After culinary school, she had quickly become a well-known chef even if she had frequently changed jobs. Being a woman in a man’s world was hard and she often found herself fired or quitting after so many months when the main chef or restaurant owner could no longer stand being told they were wrong by a woman. She supposed some men just couldn’t take the heat.

Her food arrived and she settled in, loving that the chef had prepared her favorite even though it wasn’t on the menu for that day. Being a top food critic sure had its perks.

Gwiboon’s phone vibrated and she checked it, seeing a text from her agent that she needed to check her email about her upcoming book. Distracted by the task at hand, she missed it when a young man easily slid into the booth across from her and stared at her, hard. She was so engrossed in double checking information from her publicist and editor that she didn’t even notice something was going on until her cute waiter returned and asked a question, to which a very deep, rich voice replied.

Taken off guard by the proximity of the conversation, Gwiboon finally looked over her cell phone and was startled to see a man sitting directly across from her. The only thing that was more disarming than his presence was the way he was staring daggers at her.

The look should have made her frightened, but for some reason it only made her excited. A thrill shot through her at the hooded look in his eyes and she reassessed his features, taking in his broad shoulders and strong jawline until she finally met that hard gaze and got lost in the chocolate brown of his eyes.

“Ki-ssi?” the stranger asked very seriously, looking down at something in his hands – a rather crumpled looking magazine.

“Yes…” she replied hesitantly, not quite sure where this was going.

“Do you even have taste buds?” The question was asked so bluntly, came so out-of-the-blue that Gwiboon couldn’t hold back her sudden bark of laughter.

He did not seem to appreciate her reaction and the magazine toward her, jabbing his finger pointedly at the bottom left corner of the page. “Who do you think you are to write something so…so…” he seemed at a loss for words, his anger cutting of his inability to speak. Gwiboon sat back in the booth, looking up to her waiter who was standing awkwardly next to them, witnessing this entirely crazy interaction.

“What exactly are you accusing me of?” she cut off his continued attempts at an argument, grabbing the magazine and scanning over the page until she found what he was talking about. It was a food review from a restaurant she had visited a few days ago. She read through it, scoffing at the horrible grammar and lack of taste.

“This isn’t me,” she stated simply, setting the magazine back in front of him before taking a sip from her wine.

“What do you mean this isn’t you? Your picture is right here!” his large eyes were wide with incredulity and disbelief, but Gwiboon just rolled her eyes, taking her time to chew the delectable salmon that had been prepared for her before bothering to respond.

“That may be my picture, but that is definitely not my review. I write for an online blog, not some crappy star magazine.”

The guy scoffed in disbelief, rolling his shoulders and cracking his head as if he was preparing for something.

“You know, I don’t usually fight women, but this time I might make an exception. How dare you lie to me about writing the rudest, most blatantly dishonest piece of crap about my best friend! He’s worked hard to make his restaurant a success and I won’t stand by and let him feel down about some stupid review that was written by someone who couldn’t tell the difference between-“

His tirade was cut short by a large piece of bread flung at his head. The man sputtered, eyes widening in disbelief at having food thrown at him.

“Are you quite done?”

~

Minho couldn’t believe that she had thrown food at him, actual food. And now she was glaring at him as if he had done something wrong even though this was all entirely her fault. Wasn’t it?

The woman shifted in her seat and he tried not to notice the way her see-through blouse bunched, exposing her delectable clavicle before once again covering her chest. She her beautiful bow-shaped lips and he had to stomp down the rush of excitement that shot through his groin at the thought of what those lips and that tongue could be doing instead.

“Since you seem incapable of making a coherent argument, I’ll help you out,” she said, her words biting and fueling the fire to his already growing attraction. “I, Kim Gwiboon, also known as Ki, am very good at my job. This makes me a very easy target for trashy magazines – like the one you are holding – who want to cause a stir and see people crash and burn. I loved that restaurant and I am almost done writing my review – for my blog -  on it. Now, how these s got information on which restaurant I’ve been to recently is beyond me, but please, be my guest and continue spouting all these horrible rumors and false messages. It just really makes my day when people sit down at my dinner table and start yelling at me.”

By the time she was finished, she was breathing heavily and her face was slightly flushed from her anger. He normally doesn’t like people who are so easily riled up, but he couldn’t deny that she looked y like this.

Apparently, Minho took too long to respond when he felt another piece of bread hit him on his forehead.

“Hey!” he said, grabbing the bread off of the booth next to him. “Don’t throw food at me!”

For the second time since he had sat down at her table, she burst out laughing. He smiled, her laugh contagious as he began to nibble on the bread and decided that it would be a shame to let such good bread go to waste.

“You’re so stupid,” she said, shaking her head at him as he reached across the table for another piece of bread.

“That’s rude.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself and he caught her glare before she reached forward as if to smack his hand away from her food.

He caught her hand just as it would have hit his and turned his palm up so that he was now holding her hand. An electric shock ran through him at the contact and he couldn’t help but glance up to meet her intense gaze. Surprisingly she didn’t remove her hand and he allowed himself to play with it as he contemplated what he wanted to say.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Ki-ssi,” he said apologetically, caressing her smooth skin with his thumb. He felt a shiver run through her arm and smiled, happy to know that he wasn’t the only one being affected. “I didn’t mean to start a food fight…”

She bit her lip at his cheesy expression as if biting back a laugh, but before long a cute little giggle escaped her and she extricated her hand to hit him playfully on the arm.

“Oh my gosh, that was the cheesiest line ever…” Minho just smiled at her, a warm feeling spreading through him as he watched her eyes begin to water and her body shake with quiet laughter.

Later that evening, his phone began ringing loudly and he rushed to answer it, not wanting to wake the sleeping beauty next to him. He extricated himself from underneath her deliciously body and quickly answered the call before exiting the room and closing the door quietly behind him.

“So what happened?” Jinki demanded in his ear, no doubt wanting an update from Minho’s self-driven mission to seek justice for his friend’s reputation.

“Uh…”

Silence echoed over the line as Minho struggled finding the right words and Jinki undoubtedly was able to read between the lines.

“Oh my god, you slept with her?” Jinki screeched, causing Minho to wince.

“Yeah…about that…” but before Minho could explain what Gwiboon had told him, his best friend had whispered, “I hate you, call me tomorrow you traitor,” before hanging up. Minho felt uneasy about the exchange until Jinki texted him a minute later: “You know I love you… now stop worrying and go to bed.”

Minho chuckled at his friend and shut off his phone, silently creeping back into the quiet room only to find Gwiboon staring back at him when he finally laid down next to her.

“Are you ready for round two?” she asked devilishly, that playful glint in her eye making his heart race in excitement.

“I’m always ready for a fight,” he said, winking before pulling her on top of him and showing her exactly how skillful he was.