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Valentine’s day is one hell of a cursed day. It’s a day where capitalism thrives, first and foremost, and it’s a day that couples use as an excuse to rub their affection for each other right in Mingyu’s face. He hates to admit it, but as much as he wanted to act like the occasion didn’t affect him at all, it does. He’s one of those bitter single people who feels like everybody around him is in a relationship, but he knows that a bunch of people feel the same exact way, so he’s not special.
Doesn’t stop him from being sad and bitter about it though, because nice things never happen to him on this day.
He’s sitting at a small area on campus that’s farther apart from where all the commotion is. People keep blasting music and there’s all sorts of events going on, but he just can’t be bothered to care about them. He needs to do a reading for his next class, and although he could have settled to go to the library, Mingyu would have felt uncomfortable considering how little he’s really been there. He’d rather just sit somewhere that he’s used to sitting, and it’s quiet enough here to not distract him.
After reading a few paragraphs, his hands itch to grab onto his phone, and as disciplined as he thinks he is, Mingyu still reaches for it and checks to see if he has any new notifications. He smiles when he sees that somebody commented on his latest Instagram post, nice. It was a picture of the super cute lunch that he made himself, captioned ‘When you make yourself a cute Valentine’s day meal because you’re your own bae.’ The comment is only from his best friend though, Wonwoo asking Mingyu to make some for him too, to which he replies ‘No’ quite simply.
As he puts his phone back into his pocket, his eyes catch a figure somewhere farther off hovering next to one of the windows. It’s a guy with cute brown hair and an even cuter orange sweater. Mingyu almost considers staring at him for longer before he notices the bouquet and box of chocolates that the boy is holding in his hands, clearly intended for someone that he’s waiting for with the way his eyes keep glancing around the room then back to his phone every few seconds. Mingyu groans and gets back to his book.
The more he reads, the more he realizes that he isn’t actually registering the words that are right in front of his eyes. Why is he having so much trouble concentrating today? He blames it on his low mood and closes the book. He glances back to his phone and notes that it’s only been seven minutes since the last time that he opened his phone, which is kind of pathetic. There’s around a half hour left before he has to head to his next class, so he decides that he’s going to go buy some coffee, which will helpfully help him stay alert, then he’s going to attempt to finish his reading.
As he heads towards the closest coffee shop, he passes by next to the boy that he was looking at earlier. He notes that the other hasn’t moved much from his spot and looks somewhat more frustrated. Maybe his significant other is late, or maybe they’re not showing up at all. Mingyu feels a bit bad for him, but when he remembers his own bitterness, he suddenly doesn’t care as much.
He orders his usual drink, though it takes more time to get it than usual since it’s around lunch time and there’s a bit of a rush. Mingyu heads back to the area where he was seated before and spots somebody sitting in his place, damn it. He feels irritated but shakes it off and goes to find another place, which happens to be next to the boy in the orange sweater. He’s now sitting down at a table, resting his head on his arms with a small pout on his face. Mingyu finds the pout extremely endearing and wonders who on earth would have the nerve to make somebody this cute wait for so long. He reminds himself that it’s none of his business though, and even if that guy was single, he probably wouldn’t pay much attention to Mingyu.
He goes to the empty table, sets his coffee on it and puts his bag down on the chair next to him. He then goes to take off his coat to hang it off his chair, but as he’s doing so, god decides to kick his face one more time just for extra measure. Mingyu has to watch silently, unable to do anything, completely helpless, as he knocks his coffee down and spills it all over the table. Then the spill even reaches the edge of the table and trickles over his bag.
He feels dead inside. This is it. He’s done. He looks up and sees a few people giving him sympathetic glances, and he prays that the cute boy didn’t see what happened, but of course as soon as Mingyu turns around to look, he ends up making eye contact with him. He should just leave everything and never come back. Him spilling coffee all over the place is only the cherry on top of everything else that he hates in his life right now.
He turns back to face the spill, but as he does so he hears a chair being pushed back and next thing he knows the boy is offering him some napkins.
“I had these in my bag, if you want to use them,” he offers sweetly. Mingy switches between looking at the napkin and at the boy’s face, before taking the offering.
“Thank you,” he mutters, but fears that it might not have been loud enough for the other to hear, so he says, “I appreciate it.”
The boy smiles at him and Mingyu feels his heart flutter. Nope. No. He is not doing this. Mingyu has a bad habit of developing crushes on random guys who smile at him nicely, and it usually never ends well. He just always ends up sad and swears that he’s finally going to leave behind his feelings, but that never quite works out.
The boy takes some of the napkins as well and helps wiping away the mess as best as he can. Once they both deem it clean enough, he asks Mingyu if he’d like to sit with him back at his own table. Mingyu agrees.
“My name is Seungkwan, by the way,” he introduces himself warmly and offers his hand over the table and over the bouquet that’s resting on it.
“I’m Mingyu,” he replies and takes the hand. It’s soft. They sit silently for a few moments before Mingyu opens his mouth again and asks, “Are you waiting for someone?” He glances at the bouquet and chocolate.
“Oh, I am,” Seungkwan says and laughs sheepishly, then his look turns a bit sour. “Or at least I was. I don’t think the person I was waiting for is going to show up,” he says bitterly.
Mingyu frowns. “That really sucks. Why not?”
“Wish I knew. He’s not even answering my texts,” Seungkwan groans and rolls his eyes. Mingyu notes that he’s talking about a guy, which means Seungkwan must like guys. Interesting. Very interesting.
“Well, that’s just rude. If he’s not going to show up he should at least tell you why.”
“Right?” Seungkwan huffs. “You know what? Whatever. I don’t care about him. This is the last straw and it’s his loss, really.” He crosses his arms and lets out a long breath.
Mingyu feels hyped and is ready to trash talk this random guy that he’s never even met before, but he has to calm himself down because he does not want to come across as weird for being too invested in Seungkwan’s personal matters. “It is his loss. You’re a very cute looking guy and I’m sure that anyone would be thrilled to receive flowers from you,” Mingyu settles on saying cheerfully.
“Really?” Seungkwan asks him. “You think so?” He looks at Mingyu shyly.
“Of course,” he replies instantly.
He sees Seungkwan blushing slightly and the brunette says, “In that case, this is for you.” He picks up the bouquet and box of chocolates and offers it to Mingyu.
Mingyu stares at the offered items blankly then points at himself and asks, “Me?”
Seungkwan nods and pushes the items towards him. “You’re handsome, and you seem kind enough. I have no use for these and you seem like you could use something nice after that coffee mishap.”
Mingyu feels his stomach doing all sorts of weird flips and he feels so giddy that he wants to squeal or something. First, Seungkwan, the cute guy, thinks he’s attractive. Second, Seungkwan is giving him the gifts that were originally intended for some other guy. “Are you sure?” he asks just in case he might want to take them back.
“I’m positive,” he replies and shows him another one of his sweet smiles.
Mingyu feels himself going weak and he giggles before he manages to catch himself and stop the noise from escaping his mouth. He doesn't get the chance to feel embarrassed about it though, because he hears Seungkwan giggling as well. They both sit there for a while before Mingyu realizes he has a class to get to.
“I have to go to class now,” he announces and sees Seungkwan pout a bit. The thought of not getting to see that cute pout again sends him into panic mode and he asks, “Can I have your number?”
Seungkwan brightens up again and says, “Yeah, for sure.” He grabs the phone Mingyu passes him and enters his number. Mingyu texts him so that Seungkwan can save his also.
“I’ll make sure to text you back, unlike that other guy,” Mingyu says and wonders for a second if that sounded a bit much, but when he hears Seungkwan laugh, he knows that he’s fine.
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
They wave goodbye and Mingyu goes to his locker so that he can drop the gifts off real quick before he has to head to class. For the rest of the day he end up being in a much better mood than he previously was and he even forgets why he was so upset over it being Valentine’s day, anyway.
Who knew that nice things could happen to him, too.