Work Text:
Seonghwa has, admittedly, been a little high strung lately.
“A little?” Hongjoong exclaims. “You made an intern cry last week.”
“They shouldn’t have jammed the printer an hour before payroll was due,” Seonghwa says defensively. “And then they definitely shouldn’t have walked away from it and pretended that nothing happened instead of getting help, leaving me to find it with their username still logged in.”
Hongjoong huffs. “You still didn’t need to make them cry.”
“Not my fault they cry when someone justifiably reprimands them,” Seonghwa shrugs. “Is there a point to this, though? I feel kind of like you’re trying to stage an intervention but haven’t worked up the balls to do so yet.”
“As I was saying, you’ve been too much to deal with lately. You need to like, pull the stick out of your ass. Unwind a little, you know?”
Seonghwa arches an eyebrow. “And how do you suggest I do that, Hongjoong?”
“Go out on a date. And before you tell me you don’t have time to find a date, I took care of that for you,” Hongjoong says smugly. “All you have to do is show up.”
“And what makes you think there’s any chance I’ll go along with this?” Seonghwa asks.
“Do you want Yeosang to find out that you were the one who—”
“Never mind!” Seonghwa yelps. “I’ll do it, as long as we never speak of that again, ” he says darkly. “Got it?”
Hongjoong smirks. “This Saturday, ten AM at the tea shop two blocks away from here. Look for a tall guy with wide shoulders and dark hair.”
Seonghwa taps his finger against his lower lip. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you’re setting me up with Mingi. Are you setting me up with Mingi, Hongjoong?”
“I don’t want you to kill me, or him, so no,” Hongjoong laughs. “It’s a guy I know but who you’ve never met. Alright?”
“I don’t really have a choice,” Seonghwa tells him.
Hongjoong’s eyes narrow. “Alright?” he repeats forcefully.
“Alright! Jesus,” Seonghwa acquiesce. “I will be there at ten AM this Saturday. Not a minute earlier or a minute later. Happy?”
Hongjoong nods, smug. “Very.”
Seonghwa’s running late at a time when he knows he can’t be—if his blind date reports back to Hongjoong that he was late, he knows Hongjoong will rat him out to Yeosang and Yeosang will make his life at work an actual living hell. It means that he doesn’t go back for his phone when he realizes he forgot it five minutes into the half-hour trek to the tea shop, even if its absence feels an awful lot like a missing limb.
It also means that Seonghwa can’t fake an emergency phone call if his blind date goes terribly, but that’s a bridge he’ll cross if it comes to it.
The tea shop is sparsely populated this morning, which isn’t a surprise. It’s Saturday, well before lunch. He’d be surprised if the auntie who runs the place has gotten more than a dozen customers so far today.
Seonghwa glances around the shop a second time, this time with purpose. Sitting at a table in the back corner is a dark-haired man with broad shoulders, and Seonghwa just knows that if he were to stand up, he’d have several centimeters on him. This has to be Hongjoong’s mystery person, then. He’s also got a teacup in front of him already, which is a point against him—kind of rude to not wait for the person you’re supposed to meet, in Seonghwa’s opinion—but it’s also not a dealbreaker. Not yet, anyway.
Seonghwa places an order of his own, then sits down at the table across from his date. The other man visibly jumps when Seonghwa sits down, and his eyes are wide with surprise when they make eye contact.
He’s cute as fuck, and Seonghwa mentally forgives him for ordering before Seonghwa himself had arrived.
“Hello,” Seonghwa says, smiling his brightest smile, the one that usually nets him free food from the food stalls in the neighborhood. “I’m Seonghwa, it’s lovely to meet you.”
“Yunho,” the other man says, sounding a little confused. He accepts the hand Seonghwa offers, and his grip is strong without being crushing. Seonghwa approves. He even likes the threadbare white t-shirt the other man is wearing, even if it is an interesting choice for a first date.
“Lovely weather we’re having, right?” Seonghwa asks, cringing at himself on the inside. He’s on a date with one of the cutest men he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he decides to talk about the weather ? He already wants to put his foot in his mouth.
“Sure, if you like the heat,” Yunho agrees, smiling like Seonghwa just told him a mildly amusing joke. “I like winter better myself. Perfect cuddling weather, you know?”
Seonghwa fights the urge to swoon. “Yeah, I know.”
Yunho is bright and friendly and open and, as Seonghwa learns quickly, everything he’s ever wanted in a potential partner. He’s a year younger, graduated from university this past spring, and is currently working as an accountant at a company who, from the sounds of it, doesn’t value him nearly enough.
“Oh, me too,” Seonghwa tells him excitedly. “Well, the accountant part, I’m also an accountant. Not the shitty company part, though. My company’s pretty great, even if they did recently hire a second person to ‘help’ me,” he says disdainfully.
Yunho laughs, clear and joyful and the most beautiful sound Seonghwa’s ever heard. “Oh no, how dare they,” he says, deadpan.
Seonghwa leans forward. “Don’t worry. They won’t last six months,” he says conspiratorially. “Don’t tell Hongjoong though. He’ll be disappointed in me,” he adds with a heavy sigh.
Yunho frowns, furrowing his brow. “Um. Who’s Hongjoong, and why do you think I know him?”
Seonghwa feels like someone just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head. “You don’t know Hongjoong?”
“Nope,” Yunho confirms. “Never heard of him in my life. I doubt I’d forget a name like that.”
Suddenly, the pieces fall together in Seonghwa’s mind—why Yunho had seemed confused when he’d sat down and introduced himself, why Yunho had ordered himself a cup of tea long before Seonghwa had ever shown up, why Yunho is dressed super casually, even by the already low standards of a coffee or tea date. He still may not know who Hongjoong had set him up with, but definitely wasn’t Yunho. “Oh my god,” Seonghwa exhaltes, feeling humiliated. “I’m really sorry, I’ve been imposing on you all this time,” he rushes out, scrambling to stand up.
“Hey, no, sit back down,” Yunho says, sounding alarmed. “You’re fine, you haven’t been imposing on me at all—didn’t you notice I was trying to flirt with you?”
Seonghwa had noticed. Obviously. Yunho’s about as subtle as a puppy that hasn’t grown into its paws yet, which is to say, not at all. “I did,” he admits, sitting back down.
“So why did you suddenly try to leave?” Yunho asks, his eyes going wide again—this time with concern rather than confusion.
Seonghwa laughs bitterly. “I’ve been a lot to deal with at work lately. Hongjoong’s one of my coworkers, and he basically blackmailed me into going on a blind date today with someone he knows. He thought that might make me relax, apparently. And based on the description he gave, I thought the person was you, but if you don’t know him…” he trails off, rubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to try and hide his discomfort.
“Yeah, no, I’m not the person who you came here to meet up with this morning,” Yunho answers. Seonghwa’s not looking at him, but he sounds...amused? “But if you want to go out on an actual date with me today instead of whatever person your Hongjoong set you up with, I’m down.”
Seonghwa snaps his head up so quickly he’s afraid he might have just given himself whiplash. “Seriously?” he demands.
Yunho smiles guilelessly. “Seriously,” he nods. “I felt like we really connected, you know? Plus, you know, you’re kinda gorgeous,” he adds, mumbling so lowly that Seonghwa almost misses it.
Almost being the key word here.
“I am, I agree,” he teases, laughing when Yunho rolls his eyes fondly at him. “But no, seriously, I agree. We did connect. I was preparing to be indebted to Hongjoong for the rest of my fucking life for introducing me to you.”
Yunho raises his eyebrows. “Your entire life?” he echoes.
Seonghwa feels himself turning red. “Well,” he says, uselessly. “You know.”
It’s unlikely Yunho does know what Seonghwa’s trying to say, considering that Seonghwa himself isn’t even that sure what he means. Yunho smiles again anyways.
“Mmm, yeah. So, what about it? Do you want to go on an actual date with me now?”
“Of course I do,” Seonghwa replies immediately. “There’s just one thing we have to do first, though, it’s that’s alright?”
“That’s fine,” Yunho agrees easily, clearly content to just go with the flow and see where this day takes the two of them, and Seonghwa’s pretty sure that he’s already falling in love.
There’s two missed calls and five new texts from Hongjoong when Seonghwa retrieves his phone from his kitchen counter where he’d apparently left it behind nearly three hours ago, the first one having been sent about ten minutes before Seonghwa had even left .
Yo, I’m sorry for the really short notice, but my friend has to bail. You haven’t left yet, have you?
I’ll make it up to you though! Want to grab lunch today?
Seonghwa? You there?
Oh my god I hope you haven’t left yet
Please don’t kill me.
The last one had been sent nearly an hour after the first one, and Seonghwa laughs.
“Everything okay?” Yunho asks from where he’s looking out Seonghwa’s living room window at the street below them.
“Everything’s wonderful,” Seonghwa answers, and it is. He’s going to be able to hold this morning’s events over Hongjoong’s head for ages , and he met a stunningly beautiful man who wants to go out on hopefully many many dates with him without the help of Hongjoong or anyone else. “Let’s go.”
Yunho takes Seonghwa’s hand in his and squeezes it tightly once he finishes locking his apartment back up after them, and Seonghwa swears he feels something inside of him settle into place.
Maybe he won’t be too hard on Hongjoong, even if he did try to set him up with a person who has no problem bailing on a date just minutes before it’s supposed to begin, Seonghwa thinks. Maybe . After all, he did indirectly cause Seonghwa to meet Yunho, even if it was a complete accident. Who knows when—definitely when , Seonghwa thinks, not if —they would have met otherwise?
(Yeah, probably not. Hongjoong deserves to catch hell for this. But it’s a nice thought.)