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It had started as most bad ideas started – with Donghyuck, half-drunk on the phone, trying to convince Chenle that it was a great idea.

"No," Chenle had said. Donghyuck had pouted and whined and begged until Chenle had finally budged and changed his answer instead to a "Maybe if you paid me, I'd consider it."

In Chenle's eyes, that had been as resolute a no as he could have given his friend. The last time Donghyuck had paid him anything had been when they were thirteen and he'd bought him a 500 won lollipop at the corner store but even then Chenle was half-convinced he'd found the money on the ground. It's not that Donghyuck was broke, it's more that he just clung to his money like a leech to a leg.

And so Chenle was understandably thrown off when his friend arrived outside his lecture hall the next morning to press a crisp 50 000 won note into his palm.

"I really appreciate this, Chenle."

Chenle stared down with wide eyes at the yellow bill. "I didn't know you were this desperate."

Admittedly, Donghyuck had whined extensively about just how desperate he was over the phone the night before but he'd long learned that the words of a drunken Donghyuck were about as trustworthy as those of a businessman. To have a sober Donghyuck tell him this was a whole other thing.

"It'll work better this way." His friend nodded like he was convincing himself that his crazy idea was for the best. "You have the words of an angel, a rejection will sound a lot better coming from you than from me."

And that was Donghyuck's grand plan.

Donghyuck was outgoing and cheerful and flirty. It was like he'd walked straight out of a Disney movie and so it was no surprise that he had hordes dropping to their knees for him weakly (and weekly). At first, it had been sort of exciting. Eleven-year-old Chenle and Donghyuck had giggled and gossiped about his accidental conquests at sleepovers. And then somewhere along the way the fun and interest had turned into a dull game of 'Who'll Have Their Heart Broken by Donghyuck This Week?'

Chenle was bored with the rejections. Donghyuck was even more bored with the rejections.

And so Donghyuck had proposed that he simply stopped rejecting people. That Chenle does it for him instead.

"That time I rejected Mark for you was a one-off!"

"But you were great at it! I don't know what you said to him but he was smiling the next day! If I'd rejected him it would have been like kicking a puppy. I can't do that."

"And I can?!"

"Chenle, please." Donghyuck puffed out his bottom lip and made his signature puppy eyes. "Whenever some rando asks for my number I'll give them yours instead. It'll be like a sex hotline except instead of phone sex you offer excuses in my place."

"What the fuck?" Chenle stared at his friend. "That's nothing like a sex hotline then. That's like- that's like saying you want me to make a sandwich without the bread. It's literally the worst comparison you could have made."

"Doesn't matter," Donghyuck flapped his hands about noncommittally. "You get me."

"Do I?!"

Donghyuck's bottom lip quivered in a clearly artificial way.

If you'd asked a young Chenle what he wanted to grow up to be he'd have told you 'Astronaut' or 'Model' or something equally devastatingly cool. A full-time music student and a part-time rejection hotline owner had not been his life plan.

And yet somehow that had been the start of his ludicrous uni business.

Chenle knew Donghyuck and Donghyuck knew, well, everyone and so by extension everyone vaguely knew Chenle. Word spread that Chenle had a rejection business (if you could even call it that) and within a few months he'd accidentally acquired multiple paying clients.

Some of them asked him to make up excuses for them. "Tell anyone who calls that I must have accidentally given the wrong number but that you heard I'm religious and don't date before marriage or something." Some thought it'd be funny to direct people to him and have him reject them with a 'The Person Whose Number You Asked for Thinks You're a Loser' song. Others, Donghyuck included, treated him like an unlicensed therapist of sorts. He'd gently let people down on their behalves and then have the innocent voices lament about their unrequited love to him for minutes at a stretch until his boredom overtook his pity and he cut them off.

He'd not received any calls on his rejection number for a few weeks (courtesy of exam season leaving everyone too busy for unimportant things like food or sleep or feelings) until a particularly bland, Tuesday evening.

The rain was pattering against the tarmac outside and drowning out the sound of the girls from the adjacent dorm who were screaming for god knows why. Chenle lay sprawled over his coursework with his eyes drooping shut when his phone rang. He knew immediately what the call was because he had an annoyingly shrill ringtone set for his second sim card so that he wouldn't miss any "business" calls.

He groaned, thumbing on the messages app first and frowning when he saw no recent messages. Usually, those that gave people his number instead of their own would message him some context in advance so he could prepare the ideal rejection. This time there was nothing. It wasn't the first occasion on which he'd had anonymous people give his number either because they didn't want to be known or didn't want to pay. Either way, Chenle would usually ignore such calls. However, right then his brain had been on the brink of frying and so he saw any distraction from his work as a welcome one.

He rolled over on his bed, hooking one foot over another as he accepted the call.

"Oh my god. You picked up!" A deep voice like warm melted chocolate flooded the silence of his room.

"Not that I thought you wouldn't pick up! I mean, not that I assumed you were that kind of person or anything. Although it's okay not to pick up! It's okay for you to do anything because it's you. I mean. Uh." The voice faltered, thick with palpable awkwardness. "What I'm trying to say is - hi. I'm Jisung."

Chenle smiled at the endearing awkwardness of the stranger. He tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Brown-haired Jisung?" Chenle couldn't even be sure the boy went to his university but he vaguely remembered a mousey boy called Jisung from when he'd picked up Donghyuck from his biochem class last year.

"Oh... Uh... maybe? I mean it kind of looks brown in one light and then black in another so it really depends. But I did recently get blonde highlights so-"

"Biochem Jisung?" Chenle interrupted him mid rambling.

"Again... maybe? There are at least three Jisungs doing biochem. I know that because Dr Lee always gets us confused. He keeps giving us each other's essays and once he told me he'd seen my note and asked if I wanted to talk to the counsellour about my viagra addiction. Not that I have a viagra addiction! My point was more that he'd gotten us mixed up but..." Jisung cleared his throat to stop his rambling. "I'm sorry, I'm nervous."

Chenle bit back the urge to retort with a "Hi nervous, I'm Chenle."

"My full name is Jisung Park if that helps?"

Definitely mousey Jisung. Chenle grinned. "Hi, Jisung Park."

There was a heavy silence before Jisung's voice sounded again. "Wow, I never thought I'd hear you say my name," he sighed. "Oh god, that sounded creepy, ignore that. Um. I got your number from a friend. I hope you don't mind..."

Chenle winced. So it hadn't even been Jisung's crush themselves who'd decided he wasn't good enough but their friend? It had seemed harsh till he realised that's exactly what he was doing when he rejected people in Donghyuck's place.

He'd not received instructions on how to reject this overly anxious boy with the voice of an audible narrator and so he had to improvise.

"It's not that I mind," Chenle began slowly, wondering how exactly to phrase to Jisung that he'd purposely been given the wrong number. "It's just..."

"You'd rather I have asked you for your number directly? I knew it." Jisung filled the space where Chenle hesitated with the wrong assumptions.

"Ah, it's not like that-" Chenle said quickly.

With every passing moment, it felt like Chenle was digging his hole deeper and deeper. He should have rejected the boy straight off the bat. Instead, he'd asked for his hair colour like an idiot and now he was sure Jisung had misunderstood and was pouring his heart out because he'd assumed that it was his crush and not Chenle who'd picked up.

"No, you're right. I was being a coward. Am being a coward," Jisung tapered off quietly.

Chenle sighed at how he could hear his pout through his voice. He now understood why Jisung's crush's friend had given him Chenle's number. Rejecting Jisung, like rejecting Mark, was like kicking a puppy. It was a lot easier to pass that burden on to a stranger.

"It's just... we've never properly spoken before and I was too scared to ask you in person. You're, you know, yourereallypretty," Jisung mumbled out quickly.

The words weren't even about him but Chenle found himself smiling anyway. This was easily one of the sweeter confessions he'd heard on this number and with a face that he could link to the voice, his imagination was going haywire. There was some tragic kind of irony in how he had to turn down such sweet words addressed to people who weren't even him when he'd never heard such sentiments intended for himself. He wondered if he ever did, would he turn them down as casually as he did all the people who called this number?

"You're... you," Jisung continued, "And I would have done something stupid like forget to breathe or faint or something so-"

Chenle chuckled. Jisung was adorable and innocent and Chenle chuckled. He slapped a hand over his mouth as soon the sound slipped past his lips but it was too late because Jisung had already heard.

"Ah..." Jisung laughed along nervously. "I don't know why you're laughing and I don't know if I want to know because I just might cry."

What was Chenle doing?

"Jisung, let me speak," he said, carding his spare hand through his hair. He had to be honest now before Jisung misunderstood even further.

Before he could get out another word, Jisung spoke up again like his mouth was a motor that was fueled by his overwhelmingly nervous energy.

"I think it's pretty obvious at this point why I called and I feel like I'm going to throw up and I have to ask you quickly before my confidence wears off," he spoke without even pausing to take a breath. "Do you... want to go on a date with me?"

Chenle stared up at his ceiling with wide eyes that weren't focusing on any set point. He'd never gotten to this point with any of the callers before this. Suddenly his coursework seemed like the easier hassle to deal with.

"Jisung," Chenle panicked, desperate for the boy to understand him. "I'm not who you think I am-"

"I know! We've not properly talked before this so of course, we don't really know each other. But I want to get to know you. I just. I really like you... and I get if you don't feel the same way. Just one date and then I'll never bother you again." Chenle blanked and Jisung kept talking in a desperate attempt to fill the silence, "No pressure though... you can say no."

No. Jisung was offering him a simple out. No. That's all Chenle had to say. No excuses, no rejection songs, no therapy. Just one word.

So it made no sense why he sat there in silence opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.

"So that's a yes..?" Jisung asked, his voice lilting up with hope.

His words caught in his throat. How was Chenle meant to crush his heart when he sounded that sincere and hopeful?

"Great! Wow, that went better than I thought it would," Jisung said like he couldn't quite believe his own words. "Friday, then. 5pm at the Jellybean café." And then, he added on like an afterthought for confirmation. "It's a date."

The line cut.

And just like that, Chenle had not only not rejected the boy but also essentially lied to him about his identity, and arranged a date between him and a person who didn't even like him let alone know about this.

As the gravity of the situation slowly sank down on him, he groaned and brung a hand to smack his textbook over his forehead. The sound echoed through the room, far louder than expected, and suddenly the screaming from next door stopped.

"You good...?" came a muffled female voice through the walls.

Chenle glared at the cream wallpaper and threw his book at the wall.

Going to Donghyuck about the situation would be like taking a broken phone to the person who'd broken it. Chenle had had enough of his ideas and needed a fresh, more rational, input. And so he went to Mark. What he didn't expect though was to find Donghyuck sprawled across his lap like he was an extension of Mark's body.

Chenle narrowed his eyes at them ignoring Donghyuck who grinned up at him, looking completed unabashed about his seating arrangement.

"I'm not going to ask, I don't want to know," Chenle said, jabbing a finger at Donghyuck. "I simply want to borrow your chair for a talk."

"Whatever you want to say to the chair, you can say to me."

"The chair is not the one who convinced me to run a stupid phone-line which got me into this mess in the first place-"

"Can you guys stop referring to me as a chair?" Mark cut in.

Donghyuck leaned back into Mark's embrace, nuzzling his neck and pressing a gentle kiss onto the skin there. "I'm sorry, baby."

Chenle's ears burned and he immediately looked away.

What the fuck?

His business was failing. It was actually failing. If it had been a properly established and legal company, Chenle was sure he'd have seen the angry red lines of his stock value dipping as his investors lost faith in him right about then. Not only had he not rejected Jisung on a phone line where his only job was to reject people, but now Donghyuck was doing... whatever the fuck this was with a boy Chenle had very explicitly rejected on his behalf.

"You get ten minutes and then I want him back," Donghyuck said to Chenle as he slipped out of the door.

"I only need five!" Chenle yelled after him. He'd definitely rather have ten minutes but he'd just wanted to have the last word to be petty.

Mark's expression was wholly embarrassed as he looked at Chenle. "We-"

"No, I wasn't kidding, I don't want to know," Chenle cut in as he plopped down on the beanbag in front of him.

"Alright," Mark nodded. "What's up?"

Mark looked increasingly pained as Chenle recounted the events with Jisung to him.

"You have to tell him," Mark said resolutely. "You should call him and come clean that you pretended to be his crush and agreed to a date in their place by accident."

"No!" Chenle squeaked. "Do you realise how bad that sounds?! Honesty is the last resort. There's gotta be something else I can try first."

Mark hesitated.

"What? Tell me," Chenle pressed.

"It's a bad idea-"

"My life is a bad idea. Tell me."

"Is this brown-haired, biochem Jisung?" Mark asked.

"It's apparently kind of black in one light and he has highlights now," Chenle pouted. "And he's the Jisung that doesn't have a viagra addiction, in case you were confused."

"I was not confused but... good for him? I was going to ask if you knew who his crush was - because then maybe you could explain the situation to them-"

"-and beg them or pay them to go on the date I accidentally set up! And then they can let Jisung down gently after the date and this entire situation can be buried!"

"No, I was going to say you explain it to them so they can explain it to Jisung-"

"Honesty is not an option Mark-hyung. This was a great talk, love you," Chenle stood up quickly as his head buzzed with ideas.

All he had to do was figure out who Jisung liked and then he could evade the consequences of his own actions. Easy. If there was one person who knew everyone's business like they were being paid to gossip - it was Donghyuck. Right on cue, his friend slipped back into the room.

"You!" Chenle said clicking his fingers towards him. "Do you know who Jisung likes?"

Donghyuck tilted his head to one side, clearly confused by Chenle's 180-degree change in attitude. "Viagra Jisung?"

"No," Mark and Chenle said in unison.

"Oh, you mean brown-haired Jisung from biochem."

"He has highlights now," Chenle hissed.

Donghyuck ignored his comment in favour of smirking suggestively at him. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't..." he trailed off vaguely, "But why do you care? Do you like him?"

Chenle did not have the energy to re-explain his situation. "I'm gonna take that as a no," he said before walking past him and out of Mark's apartment.

He had places to be. People to interrogate. He was a man on a mission.

"Okay, but do you like him?" Donghyuck yelled into the corridor after him.

Chenle didn't grace his stupid question with an answer.

Chenle's optimism lasted all of three hours before he realised that he wasn't just screwed, he was screwed.

It turned out nobody knew who Jisung liked and yet at the same time everybody did. No matter who he asked they just gave him odd looks and suspiciously evasive answers. Chenle wasn't sure if it was because they were all that loyal to Jisung or that unloyal to himself. Either way, it was inconvenient and driving him crazy.

After hours of walking around campus and grilling everyone he'd ever talked to for intel, he'd only learned completely irrelevant things. For example, he now knew that Jisung had a pet hamster that he was hiding from his landlord, that he was the president of the astronomy club, as well as a member (but not president) of the astrology club, that he volunteered fortnightly at an orphanage where he taught children tap-dancing, and that he spent long periods fixing his hair in the men's bathroom mirrors. See? All completely irrelevant.

Chenle huffed to himself as he walked. Why was this so hard? And another question that had started to form in his mind was who the fuck in their right mind would reject such a seemingly perfect boy? (Illegal hamster ownership was kind of sweet in Chenle's eyes and didn't corrode at Jisung's image at all.)

As he mindlessly let his feet carry him around their campus, he found himself standing outside of Jellybean café. It served as a sharp reminder of the accidental date on Friday and how he had under 48hours to sort the situation out.

He groaned and pushed open the door to the café. If he was going to mope over his bad life choices, he may as well do it fully caffeinated.

And unbeknownst to him, there he met a blessing.

"Renjun...?" he read the Barista's name tag. His eyes flit up to the face of an elegant looking boy who was staring at him impatiently with his pen hovering over an empty cardboard cup.

"Yes, that's me. Can I take your order?"

Chenle stared at him like he'd seen an angel. His coffee order was the last thing on his mind right then. "You're Jisung's friend!"

"And you're apparently a stalker," Renjun deadpanned. "Order?"

It had been all of thirty minutes since Chenle had learned that Jisung had a close friend called Renjun who conveniently stood out like a landmark in that coffee shop thanks to his lilac locks. Did that make Chenle a stalker? Yes, probably. Did he care? Not right then, no.

"I'm so lucky to have bumped into you," Chenle marvelled.

"Okay, I'm just gonna make you a caramel latte," Renjun decided for him and set to work with the machines around him.

Chenle skipped along the counter to come face to face with the boy as he steamed the milk.

"This is going to sound kind of strange and invasive," Chenle began, wondering just how to phrase his question.

"It already does," Renjun replied without even looking up.

"Right," Chenle cleared his throat. "Well. Let's say... hypothetically... I have a friend who's definitely not done something they shouldn't have... and I want to know on behalf of this friend whether Jisung likes someone... then hypothetically, would you tell me who?"

Renjun looked up from where he was squeezing caramel syrup into the coffee to shoot Chenle a strange look.

"Why do you care who Jisung likes?"

"This is hypothetical and about a friend!" Chenle squeaked defensively.

Renjun paused working completely to stare at him. "Do you like him?"

"My friend?"

"Jisung."

"No!" Chenle yelled far too quickly.

Renjun scowled at him. "Then stay out of it."

It was clear the conversation was over and Chenle pressed his eyes shut. He'd been stupid. Of course, Renjun was offended that he'd said no so quickly like his friend was unlikeable. There was no winning in this situation. But he needed to know who.

"Okay... yes." Chenle swallowed his pride. One tiny lie wouldn't hurt, right? "Yeah, I like him. And... and I want to know who my competition is."

Renjun raised an eyebrow and Chenle sighed in relief as he opened his mouth to reply. Any information was valuable then. "Then I'd tell your hypothetical friend to go and ask Jisung directly who it is he likes."

Renjun pushed a now capped cup over the counter and towards Chenle. "And your hypothetical friend should maybe give Jisung this. It's his favourite and his lecture in the Pauling wing ends in about ten minutes."

Chenle glanced at the clock. He could make it there in about twelve if he jogged. The last time he'd physically exerted himself like that had been years ago when Sport was compulsory in school. He had no idea if he was still fit enough to make the journey but he'd have to take his chances. Asking Jisung directly seemed to be his only shot right then.

"Thanks, Renjun!" he nodded sincerely, before taking off in the opposite direction of the café.

By the time he arrived at the Pauling wing, the lecture hall was pouring out with students. Pro: he might not have missed Jisung yet. Con: he might have already missed Jisung.

He leaned against a pillar to catch his breath and scan the crowd in the least creepy way he could. A few people glanced his way, but to the majority, he might as well have been a ghost. It was only when the last few students were trickling out that he caught sight of a familiar head of brown and blonde.

Chenle watched frozen as Jisung, who was fully immersed in his phone, walked right past him. He was a lot taller and skinnier than Chenle remembered. For whatever reason, he'd been nervous when Chenle had last seen him and so his shoulders had been drooping down and his arms tucked into his body to make himself look smaller. But now, as he walked ahead, completely relaxed, Chenle thought he could probably pass for a model.

Chenle had somehow managed to stick it to his 7th-grade sports teacher who hated him by running there, but he'd had no plan of how to actually approach Jisung. He usually made friends as naturally as he breathed. However, there was no natural way to approach a boy who he'd essentially catfished. He'd just have to treat this like he treated the majority of his life thus far and wing it.

"Jisung," he called, surprising himself with how nervous his voice sounded.

He had to pull it together, godammit. He was Chenle. Nervous wasn't his brand.

"Jisung!" he called again, his voice steadier this time, as he ran after the boy.

The fluffy head of hair stayed tilted down as Jisung trailed forward, eyes still fixed firmly on his phone. It was only then that Chenle realised he had earbuds in and couldn't hear him.

Chenle bit down on his lip in frustration. He didn't want to physically touch the boy to get his attention. They were strangers after all. There was a good chance Jisung had no idea who he was and would freak out. If Chenle wanted to weasel the truth about his crush out of him, he needed to befriend him first and he couldn't do that if Jisung branded him as a creep.

He stared down at his cooling coffee cup with forlorn eyes and mentally apologised to Renjun for what he was about to do.

It was the only way.

"Shit! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?!" Chenle gasped as he stepped forward and 'accidentally' spilt the sweet drink all over Jisung's black hoodie.

Jisung finally pulled his earbuds out, yelping in surprise as he whipped around to stare straight into Chenle's eyes.

"Chenle...?" He asked with confusion. At least now Chenle wouldn't seem strange for knowing Jisung's name, because apparently they mutually vaguely knew each other.

He had assumed the coffee would be cold or at least only lukewarm after his run there but from how Jisung flushed deep red and looked like he was about to faint, he started wondering if it had somehow still been hot.

Suddenly, guilt flooded his being. He hadn't meant to hurt the boy. That's the last thing he wanted to do. That's why he was doing all this! To avoid hurting him.

The apologies that tumbled out of his mouth suddenly changed from being staged lines to genuine pleas for forgiveness. He threw his previous no touching rule out of the window and hastily reached forward to try and rub the liquid out of the garment.

"I am genuinely so sorry-"

"It's okay," Jisung replied. Chenle's hand paused from where it had been rubbing as he heard the deep timbre of his voice in person. Chenle kind of wanted to curl up by a fire and ask Jisung to sing him lullabies to put him to sleep. But that was weird, weirder than what he was already doing, and so he pulled his hand back like a leash to keep himself in check.

He threw a guilty smile in Jisung's direction. One he hoped said "I'm sorry for being a klutz" and not "I'm sorry for fantasising about your voice like a creep." Some things were better left unsaid.

"You could come back to my dorm if you'd like? I could give you a change of clothes - it's honestly the least I could do to apologise."

His dorm was closer than Jisung's. He knew that from all the stalking he'd done but that was another matter probably better left unsaid.

Jisung's eyes grew impossibly wide and Chenle panicked. "Go back to your dorm..."

"For clothes! To wear clothes. I mean, you'd have to take off some clothes to put on new clothes but you'd be gaining clothes for the most part."

What the fuck did he just say? Chenle wanted to slap himself for never having bothered to develop a brain-to-mouth filter.

The shade that Jisung's ears and cheeks were then would have put the reddest apples to shame. It was clear that Chenle was making him uncomfortable and he mentally berated himself for it. His cheeks were well on their way to colour matching Jisung's which was so off-brand for him.

It was only when, to his surprise, he heard Jisung say, "Okay," that his shoulders relaxed.

"Okay?"

Jisung shrugged. "I could do with something less... sticky." He raised an arm to demonstrate his point and Chenle watched with embarrassment as brown liquid dripped from the sleeve.

The walk to his dorm had been mostly silent and for once Chenle found himself grateful to his neighbours who always screamed like they were arachnophobic and in a house full of spiders. The noise made the silence more bearable.

He led Jisung in and cringed at the clothes he'd left strewn all over the floor. He would have made an effort to clean but he'd expected his Wednesday afternoon to consist of him lazing around and battling his work alone. How was he supposed to have known that he'd be bringing over a cute boy who he'd stalked and then harassed with spilt coffee?

"It's not much but..." Chenle signalled his hand to his room. There was no second half to that sentence. It simply was not much.

"It's cosy," Jisung lied. That boy must have the temperance of a saint to still be giving Chenle courtesy after how he'd treated him.

Chenle laughed, bringing a hand up to scratch at his nape awkwardly. "Wait here."

He pushed a handful of things off his bed to clear space and gently pushed Jisung down to sit there. Jisung stared at where his hand met his shoulder with wide eyes and Chenle immediately pulled back as if scorched.

"Ah. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to touch you-"

"No, it's okay-"

"Today's just kind of been a mess-"

"It's really okay-"

"I'm just gonna-" Chenle crossed his arms as if to show he wouldn't touch again.

God, this was so awkward. Possibly the most awkward Chenle had ever been with anyone. The worst part was that it wasn't even Jisung's fault. For all the nervous rambling the boy had done over the phone, he was relatively got-together in person. Chenle assumed it was because he only acted that nervous with his crush and Chenle was, well, not them. So no, it wasn't Jisung's fault, and it was Chenle alone who was singlehandedly dragging his own social butterfly reputation into the sewer.

He walked over to his wardrobe and shoved a bunch of hangers aside to find what he was looking for. He knew he had a few completely unworn shirts with price tags attached and all. However, before he found them, he found his hand hovering over one of his favourite green hoodies that he'd worn countless times. It was old and was slightly frayed at the edges - in no condition to pass on to anyone else. However, a tiny little voice in his head was screaming about how good Jisung would look in green.

"Is that for me?" came a honeyed voice from right behind him.

Chenle yelped and whipped around to find Jisung no longer on his bed but instead standing a hair's breadth away with his eyes fixed on the green hoodie.

"No!" Chenle yelled. "No, it's old and uh. You probably want something better. Here," he fished out the new shirt he'd been looking for and held it out towards Jisung.

Jisung barely gave the shirt a glance before, leaning forward to thumb through his wardrobe and slip the green hoodie off the hanger. "I like it."

His arm had lightly brushed past Chenle's and the air was thick with the scent of caramel syrup. Chenle felt his knees weakening and he couldn't even process why. He immediately stepped away to put a more distance between them and sighed as it got easier to breathe again.

"I feel like I've seen this on you before," Jisung spoke, referring to the green garment. And then he tacked on, "Just around. Not like I've been watching you or anything, that would be weird."

Chenle laughed nervously. The boy was clearly just trying to break the ice, but the stalking comment hit a bit too close to Chenle's truth. That would be weird. Good thing Jisung didn't know about the four hours Chenle had just spent doing just that.

"Yeah, it's my favourite hoodie. I've worn it a lot," he confessed.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to borrow it then?"

"Yes!" he answered suspiciously quickly. "I mean... it's really no big deal. I let people borrow my clothes all the time." That was a lie.

Chenle busied himself so Jisung could change. He only turned back around when the sound of clothes rustling stopped.

Jisung sat perched on the edge of his bed again, this time don in Chenle's clothes. If Chenle's heart hammered slightly too loud in his chest then that was because he didn't know how to feel seeing someone else in his favourite hoodie and not because Jisung looked even better in green than he'd imagined he would.

"I'll wash this and return it," Chenle said, walking forward to pick up Jisung's coffee-stained clothes.

"I can do it," Jisung offered. "My flatmates recently got a new washing machine. Our last one broke and flooded our floor."

Chenle smiled. Every time Jisung shared something from his life, it sounded like an increasingly bizarre game of two truths and one lie. "And how did that happen?"

"In a way that no one can prove," Jisung said with a straight face. "They say the culprit overfilled the soap compartment but I definitely wouldn't know anything about that."

Chenle fully laughed this time. "Of course not. Those are the words of a clearly innocent man."

Jisung's lips tugged into a sly smile and he shrugged.

In the end, Chenle insisted on being the one to wash it anyway. If he had to return the hoodie then it would guarantee him seeing the boy again and that was important... why? Right! Because he needed to figure out who Jisung liked to fix the mess he'd made. Right. Of course.

He didn't know when the chief objective had slipped his mind but he was focused and back on track.

Chenle desperately wracked his mind for a way to smoothly segway into a conversation about crushes. He couldn't ask directly. No way. That would either sound far too forward or far too creepy and judging by how Jisung overthought everything he'd probably think it was both.

Jisung sat there with his hands fidgeting in his lap as he inspected Chenle's room. Chenle followed his line of sight to where Jisung was swivelling around to look at Chenle's laptop which was lying open on his bed.

Chenle had disabled the auto-lock feature a few months ago when he'd been trying to copy a drawing on screen for Mark's birthday card and it kept logging off because of the inactivity. At the time it had seemed like a brilliant idea but now his past choices were coming back to haunt him. He gaped in horror when he saw that he had Jisung's Instagram page on a wide-open tab on the screen. It would be a matter of seconds before Jisung noticed too.

"AH, look at me!" Chenle practically yelled.

The sound echoed through the room and Jisung turned to stare at Chenle with a quizzical gaze. "Why...?"

"Because! Uh! Because I got a new haircut!" Chenle made a mental note that when this was all over, he should watch a youtube video on the art of lying. He needed practice. "Yeah. I cut my hair and I uh, I need a second opinion. What do you think?"

This was stupid. Stupid. "Because I got a haircut!" Ugh, he needed to shut up.

"Your hair has always looked good..." Jisung said slowly like he was wondering if it was some sort of trick question.

Chenle had no time to dwell on just what the fuck that meant because Jisung was looking towards his laptop again.

Maybe if he'd paused to think about it, Chenle would have made a better decision. But Chenle had never paused to think about anything, and so he squeaked and threw himself onto his bed till his fingertips reached just far enough to slam his laptop shut.

Pro: he'd now successfully buried yet another loose end from his stalking. Con: he now lay sprawled on top of Jisung who was staring up at him with flushed cheeks and wide eyes.

It felt like time had slowed and some invisible vaccuum had sucked all the air out of the room. The scene played out like one of those awful romance movie clichés where the heroine would trip and fall onto the hero and they'd stare into each other's eyes and make out before carrying their ten kids off into the sunset with them. Except this wasn't a movie this was Chenle's disaster of a life, and it wasn't cupid that brought them together but rather his awful decisions.

Jisung looked like he'd rather die than be there.

Part of Chenle whined and threw a fit wondering if it was really that bad to be close to Chenle like this. Another part of him told the first part to shut up because it didn't matter. Since when had he cared about Jisung's opinion on him?

He was here to fix a mess to save the reputation of his business. That's right. This was Business.

"Do you have feelings for anyone?" he blurted out. So much for his plans of a smooth segway.

Jisung's eyebrows shot up, chasing his hairline and Chenle could feel the air shift as he took a deep breath.

"What?" Jisung asked, looking genuinely perplexed and perhaps even slightly offended.

"Feelings," Chenle repeated, "the mushy kind that makes people want to sacrifice their sleep schedule and hand over all their money to expensive restaurants." He'd dug his hole - now he had to commit to it.

Jisung stared up at him with his face still mere inches way. His expression was unreadable and with every passing moment, Chenle was regretting not having chosen a subtler way of asking.

Jisung's eyebrows furrowed. "I..." he began, awkwardly clearing his throat, "don't really have a sleep schedule to be sacrificing or money to be handing to restaurants."

Okay, so maybe Chenle could have worded it better.

"I usually sleep really late because I have chem work and that's why I also don't have time for a part-time job so-"

"But feelings?" Chenle pressed.

"But... feelings?" Jisung looked everywhere but at Chenle. His shitty slightly-too-dim lighting cast soft shadows across Jisung's face and Chenle found himself not hating his lamp for once. Like this, Chenle supposed he could understand what Jisung meant when he said his hair looked black sometimes and brown other times. When Jisung spoke again, his voice was feeble. "I thought you already knew-"

However, he never heard the end of that sentence because his phone chose that exact moment to ring. Chenle had always hated that shrill ringtone on his second sim but right then, he hated it enough to want to crush the device under his feet.

The noise cut through the fragile atmosphere and Chenle immediately scrambled off Jisung. The mirage around the moment had been broken and all that was left was awkwardness.

"I should go," Jisung said, sitting up straight. "I have a study group to be at."

Great. Chenle had probably scared him off. He'd blown his last chance of fixing this situation.

Jisung walked towards the door before turning back to face Chenle for a final time. His expression seemed conflicted and when he finally spoke it looked like he was forcing himself to push out the words.

"My flatmates are throwing a party tonight if you want to come..."

"What?"

"No pressure to, of course! But I can assure you there won't be soap all over the floor if that's what you're worried about." Jisung flashed a nervous smile.

Chenle blinked. His mind was buzzing and blank all at once. Jisung was inviting him to his party. Chenle had thrown his love life into a full-speed blender and wrecked it, and then garnished his relationship-failure smoothie with a healthy dose of stalking and purposeful coffee spilling, and yet Jisung was inviting him to his party.

And then, it was like the almost permanently dormant lightbulbs in his brain suddenly all glowed at once, blinding him with the light of an idea so dumb but so brilliant.

Jisung would be at a party. Parties had alcohol. All he had to do was get Jisung drunk and talking about his crush and then Chenle still had a whole day left to find them and persuade them to go on the date.

"Yes!" He beamed.

"Oh. Okay. Cool," Jisung nodded awkwardly before scribbling down an address onto a post-it note. Not that Chenle needed it. "I'll- I'll see you then."

It was only after he'd left that Chenle's surroundings came whirling back into focus. He had a ringing phone to attend to.

He slid on his screen to accept the call without even checking his messages first.

"Hi, you're rejected. And this is Zhong Chenle, in case you had any doubts," he said before cutting the call.

He wasn't going to leave any space for conversation or confusion. He'd learned from his mistakes.

When Chenle had heard it was a flat party he'd assumed it'd be something small. Maybe a few close friends doing shots and playing Xbox or Cards Against Humanity.

But this? This was madness.

The bass of the pounding music could be heard from all the way down the road. It was the kind of loud that put Chenle's own neighbours to shame and the closer he got, the more glaringly obvious it became that the only reason they hadn't gotten a noise complaint was that everyone in the area was at the party.

He didn't even have to ring a bell to get in because the door was wide open and students at various stages of drinking were huddled in the corridor outside too.

He pushed in feeling entirely too uncomfortable surrounded by so many unfamiliar faces.

"You good?"

Chenle twirled around to find the owner of the voice in a pink-haired boy who was nursing a red solo cup in his hand like it was his lifeline.

"Yeah, I'm just not a fan of crowds."

"Well, whatever possessed you to come to a party then?" the boy grinned with no real malice in his words.

Chenle couldn't exactly say the truth so he went with a slight omission of facts instead. "Jisung, if you know him?"

The boy's eyes shone with sudden curiosity. "I didn't know Jisung had friends who weren't us. I'm Jaemin."

"Chenle."

If the boy looked interested in him before, he now stared at Chenle like he was the only person in the room. There was a mad glint in his eyes as he spoke. "Oh, so you're Chenle. How interesting."

Chenle barely had time to ask him what that meant because Jaemin was already dragging him off to get him a cup of some cheap margarita mix. Chenle hesitated before taking a sip. He hadn't planned on getting drunk. He was a lightweight and it would be a disaster if he couldn't remember anything from the party the next day.

"So," Jaemin began with a clearly conspiratorial tone, "how long have you known Jisung?"

"About 48 hours," Chenle admitted, taking a swig out of the cup. "But I've seen him around since like a year ago."

Jaemin's smile didn't look like good news at all. "Oh, so you've noticed him before? How come? Did you think he was cute?"

Chenle choked on the drink. "Excuse me?!"

"I'm just saying," Jaemin shrugged in a way that made him look like he was more than "just saying". "Jisung's good looking, wouldn't you agree?"

Chenle blinked rapidly and wondered just how he was meant to reply to that. Jisung was good looking. But saying yes felt like a trap and saying no sounded even worse.

"Is Jaemin harassing you?" A new boy came to stand next to them. "Please forgive him. He just failed a test and he's a bit emotionally unstable right now."

Jaemin's smile dropped off his face and a scowl took its place. "I didn't fail, Jeno. It's just that I didn't-"

"Pass? We know," the new boy bit back all while with a bright smile on his face. "It was a medical ethics test as well-"

"Aka not a real test."

"Aka testing your fitness to practice."

"I am very fit to practice!"

"You said you'd give weed to a patient-"

"Medical marijuana is a thing-"

"But the question was about a drug addict!"

Chenle stared at the two who were bickering in front of him before downing the rest of the contents of his cup. He needed alcohol in his system to deal with this.

"I'm Jeno, by the way. I live here with Jisung," the boy finally introduced himself to Chenle.

"Chenle," he nodded back.

"I also live here," Jaemin pouted like a child throwing a tantrum, "but you don't see me bragging about it."

"You live here for now," Jeno smiled. "If you get kicked out of uni because of your grades then-"

"I didn't fail!" Jaemin moped.

"He failed," Jeno whispered to Chenle even though Jaemin was well within earshot. "That's why he threw this party - he believes in 'Fun Therapy'. "

"Okay! Look!" Jaemin threw his arms out in defence. "One minute I was crying and revising and the next I'd already invited my entire contact list around. It was an accident!"

Their arguing attracted some attention and it wasn't long before a fourth figure joined their little corner. Except this time, Chenle recognised the now-familiar head of lilac.

"I was looking for you two," Renjun spoke to Jeno and Jaemin before finally taking notice of Chenle. "Oh it's you," he said, looking less than thrilled. "Have you done anything about your crush on Jisung yet?"

Suddenly, silence dropped over their corner like a stiflingly thick veil.

"So you do like Jisung!" Jaemin squealed, looking wholly delighted while Jeno stood next to him with suspicion in his eyes.

Chenle squirmed uncomfortably under the attention of three pairs of eyes. He'd completely forgotten about the lie he'd told Renjun and now, as usual, he'd have to watch the consequence of his actions spiral out of control.

"I've got an idea," Jaemin grinned. His walk was a little too wobbly as he led them through the apartment. His clear lack of sobriety was proven as he crashed into a hamster cage on the way, startling the tiny creature inside. When he finally came to pause, it was outside a bedroom that was considerably emptier than the main area despite still having strangers slouched everywhere.

Chenle noticed a familiar figure in a green hoodie sitting awkwardly in a corner. He hadn't expected Jisung to still be wearing the hoodie and something in his stomach lurched at the thought of that. His clothes. On Jisung's skin. And Jisung had chosen to keep it on.

"Hey! We should play truth or dare!" Jaemin shouted to the room but over the pounding music, his voice barely carried. In the end, he settled for picking up a small clay pot with a cactus in it and throwing it onto the floor where it smashed. Chenle startled at the sound which had finally succeeded at getting everyone's attention.

Renjun stared mournfully at the small pile of soil on the ground. "That was my plant but okay."

Jeno rolled his eyes and wrestled the red cup out of Jaemin's hand. "You're done drinking for tonight."

While Jaemin squabbled with Jeno in the doorway, his previous outburst had inspired a large circle to form in the centre of the room. Renjun dragged him to sit and Jisung too seemed to notice Chenle then from the opposite side of the circle.

The brown-haired boy raised a hand to wave shyly and Chenle smiled in response. His palm was half-covered by Chenle's hoodie's sleeve and he found it endearing how that made model-tall Jisung look a bit smaller.

"I'm glad you came," Jisung mouthed and Chenle felt a smile light up his own face at that.

"Stop flirting, I'm going to puke," Renjun deadpanned from next to him.

"What?" Chenle squeaked, whipping around to face him. He was glad the loud music had drowned out Renjun's words so only Chenle had heard. "I am not flirting!"

"And I don't have purple hair."

Chenle frowned. He was not flirting! He wouldn't do that. Why would he? Jisung clearly liked someone else. But more importantly, Chenle didn't like him. Sure, Jisung was handsome and cute and sweet and an apparently all-around ideal guy but those were objective observations. Everyone would agree except apparently the asshole who'd turned him down without even having the decency to do it themselves.

Chenle decided right then that whoever Jisung's crush was - he didn't like them.

His growing resentment for a person he didn't even know only heightened as the game progressed. Multiple cups of alcohol and rounds of questions later, their makeshift bottle spinner finally landed on Jisung.

"Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

How predictable.

It was a free for all when deciding who asked truths or assigned dares to each round's subject. This time, Chenle was going to ask. He wouldn't let anyone else. Jisung was his to ask.

He hiccuped as his vision swayed slightly in and out focus. "Jisung," he slurred. "Why?"

"W-why what?" Chenle was far too drunk to tell if he was imagining the worry in Jisung's eyes as he looked at him.

"Why do you like them? You know-" he hiccuped again, "-the idiot you like."

Jisung's ears and neck were red, probably from the alcohol. "You really want me to answer that? In front of everyone?"

Chenle scoffed. Was Jisung embarrassed to talk about his crush so publicly? Had he finally realised they weren't worth it? That he could do so much better? "Yes."

If possible, Jisung flushed an even deeper shade of scarlet then. "Well, then, uh... I... don't know," he finished lamely.

Chenle sulked. He didn't know why either. Instead, he said, "That's not an answer."

From the other side of the circle, Jisung caught his gaze and smiled. Chenle's stomach lurched. He'd definitely had too much to drink.

"Fine," Jisung said, still smiling. "Asking me why I like him is like asking me why I breathe. It's just the natural thing to do, right?"

Chenle's heart felt like it was being stabbed by a thousand needles and he didn't even know why.

"It's just what I've always done."

And what I'll always do.

The last words were unspoken but Chenle heard them in the silence loud and clear.

He was going to throw up.

The game continued but it fell on deaf ears to Chenle who sat there trying to desperately hold in his vomit. He didn't even know if he could blame it on the alcohol. All of a sudden, it had felt like his heart had grown arms that were wrangling his insides and making him want to spill his guts out. Everything hurt. Hangovers, headaches, drunken nausea - all of that he was used to. Physical pain was tolerable. But this was something else entirely. This hurt in a way he wasn't sure he could just fix with some water and painkillers.

"Chenle? Chenle?"

Chenle snapped his head up to a room full of faces looking his way.

"Huh?"

"It's your turn," Jeno shrugged and pointed to the bottle which was pointing right at him. "Truth or dare?"

With this much vodka pumping through his blood, he didn't trust mouth to not betray him. "Dare."

Jaemin's smile split wide like a canyon across his face. "I dare you to kiss the person you like most in this room."

Chenle's eyes went straight to Jisung. Jisung was already looking at him.

His eyes looked like warm honey and Chenle wanted to bathe in the golden brown till his skin was scented as sweet as caramel.

Chenle hadn't even thought about it. Admittedly, he could count with the fingers on one hand the number of people he knew in that room but still... he didn't understand why his mind had gone straight to Jisung. Sure, he liked him but as a friend...

Jisung's eyes wavered and he looked entirely too nervous and vulnerable.

It didn't matter. He couldn't do it. He couldn't kiss Jisung who he knew liked someone else.

"Remember, you can always drink if you don't want to," someone said as they pushed a cup into Chenle's hand.

Chenle couldn't even attach the voice to a face but he brought the cup to his lips without hesitation.

"Hey... wait," Renjun's hand came to wrap around his wrist. "Maybe that's not a good idea. You already look like you've had too much to drink." Renjun's voice sounded genuinely concerned and the small voice of reason in Chenle's brain told him to listen to him.

"Anybody wanna be his black knight and drink for him?" someone joked.

Chenle had barely processed the question before a second hand had joined Renjun's fingers on his wrist.

"I'll drink for him."

Chenle looked towards the voice to find the pools of honey he'd seen before but now much, much closer to him.

Jisung smiled his classic smile at him again. The one that made his eyes crinkle and his lips thin out till he looked slightly awkward but completely sweet.

The normal thing to do would have been to take the cup from Chenle before drinking from it. But Jisung was drunk. Chenle was drunk. Everyone in that apartment was drunk. And so Jisung leaned forward to wrap his lips around the rim on the opposite edge to where Chenle's mouth was already latched onto the cup.

The world faded out of focus and Chenle couldn't hear anyone above the sound of blood pounding in his own ears. From this proximity, he could smell the alcohol tinged against Jisung breath and feel the gentle warmth that radiated from his skin. Chenle swallowed hard before slowly pulling away from the cup. A thin string of saliva bridged the gap between his shiny lips and the rim and Chenle felt fire in his blood as Jisung watched that sliver of spit with a hazy gaze till it finally broke.

Chenle liked Jisung. As a friend.

He watched the way Jisung tipped his head back and the way his adam's apple bobbed as he drank and the way his face scrunched up at the bitter taste after he was done.

Chenle liked Jisung.

Jisung set the cup back down and cocked his head in Chenle's direction with that  stupid  smile of his again. "All done."

Chenle  liked  Jisung. 

Fuck.

Chenle threw up. He'd already left his heart with Jisung so what was one more mess left behind? He streaked vomit all over the apartment floor and the front of Jisung's, no,  his  green hoodie (ruining clothes was becoming somewhat of a habit of his) before bolting out of the front door. 

By the time Chenle got home that night, he was halfway sober, full of regrets, and a crying mess. He'd never had a shiny, picture-perfect life but this was a new low even for him. A new low probably even by Donghyuck's standards.

How had he ended up here?

This entire time he'd been convincing himself that he was doing everything to fix his mistake and help Jisung because he didn't want to break his heart. Chenle had become a much better liar than he had anticipated, for him to have believed his own farce like that. The reality had been that it was own heart that had been on the line all along. He'd played himself like a puppet. He had no one to blame for this except himself.

When Jisung had called on his stupid phone line Chenle should have cut him off straight away. He should have never let him ramble about his hair or his professor or his feelings. And he should never have found it cute. Maybe if he'd been cold to the boy he wouldn't be sobbing into his pillow at 3am like a pathetic idiot.

There was a buzzing vibration from under his pillow. Maybe it was cursed but his rejection phone always seemed to ring at the most inconvenient of circumstances.

Chenle sobbed even harder but pressed accept call anyway.

"Is this Jessica?"

Chenle scowled. "Do I sound like a Jessica?"

"Oh Woah- what the fuck? You're a dude. I must have gotten the wrong number."

Chenle rubbed at his eyes. "No. No. You didn't get the wrong number. Jessica gave you my number instead of her own because she didn't want to talk to you. Does that hurt? Boo hoo. Sometimes - sometimes - we give our heart to people who will never see us the same way. Jessica probably hates you." Tears pooled in his eyes. "You probably harassed her and spilt caramel latte all over her instead of giving it to her even though it's her favourite. But she was probably really sweet about it and so you let her borrow your clothes and realised she looks really, fucking, unfairly good in green. And you didn't even like, know her before that, and yet there she is in your room looking like an angel. And then you probably threw up all over her because you were drunk and so yeah, she probably hates you. You already knew she liked someone else so why the fuck did you even bother? You set yourself up for heartbreak, really." He was fully wailing by this point.

There was a long silence before the caller spoke up again.

"Bro, what the fuck?"

The hands of his clock showed that it was 4pm when he woke up. The sun had long passed over the sky and was already beginning its languid descent, painting the sky in shades of pink.

Chenle's mouth was dry, his throat burned, and his head was pounding like the bass from the music Jaemin had been playing the night before. The one time he'd wanted to forget the night before, he remembered every event in crisp detail.

He groaned and sank back down into his pillow. If he could just go back to sleep then he could pretend this was all some long and elaborate nightmare. He'd rather run from his problems than face them any day. However, sleep was a bitch and it had already decided to desert him and so all he could do was toss and turn under his duvet while desperately trying to think about anything other than Jisung.

What had been the point of it all?

After everything, he hadn't even figured out who Jisung liked. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to know at this point. Knowing himself, he'd spend the next few years hating them for no valid reason other than the betrayal of his own heart.

Now, Jisung had a date in an hour with a person who didn't care and wouldn't show up and it was all somehow Chenle's fault. If his joke of a life were a shop he could already imagine the glaring neon signs that would say 'Two hearts broken for the price of one!' 'Break one heart and get another broken for free!'

He buried his head into his pillow and hoped that the three inches of material would be enough to muffle his scream.

So it was pure luck really that he heard his phone over the sound of his own wailing and his thundering heartbeat.

"What do you want?" he moped. He already knew who was calling and he didn't have the energy to deal with Donghyuck right then.

"Don't hate me," Donghyuck said right away.

Chenle frowned. Well, that was suspicious. "Since when did you care if anyone hated you?"

"I care if you're the one hating me. You're my sweet friend after all. Someone I really value and cherish. My best friend even..."

His frown deepened. Something was definitely up. "Did you check out library books under my name and forget to return them on time again?"

"What? No-"

"Good, because I actually like the librarian and I still haven't recovered from how disappointed she looked with me last time."

"What makes you think I did anything wrong?!"

Chenle glared daggers into his phone screen even though he knew Donghyuck couldn't see him.

"Okay so maybe I did something a tiny bit out of line that might have caused minor repercussions. But don't worry your pretty little head it really wasn't anything important. I swear."

That sounded fake.

"If you open the door though, I have doughnuts?" Donghyuck tempted.

If Chenle was mildly concerned before, now he was overcome with full-blown worry. When Dongyuck had returned twenty overdue library books he'd taken out under Chenle's account, he'd simply hugged him to compensate for the hefty fine. The twelve-pack box of Krispy Kremes snuggled in Donghyuck's arms when he opened his front door was a glaring red flag.

Chenle narrowed his eyes. "Did you kill someone? Do you need my help to bury the body, is that what this is?"

Donghyuck huffed and looked entirely too guilty. "Maybe I just wanted to spoil you. Is that hard to believe?"

Chenle stepped aside to let his friend into his room. "Spoil me? This looks like you're trying to give me diabetes."

"They're just sweet treats for my sweet friend."

"So you didn't kill someone?"

The silence that followed was entirely too long. Chenle's eyes widened in horror and Donghyuck immediately snapped, nipping his thoughts of a potential life of law evasion in the bud.

"No, I didn't kill someone stop staring at me like that."

"You're right, it's better if I don't know the truth. Then I won't have to lie in court-"

"No one's been murdered, asshole."

Chenle cocked his head. "Then why do you look so guilty?

Donghyuck winced before opening the box of doughnuts, picking out a bright pink one and shoving it into Chenle's mouth. "Eat."

Chenle let out a noise of muffled complaint around the food.

"I need you to not talk while I say this."

Chenle rolled his eyes and acquiesced, taking a bite out of the confectionary.

"So," Donghyuck began, wringing his hands together awkwardly, "You know how you're objectively attractive and sweet and funny and blah blah-"

Chenle shook his head. No. Donghyuck shot him one of those classic protective-friend glares that implied that if he dared disagree again he'd be battled with affection.

"Well, anyway, you are all those things. And naturally other people notice that too. And so one day this boy in my lecture hall comes up to me and he's really shy and he kind of looks like a tomato with how much he's blushing, and he asks me for your number."

Chenle groaned. "Please tell me you didn't give it to him."

"Of course I gave it to him, you can't stay single forever."

He sighed. He had bigger problems now anyway. "Well, it's fine. I forgive you."

Donghyuck looked pained. "Yeah... that's not the part I was really seeking forgiveness for..." He laughed nervously. "I hadn't heard anything from you so I figured the boy just hadn't had the guts to call. But then you go talking to Mark who naturally then talked to me and I find out that Jisung Park called on your rejection number and you'd gone on some wild quest to figure out who he liked. And then Renjun tells me-"

"Pause. You know Renjun?"

Donghyuck frowned. "He's literally my roommate."

Huh. It was a small world. Chenle made a mental note to pay more attention to his surroundings for next time.

"But anyway, he told me that you had a crush on Jisung Park and had a breakdown at a party or something and that it was really weird."

Chenle winced. At the time he'd told Renjun that he'd seen it as a lie. But now he supposes it had been more of a prophecy than anything.

Donghyuck clapped his hands together. "And, uh, well, what I'm trying to say is - ItmayormaynothavebeenJisungPark who asked me for your number and Imayormaynothaveaccidentallygiventhewrongone causing a little bit of confusion. Just," he brought his hand out to motion, "Just a tiny bit."

Chenle stared. "What?"

"I know you heard me."

"You're, you know, yourereallypretty. You're... you. And I would have done something stupid like forget to breathe or faint or something. I just. I really like you."

"Asking me why I like him is like asking me why I breathe. It's just the natural thing to do, right? It's just what I've always done."

Those words... had been about him? Jisung felt all that about him?

Chenle felt overwhelmed and in denial and like he was going to throw up all over again.

"But hey! No harm was done! Have another doughnut!" Donghyuck pushed another doughnut into the open space where Chenle's mouth was hanging agape.

Chenle spat it out. "So you're telling me," he said, raising a finger ominously.

"That these doughnuts were really expensive and you shouldn't spit them out? Yes-"

"You're telling me - that it was me Jisung liked all along and when he called that day he'd fully been intending to talk to me?"

"Exactly!" Donghyuck's eyes lit up. "Congratulations!"

"And you're telling me - that I spent the last few days stalking him like a creep and breaking my own heart for no reason?"

Donghyuck laughed nervously. "Well, I'm not exactly telling you that. You're taking a lot of creative license with interpreting my words..." At noticing Chenle's fiery expression, he changed his tone. "But I support you!"

Chenle's eyes shot up to the clock. The date he'd accidentally agreed to but definitely belonged at was in under five minutes.

"I have to go!" He sprung up from his bed and ran straight to his shoe rack. "I'm meant to be meeting Jisung, like, now!"

"You're in pyjamas and it looks like an exotic bird built a nest in your hair are you sure-"

"Bye!"

"I guess you're sure."

Chenle biked to Jellybean café to save time. He hadn't even had time to bring his bicycle lock so he had no choice but to trust in the good of human nature as he left it to rest against the side of the building. (He had to make a choice between his bike and his love life and he made it, okay?)

Contrary to popular belief, he did listen to Donghyuck and so he stopped by the glass display to cringe at his reflection and roughly comb his fingers through his hair. As for the pyjamas - well, some things couldn't be saved.

After heaving a deep breath, he pushed the entrance door open and stepped into the café. The bell above the door immediately jingled and Chenle looked up straight into the withering gaze of Renjun who was manning the counter.

"Well hello there Mr Vomit, you're late." Renjun snapped. He took a long disapproving look at Chenle's apparel before speaking up again, "He's by the back."

Chenle was grateful for Renjun somehow helping him out after everything. It was clear the boy didn't wholly trust Chenle but if he was a close friend of both Jisung and Donghyuck, Chenle had no choice but to suck up to him and somehow weasel his way into his good books.

But for now, he had a boy to woo.

Jisung sat in a corner of the café looking far too antsy and nervous. He'd checked his phone at least four times in the few seconds Chenle had been watching him, and he repeatedly tugged at the hem of his shirt in an agitated way. Chenle kept waiting for him to look up and notice him but the boy was far too preoccupied with adjusting his own hair and glancing over at the clock every two seconds.

It was a lot of things. But Chenle found it cute.

"Hey," he said, voice shaking with nerves as he slid into the booth.

Jisung startled at his voice.

Again. Cute.

"You're here!"

Chenle giggled. "A man of sound observation as always."

"And you're in pyjamas!"

"These? Oh no, they're haute couture. The loungewear look is big right now."

Jisung's eyes widened. "Of course! I don't know why I said they were-"

"Jisung, I'm joking."

Chenle laughed into his palm as Jisung flushed red in embarrassment. He enjoyed teasing expressions out of the boy. He liked how it was so easy to. He wanted to sit there for hours and try every combination of words and actions till he'd seen every way in which Jisung's lips could quirk and every shade his skin could be painted.

"I admit," Chenle threw his hands up as if in surrender. "these are pyjamas. I kind of overslept."

Jisung's brows creased. "Are you okay? I should have walked you home last night after you threw up-"

Chenle scratched his nape with embarrassment and shook his head as if to repress those memories again. "Ah... that's not why. I'm okay, don't worry. It's just that I didn't realise I had a date..."

Date. The word made Chenle feel twice as giddy as Jisung looked and Jisung looked like he'd won the lottery.

"You didn't realise...?"

Chenle winced. As usual, Mark had been right and lying had gotten him nowhere. This time around - he wanted to do it properly. He needed to be honest.

"Yeah. When you asked me out the other day... I didn't realise it was me you were asking out."

"Who else would I be asking?" Jisung was staring at him like he'd grown another head.

"Donghyuck gave you the wrong number. Well. The number was still me but..."

He liked Jisung. He really liked him. So how exactly was he supposed to word the next part without scaring him away?

"I own a rejection hotline... kinda. Like people give other people my number and I turn them down. So when you called I thought you were calling about someone else."

Jisung's face remained frozen with his previous confusion. That was fair.

When a voice finally cut through the silence, it was neither Chenle's nor Jisung's.

"This explains a lot," Renjun said from where he was now hovering near their booth with a notepad in hand.

Jisung flushed red again. "Why are you here?" he hissed.

"I work here," Renjun deadpanned.

"This is a date, read the room." Jisung bit back.

Chenle smiled at how quick his remarks were. This was a new side to him he'd not seen before. But it was still Jisung and so like with everything else about the boy, Chenle felt his heart melt at it.

Renjun leaned forward to hit his notepad against the top of Jisung's head. "Show some respect."

Chenle instinctively reached out his hand to cover Jisung's head before Renjun could hit again. Surely, this went against some sort of customer harassment policy.

"Don't hit my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" Renjun and Jisung echoed while staring at him.

Walking each other back from lectures. Going to cafés together. Getting drunk at parties. Heck, even the stupid misunderstandings. Chenle wanted it all and more, regularly.

Jisung had made all the first moves so far. He owed him this one.

Chenle grinned. "What? It's a date, read the room."

Renjun stared at him with a blank expression. "Wow. You two really deserve each other."

Jisung, on the other hand, spluttered and kept opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish while blinking rapidly. Chenle giggled at him.

"He's reading the room so hard right now," a new voice joined and Chenle looked up to find Donghyuck with his chin on Renjun's shoulder.

"Relax," Donghyuck rolled his eyes at noticing Chenle's glare. "I came to drag him away," he motioned to Renjun, "not to wreck your date. So save your death-stare for someone else."

With Renjun and Donghyuck finally gone, a bubble set around their little corner once again.

Chenle felt irrational nervousness as he looked at Jisung. He knew how the boy felt. But he was still scared. "You never said yes to being my boyfriend... so was it a no...? Or?"

"Yes!" Jisung rushed to clarify. "Definitely yes."

Chenle felt his face split into a smile. "Okay, good. If you'd said no I might have done something stupid like getting super drunk to deal with it and then throwing up all over you."

He wasn't above making fun of himself.

Jisung grinned at him. "I washed your hoodie right after so don't worry about that."

Chenle hadn't even washed Jisung's coffee-stained hoodie but he'd chalk that up to laziness and never admit that it was because he liked how it smelled of Jisung.

"You washed it already?"

Jisung stared at him with a straight face. "It is a very new washing machine we own. Jaemin gets excited at every opportunity to use it."

"Well, I guess you flooding your floor worked out for the best then."

Jisung feigned shock. "Me? Flooding? I don't know where you got such an idea."

Chenle laughed.

Everything Jisung and his life was. It all made him feel fuzzy inside. It was new and yet it felt safe like home.

An employee who wasn't Renjun came then to set down two lattes and slices of cake on their table. Chenle assumed Jisung had ordered before he got there. Jisung took a sip and Chenle bit his cheek to not laugh at the foam moustache on his upper lip.

"You know, I'm glad I purposely spilled coffee on you that day. It somehow ended up with us here."

Jisung stared at him incredulously. "You spilled coffee on purpose?"

"Hmm?" Chenle smiled back and feigned innocence. "I didn't say that."

"I heard you."

"Did you, though?"

Jisung licked away the foam bordering his lips. "I'm glad too. That you spilled coffee on me maybe or maybe not on purpose."

It had started as most bad ideas started – with Donghyuck, half-drunk on the phone, trying to convince Chenle that it was a great idea. But somehow, the best adventures always came from the worst ideas. And the most memorable destinations were always found in places you were never even looking.

If there was a moral to be found anywhere among his mess of a life Chenle was sure it would be something along those lines.

Those and that you shouldn't piss off lilac-haired baristas because chances are they're your best friend's roommate and your newly acquired boyfriend's friend, and that cute boyfriends were clearly acquired through the spilling of liquids (caramel latte, vomit, tears, anything will do), and that rejection hotlines (regardless of what Donghyuck said) were definitely a shit idea.