Work Text:
“Hi, you’re Choi Minki, right?”
Minki glanced up from his iPad Pro where he was busily sketching his fashion designs and saw a man with boy-next-door visuals but with a body that just screamed: I GO TO THE GYM REGULARLY, staring at him.
“Yes, and you are?”
“I’m glad I finally found you!” The man beamed in a half giddy half panting voice. Minki raised his eyebrow as the man reached for his hand. “I’m Kang Dongho. Jonghyun told me to look for you here so that we could talk about the contract.”
“Contract?” Minki repeated, totally confused about what the man—Kang Dongho, was spouting.
“Yeah! Contract! Jonghyun informed me that I needed to talk to you about the contract before we formally start dating!” Dongho gushed, taking a seat in front of his soon-to-be boyfriend and completely oblivious of the fact that said boyfriend was clutching his Apple Pencil so tight that it might break. He reached for his backpack and took out the contract that Jonghyun ever so kindly provided him with. “Here! Jonghyun already wrote all the nitty-gritty details, we just need to go over it together.”
Minki beamed but, deep inside, he was already thinking of ways to kill a certain Kim Jonghyun soon.
* * * * *
“You fucking set me up to do your biddings for you?!” Minki hissed through his phone, all the while keeping the smile on his face as his fake-boyfriend, or should he say, Jonghyun’s client, watched him from inside the cafe with an innocent smile.
God. If Kang Dongho wasn’t so innocent, an epitome of what a nice jock should be—Minki would have smacked that smile away and kicked Dongho’s ass just to release the pent up anger that he was feeling all thanks to his asshole of a best friend.
“I wouldn’t say that I set you up to do my biddings, per se,” Jonghyun answered, completely unperturbed by his best friend’s rage. “It’s more of: I, Kim Jonghyun, the bestest best friend in the whole universe, helped my best friend, which is you, to pay off a semester.”
“By making me do your dirty fake-dating business?!” The anger in his voice seeped through and, with the sudden look of worry in Dongho’s voice, Minki was sure that it was obvious on his face as well.
“Minki,” Jonghyun began with a sigh. If his best friend were here, Minki was sure Jonghyun had that exasperated-disappointed look on his face. “My business isn’t dirty. I’m offering my good samaritan self by helping people with their needs.”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re in Jeju and stopping a wedding from happening?” Minki sardonically said. If he thought Jonghyun would feel a little bit, even just a teensy bit, guilt from what he said, he got it all wrong. And instead, all he got was just a guiltless, heartless monster.
“Minki-ya, sometimes, things like this happen. And sometimes, it’s me who has to do it.”
“You do know that these ‘sometimes’ of yours has been happening a lot, recently, don’t you?” Minki chastised, pertaining to how Jonghyun was on his fifth time from stopping a wedding when they hadn't even finished the first quarter of the year yet. He heard Jonghyun groan, his best friend’s usual reaction whenever he nagged him on his wrongdoings, and that infuriated him further. “Don’t you even have any guilty conscience left, Jonghyun?”
“Minki, having a conscience wouldn’t feed me,” Jonghyun boredly muttered, before taking a deep breath. “Anyway, I have to go, the wedding is about to start and I still need to look for a place to make a grand entrance.”
“And what about Dongho—”
“Just act like you’re helplessly in love with him. I’ll bring you tangerines when I get back, bye.” Jonghyun hung up and Minki stared dumbfounded at his phone.
Not only did he create a monster, but now he had to help said monster with his business.
“Uhm, is everything okay?” Dongho said meekly, standing by the cafe’s door and staring at Minki with a worried smile.
“Yeah,” Minki pocketed his phone and nodded. “Let’s finalize that contract.”
* * * * *
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Minki declared, mouth hanging open as he took in the scene before them.
“Uh, yeah—sorry for not telling you,” Dongho embarrassedly scratched his nape. “I-I don’t want to scare you because, uhm, yeah—it’s a High School Musical themed party.”
Minki turned to Dongho so fast, it would probably cause him a whiplash but, for now, he didn’t care. It’s a High School Musical themed party and he was getting paid insanely by a nice person to attend this? DANG. JUST WOW.
He might as well work for Jonghyun if he’s going to attend parties like this.
“I love it,” Minki gushed, his expression too sincere as he reached for Dongho’s hand. “Let’s not break up tonight, please, huh?”
His fan-boying moment seemed to take the worries out of Dongho, as the older man (Dongho’s older than him, right?), smiled at him in relief and held his hand in his.
“Okay—but, uhm, I don’t have to pay you after this night, right?” Dongho teased with his boy-next-door smile and Minki couldn’t help but coo at that.
“Of course, but next time, you better bring me to a La La Land themed party,” Minki joked back.
“I’ll try my best then,” Dongho grinned before tensing as he stared at something behind Minki.
Minki turned and saw a man dressed in a glittered pink suit next to a man of the same age (or younger) as them dressed in a red university jacket and pants, ala Troy Bolton.
Minki chuckled. “Let me guess, the one in the glittered suit is your ex?”
“Sadly.”
Minki glanced at Dongho’s ex and gave him a once-over. He’s not bad-looking, well—the ex actually looked good. The guy’s handsome, but too ludicrous and showy for Dongho who was obviously a laid back type of guy. “Meh, you don’t deserve him.”
Dongho looked away from his ex-boyfriend and glanced at Minki curiously. “And why do you think that?”
Minki turned away from Dongho’s ex, and stared at his supposed boyfriend of three months. “Because you, my dear honey bunch, could do so much better.”
Dongho cocked his head and raised a dubious eyebrow. “You’ve only known me for six hours though?”
“Sometimes six hours is enough to know a person,” Minki patted Dongho on the chest for a boost of confidence and smiled wickedly. “Now, are you ready?”
“Uh—ready for what?”
“To make your ex regret his life choices, what else?” Minki smirked, before tiptoeing and leaning closer to Dongho. “And with the dagger-like stares that I’m feeling on my back, I think it’s working.”
“Is . . . it?” Dongho gulped nervously, taken aback by the closeness—or more like, the lack of space between him and Minki.
“Uh-huh,” Minki hummed, placing a kiss on Dongho’s cheek before pulling away with a grin. “And I’ll make sure that before tonight ends, he will regret it all his life.”
* * * * *
Making Dongho’s ex regret his life choices was so easy. In fact, it was so easy that Minki didn’t even have to make an effort or act like an helplessly-in-love boyfriend (like what Jonghyun ordered him to do) to complete the job that he was getting paid for.
But then again, it wasn’t actually him nor Dongho’s ex-boyfriend’s jealousy that made things relatively easy.
It was Dongho himself.
Dongho, if Minki could describe him with a word, was a paradox.
Dongho was both fire and ice. Gentle and hard. Innocent and cunning. And the more time Minki spent with him, the more he was drawn into the mystery of who Kang Dongho truly was.
And the funny thing amidst all of Dongho’s absurd contradictions?
Was that it’s all good in the weirdest way.
That as much as Dongho would retort with his no-shit blunt attitude that Minki discovered once they got comfortable with each other, Dongho would balance it with his sweet and kind gestures that left Minki baffled.
In some way(s) that made his heart flutter a lot of times tonight.
It was hilarious actually. Minki agreed (without a choice) to do this job thinking that he would have to be in charge of Dongho in his stupid revenge on his ex, but in the end it was the opposite. He was the one who was led, following Dongho’s steps, as the said man danced his way into this game.
That impressed him. After all, it’s not everyday that someone could take the wheel off his hands. With his past failed relationships, Minki accepted the fact that there’s no guy out there who would be like that.
Well, until Dongho that is.
And it was also because of Kang Dongho and how irrevocably surprising he was, that Minki forgot why he was here in the first place.
That was until Minki heard a loud argument, then loud scurrying and then Dongho’s ex was walking out of the party like a kid who got his lollipop stolen.
In a way, Minki hoped that he did.
But of course, this was just a job.
Minki turned back to face Dongho and inclined his head towards the exit. “Aren’t you going to follow him?” he asked, telling Dongho that if he has plans to get back together with his ex-boyfriend, now was the best time. Though his arms on Dongho’s neck as they swayed in the middle of the dance floor said otherwise.
Dongho glanced at the exit and shook his head. “Nah, I think I’ll stay here.”
“Because you realize that I’m right? That you could do so much better?” Minki asked in jest.
“That, and . . .” Dongho paused and grinned at him with a warm and teasing smile. “I think I’m happy just being with you here.”
Minki chuckled and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve only known me for eight hours though?”
Dongho smirked before leaning down closer to him. “Sometimes, eight hours is enough to know a person.”