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If someone told Donghyuck that he would make a deal with Jung Sungchan that was not at all in his favor, he wouldn’t believe it at all. In fact, he’ll go the extra mile and call that person stupid while saying, “I’m Lee Donghyuck! Everything works in my favor.” He’s doubting himself at the moment as he watches Sungchan write down his number on Shotaro’s drink.
He was proud of his friend for asking out his crush, of course. He was tired of talking about Renjun and thinks Sungchan is tired of him talking about Renjun too. These days it was Renjun this, Renjun that— He’s thinking about him right now! His feelings were a disease, an incurable one, and Renjun was the source.
“Hyung, do you think he’ll call me?” Sungchan snaps the other out of his thoughts.
“Duh, of course, he will.” Donghyuck smiles and playfully hits the other, “You’re hot, apparently, he’ll definitely call you.”
The taller hums and watches Shotaro leave the cafe, “How are you going to confess to Renjun-Hyung?”
Donghyuck freezes and looks away from Sungchan, “Don’t know.” He beatboxes as a coping mechanism.
“Hyung! Seriously!?” Sungchan groans and grabs the other by his shoulders, “It’s too late to back out now, Hyung. I gave my number to Shotaro, now you have to do your part of the deal!”
“It isn’t that easy, okay! I don’t even know if he likes me back—” Donghyuck tries to reason before getting rudely interrupted.
“He definitely likes you back!”
He sighs before looking up at Sungchan, “I think he thinks I like Mark-Hyung.”
“Oh.” Sungchan lets go of his Hyung, “Things suddenly make a lot of sense.”
“Before you ask me how I know, he started asking me Mark-related questions a lot for the past few days—and before you say I should just tell him I don’t like him, I tried to tell him, like, yesterday! But I saw him with Jaemin and sulked all day.” A pout forms on his lips as he looks away from the other again. “He’s been avoiding me for days, sorry I never told you. Thought you would get annoyed at me if I kept talking about him.”
It was quiet for a little, with no new customers, only the murmur of the cafe and the ambiance music filling in their conversation. “Donghyuck, I’m your friend. You can rant about Renjun all you want, I’m just here to listen and give my opinion.”
Donghyuck sighs and smiles a little, “I might have to hold off my end of the deal, but I promise I’ll talk to him.”
These days, luck is not on Donghyuck’s side. He spots Renjun leaving the cafeteria, but is held up by Yangyang—definitely disowning him after this—asking him if he has extra money; He sees Renjun pass by his class, but it’s not like he can talk to him during class; After class, he tries to talk to the guy but sees Jaemin at his side. Pain, pain! This is all Yangyang’s fault. He really thought he could do this today, everything was on his side! Spiritual TikTok said the person that wanted to talk to him most was R, how come he can’t even get a chance to talk to R!
He can’t even make himself mad at Jaemin. If anything, he’s the one to blame because he kept hesitating! Now his crush thinks he’s crushing on that horrible excuse of a “crush”, Mark Lee—ew! Maybe this never would’ve happened if he just confessed earlier and stopped ranting to Sungchan.
How does Renjun even know the guy? Where could they even meet? Jaemin is an art major and his classes are nowhere near Renjun’s. Thinking about it more, how did Donghyuck even meet Renjun? The guy doesn’t drink coffee, doesn’t eat sweets, and is pretty much the formula of not-a-cafe-guy. They share no classes together, their classes literally take place on the opposite sides of campus. The only way they could’ve met is if Donghyuck visits Sungchans dorm, but even then Renjun would probably be holed up in his room. How? A flashback is definitely needed so he thinks back;
The bell on the front door rings and Donghyuck looks up to see a petite man enter. Realizing Sungchan is at the back putting on his uniform, he puts down his homework and puts on a smile, “Welcome to Nice Coffee Time! Wha—”
“Water.”
“Huh?”
“Venti cup of water, please.”
Donghyuck is flabbergasted, to say the least. He bites back his sass and looks at the customer straight in the eye, unimpressed. “Name?”
“Huang Renjun.” Renjun looks at him back with the same deadpan face.
There were no sparkles, rainbows, sunshine, or love-at-first-sight music—no. There was only an asshole that was ordering plain and tasteless water while treating their place like a Starbucks. “Well, Renjun, there’s a door right behind you so—”
“Ah, Renjun-Hyung!” Jung Sungchan butts in to ruin the moment. Hold on, does he know this dude?
Donghyuck turns to the other, resting a hand on his hip, “Do you know this guy, Sungchan?”
“Yeah, this is my roommate, Renjun.”
Cut! Flashback over. He snaps himself out of his thoughts as he exchanges a hello with the morning shift guy, Johnny, before changing into his uniform quickly. He’ll ask Sungchan when he comes in if he can come over to talk to Renjun himself, yeah, good idea. He psyches himself up and exits the staff room before coming face-to-face with the owner and letting out a scream.
“Fuck! I mean—oh gosh, darn, narly, uh b-biscuits! Hello, Mr. Lee! You scared me!” He straightens up again at Mr. Lee's unimpressed face.
Mr. Lee raises a brow before saying, “A little birdie told me that you’ve been missing your shifts again.”
“Who told you that!” Donghyuck laughs fakely before shutting up again, “Sorry.”
The older sighs before placing a hand on Donghyucks shoulder, “I know you guys are student part-timers so I’ll let it slide, okay?” The sound of the bell on the front door alerts the both of them, “Just remember that you have a job to keep. Love ya, kiddo.”
Donghyuck smiles and engulfs the other man in a hug, “Yeah, love you too, Taeyong-Hyung! Promise I’ll do it less!” He runs off to the front counter, barely registering Taeyong calling his name as he attends to the customer.
After a few minutes, he sees Sungchan come in with a skip in his step. They exchange a hello and Donghyuck takes notice of the rise in pitch at the end.
“Hey, Hyung!” Sungchan smiles and hums —he fucking hums.
“You seem happy today.” Donghyuck raises a brow as he starts cleaning the drink-making area, “Shotaro text you?”
“We had lunch together, Hyung!” Sungchan is 6—no, 6000ft below the ground in love. “He was so cute! You know when he chews…”
Donghyuck would like to sit down and listen to the taller talk about Shotaro eating for hours on end, but not today. If this is what he sounded like ranting about Renjun, God, he would be so sick of himself. “Okay, Sungchannie, pause.” He puts his hand up and zips the other's mouth, “Stop talking about how cute Shotaro is and more about what you guys actually did.”
In the end, he didn't even get the chance to ask Sungchan if he could come over.
Donghyuck smiles as he hears the bell ring, “We- Oh, you.” His expression turns sour as he sees the customer in front of him, grabbing a cup.
“Hi.” Renjun smiles at him, “What’s your name?”
He scoffs, filling the cup with ice, “Why do you want to know?” The cup is filled to the brim with ice as he places it down on the counter.
The shorter’s smile fades before he raises a brow, “I see someone pretty, I want to ask for their name.” He gestures towards the drink this time, “Who’s this for?”
“It’s a Venti cup of water.” Donghyuck smiles again. There’s really no reason why he’s doing this.
Renjun returns the smile and pushes back the cup to Donghyucks side, “I don’t drink cold water.” He laughs as Donghyuck rolls his eyes, “Now, what’s your name?”
Donghyuck watches the guy pull out his wallet and put a few thousand won in the small charity box. “What’s going to happen if I tell you?” The only response he gets is another smile and he swears he wants to rip that smile off the other's face. Deciding Sungchan’s roommate is, probably, not a serial killer, he rolls his eyes again, “Call me Haechan, you have no real name rights.”
Donghyuck wakes up in the middle of the night with a headache, “Jesus, what is that dream?” He groans, sitting up to grab a glass of water from the kitchen. When he actually exits his room, his roommate is on his computer typing away while mumbling some gibberish to himself. “Jeno? You’re still up?”
Jeno stops and cranes his head to look at Donghyuck, “Uh, yeah, sorry. Was I loud?”
“Nope, don’t worry.” He yawns and walks towards the fridge. “What are you doing?”
“I’m editing a video for my channel instead of my animation assignment due in two weeks.”
“So what I’m hearing is, you can’t sleep?”
“Yup,” Jeno chuckles and stretches, the sounds of bones cracking making Donghyuck cringe.
“Ew, get a massage.” Donghyuck leans on the small kitchen island, “Do you want some coffee?” The other only hums as a reply while Donghyuck activates barista mode, tiptoeing to reach the cupboards to grab a coffee sachet. “Can you give me some advice while I make your coffee?”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, there’s this guy…”
“A date?”
Renjun nods while putting in a few bills in the charity box, “Yeah, you wanna?”
Donghyuck scoffs before waving his hand, dismissing the mere thought of it, “No thanks, Renjun.” He fills the cup with lukewarm water before giving it to Renjun. “What am I going to get out of this date?”
“Me.” Renjun shrugs before taking the cup, “Free food too.”
Fuck, Donghyuck can’t pass up free food. But this is Renjun we’re talking about! The guy gets a big-ass paper cup filled with warm water for free every single day; how’s he going to pay for Donghyuck’s expensive taste? “What a gentleman.”
“You don’t have to go with me, Haechan, but something is telling me you’re going to go on this date with me sooner or later,” He flashes Donghyuck a smile before taking his leave.
Free food didn’t sound that bad to Donghyuck if he got to see that smile again.
“So your crush thinks you like Mark-Hyung? Sounds horrible.” Jeno laughs as he takes a sip of his coffee.
“Yeah, but now he’s hanging out with some other guy—To be honest, I think he played me.” He pouts and crosses his arms, “What if he’s, like, going with that guy now that he thinks I like Mark-Hyung?”
It was silent for a little before the other replies, “This probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I think confessing is better than bottling up your feelings. It’ll hurt less if your crush is actually seeing another guy.” Jeno closes his laptop and looks straight at his roommate, “And if he is, tell me his name and we can go beat him up together, alright?”
Donghyuck laughs at that, rolling his eyes playfully before thinking about confessing. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” As if he’s ever going to tell him Renjun hangs out with Jeno’s crush.
Confessing isn’t as easy as it sounds, Donghyuck realizes. Maybe it was because of his massive inflated ego that he thinks Renjun should be the one to say something, or maybe it was because he was scared. Scared of what though? He doesn’t know. It’s not like he has anything to lose at this point, his crush already thinks he likes another guy. Donghyuck is as single as a pringle and Renjun was the last pringle in the can, out of reach. Wow, how poetic.
How would he confess even? Make it grand? Maybe initiate the date himself and spill? Walk up to him in the cafeteria? Go to his dorm? Shout out his con—yeah, definitely not that. Sungchan makes it look so easy. He didn’t even need Donghyuck's help, probably. The boy is so head-over-heels for Shotaro they might even start dating in a few weeks, days even.
Donghyuck has had all the chances to confess before but he let them all slip. That day they got stranded at a convenience store under the rain; when Renjun and he were alone at the field watching some Chads play whatever; when they were in Donghyucks room sharing earphones just listening to music. Fuck, his chest only hurts when he thinks about those times.
“Hey.” Speak of the devil, “Are you okay, Donghyuck?”
“Hi, uh, yeah.” His brain is operating on autopilot as he goes to grab a cup, “I’m good.”
Renjun grabs Donghyucks wrist, letting it go at the same second, “Sorry, I just, uh, don’t need a drink today.”
“Oh.” He puts it back down and clears his throat, leaning on the counter, “What do you want?” It came out more aggressive than intended, but Renjun didn’t comment on it.
“Want to go out later?” He asks, pulling out his wallet to donate again.
Shit, this is it. Lee Donghyuck, it's time to shine! “Sure! Where?”
“My dorm?”
“The fuck, is this a booty call?” Fuck, he thought out loud, “Wait—Sorry, holy shit.”
Renjun laughs, covering his mouth to muffle it, “It depends if you want it to be?”
“No!” Donghyuck puts his hands up in defense, covering his face, “God, ew! No!”
The other smiles at him, grabbing his arm to pry his hand away from his face, “Sunshine, it’s just my dorm. You’ve been there before! I’m not going to do the nasty with you.”
“Alright! I’ll go, I’ll go.” He rolls his eyes, crossing his arms again, “What drink do you want?”
“I want to try your Iced Tea.”
He nods, turning around and letting his mind wander as he makes the drink.
“A convenience store?” This is not what Donghyuck was expecting from free food.
“Yeah,” Renjun looks at Donghyucks unamused face, “What did you expect? A fancy restaurant?”
Perhaps, but Donghyuck wasn’t going to say anything. He walks in without his date and sits on one of the dine-in seats, directly under the air conditioner. He doesn’t know why he agreed to this date. Was it because he was single and alone and love-deprived? Renjun was pretty cute, his first impression just didn’t match with his appearance. Was this pettiness? Probably. Who wouldn’t be offended if a person went inside your humble-not-Starbucks-cafe and treated it like one!?
He feels his date sit next to him, eyeing him from his peripheral vision. “Relax,” Renjun starts, placing down an instant cheese ramen cup in front of him, “I’m not going to do anything weird.”
“We met, like, a week ago. I don’t trust you.”
“If I was a secret psycho, Sungchan wouldn’t be working in the cafe with tip-top mental health.”
“I hate that you’re right.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes before tearing open the lid, “What do you study?” Cool conversation starter, bro. Hit him with that sexy extravert-ness!
The other hums, “Architecture.” Mirroring Donghyucks action and putting in the seasoning, Donghyuck cringes at that.
“What the hell. Put water first, then seasoning!”
He looks at Donghyuck with an eyebrow raised, “This is ramen, Haechan, not cereal. It’s literally going to taste the same.”
“Still!” He groans, bottom lip jutting out, “It messes with my brain, like, something is wrong.”
“Yeah, right.” Renjun grabs his and Donghyucks cup, “I’m going to fill this with water.”
After Donghyuck deems Renjun out of sight, he slumps in his seat thinking: “This is going to be a long-ass date.”
“What?” Did he think out loud again? Fuck that strange ass habit he has.
“Nothing!”
Renjun comes back and puts down the ramen cups on the table, “If you want to add the seasoning, I suggest you do it now.”
“I know how to eat instant ramen, boo.” He rolls his eyes and slides the cup over to himself, tearing open the pack of seasoning.
“Boo? Are we using nicknames now?” Renjun laughs and leans on the table, “I’ll call you something like Sunshine then.”
It’s hard to ignore the blush that appears on Donghyucks face as he straightens up, whipping his head to the other boy, “What?”
“Haechan means Full Sun, right?” The boy smiles, “Sunshine is perfect.”
“Huang Renjun!” He calls out nonchalantly as said boy rises from his seat to take the drink.
“Y’know, Sunshine, you don’t have to call out my full name all the time.”
He rolls his eyes the nth time that day, “You don’t have to call me Sunshine all the time.”
“Touchè,” Renjun replies as he takes his drink, “My dorm, okay? After your shift.”
Donghyuck only nods as he watches Renjun take the straw in between his lips, face scrunching at the sweetness. To be fair, he tried to make it less sweet for the boy. “Yeah, bye.” As the other boy leaves, Donghyuck starts planning out Operation: Confess to Renjun Stupid Bitch.
It was their fourth date in the convenience store again. They shared a large cup—more like a bowl, actually — of ramen and talked about whatever things they did that day. School, the cafe, their future, and whatnot. The two became quite comfortable with each other, shoulders bumping against each other every now and then as Renjun shares a story about an art kid he couldn’t remember the name of.
“He said he needed to make rings for an assignment and just asked the first person he saw, which was me,” He laughed before continuing, “I said I’d think about it and we exchanged numbers so I thought, hey, maybe Sunshine would like matching rings.”
Donghyuck hits the other's shoulder at the nickname, “I already told you my name a while ago, stop calling me Sunshine.”
“Aw, but I like Sunshine!” Donghyuck really likes Sunshine too which is why he wants Renjun to stop calling him that. “I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“It — No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable.” He mutters, repositioning himself in a way so that Renjun won't see the prominent blush on his face.
“Then do you not like it? Is it awkward?” The concern in Renjuns voice makes him feel bad and Donghyuck wants to turn around and kiss him —
No, he doesn’t want to kiss him. “It’s not like I don’t like it!” He stumbles on his words before blurting out a random excuse, “It’s a little sad that I’m the only one with a nickname?” It was an awkward silence on Donghyuck's end before Renjun stifles a laugh, covering his mouth. “What!”
“Nothing!” Renjun laughs more at his flustered expression.
“Well, there’s clearly something!” Donghyuck pouts, taking his drink and drinking from the straw.
The other stops laughing after a while, slurping up some ramen before saying, “I like Moomin, so if you want you could call me that.”
Although present-day Donghyuck rarely ever uses the nickname, there were literal stars in past-Donghyucks eyes at that. “Really?”
“Yup,” He smiles and hums again, “So let’s talk about those matching rings again.”
Operation: Confess to Renjun Stupid Bitch was quite simple. Step one, enter the dorm; Step two, take advantage of all the food and cuddles and sweetness; Step three, steal an album or two from Renjuns growing collection; Step four, take the walk of shame home if rejected or make out with him. Today was probably going to be the last day he’s stepping foot into Sungchan and Renjuns dorm and he was going to make the most of it.
He was confident in Operation: Confess to Renjun Stupid Bitch but he wasn’t confident in himself. The walk of shame home didn’t sound very enticing, when would it be anyway? He was going to confess! He’s a barely-functioning young adult with the mind of a high schooler and confessing was the last thing on the list for him. He would much rather stand naked in the middle of a crowd than open up such intimate feelings to the cause of such intimate feelings.
Here he was in front of Renjun and Sungchan’s dorm, hands in a tight fist, barely registering the pain from his nails digging into his palms. A sudden wave of panic rushed over him—what if he actually was getting played with? What if he really was a stupid bitch all along? All jokes aside, this scared him badly.
He always put up the act of a tough bitch around others, only opening up to those he trusted the most. He rarely cries or gets scared during horror movies, always the one people look for when they need help and not the other way around. Renjun brought out all this vulnerability from him so quickly, took him mere days for Donghyuck to start feeling fidgety at the mere mention of his name.
It started with just him donating a few bills to the small and mostly empty charity box; the small, gentle touches and looks of concern when Donghyuck has an off-day; texting good morning and goodnight to him every day; helping him with his stupid projects and essays when he's in a completely different major. All of the care and sincerity in each of Renjun's actions towards him or complete strangers made him open up so much more to the boy. Donghyuck felt like he could depend on someone and not put up this tough bitch act anymore. All these feelings just made him, well, a stupid bitch.
Gathering up his courage, he lifts up his arm and knocks. Well, it was more like a knock since, after the first, Renjun already opened the door for him. “Sunshine!”
All the weight on his shoulders lifts as he lets go of a breath he was holding, “Sorry, Jun, did you wait long?”
“No, not at all,” He shakes his head before opening the door wider, inviting him inside. “I have to—uh, get something from my room real quick.”
Renjun runs off leaving Donghyuck alone in the middle of the dorm. Why was Renjun so tense? He had no time to think as Renjun had already returned with a small box in his hand. “What’s that?”
“So, uhm—Fuck, where do I start.” Donghyuck watches Renjun stumble over his words, he finds the situation confusing.
“Hey, Moomin, slow down.” He takes the boy's hand and squeezes gently, “It’s just me.”
The other smiles at that, his lips pressing together in a fine line while thinking about the next words he’s going to say. “Well, remember the art kid that needed rings? He finished a while ago and turns out he’s Jaemin, your roommate's crush, and—”
“What!?” That was unexpected, “Jaemin is art kid?”
Renjun nods before continuing quickly, “Yeah—so he finished and I just wanted to give it to you quick.” His eyes look down as he breathes in deeply, “I also wanted to take the chance to confess to you. You like Mark-Hyung and I don’t think it’s right if I just keep these feelings with me. Honestly, you mean the world to me, Hyuck, and I don’t want to end up holding a grudge against you or Mark-Hyung just because of my feelings. If it makes you uncomfortable, then it’s okay, I could stay away from the cafe and you completely. I don’t need an answer, I already knew I was going to be rejected ever since Sungchan told me you liked him.”
At this point, Donghyuck doesn’t know he wants to laugh, cry or die. Maybe all because he’s on his knees, ugly crying while holding Renjuns hand like it was the last day on earth. “Renjun—”
“You don’t have to feel bad for me, I—”
“No! Shut the fuck up, listen.” He uses his other hand to wipe his tears, looking up at the other, “I like you , idiot. I never liked Mark-Hyung, that’s gross!”
It was Renjuns turn to kneel down on the floor, “You don’t have to return my fee—”
“Shut up! Listen, whatever the fuck Sungchan told you is probably a misunderstanding.” He embraces the other in a hug, not willing to let go until stupid bitch number two understands. “I like you , Renjun. I was coming here to confess and was prepared to get rejected—Bitch, I thought you were playing me and seeing Jaemin instead! Then you spew out some I like Mark bullshit and say Jaemin is ring art kid and that I have to beat up Sungchan later.” He’s full-on sobbing, holding Renjun tighter every second. “Don’t you dare say you are willing to just give up on me just because I like someone else, which is not true, you coward!”
There they were, two boys ugly crying while hugging each other and Donghyuck couldn’t have asked for a better result. “So, we both like each other?” Renjun pulls away and clutches the ring box to his chest.
“Obviously, dumbass.” Donghyuck scoffs while sniffing up snot, eyeing the box, “Well?”
“Oh, right.” Renjun smiles and opens up the box. Two (not real) silver rings fit snugly in the black foam around them. Carved on one was “Moomin” and on another “Sunshine”, Jaemin outdid himself in Donghyuck's opinion.
“Fuck, that’s so pretty.” Donghyuck muses still sniffing as he picks up the Moomin ring. “Give me your hand.”
Renjun does as he’s told, hesitating between his right or left before Donghyuck gets impatient, grabbing the right one and slipping on the ring. It could’ve been more romantic if it weren’t for the dried tears on their cheeks, swollen eyes, and stupidity. Renjun does the same, slipping the ring on Donghyucks finger. They both smile at the sight, taking in the new accessory on their hands as they intertwine fingers.
“So, boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends.”
Snuggled up against each other watching a movie in Renjun’s room, a thought enters Donghyucks head, “Renjun, why did you come into the cafe that day?”
Renjun shrugs and simply says, “I was visiting Sungchan and ran into God instead.”
The blush on Donghyucks cheeks apparent before he throws another question, “Why did you think I liked Mark-Hyung?”
“Well,” He starts, “Sungchan said you wouldn’t stop talking about Mark and that you love him and how he raps.” Renjun pouts and looks at Donghyuck, “Mark-Hyung raps! So I assumed you loved him…”
At that moment, Donghyuck bursts out laughing tears threatening to fall from his eyes, “Moomin, I was talking about Mark Tuan from GOT7."
Sungchan comes home that night, mentally and physically unprepared for the beating he's about to get from the two.