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Chanyeol doesn’t get paid enough for this, but he can handle it.
He can definitely handle this situation.
He’s got this.
It’s fine.
At least that’s what he’s been telling himself in the mirror of the employee restroom for the last five minutes in between splashing himself in the face with water and oh so gently knocking his head on the cool glass. He’s psyching himself up, that’s what this behavior is. Everything is a-okay.
Like how hard could this be, right?
He’s only filling in as head waiter at Junmyeon and Kyungsoo’s new restaurant, Rabbit Run, tonight, just for opening - that’s it. After this he can go back to freelance coding and teaching shitty teens to play guitar and never have to work another shift in the service industry again. He can finally hang up the apron for good.
All he has to do is make it through the next few hours.
“I can pay you under the table, Yeol, please? I’d fill in myself but Jongin’s grandma needs a ride to the hospital and I won’t be back in time for first shift. We just need someone we can trust to handle any first night crises,” Junmyeon had practically begged him over the phone earlier that week. “Sehunnie’s never missed an order, but - well, you know how he is when they talk back.”
‘They’ meaning the customers. Chanyeol is all too aware of Sehun’s professional shortcomings from their years working at Chanceux together. The younger waiter would not hesitate to utterly roast both his own tables and Chanyeol’s to their faces if he thought they were getting ‘mouthy’. If he wasn’t so handsome (and frankly a walking encyclopedia when it comes to wine pairings), Junmyeon would probably have fired him long ago. Instead, Junmyeon had offered him a new job when he quit managing Chanceux to open up his own place, fully aware of the risks.
Junmyeon has a good heart, especially where their maknae is concerned, but he’s also pragmatic to a fault. And sometimes, like now, that pragmatism gently steps over the line into anxiety-induced overpreparedness.
“You’re a good friend, Yeol. Make sure Soo packs up some food for you to take home,” was the last thing Junmyeon had said to him before he had hung up the phone. Chanyeol tried to be a good friend, he really did. He felt guilty about not coming to work for Junmyeon again in the first place. Pulling one last shift was the least he could do for an old friend who was in a bind.
But that was before Kim Jongdae walked in with his manager on opening night.
Everyone with even a passing familiarity with local restaurant reviews knows Jongdae’s blog, his channel, and his Instagram, and thus, his face. Which is even more handsome in person. Chanyeol started following him ages ago on the basis of that face alone, though Jongdae has a reputation for telling the plain, honest truth to beat.
If the food is good and the staff do their jobs well, he’ll leave a good review and a great tip. But there’s no varnishing. If the food or the experience is disappointing, he’ll make his feelings known.
The food will be great, no question about that. Kyungsoo is kind of a genius and he’s personally supervising the kitchen tonight. Under normal circumstances, Chanyeol would be just as confident about the service. Junmyeon wouldn’t short-staff him for opening week, he’s not a total dick. There are enough other waiters, hosts, and bar staff on the schedule to take care of the entire restaurant right up until closing.
Not to mention delegating isn’t really one of Chanyeol’s strengths. Not to Sehunnie. Not with this critical “A Restaurant a Dae” review on the line. Everything is going to go perfectly for this opening on his watch and then, after that, Sehun can “accidentally” spill water on as many Karens as he pleases.
No, Jongdae’s presence alone would have made this a tough opening, but still manageable. A little extra attention would need to be paid on top of the usual first night stress, that’s all. It wasn’t as though he was some kind of monster.
But not even five minutes after Jongdae arrived, that’s when things really went to hell.
Chanyeol is just a casual fan, but even the casual fans of Kim Jongdae know how he feels about the work of Byun Baekhyun. The phrase “elitist prick” (a direct quote from one of his AMAs) comes to mind. Everyone has a different idea of how their rivalry started, but at this point it doesn’t really matter.
Even if Chanyeol hadn’t known about the beef between Kim Jongdae and City Streetlight Magazine’s top columnist slash judge of the local restaurant awards for the last six years in a row, the look of revulsion on the former’s face when the latter walked in the door would have said it all. A look that was only matched by a dramatic eye roll from Baekhyun as he and his companion took their seats.
Chanyeol hastily retreated to the restroom for some deep breathing exercises as soon as both critics started whispering to their tablemates.
Any second now one of the other waiters is going to find him and make him go back out there to take care of them. Rather than start the night off with that kind of fresh, hot embarrassment, he takes one last deep breath and pushes himself away from the sink.
It’s all right. He’s just going to have to wait on both tables himself, even though they’re across the room from each other. That’s ok, it’s no big deal. He’s doing this until the night is over and then never again.
And it’s going. To be. Fine.
-
Baekhyun doesn’t get paid enough for this.
He gets paid a lot, don’t get him wrong, but definitely not enough to prevent him from indulging his long standing rivalry with that upstart Kim Jongdae. Some might call it petty. He prefers to think of it as wholly justified.
He’s pretty sure it’s all Jongdae’s fault they’d become mortal enemies, anyway. That seems like something he would do, the presumptuous little influencer brat.
Baekhyun had just been minding his own business, eating good food and writing the envy-inspiring yet authoritative reviews that had become his signature fare at City Streetlights. So maybe he had made a few less than charitable remarks about certain new trends in restaurant reviewing or dropped a line about “expertise you could actually trust” in one of his columns. Was that such a crime?
“So are you going to tell me who you’re scowling at or should I just assume someone over there is your ex?”
Zhang Yixing is usually Baekhyun’s favorite review dinner guest. His arts and culture column for the magazine has won them enough front row seats and backstage passes that Baekhyun kind of owes him anyway, but really he just enjoys his company. Yixing is unfailingly polite to waitstaff and he’s always good dinner conversation. Unfortunately, he’s also an incorrigible flirt.
“That’s that ‘Restaurant a Dae’ asshole I told you about. The one who said I was pretentious, remember?”
“He’s cute. His friend too, actually. I like his jacket,” is his response when Baekhyun explains the whole nemesis thing.
“No no, you don’t understand. I want to destroy him.”
“Mhmm. I bet you do.”
“Not in a sexy way, Yixing. God. I’m like sixty-two percent sure he’s married or something. No, I want to make him regret the very day he decided to review restaurants on my turf!”
“Yeah but with your dick, right?”
“Hi my name is Chanyeol and I’ll be taking care of you tonight!!!”
(Chanyeol hopes he only imagined the peaky note of hysteria infiltrating his usual greeting.)
Baekhyun tries to be upfront with the places he reviews, so he introduces himself and Yixing to the flustered looking waiter and explains about the article he plans to write. Unsurprisingly, the waitstaff here seem to have recognized him upon his arrival, so aside from the jittery man standing in front of him, nobody seems to be that caught out. Chef Do is undoubtedly making adjustments to the menu as they speak.
He also knows what to expect here - or at least he thought he did. Kyungsoo’s food has always been unfussy and delicious and this opening night dinner at his new place will be no exception. It’s not as though Baekhyun is hard to please either, but he does have a few minor preferences. By now, every restaurant in town even knows to hold the cucumbers when serving him a meal.
Except ten minutes after the fact, when the waiter with the Dumbo ears sets the first course down, Baekhyun nearly chokes to death on his glass of very expensive wine.
“I’m sorry, what is this?” He sputters.
“Our seasonal vegetable carpaccio, courtesy of the gentleman across the room.”
In front of him is a chic white plate piled impossibly high with paper thin slices of marinated cucumber. It takes every ounce of willpower he possesses not to slap the plate off of the table like a displeased cat. Instead, he picks it up and slides it over in front of Yixing, who digs in without hesitation because he’s a good friend.
On the other side of the room, that little shit glances over at him and laughs. Then he starts whispering something to his manager, the one with the jacket. Seokjin? Seokmin? Whatever, something like that.
Needless to say, Baekhyun is fuming. How dare Kim Jongdae deliberately try to ruin his meal like this? And in the most disgusting way possible!
How would he even know what Baekhyun hates? There’s no way he reads his articles, because that would assume he knows how to read in the first place. Seems to Baekhyun that all Jongdae knows how to do is make pedestrian little videos.
Then he remembers something.
“In that one vlog- excuse me!”
He flags the waiter back down excitedly as he’s starting to walk away.
“You watch his vlogs?” Yixing asks. He says it in that know-it-all tone he gets sometimes, but Baekhyun doesn’t have time for this kind of subtext right now. He’s on a revenge mission.
“Shut up, I did it for this exact reason,” Baekhyun spits back at him as Chanyeol approaches. Then he quickly plasters a ‘guileless customer’ smile on his face, prepares his sugariest voice, and turns back to face the waiter.
“Hi! This was so sweet of my friend over there.” He barely gets that first part out through his abruptly gritted teeth “I really appreciate it. Quick question though: could I send something back over to that table? Y’know, to thank him for being so thoughtful?”
Chanyeol doesn’t seem to be buying the whole ‘BFFs’ thing, but to his credit he keeps it professional.
“Of course, what did you have in mind?”
Minutes later, Jongdae’s smug look transforms into an equally schooled mask of manners and appreciation when a tray of half a dozen raw oysters gets delivered to his table. He apologetically exchanges some words with the waiter.
Baekhyun can see him mouth the word “allergic” which he knows from that same vlog is a bold faced lie. He just doesn’t like seafood, but he’s too polite to say anything about it, the absolute idiot.
He says as much to Yixing, who looks down at his forkful of cucumber then back up at Baekhyun a few times. Then he shakes his head and continues eating. If he had some sort of point to make, he would have made it, Baekhyun reasons.
As soon as Chanyeol walks back into the kitchen with the dish, Jongdae turns in his chair to face their table again. He doesn’t look angry or offended, but there’s a determination in his expression that gets Baekhyun’s heart racing. He leans forward onto his folded arms and cocks his head as if to say “Is that all you got?”.
Baekhyun does a finger heart back at him. This is going to be fun.
-
Jongdae doesn’t get paid for this at all. Not yet anyway.
His dinner is on his own dime unlike Snooty McWinepairing over there who gets all his food comped by his fancy magazine. It must be so easy to look down on things like fast casual dining or charmingly relatable live streams from up there on his high horse.
“Do you think that guy with him is single though?”
“Not any more single than when you asked me five minutes ago, hyung.”
Minseokie-hyung, or just Minseok to everyone else, has a degree in marketing and knows his way around a video editing suite. He’s also more or less Jongdae’s manager slash platonic life partner and that’s why he’s here. Some of Jongdae’s followers ship them together - which is only a little bit weird considering how close they actually are. Jongdae is spoken for and Minseok claims he has “standards”, but he still holds the camera for vlogs, edits the blog posts for grammar and SEO, and gets paid in free meals as Jongdae’s most consistent plus one.
Free for him, that is. Between covering Minseok’s food and the extra dishes he’s been sending across the room, this tab is going to hit Jongdae’s wallet a little harder than anticipated. But it’s worth it for the hysterical shade of green that arrogant jerk turned at his surprise entree of halibut with garlic and fennel crema.
That, of course, had been immediately followed by the arrival of orecchiette with pancetta, summer squash, and (revoltingly) broccolini to their table. There are only so many times Chen can pretend to have a serious food allergy tonight when really he just doesn’t like broccoli or seafood that much. So this time he eats around the detested vegetable. At least his earlier lie should protect him from unexpected jeotgal.
“How does he know everything I hate? It’s like he’s some kind of psychic asshole!”
He stabs another sprig of broccolini and forks it over onto Minseok’s plate. As long as it isn’t squid, Minseok will eat just about anything Jongdae offers him.
“Or he’s watched your videos.”
The response hits him like a bolt of lightning and the fork that’s halfway to his mouth drops to his plate with a clatter. That couldn’t be true, right? Why the hell would a fancy bastard like Byun Baekhyun actively seek out the content of someone he thought was beneath him? Unless-
“He did it to sabotage me. He did this on purpose!” Jongdae shoots up out of his chair, ready to get in a fight, but Minseok, with his freakish upper body strength, yanks him back down again.
“You’re an idiot. He was probably just watching the one where you talk about your pet peeves to see if you said anything bad about him. Which, to be fair, you definitely did.”
“He deserved it.”
Jongdae petulantly shovels in another mouthful of pasta and tries not to wince at the sprig of green he’s accidentally bitten into. Because spitting it out would look like defeat and he will not lose. Not while he has a working esophagus.
“Huh, that’s an interesting choice,” Minseok mentions offhandedly. Then he nudges Jongdae, who is already deep in his cruciferous melancholy, and points to one of the side dishes. The devious look in his eye is catching.
“Oooh, good find, hyung,” Jongdae replies, a catlike grin spreading over his face. “You almost never see restaurants serving bitter melon. I wonder what Byun thinks of it. Hey, Chanyeol!”
-
Baekhyun has a bad taste in his mouth and it’s not only from the fucking gourd he just choked down. Do Kyungsoo did his best to transform it into something delicious, but the man isn’t a magician. Bitter melon is always going to taste, well, bitter. Jongdae probably didn’t even guess that Baekhyun hates it when he ordered it over - anybody would hate it, it’s disgusting.
Well, that’s not strictly true. Yixing pulled a face at the first bite, but he ate most of the damn thing anyway.
No, the bad taste is coming from the fact that their meal is already nearly over and so far it feels like his opponent is winning. Baekhyun has never been more disgusted by the food presented to him and it seems like Jongdae has barely broken a sweat. He’ll maybe get a little rise out of the blogger when the bill shows up and he sees all the dishes he waved away or choked down tallied up for him to settle (because why would Baekhyun use good magazine money on something like this?), but that feels hollow somehow.
There’s only one more course and Baekhyun has to get this one perfect. He studies the dessert menu carefully while Chanyeol tries not to sweat next to him. His options here are limited, everything looks delicious.
Well, if he can’t come up with something to disgust Jongdae, he’s just going to have to improvise.
“I’d like to send over this one please,” he points out an item to Chanyeol. “Could you ask the kitchen to write something on the plate with the ganache?”
That shouldn’t be too out of the ordinary. People do that kind of thing for birthdays all the time, right?
“Of course!” Chanyeol answers. “What would you like them to write?”
-
Chanyeol looks a little sheepish when he puts the plate in front of Jongdae, though Jongdae can’t really understand why. Maybe peace offerings make him uncomfortable? Or, well, more uncomfortable than he’s been all evening?
It’s a perfect slice of strawberry galette, exactly what Jongdae had been planning to order, he’d said it himself. Simple, but incredible when done right. The smell coming off of it is like heaven. It’s even drizzled artfully with dark chocolate sauce across the empty space on the plate -
“Suck my dick?!”
Jongdae’s eyes go wide as he realizes a second later that maybe that’s not an appropriate thing to shout across a crowded fine dining establishment.
Silence descends on the room like an iron gate as something that sounds like “Sir, could you please keep it down,” squeaks out of a terror-stricken Chanyeol. On the other side of him, Minseok quietly puts in an order for the vanilla and rum affogato.
Across the room, Baekhyun grins and raises a glass. Like it’s checkmate.
But no, Jongdae isn’t about to let a fucking establishment sellout like Byun Baekhyun have the last word. Not a goddamn chance.
“You know what, Min? Go for it. Rail his friend or whatever, you have my blessing.”
“Bold of you to assume -”
“Just give the poor man your card already! Jesus.”
Minseok hands his business card to the oddly unfazed waiter who pockets it without a word and crosses the room.
“You really think that’s going to work?”
“Hyung, have you seen yourself? Of course it’s going to work.” Minseok leans back in his chair, looking shyly pleased at the sudden praise.
“That asshole is going to be so annoyed when he finds out I got his friend to abandon him for some d - ow! What?!”
-
No shade to Junmyeon, but you could not pay Chanyeol any amount of money to make him come back here and work another shift like this. The therapy alone is going to be a small fortune.
He has been bouncing back and forth across this dining room for what feels like hours now. He’s started to hit the wall. The clock still only says 7:32.
At this point, he’ll do whatever he has to to make these two leave. He’ll even sic Sehun on them with the blowtorch they use to make the creme brulee. They’ve both made it more than clear that their reviews are a mere afterthought to this weird feud they’ve gotten both him and the restaurant involved in. He wants them out before it comes to literal blows.
“The guy at the other table sent this over.”
He exasperatedly hands Yixing Minseok’s business card, not even bothering to politely interject or put on his customer service voice this time. Then he fishes around in his apron pocket and comes up with a few more solicitations he’s been asked to deliver while on his rounds tonight.
“There’s also one here from table seven and,” Chanyeol reads the two other scraps of paper, “Uh wow, that’s massively inappropriate - one from a member of the waitstaff.”
Before he can pocket Sehun’s hastily-scrawled number and save himself from this, the humiliating cherry on his sundae of shame, Yixing snatches all three out of his hand. He’s up out of his seat and gone before Chanyeol can even blink.
Byun Baekhyun, esteemed restaurant critic, barely even notices that his friend has basically just left him without a word.
“So, here’s what I’m thinking, Chanyeol. Can you be a dear and send him a coffee with soy sauce in it? You know, instead of amaretto?” He gestures at Chanyeol with two pretty sizable bills oh so subtly sticking out from between his fingers. Chanyeol idly considers that he should have started taking bribes way earlier than this.
From the other side of the room Jongdae, who is now alone at his table too, weirdly enough, is also trying to wave him over. Probably to ask him to slip Baekhyun a tablet of raw sodium bicarbonate instead of an after dinner mint. Or maybe cyanide if that even comes in tablets, who fucking knows.
“Oh even better, can you make it fish sauce? Or maybe both...”
Chanyeol can feel one of the veins near his eye starting to twitch.
The corner’s of Jongdae’s mouth have turned up into a full manic smile and he’s waving both arms now, while Baekhyun debates the merits of mixing wasabi into this toxic nightmare of a cocktail. Quietly and very calmly, Chanyeol steps away from Baekhyun’s table and over to where Sehun is in the middle of patiently taking an older couple’s order. He unties his apron and hands it to the younger waiter, who looks at him in mild shock.
“Please tell Myeon I’m sorry.”
He says it so softly that Sehun probably only hears the consonants, but he doesn’t wait for a response. He claps his friend once on the shoulder and then just carries on walking - past the bar, through the swinging double doors into the kitchen.
“Order up, Chanyeol. That affogato is ready to go out. Chanyeol? Yeol?”
Kyungsoo tries to flag him down as he speeds past, but he doesn’t stop walking as the kitchen churns out endless dishes around him.
“They don’t need it,” Chanyeol mumbles.
The sound of Kyungsoo’s concerned voice gets quieter and quieter as Chanyeol reaches the staff lockers and grabs his bag. He’ll take the back door out into the alley behind the restaurant so no one can ask him to slip anyone else a proposition via note or poison someone sitting across the room or whatever. He’s pretty sure that’s where things are headed back there and he doesn’t want to be around to see it.
An absolutely filthy moan hits his ears the moment he steps into the alley.
Sure enough, there are Yixing and Minseok up against the bricks, furiously making out and, from the sound of it, probably worse. Chanyeol stops and stares at them, stunned. That is, until the ass-grabbing gets truly aggressive and the moaning reaches a pornographic pitch.
They don’t even notice him power walking by on the way out of the alley, despite his muttering “Never again, not ever again, not for a million dollars, not even for Junmyeon” as they shamelessly dry hump next to the garbage cans. To be fair, Chanyeol also doesn’t notice his new mantra until late on his bus route when a little old lady shifts her purse away from him with frightened eyes.
When he gets home, he barely remembers to lock the apartment door before he’s flinging off his shoes and bag with no regard to where they end up. He stumbles into his bedroom, lights off, and faceplants onto his bed. He falls asleep in seconds with his uniform still on.
Chanyeol doesn’t wake up until his phone, still in his pocket, goes off late the next morning. It’s a Venmo notification and it’s double what Junmyeon had promised him for this one shift.
The text message from Sehun arrives mere seconds later with a link to the newest A Restaurant A Dae video. The thumbnail - Jongdae’s smiling face next to a blurred out second person and a few of the dishes superimposed - seems normal enough. But even through his bleary morning vision, he can tell from the second person’s general hair color that the featured guest is not the usual Kim Minseok.
He could almost swear the blurred out face looks like - no, that’s stupid. They hate each other.
Then he notices the title.
WE GOT ARRESTED! - Storytime Review of Rabbit Run