Chapter Text
Jun was having a terrible day.
It started out great - he remembered to actually eat breakfast before leaving for work, he found an extra bag of Māo's favorite treats in a cabinet, and he was wearing a cute outfit. (And no, he didn't pick it out himself, Minghao helped. But it still counted as a win in his book.)
It was a glorious, sunny day outside. The birds were chirping, the breeze was breezing, the cars weren't honking as loudly as usual, life was beautiful.
Then he got to work. And was late.
By an hour and a half.
He's usually a punctual person, okay, but Jun forgot to check his email at the end of last week and didn't remember that everyone was supposed to come into the office early for a very important meeting. His boss was pissed off enough that he gave Jun a bunch extra paperwork to finish, meaning he had to stay at work late. As Jun sat at his desk, an adorable picture of Māo staring at him and mocking him for being trapped in this capitalist hellscape, he lamented the fact that he needed money to live. And to feed Māo. (That was more important.)
Then, he caught the train back to his apartment and was almost on his block before realizing that he forgot to pick up Minghao's birthday cake. As he doubled back to the stupid, overpriced bakery that Minghao loved, he cursed under his breath the fact that Minghao had the audacity to have been born on the day he was, making Jun late to feeding Māo - and Māo always gets cranky and avoids him when Jun comes home late or forgets to feed her. Jun's heart can't handle Māo rejecting his love again.
By the time he gets to his apartment he wants nothing more than to flop on the couch, devour some takeout leftovers, and cuddle with Māo.
"Māo, I'm home! I promise I still love you!" Jun drops all of his work stuff straight onto the floor and opens up his arms wide, expecting Māo to come running.
She doesn't come right away. It wouldn't be too out of the ordinary for her to be asleep this time of day, but it's still strange. He toes his shoes off and puts on his house slippers. (They have little cat faces on them, of course.)
"Māo?" Jun starts pspspspsps-ing in hopes that she'll come out from wherever she's hiding.
No luck.
Jun goes to the kitchen and opens up a can of food. The whir of the can opener usually drives Māo crazy, but she still hasn't shown up. Jun frowns.
"Māo?"
Every single worst case situation is coming to Jun's mind. He left a window open and she escaped, someone broke into his apartment and catnapped her, she's gotten trapped inside a wall-
In his frantic nervous pacing he ends up by the couch and thank god, Māo is curled up in one of her heated beds, and she's definitely breathing. But she's not moving and hasn't even noticed that Jun has an open can of food. Jun almost calls 911 before he realizes how stupid that is and instead goes to google "emergency vet near me." The second he gets the address of the closest all-night vet clinic he's rushing to book an Uber. He runs to the kitchen to grab a bag of treats and at the last second grabs his leftovers from the night before. Māo's always trying to steal his noodles, so it's worth a shot.
Nothing works. She still won't move.
Jun's teetering dangerously on the edge of a full mental breakdown at this point. Genuinely, he wouldn't know what to do with himself if something happened to Māo. He can feel his breathing getting too fast as he unlocks his phone, praying that the Uber is almost there. He puts Māo in the cat carrier as gently as possible, and as soon as she's safe and secure, Jun rushes out of his apartment and straight to the elevator. His cat slippers are probably gonna get ruined on the concrete outside, but he could not give less of a shit. He doesn't even know if his front door shut all the way. The world's slowest elevator eventually dings and opens up and Jun rushes inside. It probably takes less than 30 seconds for him to reach the ground floor but it feels like 30 minutes. He sprints out of the elevator as soon as the door opens, straight to the car waiting outside.
One excruciatingly slow (and extremely expensive) Uber ride later, Jun is stumbling out of the car onto the sidewalk in front of the emergency vet clinic, dangerously close to full on sobbing because he doesn't want his precious baby to die in the middle of the night due to his terrible negligence as an owner-
"Sir? Are you going to come in?"
A vet tech is looking at Jun with a very concerned expression on her face.
"Is an emergency vet available?"
"Dr. Lee should be free, but give me one second to double check," the vet tech says as she opens the door wider and gestures for him to come inside. She goes to the phone behind the front desk. It rings for a moment before she greets the vet on the other end.
"What's the issue your cat is having?" It takes Jun a second to realize that she's talking to him.
"Um, she won't eat anything. She wouldn't get out of bed for dinner." She relays this information into the phone and then hangs up.
"I'll help you with any paperwork afterwards, you can go ahead and go to the second room." Jun barely registers her words before he's rushing to the exam room.
He gets to the room in question and the vet gives him a small smile from where he's sat down near the exam table. He's dressed in scrubs with tiny cats printed all over them, and Jun would coo and compliment them if he wasn't busy trying not to cry.
"Hello, Jihyo said your cat isn't eating?"
"I came back from work and usually Māo is right at my feet bothering me to feed her, but she didn't greet me at the door, and even when I opened her food, she just stayed curled up in her little bed by the couch, and she wouldn't eat even when I put a treat right in her face-" Jun's word vomit gets interrupted by the vet.
"Sir, please slow down. It doesn't help either of us, or Māo, to panic." The vet is firm without being patronizing, he must be used to owners freaking out in his office. It's helpful. "You said she wouldn't eat any food? Nothing at all? Has she thrown up?"
"She wouldn't eat any of her treats, not even the special ones, wouldn't eat her canned food, and didn't even blink at my leftovers. She's barely made a noise. Um, if she vomited anywhere in my apartment I didn't notice, I was too busy freaking out. Maybe you can tell. Haha." The vet breezes past his awkwardness and goes straight into doctor mode. (Which is reasonable, that's his job.)
"There's several possibilities, but it's likely that she just ate something bad or is having some digestive issues. I'll do a quick physical exam to check some things. Do you have any more questions?" Jun shakes his head.
Then, something unexpected happens.
The vet must sense that Jun's inner turmoil and anxiety is still making him feel awful and panicky, because he stands up from his stool and opens up his arms to offer him a hug.
Jun realizes two things right away: One, the vet is much shorter than he expected, (no judgement, he's also quite cute) and two, he could really use a fucking hug.
He sets Māo's carrier on the exam table and completely misses the look of confusion on the vet's face in the process. He closes the distance between them with two long strides, opens his arms wide, and hugs him.
~
Jihoon was having a perfectly mediocre day before this overemotional, overgrown, extremely warm man decided to smother him completely.
Yes, he might have the graveyard shift today, and yes, he maybe hasn't drunk nearly enough coffee, but he met a very cute kitten earlier and it was shaping up to be an okay night in the grand scheme of things. (And to be fair, the strange man wasn't overemotional, Jihoon would be ready to commit an extreme amount of crimes the second his cats were in distress, so he can relate.)
But now, he's found himself covered by literally an entire man that's crushing him in a vice grip, cat abandoned on the examining table, and he has no idea how this has happened. He couldn't even hug back if he wanted to because his arms are stuck by his side, constricted by this man's freakishly long limbs. He's tall enough to rest his head right on top of Jihoon's, which he does.
He's known this man for less than a minute and now his face is smashed against his neck, right on bare skin because this guy is the type of person to wear truly unnecessarily deep v-necks in public. Jihoon doesn't think he's moved a muscle or taken a single breath since he got trapped. He breathes in sharply, panic setting in. And now is definitely not the right time to ask this, but Jihoon wonders what cologne the guy uses, because he smells disconcertingly good. But sadly, the mystery cologne is not enough to distract Jihoon from the situation.
He should probably do something.
He doesn't have to make a decision, though, because the man must realize his blunder and the squeezing stops. They stand there in silence for a brief moment before the stranger releases him.
Jihoon lifts his head up very, very slowly.
They make eye contact with each other.
Neither of them says a word.
Jihoon turns his head toward the cat.
"Um."
That's not what he wanted to say.
"Uhh." Jihoon wants to die. He's suddenly forgotten everything he learned in school about how to be a vet, and also everything he knows about how to interact with other humans. "Yeah."
The stranger still hasn't said anything. He looks mortified. Jihoon points at the carrier. "Cat?"
The guy picks up the carrier, still completely silent, and hands the cat to Jihoon.
He doesn't know how he makes it through the the next thirty minutes. It's a complete blur, but he thinks that he does a good enough job of explaining what he's doing, and he's happy to say that Māo looks like she's going to be okay. He was able to induce vomiting and she already seems more chipper than before. The owner's also stopped looking like he's about to have a breakdown. He does look like he could pass out at any moment, but that's fair, considering the day he must have had.
The stranger seems to have found the ability to speak again and the word vomit from earlier comes back.
"Holy shit, I'm so sorry about that, please forget this ever happened, I swear I don't go around strangling vets like that-" The guy cuts himself off to take a deep breath. He holds out a hand.
"I'm just gonna redo that." Jihoon stares at the offered hand. The very same hand that was gripping his shoulder earlier. "I'm Wen Junhui."
Jihoon stares for a second longer before shaking Junhui's hand. Just like the rest of him, it's very warm.
"I'm Lee Jihoon."
"Nice to meet you, Jihoon. You can call me Jun." Jun smiles at him. It's truly unfair how handsome he is, even in his ridiculous v-neck and dirty slippers.
"Uh. You can call me Jihoon."
Jun giggles.
Jihoon can tell that his ears are going red. He doesn't trust himself to say anything coherent in response.
"Thank you again, from me and Māo. I don't know how to repay you." Jun turns his head to look at Māo, who is sleeping soundly in her carrier. The look of exhausted relief on his face is almost too much for Jihoon to handle, but it's moments like this that remind Jihoon why he loves being a vet.
"It's what I'm supposed to do, it's fine. I'm glad she's okay."
"Would you let me take you out to coffee? To apologize?"
If it's unfair how handsome Jun is, it's even more unfair how deadly his pleading face is. He's never seen someone look so much like that stupid emoji. It's dangerous to Jihoon's health.
"Um. Yeah, sure, I guess," Jihoon trails off, truly embarrassed that he's become flustered enough to be incapable of having a regular conversation. He's trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible because he knows looking into Jun's eyes will fluster him more and make him say something stupid.
Jun hands him a scrap of paper with a phone number on it. Jihoon has no idea where he got paper from. Or a pen.
"It was nice to meet you, I guess I'll just go, okay," Jun says as he makes his way over to the doorway. "Sorry about... all of that. Yeah. Okay. Have a good night. Bye."
He makes a truly awkward exit, bumping into the door frame on the way out and cursing in the process, and Jihoon is glad that he's apparently not the only one who's struggling with normal human interaction tonight. He sits down on his stool and lets out a sigh.
Before he can think too hard, he adds Jun's phone number into his contacts and writes a message.
to: Wen Junhui
This is Jihoon.
I'm free on Thursday.
~
(The week after.)
jun: help
jun: he has a cat named potato
jun: I think I'm in love
hao: you've known him for less than a week, please calm down
jun: HE HAS A SECOND CAT
jun: ITS NAME IS HANK
hao: wtf kinda name is that
hao: I think you've met your soulmate
hao: you both have The Worst taste in pet names
jun: THE THIRD CAT IS NAMED FROG
jun: it's settled.
hao: currently sighing
hao: what's settled.
jun: we're having a summer wedding 💖
hao: you can't see it but I'm rolling my eyes at you right now
hao: but if he has a cat named frog... he can't be too bad of a person
hao: I approve
jun: mark my words....
jun: by next summer
jun: wen junhui will no longer exist
jun: there will only be
jun: Mr Lee Junhui
hao: I'm blocking you
jun: we'll be the Mr. Lees with their 4 cats
jun: living out our days in luxury
jun: retired in a house by the seaside
jun: drinking wine on the porch
jun: hand in hand... our other hands petting a cat each...
jun: wait
jun: that doesn't leave hands for our wine
jun: nvm
jun: that's a problem for future me
hao: take the dude out on a real date before you ask for his hand in marriage, damn
jun: trust me
jun: I have a plan
jun: 1st step: meet his cats
jun: 2nd step: ?????
jun: 3rd step: Profit
jun: oh no
jun: help
jun: sos
hao: what????
jun: he's sent me a selfie with all 3 of his cats
jun: oh no
jun: this is dangerous
jun: I'm having feelings
jun: so many feelings
jun: too many feelings
hao: stop texting me and go get your man
hao: AND his cats!!!
jun: I'm doing it
jun: I'm bringing out the kitten pictures
jun: wish me luck
hao: no man could possibly resist the kitten pictures
hao: godspeed, soldier
~