Work Text:
“Okay, explain it to me again, because I’m still confused.” Jeongin scrunches up his face. “Why are we going to this very specific coffee shop in this random neighborhood? We have a perfectly good coffee shop near your apartment.”
“Maybe I just want to change things up,” Hyunjin says, already pulling on his face mask, despite still being in the car.
“Uh huh,” Jeongin says.
“It got good reviews, so I want to try it! And I don’t want to be recognized. Going to the one near my apartment makes me more likely to be recognized.”
“Yeah but now I gotta figure out what to get, because I can’t get my usual,” Jeongin grumbles, pulling out his phone.
Hyunjin snorts. “You literally get an iced americano at every coffee shop we go to.”
“Shhh, I might be branching out.”
“Oooh, a hot americano instead? How gutsy.”
Jeongin ignores him in favor of pulling up the menu for the coffee shop they’re going to.
Hyunjin looks out the window, unable to stop himself from fidgeting. He keeps a careful eye on their location, trying to judge how far away they are.
When they’re a few blocks away from their destination, he tells his driver, “Stop here, please.”
His driver obediently pulls off to the side of the road, and Hyunjin fumbles with the door.
“Wait, what?” Jeongin frowns and looks up. “We’re not even there yet, though?”
“I want to walk the rest of the way,” Hyunjin says, getting out of the car. “Get some exercise.”
Jeongin arches an eyebrow, but with a sigh, he drags himself out of the car.
Hyunjin tells his driver that he’ll call him when he needs him, then shuts the door and steps onto the sidewalk. Jeongin follows, reaching up to put on his own face mask.
They start walking, with Hyunjin setting a quick pace. Jeongin keeps up easily, due to his long legs and all, but he keeps shooting Hyunjin suspicious looks out of the corner of his eye. Hyunjin ignores those glances, too focused on calming the excited flutter of his heart.
Soon, the corner coffee shop comes into view, and Hyunjin’s stomach does a weird little flip. So close. He’s waited for this for so long. He feels like he’s going to burst from excitement.
But he has to appear unaffected on the outside, because he knows Jeongin is going to hardcore judge him the moment they step inside.
Hyunjin feels a little bad about lying to Jeongin about why they’re really here, but he just knew that Jeongin would laugh and tease him if Hyunjin told him the truth up front. Besides, he didn’t completely lie to him—he just withheld some vital information. That’s not terrible, now, is it?
They get near enough for Jeongin to see the crowds inside, and the sign out front, and the posters hung up in the window, and he stops walking abruptly.
“Wait,” Jeongin says, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. “Is this…a cup sleeve event…for Lee Minho’s birthday?”
They’re so close, yet so far, and Jeongin isn’t moving. Hyunjin wants to whine at him to get over his shock faster so they can go inside.
“Yes, okay, it’s a cup sleeve event!” Hyunjin says. “It’s nothing huge, can we go now? I really want to get some of the merch before it’s all gone!”
“You want to get merch of Lee Minho?” Jeongin stares at him like he grew an extra head.
“Yes, now come on.” Hyunjin tugs on Jeongin’s arm, but Jeongin isn’t budging. Damn, when did he get so strong? Or Hyunjin supposes he’s just weak. After all, he does have some noodle arms…
“Are you crazy? What if someone recognizes us? What if someone recognizes you?” Jeongin crosses his arms.
“They won’t, hence the hat and face mask.” Hyunjin points at their disguises.
“Oh, yeah, very fool-proof, Hyunjin. What happened to hating Lee Minho’s guts?”
Hyunjin waves the thought aside. “That’s just for show. Besides, at the time when I proclaimed him as my arch nemesis, I did happen to hate him. But then I decided to hate-watch one of his movies and hate-listen to his group’s albums and then one movie turned into two and suddenly I was listening to their whole discography and stalking him on Insta and…”
Jeongin raises his eyebrows, looking unamused.
“You get the gist,” Hyunjin says. “We’ll just be in and out! Come on, please? We came all this way…”
Jeongin just stares him down, his expression unchanging.
Hyunjin lets out a sharp, annoyed breath. “Fine, I’ll buy you dinner.”
“And my drink.”
“And your drink. Can we go now?”
“After you, Mister Self-Proclaimed-Rival-of-Lee-Minho.”
Hyunjin shoots Jeongin a look, and the little shit smiles back so innocently. Rolling his eyes, Hyunjin turns back to the coffee shop, refusing to let even Jeongin’s judgmental stare ruin his excitement.
They step inside the coffee shop, and oh, it’s heaven. Everywhere Hyunjin looks, he sees Minho’s beautiful face. There are posters of all of his TV shows and movies hung up, streamers overhead with little paper cutouts of his head hanging from the ends, balloons, and cute polaroids hung up on the walls. There’s even a life-sized cardboard cutout of him by the counter. A couple of fans are amusing themselves by taking pictures with it.
“All fun and games until someone tries to steal it,” Jeongin mutters.
Hyunjin elbows him, getting an, “Ow!” in response.
They step up to the front counter, where all of the limited-edition cup sleeves are displayed, along with a bunch of Minho’s favorite pastries, which all come with a special photo card! Plus, each photo card is wrapped in a tiny envelope with a heart sticker on it, so it’s a mystery for whichever card you’ll get. Hyunjin can already hear a few fans squealing in excitement over the photo cards they’ve gotten, while others are bartering with only some success.
“This is mildly disturbing,” Jeongin says, glancing around. He suddenly snorts. “Can you imagine if he actually came here and stepped inside to find his face literally everywhere? Like would that be weird or what?”
“So weird,” Hyunjin says absent-mindedly. It’s their turn to order, so he steps up and smiles at the barista, his eye-smile coming through. She smiles back. “Hi, can I get two iced americanos? And then two brownies.”
“Sure thing! Can I get a name for your order?”
“Uh, Sam,” Hyunjin says.
The barista reads him his total, and he pays in cash. Can’t have them seeing his real name on his credit card.
She gives them their brownies with the photo cards attached to them, and Hyunjin almost squeals in excitement like the other fans. Jeongin rolls his eyes.
“Oh my god, there are even tote bags?” Hyunjin says as they step off to the side to wait for their drinks. He gapes at some of the merchandise hanging up around the shop.
“Damn, how much money did the fans spend on this event?” Jeongin sounds almost impressed, but mostly just concerned.
“Here, you want a brownie? I get the photo card,” Hyunjin says.
“Hey, no, back off, this is my photo card!”
“You don’t even want it!”
“Says who?” Jeongin opens the little envelope and pulls out the photo card. He lets out a laugh. “Aha! I got the one from his car racing movie!”
“What?” Hyunjin gapes in disbelief. It’s one of Hyunjin’s favorite looks, when Minho had red hair and unique eye makeup, which included gems around his eyes. It’s also one of the rarest photo cards out there, since Minho did not have that look in the film for very long. Just long enough to take a few selfies and that’s it. And then he deleted the selfies, so only a few fans downloaded the pictures before they were gone forever.
“Well, I bet mine is gonna be better,” Hyunjin says, pulling out his photo card. It’s a cute selfie from when Minho had dark hair but with a blue beret. He’s poking his cheek with one finger in the photo. AKA, absolutely fucking adorable.
“And here I thought you were gonna ask me to trade with you,” Jeongin says.
“Fuck off, mine’s adorable, and I love it.” Hyunjin hugs the photo card protectively to his chest.
Jeongin just snorts.
At that moment, their drinks are ready. Hyunjin giggles when he sees the specialty cup that his drinks comes in, complete with pictures of a smiling Minho and birthday wishes written in a cute font. This will absolutely be his go-to cup at home from now on.
“Can we go now?” Jeongin asks.
“Hold on, I want that tote bag—”
Suddenly, someone screams outside, and Hyunjin and Jeongin nearly jump out of their skin. But then everyone rushes to the front windows, screaming excitedly and jumping up and down, their phones out. There’s a commotion out front, but Hyunjin can’t really see over the sudden surge of people at the door. All he knows is that that’s the only way out, so it looks like they’ll be staying for a while. Might as well buy some cake and get another photo card…
Then he hears someone shout, “LEE MINHO MARRY ME!” and his heart promptly drops to the center of the earth.
“Did she just say—” Hyunjin says, his eyes wide.
“Yup.” Jeongin sips at his drink.
“Is he—”
“Yup.”
For a moment, Hyunjin is elated, but then he realizes the gravity of the situation.
“Oh shit,” he says, his eyes going wide. “He’s here, and he’s gonna see me—”
“Yuppp.” Jeongin checks his nails.
“There has to be a back door,” Hyunjin says.
Jeongin snorts. “What are you gonna do, climb out the bathroom window or something?”
“I can’t stay here—he’ll see me, and then I’ll be ruined! My whole cool, unbothered prince reputation—gone!”
“Oh no, whatever will you do.”
The commotion is getting even louder and higher in pitch, to the point where Hyunjin can barely hear himself think. Fans crowd the front door, where a small team of bodyguards is slowly clearing the way. Over the bouncing heads, Hyunjin catches a glimpse of someone infinitely cool and chic, with designer sunglasses, and a perfectly sculpted face that could pull off any look—
He quickly shakes his head, telling himself to focus, dammit. He dashes to the front counter again, where the baristas are craning their necks to see over the crowd as well.
“Hi there,” Hyunjin says, having to raise his voice a little to be heard. He waves to get the barista’s attention. “Hi. Does this place by chance have a back door?”
“Huh?” The barista glances at him absent-mindedly.
“I said, does this place have a back door?”
“Employees only,” the barista says shortly.
Hyunjin groans in frustration and glances at Jeongin, who looks quite content as he leans against the counter and sucks down his drink through the straw. Then Hyunjin looks back at the crowd, where Minho is quite visible now. Minho has taken his sunglasses off and is grinning from ear to ear as he signs autographs and poses for selfies with fans, all of whom gush about how handsome he is and wish him a happy birthday.
How nauseating. Hyunjin is so jealous that he could puke.
It’s clear that Minho is coming this way, though, so Hyunjin has to move it.
“Please let me use your back door,” Hyunjin begs the barista.
The barista glances at him one last time, then does a double-take, her eyes widening with recognition.
Hyunjin barely has time to think, Oh shit, before the barista exclaims louder than the crowd, “HWANG HYUNJIN?!”
Hyunjin swears he can hear everyone’s eyes snap to him. He makes a quick silencing gesture at the barista, hissing, “No, no, why did you say that?”
“It’s Hwang Hyunjin!” the barista shouts again, and Hyunjin groans.
Now it’s very clear that everyone heard her correctly, and the commotion starts up again, except this time it’s directed at him.
“Hwang Hyunjin? What the hell is he doing here?”
“I thought he hated Lee Minho?”
“He’s just trying to rain on Lee Minho’s parade! Ugh, he’s so jealous!”
Now Hyunjin really has no choice but to turn and face the music.
So he turns around to face the crowd and the front of the store, immediately locking eyes with none other than Lee Minho, his acting rival and longtime secret celebrity crush.
Though Hyunjin wonders if it will really be a secret after this.
“Hwang Hyunjin?” Minho says, giving a short laugh of disbelief. God, why do his eyes have to sparkle like that every time he smiles? How annoying. “Wow, of all the places to run in to each other.”
Hyunjin laughs too, but it comes out a little higher-pitched than normal. He almost cringes. Jeongin definitely has his phone out and is definitely recording all of this as blackmail material. The little shit.
“Oh, hey, Minho,” Hyunjin says. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
The fans all raise their eyebrows skeptically, like, seriously? Hyunjin shoots them looks and says, “Hey, most idols and actors don’t show up to their own cup sleeve events, okay!”
“Did you come all this way to get a cup sleeve?” Minho asks. “And photo cards?”
“Pfft, no. Where did you get that idea?” Hyunjin crosses his arms.
“He totally did! He bought two photo cards and a cup sleeve!” the barista pipes up behind him.
“I even heard he wanted a tote bag!” Jeongin calls from the corner of the room.
Hyunjin shoots him a look of total betrayal as the room erupts into chatter again. Hyunjin feels himself flush noticeably enough even under his mask, having been caught red-handed.
“Wow,” Minho says. The bastard is grinning, though there’s a mischievous glint in his eye. “And to think you pretended to hate me all this time. I see how it really is.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, I just happen to live in the area,” Hyunjin retorts.
The room buzzes again with chatter, and Hyunjin’s eyes go wide when he realizes what he just said.
“I mean, no, I most definitely do not live in this area,” he says. “Actually, I live halfway across town. But I just happened to be in the area when this was happening, so I stopped by.”
“Uh huh.” Minho looks like he’s enjoying this too much.
Hyunjin clears his throat and squares his shoulders. “Not like it’s any of your business. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to leave.”
“Not through the back door?” the barista says with a grin.
“I most definitely did not try to leave through the back door,” Hyunjin says, holding his chin high as he walks forward. “Excuse me.”
The fans giggle as he walks by, stepping out of the way for him. More than a few snap pictures of him, and he has no doubt that others are recording videos of him.
He groans inwardly. This is going to be all over social media tonight.
“See you later, Hyunjin!” Minho calls.
“Yeah, yeah,” Hyunjin says over his shoulder, waving him off. After a moment of consideration, he adds, “Happy birthday, Minho.”
He catches up with Jeongin at the front door, who grins and says, “You sure you don’t want that tote bag?”
“Oh shut up.”
Jeongin laughs, and they leave the coffee shop together.
Hyunjin’s face continues burning with embarrassment the whole way home.