Work Text:
If you’d told Minho that he would meet the love of his life, during a thunderstorm a couple of days after he had just opened up his cat cafe, he wouldn’t believe you. In fact, even five years on he still wouldn’t be able to hide his surprise every time he recalls the story.
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Opening a Cat Cafe has been one of Minho’s biggest dreams since he gave up dancing as a profession, yes he was young and to give up dancing as his job was horrible. Still, after a nasty injury to his hamstrings and the doctor's advice to no longer continuing his dancing dreams, Minho had packed up his bags and immediately decided to open the cafe he had always wanted when he was younger.
A Cat Cafe.
If you had asked Minho what he loved most in the world he would respond with Cats - and then Jisung quickly replaced that spot a few years later- so when Minho opened his cat cafe at the age of 25 his new adventure began.
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It was late in the evening, nearing nine at night and Minho was excited to be shutting the shop for the day finally. All the cats apart from cute little Dori who Minho owned and brought to and from the cafe on the days he worked there. Which was most days, considering he was the owner.
It had been a few days since the opening of his cafe, and things were steady, there were a decent amount of people who came and went and all praised the boy for his hard work in re-constructing the old building which had been left abandoned a few years prior. Many customers had popped in for a takeaway excited to finally have a cafe nearby on their route to work in the mornings.
Since starting, Minho had hired three full-timers and a couple of part-time workers to help run the shop during opening hours, however, once it hit five he would let them go and just run the shop single-handedly for the remaining hours due to the slow foot traffic that would past at night time. This is why Minho was even more surprised to hear the bell jingle signalling his first customer in three hours.
“Oh, Hi sorry but-” Minho had begun to speak to announce the shop was actually closing but he immediately paused and took one look at the poor boy standing in the doorway. He was drenched from head to foot, clutching onto what seemed to be a bag under his waterproof coat.
“A-are you still open?” The boy asked anxiously, eyes darting around noticing the void of people and the lights all dimmed.
“Yes, for about 30 more minutes” Minho didn’t have the heart to turn away the poor boy who sighed in relief after hearing that they were still open. Minho watched curiously as the boy shuffled along to a table by the window and unzipped his coat before shedding it onto the back of his chair.
Minho released a loud gasp when he noticed that the rain had soaked right through, making the boy's jumper seep with water.
“Do you want a towel?” Minho asked as he began to walk over to the boy, Dori following alongside him interested in the stranger from the rain.
“Oh, you have some here?” the soaked boy turned around from where he was pulling out a laptop from his bag which seemed to have luckily survived the downpour.
“Umm, yeah, they are mainly used for the cats, but I think you might need it more right now” Minho let out a soft chuckle.
“Yes please, you don’t happen to have wi-fi do you? I just need to submit some college work” The boy bit his lip in anticipation.
Minho would usually say to customers that he didn’t have any wifi, mainly because yes, they had cafe internet for the workers, but the owner was more reluctant to give it out to strangers knowing they could hack into everything else just by being simply connected to their phone. But one look at the boy with puffy cheeks, and big wide eyes expecting a yes, and Minho was a goner.
“Sure! Let me just grab the towels and I’ll bring back the password from the Wi-Fi box” Minho spun on his heel and quickly directed his attention to getting the boy some towels and the password, which luckily wasn’t anything embarrassing. But in years to come it definitely didn’t change to ‘HanJisungisaKitten’ when he decided to change the password to be more ‘fitting’ to the Cat Cafe atmosphere.
Minho made his way into the small stockroom full of cat supplies and plucked out two of the freshly clean towels which would’ve been used tomorrow but alas he has more important issues to handle now than worrying about the lack of towels in the vicinity. Taking a quick detour to grab the password and the network name, Minho made his way back out to the front of the shops and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Dori sitting on the stranger's lap.
Dori the cat who would never approach anyone whilst at the cafe and opted to stay away and bask in the sun most days was now happily receiving all the pets and affection possible from the small boy in the chair.
“You’re so adorable, what’s your name cutie?” Jisung let the cat kneed onto his legs before twirling around and settling down to curl up on the damp lap, which was probably not ideal.
“His name is Dori” Minho spoke up, answering the question whilst he approached so he wouldn’t scare the boy and make Dori jump off him.
“Cute name huh? I feel bad though, I'm soaking wet and now he’s made his home on my lap, I can’t move, I’m officially stuck here forever” the boy joked as he turned to Minho who passed along the two towels.
“Sorry, they aren't the biggest, fluffiest towels in the world but they’ll do.”
“No worries, thank you - uh?” The boy stopped in his speech as he released he still had no idea who this man even was.
“Minho, I’m Minho” The older boy smiled and leant down the scoop up Dori so that Jisung could wrap himself up in the towels.
“Thank you Minho, I’m Jisung” Jisung grinned and used one towel to dry his hair so that water was no longer dripping down his neck and down his back.
“Nice to meet you, umm Can I ask why you were out in the rain without an umbrella?” Minho asked, he was pretty sure the rain had started a while ago.
Jisung nodded, but first began booting up his laptop, “I have an essay to finish and submit, so I thought I’d go to the library and finish it there. I had to walk because my bus wasn’t running this late and I didn’t expect it to start pouring down, I had my coat on but that was only because it was cold. I didn’t really prepare very well. I was walking for probably thirty minutes in the rain before I saw the lights for this cafe were on. And here we are.” Jisung explained all whilst he pulled up his essay and tightened the towel around him.
“Gosh, you must be freezing, let me grab you a hot drink okay?” Minho was quick to place Dori make down onto Jisung’s lap and rush to the coffee machine he was still halfway through cleaning. Grabbing some ground coffee and extracting it, Minho was fast at making an extra hot mocha for the boy.
Minho watched how Jisung was pulling up his essay and reading through it. The towel that was hanging from his shoulders caught the droplets of rain that were still falling steadily form the younger’s hair despite him drying it slightly with the towel beforehand. He must be freezing.
Quickly finishing up the mocha, the cafe owner brought the drink over placing it besides the laptop.
“Thank you, how much do I owe you?” Jisung asked as he glanced from his word document to the owner of the cafe.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it, I don’t think one cup of mocha will affect my income much” Minho chuckled lightly as he saw the boy break out into a small grin.
“Oh! Thank you Minho hyung” Jisung pulled the towels slightly closer to himself to stop himself from shivering.
“I’ll leave you to your work, I’ll be up at the counter if you want anything else” Minho gave a small smile to the boy. He didn’t wait for a reply before heading back to the coffee machine to actually, finally finish up his work.
He didn’t hear much from Jisung as he finished tidying away the last of the pastries, he decided to place on of the chocolate pastry rolls on a plate to serve to Jisung. The boy must also be pretty hungry if he had been busy doing work all day.
After finally getting around to cleaning the rest of the coffee machine and flicking it off,Minho made quick work of sweeping and mopping the floor.
He glanced over to Jisung who had one hand on his laptop, the other stroking Dori who was sleeping peacefully on his lap, also probably keeping the boy warm.
Grabbing the two plates, Minho made his way over to the college student.
“Here, this was going out today so feel free to eat it, on the house.” Minho passed over the chocolate pastry to Jisung who looked more than surprised over the generosity.
“O-oh thank you, sorry I’ve stayed longer than I was meant to, I’m nearly finished and will get out of the shop!”Jisung looked to Minho who took a seat opposite Jisung, munching on his own pastry.
“What’s the work about?” Minho asked curious to know what the boy was typing away about.
“Oh, i’m doing it on early music composition, i’m comparing classical musicians to more recent pop music to look at the contrasts in how composition has evolved and changed over time!” Jisung grinned as he scanned over his work.
“Sounds interesting, you study music then?”Minho asked as he watched Jisung tear off some of his own pastry and popping it in his mouth.
“Well, I study Music production, and I have to take music history on the side as a minor. It’s not the most exciting part of my course but it does help in the long run I suppose. I’m more excited about when we will actually be able to fully use the recording studio they have! It will be super fun to use and..” Jisung’s eyes widened slightly, “Sorry, i’m rambling, you probably want me to leave so you can get home. Don’t worry I just need to submit the paper.” Jisung blurted out.
Minho giggled softly, “It’s fine, I still have to wait for Dori to chose me again so I can put him in his carrier.”
“Well, sadly he’s asleep so i’m stuck here until he moves.” Jisung chuckled as he clicked away on his laptop, typing a few things before staring at it for a moment.
“All done! I’ll get out of your hair now, thank you for the towel, i’ll wash it and return it to you.” Jisunng shuffled slightly causing Dori to awake from his slumber and jump off his lap, heading over to Minho’s.
Minho gathered Dori up as he moved out the way to let Jisung pack up his things. His hair was still slightly damp, the towel was draped over his shoulders looking somewhat like a cape.
“Don’t worry about taking it home with you, I have a washroom back here for all the cat’s toys and towels so I can clean it tomorrow.” Minho smiled softly as he let Dori climb up onto his shoulder as he walked towards the cupboard to retrieve the carrier. Dori quickly dived into the carrier letting the cafe owner close it up.
“O-oh, no don’t worry I can clean it at mine and return it in a couple of days. It’s the least I can do.” Jisung rushed out as he gathered the towel in his arms, peering outside as it seemed the rain had settled down and now was only dripping.
“Jisung, trust me you don’t have to go to the trouble of cleaning it.” Minho sighed as he motioned for the towel.
Jisung looked down at the white threads that were coming loose., “What if I say it was an excuse to see you again..” Jisung said at barely a whisper, his ears turning red.
Minho let out a soft giggle looking down at his feet, his own ears growing a slight red, “Well then, I will be looking forward to your return, and of course the towel.”
Jisung smiled bashfullly and clutched the towel to his chest protectively, “I guess if I forget it, I’ll have to come back again.”
Minho let out a small laugh as he collected the two dirty plates and quickly rushed them over to the cashier counter, they were a problem for tomorrow.
“Well, I hope to see your face again soon then. But hopefully not drenched by the rain.” Minho chuckled as he grabbed the cat carrier and his jacket from the cupboard before quickly turning off the remaining lights and typing in the alarm code and ushering Jisung out of the shop so he could lock up.
“Thank you Minho Hyung, I really appreciate it.” Jisung said softly as he hitched his bag up onto his shoulder.
“You better come back soon, I think Dori has a new favourite customer.” Minho grinned as the cat meowed loudly. Jisung gave a small wave goodbye to Dori.
“Well I think I have a new favourite coffee shop! I need to meet all the other cats now. Bye Hyung.” Jisung chuckled before giving a small wave now directed at the owner.
“Bye.” Minho said softly as he watched Jisung walk down the dark street back the way he had trekked just earlier in the downpour.
“You know what Dori, I think I also have a new favourite.” Minho said as he turned to walk back to his apartment. Dori let out a small hiss at the competition.