Work Text:
The last of the customers have left for the night so Chenle flips the open sign to close. He gets to work wiping down the tables while Jisung is tasked with mopping. He hears what sounds suspiciously like a bunch of mops falling on the floor in the back and some choice cuss words from Jisung’s mouth.
“Don’t break anything,” Chenle shouts, already snickering when he hears some more non-family friendly words come from the taller boy's mouth.
“I’m not breaking anything!”
Chenle will believe that when he stops hearing the loud clattering noises coming from back there.
Chenle moves to wipe down the counters as Jisung comes out and begins to mop. The mop looks intact and not broken at all.
“That only happened once!” Jisung pouted as Chenle was relaying the stories to all their friends.
“Yeah, but you still somehow managed to snap a mop in half,” Chenle laughed.
“How do you even manage to do that?” Renjun questioned.
They all turn to look at Jisung who just shrugged.
Chenle has music blasting from his phone and he hums to the lyrics as he continues to wipe down the counter he stands behind for a few hours each day. He pauses when he notices a neatly folded napkin sitting in the middle of the counter with some words scribbled on it.
“Jisung, did you leave this here?”
Jisung looks up and blinks in his direction. “Leave what?”
Jisung puts down the mop, Chanel cringes when it falls to the floor with a loud clatter, and walks over to where Chenle is.
“A note?”
Jisung goes to pick it up, but Chenle smacks his hand away.
“Don’t touch it with your dirty mop hand!”
Jisung holds his hand to his chest, “Ok, geesh. Did one of the customers leave this here for you or something because it wasn’t me.”
Chenle and Jisung both lean towards the note at the same time and stare at the words written on it.
“Your smile lights up the sky like stars?” Chenle says out loud. He looks at Jisung and the taller boy meets his eyes.
“Maybe you have a secret admirer?”
Chenle feels his cheeks heat up as the words echo in the empty shop.
Chenle playfully tossels Jisung’s hair and pushes him away. “Who would even be my secret admirer?”
“I don’t know, that’s why it’s a secret,” Jisung rolls his eyes.
As soon as Chenle sends this information in the groupchat (he later regrets doing so) he finds himself discussing said secret admirer the next day.
“What if Jisungie’s the one who has a secret admirer?” Jaemin suggests.
Jisung blushes and shakes his head. “M-Me?”
Jaemin gives him his sharp smile and nods his head which only makes Jisung blush harder.
“Wrong,” Donghyuck says, mouth full of chips he's stolen from behind the counter.
Chenle honestly has no idea how he still has a job since he eats half their stock, but instead of complaining he just opens his hand so Donghyuck can pour him a handful. “Chenle’s the one who deals with the customers the most. Jisung’s always in the back destroying things more so than cleaning them.”
Jisung frowns, “You make me sound bad at my job.”
Before Donghyuck can open his mouth and break Jisung’s heart, Jaemin beats him to it with a glare, “You’re amazing at your job,” he coos at Jisung. “Chenle usually works at the cash register, right?”
Chenle nods, “Yeah, but I can't think of any customers who might have had the hots for me.”
Donghyuck and Jisung both go quiet, looking like they can’t think of anyone either.
“I have a plan,” Jaemin suddenly says. He has a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “I’ll bring Renjun with me tomorrow and we’ll stake out the shop. See if anyone is sending you heart eyes.”
Chenle scoffs, “That’s ridiculous.” He appears to be the only one who thinks so, Jisung and Donghyuck are nodding their heads in approval. “How do we even know they’ll appear tomorrow.”
Jaemin shrugs, smirk on his face, “Only one way to find out.”
“For the record, I don’t think this is going to work.” Chenle sighs as he sets the smoothies on the table. “Also you two look ridiculous.” Jaemin has the hoodie of his sweater pulled over his face and he’s keeping his head lowered so he can watch people without being caught. Renjun just has a mask and hat on, but he also pulls the hat down enough so it’s hard to makeout his features. “Why would my secret admirer even know you guys?”
“Just get back to work so we can start our mission,” Renjun hisses.
Donghyuck ends up guiding him away before he can kick the two out. As soon as Chenle sees his appearance he raises his eyebrow, “Really, you too?”
Donghyuck also has a hat and mask on, but what makes it different from Renjun’s appearance is he has his hair tied back in a ponytail.
Donghyuck grins, “Wait until you see Jisung.”
To be fair, Chenle’s day is a lot more interesting than it usually is. It’s pretty amusing watching his friends do a horrible job at trying to be subtle as they watch people. Chenle gets asked multiple times about Jaemin and Renjun and why they look so suspicious at their table.
It’s a couple hours before closing and Chenle’s ready to rub it in all their faces that he was right and his secret admirer, if he even has one, didn’t come today. The door jingles, alerting the whole store to the new customer who just walked in.
“What can I get you?” Chenle says. He puts his ammo of straws away that he was using to shoot wrappers at Renjun and Jaemin for being so bad at their jobs. He only feels slightly guilty that Jisung will have to clean it up later, but Chenle remembers all the messes he had to clean up for him and doesn’t feel so bad anymore.
The boy smiles at him. It’s cute and reminds Chenle of a cute puppy. “Chenle? I didn’t know you worked here.”
Chenle blinks. “Do I know you?”
The boy tilts his head cutely, “We shared a class last year?”
When Chenle still doesn’t seem to recognize him, the boy adds, “Statistics?”
Chenle cringes, “I hated that class. I blocked everything from my memory,” he shudders.
He chuckles, “Fair. I’m Jeno.”
Chenle smiles, “Oh, I actually do remember you.”
Chenle makes his smoothie and they talk for a little longer before setting a time to meet up in the future. Jeno leaves with a cute smile and waves as he exits the shop.
It gets way too quiet once those doors shut.
The silence breaks when Jaemin stands up suddenly, his chair scraping against the floor making all of them cringe.
“Yo, it was totally him!”
“What? You think Jeno likes Chenle?” Renjun asks. “He was just being friendly.”
“Exactly!” Chenle says. They plan to meet up with coffee to catch up. Chenle didn’t feel like Jeno was asking him out on a date at all, just a friendly outing.
“I don’t know…” Jisung mutters. “He seemed really eager to go out for coffee.”
They all turn to Donghyuck to be their tie breaker.
“What do you think?”
Donghyuck isn’t staring at them though, he’s looking at the counter. He nods towards it, “Is that what your secret admirer left last time?”
Chenle frowns and goes behind the counter again and picks up the napkin. “Oh fuck, yeah they left a napkin here last time too. There should be words on it.” Chenle unfolds the napkin and reads the words out loud.
“Your laughter is like a beautiful melody to my ears.”
Everyone looks at Chenle. Waiting.
Chenle frowns, “What?”
“Do you have any idea when this was left on the counter?” Renjun asks.
“Oh come on,” Jaemin sighs, “We all know it was left by Jeno.”
“As much as it pains me, I’m going to have to agree with Jaemin,” Donghyuck adds.
“Wait,” Jisung grabs the note. “There’s more. See.”
Jisung points to a singular letter written under the words.
Your laughter is like a beautiful melody to my ears.
-M
Jaemin’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Who’s M?”
Everyone looks to Chenle.
Chenle sighs, they expect too much of him. “How am I supposed to know?”
They’re able to rule out Jeno since there’s no M in his name. His friends stake out his work for the next couple of days before giving up in defeat and vowing to figure this out another day. Chenle hasn’t received any cute notes since then. Chenle kind of misses it, his days are back to being boring.
He does have one thing to look forward to though.
The rest of the week goes by fast and it’s finally Saturday. Chenle doesn’t have work today so Jeno and him figured it was the best day to meet up. Chenle refused when Jeno texted him and asked if they wanted to meet at the place Chenle works at. Donghyuck is working today and Chenle does not need that boy all up in his business.
Chenle heads into the coffee shop not too far from campus. Jeno texted Chenle that he’s already here and picked out a table in the back. There’s not many people here yet so Chenle is able to find the table easily.
The boy at the table notices him first and stands up and Chenle realizes at the last second that it’s not Jeno.
“Hi,” the boy smiles at him and oh god, he’s hot.
Chenle blushes, “Hi? I thought I was meeting with Jeno.”
The boy chuckles awkwardly, “Oh right, Jeno. He actually told me to let you know he couldn’t make it.”
“That’s weird, he texted me he was here not even 10 seconds ago.”
He blushes, busted. “That was a pretty lame excuse, huh?”
“Yep,” Chenle grins.
“I’m Mark,” he smiles at Chenle and goes to shake his hand. Chenle stares at his arm for an embarrassing amount of time before finally taking his hand. “Did you, uh,” the blush on his face deepens, “Like my notes?”
“M,” Chenle mutters. His eyes light up. “You’re M?”
Mark nods, “Yeah, I see you at that coffee shop a lot and I think you’re cute.” Despite blushing hard, Mark still keeps eye contact with Chenle. “Jeno said he knew you and was cool helping out. Sorry, I should have probably just asked you out.”
“No it’s fine,” Chenle is blushing again as he takes a seat. “So is this a date?”
Mark smiles shyly at him, “If you want it to be. Or we could just talk and get to know each other and I can take you on a real date next week?”
Chenle grins, “Deal.” He looks at the menu, “Should we get the smoothies?”