Work Text:
There are three things Kevin likes about the cafe he works at.
The first being that the owner slash manager is cool. Sangyeon has no qualms about letting Kevin bring his thesis readings to study at the counter when the cafe is quiet and patrons are few. It’s saved him from many late night cramming sessions (though definitely not all.) Sangyeon also pays above minimum wage and is very understanding of Kevin’s university schedule when he sets up the roster. He’s fun to chat with whenever they’re working the counter together, which is always a great bonus in Kevin’s book.
The second reason is the general aesthetic and vibe of the place. It’s on a quieter street in Hongdae and it’s so cozy that Kevin often finds himself dropping by even when he’s not on shift, bringing along his classmates to study together or a friend for a catchup. Like many Seoul cafes, Cafe Hey There is a themed cafe; specifically, a travel themed cafe. Sangyeon has the two story building decked out with travel guides and knickknacks from all his adventures around the globe, the biggest feature being a giant map on the first floor with what must be over a hundred pins in the cities he’s visited. Kevin’s coworkers have a running gag of trying to guess just how Sangyeon managed to afford to open his own cafe and continue to travel the world when he’s not even thirty yet. Jaehyun is convinced Sangyeon is a secret son of a chaebol, Changmin has money on him having mafia ties, and Younghoon thinks he hit it big with bitcoin and stocks.
And that’s probably the third reason, Younghoon.
Younghoon was the one who trained him when he first came to work at the cafe. Looking back, Kevin has no idea how he even survived those hours in close quarters with that man and his pretty, pretty face. God, it’s not even just his face that’s pretty, his voice is pretty, his laugh is pretty, even the things he says are pretty. Kevin thinks it’s truly unfair that some people are born blessed with an angel’s touch — because how else can one man be that gorgeous, six feet tall and so damn sweet?
It makes him mad (crazy, not angry) just thinking about it.
Kevin once caught Younghoon singing in the backroom while he was cleaning, using the mop as a makeshift mic and dancing around like something out of a teen romance film. Kevin nearly got down on one knee to propose to him. He managed to play it off by asking Younghoon to join his a cappella group instead.
(Kevin isn’t part of an a cappella group.)
Younghoon had laughed (that pretty, pretty laugh) and with his cheeks a soft pink, refused, reasoning that, “Oh I’d be no good, I get really shy singing in front of people. I’d love to come to one of your performances though!”
To top it all off, Younghoon’s a nerd. An anime nerd. When he found out that Kevin was starting to watch One Piece (thanks to Younghoon’s influence, Kevin is aware he is a simp), he lit up like a kid in a candy store and asked him about all his favourite characters and moments, gushing in a way that Kevin had never seen before. Kevin wanted nothing more than to kiss him right on his chattering mouth.
“So why didn’t you?”
“Um, it would have been incredibly unprofessional? Borderline sexual assault?” Kevin glares at Jacob, who innocently sips at his decaf americano. “And he’s definitely not interested in me like that.”
Jacob rolls his eyes, the last slurp of his drink making the ice cubes clatter obnoxiously in his cup.
“He’s still asking you to invite him to one of your a cappella group performances. You know, the one you made up? That doesn’t sound like something someone ‘definitely not interested’ would be pestering you about.”
“But that’s what Younghoon hyung is like. He’s sweet to everyone without prejudice. I’m not special.” Kevin huffs out, punctuating his words with a sip of his own drink.
“I think you think way too highly of him.”
Kevin tunes him out.
“You know, apparently he used to be really chubby growing up, but he got inspired to start working out after seeing how cool Zoro was in One Piece. Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?” Kevin sighs dreamily, eyes tilted upwards towards the sky.
“That’s…” Jacob starts. “Pretty cute,” He finishes begrudgingly.
The pair are walking through the park near Jacob’s studio. Usually, they’d meet at the cafe to chat, but Jacob has been avoiding the place after certain… developments.
“Speaking of pretty cute,” Kevin slides his eyes to Jacob to gauge his reaction. “Have you reached out to Jaehyun hyung?”
Jacob immediately frowns, a light flush making its way to his cheeks as he pouts. He pulls up his scarf a little further to hide his face in the warmth.
“And why would I do that?”
Kevin rolls his eyes. Hard.
“Well, he’s been asking about you.”
“Hm.”
Jacob might be an iron wall of defence, but Kevin has experience breaking it.
“If you want I can tell him you’re not interested. Though I think it would be better coming from you.”
Jacob opens his mouth to protest? acquiesce? Kevin isn’t too sure. He shuts it before an answer makes its way past his lips.
Kevin is about to call it and change topics when, in a tiny voice—
“It’s not like I’m not interested,” Jacob murmurs.
Kevin perks up, a leer starting to form on his face. Jacob scowls at him, so Kevin immediately schools his expression.
Kevin prompts him, “But…?”
“But nothing. I don’t know how to face him after…yeah.” Jacob’s cheeks flare up even redder and Kevin resists the urge to coo.
“Come on, Jacob,” he starts with a grin. “It’s not like anyone even saw you guys.”
Last week at Changmin’s Christmas Party, Jacob and Jaehyun had left midway through to go pick up more alcohol from the convenience store down the road. Kevin and the others bore witness to the pair stumbling back into the apartment an hour later from their trip with warm bottles of beer and soju, hair mussed and lips swollen. The pair had naturally been subjected to drunken teasing for the rest of the night by the others. “Congrats on finally growing a pair and getting your man!” (Haknyeon, gleefully), “Wow… Sangyeonie hyung owes me fifty thousand won!” (Changmin, drunkenly), “I’ve never seen Jaehyun hyung this red in my life,” (Sunwoo, obnoxiously).
Jacob bites his lip and looks at everything but Kevin. He stops in his tracks and eyes Jacob with suspicion. Even though they’ve stopped walking, Jacob is still avoiding his eyes.
“Jacob…” Kevin’s voice drops into a warning tone. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jacob can’t lie. He avoids saying anything incriminating in the first place. When Kevin had confronted Jacob about his escapade with Jaehyun, he had blushed and said, “Things escalated.”
Jacob winces under Kevin’s burning eyes.
“We… might not have just made out.” Jacob starts fiddling with the fingers of his gloves.
Kevin blinks and tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
Jacob finds a leaf by his shoes and toes at it. “You know there’s that alley near the convenience store…we were really drunk and…” he trails off, glancing up at Kevin almost pleadingly.
Kevin pauses for a moment, not quite getting it.
Then—
“You guys fucked in an alley?!”
“So apparently they didn’t fuck in the alley, but they got handsy. And mouthy. Make of that what you will.”
Kevin is naturally giving Younghoon the whole breakdown of their respective best friends’ not-so-secret tryst as he wipes down the counter. Even though they’re working, spending Christmas Eve with Younghoon fills Kevin with an abundance of nervous energy that he can feel even in the tips of his fingers. He does his best to channel it into keeping the cafe so spotless, he could eat cake off any surface. If Sangyeon was here, he’d be getting a raise for sure.
Younghoon cocks his head to the side, the little bells on his reindeer antler headband jingling with the movement. The action is so damn cute, Kevin wonders if Younghoon can hear his heart exploding through his chest.
“This pretty much confirms that Jacob is into Jaehyun too, right? So why hasn’t he made a move? Jaehyun has been trying to woo him for months now.” Younghoon starts to gently stack gingerbread cookies in the glass display by the counter. The position puts him right up against Kevin’s left side, the warmth of his body and smell of his cologne sending his senses into overdrive.
God, Kevin asks. Why do you test me like this?
“Jacob says he’s embarrassed and doesn’t know how to face him,” Kevin shrugs and does his best to move out of Younghoon’s space. It’s all for naught, as Younghoon turns towards him with a hand on his hip. His face is pinched in a petulant pout, but he still looks statuesque. Kevin is going to melt like the snow dripping off the cafe’s rafters.
“But it’s Jaehyun. The guy who wore the same cardigan to all of his shifts for a month because Jacob complimented it once.”
Yeah, that was pretty embarrassing to witness. Jaehyun wore that one cream knit all throughout summer despite the heat and only stopped when Changmin (Kevin suspects, not) accidentally spilled coffee all down the back and stained it. Jaehyun never let him forget it.
“Jaehyun hyung is pretty blatant, huh,” Kevin muses. A small smile makes its way to his lips as he watches Younghoon busy himself with arranging the cookies at the front of the display to look like they’re holding hands. Younghoon had brought them in from his baking class earlier and Kevin had iced them at the cafe. When he asked why Younghoon hadn’t decorated them at his class, Younghoon simply said,
“I think you’d be able to make them way prettier than I could. You’re great at drawing the specials board and when you’re focussed you put on this super cute expression.” He had narrowed his eyes and pushed out his lips like a duck in an attempt to imitate Kevin. Kevin smacked him in the arm, face redder than the Santa hat he had on. Younghoon ran away from him, giggling and Kevin wondered what his smile would feel like against his lips.
“I don’t get why Jacob is so hesitant when Jaehyun is so obvious about how much he likes him,” Younghoon sighs. He closes the glass display, but not before picking up one of the more misshapen cookies and biting off the head. He offers the headless body to Kevin, who munches through the torso. Kevin chews for a few seconds, considering.
“Well, obvious or not, it’s hard to put yourself out there.”
“What do you mean?”
Kevin drums his fingers against the counter.
“Putting your feelings out there is scary. It makes them…” Kevin pauses, struggling to find the right word in Korean. “Tangible.”
“Tangible?”
“Yeah. It makes them real. And the possibility of rejection becomes all the more real too. That can be really terrifying for some people.”
Kevin feels like he’s said too much. They’re not the only ones at the cafe, but most of the patrons were on the second floor, so it certainly felt like they were alone. The way Younghoon was looking at him, like he was trying to stare straight into his soul had Kevin feeling like no one else mattered apart from the two of them. Having all of Younghoon’s attention zeroed in on him makes Kevin’s heart flap around and the butterflies in his stomach thump uncontrollably.
Wait, that’s not quite right—
“Is it terrifying for you?” Younghoon asks, hands reaching out to fiddle with the rim of Kevin’s Santa hat.
“Um, well…” Kevin feels like his brain is short-circuiting. What is happening right now?
“Because, Kevin,” Younghoon fingers slip from Kevin’s hat to cup his cheek, slightly cool against his heated skin. Kevin’s heart is beating so hard in his chest he thinks he might combust. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.
Before he gets a chance to hear what Younghoon has to say, the bell attached to the front door rings out, shocking them out of…whatever that moment was supposed to be. Kevin jumps about a foot in the air and instinctively cries out, “Welcome!” at the next group of customers.
When he finally feels calm enough to look at Younghoon again, he’s busy serving the next wave of customers that seem to just keep coming. They still have three hours left until closing, so Kevin resigns himself to his duties.
The soft smiles Younghoon sends him whenever their eyes meet doesn’t make focussing on the tasks at hand any easier.
It’s already past eleven when the last straggling customers make their way out of the cafe. It was Younghoon’s turn to check inventory in the backroom and Kevin had made sure to scurry upstairs to start tidying the second floor. Because he was efficient. Because he was a good worker. Because he cared deeply about the cleanliness of this cafe. Not because he was avoiding anything, nope.
But, there was only so much time he could spend wiping down tables and mopping the floor before he had to head back downstairs and face his fate. Whatever that might be.
He can hear Jacob’s voice in his head, chastising him for being overdramatic. Kevin bites back with a you’re one to talk! in the hope that it’ll make the Jacob-voice shut up. There is moderate success.
Younghoon is already waiting for him when Kevin makes his way downstairs. He has two steaming cups of hot cocoa sitting in front of him by the counter, their usual tradition whenever they end an evening shift together. The familiarity of the gesture fills Kevin with a warmth that settles the flip-flopping of his stomach. It’s Younghoon. No matter what Kevin says, Younghoon would never judge him. Younghoon would never want to hurt him. That’s what makes him so special to Kevin. It’s one of the things that makes Younghoon so endearing. One of the reasons why—
“I really like you, hyung.”
The words spill past Kevin’s lips before the filter in his brain could even catch him. Younghoon’s eyes widen, and his jaw drops slightly.
Oh shit. He’s really done it now.
But Kevin can’t make himself backtrack. There’s no way to cram the words back into his mouth now that they’ve filled the space between them with a tension so thick it seems to make even time slow.
Younghoon blinks once, twice. Then he chuckles lowly, eyes glancing down at the counter between them, then back up to Kevin’s eyes.
“You sure know how to take the words right out of a guys mouth, Kevin.”
“Yeah, Jacob says I— wait, what?” It’s Kevin’s turn for his jaw to drop, staring straight into Younghoon’s eyes that seem to drip fondness.
“You heard me,” Younghoon reaches over the counter to cup Kevin’s cheek. This time, Younghoon’s hand is warm against Kevin’s skin, and he can’t help but lean into the sensation.
“But just in case it wasn’t clear, I really like you too, Kevin. And I would love to take you out on a date tomorrow, if you’re free.”
“I’m very free. So free. In fact, even if I wasn’t free I would definitely make myself free but there’s no need to do that because I’m already so incredibly free. Wow. This is insane.”
Younghoon bursts into little giggles that make Kevin’s heart do somersaults in his chest.
“Then it’s a date,” Younghoon pinches Kevin’s cheek. He pulls his hand away to grab his mug of cocoa and clink it against Kevin’s.
“A date. With Younghoon hyung. Wow.” Kevin has no idea what words are even coming out of his mouth. He knows that he’ll probably scream himself hoarse into his pillow tonight out of sheer embarrassment, but right now he’s so happy he feels like flying.
Younghoon grins at him, then deliberately flicks his eyes to the clock and exclaims, “Wow, would you look at that. It’s past midnight. That means it’s tomorrow already.”
Kevin glances up at the clock, then back at Younghoon with a raised eyebrow. Younghoon’s smile grows even bigger and cheesier before he leans in so close; Kevin can count each of his eyelashes framing his pretty, pretty eyes.
"Merry Christmas, Kevin. I’m looking forward to our date today.”
Kevin is pretty sure spontaneous combustion has nothing on how Younghoon makes him feel. But he’s not one to be outdone.
“Merry Christmas, Younghoon hyung.” Kevin leans in and presses a quick kiss to Younghoon’s cheek. He’s delighted to see Younghoon’s face immediately bloom redder than the ridiculous hat Kevin had on.
Kevin doesn’t think any Christmas miracle comes close to the feeling of Younghoon closing the distance between them with his lips.
“Younghoon hyung, I have a confession to make.”
“Oh? Sounds serious,” Younghoon chuckles, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s waist and burying his face into his neck.
“It is serious!” Kevin grabs Younghoon’s hands and pulls him back to look him in the eye. “I lied to you about something.”
Younghoon raises an eyebrow. Kevin gulps and bites his lip, trying to meet his gaze.
“I’m…actually not part of an a cappella group. I made that up.”
Younghoon stares at Kevin, absolutely bewildered. He clearly wasn’t expecting that.
“You…what?”
“I’m sorry! When I was spying— I mean, watching you sing I panicked and it was the first thing that came to mind! And then you kept bringing it up and I didn’t know what to tell you.”
Younghoon blinks a few times, before bursting into raucous laugher that takes a full minute to subside. It’s a full belly laugh; Younghoon’s even bent over clutching his sides like he’s never laughed before.
“Are you done?” Kevin glowers. “It’s not that funny.”
“It’s kinda funny,” Younghoon buries his face back into Kevin’s neck and muffles his giggles into his skin.
“Well,” Kevin harrumphs. “I’m glad you find my genuine panic entertaining.”
Younghoon smiles against his neck and Kevin feels a pleasurable tingle rush through his body at the sensation.
“I find everything about you entertaining,” Younghoon murmurs, then pulls away to look Kevin in the eyes. Younghoon presses a quick peck on his forehead, tip of his nose then a lingering kiss on his lips. Kevin feels himself melt into Younghoon’s embrace.
Younghoon pulls away to smile at him. “I especially find the idea of you making up an a cappella group to hide your crush on me very entertaining,” he adds cheekily.
“Hey!”