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Mingyu absolutely hates his friends. Despises them, even. Especially that devil incarnate Choi Seungcheol. He honestly doesn't know why he's still friends with him, they've been stuck together since they were snotty little kids terrorizing the neighborhood with their (mostly Seungcheol's) annoying antics.
He was supposed to be at home, relaxing after a particular hell week that almost killed him, no, he's not exaggerating. All his coursemates looked like zombies for the last two weeks of the semester, running on instant coffee, energy drinks, and vending machine snacks that may not or may have been past their expiration dates. Who cares though, they'd all pick quick death over another set of plates.
But alas, all hardships do end. Today is Mingyu's last day of exams, he still had some papers to pass but those were all relatively easy. He could finally take a breath, relax, and sleep for freaking eight hours after two whole weeks of feeling like a zombie. He was very much looking forward to ordering some Kimchi Jjigae, two bowls of steaming rice, and grilled mackerel for dinner. A hearty meal after days of processed and unhealthy food that probably lessened his life span for three years.
After that, Mingyu was planning on getting that well-deserved eight hours of sleep. It was a perfect plan. And Mingyu isn't one to destroy perfect plans, all his closest friends know how much of an organized person he is. He likes things orderly and he likes going through with his plans.
And then that damn Seungcheol had to ruin it, even dragging Seokmin and Seungkwan with him just to persuade him to go to the university's last day of fair. He couldn't honestly care less, who in their right mind would set up the university fair right in the middle of exams week?!
But Seungcheol knows he can't really say no to Seokmin and Seungkwan, especially when they're using puppy eyes on him.
"Please, hyung, please!" Seungkwan looks up at him with doe eyes, tugging Mingyu's sweater repeatedly. "It's the last day of the fair! And you've never gone, not even once!"
Seokmin had the audacity to tug on his heartstrings by hugging him tightly and practically begging, "He's right, Mingyu-yah... it would be so much more fun if you would be there with us."
Then looking across his dorm living room, there was Seungcheol smirking and trying hard not to burst into laughter because he knows. He knows Mingyu won't be able to say no. Ugh, why was he friends with him again?
And now, here he is. At the University fair strolling around with his friends. It didn't help that they met with Soonyoung hyung ten minutes ago. Mingyu didn't know Seokmin and Seungkwan could get any louder but with Soonyoung hyung, they are an introvert’s worst nightmare.
They keep jumping up and down, dancing to every goddamn song, and pointing to every booth they come across. Seungcheol isn't any better, he's on the ground laughing his ass off because of the trio's antics.
And for Mingyu? Well... he won't admit it but he's having a good time. The student council did a great job. With the heat and humidity of the summer starting a week ago, the cool night breeze was a pleasant surprise. Then paired with the soft noise of hundreds of students milling around the campus grounds, laughing with their friends and leaving their worries behind as the semester nears its end, it's really not so bad.
Not forgetting the smell of warm honey from the stall selling hotteok, the spicy aroma of tteok-boki from two stands away, and the mouthwatering smell of steaming fish cakes. It was a warm atmosphere and Kim Mingyu is a sucker for those. And his friends know that, damn it. His friends really know him too much.
Soon enough, he was giggling along with his friends. Despite all the theatrics, Mingyu did love his friends and he was grateful for them for forcing him (yes, he's still a bit reluctant to admit he's having fun) to enjoy the cool summer breeze and spend the last day of his exams outside, not holed up in his dorm room.
"What are you doing?" Mingyu says between giggles, clutching his stomach for laughing so hard. "You look like an idiot, Seok!" Seungkwan and Soonyoung were on the ground, laughing too much to form any coherent sentences.
"Hey, that hurts! I'm just trying to do the dance. It's gone viral, you know." Seokmin then starts dancing again, putting his hands behind his neck and swaying his body to the rhythm of the song. It triggers another round of boisterous laughter. Mingyu turns around to face Cheol, expecting him to be in the same predicament as they all are. But he's surprised when he doesn't see his best friend. Huh. Mingyu's pretty sure he was here a second ago.
"Hey, hyung! What are you doing there?" Seungkwan's voice made him look up, seeing Seungcheol a few feet away in front of a booth designed with pink hearts, pink balloons, pink bandanas, pink - okay, he gets it. It's a pink stall.
Upon further examination, he sees that it's a kissing booth...? And Seungcheol is staring right at the huge board on the side.
Curiosity gets the better of them four and soon enough, they were all crowded around the stall, trying to see what got his best friend so hooked. Then he reads what's on the board: "Welcome to our kissing booth! The student council warmly (wink wink) invites you to kiss all your worries away and spread the warmth of love." Right below are pictures of two good-looking guys, namely Yoon Jeonghan and Hong Jisoo, with time slots indicating their shifts on the kissing booth.
After a few seconds of silence, Kim Mingyu burst into laughter, not caring about the strange looks," You...," he gasps for breath and points at Seungcheol, "You're so pathetic, hyung!"
"Say that one more time, I'm gonna kill you Kim Minyu." Seungcheol glares at him and any other time, it would have made Mingyu run and hide but with the blush on his best friend's face, he knows it's nothing but bluff.
"Pfft... Mingyu's right, hyung. Who would have known you'd resort to this just to get noticed by your crush?" Seokmin says in between laughter.
"W-who says I'm gonna go? Hah, I was just looking at it!" Seungcheol defensively shouts and pushes Seokmin away.
Seungkwan hums and dramatically pouts before saying, "Ohh.. really? Then should we go? I really wanna eat."
Soonyoung then follows with an enthusiastic and maniac laugh, "Yeah, come on! Nothing to see here, right, Cheol hyung?" He accentuates his point by jabbing Seungcheol's side and playfully raising his eyebrows. "Righhht???"
"Wait! Wait.. umm.." His best friend looks like a ripe tomato at this point. Mingyu knows he should take pity and stop teasing him but it's just too much fun. And maybe this is his revenge for all the times Seungcheol humiliated him.
Seungcheol's stuttering does nothing but make them all laugh again, giggling their hearts out and teasing the other guy more. Seokmin's almost howling by now, legs giving up and hitting the ground with his hand.
They were all interrupted when a guy stepped out of the booth, looking like he wanted to kill them with the way his eyes narrowed, "Are you going to sign up or what?" His impatient tone indicates he has been watching their stupidity for at least a few minutes now and has grown tired of it.
Before Seungcheol could even utter a single word, Seungkwan pushes him into the desk where all the forms and sheets are and exclaims, "Yes! Yes, he's very excited to sign up!"
"Hey! I did n-"
"In fact, let me sign his name for you." Seungkwan adds, picking up the pen, smoothly writing Seungcheol's name on the sign up sheet, and dropping some money in the payment box.
"Yah!" Seungcheol starts but he doesn't really say anything else. Too dumbfounded and shocked to utter a word. Mingyu is still giggling at his best friend, he hasn't really stopped.
Who can blame him when he's always the butt of the joke among his friends? This was a rare opportunity to make fun of his best friend. Not that Seungcheol has any wit left. His face is getting redder and redder by the second and he looks like he's going to vomit. Yikes.
The kid student manning the booth table, whose name was Lee Chan as Mingyu sees on his nametag, then approaches them and pins a number on Seungcheol's shirt. "Please don't misplace this, we will start soon. And you can't back out either because uhm.. you see.. why is it again?" He chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head, looking back at the table where the scary guy was.
He glares at Chan and says through gritted teeth, "We don't accept any takebacks because it'll be a mess and you're not worth that." He points at Seungcheol. "You're the last person in line anyway, so just stay put."
"Umm..r-right. Yeah. I'll stay here." Seungcheol awkwardly cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair.
There's only three more people in line ahead of him and it’s obvious how anxious Seungcheol is - fidgeting with his clothes, fixing his hair, and clearing his throat several times.
After a few minutes of waiting, a stricken-looking Chan broke through Seungcheol's poor attempt at concentrating. He walked briskly to their group and mumbled almost incoherently, "Umm.. wouldyoumindifthekisserchanged?"
"What?"
Chan sighed heavily and whispered, "So, there's been like, an emergency, oh no! nothing serious -" he assured them as the panic must have shown on their faces, "It's just... he's been summoned by our club president and it's pretty urgent."
After a moment of silence, he put his hands together and pleaded, "Please say yes. Please! This booth is actually my idea, you know, and this is the last night of the fair. You're the last customer, too. And everything was running smoothly the past few days but of course, because the universe hates me, something's gotta go wrong on the last day. The money we collected is just enough to -"
"Hey, breathe, man. Breathe." Mingyu felt really sorry for the kid, he honestly looked like he's gonna pass out. There's a strict line of sweat on his forehead and he's been tapping his feet relentlessly.
Seungkwan interrupted, "So you're saying Yoon Jeonghan is not available anymore?"
"No." Chan replied, looking at the ground forlornly.
"What about the other guy? Hong Ji...?"
"Shua hyung? Yeah, he went home earlier and he's not answering his phone."
As if waking up from a trance, Seungcheol glanced up at Seungkwan, "Yah! What do you think of me? Do I look like someone who's just going to kiss anyone?"
"Honestly, yes." Soonyoung hyung butted in, looking so serious Mingyu almost burst out laughing.
"You literally just said the other day that you'd take any chance to talk to that Jisoo Guy." Seungkwan rolled his eyes.
Mingyu laughed, "Yeah hyung, don't worry, we know you like both of them."
"Yah! I was just joking! How could you take that seriously, you idiots!"
"Who are you calling idiots? You're the fool who has two crushes, hyung!" Seungkwan butted in, putting Seungcheol in a headlock.
"Two crushes but no hope with either of them." Mingyu snorted, making Seokmin laugh and guffaw.
Chan shouted, "It's another person!" All heads turned to look at him as he sheepishly scratched his nape, "It's another guy... one of our members.."
"I won't do it." Seungcheol answered with all the conviction of a heartbroken guy. "No matter what you say, I won't do it." He starts to rip the number pinned on his chest.
"No! Please, please. Stay!"
"Sorry, kid. I don't want-"
"Mingyu will do it!"
HUH?
All heads turned to Mingyu and Seokmin who was waving Mingyu's right arm wildly, as if there was another guy as noticeable as he was, with his (abnormal, seungkwan would say) height and build.
As if seeing the gates of heaven open up, Chan's face immediately brightened up. Ripping the number pinned on Seungcheol's shirt, he started walking towards Mingyu.
"Hey! When did I say that! I don't want to either!" He says while trying to get away from Seokmin and Seungcheol. What the hell, why are they so strong?
After a few seconds of rough housing and shouting, he looks like someone who's been in a chicken fight with his shirt all crinkly and hair all messy.
Seungcheol sealed the deal by pushing him up the line and patting his back, "Yeah, Mingyu's very kind. He'll do it. Don't worry, Chan."
He was left with no choice but to stand in line, especially seeing Chan's relieved face. Seething and possibly looking murderous, Mingyu glared at his best friends, "You are all gonna die tomorrow. I swear to God I'm going to-"
"Is he ready?" The guy with the mean glare suddenly appeared, coming out of a small pink tent set up right beside the booth.
"Yes! Yes, he is." Chan replied brightly. "So, you just have to go inside that tent." He pointed to the same tent the other guy just came out of.
Mingyu started walking nervously towards the tent, wiping his hands on his pants and fixing his hair. He may not be looking forward to it but he at least wants to look presentable.
Amidst all of his friends' cheers and good lucks, he suddenly realized he doesn't even know who's inside the tent. Mingyu stopped and turned around, "Wait! Who's inside?"
But he was immediately shoved by the guy (jihoon says his nametag) inside the tent, "You'll find out soon enough."
Inside the tent was bigger than he expected, with a small low table and a chair set up a few steps from the tent's opening. A man was crouched beside the chair, fiddling with something underneath the cloth covering the table.
Mingyu cleared his throat, "Excuse me, I'm here to..." what? kiss you? He trailed off, not really knowing what to say, especially to a stranger he met three seconds ago.
The guy immediately straightened up. Clearing his throat and fixing his glasses (oh wow, he's handsome and pretty and cute), the guy said "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in." Oh no, he has a deep voice too.
Mingyu feels like he's been knocked out of breath. There's a gorgeous guy with soft fluffy hair, sharp eyes, plump lips, and cute nose standing in front of him. That he's going to kiss soon. He feels like his heart is going to burst.
"I'm sorry, I know I'm not the one you're expecting. So if you don't want to do anything, you can just go back out and pretend it's over-" The guy started talking, his eyes darting around awkwardly and ears reddening under Mingyu's stare. He's so cute!
"No!" Mingyu shouted, realizing what the cute guy was saying. "I mean, it's okay. It's totally fine. By me. Definitely." What the fuck is he saying?
The guy was clearly taken aback by Mingyu's enthusiasm. "Oh, umm..." He cleared his throat again and shyly said, "Okay." He takes a deep breath. "Okay. I guess I should ask first. What's your name?"
"Mingyu. Kim Mingyu. Most of my friends call me Gyu." He almost laid out his hand in greeting but felt awkward and drew his hand back instead.
"Nice to meet you, Mingyu. My name's Wonwoo."
Wonwoo. Oddly fitting for a pretty guy like him.
"Yeah, umm.." Mingyu scratched his nape, scrambling to say something. Now that the introduction is out of the way, Mingyu suddenly didn't know what to do.
To his surprise, Wonwoo suddenly laughed. It was the loud, all-out kind of laugh. And Mingyu found it endearing how he laughed in clear syllables of HA-HA-HA with a subtle nose scrunch.
"Sorry," Wonwoo starts, still chuckling, "I was really nervous, you know. But you seemed even more nervous than me. Which is rare and weird."
"Well, this is an extremely weird situation." Another belly laugh.
"That's undeniably true. I've never kissed a stranger."
Mingyu can feel the inevitable smile growing in his face, "I've never paid money to kiss a stranger."
Their eyes met and Mingyu stepped forward. Wherever his sudden bravery came from - he doesn't know.
"Can I....?" He reached out with his right hand towards Wonwoo's face.
A deep inhale and a breathless 'yes' from Wonwoo before Mingyu's hands cupped his face and angled it towards him. "Is this okay?" Mingyu asks.
There's no one else in the room with them but Mingyu's speaking so softly, as if he's afraid to break the sacredness of the moment. Or maybe it's because he can't hear anything else besides his thundering heartbeat and Wonwoo's soft exhales against his lips.
The feeling of Wonwoo's hands slowly coming up to hold his waist electrified him. He didn't know he could feel this way.
"Are you going to kiss me now or what?"
A soft laugh bubbled out of him before he felt soft lips on his own. In the end, it was Wonwoo who made the first move.
It was slow at first. Their lips slid together gently, kissing each other tentatively with all the shyness of two strangers meeting each other mere seconds ago. They kissed as if they have all the time in the world - not in a small kissing booth with people waiting outside.
But Wonwoo was kissing him so sweetly, with soft yet firm presses of his lips against Mingyu's but also so eagerly, it was like he couldn't get enough.
It was Mingyu who deepened the kiss first. He pressed his lips firmly against Wonwoo, taking his bottom lip between his, pulling him closer with one hand around his waist. And the sound Wonwoo made at that moment almost killed Mingyu.
He's pretty sure he won't be able to move on from this.
Wonwoo also pulls him closer, dragging one hand from his waist to the back of his head to kiss him more deeply. They're definitely not going slow now. He can feel Wonwoo melting into him, relaxing between his arms but his mouth is a curious little thing. One moment he's tugging at his top lip and the second he's sucking at his bottom lip.
It's fucking addicting.
"Hey! Are you almost done there?" A loud voice outside broke them out of their reverie, but not without Mingyu placing a few more soft pecks on Wonwoo's lips before pulling away.
"You okay?" Mingyu asks quietly, his hand still on Wonwoo's cheek.
He feels, rather than hears, Wonwoo's affirmation. A beat of silence and then Wonwoo whispered back, "More than okay."
Mingyu grinned, "I'm okay too, thanks for asking."
Before Wonwoo can reply, someone outside (that must be Jihoon) shouts again, "Wonwoo! You okay there?"
Wonwoo cleared his throat and looked at Mingyu before answering, "I'm fine, Ji!" Mingyu did not miss the look Wonwoo gave him, especially with his blushing cheeks and red ears. Good to know he's not the only one feeling absolutely crazy.
“Yah, Kim Mingyu! What's taking you so long?” Choi Seungcheol and his loud mouth.
Mingyu sighed, “Sorry for that, that was my annoying friend.”
“No, it's okay. I think we've been here a long time… “ Wonwoo trailed off and blushed even harder.
Mingyu honestly doesn't care how much time has passed. He could stay here forever.
“Umm… do you mind.. “ Wonwoo gestured to his hands still wrapped around his waist.
Mingyu stepped back, blushing and murmuring, “Oh. Yeah. I’m sorry, I didn't notice I was still holding you.”
“It’s okay. I don't really mind.” A cute laugh. “It’s just that… I think your friends are waiting for you.”
“Don't mind th-”
“Kim Mingyu! Did you fall asleep there or what?” Now it’s Seungkwan. Sigh.
Wonwoo just laughs and motions him to go, “Clearly they mind. Go, it’s okay.”
"Mingyu-yahhh ~" He's going to punch Seokmin when he gets out.
“Wait!” Mingyu yells as Wonwoo starts pushing him towards the exit and panic bubbles up inside him. “I will see you again, right?”
Another scream of his name and a beat of silence before Wonwoo responds with a small smile, “Yes, I’d like that. Now, go!” He laughs while pushing Mingyu out.
Mingyu grins at him so wide, he doesn't care if he looks stupidly smitten, and plants a peck on his lips before going out.
The sight of Wonwoo with a shocked and blushing face is enough to make him forget his stupid friends.
“Yah, Mingyu! What happened, dude? You look stupid.” Soonyoung puts his arm around Mingyu's shoulder.
“Hyung, I think I just met the love of my life.”
~°☆~°☆~°☆~