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Minho was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.
The man across from him is beyond handsome with large, doey eyes and masculine features. After Woojin had shown him a poorly taken selfie of him, he had moped around their apartment for a week. No way would Minho ever find himself sitting across from that abomination of a man. However, this abomination of a man was a different story. He was laid back, foreign, cute . Minho couldn’t help finding him alluring.
From Woojin, he was informed that his mystery date had a lot of overbearing traits that made him impossible second date material. His confidence and humor were two that topped the charts for Woojin, who often found the man troublesome. Except, Minho didn’t understand that. Sitting across from him, he gave no indication of that confidence that Woojin had spoken about. Instead, he seemed confused, awkward, cute . This couldn’t be the same same person Woojin had intended to set him up with, but based on that ugly ass picture, it had to be.
“Chan?” His voice has a playful lilt to it as he leans over the table. The restaurant swallows his voice up, losing it among an ocean of others. This conversation was just their own. With their drinks sitting between them and their food ordered, Minho was ready to put Chan through the test. Dinner could wait when he had a cute boy to dig into.
The other boy’s weight shifts from side to side, almost uncomfortably. Minho thinks he’s startled him by talking so suddenly. “Yes?” He replies coolly, and there’s a glimpse at the man that Woojin made him out to be. Immediately, Minho wants to know more. It is kind of like who are you where do you live why are you so fine how do you like your eggs in the morning? Minho wants to run his fingers through his artificially blond hair.
“You alright?” Minho tilts his head to the side, obviously evaluating him.
Dazed, Chan only nods. “Yeah? Why?”
In response, Minho shakes his head. “No reason. You just seem uncomfortable, are you?”
“Do you always interrogate your dates?” Chan manages, pursing his lips.
Oh, that’s why he’s on edge. Minho shrugs, leaning back in his seat. “Only the cute ones.”
Apparently, Chan didn’t like to speak as much as Woojin had said he did. It was painful to try to get more than a one-word answer from the man. Maybe he needed to approach the man a different way. Woojin said that he had been introduced to Chan through vocal training classes, if Minho cared to remember correctly. That’s information he could work with. “So… you sing?” He asks, derailing their previous conversation abruptly.
“Not as well as I’d like to,” he replies without much thought.
Minho doesn’t get it. This man is awkward, unsure, and nothing like how Woojin had described. Maybe he had just charmed Woojin; maybe Woojin should be here on this date. If he had some fondness for the man, then that would explain why he would set Minho up with someone completely wrong for him.
“I heard you dance? From Woojin?” Chan is more interested in this conversation. Already, Minho can tell by his relaxed body language. Luckily for Chan, dancing is the one topic that Minho would never get tired of. His whole face lights up as he leans across the table in excitement.
Happily, Minho nods. “I have been dancing for as long as I can remember.” The waiter delivers their appetizers, cutting Minho off. Chan thanks them quietly, eyes never leaving Minho respectfully. Both wait for the waiter to walk off before continuing their conversation. “Right now, I’m a back-up dancer.” He explains giddily. All he wants is to try to get through to Chan. The man that Woojin described has to be there somewhere. He really hoped to dispel the awkwardness as soon as possible.
To his surprise, Chan seemed interested. “You must be good then, huh? To be a back-up dancer?” The question could have been sarcastic, but Minho didn’t sense any mocking behind it. Instead, he preens underneath the compliment.
“Well, I’d like to think so, of course.” He says, feigning shyness as he looks towards the table. His career as a dancer inflated his ego past the point of return, but Chan didn’t have to know that. Instead, he could just feed into it for awhile. It had been far too long since he’s received any genuine compliments anyway. His ego needed to be stroked. It would give him the confidence to make it through this date at least.
From the platter placed before them, they pick at as they try to keep conversation going. Blind dates are always hard, but Minho had trusted Woojin. Glad he now knows who he can’t trust. “What brings you to Seoul?” Minho dares to break the silence, taking another bite, balancing the food on his chopsticks.
“I’m studying abroad.” His answer had a hint of pride in it. Finally , Minho thinks he might get to see the man that Woojin gets to see. Unconsciously, he leans closer, taking a sip from his drink as he tilts his head to the side in askance. Chan seems to understand immediately. “I’m from Australia,” accent suddenly leaking as he pronounces the country’s name.
This gives Minho some insight on why this might be so hard for Chan. Cultural differences and all that jazz. Minho could get down with that. At the sound of his accent, Minho giggles. “Oh!” he exclaims, surprised and entertained. “Say that again!” He does, immediately, eyes crinkling with a rare glimpse of fondness. Unattractively, Minho lets out another impressed squeal. “Well,” Minho says, composing himself. “You had me fooled. You’re Korean is native.”
“Thanks,” Chan looks a little sheepish as he rubs the back of his head. “Do you know any English? Or… any other languages?” He asks, accent now extremely apparent since Minho is looking out for it. Minho’s mind tries to replicate his tone, but finds it impossible.
Shrugging, Minho tries to recall lessons from school. Most are long gone, erased and replaced by more important memories of cute boys and dance moves. “Some English? Not enough to be conversational, sorry.” With his schooling being said and done, there was no reason for him to continue studying a language that he didn’t know if he would ever need. Learning had never been one of his favorite activities, even if he did enjoy having random knowledge and having the upperhand in conversations.
“Sorry,” Minho repeats, in English this time.
A beautiful smile lights Chan’s face up. It makes Minho feel really fond suddenly. “Do you know anything else?” He asks expectantly.
Minho would love to rob all the stars from the night sky for this man. “Anything else?” He mutters, eyes rolling up as he thinks carefully about everything he’s learned in the past. “How are you doing?” He pronounces the words carefully. The language feels heavy on his tongue. His pronunciation isn’t right, but Chan doesn’t chastise him.
“With a little practice, you’d be perfect!” Chan reverts back to Korean, for which Minho is grateful. The compliment should just glance off of him, but he feels incredibly bright instead. The longer they spoke, the more relaxed Chan seemed to be. Minho was starting to enjoy talking to Chan, but once their food arrived, conversation grew sparse. Recovering was impossible and their next conversation ends up being an argument about how to split the check.
They decide to split the check.
After they pay, Chan stands up, shoving his arms into a ratty leather jacket that does something to Minho’s heart. In a rush of blind bravery, Minho stands up and invades Chan’s personal space. “Can I kiss you?” He asks, gaze flitting down to his lips. Kissing might be one of his favorite activities and it is unusual for him to walk away from a date without at least a chaste kiss goodbye.
However, he’s miscalculated Chan, who leans forward abruptly, lips brushing against Minho’s briefly. In his panic, he must have knocked over one of their drinks because Minho notices a concerning wetness pooling at his lap. Immediately, Chan apologizes, trying to clean up the mess with a bunch of napkins at his crotch. It is a little further than he thought he’d be getting tonight, but he’s not complaining. At least, not out loud because he knows it was an accident. He can breathe and get through this. Especially when Chan looks so harried and apologetic and cute . It is hard to be angry when Chan keeps looking up at him with those wide eyes. Actually, Minho just kind of wants to kiss him again. He’s extremely endearing of a mess. Truly, an abomination of a man. Minho thinks he’s (theoretically) in love.
Once his lap is as dry as he can get it, Minho tilts his head. In the moment, he feels brave and like Chan owes him. “Do you want to do this again sometime? Minus the spilling your drink on me part, of course.” Definitely, he’s interested, but Chan just stares at him like he has multiple heads. Really, maybe they didn’t really work out, but Minho thought he’d give him another chance. What could it hurt?
“Sure?” Chan says, taking out his phone to exchange numbers to surprisingly make future plans with a mess of a date.
Plus, Minho thinks, he trusts Woojin’s judgement. Maybe he wouldn’t always, but with this, it seems like he just might be onto something. It just might take a little more time than what Minho is used to.
Recently, Minho hasn’t been focusing on his love life like he wishes he could. If he were the ideal human, he would have every corner of his life balanced, but this one is a gaping black hole. His career consumes his life and takes up most, if not all, of his time. When he’s not dancing, he’s practicing his dance or thinking about his dance. It is frustrating too, with barely any real emotional profit since most of his ideas are taken by someone more important than him, so he’s not even given credit where it is due. Those same choreographies that he makes are given to people with bigger, more important names. He should be proud of himself, but instead, his company just makes him feel worthless and unappreciated.
After his date, he had no time to focus on having another one because of his work. Still, Chan often came up in the back of his mind. He hadn’t told Woojin about exchanging numbers with him or anything about the date really, but Woojin didn’t pry either. He probably was hearing the story from the other source. It made Minho excited to think of Chan thinking and talking about him. He was hopeful to think of them as something more than just two strangers. Who knew what might happen.
Today is one of his rare days off. He really wants to dedicate it to the one thing he needs, love and affection, but he thinks it is silly and cliche to keep this mindset. Still, as he’s going through his day, he has a hopeful attitude, checking his phone every time it goes off and even when it doesn’t. He won’t admit that he just wants Chan to text him, and he won’t message him first even though they’ve been talking for weeks now.
Out of all his recent dates, Chan definitely deserved a second chance. It had been awkward, but there were a lot of things about Chan that Minho knew he could fall for. Somehow, he had walked away hooked, interested. Woojin really knew how to pick them out for him.
It is midday when he breaks, reaching out to ask Chan out to a famous Korean marketplace. He just wants to spend time with him, so he says whatever just to set up the details. Minho even promises to pick him up with his purple Kawasaki motorcycle that he’s only had for a year. Chan doesn’t say no, surprisingly. Actually, he’s excited to explore more of Seoul when he’s hardly been here but for two years. He’s excited .
There’s that flutter in Minho’s chest. God , Chan’s so cute.
He decides that he wants to show Chan around Seoul, even if it takes forever. It gives him an excuse to ask him out again and again. For now, it is a marketplace, but next time, it could be Lotte World. Who knows? All they had was to find mutual free time and communicate. Which did seem a little hard for them, but who cares if the world is against them? Minho just raises one big middle finger to the world. Let him try with Bang Chan.
They might be able to work out if they just had a chance.
When Minho gets to Chan’s apartment, he notices that he doesn’t exactly have a good living situation. It must be what he can afford, but Minho finds himself wishing that he could give him more than he has. Which he knows isn’t normal for a stranger, but he’s whipped a little. The building is old, dilapidated to the point where he could be falling apart, but still, technically, it is liveable. It just needed touch-ups that Chan wouldn’t give it. It was a temporary living situation. Minho had been there during college. Not literally there, but he understood the living situations one had to take under the pressure of college and low funds.
As he knocks, he finds himself nervous. He’s never nervous, so the feeling shocks him. Behind the door, he hears some shuffling and he thinks about running away before he ends up getting too attached because he knows he’s going to, but then the door opens to reveal Chan. He’s casually dressed in a blue top that Minho might want to button. Maybe. Alright, under different circumstances at least. A couple more weeks.
His hair is curly, still holding the blond dye, but now there was some dark brown hair peeking through his roots. He tries to imagine the boy with darker hair and decides that his hair color really doesn’t matter. No matter what color, he’d be undeniably handsome.
Without meaning to, he knocks the air out of Minho’s lungs. “Hello, handsome.” He quips, trying to regain posture. Maybe close his gaping mouth at least.
Chan laughs like it hasn’t been nearly two months since they’ve seen each other. After the date, Woojin had spilled Chan’s feelings towards it and even though they weren’t overwhelming positive, Chan still wanted to give this a try. That’s more than Minho could hope for at this point in his life, but it isn’t just because Chan’s the only person showing him attention that he finds himself drawn so completely to him.
“How have you been?” Chan asks, picking up his wallet and keys beside the doorway. When he walks out, he just pulls the door shut, making sure it locks behind him. “You don’t need to go inside, right? It is a bit of a mess.” He looks sheepish, blushing a little.
Minho still wants to kiss him. He’s too cute. It does things to Minho’s heart.
Shaking his head, they start off towards their location. This Chan is different than the one he had met a month ago. There’s a new confidence in the way he moved. Minho realizes that this is the Chan that Woojin intended for him to meet. He wonders if the weeks of texting caused the man to warm up to him.
“I’ve been good?” Minho shrugs, too nonchalant.
Chan looks over at him curiously. “You sure?”
Nodding slowly, he thinks of what he wants to say. Now it seems like he’s the awkward one. “Yeah.” He bites at his lip. “You?”
“I’ve been good! Getting used to living in Korea, you know?” Chan explains, sounding suddenly shy. Minho knows he’s making it awkward, but he doesn’t know how to fix it. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. They’ve already had their first date.
Minho climbs onto his motorcycle, gesturing for Chan to put on a helmet and join him.
“You know,” Minho speaks abruptly, turning to Chan. “I am feeling really nervous. On our first date, I never felt like this, but now I’m nervous all of a sudden. I just… didn’t want you to think that I’m being weird. I wanted to see you again.” The confession comes out a little rushed. Abruptly, again, Chan moves forward, but their helmets hit off each other.
They both end up laughing a little too hard.
When they calm down, Chan waves a hand in the air dismissively. “I was nervous on our first date, to be honest.” He looks away, trying to hide his faint blush.
“There was nothing to be nervous about. I like people a lot.” Which was both true and untrue. He usually never gave people a chance to be close to him, but he liked to get to know new people. Liked to evaluate them from a distance. “I thought the date went well though, even if it was a bit awkward.” He shrugs.
“I have something embarrassing to tell you before we leave.” Chan says, still pointedly looking away. If anything, the blush on his face darkens.
Minho turns around to look at Chan, tilting his head to the side. “Hm? What is it?”
“It is really embarrassing.” He repeats, eyes big when he glances back at Minho.
“Pretty please, tell me?” Minho flutters his lashes, not expecting for it to work, but Chan’s eyes widen a little bit and suddenly he’s speaking. It is almost like he’s charmed by Minho.
Maybe they both are a tad… whipped .
“Fine,” Chan rubs the back of his neck. “I was expecting someone handsome, because that’s all the information Woojin gave me on you, but you walked in and you were handsome…” He says, a little dumbly. Minho can’t help but laugh fondly at him.
Blushing, even though he shouldn’t be, Minho takes his own helmet off, reaching for Chan’s next. Once they are both forgotten, he cups Chan’s face with his hands. “That’s what you wanted to tell me? That you were expecting me to be handsome and I live up to that expectation?” It is amusing, really. Chan can’t get any cuter.
“That’s it!” He echoes, leaning into his touch. Minho leans in closer, rubbing their noses together as Chan continues. “You were so handsome that I, like, forgot to breathe and stuff. What an idiot, right?” He’s so entirely endearing that Minho can’t stop himself from pressing closer and kissing him with every ounce of fondness he can.
Minho definitely was blushing, but he didn’t want to show it. When he pulls back, he immediately turns away to retrieve their helmets. “I’m definitely happy that we met, Bang Chan. Now, I’m going to blow your mind with trips around Seoul.” He says, trying to hide the smile that’s on his face, but he knows he sounds sickeningly happy.
Honestly, Woojin really pulled through with this one.
They drive away with Chan holding tight to Minho’s waist, and it is too soon, but Minho thinks he might be falling in love.