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Friday #1 – Jeongguk
It’s a regular Friday for Jeongguk, until it isn’t anymore.
One moment, he’s focusing on smiling sweetly but professionally at giggling young girls – his primary clientele – while throwing nervous glances at his latest hire and his skillet skills.
The next moment, a man in a black, expensive-looking coat has changed his expectations for Fridays.
He has liked Fridays well enough up until now, but future Fridays better step up their game, or he is going to end up hating them for not being this Friday.
Perhaps Jeongguk is hasty to judge all future Fridays based on nothing more than watching a new customer step into his cafe, but no one is there to judge him for it.
If they were, he would present them with some pretty solid evidence that he was, in fact, an excellent judge of the situation.
Exhibit A: The way he stormed in like he owned the place, making the bell over the door clang hard instead of jingle timidly, only to freeze in place a few steps in with the cutest expression of confusion, pouty lips forming a round “O”.
Exhibit B: The way snow-flakes glittered in his silver-blue hair before they melted, matching the glittering stars in his eyes. Okay, there were no glittering stars in his eyes in that moment, but there would be in the commemorative, anime-style doodle later, so, still valid.
Exhibit C, actually strike that, it should be Exhibit A instead: The way he looked and moved like the Man of Jeongguk’s Dreams, and that was before he opened his mouth to speak in this really angelic voice, asking a question, a question Jeongguk definitely had an answer for if only he still understood words.
“I’m sorry, come again?”
“Do you only serve pancakes here?”
Ah, see? He does know the answer!
And it’s not “No, we serve customers too”, because he is Jeongguk, not Jin.
“It’s a pancake cafe,” Jeongguk says, directing the customer’s beautiful eyes to the sign on the pink brick wall behind him, letting the name of the place do some of the talking he is struggling with, mouth-wise.
“We can make any type of pancake in the pictures to order, or custom requests, but that usually takes a little longer. Would you like to order?”
The man looks like he doesn’t want to be a customer at all, like being asked to order some of Jeongguk’s delicious pancakes is a terrible inconvenience to him on par with being asked to watch over your friend’s sugar gliders when you have just bought a new game, and your friend’s gaming chair is much fancier than your own, but doesn’t have the right butt groove for hours of playing.
“Yes, please,” the reluctant customer says politely, eyes revealing a hint of panic as they dart back and forth over the pictures that serve as a visual menu. “Could you recommend something, please?”
Three girls in school uniform are struggling behind him, probably in a hurry to return to the nearby high school before the end of their lunch break, but also wondering how to make the line move faster without being rude to a man older than themselves who clearly doesn’t get how things work at this cafe, especially during busy hours.
Know your order in advance, take a stool by the counter to watch the creation process through the glass partition, carry your tray to a table, leave to make room for others as soon as you finish eating.
Jeongguk’s customers practice solidarity, equal pancake opportunities for all who have found his little hole-in-the-wall cafe.
Jeongguk is all for solidarity, he really is, but he’s also for letting blue-haired dream men take all the time they need while Jeongguk admires them by the cash register instead of filling the orders much more skillfully than the new employee.
“Aah, uh, the Japanese souffle pancakes are really popular right now? Maybe those?”
“Okay, sure, that sounds good.”
“Great! One ‘Winter Bear’ coming up! Please take a seat by the counter and I’ll make them for you!”
There is no way in hell Jeongguk is going to let someone else mess up an order of souffle pancakes, especially not this particular order.
He charges the man for the pancakes plus a cup of coffee (black, no sugar), and moves to the cooking station like a mirror image of his customer, who moves with him to an empty stool on the other side.
“’Winter Bear’, like the song by Kim Taehyung?”
Jeongguk doesn’t know how to handle small talk and souffle batter at the same time, or even small talk without souffle batter, if he’s being honest, but he can nod and smile, so he does.
Sadly, that’s not the way to keep a conversation going, so that’s the last he hears of the angelic voice until the quiet “Thank you” when handing over the turquoise-striped tray chosen to complement the pink pancake decorations.
The place is busy, so Jeongguk is busy, but not too busy to glance over at what is not likely to become a regular customer.
Instead of eating the two fluffy teddy bear faces, he spends almost the entire time on his phone, absorbed by something stupid (Jeongguk assumes) and typing away with ring-clad thumbs.
Then, just before getting up from the table, he dissects, no, massacres the poor winter bears with the delicate silver fork and eats the tiniest bit, leaving the rest.
“How rude,” Jeongguk wants to think, but what he really thinks is that there is something wrong with the pancakes he made, the menu, the decor (too much pink after all?), or himself.
Probably himself, he’s the problem, he made the guy lose his appetite with his obvious staring and lack of flirting skills.
No, wait, not everything is about him, he’s gone over this in therapy.
Or, you know, whatever you call it when your older friend imparts life wisdom because you’re about to cry into your headset about some guy while you’re gaming together.
He’s probably just looking at another guy chained to his job phone, like most employees out to lunch.
Unlike Jeongguk, who is his own boss at last, the guy might have a really strict boss who won’t even let him enjoy a bear face in peace on a Friday.
In the seconds it takes for Jeongguk to swing from accusing to self-deprecating to pitying to forgiving, the object of his unspoken feelings has shrugged back into his coat and walked up to where Jeongguk is in the middle of placing berries symmetrically on the wings of a butterfly pancake.
“Excuse me, I just want to apologize for leaving so much on my plate…,” the poor, pancake-deprived man says, leaving the apology hanging mid-air, his full eye contact enchanting Jeongguk to such a degree that he has to physically shake it off when he realizes that he’s supposed to answer the unspoken question.
“...Jeon Jeongguk.”
“Ah, so you’re Jeon! Park Jimin. Again, please accept my apologies.”
Park Jimin bows in apology or as a farewell, or both, because the next second, he spins around and leaves Jeongguk’s cafe and life.
Friday #2 – Jeongguk
As it turns out, Jeongguk was just being dramatic, because one week later, there he is again: Park Jimin.
Spending a week thinking about how he should say “It’s nothing to apologize for” if Jimin ever came back was pointless, because now that Jimin is standing there, first in line without Jeongguk noticing him coming in, Jeongguk is too busy processing that he’s even more gorgeous than in his memories to say anything.
“Hello,” Jimin says, and it’s already the most stellar conversation of Jeongguk’s life.
“Hello,” Jeongguk says in return, as the accomplished conversationalist he is.
“I still don’t know what to order… Could you perhaps help me again?”
“Of course! I’ll try to choose something you like better this time,” Jeongguk says, immediately upset with himself for bringing up Jimin’s leftovers the week before.
“There was nothing wrong with the pancakes last time,” Jimin hurries to say, looking apologetic again (and awfully cute at the same time), “I just… Are all your pancakes animal-shaped?”
Unsure whether the question is an attempt at changing the subject, or if it has anything to do with why Jimin didn’t finish his animal-shaped pancakes, Jeongguk looks over his shoulder at the current menu and notices a certain pattern for the first time.
“Huh! I guess there’s a lot of animals on the menu, haha!” Even though his laughter is mostly of the nervous kind, it still relieves some tension, especially when Jimin’s face lifts into a great, eye-squinting smile too. “I guess I just really like animals!”
“Then I know what to order,” Jimin says, sounding more confident and relaxed than in the entire history of Jeongguk knowing him (which can be counted in minutes, but still). “Your favorite animal, please!”
While Jeongguk prepares a plate of his favorite animal in the form of a pancake, he can’t help but smile a little.
Involving Jeongguk’s personal likes made the exchange feel a bit like flirting, and just like that, Jeongguk has a new favorite Friday.
Last Friday can just go home, there’s a new Friday in town.
“Really?” Jimin’s surprised laughter when he gets the tray makes Jeongguk’s stomach flip in the good way. “Bunnies aren’t your favorite animal?”
Jeongguk gets why he would think that, considering their surroundings and all, but he doesn’t want to talk about it.
He’ll end up spilling too many details and revealing all his bunny-related nicknames, he just knows it.
Instead, he just shakes his head with a smile and wishes Jimin good appetite.
At first, it seems his wish was in vain, because Jimin is letting his pancakes go cold again while he’s doing stuff on his phone and missing all the telepathic signals to look Jeongguk’s way.
But once he’s out of there, he leaves behind him just a few, very specific pieces of pancake, as well as Jeongguk’s heart, filled with the spoken promise of returning the following Friday.
Friday #3 – Jeongguk
Add “man of his word” to Jeongguk’s list of reasons he’s falling for Park Jimin, because there he is again, Friday lunch, smiling shyly at Jeongguk (who might have to give his employee a raise after tackling him away from the cash register when Jimin’s blue hair appeared through the frosted glass of the door).
“Do you need me to recommend something today, or…?”
“Nope. I already know what I want.”
“Oh? That’s good!”
“Yep!”
He looks so proud of himself, Jeongguk almost doesn’t want to say what he must say next.
“So… Are you going to tell me, or would you like me to guess…?”
“Oh! Right, haha, I’m sorry…” Now he’s flustered, and Jeongguk wants to close early just to go home and draw Jimin’s blushing cheeks while they’re fresh in his memory. “One bunny plate, please!”
“You like bunnies? I didn’t know that,” Jeongguk says while pouring Jimin his usual coffee.
“It’s...a recent thing,” Jimin says before accepting the cup and following along to watch Jeongguk pull a bunny out of his rolled-up sleeve. “And you don’t really know a lot about me, anyway!”
The cafe is emptier than usual, due to the blizzard which Jeongguk had feared all morning would keep Jimin from showing up.
But there he is, and Jeongguk motions for Jimin to choose whichever of the available tables he likes, while Jeongguk himself brings him the plate without making him carry a tray.
“One ‘Bunny Booty’ for you, sir,” he says and puts the dish down with a flourish.
The pink of the pancakes clashes horribly against the pink of the table cloth, but Jeongguk can handle it, he can.
Really.
He should be used to multiple shades of pink by now.
He is.
It’s not a problem.
Park Jimin is a problem.
As a paying customer, he has the right to be left alone and do whatever he wants with his pancakes and his phone after being served, but Jeongguk wants attention.
He starts sketching on menu changes for the following week, to find a way of sustaining their conversation for a few more seconds if possible.
He might even ask Jin (he’s regretting it already) to help name the dishes again.
His notepad sketching is interrupted when Jimin brings back a completely empty plate, which he really didn’t have to do.
“You’re welcome,” is already loaded on Jeongguk’s tongue, so that’s what he says in response to what he thought for sure would be a “Thank you for the pancakes, they were delicious”, or something similar from Jimin.
“It was a really cute butt,” was what Jimin said, and by the time Jeongguk figures out that it was in reference to the pancake dish and not his own figure walking back from Jimin’s table (or? OR?), Jimin is already by the door, putting on leather gloves and flipping up the collar of his coat to turn himself into an Iceborn before facing the evil ice magic cast over the city.
Friday #4 – Jeongguk
“Welcome back, may I interest you in today’s special?”
It’s not Valentine’s Day, and if he hadn’t lost his mind over Jimin, he would have waited to put this on the menu when there was a reasonable explanation for it other than “I’m clearly trying to woo you via pancakes”.
“You may,” Jimin says with an intrigued smile that looks flirtatious to Jeongguk, who wants it to look flirtatious.
Everything goes exactly as in Jeongguk’s daydreams from the past few days of practicing on flavorless-but-available-in-midwinter strawberries, except the part where Jimin makes round eyes that look nervous instead of impressed when he sees the plate.
“Ask me the name,” Jeongguk hurries to say before Jimin can walk away with the tray to an available table.
He didn’t suffer through Jin’s laughter at his own puns and Papago translations to make sure the names were inoffensive to English speakers, just to let Jimin eat his latest creation without hearing the stupid name they had settled on.
“Can I try and guess it?”
“Sure!”
Even better, more seconds in Jimin’s company!
“Hmm… It’s red velvet, right?”
Jeongguk confirms that the pancake batter is inspired by red velvet cake, and the dollop on top is a cream cheese whip.
“So maybe another song title? ‘Time To Love’? Or maybe… ‘Bad Boy’? Tell me if I’m way off!”
Jeongguk would like to pick apart what made Jimin suggest those Red Velvet song titles, especially the second one, but he owes him the real answer so he can go enjoy the dish that Jeongguk put so much extra baker’s love into.
Here he goes, so far out on a limb, he’s basically a tiny bird bouncing on the outermost twig, wondering if he will fly or fall.
“I call it ‘My Heart Beets For You’, because...red velvet...beets...it’s the red in the batter…”
Someone save him, please, he’s turning as red as a... Nooo!
He’s going to kill Jin, that punning dork, or hide an important cable at least, for making him think this was a good idea!
“I see… So you don’t make just any ordinary pancakes here, you make pun-cakes,” Jimin puns in English, and Jeongguk can’t remember a time when he didn’t love punning dorks more than any other people.
Jin is going to be so upset for not thinking of “pun-cakes” himself, when he got so close with “fun-cakes” that one time, Jeongguk thinks.
Serves him right for making Jeongguk swallow his damn heart into his stomach before Jimin rescued him like the absolute prince he is.
Jeongguk is so busy celebrating his success and planning how to take the next, next step that he doesn’t notice Jimin leaving both him and most of the red velvet pancakes before it’s too late; he’s already gone.
Friday #1 – Jimin
It’s been over a year since he set foot in his old favorite lunch place, simply because of his company doing well enough to move to a fancier neighborhood.
With months of late Friday work nights ahead of him, Jimin has decided to take longer lunches and travel back to his comfort place once a week.
Not only is the food delicious, but the owners know exactly how to make his special order: soft tofu stew with pork, hold the rice, extra veggie side dishes.
His feet carry him around the corner into the little side street without needing directions, and his mind is already on the spicy, delicious broth when he closes in on the hidden little gem of a place.
Vaguely, he notices more graffiti than before around the frosted glass door and frosted glass window, but snow makes even run-down neighborhoods look prettier and friendlier.
The place must be even more popular than it used to be, judging by the footprints leading to and from the door which Jimin opens with a “Honey, I’m home!” feeling.
He’s a full meter inside the door before he freezes, wondering if he’s gone down the wrong side street, tricked by the snow erasing small, familiar landmarks.
His Honey is supposed to be a tiny grandmother with a huge ladle and a special, nearly toothless smile especially for Jimin.
His Honey is not supposed to be a blond, hunky guy looking totally out of place in the panoply of pink plushies surrounding them.
Not that Jimin minds, mind you.
His dating schedule is wide open since… Let’s not think about it, that’s in the past now.
The look he’s getting from Blond Hunk tells him half of what he needs to know, so: Flirt Mode – Activated.
Luckily, Jimin doesn’t even have to pretend to be in need of help to strike up a conversation, because he’s in dire need of it if he’s going to stay there for lunch, which he totally is.
Tearing his eyes away from his main reason to stick around, he spots two rows of laminated pictures on the pink-painted brick wall behind the brick wall of muscles, dressed in a gray, fine-knit sweater.
Okay, so this is a cafe now, not a restaurant.
Or maybe more of a bakery, really, because everything on the menu looks sweet. Oh no.
Then he sees the much larger sign on the wall, and all hope of finding something appropriate to eat vanishes.
The name of the cafe is written in black against a white background: Jeon by Jeon.
Next to the name is a gray stone slate serving as background for two traditional, pink rhododendron hwajeon.
Like half the cafes in the city, this cafe has a theme, and the theme is obvious all of a sudden, but Jimin has to ask anyway when he makes it to the counter.
“Excuse me, do you only serve pancakes here?”
A few minutes later, he’s sipping coffee good enough to return for even on its own, although Jimin has already decided anyway to return as many times as it takes to find out if Buff Baker will go out with him.
From the few words they have exchanged so far, he thinks he has found someone helpful and sweet, who is most likely into the music of Kim Taehyung (and maybe Kim Taehyung the person, which Jimin can’t decide whether he considers a plus or a minus).
For sure, that’s all promising enough to be worth the bullets of sweat breaking through his BB cream right now.
He knows that he’ll need a bigger bolus dose of insulin to do away with the evil little teddy bears ruining his lunch break and flirting opportunities.
Look at them, with their beady little chocolate eyes, making him run searches and calculations that soft tofu stew would not have required.
If the man making them hadn’t been so cute (in a hot way, not cute like the millions of pink toy bunnies covering every possible surface in there), Jimin would have simply left the meringue menaces behind without even trying.
But such is life as an attractive, flirtatious, diabetic man in his prime, Jimin tells himself, with all the confidence that his best friend and business partner tries to inspire in him daily.
Sometimes, you just have to live with the fact that you stared at a guy’s hands instead of what the hands were doing, so you have no idea if the bear faces on your plate have a caramelized surface or not.
Ultimately, Jimin gives up.
It’s been forever since he ate anything with that many carbs, since it was simply easier to stick to routines and familiar meals with familiar compositions.
If he hurries, he can still grab something on his way back to work, and skipping meals is not an option.
Feeling like he’s ruining his chances with his future date, he does something he hasn’t done since he was a kid: divides the pancakes in tiny, tiny pieces (a crime made easier by the fact that they were served with a fork) and spreads them out to make it harder to see how much of the original shapes are left.
But first, he slices the face off the top of each piece of pastry and sets it aside on the plate, feeling like a creepy murderer.
Then he dutifully eats three tiny forkfuls that make his saliva feel like 98% sugar/2% water, before putting his all into an alluring gaze while apologizing for his behavior.
“Excuse me, I just want to apologize for leaving so much on my plate…,” Jimin says with a polite tone that does not match his thoughts about Sweater Sweetie now that they’re face-to-face again, hoping to get his name.
“...Jeon Jeongguk,” Jeon Jeongguk says, and now the name on the cafe sign makes sense.
“Ah, so you’re Jeon! Park Jimin. Again, please accept my apologies.”
With a bow, a surge in his stomach that is not entirely caused by lunch hunger, and blood sugar levels screaming for attention, Jimin rushes out of Jeon by Jeon and vows to himself to do better next Friday.
Friday #2 – Jimin
This time, Jimin comes prepared: medium-sized, savory snack already in stomach, Naver search results for various pancake and topping nutritional values open on phone, nice sweater and slacks instead of sharp suit on body, to fit in a bit better (and look invitingly huggable).
He is ready to eat some carbs, bat his eyelashes, and learn something more about Jeongguk if he can.
And, folks of all genders, he is off to a GREAT START!
Before they even exchange hellos, Jimin’s pattern recognition kicks in and helps him form an assumption, to be validated or disproven on the date which Jimin hopes to bring Jeongguk on.
Observation 1: The graffiti outside the cafe, to which Jimin paid more attention this Friday, is an intentional work of art rather than random tags.
Observation 2: The tattoos(!!) covering Jeongguk’s arms from wrists to elbows (or more, but that’s how far his long-sleeved, white tee is rolled up) match the graffiti in style and color.
Assumption: The creator of the fanciful pancake dishes works in more media than just pancake batter, food coloring and toppings, and Jimin is falling for an Artistic Soul.
See, Jimin would have made a super scientist, if only the prospect of meeting the same people every day and doing very little socializing hadn’t made him go the business and media route instead.
Like all good scientist wannabes, Jimin collects material for his study and tweaks his method to increase the chances of a reaching valid results.
In other words, he sneaks a few pictures with his phone camera of the menu while Jeongguk makes him a plate of his favorite animal, so he can study the menu and perform calculations in advance before subsequent visits.
Jimin’s health depends on numbers, a powerful incentive to excel at mathematics.
Take that, insulin pump!
Literally, take those calculations.
Oops, Jeongguk ended up in some of the pictures, how unfortunate!
Jimin will have to seek forgiveness later, and keep the pics all to himself meanwhile.
Not share them on social media, only look at them in private when no one else is around, ethical measures like that.
“Really?”
Jimin has to laugh in delight when Jeongguk hands him a plate full of dinosaurs.
There’s a bunny dish on the menu, and anyone spending more than one second inside Jeon by Jeon would be forgiven for being surprised in Jimin’s position.
“Bunnies aren’t your favorite animal?”
Jeongguk denies the bunny assumption with a blond, fluffy head shake and a smile that would have made Jimin think of bunnies even without the visual and conversational prompts.
While Jimin does his best to figure out how much maple syrup the prehistorical pancake figures are drowning in, he can’t help but conjure up images of Jeongguk in dinosaur pajamas, Jeongguk with a cartoon brachiosaurus tattooed somewhere inappropriate, Jeongguk stretched out with a blissful smile on top of dinosaur bed sheets…
Before he knows it, Jimin has actually eaten all of the blueberries, all of the banana slices, and all of the three dinosaurs except the heads, leaving them to swim in a lake of syrup.
It’s the best thing he’s eaten in years, and he’s already looking forward to next Friday’s sugary sinning.
“Did you like them?”
Jeongguk’s large, hopeful eyes could make Jimin praise his pancakes even if they had tasted like burnt laminate flooring.
“They were excellent, thank you,” Jimin praises both pancakes and Jeongguk in one go, then returns the giant smile caused by his compliment. “See you next Friday, I hope?”
Friday #3 – Jimin
“Do you need me to recommend something today, or…?”
“Nope. I already know what I want.”
Not only does Jimin’s heart flip like Jeongguk’s pancakes every time he sees a bunny lately, but after analyzing the menu away from the intoxicating presence of the bunny-smiled baker, Jimin is certain that it’s the easiest dish on the menu to calculate.
His app is already set to signal the little pump under his skin.
“Oh? That’s good!”
“Yep!”
Jimin is so proud of himself, that he forgets how to proceed when the scene doesn’t play out exactly like he imagined on his way there.
You see, Jimin expected blond hair.
Even blond hair tucked behind one ear, showing off multiple piercings, much like Jimin’s own, would have made Jimin weak in the knees, but not thrown him off like this.
The culprit?
A single, blueish stripe of hair, curling around Jeongguk’s ear, like he’s bashfully trying to hide the very boyfriend-like move of someone experimenting with their partner’s hair dye.
With all the interesting piercings, and the flattering way his hair frames his face when pulled back like that, the effect is the opposite; Jimin’s attention is on the silver-blue strands only.
“So… Are you going to tell me, or would you like me to guess…?”
“Oh! Right, haha, I’m sorry…”
Pink heat is rising on Jimin’s cheeks when Jeongguk pulls him back to their cafe counter schema, but even as he places his premeditated order, he’s still wondering if his own hair color inspired Jeongguk’s.
“One bunny plate, please!”
“One ‘Bunny Booty’ for you, sir,” Jeongguk says when he puts the plate down on the table in front of Jimin, who wants so badly to ask his waiter to sit down together with him.
Seeing him in full figure for the first time, on this side of the counter, is so outside of the ordinary and so exhilarating that Jimin feels like anything could happen at his point.
But he must respect a fellow business man running his business, so instead, he says:
“Very nice! But that’s not the name on the menu, though?”
“Ah, no, I had to make something up. That’s as good as it gets on short notice,” Jeongguk says, not sounding or looking sorry at all for the name. “See? Tail instead of face.”
Indeed, there is a fluffy, whipped cream tail on the bunny showing its backside as if the plate is a magical door to Wonderland and it’s running through it to meet the Queen on time.
In the menu picture, the bunny had been facing its eater, smiling in the face of annihilation.
Like the pancake bunnies, Jimin stills, feeling caught.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, but I couldn’t help but notice that you don’t seem to like eating faces…”
Yep, there it is, his silly secret is out, so he might as well confess to his mind reader.
“I just feel so bad for them,” Jimin says, with a bit of a whine that wasn’t supposed to sneak out together with his words.
Cue Jeongguk pointing out that it makes absolutely no sense; that even if pancake animals had feelings, leaving them without tails, legs and tummies would almost be more cruel than eating the heads as well.
“I understand,” Jeongguk says, not at all joining the choir of people singing “You’re ridiiiiiculouuuus, fa-la-la-la-laaaa” in Jimin’s head since childhood. “I used to cry when my parents told me the last fishcake in my bowl felt lonely without its friends. Anyway, I hope you love backsides better!”
Jimin’s plan of discreetly admiring Jeongguk at work instead of converting carb count to bolus dosage falls apart just like that, with two phrases.
Empathetic, thoughtful, and dripping with innuendo?
Jimin has to pretend to use his phone this time, just to keep himself together.
The few times he manages to steal a glance without being discovered, he finds himself focusing on the tattoos.
The impression they give off is that of a person who has done his best to fit every symbol for “I’m cool and dangerous” where everyone can see, in the blackest of emo black, only to have a change of mind later on.
Because, just like with the graffiti adorning the facade of the cafe, every square millimeter of skin between skulls, flames and roaring tigers is covered in colorful blossoms, pastel rainbows, and, yes, pink bunnies.
More than once, Jimin feels the impulse to monitor his blood sugar, because even though he’s nomming on banana-and-almond bunny paws, he feels like it might be low.
He’s dizzy and his heart is beating really fast and… Oh.
Friday #4 – Jimin
“Welcome back, may I interest you in today’s special?”
Not what Jimin expected.
He already knew what to order, but how can he say no?
He has to see what Jeongguk wants him to see, and there’s this tiny, tiny hope that the special has something to do with him.
“You may,” Jimin says, and accepts the coffee that Jeongguk has ready for him.
Then flipping and flirting and puns and pancakes happen, and Jimin is sitting speechless at a new table, facing the counter and close enough to hear every word between customers and bakers.
“My heart beets for you”.
“My heart beets for you”.
What the gay romance novel heck is Jimin supposed to do with that?
Or with the drizzle of maple syrup, which he still hasn’t figured out how to measure?
Yeah, he’s definitely able to focus on what’s important here, no problem at all.
What does etiquette dictate in this situation?
Should he bring heart-shaped baked goods of his own in a container next time?
Wait until Jeongguk spells out 지민 in pancake batter and names the dish “Be Mine (I Want You To Ask Me Out)”?
One way or another, Jimin has to makes his feelings (and his diabetes, seriously, he can’t go on like this with the incalculable syrup) known to Jeongguk.
He better come up with a way before he has to explain at work where he goes every Friday, alone, since explaining that would lead to “help” likely to make things even worse.
Jimin eats all of the strawberry decorations, bringing them one by one to his mouth with as much cream cheese whip as each piece can hold.
Then he moves on to the smallest red velvet pancake, and that’s when it happens: he overhears a conversation, if one can call it that when one party is trying their best to get out of it by being short with the other.
A long-haired, short-skirted person is swiveling on a bar stool and leaning forward occasionally on the counter to the point of threatening the integrity of the glass partition.
In a saccharine voice, everything from compliment-fishing to emotional blackmail is poured over poor Jeongguk, who does not seem to agree that being a regular customer and having a pretty face equals rights to pressure him into a date.
Jimin doesn’t know what’s worse – the customer’s behavior, his own impulse to employ himself as bouncer, or Jeongguk’s well-rehearsed responses.
As uncomfortable as he seems, he also seems tragically used to it, which leads Jimin to a small, Friday lunch epiphany:
Coming on to someone in their workplace, especially someone in the service industry, is a Doodle-Dasher move.
As much as Jimin wants to cling to the belief that he has something different going on with Jeongguk, compared to the stool-swiveling, ponytail-twirling customer still pushing it over there, he can’t eat another bite, or hear another word.
He has some thinking to do, and it needs to be done elsewhere, just like his flirting.
Friday #5 – Jeongguk
Give up or go even harder?
Giving up after the “heart failure” would have felt safe and comforting short-term, but sad and stupid in the long run.
Two of the things Jeongguk has learned so far from being alive and doing human things, are that his communication isn’t always as clearly received as he expects it to be, and that every time he pushes himself past the intimidating stuff that makes him want to give up, it pays off somehow.
In clearer terms: Jeongguk has been at work since early morning, making a single stack of unicorn rainbow pancakes, just in case the red hearts of romance lacked a big scoop of gay to punch the message home.
Not that there’s anything inherently gay about rainbows, unicorns, or even rainbow-colored unicorns, but Jeongguk is 90% confident that rainbows make people think of Pride flags, and 100% sure that there’s something subliminally homo-romantic about a beautiful, gender-ambiguous creature with a giant phallic thing on its face.
So, you know, just in case Jimin is under the impression that Jeongguk is looking for nothing more than buddy-like banter over cafe counters, Jeongguk has just the pastel marshmallow horn to fix that.
As he spritzes chocolate eyelashes onto paper to freeze – his solution to the face problem, just take the eyelashes off after serving – he messes up from giggling to himself over how different his life is since he embraced his love for all things aegyo (including pouty-lipped, angel-faced men) and stopped treating it as a hindrance on his path to the perfect emo rocker aesthetic.
Perfect to Jeongguk now is whatever makes Jeongguk happy, and the feeling of having cut that knot he heard about in high school is a relief and a small thrill, every single day.
Give him another five years or so, and he might even draw Jin a thank you card for loudly encouraging Jeongguk to make his private plushie collection the main focus of the cafe decor, even augmenting it with a generous bunny donation on opening day.
By the time the usual lunch rush begins, Jeongguk already has the perfectly, evenly colored mini pancakes cooled off, stacked in order of highest-to-lowest light frequency, and decorated with a luscious mini-marshmallow mane.
By the time Jimin usually comes in, Jeongguk is in the middle of wishing he could spawn tentacles like Illaoi, because he doesn’t have enough arms to demonstrate the payment terminal again to the temp while also filling both his own orders and hers after she proved herself hopeless in the kitchen.
And by the time things settle down, bunny clock way past the time Jimin usually leaves, the unicorn looks just as serene and patient as when Jeongguk gently placed the eyelashes on top.
That is more than anyone can say for Jeongguk.
His disappointment lasts for about ten seconds, before it’s overtaken by worry.
Worry that he scared Jimin off, sure, but what else is new?
Jeongguk will tell you what’s new: his worry that something might have happened to Jimin.
In his mind, he is already running through a jumbled collection of entertainment companies in the district, some of which have ordered from him before.
You can’t reasonably expect Jeongguk to have a crush for weeks without conjuring up his own headcanon for Jimin’s life outside the cafe.
In Jeongguk’s mind, Jimin working at an entertainment company in some capacity, where silver-blue hair is his flashy calling card, is so deeply ingrained in his daydreams that he would honestly be shocked if confronted with a different reality at this point.
Despite his supernatural capacity for devouring sweets, Jeongguk can’t bring himself to touch as much as a sprinkle on Jimin’s unicorn.
Using the horn to hold up the clingy film he covers it with, he stashes the whole plate on the top shelf of a refrigerator, moroseness hitting him hard when he closes the door on the little cutie.
The rest of the day drags on endlessly, and when darkness falls outside, it falls over Jeongguk’s emo heart as well.
Cleaning up to sad, sad music from his teens is therapeutically self-indulgent.
If you’ve never wallowed in heartbroken self-pity with a mop in your hands and your childhood bed bunnies as your only audience, you just wouldn’t get it.
With his inner timer set to 6 days, 16 hours and counting down to the next possible Jimin sighting, Jeongguk shuffles out of the dark cafe and performs the whole locking routine.
Then he goes around the corner, where he always parks the one thing that can lighten his mood right now: his Daelim Daystar.
Dodging buses and taxis on his way home would surely take his mind off his imaginary dating life for half an hour, or so Jeongguk’s thoughts go until he actually rounds the corner and sees the second thing that can, and does, lighten his mood.
“Hi…”
“Hi! What…?”
“I’m guessing this is yours?”
Jimin looks close to turning into an ice sculpture, but he’s still mobile enough to point at the black motorcycle.
Also, he’s there.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
Jeongguk’s mouth running on its own without thought is a plus for once, because it seems to function better than Jeongguk’s conscious mind, which is full of “Jimin-Jimin-Jimin-JiMIIIIn” and nothing else.
“The, ehm, painting? Looks a lot like your tattoos…”
Ha! Jimin has been checking out his tattoos!
Jeongguk is overtaken by smug satisfaction for a moment, but then he’s back to perceiving Jimin, who does not just look cold, but also...less put together than usual? Stressed, somehow?
“So, what are y…”
“Anyway, I just w…”
“No, sorry, you first!”
“No, what were you gonna…?”
It seems they need a counter between them, or at least a cafe environment, to make conversation flow smoothly.
Eh, if Jeongguk had put smooth conversation on his list of requirements, he would never have gotten further than the first date with anyone, anyway.
Getting to the stage where you just get each other anyway, that’s the real stuff, and Jeongguk wants that again.
Stay brave, Jeongguk, and it just might happen.
“I...sorta missed you today,” he confesses. Brave, brave Sir Jeongguk bravely stays put.
“...really?” Jimin swallows and Jeongguk thinks it’s not the worst reaction.
“Really. I made you a unicorn, it… It’s a rainbow, and… You want it now? I can…”
Jeongguk is fumbling with the keys, halfway to the fridge in his mind already and totally forgetting that Jimin probably has a reason of his own for showing up that has nothing to do with missing his weekly dose of pancakes.
“Actually, I just wanted to know if your motorcycle will be okay if you leave it here...for a few hours?”
Jimin is biting his lip and Jeongguk has the split-second thought that Jimin should leave that task for someone else.
That’s where his mind is at when his mouth goes:
“I think so? Wait, are you asking me out? Now? Like on a date?”
“Yes, yes, and sort of? Look, I’m supposed to be at work right now, but I wanted to catch you at closing time and my...business partner is covering for me. If I ask you out for real next week, will you come with me now and hang with me while I work?”
Later on, while watching Jimin work (i.e. sit still in the dark, hold hands with Jeongguk under his coat and answer production crew questions every now and then), it will occur to Jeongguk that Jimin might have been out there early enough to catch him singing along to Linkin Park with the mop handle as a mic stand.
It will cause a small crisis that lasts until he remembers where he is and that Jimin had every chance to back out, but didn’t.
In this moment, however, he’s just very eager to accept Jimin’s offer without seeming too eager, so he asks the most important question first:
“Will there be food? I haven’t had dinner yet, so…”
Jimin laughs, relief all over his face, and he steps forward to grip Jeongguk’s elbow lightly while they start walking toward the main street together.
“We’ll send someone out on a food run, don’t worry,” he says and leans into Jeongguk with a warmth that can’t be just body heat. “Just checking – you like Kim Taehyung, right?”
“Yeah, I listen to him, but I’ve never had the chance to go to a concert or anything,” Jeongguk says, still clueless about the turn his evening is about to take once he meets Jimin’s “business partner”.
“Good,” Jimin says, letting his hand slide down Jeongguk’s arm until their gloved hands wrap around each other for the first time that night.
And it’s that move, that bold move, which causes Jeongguk’s downfall.
He’s going to eat his words for years, but he doesn’t know it yet.
All he knows is that they are about two meters from stepping out from the dark side street into the lights that will make Jimin let go of his hand, and he’s not ready to be let go.
So he stops.
And turns.
And asks:
“Could I order something sweet before we go?”
Jimin blinks in confusion, probably because Jeongguk just left a place practically coated in powdered sugar, where he could have had his fill already.
Jeongguk has to step closer, carefully, and take both of Jimin’s hands in his own before Jimin catches on.
“Oh my GOD, that’s so corny,” Jimin laughs, throwing his head back but pressing his body against Jeongguk’s at the same time and squeezing their hands together, hard.
Then they’re kissing, and it’s serious for several seconds before they’re giggling into each other’s mouths and have to break apart to wipe at tears.
“If you’re lucky, I might let you meet the guy who taught me all I know about flirting,” Jeongguk says as he pulls a still-laughing Jimin with him, thinking to himself that Jin deserves a Friday coffee with someone who might actually laugh at his jokes.
Friday #17 – Jimin
Both of Jeongguk’s employees notice Jimin and give him friendly little bows before Jeongguk looks up from where he’s decorating a plate.
His smile when he sees Jimin is still as brilliant as it was the first Friday after their almost date and actual date.
He wipes his hands on the pink apron around his waist and moves to greet Jimin with coffee as usual (black, no sugar) while one of the others take over for him.
“Hi sweetie,” Jimin says quietly, smiling just as big as Jeongguk when he accepts the mug with two hands so one can linger over his boyfriend’s for a second. “Got lunch for me?”
“Of course,” Jeongguk answers, all sweetness. “Just say the word, and it’s yours.”
“You already know my order,” Jimin protests weakly, knowing he’s lost already.
“I don’t know if you don’t say it out loud,” Jeongguk says and leans back with his stupid, muscular arms crossed over his stupid, muscular chest, donning that stupid, confident, lopsided smirk that makes Jimin want to yell “Fire!” to evacuate the place.
“One ‘Cutie Jimin Kimchi Special’, please,” he says, staring daggers at Jeongguk who doesn’t buy it for a second, just blows him a little kiss with a wink instead and goes straight into making Jimin’s low-carb lunch plate.
“It’s not even kimchijeon,” Jimin sasses as he takes his seat opposite Jeongguk’s pancake station. “They’re kimchi omelet rolls, completely different thing.”
“Omelets are just pancakes without the flour,” Jeongguk says calmly, as if it’s the first time they’ve had this discussion.
Jimin watches him crack eggs into a bowl and taps his foot to the familiar rhythm of a song off Tae’s latest album – the only music playing these days at Jeon by Jeon, in support of the only artist Jimin manages.
“Wait, I can’t eat that much,” Jimin says when he sees how much batter Jeongguk is making.
Sure, ever since he told Jeongguk about his diabetes (leading to Jeongguk dramatically throwing the unicorn in the trash to keep Jimin from eating it before their first Saturday date), he’s had a personal chef stuffing both him and his fridge every chance he gets with healthy, diabetes-friendly foods.
But there are limits to how much Jimin can eat in one sitting; he’s not Jeongguk.
“No problem, because you’re not getting this much anyway,” Jeongguk says in a mock-casual tone that lets Jimin know he’s building up to some sort of punchline.
Just wait for it…
“Half is for me, unless you’d rather have me wait for some other insanely hot guy and share my lunch with him instead.”
There it is.
Jeongguk has delivered the line he must have been keeping in all morning while waiting to surprise Jimin with a sit-down lunch together, and Jimin couldn’t be prouder of him.
That’s his dork, those are their non-sweet non-pancakes, and that’s their table over there.
What else could he possibly need?
