#in another actor's mouth that line could be so saccharine or fake

[peppermintquartz]

I think I need to rewatch Everything Everywhere All At Once. Or at least have Waymond tell me that we have to be kind, especially when we don't know what's going on.

[hansolmates]

jihoon; what a cu-tea

pt. 2 of the café carat collab with @wen-junehui: jun, jihoon

feat. shy!Jihoon x female reader

word count: 1867

summary: a good ‘ol fashioned fluffy university café au with a squishy blushy jihoon and bonus boss snarky josh and a sassy minghao ENJOY

“Dude, stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop looking! Jesus, you look like you’re about to eat her.”

“Well.”

“Don’t.” Minghao covered his ears, feeling incredibly scandalized. “Nearly every girl here fits your bill of ‘pretty and sweet’, but what makes this one so special? Even Shua could classify as your ideal type.”

“The heck?” Joshua reached over the counter to playfully smack his companion with his dishrag. Flicking his honey brown hair in pride, his bright almond eyes gave him the third-degree, and wiped his towel where Minghao’s elbow was resting on the other side. “And you,” he glared at Jihoon, poking him in the shoulder. “can’t invest your feelings in random girls. They’re your customers.”

“They’re your customers today, it’s my day off.” and to visually prove his point, Jihoon drew a line to where he were sitting, and then to Joshua, who was wiping behind the counter. “And she’s not a random girl.” He added bashfully, ruffling his messy locks.

“Still, I’d rather you just talk to them instead of gawking. The worst they could say to you is no.” Joshua said hopefully.

Minghao elbowed Jihoon in the side, giving him that snarky half-grin. “This kid’s just shy.”

Jihoon scoffed at the blazé idea of him being a kid, as he downed a shot of espresso in his designated shotglass (a birthday present from Yoon Jeonghan, who knew how hard coffee shop hours had on a Music Engineering major).

“So, who is she?” Joshua asked in that painfully sweet voice of his, and quirked his head to the side as he dries another metal latte holder.

The younger boy swallowed his sigh, carding a hand through his white-gold strands. His fingers glued themselves to the store-bought rips in his light wash jeans, idly nipping at the frayed strands. “She’s just someone from class.” He mumbled, looking over his shoulder to find you setting up your workspace.

“His Gothic English Romance class.” Minghao piped up with an upturn of his lips, “They read sexy romance novels and he’s incredibly frustrated.”

“Go to hell.”

“Right back at ya, bro.” Minghao replied cheekily, whipping his dishtowel so it would swipe Joshua in the buttocks. “If you’re not gonna bother talking to her, what’s the point of staying here?”

“This place inspires me.” Jihoon replied as neutrally as possible with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Sure,” Minghao forced an obnoxious-as-hell eyeroll. “You’re inspired by a place you work at fifty hours a week. Must be the minimum wage that’s filling up all those ideas.”

Minghao’s incessant chatter melted in the background as Jihoon couldn’t help but tilt his head in the direction of where you were sitting. Joshua was going to drop off your ginger honey iced tea next to your ever-multiplying pile of gothic literature. Your eyes disappeared like twinkling fireflies in a crinkled eye smile when you thanked the barista, and it absolutely drove him crazy not only because he wasn’t receiving the end of that beautiful smile, but because he so desperately wanted to talk to you but the words never seemed to be in his favor.

Digging a hand in his cheek, he pretended to be interested in the artwork in front of your table. From his peripheral he noticed that Joshua was handing you the moistened glass instead of the manual protocol of putting it on the table with the designated orange-pictured coasters. Instead Joshua let it drop between your hands like butter, the glass shattering on the hardwood floor. It was like a wake-up call as the crystal shot to the ground, shards spilling like scintillating diamonds as it glittered the wood.

There was an awkward silence that filled the coffee shop, lasting for a total of five seconds before Joshua sent all of them a professional smile and a wave of his serving plate. He turned to you with pleading honey brown eyes, handing you a couple napkins from his apron, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I’ll get someone to clean it right up right away!”

Joshua was a damn good actor, Jihoon had to commend. He couldn’t even tell if he was faking or not.

With a brisk flourish Joshua returned to the counter and pulled out a dust pan, gloves and dishtowels. “Jihoon,” Joshua cooed in the saccharine all-mannered voice that drove him into the wall, “Go clean up the mess over there.”

Liquid betrayal burned in his cheeks, he was almost sure he looked like a cherry tomato by now as Jihoon spluttered in his stool. “Why can’t Minghao do it?”

“I’m on break!” Minghao suddenly cheered, throwing his dirty dishtowel over Jihoon’s shocked face.

Ripping the coffee-stained towel from his head Jihoon snapped, “No you’re not!”

“Ah-ah,” Joshua tsk’ed, “I’m your boss.”

“I’m not even working.” Jihoon cursed, looking at how the tea stained your shorts and ribboned down your legs in  sticky mess. Man, it wasn’t even his shift and he shouldn’t even be cleaning, but he was so so whipped for you. Roughly grabbing the cleaning supplies from Joshua’s grasp he walked over to your table and knelt to the floor, giving a death stare to the woodwork without sparing your stricken form a glance.

He could feel your gaze burn into him like a hot milk steamer, eyes boring into his back as he picked up the pieces of glass as fast as possible. Maybe he should’ve apologized on Joshua’s behalf, asked if you wanted another tea, or even attempt polite small talk. But he was him and you were you, and that together was just asking for him to mess up.

Once the glass was clear and he made sure that every little bit was sweeped up, he began to scrub furiously under your table and soak up all the golden liquid.

“Um, Jihoon?” You asked warily.

Like the tea, he wished he could soak up and disappear. Tilting his head up, he bit his lip at how endearing you looked with your large doe eyes reflected by the afternoon sun. “Yeah?” He asked quietly.

“You’re scrubbing my shoe.”

His motions halted like a cyborg losing its command, and he realized in fact that his dirty dishrag was resting on your sneaker. Feeling your toes wiggle against his fingers, he flinched away like a burn. Scrambling up, his head hit the bottom of her table with a sharp bang, startling the piles of books and your laptop. He could faintly hear Minghao laughing his ass off by the cashier.

“Are you okay?” Swallowing his surprise he heard a thump and you were suddenly on the floor with him, gentle hands reach under to pat the spot on his head.

“I’m fine,” he said hurriedly, getting up once more. Bang. “Ow.”

You giggled, reminiscent of the way his grandmother’s twinkly wind chimes sounded. You were so close to him, he could feel your breath and clean laundry scent invading his senses, it was driving him mad. “Come on, let’s get outta here.”

Somehow he landed in the seat opposite yours, and you were hurriedly shifting your books to an empty corner so you could get a clear view of each other’s faces. He narrowed his eyes to the middle of the table, where two perfectly filled glasses of ginger iced tea magically appeared in their respective marmalade orange coasters.

“So why’d you clean up?” You got straight to the point, and Jihoon was momentarily lost in the way your hands fiddled with the lit-up keyboard of your laptop.

“Huh?”

“Are you working? You’re not wearing a uniform or anything.” You pointed at his outfit, the standard bummy student who ran out of clean laundry. His oversized mint t-shirt was swallowing his body, coupled with his super-soft jeans. “Or, did you think I looked absolutely pathetic trying to clean up all the tea on my body with just two napkins?” you inquired sardonically.

“Well,” he shrugged with a quirk of his coral pink lips, “You did look kind of pathetic, no offense.”

That elicited another laugh from you, a sound he didn’t expect to hear due to the backhanded insult in his reply. He wanted to take it back as soon as the bad habit left his mouth, but watching your nose scrunch and your smile melt across your face made him swallow that apology with a disarming sip of his tea.

“You’re funny when you’re not sitting like a wall decoration in the back of class.” You said, taking a hard gulp of your iced tea, the ice clinking crisply against the glass. “Thank you for cleaning up even though you weren’t on shift, by the way. The manager should give you a raise or something.”

“Hell yeah he should.” Joshua broke a damn glass for his own suffering, he deserved emotional damage control. Glass half empty, he pushed himself away from your table. He was getting way too comfy, and soon enough he would run out of interesting things to say to you until his mouth ran dry. But it wasn’t so bad when he had your smile to look forward to, it really wasn’t. “Uh, but I should go study, or something. Sorry about the spilled tea.”

“Wait, but I’m studying too! We’re doing the same paper, right? It’s due tonight.” You were looking at him like he was the only one in the room and it was painfully delightful against his beating heart, his body warm and fuzzy with underlying affection. “Why don’t you study here with me?” you asked with an adorable pout, a carefully cultivated jut of your lips and he knew he was a goner for the rest of his life.

His hands nervously tightened against the dishrag. “Is that okay?”

“Of course it is, Jihoon.” You nodded kindly. “We don’t even have to talk or anything. I work better when there’s someone else working hard next to me. Not that I’m opposed to talking.”

“I’m not opposed to talking, either.” He admitted shyly  “Although I’m not really good at it.”

“That’s okay.” You insisted brightly, kicking his chair again so he could sit back down. “I don’t mind staring at each other awkwardly for hours. At some point one of us will crack and ask the other person out.”

It was like an out-of-body experience. He was almost sure he was watching a standard coffee shop drama with terrible acting and sugar-sweet girls he didn’t deserve. But here you were, looking just as a hot mess as he was due to school stress and a stack of gothic romance aching to be analyzed.

“Jihoon, I told you it was your day off!” Joshua to the rescue again, setting down a tea plate with two warm caramel brownies. He placed Jihoon’s laptop bag by his foot, and in exchange took the dustbin and glass from him. Joshua threw a wink undetected by you, “Geez, stop being such an overachieving employee.” he chuckled, squeezing the younger’s shoulder once before returning to his post.

“So,” you whistled, sending him a playful smirk, “you’re staying?”

Biting his lip (which did nothing to hide his giddy grin) he shrugged, pulling out his own computer. “If I cave first, I’m taking to you to my studio.” He muttered, hiding his face behind the screen.