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[itgirlgyu]

CUPID'S QUERIES. stray kids, hyung line.

synopsis, what would you answer if cupid asked you what love was?

pairing : librarian! reader x chan, lee know x reader, dance teacher! reader x changbin, and single mom! reader x hyunjin.

genre: fluff. warning: none. wc: 3k+

cupid queries innocently, "WHAT IS LOVE?"

"spending time together." the answer died down in chan's answer when you scoured him with doubt from top to bottom, investigating the means of his arrival on your own despite already asking the question.

"to read a book," chan spun around with a pseud fascination added to his honeyd tone, with an awkward turn of his heel, and finally walking back to your desk where you were supposed to volunteer for four more hours for the day.

you quirked up an accusatory eyebrow.

"ive never even seen you pick up a book."

"im still a student you know-"

"what is your deal," you rested your elbows on the wooden desk, your eyes narrowed with suspicion, drawing your upper body towards the accused, "mr. bang?"

chan remained silent but instead his dimples made the ruling statement, allowing you to freely decide that he had indeed come with no good intentions; and certainly not to read.

"I honestly came here to read!" chan exclaimed, his whiny tone gradually calming down as you widened his eyes notifying him about the establishment you both were standing in. chan glanced all over him to see if anyone had been glaring at him, and only continued after shooting an apologetic smile at the elderly man going through a magazine.

chan placed his palm on the table and leaned forward—his face coming too closer to yours before you leaned away, "i came here to read-"

chan eyes had been desperately looking around for concrete reasoning knowing your tendency to question everything and kept his eyes on the kiosk beside the desk showcasing all the books that had been launched that week. so whilst chan was battling you in the war of reticent lashes, he extended his hand and grabbed a book from there and placed it before his eyes.

"a cook book?" you dead panned. bang chan moved his head to nod before he processed what you had just said—turning the book around to see a friendly looking woman in a chef's hat posing with a spatula on the cover —before meeting your eyes again. you were struggling to keep your quivering lips in check, as it begged to curl upwards in a hearty grin catching your best friend in the act. chan looked like a deer caught in the headlights. his head staggering in a broken up and down motion as he tried to come up with a credible excuse in spite of the fact that bang chan absolutely detested cooking.

"ye-yes!"

"really?" you questioned. the melodious lull meticulously morphing into a trap that you intended to set out to catch him in his web of lies, "what are you trying to make?"

chan's pupils widened for a minuscule moment before blinking a few times to get a hold of his composure and opened up the book with a confident flip of his fingers, acting as though he is well aware of the dish that he wanted to show you despite his sparkly eyes flitted around to avoid your accusatory gaze.

you placed your chin on the end of your palm—minutes melting away, and the agitation in chan's actions gradually making it's unwanted vacillation known, before admitting his defeat and holding up a random page out of the cookbook to you.

it was your turn to widen your eyes as your eyes raked through the page with the image printed in front of it. narrowed gaze scanning top to bottom once more before you cocked your eyes to look at chan.

"a carrot cake?"

"a carrot cake?" you inquired, closing the cooking book. your eyebrows bunched together in confusion as you raised your chin to look over minho's shoulder to assess the ingredients once more.

flour, milk, eggs, grated carrot—your boyfriend truly is preparing to bake a carrot cake but the question still hangs in the air with the air of mystification. as far as you knew your lover, he had not been fond of carrots—you had asked that sheepishly on your third "date" considering he resembled a rabbit out of puerile curiosity, and for the first time you had seen him crack a laugh that wasn't stained in scorn— and baking? he had no interest in baking either as far as you had gotten to know him.

minho hummed as he mixed in the dry ingredients with deft hands. the sleeves proficiently rolled upwards for an easier work experience but to you it served another purpose; something you would not admit to minho even if he tried to threaten it out of you. treacherous eyes taking in the way his veins moved in its own rhythm displaying a rather different, and vivid form of entertainment for you. you certainly weren't complaining about this new found hobby of your boyfriend anytime soon if this is the kind of show you were promised to get each time.

"didn't know my hands could feel so naked." minho sighed, with a hint of teasing tucked away in his playful sing-song tone. you fumbled backwards, not expecting him to comment so bravely about your lewd gaze and his laugh started booming through the expanse of your kitchen.

"i was not staring at your hands." you lied with certainty in your voice—one octave higher than your normal pitch, as you busied yourself by opening the fridge and sticking your head in it to feign some work. it worked great for hiding your face in shame, as well as tending to the redness from the embarrassment of being caught red handed.

"sure babe," you turned around with a bottle of water in hand to swing at him with the makeshift weapon in your hand but calmed yourself down and walked in front of him to face him over the counter.

"why are you making the carrot cake?" you questioned once again. cheeks puffed out, and your pupils followed every little fluttery movement of the man in front of you as he paid no attention to you—immersed in the meticulous art of baking. you stood patiently, knowing he'd reply to you once he has done whatever he has in his hands, which was cracking four eggs in a separate bowl with no egg shells—a very attention demanding task indeed.

minho's honey brown eyes at last gazed upon you, and a smile melted on his supple lips at the appearance of your disheveled naivety, a strange feeling bit into his heart as he looked at you with nothing but adoration swimming in his eyes.

"because i love you."

"hm?" you scrunched up your nose, and tilted your head waiting for him to finish his reasoning, "and i want you to live long."

minho held up the grated carrot cake to your height, "i know how much you love cake—but eating them daily is not that healthy from what i've heard." with his eyes rolled back in fake annoyance and his hands fanning away from his face as if that is just the news of the gossip mill.

"but we can't take a chance now can we?" he asked. your vision was already hindered from the way the apple of your cheeks rose up and you shook your head—agreeing with him.

minho's face lit up in a hundred bulbs of light when he saw your answer and raised his hand for you high five," and that's why we give carrots a chance!" you shook your head vehemently, agreeing with him once more, even though the idea of carrot cake was not that pleasant to you. but your heart was soaring high at the gesture of your boyfriend, and you felt the love meter you had set up for him ringing higher and higher until it bursted you and couldn't stop yourself from lunging at him over the counter top.

minho's pretty laughter filled your ears as he attempted to scare you away with the spatula with the cake batter on it, but you persisted, and even tried to climb on top of the counter. minho closed his eyes as he tried to stop himself from guffawing at your lame attempts of climbing on top and potentially breaking almost all of the ingredients set up on the table.

"you can't scare me away!" you announced gleefully.

"you can't scare me away!" changbin exclaimed, with chest pushed out to appear visually larger than he was. a quick survival he had learned from his adolescence of watching the animal tv but stepped back soon enough when he noticed your nose flaring—a tried, and tested indication of your simmering rage.

you rolled your eyes and stopped pressing the pause button on the remote, halting the steady stream of tango music coming from the blaring speakers set up around your studio—which you had opened up for changbin on one of your off days.

"no one is trying to scare you off!" you chided the younger man—your eyes boring into his agitated ones as you stepped closer in an attempt to make him feel more comfortable rather than scaring him away, " i know this is new territory for you, and i'm sure you really want to win this competition!"

'which is a long shot,' but you bit your tongue on it whilst softening up your gaze even more to relay sympathy to the man before you who—for a better lack of words—was a noob in the field of tango.

" i just want to win," changbin sighed while walking backwards and sliding downwards on the wall. you purse your lips and nodded; a part of you was amazed that he still decided to use the word "win" after the amazing week of class you had done with him, but perhaps you could learn to enjoy an optimistic viewpoint of life from changbin.

"let's unpack that first—" you began, slumping yourself down next to the dejected boy. perhaps a bit too close for him considering he had started to squirm the moment when your warmth radiated onto him, "why do you want to enter this competition? you don't look like you're awfully in love with this dance form either."

changbin winced at the honesty in your tone; if there was something he had successfully gotten into his head from spending three hours with you for a week straight—it had been the fact you were honest to a fault, along with the tell tales of him pushing you a tad bit further than usual. honing a saccharine smile on your face, you wielded the sharp arrow of candor. also the fact you were an apteral angel, with grace spinning from your fingertips to the sole of your feet as you pranced around the building with an agility he had not been able to wrap around his brain yet.

perhaps changbin should adopt the virtue of honesty from you, but the rapid beating of his heart convinced him otherwise. how could he tell you were the reason for him fumbling around the dance floor like a ridiculous freak unable to concentrate on a single move? how could he communicate? the only reason he had decided to even participate in this little competition was because you had handed him the flier with your billion watt smile on a busy subway, and before you knew he was signing up for the class under your tutelage. now if he had thought about it, it was a pretty feasible scam.

changbin scratched his head, coming back to the reality he was forced to participate in the reality he very wanted to escape from, "i just want to try something new?"

it was a lie, he wanted you to notice him.

you sat up in a squatting position, head lolling the side with your palm rested on your cheek. eyes narrowed as you tried to find any semblance of honesty in his sentence, obliviously becoming the cause for changbin's body to heat up like an overworked engine.

"you have some other motive don't you?" you sharply pointed out. there was no malice hidden behind your somber words—not even a drop of disgust. changbin's eyes widened in surprise as his brain scrambled, then short circuited before ultimately diffused in a pathetic attempt to save himself some face before she spilled all the beans of his borderline stalker-ish behavior; although he does not really know if he was fully at fault since you had handed him flier and ardently told him to check the studio out if he had the time.

"i-" changbin stammered.

"i-" hyunjin was befuddled.

standing before him was a man about three inches tall and the brightest, biggest brown eyes he had seen and a little frown etched on his wet, pink lips—a toddler. an adorable little boy who peered at him with his hopeful eyes as if they were hesitating him to ask something very, very important.

"um-" hyunjin shook his head to clear his head and stopped his brain from melting in the presence of a child and jumping into overwhelming conclusions, "are you looking for something?" he questioned.

the little boy nodded slightly. the jutted bottom lip shook ever so slightly as he opened his mouth to answer hyunjin to instinctively lean downwards to hear him better.

"have you seen my mommy?" the kid's voice was soft—mangled into a timber that altered hyunjin so that he could break into a fit of tears anytime soon, along with a heartbreaking pang of fear in his tiny little heart. hyunjin shot back up—the swift movement allowing his bones to pop in revolting manner—snapping his neck from the left to right to catch a glimpse of any disheveled woman around him.

it was a big park and hyunjin had been hanging around the lake when the toddler approached him with hyunjin's biggest fear—well one of them.

"do you know where you came from?" hyunjin asked gently.

the toddler nodded and pointed at a vague distance littered with a few couples having a picnic. there were now some stray tears in the boy's doe eyes, and plump cheeks that had started to redden within moments as the fear began to fester on his little body urging hyunjin to sooth the boy.

"its okay," hyunjin ran his thumb across his chubby cheek now freckled with small pearl, ans wiping them away making hyunjin's heart coo at the pitiful image, "we will find your mommy."

the boy sniffled and jutted his trembling chin upward, as though to look at him up and down brooding whether he should trust the words of the lanky stranger, and finally spoke with soft, slurred words, "you promise?"

with one of his cheeks raised, and a warm smile painted across his lips, hyunjin gives the a bit a hearty nod to appeal his determination, "your mom must be looking for you crazily come let's find her!" he announced excitedly, throwing his open palm for the kid to put his hands on his.

"how does your mom look?"

"pretty." the kid sniffled.

"ah—of course your mom is pretty," hyunjin closed his mouth, nodding to himself, keeping his eyes out to look at any woman looking for someone. of course that's the kind of answer he would be getting from a child of that age, it was honestly on him to even ask those type of questions, thus he decided to take a different approach, "what's the color of the dress she was wearing?"

"orange."

"orange is easy to spot." hyunjin muttered underneath his breath. squinted eyes underneath the harsh sun rays, shielded by a makeshift shade with his free palm, "what's your name?"

"jaewon," hyunjin took small steps while craning his neck all around the park, looking for the woman in orange, "jaewon's mom?!" his voice cracked.

some heads did turn towards him but no one really had a very visceral reaction at the war call—albeit it didn't sound that loud.. hyunjin should have warmed up before yelling, but jaewon yelling for his mom was working wonders to boost his morale and increasing the determination to find the kid's mother.

"JAEWON'S MOTHER!!!"

"JAEWON?!"

hyunjin couldn't tell whether it was a piece of a sun that had broken off and was now chasing him, or the all his misdeeds metamorphosing into fireball and coming to annihilate him, but before he could even register what had happened, jaewon was whisked into the arms of a woman wearing orange clothes—which has to be his mom—now fallen on the ground squeezing the small mass of the toddler into her embrace. a wave of relief washed over hyunjins chest as he watched the reunion between mother and son, although he was yet to catch a glimpse of the woman, for some intractable reason he really wanted to take a look at her.

strands of summery brown webbing on her arms, the sweat acting as evidence of the frenzy the woman had gone through for the little while her son was away from her—hyunjin's stomach sunk once again as noticed the woman shaking slightly, now cradling her crying child in her arms before picking him and finally looking at hyunjin.

hyunjin's pupil dilated once he drank in the appearance of the woman before him—a foreboding etching of something forbidden concocting at the pit of his stomach as he stood there, as did the time. the sweltering summer breeze freezing over bestowing him with a few more moments to gaze upon the most beautiful woman he had seen.

jaewon's statement remained correct.

"thank you so much for taking care of him and helping him find me, I really don't know how I can show my gratitude." you were huffing, the sweat dripping from the seraphic space between your eyebrows to the gentle slope of your nose—tinged slightly rosy.

hyunjin snapped out of his daze, shaking his head immediately to ease you," its okay, im just glad that we found you soon enough!"

"you should hurry, your husband must be panicking as well." hyunjin added. he wasn't sure why he felt the need to mention her husband, perhaps he was hoping she'd deny the fact that she was married.

"oh it's fine i don't have a husband,"

"oh…" hyunjin's reaction was instant. the cheshire cat grin that struggled not to draw itself on his lips and across his cheeks in case he scared you off, but oh my god what a struggle it was, especially when the dark clouds that had began to menacingly circle around his head had been conquered by the bright sun smiling on top of his head. a few dozen flowers blossomed in the garden he had been tending to in his heart, attracting butterflies of so many shades.

"i am so sorry for assuming."

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