[ sungmin. ]
Sungmin raked a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to keep it flat. He had relatively fine hair, so he wasn’t sure why it was misbehaving so much, if anything, he always had issues with keeping it styled. The one time he wanted to look presentable, but not try hard, just happened to be the very day he had plans with someone who wasn’t another man. If it were just another outing with his band or another male friend, Sungmin would very much show up in sweats and bedhead, but no, that wasn’t the case that morning.
The fact that he had plans with Saebyul, at all, already made him sort of jittery and self conscious, but he could handle spending the day with a girl — that part was easy. What made him actually nervous was the fact that it’d be the first time they’d be meeting face to face, in real life. Sungmin considered them online friends, for a lack of better words, and enjoyed talking to her when their schedules allowed them time to video chat. She was an interesting girl and he never got tired of hearing stories about her life overseas, but he wasn’t sure how they’d get on without a screen between them; most of what he knew about her were from her various TV appearances and brief FaceTime conversations anyway.
He wanted to make a good impression, even though he knew they’d seen each other in person before — but that was that and this was this. His clothes weren’t super fashionable but he thought he looked nice, minus his hair. “Whatever,” he muttered as he patted it down once more before grabbing his shoulder bag and heading out the door, nearly forgetting to put his shoes on in the process. Great. Sungmin was already running late as it was, and this was bound to make her impression of him even worse. The least he could do was text her.
[ to : ✿ ] so, i’m super sorry
[ to : ✿ ] ‘m running late
[ to : ✿ ] i did leave the apartment, so i promise i’m omw
The only silver lining to this was the fact that the cafe they were meeting at for lunch wasn’t too far from his apartment, so he wouldn’t be making her wait too long if he put in the effort and ran.
Saebyul actually having time off from her hectic schedule was nothing short of a miracle. These days, it feels like all she does is practice, work, eat, sleep, and then repeat. She can’t even remember the last time she went out with a friend for dinner, or drinks, or anything, really. When she was granted a day off for resting, Saebyul knew exactly how she wanted to spend her day, and was grateful that Sungmin was free to hang out with her.
Saebyul’s friendship with Sungmin was extremely different from all her other relationships. For one, he was a guy. Despite having a ton of friends, in general, an extremely small percentage of her friends happened to be males. Though she loves all of her friends, regardless of their gender, the dynamic between her male and female friends is slightly different. In addition to being a man, he was also her first and only “online friend.” All of their conversations take place over FaceTime or through text messages. Today was the first time she’d be meeting up with him, in person. However, she wasn’t really nervous, excited was probably the word for it. She hoped that she would make a good impression on him, but most people tend to like her immediately, so she wasn’t really worried. She was only a few minutes away from the cafe when she received Sungmin’s texts.
[ to : ★ ] i understand! no need to apologize!
[ to : ★ ] i’m just now approaching the cafe anyways
Standing in front of the cafe, Saebyul took a peek inside and her eyes widened in surprise and fear. They would be having lunch at a cat cafe, and she was allergic to cats. She wanted to text him and tell him that she was allergic, but she didn’t want to ruin the mood. He went through the trouble of making time in his schedule to hang out with her, and she didn’t want to make him feel bad for not knowing about her allergies. She could put up with it for a few hours, right? It was springtime, and she could probably just blame her allergic reactions on the pollen. Or maybe she should just tell him? Before she could even ponder that option further, she saw a person that looked like Sungmin walking towards her, and knew it was too late to back out now. She was just going to have to brave the storm of cats.














