ONE & ONLY

As soon as they got settled in, their host followed the typical script, passing out menus and telling them a waiter would be with them in a second. Once the host walked away, the boys didn’t even glance at their menus before opening their mouths.

“Okay, seriously, what the fuck are we doing here?” Taesan questions in disbelief, visibly looking haunted by what they’re doing. “I’m regretting not taking Jaehyun’s side.”

Woonhak’s expression quickly changes to one of exasperation. “Really? We’re here to get shitfaced, duh,” he states matter-of-factly, unaware of the boys’ skeptical expressions as he plays with a sugar packet.

“Shitfaced,” Leehan repeats, slowly. “At an IHOP.”

“Yup,” Woonhak nods, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Silence fills the table, everybody who wasn’t Woonhak stifling their laughs.

“What are we supposed to get drunk with?” Sungho presses, looking around the table at four other disappointed faces. Woonhak was still messing around with sugar packets, making faces on the table with them.

“I didn’t say drunk, I said shitfaced,” Woonhak corrects, shaking his head.

Riwoo clears his throat. “Is there…a difference?”

Woonhak looks at him. “Dude, of course! We’re gonna get shitfaced with sugar.”

Everybody furrows their eyebrows at Woonhak, Taesan raising his hand to scratch at his head. Woonhak gestures to the side of the table, and the other five shift their gazes, their eyes landing on the four color-coded syrups.

“Oh my god,” Jaehyun cries, putting his elbows on the table and stuffing his face into his hands.

Before anyone else can react, a waitress walks up to the table, clearing her throat to get their attention. All of them turn to look at her with wide eyes, Jaehyun lazily lifting his head up.

“What drinks could I get started for you guys?” She says with a raised pitch and a smile.

The waitress had black hair tied up into a bun, her bangs falling just below her eyebrows. A notepad was in her left hand, a pen being flipped through her fingers in her right.

“Oh, uh, could I get a water?” Sungho stammers out after a few seconds pass, slightly startled. “With lemon, please.”

The waitress nods, looking down as she writes in her notepad. The rest of the boys order their drinks one by one, Woonhak getting a Sprite, Riwoo a Dr. Pepper, Leehan a Fanta, and Taesan a Coke. She writes their drinks down, patiently blinking at Jaehyun as she waits for his decision.

Jaehyun tilts his head at her, curious. “You look familiar.”

Her ‘customer service’ personality falters slightly, her eyebrow raising as she narrows her eyes at Jaehyun. She lowers her notepad slightly, uncovering a crooked, silver name tag on her uniform shirt. She uses her pencil to point at it, the tag reading as ‘Natty’.

Jaehyun reads her name tag, the confusion on his face morphing into realization. “Oh, Natty! You go to our school, right?”

Natty licks her lips, looking to the side as if she’s trying to remember something. It takes a second for her eyes snap back to Jaehyun, pointing her pencil at him with a smile. “Yeah, I do! I think I recognize you guys.”

Taesan leans over to Leehan. “I have no clue who this girl is,” he whispers. Leehan chuckles, nodding his head.

“I can hear you, you know,” Natty’s face drops as her eyes shoot daggers at Taesan, his head lowering slightly. She looks back at Jaehyun. “Anyways, what drink did you want?”

“Sorry, can I get a Coke, too?” Jaehyun laughs, watching as she writes in her notepad.

Natty speaks as she writes. “Are you guys—”

“Wait, are you going to Jake’s party later?” Jaehyun interjects, not even registering that he cut her off.

Natty pauses, looking up again. “Yeah, I am,” she looks at him suspiciously. “You guys know Jake?”

“No, we don’t,” Sungho chimes in before Jaehyun can open his mouth again. “Chenle invited Jaehyun, and Jaehyun invited us.”

The rest of them nodded in approval, save for Leehan, his gaze turned away from Natty; he was instead zoned in on the view beyond the window next to him.

“We’re here to pregame!” Woonhak adds, much to the dismay of the other boys.

Natty nods slowly, licking her lips again. “You guys know the party is at, like, 10 P.M., right?”

It was currently three in the afternoon, and the sun was as shining down at what looked like its highest peak. A short sigh came from Sungho, and another one from Taesan right after. There was an awkward, hanging moment consuming the entire group, the boys mutually aware of their awkwardly early arrival.

Woonhak had woken up at 7 A.M. on the dot without alarms, taking one look at the clock and waking the rest of the boys up shortly afterwards. He had ushered all of them up and out of the bedroom within a mere five minutes, then running their routines like it was the military. None of them had the room to properly check the time until they were about to leave.

Riwoo was the first one to turn on his phone, immediately groaning at the sight. “Dude, it’s seven in the morning, not in the afternoon.”

“Oh, shit, no wonder it was so bright outside,” Woonhak simply said. “That’s my bad!”

Taesan tackled him to the ground shortly after.

Once they all had gotten unready and went back to sleep, Leehan was the next early bird, waking up again at noon. When he got up, so did Riwoo, being shaken awake by Leehan’s poor attempt to quietly sneak away. This caused a domino effect, waking all of them up one by one until they were all groggily sitting up with half-decent cases of bedhead.

Luckily, Woonhak was much more lenient with the boys’ routines, and they were all able to take their sweet time dolling themselves up in Sungho’s bathroom. They were all finished by 2 P.M., sitting in Sungho’s living room with almost nothing to say.

“So….can we go to IHOP now?”

“Shut up, Woonhak.”

“Okay, sorry!”

“When does the party even start?” Sungho asked, looking at Jaehyun.

Jaehyun looked dumbfounded. “I…actually don’t know.”

“How the hell do you not know?” Taesan flopped back on the carpet, staring up at the fan spinning above them. When he was met with no answer, he only sighed.

“Fuck it, let’s just go to IHOP now.”

When nobody answers Natty, Riwoo reluctantly takes the lead. “Yeah, of course we knew that! We’re just…uh…you know…”

“No, I don’t know,” Natty scoffs. “Enlighten me.”

“Oh my god,” Sungho rubs the skin between his eyebrows. “We, in fact, didn’t know what time the party started.”

Natty opens her mouth but closes it before she says anything. “You know what? I’m not gonna say anything. Do you guys know what food you want, or do you need a minute?”

Sungho gives her an awkward smile. “Give us a min—”

“Six happy face pancakes, please.”

“Woonhak, no—”

“That’ll be it!”

Natty nods, takes in a deep breath, and doesn’t let another word be spoken to her before she walks away.

“Wait! Could I get extra whipped cream and chocolate chips on mine?” Riwoo calls, but all Natty does is speed up her walk. “Aw, man.”

“Please, please tell me I’m dreaming,” Taesan pleads dramatically, staring down at his plate.

It has a decently sized pancake on it, with a smiley face that was made out of strawberries for eyes and bananas for a mouth. Not to mention the singular tube of Go-Gurt next to the pancake, putting the cherry on top of the childish aesthetic. The rest of them have plates identical to that, mutually not having anything to say when Natty brought all of it out to them.

“I can pinch you?” Jaehyun offers.

“Touch me and die,” Taesan denies, shifting closer to Leehan.

Woonhak is the first to make a move, grabbing the strawberry syrup and pouring it over his pancake. Once he finishes, he holds it up with a grin, looking into the five other pairs of eyes staring at him. “Anybody want any?”

There’s not even two seconds of a buffer before Sungho bursts out into sudden, uncontrollable laughter, holding his stomach and covering his mouth. Without even knowing why he was laughing, Jaehyun joins in, simply happy to laugh along. Riwoo and Woonhak begin giggling quietly, entertained by the scene. It doesn’t take long before Taesan and Leehan join in, too, the entire table laughing for seemingly zero reason.

It takes the worried, confused stares from the other groups of families in the restaurant for them to gain their consciousness back, another domino effect happening until they’re all sat there beaming with embarrassment, stifled laughs, and an inexplicable joy.

“Shit, what were you even laughing for?” Leehan speaks up, grinning over at Sungho.

Sungho shakes his head, shoulders still bouncing with silent giggles. “I—I don’t know!”

Jaehyun amusedly shakes his head and picks up the abandoned strawberry syrup, holding it up as if it was a trophy. “Who wants the first shot!”

“Holy shit, why the hell are you guys still here?”

Sungho, Jaehyun, Woonhak, Leehan, and Taesan all pause their mundane conversation (ranting about possible situations of seeing their dream girls again, much to all of their delights) to stare dumbfoundedly at Natty’s sudden reappearance. Leehan takes the liberty to reach across the table, lightly smacking Riwoo’s hand until he abruptly lifts his head up from the table.

They had ultimately ended up playing a “drinking game” (which just consisted of Jaehyun shoving a syrup dispenser into someone’s hands and telling them to drink; his general success rate was 30%, 100% when it was Woonhak) until the dispensers were near empty.

This persisted until 4:30, and only because Woonhak ended up having a sugar crash and passed out. Riwoo followed soon after at about 5:00–but that was due to him being closest to the syrup; he consistently took sips out of the dispensers until he met the same fate.

Now, it’s 9:00, Woonhak having only woken up from his sugar coma about fifteen minutes prior, and Riwoo about fifteen seconds ago.

“We…uh…” Sungho starts, but doesn’t quite finish.

“Where’ve you been this whole time?” Jaehyun interrogates, head resting against the back of the booth.

Natty blinks. “They needed another cook, so I filled in.”

She looked completely different from when they had last seen her. She was adorned in much more casual, visibly comfortable clothing, her hair was down, and her makeup looked like it’d been touched up.

Natty looks down at her phone, reading something before she looked outside. “I gotta go, my friend’s here. See you guys later…I guess?”

She pivots on her heels without waiting for their answers, trotting away from the table while looking down at her phone. Like clockwork, the boys get caught back in their delirious trance for the nth time that day as soon as Natty steps out of their view.

“Let’s get out of here,” Leehan stretches, a mischievous smile on his lips.

“Hold on! We still have to pay,” Sungho halts, looking around at a suddenly scandalized group of boys. “Don’t tell me none of you brought money.”

Crickets.

“Jesus Christ,” Sungho whines, pulling out his wallet and picking up the bill.

Riwoo suddenly furrows his eyebrows, yawning. “I just remembered something. Jaehyun, why were you acting all weird yesterday when Sungho pulled some shit out of his ass about there being an ‘elephant in the room’?”

A chorus of “Ooooo”’s erupts from the boys.

“Oh,” Jaehyun laughs, nervously. “I just…thought he was gonna say he knew about how I was the one that accidentally blew out all the power while we were watching the season finale of The Bachelorette last year.”

Taesan’s the first one to gasp. “That was you?”

“Let’s just get to the party!”

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SYNOPSIS — sungho, riwoo, jaehyun, taesan, leehan, and woonhak all find a summer crush to call their own, but it turns out that you’re the one they all call their own.

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