ACOUSTIC LOVE ; kim doyoung

11 | sleep on it

Doyoung doesn't believe in fate. But when you show up at a quarter to 9, baby hairs stuck to your forehead, face flushed with panic in your eyes, he decides that maybe he could give fate a chance.

Before you arrived, he had been sitting in his seat, fidgeting with his phone and watching the restaurant slowly fill up with patrons. Jungwoo had a shift that evening, and when he passed by Doyoung's table, he raised his eyebrows, placing two glasses of iced water in front of Doyoung.

"Nice to see you here as a customer, for a change," he said. Doyoung gave him a nervous grin and nodded.

Shortly after Jungwoo walked away, Doyoung received your text, saying that you would be late. He didn't mind, he informed you, telling you to take your time. And he waited.

And waited.

And waited some more, but you still didn't arrive. An hour passed, and nobody showed up, and Doyoung began to grow restless. Jungwoo passed by again, tray half-full, and he cast Doyoung a sympathetic glance.

He didn't believe that you would stand him up, but there weren't any indications of you showing up any time soon, and Doyoung didn't particularly feel like sitting there all night while Jungwoo sent him concerned (and occasionally teasing) glances from across the room.

He sat there for quite some time, running through the options in his head and wondering whether to leave. By the time it was 8.30, he had made up his mind to leave, and was just getting up when Yuta walked through the door.

His initial confusion quickly morphed into disappointment—how could his band members arrive before the person who had asked him out to dinner? The irony of the situation failed to escape him, and he let out a short laugh as Yuta made his way over, slinging an arm over his shoulder.

Doyoung has to confess that he didn't process a single word that Yuta said. He knows that Taeyong gave him a hug, and he completely melted into it, but if you asked him to repeat what Yuta said to him, he wouldn't be able to.

All he heard was the vague sound of words, but that faded away the moment he set eyes on you.

"Y/n," he remembers saying. It's all a blur, really, what he wanted to say sitting on the roof of his mouth, stuck on the tip of his tongue, refusing to leave his mouth. He thinks you called him Doie—he doesn't remember flinching, but he knows you flinched at his response to you calling him that—and you apologised, and then you were in his arms and both of you were holding back tears.

Yuta's not an idiot. For all that Doyoung makes fun of him for, Yuta's not that dumb, and he knows how to take a hint. He sees Doyoung holding on tightly to you, his jagged breathing, and he takes a step back. Irene guides Taeyong away, and Yuta puts an arm around Winter's waist as he leads her away.

They take a seat at the place they've reserved, and Doyoung wonders why or how they knew all of this was going to happen. Maybe it's fate, or maybe Yuta knows him a little too well.

You follow Doyoung to sit down, legs collapsing underneath you as you sink into the comfort of the plush seats, shakily drawing in a breath of air.

The moment oxygen fills your lungs, you begin explaining, and it all spills out of you—how you had gotten stuck in a jam in the middle of the road, and had taken your phone out to text him again.

You explain that an error message had flashed across your screen, because of course your data plan had run out. You cursed, because it was your fault for playing Genshin while you were outside so many times that month, and of course it had to run out at a time like that.

You tell him that you didn't believe you had a chance of getting there on time. When you left your house, you saw the train passing by when you were still at the turnstiles, and you had to wait at the subway station for some time before the next train arrived.