All These Little Flaws

CHAPTER ONE: TALKATIVE

Author's Note:

This story is intentionally tropey — just a light rom-com because I felt like it. 🙃

I have a few other ideas planned and I still intend on continuing my ongoing fic Hearts at War at some point, but I'm going to be quite busy until June because of an upcoming exam, so I wanted to focus on something light and fun first. I've started this months ago actually, but I wanted to finish TPI before posting another story. 🤭

I hope you enjoy. ♥️

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"Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does.
Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up."
James Baldwin

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Yin smiled at the young woman in front of him, and even though he tried his best not to look like he wanted to scratch his eyes out, he was pretty sure it was no use. The agony was surely written all over his face.

But his date didn't seem to notice. She talked and talked and talked, without letting Yin get a word in. After she'd interrupted him for what must have been the tenth time, he'd simply resorted to nodding noncommittally in response to her occasional questions, because apparently, she wasn't interested in what he was saying anyway.

Yin really wanted to end the date and tell her straight up that he wasn't interested in someone who loved the sound of his own voice a little bit too much and showed no interest in the other person, but something inside him resisted the idea of offending someone like that. Above all, he didn't want to humiliate the other person by ending the date early—after all, the woman wasn't some awful human being, she was just... talkative. And maybe a little self-absorbed and selfish. But in his eyes, that still wasn't a reason to make someone feel bad.

His good intentions, however, were really getting on his own nerves in that moment—he felt annoyance rising within him, and before he knew it, he was the one interrupting the woman this time.

"Excuse me, can you continue in a bit? I'll be right back, just going to the restroom real quick."

He didn't even wait for his date, Mint, to reply, because he probably would have had to listen to a twenty-minute anecdote about how she herself had once gone to the restroom—and if that happened, Yin would probably just implode.

So he got up from his chair and headed straight for the restaurant's restroom.

Once there, he rested his hands on the sink and took a few deep breaths to regain his composure, which had been severely strained by the conversation—or rather, the monologue.

He wondered how people like that didn't realize they weren't letting anyone else get a word in. Or did they realize it and simply didn't care?

Yin let out a loud sigh as someone stepped up to the sink next to him and washed their hands. "Tough day?" a slightly amused voice asked, but one that still contained just enough sympathy that Yin didn't feel insulted or mocked, and actually made him reply.

"Tough date," Yin admitted with a muttered sigh, as he too turned on the tap and let the cold water run over his hands.

In the mirror, he met the stranger's gaze, only to hold his breath for a second, because Yin hadn't really expected him to be so... pretty.

The stranger tilted his head. "Really?" he asked with a crooked grin. "In what way? Does the person look different than in their profile picture? Do they treat the waiters disrespectfully? Are they constantly on their phone? Do they ask too many questions, making you feel like you're being interrogated?"