"Your not-so-secret admirer is out by the front waiting for you again," Yongsun giggles as she all but skips into the back of the kitchen where the employees keep their belongings, the ends of her waitress apron fluttering behind her untied.
Wheein rolls her eyes and lets out a sigh as she folds her own uniform into a neat pile before placing everything into her backpack, shouldering the bag and clocking out since her shift has just ended. "I know, unnie. I'd have to be deaf to not hear him shouting for me when he came in earlier."
"I think it's quite sweet of him. I've never seen someone so shamelessly declare their undying love for someone as persistently as he has. He's been here how many times already?"
"More times that I can count," Wheein shakes her head, a small fond smile forming on her face despite the fact. "I was finally able to convince him that banging on our door in the middle of the night was unexceptable and not in the slightest romantic so you three will finally be able to get some sleep now."
Yongsun laughs. "It wasn't that bad for me, to be honest. I always sleep so deeply I never really heard a thing. I don't know about Hyejinnie but I only realized something was up when I found Byulyi drinking three times as much coffee as she normally does to make it through the day."
Wheein cringes as she recalls how prominent her other housemate's dark circles have been the past few days and makes note to treat the older to a meal in the near future in apology. "I'll make it up to her one of these days. I'm just glad that the neighbors didn't call the police on him."
"Why? Bad boys not your type?" Yongsun waggles her eyebrows jokingly, making Wheein snort.
"Receiving a noise complaint citation is far from what I would consider being a bad boy," Wheein chuckles and waves back to the other as she heads out past the kitchen doors and back into the main area of Magnolia Cafe. "Bye unnie! Have a good shift, see you later!"
"Not if Taehyung has anything to say about it!" Yongsun calls back between giggles, as though there is even the slightest chance of Wheein somehow agreeing to go along with Taehyung's multiple propositions of them getting married and running off together to god knows where.
Wheein's only response is to spin around and stick her tongue at the elder before the doors swing close, but as she turns back, she finds herself immediately lifted into a familiar set of arms, her face pressed tightly into a firm chest. "I- euargh! Taehyung, let me go! I can't breathe!"
"Wheeinie, what took you so long?" the boy whines impatiently, swinging a flailing Wheein around and taking absolutely no notice of the other gaping customers in the vicinity. "I've been waiting for so long but you never came out."
"I had work!" Wheein takes a deep gasping breath as soon as Taehyung loosens his grip, giving her a chance to surface from air. While he always smells quite nice, being smothered to death by the good-looking man in front of her is not exactly the way she wants to go out of this world. "I can't just come out to see you whenever I please when I'm on shift."
As they make their way towards the exit, Taehyung holds his hand out to her, his lips pursed in their usual pout that he knows she has yet to figure out how to resist. With a sigh, Wheein acquiesces rather easily this time, slipping her closest hand into his and interlacing their fingers tightly like she knows he wants her to. The bright grin that stretches across his face every time she does never fails to make her heart flutter a little faster in her chest. Totally worth it.
"If you married me, you would never have to lift a single finger to do work for as long as you live," Taehyung insists with far too serious of a face for someone swinging their interlaced hands together as they stroll down the streets. Ever since pounding at their door in the middle of the night to profess his undying love for Wheein was deemed off limits, Taehyung has taken it upon himself to escort her home from work everyday, no matter the time of day. Wheein has already explained to him multiples times that their district is as safe as one could get, but according to Taehyung's reasoning, letting her walk home alone gave someone else a chance to propose and potentially spirit her away from him.
Wheein almost rolls her eyes at just the ridiculousness of that thought. "Tae, I'm not going to take advantage of your royalty or status of whatever it is you possess in the fox spirit world. That's both terribly unethical of me and I would feel horrible."
"But you're not opposed to marrying me!" Taehyung crows in far too much excitement, eyes sparking as though Wheein had gotten down on her own goddamn knee and proposed right then and there.
"That- That's not what I meant!" Wheein sputters, feeling her own face heat up in embarrassment. Taehyung pays no mind to her protests, so ecstatic that his previously concealed fox ears pop up in all their glory, wiggling happily around atop his fluffy head of hair. "Oh my god- Taehyung, hide your ears! What if someone sees?!"
It didn't take very long after the fox spirit prince's first marriage proposal to Wheein for her to realize that she had gotten herself into some crazy ass shit. Following what she thought had been an incredibly wild dream, Wheein soon found out that Taehyung was in fact very real, and not at all human. Apparently several years when he was younger, he had snuck out of the palace and into the human world on accident while trying to skip his tutoring lessons. Unable to find his way back, he soon found refuge after some fucking idiot (read: Wheein) mistook him as simply a weird looking stray puppy, taking him in and caring for him for several weeks until the fox spirit authorities or whoever they are were able to locate and bring him home. At the time, Wheein had simply thought the pup had run away, leaving her rather heartbroken and confused at the collar bell that she had no recollection of that was left behind, but it turns out that he had been banned from returning to the human world by his worried sick mother, the fox spirit queen, until he completed all of his studies.
From what Taehyung has told her, Wheein was and is his saving grace and he is now determined to have her hand in marriage after seeing how caring she was when he was lost and afraid. She also apparently gave little baby fox Taehyung some of the best cuddles he has ever had in his life and he left the bell as a way for him to find her once again after completing his studies. Wheein thought that the rest of the royal family might have some, any objections to the young prince's life goals but it seems that the king, queen, Taehyung's older brother and the crown prince Kim Namjoon, and his brother-in-law Kim Seokjin all had no issues with his pining for a human girl, Seokjin even going as far as sending Wheein a wedding dress and lingerie in the mail, the little shit.
Hyejin had laughed her ass off for days and the gifts were now stored away in the deepest recesses of Wheein's closet.
After several more minutes of failed coercing and eventually threatening to marry someone else, Wheein is finally able to get Taehyung to hide away his fox ears once again. The prince's face is one of deep distress, bottom lip wibbling as he focuses an expression akin to that of a kicked puppy's on Wheein. "You wouldn't really marry someone else, would you Wheeinie?"
"I'm not trying to marry anyone right now, Tae," Wheein says honestly, feeling Taehyung's grip on her hand tighten at her words. "I'm sure there are plenty of other pretty fox spirits back in your kingdom that would be more than willing to marry you right now. You shouldn't wait for me if time is an issue."
"No, it has to be you!" Taehyung stomps on the sidewalk like a child throwing a tantrum. "It's not a matter of time, I just- I just-"
His cheeks begin to turn a rosy pink and he looks down in a bashful manner, as though he hasn't been openly proposing to Wheein for the past week. "I just want to marry you so bad, you know? I just can't wait for you to be my wife."
Wheein gapes at the other, speechless. She stutters incoherently for a moment, before reaching over with her free hand to flick at Taehyung's forehead.
"Ow!"
"Don't say stuff like that," Wheein mutters, her heart pounding and face burning at his words. "It's ridiculous."
"It's not ridiculous, it's the truth- ow! Stop assaulting your fiance like this! Do humans always do this to people they love?"
"You're not my fiance!"
"But you admit you love me?"
"I- why you little-!"
"Taehyung and Wheein, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N- ow!"
author's note;
f lol this ended up being so much longer than planned oop-
also, since this story is a bit more flexible/less structured than thick as thieves, if you all have any specific wheetae scenes/coupley things you would like to request or there are other bts members/roles you'd like to see in this story, feel free to drop something in the comments! i can't promise anything but if i do choose them i promise to try my best to do them justice TT^TT
magnolia cafe inspired by wheein's solo debut hehe
thank you all for the love and support! hope you all enjoyed reading <3
p.s. if you all search egotistic [male version] by ela on youtube, moonbyul's rap literally 200% sounds like rm you can't cHANGE MY MIND
p.p.s. hyejin laughing her ass off at literally any inconvenience to wheein is actually me at my friends lmfaoooo
happy sunday!
Less than three,
PalmerPie