Jaebum led Jinyoung into the restaurant, the two luckily arriving just before the afternoon rush. It wasn't a super fancy restaurant, if it were they would've been extremely under-dressed and awkward, but it was good enough for a nice filling meal. They walked up to the front desk, greeted by a woman who smiled as if her life depended on it, which as being a waitress, it probably did. "Table for two please."
"Follow me." She said, grabbing two menus and leading the pair to a small table towards the back. The two sat across from one another, the woman waiting for them to be seated before speaking. "I'll be your waitress for this evening, would you possibly be interested in the couples special?"
Jaebum chuckled, shaking his head. It was quite the coincidence that for the second time in one day, him and Jinyoung were framed as a couple. "Oh, we're not dating..."
"Oh please, you don't have to hide your relationship, we're totally accepting of all couples!" The woman exclaimed, taking what Jaebum said in a completely different context. She took one of the menus and flipped through it's pages, turning the book around to show the two what the special looked like. "The special comes with two dinners, a drink, and free dessert all for one price! You sure you want to pass on it?"
Jinyoung waved the offer away as politely as he could. "Um, we don't need it, thanks-"
"Why not? Give us the special please." Jaebum interrupted, earning himself a shocked stare from Jinyoung.
The waitress seemed way more excited than she needed to be, wearing a big smile as she set the menus back down. "Alright! I'll go get your drink and be back soon to ask your orders."
They both smiled back at her, pretending to be the happy couple that Jaebum for some reason claimed they were.
As soon as she walked away, Jinyoung's fake smile disappeared, being replaced with a deathly glare. "Why did you do that?"
Jaebum held up the menu, pointing at the different options. "Well looking at the menus, ordering separate dinners without dessert would cost the same amount as the special, so why not just get more free food along with it at the same price?"
"But... there's gonna be hearts on everything..." Jinyoung pointed out in a picture shown of the couples special where the food was all formed in the shape of a heart.
Jaebum looked at the image, shrugging his shoulders. "So? Food is food."
Jinyoung was just about to protest when their waitress came back with a large glass cup of some sort of drink in her hand. "Here's our special couples drink!"
She took their orders and walked off, leaving the drink between the two.
"There's only one drink, and two straws in it..." Jinyoung mumbled, baffled on how they were supposed to drink from it with only one cup.
"One for me and one for you." Jaebum replied.
Jinyoung's eyes widened, his gaze darting between Jaebum and the drink. "We're supposed to share!?"
"That's the point of it being a couples drink." Jaebum stated. He pushed the drink towards Jinyoung, allowing the other to get a closer look. "You can have it if you're uncomfortable with sharing."
Jinyoung examined the brown colored liquid, almost afraid to even touch it as he tried to figure out what was in it. "...What is it?"
"Looks like a chocolate milkshake. Try it." Jaebum urged, watching the angel hesitantly wrap his lips around a straw and sip. He seemed to like it, taking longer and longer swigs of the chocolatey drink. Jaebum was glad that this experience seemed to be turning out better than the club, at least Jinyoung was a bit more comfortable in this setting as opposed to the previous one. He'd been watching Jinyoung until something on the table caught his eye, his eyes lighting up with excitement. "Oh! Want a kiss?"
"K-Kiss?" Jinyoung nearly choked on his drink, his cheeks flushed red from the offer. He didn't know how to respond to such a straightforward question, especially as unexpected as that one.
"Chocolate." Jaebum clarified, holding up one of the teardrop shaped candies. A bowl of them had been set out by the waitress, Jinyoung only noticing it now that Jaebum pointed it out. "One of my favorite candies, I didn't even see her bring them over here."
Jinyoung's heart had to be beating a mile a minute; he needed to clutch his chest to calm himself down from the initial shock. "I-It's named a kiss? Why?"
"I dunno, I guess it's a cute name." Jaebum shrugged, outstretching the piece in his hand to Jinyoung. "Want one?"
Jinyoung stared down at the candy in Jaebum's palm, slowly accepting it. "S-Sure..."
Jaebum smiled, leaning forward on the table. He had a bad habit of staring, which he was doing very often around Jinyoung recently, but the angel was pleasant on the eye so he didn't even notice half the time he was doing it. "So, what do angels do for fun? If you guys don't have clubs or anything, what is there to do?"
"We like literature, art, studying our history, things of that nature."
"Boring."
"Is not."
"It is. Have you ever seen a movie before?"
"No, I have no desire to see them. That's a creation that humans have made and I'd rather not indulge in whatever nonsense you call film." Jinyoung stated, his feelings about a lot of human made things seemingly the same; disgusted and disappointed by them. "I've watched tons of plays though."
Jaebum hummed, their conversation briefly interrupted by the presence of their food to the table. As expected, hearts littered their plates, and the waitress ogled at the two as if she expected them to kiss or propose or something. They ignored the tooth-rotting love filled plates and focused on eating, continuing what they were talking about before.
"What about music?" Jaebum asked.
Jinyoung hummed, nodding his head. "We have great orchestras in heaven, there's always music playing."
"Do you have pop or rap?"
"What is that?"
Jaebum scoffed, utterly shocked by how clueless Jinyoung was on human culture. "Music! You have neither? You just listen to classical shit all say? Nothing upbeat and fun?"
"It's not shit it's soothing." Jinyoung argued.
"Oh jeez, I really need to get you out more..."
Jinyoung mumbled out a "Whatever." as he shoved food into his mouth, having quite the appetite for someone who seemed so proper. He was a bit messy of an eater, which was cute, Jaebum couldn't lie. He found himself admitting that a lot lately; but he couldn't stop Jinyoung from being his naturally cute self.
"You seem to like human food though..." Jaebum commented as Jinyoung filled his cheeks with food.
"It's fattening and unhealthy." He stated after swallowing, then taking a long sip of his milkshake. He let out a refreshed sigh, his eyes nearly holding as many hearts as the food did as he seemed to fall in love with the taste. "But it's too good to not eat it..."
"You sound like someone making excuses not to diet." Jaebum chuckled out before his eyes caught on a bit of sauce that smeared at the corner of Jinyoung's lip. Part of him didn't want to say anything and interrupt Jinyoung's eating, but the urge to wipe it away was too strong. "Hey, hold still."
Jinyoung looked up, freezing when Jaebum leaned in close with his thumb and wiped sauce off his lip. He didn't know what else to do but sit there and allow it to happen until Jaebum pulled away.
Jaebum looked down at his thumb, raising a brow. "Barbecue?"
Jinyoung mindlessly nodded. "Yeah..."
Jaebum smiled, bringing his thumb to his own lips and licking the sauce off. He hummed at the taste. "I love barbecue sauce. Probably one of the best sauces out there. I'm assuming from your sloppiness that you like it too?"
"Yeah um... i-it's good..." Jinyoung stuttered out with a mouthful of food, seemingly frozen in the moment. He covered his mouth with his hand, slowly leaning back in his chair. "I-I can wipe my face myself, y'know..."
Jaebum chuckled, nodding his head. "Okay, sorry. Your dirty lip was just bothering me so I kinda did it automatically."
"It's... it's okay." Jinyoung mumbled, looking back down at his food that he was too flustered to focus on anymore.
-
They ended up being too full for dessert, deciding to wrap it up and take it home to enjoy later. Jaebum was able to drive his car within a few blocks of his apartment building, but the two unfortunately had to walk the rest of the way since parking was almost nonexistent any closer.
Luckily Jinyoung wore his new jacket and gloves Jaebum bought him to keep warm in the cool breeze of the evening, which was the first thing Jaebum made sure of before they started walking.
"Um... Jaebum? I have a question." Jinyoung called as they walked down the long sidewalk. Jaebum turned his attention to the other, his eyes still focused forward. Jinyoung cleared his throat, repeatedly tugging at the bottom of his gloves as he spoke. "S-So um, humans are social creatures, they crave physical touch and interaction with other humans everyday."
"Um, thanks for the lesson?" Jaebum replied, not exactly sure where the question was in his statement.
"I'm just... curious about how you've obtained that daily physical touch you need as a social creature while living by yourself." Jinyoung explained.
Jaebum hummed, chuckling a bit at the weirdly worded question that could've been asked in a much simpler form. "Are you asking if I'm single?"
"Not in a suggestive way!" Jinyoung quickly clarified, his voice cracking in the midst of his sentence. He cleared his throat again, adjusting the collar of his shirt. "But... basically, yeah..."
"Isn't it obvious?"
"Well I don't want to assume... maybe you have a long distance lover or something..."
Jaebum let out a hearty laugh at that. The mere thought of him dating anyone was a joke, let alone long distance dating. "That's generous of you to think. No I got no one, it's been a lonely year for me."
Jinyoung nodded, his gaze falling to the floor. "I see... I'm sorry..."
"For what? Being single is great. No one to worry about but yourself." Jaebum enthused. Aside from the occasional loneliness, he didn't really find the whole 'single life' that bad.
"Don't you have cravings though? For physical touch?" Jinyoung asked.
"I guess, but that's what porn is for." Jaebum answered proudly.
"I don't mean sexually!" Jinyoung punched Jaebum's arm, the latter chuckling in response. "It could just be a hug or something, I dunno..."
"Well, sure I guess. On the days I need a hug it would be nice to have someone there to comfort me. But I don't, so I just get over it and move on."
"I see..."
The two made it to Jaebum's apartment in seemingly no time. Usually on the walks back home, Jaebum would spend time observing the night sky or relishing in the deepening darkness. Yet all he remembered doing as he walked with Jinyoung was staring at him the whole time. It was mostly because they were talking and it would be impolite not to look at him, but even when silence settled between them, Jaebum's eyes were magnetically attracted to the angel. Sometimes they'd land on his soft looking cheeks or long eyelashes, other times his plump lips or hair that he curled earlier that morning.
When they got to his apartment building, Jaebum forced himself to tear his eyes away for just a moment to open the door before his gaze was back on the angel that walked through.
Jaebum followed after him, stopping in the lobby to ask a question of his own. "What about angels? They don't need physical touch?"
Jinyoung turned, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, we are social beings too so interacting with others is necessary. But I guess we have more of a tolerance to being alone than humans do. It's just..." He let out a breath before continuing. "Being the only angel on Earth is lonely. I feel ostracized from everyone."
Jaebum frowned, a sharp pang hitting his chest. He'd never thought about the fact that Jinyoung was in a place surrounded by a ton of beings who had no idea he wasn't from Earth and how uncomfortable that must've been. Even though he looks like a human, no one could understand him and his situation better than another angel. "You can't be the only fallen angel though, there has to be others."
"Well sure, there are others. But I can't see them. We're supposed to survive down here on our own, and it just feels shitty to be alone." He explained while subconsciously rubbing his wrist.
"You've got me though?" Jaebum offered, though he could tell that his presence wasn't the same compared to that of another angel.
Jinyoung shrugged again. "Yeah, I guess..."
It hurt seeing Jinyoung down like that. Even though his punishment was to live on Earth, the underlying effects of it were homesickness and loneliness, which is probably what made it worse. And for someone like Jinyoung who seemingly hated Earth and everything it had to offer, it definitely wasn't a walk in the park living there for weeks despite all the new experiences and knowledge he'd gained from it.
Jaebum's heart hurt for him, as he'd never taken all of that into consideration. He just saw Jinyoung as an ironically bad tempered angel with a warm heart despite trying to hide it all the time under a cold shell; never as a rejected wrong doer sentenced to an unknown amount of time in a place he didn't belong.
Jinyoung's face was downcast, his eyes searching the floor as a moment of silence slipped between them. He looked like he could cry any second despite his eyes being dry; it was just a certain sadness he held that he'd probably been hiding all this time.
Jaebum hated that look. Even if Jinyoung wasn't 100% comfortable with being on Earth yet, Jaebum at least wanted to try and make his time there easier. He didn't know how it felt to be somewhere he didn't belong, but for Jinyoung, he didn't mind trying to help him fit in, or at least comfort him in the times he needed it.
"Y'know, I'd hug you if you'd let me." Jaebum blurted out, stepping closer to the other who instinctively took a step back.
"I-If I'd let you?" Jinyoung stuttered out in repetition. The offer was incredibly sudden and seemingly random, he didn't know what to say in response.
Jaebum nodded, locking his gaze with Jinyoung's coffee colored eyes. "You've told me not to touch you all this time, so I don't. But if you want me to I will."
"I... didn't say I wanted a hug..." Jinyoung mumbled, though this time when Jaebum stepped closer, he didn't put any more distance between them.
"Yeah but, you look like you need one." Jaebum stated, receiving a puzzled look from the other. "I want to comfort you. Sometimes you just need a hug, y'know? No shame in it."
Jinyoung stared blankly at Jaebum for a moment as if he were deciding on whether to accept the offer or not. He slowly turned away with the intent to walk off, yet again avoiding the chance to open himself up a bit more to the other. Though he didn't make it far, as he quickly gave in to the urge to turn back and engulf Jaebum's waist with his arms. Jaebum wasn't surprised that the angel ultimately decided to accept his offer of consolation considering how he'd been upset about his fallen angel status for the majority of the day, he was more glad that he could at least give Jinyoung some support if nothing else. Jaebum returned the embrace, feeling Jinyoung bury his face in the crook of his neck. He slowly rubbed the angel's back, knowing that the gentle touch should calm him down easily.
"I'm only hugging you because of what you said earlier, that you sometimes need one too." Jinyoung unnecessarily explained.
"Fair enough." Jaebum replied, though he was sure Jinyoung just desperately needed some sort of comfort and fully allowed himself to receive it from him. "Are you homesick?"
Another moment of silence passed before Jinyoung mumbled out "A bit."
"Do you got someone waiting for you to come back up there?" Jaebum questioned.
Jinyoung shook his head. "Well... not really... I didn't get along with anyone. I just kinda hate not knowing when I go back."
That at least was understandable. Being banished to a foreign place with no knowledge of when you were allowed to return home must be difficult to live with. Jinyoung must think about it every day, wondering if he could finally return to where he belongs, only to be disappointed by the end of the day.
"It's okay, I have a feeling you won't be on Earth for too long. But for now, I'll try my hardest to make things comfortable for you as long as you're my guest." Jaebum promised. He felt Jinyoung squeeze him tighter, knowing that was the angel's quiet way of thanking him. Jaebum never needed a verbal show of appreciation, he found Jinyoung's subtle ways of showing it good enough. The two hugged long enough to forget that they were standing in the lobby of the apartment building, until out of the corner of his eye Jaebum caught some movement. He looked over to see his friend Youngjae in his blue uniform taking his position at the front desk, a smug smile on his face as he watched them. Jaebum rolled his eyes, slowly pulling away from Jinyoung to dig in his pocket for the keys to his apartment. "Hey, take the keys and head up. I'll be right behind you."
Jinyoung gave a small nod and headed to the stairwell with Jaebum watching him until he was out of sight. Jaebum then walked over to the security desk, narrowing his eyes at the guard who stared back.
"Who's the new boy?" Youngjae inquired, resting his head on his hand as mischief danced in his eyes.
"It's not what you're thinking." Jaebum stated, immediately denying any prior assumptions Youngjae may have made.
"I haven't said what I'm thinking." Youngjae replied, his smile widening as he winked at the elder.
Jaebum groaned, quickly looking away. "Don't give me that look. Just and acquaintance."
"Doesn't seem like an acquaintance to me." Youngjae retorted. "I've seen him around occasionally, but I'm just now realizing he lives with you. It's been weeks now, Jaebum."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Jaebum pushed the comment away with the wave of his hand, ignoring Youngjae's subtle teasing. "He's different. But I feel responsible for him now, so I can't take my eyes off of him."
"I don't think he needs you to take care of him." Youngjae said.
"How would you know?" Jaebum scoffed.
"Just watching how he acts with you. He looks like he just wants comfort more than anything, and I think he likes getting it from you." The guard explained, sighing dreamily as he grinned with mirth. "And I'm sure that can't be the only reason you can't keep your eyes off of him. I mean, you're gonna ignore those heavenly looks?"
Jaebum chuckled at the ironic use of the word 'heavenly', and though that was exactly how he'd describe Jinyoung's handsomeness, he was still embarrassed by the way his heart stuttered just thinking of him. "Shut up. He's nothing more to me than a friend."
"He's a friend now? Just moments before he was an acquaintance." Youngjae pointed out, making Jaebum back track on his words.
"He's— shut up."
Youngjae chuckled, watching Jaebum retreat from his desk to escape the interrogation and accusations. "Have a good night, Jaebum."
Jaebum nodded, waving at the other as he headed for the stairwell. "Night. Don't work too late. Go home tonight."
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(*Long chapter and probably one of my faves so far hshshs my mission is to make them the cutest not-yet couple there is and I think it's working.*)