Yeonjun hiccupped as he ate the last bite of apple slice Jongho had held out for him. Two sets of eyes he never thought to see tonight now looking at him with intense and bold gazes.
"Hi Mr and Mr Park" Yeonjun squeaked, his voice breaking a little as Jongho's dads came and stood by their table.
Jongho shot him a look. Yeonjun couldn't help it, he was panicking. Yeonjun had told Jongho's dads that he wanted to date their son when he had been trying to figure out whether Jongho liked guys or not. But that didn't make him feel any better in seeing them on valentines on his first date with their son, especially since they had caught them right as Jongho had been feeding him.
Jongho dropped his fork on the plate, causing an unnerving clatter and making Yeonjun wince. "What are you doing here" Jongho asked his dads.
Yeonjun went quiet as he watched the exchange.
Jongho's dad Hongjoong linked his arm with Jongho's other dad Seonghwa "Its valentines, we're on a date" he stated.
"Yeah I know, but why are you here of all places?" Jongho asked firmly, tapping at the table for emphasis.
"We should be asking you that" Jongho's dad Seonghwa said.
"Did you ask him?"Hongjoong said.
.
. .
. . .
Wait shit, everyone was looking at him now.
Yeonjun pointed at himself and Seonghwa and Hongjoong nodded while Jongho looked at him with a confused expression, which if he were doing it under other circumstances, Yeonjun would have called cute and pinched his cheek.
Were Jongho's dads suggesting whether they asked their son out or not, was that what they wanted to know? Wasn't it obvious though, why did he have to say it out loud? Why couldn't they ask Jongho and not him? He knew he had Jongho's dads acceptance but still this was so awkward and weird.
"Ask . .Jongho. . what?" Yeonjun eventually said innocently, his lips were quivering making speech hard.
Hongjoong covered Jongho's ears and Jongho looked horrified and Yeonjun felt bad because Jongho was clearly embarrassed to death. A wave of second-hand embarrassment was rolling off Jongho and straight onto Yeonjun.
"Did you ask him out?" Hongjoong asked in a hushed tone.
Yeonjun was glad his own parents weren't this embarrassing . . or maybe they were? It's not like he'd dated anyone before. He'd never been in this situation before. Yeonjun was nervous to tell and introduce Jongho to his own parents now.
Yeonjun nodded at Jongho's nosy dads, and both of them smiled, his poor Jongho still looked perplexed and concerned as his ears were finally released.
Hongjoong stuck his thumb up and Yeonjun nodded awkwardly.
"Do I even want to know?" Jongho said looking at his dads and then at Yeonjun himself.
Yeonjun shook his head subtly.
"So er, why are you here?" Yeonjun asked looking at Seonghwa and Hongjoong, he wasn't sure how long he was going to have to exchange such pleasantries, he honestly wanted to grab Jongho and run.
Hongjoong clasped his hands together "Jongho should be able to tell you that!"
"I should?" Jongho said looking up at his dad with narrowed eyes.
"Of course, we've told you about this place countless times"
"You have?" Jongho said looking up at his dads.
Yeonjun was just as confused and went quiet again.
"White walls, Paris, navy tables, lacework chairs, pastries . . none of this is ringing any bells is it?" Seonghwa said with a sigh.
Jongho shook his head.
"This is the place your father and I went to together after we had first met" Seonghwa continued.
"Jong make sure to pay attention ok, we come here every year, you know that" Hongjoong concluded.
Recognition dropped on Jongho's face and then Jongho was looking at him and Yeonjun wasn't sure what to do. He certainly didn't know the importance of this bakery, he'd just seen it the other day and decided that he wanted to bring Jongho here at some point because the apple pie looked exemplary, and the whole atmosphere was cute just like Jongho himself.
Yeonjun stood up suddenly, wanting to save himself and Jongho from this weirdness. "Well Mr. and Mr. Park we have, ahhh . .the rest of our . .date to attend to so we should get going, I'll make sure Jongho gets home safely later" Yeonjun said doing his best to smile, and motioning Jongho to stand up too.
Yeonjun grabbed Jongho's hand as soon as he had his bag and was standing, ignoring his own and Jongho's embarrassment. "Have a good evening Sirs" Yeonjun said with a slight bow as he led Jongho out the door.
Thankfully neither of Jongho's dads protested and instead yelled a little "Goodbye!" and "Have fun!"
Yeonjun walked, pulling Jongho along behind him until they came out to the park and he finally stopped and faced Jongho.
Jongho was smiling at him and then he was laughing, making Yeonjun laugh along with him, the whole situation they just faced was terribly awkward and the both boys couldn't help but laugh themselves to tears at the strangeness of it all.
Jongho wiped a tear from his eye and spoke once his laughter had calmed "Thanks for saving me back there, that was so damm awkward, sorry my dad's are weird"
"It's ok" Yeonjun smiled and waved his hands, he agreed with Jongho but he didn't want to make the boy anymore uncomfortable then he already was. If Jongho had remembered the bakeries significance then he probably would have spoken up and Yeonjun would have happily chosen them another place to go to, maybe somewhere with burgers, thus avoiding the moment just past.
"Now that I think about it I do remember dads speaking about that place, I can't believe I forgot" Jongho sighed.
"It's not your fault, and look the main thing is we escaped" Yeonjun said with a reassuring grin.
"True dat. Did my dad's ask you about us when they covered my ears?" Jongho questioned.
Yeonjun nodded "They did . . I hope you don't mind that I said that we were dating?"
"It's all good, they probably would have seen anyway if they looked on facebook, remember?
"Ahh right" Yeonjun said remembering that they had already changed their status on facebook to 'in a relationship'.
"I'll just prepare myself for later" Jongho suddenly said.
Yeonjun scratched his neck nervously "Prepare yourself for what?"
"For all their questions about tonight, where we went, what we did"
"And what will you tell them?" Yeonjun pressed.
"That I had a lovely first date with my boyfriend, we went to the movies, and then my date was crashed by my father's" Jongho said with sarcasm for that last bit.
Yeonjun felt happy that Jongho thought their date was lovely, but he certainly didn't want Jongho's dads crashing their date to be the highlight of the night. Yeonjun of course had a plan though, a plan that in realness proceeded the whole evening.
Yeonjun had actually planned to kiss Jongho when he gave him the card and asked him to be his boyfriend assuming he said yes. But for starters, instead of giving the card to Jongho outside the cinema like he had planned he had given it to Jongho in the hallway instead after he had discovered the one Jongho had made for him. Jongho had also gone and kissed him on the cheek and that had knocked all courage he'd stored right out of him and left him as a bubbly mess on the inside.
He'd then considered kissing Jongho in the cinema, but for his first attempt he'd ended up kissing Jongho on the cheek because the lights dimmed right as he had lent in.
He'd wanted to try again during the movie, the atmosphere was just right, but Jongho looked too focused on the film and on the other people kissing in the cinema.
Jongho probably didn't realise it but he was pulling some pretty strange faces every time his eyes appeared to drop away from the film and down to the other couples in their respective seats.
So instead of kissing in that moment he had pressed a candy to Jongho's lips hoping that the candy would distract him and help him focus better on the film. Candy always helped to distract his own mind.
When they had been walking to the bakery Yeonjun had decided he'd kiss Jongho there. But Yeonjun had no idea how that was going to happen since one; they had a whole table between them, two; Jongho had asked him to feed him which only helped to increase the speed of his heart and the nervous quiver in his hand, and three; Jongho's dad's had shown up.
So now they were here in the park and Yeonjun was hoping that nothing else would interrupt them.
Yeonjun and Jongho fell into an awkward silence and Yeonjun looked about the park that was blanketed by night, hoping that the perfect place to kiss Jongho would exist and thankfully it did.
Some ways into the park were a collection of bright pink and red neon lights. Every time there was some form of holiday or event there was a committee that set up events in the park. Yeonjun was suddenly remembering a particular picture from Jongho's project from their homeroom class and Yeonjun had the perfect idea.
Yeonjun grinned, turned and held out his hand for Jongho who was standing kicking at the ground.
"Come on" Yeonjun said as his heart fluttered.
The pair began to walk closer and closer, Jongho was clearly intrigued, and thankfully and hopefully distracted from prior events.
There was a fair amount of people but they were all doing their own thing.
The neon lights were all shaped like hearts and other cute valentines motifs to which people could pose in front of and take cool pictures.
"These are all so pretty!" Jongho exclaimed, his eyes lighting up like a little kid seeing the twinkling lights that decorated houses inside and out at Christmas.
"They are" Yeonjun said.
But unlike Jongho, Yeonjun wasn't looking at the lights, he was looking at Jongho instead.