ice ice baby, for foretos

[chiharu]

Title: ice ice baby
For: foretos
Pairing: sehun/kai
Rating: g
Length: 3359 words
Summary: jongin works at an ice cream parlour. sehun is a (initially unwilling) customer.



'You're the food blogger,' Sehun huffs in annoyance. Lu Han is manhandling him, shoving him on to the train against his will. He swears that if this happens again he's going to call the police. Or rather, that's what he tells himself every single time Lu Han manhandles him, and never acts on it. 'Not me.'

'You're my assistant,' Lu Han says as the train doors shut behind them. 'A sidekick of sorts.'

'I don't even get credit on your blog. At least people know it's Batman and Robin.'

'How about you're an extension of me?'

'We're not Lu and Han.' Sehun folds his arms, glaring at Lu Han.

'Nice one, I didn't know you had it in you.'

'I'm never doing this again.'

'You get free food,' Lu Han says. 'Unless you're complaining about that...'

'I hate you,' Sehun says, without heat in his voice.

The place in question is a tiny hole in a wall. It's an ice cream parlour owned by Lu Han's friends from university, where they make their ice cream from scratch. They had a spiffy website that Sehun had sniffed at, but secretly he had liked the way the descriptions of the different flavours showed up whenever he rolled the mouse over the images.

Sehun tells himself not to judge anything by its appearances. It's not working. He's judging everything, from the whitewashed walls and the minimalist decor and the ice cream scooper currently serving a woman at the counter. Especially the ice cream scooper.

'Is that your friend,' Sehun asks, voice a hushed whisper.

'No,' Lu Han says. The woman leaves the counter after getting her cup of ice cream, and the scooper turns to look at the two of them.

'Hello,' he says. Sehun squints. The badge pinned to the scooper's shirt has Hello, my name is Jongin scrawled on it. 'What would you like to have today?'

'Joonmyun,' Lu Han says, flashing Jongin a sunny smile.

'He's not a flavour,' Jongin says, looking horrified.

'I wouldn't be interested in eating him even if he was one,' Lu Han answers, smile still in place.

'Is this a test?' Jongin asks weakly.

Lu Han's smile widens, and Sehun decides that if he continues doing that he'd have to knock him out or something because he's being a creepy little shit. Although by Sehun's standards, technically, it isn't all that bad. All Lu Han is doing is putting on his silly imitation of a purple and pink cat from a Disney cartoon. Sehun had stalked, no, followed someone he had been interested in around for a year in junior high. That was how a creepy little shit behaved.

'Lu Han!'

The doors to the kitchen bursts open to reveal a man with wine red hair and a white apron stained with chocolate fudge and caramel sauce.

'Joonmyun!' Lu Han says brightly. 'There you are!'

Sehun digs into his ice cream as viciously as he's able to. For starters, this is not a visit for Lu Han's food blog. Or maybe it is, but from what Lu Han is eating (a watermelon ice bar) it's pretty obvious that he has been here before. He doesn't even ask to try any of the flavours they offer. As Sehun shoves mouthful after mouthful of milk tea ice cream into his mouth, he plans a hundred and one ways to make Lu Han to die a painful death. He could delete all the posts on Lu Han's blog, if only he could remember the password. He had written it down somewhere. Once. Lu Han never changed his passwords. As far as Sehun can recall, that is.

Alternatively, he could strangle Lu Han right now. But it'd be too troublesome, and there'd be witnesses. Like Joonmyun, who's chattering away about ice cream and how some other guy named Kris isn't here today because he's busy tasting fruit samples they're going to use in the assortment of flavours they have planned for the rest of the year and whatnot. And there's that Jongin at the counter, who's still staring at them curiously. God, Sehun hates being stared at like that. It's like that strange encounter he had with some talent scout who had approached him when he had been out with his friends and he's pretty certain he had run a marathon trying to get away from her. So Sehun turns around to glare at Jongin, but he botches it and ends up catching his gaze instead.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

It feels like an eternity to Sehun, and Sehun's pretty sure his life isn't some silly romance drama.

Jongin looks away first, and Sehun grins. It's a small triumph and it's ridiculously petty, but it's something. As for what that something is, he isn't too sure. All he knows is that there's something about the way Jongin moves (and the way he looks, of course) that makes Sehun want to keep watching him. It's unsettling, to say the least, because now he's the one staring, unable to tear his eyes away.

'Hey,' Sehun says, sidling up to Lu Han.

Play it cool, Sehun. You can do this. You can do anything.

'Hey yourself,' Lu Han says, not looking up from his laptop, typing away.

'You know,' Sehun says. He's dragging his words. He's screwing this up. Sehun hates life, hates himself, hates everything. 'You remember that ice cream shop we went to?'

'Of course. Why?'

'Can we go there again?'

'I thought I heard somebody complaining about how I dragged his royal highness there?'

'The ice cream was good.'

'Pfft.'

'Oh come on. Go with me.'

'I'm working on an article now, ask someone else.'

'I'll pay for your share.'

Oh Sehun. Oh Sehun. What an idiot you are.

'Did I just hear that?'

Sehun glares daggers at his feet, hoping that if he stares hard enough, the ground would open up and swallow him and he'd never have to face Lu Han and remember his mortification ever again. 'Yes,' he growls through gritted teeth, although he ends up sounding more like a dog that had been kicked in the stomach.

Lu Han looks at Sehun, eyes assessing, and Sehun flinches under his gaze. 'Well,' he says. There's a menacing sort of gleam in his eyes, and Sehun finds himself wanting to back away. Score: Three to Lu Han, zero to Sehun. Absolutely fantastic. 'I'm really busy. If you're that desperate, why don't you go there on your own?'

Sehun doesn't have an appropriate comeback for that, so he's left staring at Lu Han, gaping like a goldfish while Lu Han cackles away.

For some inexplicable reason, Sehun finds it necessary to introduce himself to Jongin the next time he sees him.

'What would you like today?' Jongin asks.

'I'm Sehun.' The words are out of Sehun's mouth even before he takes a cursory glance at the assortment of ice cream flavours on display.

'Oh,' Jongin says, blinking. 'Nice to meet you? I'm Jong-'

'I know,' Sehun says even before Jongin has completed his sentence. 'Jongin right? It's on your badge. On your apron. Over there.' He's tripping over his own words already and this is only the sixth sentence he has said to Jongin. He's not going to survive this.

'I see,' Jongin says. There's the look on his face that to Sehun seems like he's undecided between being creeped out by Sehun's outburst or being impressed that Sehun had bothered to read what was written on his badge.

'I've been here before,' Sehun says quickly. 'So I've seen your badge already. That's why I know. Your name, I mean.'

'Right,' Jongin says slowly, as if he's trying to remember something. 'Wait. You're Joonmyun hyung's friend, aren't you?'

'Well technically-' I'm not his friend because Lu Han is his friend but if Lu Han's friend is my friend that means he's my friend too so the answer should be '-yes.'

'I thought so,' Jongin says, looking pleased. 'You looked familiar,' he says hastily. 'I mean, I remember your hair. Sorry, I mean, your face.'

'Uh. Wow. Thanks,' Sehun says. He had dyed his hair a ridiculous shade of rainbow (well to be fair it doesn't count as a shade of rainbow because that doesn't make sense, all he had known was that someone, most likely Lu Han, had mixed a whole bunch of different colours into his bottle of hair dye and he had ended up with funky coloured hair) and he had been waiting for a couple of weeks to dye it back to his usual shade. He didn't want to ruin his scalp. It had, unexpectedly, turned out to be useful.

'So,' Jongin says, gesturing to the ice cream scoop that he's still holding. 'Can I get you anything?'

'How was your trip to Joonmyun's?'

'The ice cream was good.'

'The great Oh Sehun taking a train to a hole in the wall on the other side of Seoul just for two scoops of ice cream? I call bullshit.'

'Shut up,' Sehun says. 'I just wanted to treat myself to good ice cream, that's all.'

'You mean good eye candy.'

'Well excuse me! I mean, excuse you!'

Lu Han cackles away again as Sehun's cheeks flush red in embarrassment. One day, Sehun is going to buy a shovel and dig himself a hole in their flat to bury himself so he doesn't have to face the world (although that's just Lu Han, and God forbid, Lu Han isn't the world to him, he'd die of boredom if that's how it is) ever again. One day. And Lu Han is going to scream when the beautiful wooden floorboards are ruined just to bury Sehun's body, and Sehun is going to be the one cackling away.

Sehun goes to the ice cream parlour as often as he can. By as often as he can, he means almost every single day after work at about seven in the evening. Although that's actually a lie, because his job as a sales assistant in a bookshop means that at the end of the day, he's usually too tired to even want to take the train to the other side of Seoul. Well there's Jongin, but Sehun's feet and arms scream at him to go home most of the time and not make a general fool out of himself in front of Jongin when he's too tired. A tired Sehun is a horrible Sehun who says stupid things at the speed of light and is generally unpresentable to most humans except for Lu Han. Lu Han is an exception, because he isn't what Sehun would classify as most humans. Lu Han exists under a separate category also known as Insufferable Flatmate Who Enjoys Torturing Sehun.

When Sehun actually thinks about the whole not-seeing-Jongin-after-work-thing (apart from not showing him horrible Sehun, it also prevents Sehun from seeming like a creepy stalker always trying to stick to Jongin at the ice cream parlour) he supposes that he leads a pathetic life. The rest of his body parts are actually more sensible than his brain. Oh joy.

Over the course of Sehun's next few visits (few isn't the correct adjective, it should be many but next many isn't grammatically correct) to the ice cream parlour, things happen like this:

1. Sehun samples every single flavour available. From the usual vanilla, chocolate and strawberry to the more exotic flavoured ones like lychee martini sorbet and watermelon soju sorbet.
2. Sehun tries everything else on the menu. Waffles, slices of apple pie and chocolate mousse, cups of tiramisu and affogato.
3. Sehun graduates from having just scoops of ice creams to having proper sundaes, just like a proper adult, according to Jongin. On a normal day, normal Sehun wouldn't buy a single word of it. But normal Sehun has been replaced by a wild Sehun in love, and Sehun laps up everything Jongin says.
4. Sehun tells Jongin his entire life story in bite sized, digestible pieces. At least, he thinks it is. He tries hard not to come off as a creep but as an enthusiastic customer eager to learn more about the person scooping his ice cream for him on every visit.
5. It appears to work, because by Sehun's fifth visit, Jongin actually warms up to Sehun's questions. It's no longer just about how lovely the weather is and how creamy the ice cream seems and how fruity the sorbets are. Jongin talks about how he's into dancing, he would've loved to take it further but somehow it hadn't worked out. But things aren't too bad for him, he's still dancing with a group of friends, and this job helps him make ends meet. Joonmyun had been Jongin's roommate at university, and that's how he had been roped in to help when he had opened the ice cream parlour.
6. Sehun meets Kris, also known as the Shadow or the Dragon who seems to be rarely around. The Shadow because his presence is usually undetectable (according to Jongin) and the Dragon because he looks like one and moves so quickly it's almost like he flies (according to Joonmyun) and Sehun finds himself buying neither of the two stories.

All of this doesn't prepare Sehun for the day when he shows up at the ice cream parlour only to find that Jongin isn't there.

Sehun looks at his watch, then looks at the ice cream scooper -- it's Joonmyun, not Jongin -- then back at his watch again. Two fifty four in the afternoon on a Saturday. Jongin's usually there. Sehun rubs his eyes. Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy?

But it's too late, he's halfway through the door and the bells attached to it clang noisily, alerting Joonmyun to his presence. There's no way he'd be able to leave now without seeming like a horrible human being, so he enters, shuffling his feet as he makes his way to the counter.

'Sehun!' There's that grin on Joonmyun's face and Sehun hates everything already. It's like Joonmyun is this huge dark cloud that has decided to settle down on top of his head and start raining all over him. Then again, it's not Joonmyun's fault that Jongin isn't here (or maybe it is, since he's Jongin's boss after all) and he shouldn't be directing his anger at him, but still.

'Hi,' Sehun says. Sehun uses Appear Energetic. He does his best impression of a bright, bouncy ball of happiness. It's super ineffective. He wipes the stupid smile off his face and puts on the game face he uses for work.

'Do you want to try our new flavour?' Joonmyun asks. He points to the unfamiliar looking heap of ice cream, it's a smooth shade of light brown like the milk tea flavour, but at the same time... 'It's salted caramel.'

'Sure,' Sehun says with a thin smile. 'I'll have a scoop in a cup please.'

Sehun attacks his ice cream like it's his punching bag. It's not as if the ice cream doesn't taste good. It's nice, and for some strange reason, the aftertaste reminds him of lovely pan fried bacon. But somehow it isn't as delicious as when Jongin's around. It doesn't even make sense. It isn't as if Jongin's this magical ingredient that makes everything taste better. Or is he? Sehun is pretty sure he'd eat Jongin regardless of whether he was an ice cream flavour or not.

'Do you like the new flavour?'

Sehun jumps in his seat, almost spilling his ice cream all over him. Joonmyun's standing beside him with a smile, and Sehun's pretty certain that Jongin has issues because Kris definitely isn't The Shadow, he makes too much noise when he moves. It's Joonmyun who creeps up on people without a sound.

'It's alright,' Sehun says, trying to regain his (not so) dignified composure. 'Wait. Why do you even care. I'm not the food blogger. Lu Han is.'

Joonmyun raises an eyebrow.

'I didn't mean to say that,' Sehun says, horrified.

'It's alright,' Joonmyun says with a wave, as if he's brushing Sehun's embarrassment away. It helps. Somewhat. Sehun's feeling a teeny bit better already. 'I'm interested in your opinion, since you come here often. Jongin tells me you've tried everything we have on the menu.'

Jongin tells me. Oh God. Jongin talked about Sehun. Sehun doesn't dare to open his mouth for fear of what he might say, but at the same time if he doesn't say anything, he'd only make things worse.

'Oh. Yeah. Uh. I like ice cream, I guess?'

'And Jongin too, I suppose?'

Sehun chokes on his saliva. 'What?'

Joonmyun doesn't say a word, but there's that amused look in his eyes that unsettles Sehun. Did Joonmyun really say that or had Sehun been hallucinating?

'Speaking of Jongin,' Sehun says quickly, changing the subject. Sort of. 'He isn't around today?'

'He's off today.'

At that moment, Kris pokes his head out of the kitchen, announcing 'Waffles are read-' but the words die in his mouth when he sees Sehun. 'Oh hello. You again,' he says, with an obnoxious, all knowing smirk on his face. 'Jongin'll be back tomorrow.'

Sehun feels like punching a wall, except his knuckles would hurt too much if he did it.

Sehun waits for two weeks before he goes back to the ice cream parlour. Lu Han laughs at him in the meantime and cracks stupid jokes at his expense. He offers to get Jongin's number from Joonmyun, and Sehun tells him to shut up. There're too many things he doesn't know, like if Jongin's actually into guys (Lu Han offers to find out again, and Sehun kicks him in the shin this time) but Sehun decides that he'll do it on his own. If he's going to get his fragile heart shattered into a billion pieces, the least he can do for himself is to have it on his own terms.

This is how it all ends:

Sehun (finally) notices that the ice cream parlour offers lessons in how to make your own ice cream. He's got the flyer crushed in his palm as he leans over the counter and asks Jongin 'Can I sign up for one of those make your own ice cream classes with you?'

Jongin stares at Sehun, stunned momentarily, and Sehun wonders if this is it, where he'd pull something like that guy in that fairy tale who drove one foot into the ground and tore himself into two. What was that guy's name again? Rapunzel? Rumble-roar? Anything to distract himself from the impending 'no' from Jongin. Oh what was it, Rafael? No wait that's the name of a tennis player. Rumpelstiltskin! Yes!

'Uh,' Jongin says. He's shuffling his feet now, and then he pulls out a menu from behind the counter. 'Have you actually seen our selection of sundaes?'

Sehun panics, because what has sundaes got to do with him going for a date no class with Jongin?

Love is Sweet Sundae

Falling for You Sundae

Please Notice Me Sundae

Sehun stares at the menu.

Oh.

Oh.

'My answer's yes,' Jongin says, and there's this adorable flush that graces his cheeks and Sehun feels like he might die of cardiac arrest right there and then.

Somewhere in the kitchen, Kris pressed up against Joonmyun, who has attached himself to the kitchen door. They've opened a small crack just to watch Jongin and Sehun, who are staring at one another like they're experiencing heaven on earth.

'I told you the Lovers' sundaes thing would be a good idea,' Joonmyun says with pride in his voice. The names of the sundaes were horribly cheesy, but it had worked.

'Sorry but I was the one who noticed that Sehun had been coming in for Jongin first?' Kris retorts.

'Oh hush, I won the bet.' Joonmyun turns to Kris and flashes him a triumphant grin. 'It took them more than three months. Pay up.'

'Look! They're kissing!'

'Where? No they're not! Damn it Kris Wu, you can run and you can hide, but you still owe me fifty thousand won!'

a/n: thank you S for holding my hand throughout, and P for helping me look through this. you're fabulous.