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“Niqiu, meet your new groomer!” Zhou Mi chirped while cuddling his precious toy poodle to his bosom.
It was Niqiu’s first time at Alpha Pet Care and Grooming Services (APCGS) and Derek the co-head groomer was not surprised to see yet another completely spoiled puppy to take care of. They were all the same, pampered, fluffy, with overindulgent owners. But it wasn’t everyday that said owner was a fancy tall stylish kind of hot tall Chinese tall man who decided to waltz to the counter and present his puppy with a twirl and flourish.
“When should I be back for him?” The customer asked through a painfully bright smile which mostly hid his heavily accented English.
“Uh, around four.” Derek replied gruffly and picked up the doggy carrier and handed it to Scott, one of the boys that worked there.
“Okay lah~!” Zhou Mi sang and grabbed his equally stylish friend’s elbow and steered him out of the salon, “We’ll see you then!”
As they left, Derek most definitely did not stare at the way the man’s legs went on forever and ever and he definitely definitely didn’t notice the way the narrow hips had the slightest sway to them and-
“Derek, hurry up, let’s get started!” Laura called.
--
“OH MY GOD!” Key screeched as soon as they were out of earshot, “DID YOU SEE THAT GUY IN THERE HOLY SHIT HE IS BEAUTIFUL!”
Zhou Mi flailed around with his best friend, “I know right oh my god I don’t even know!! Niqiu is so lucky to be getting all feeled up by him.” Zhou Mi unlocked his car and shoved himself into the driver’s seat while Key bounced around on the other side.
“I’m totally bringing Comme Des here if it means I get to see him again, jeez talk about eye candy.”
“What about Minho?” Zhou Mi asked, amused, “Oh and we’re going to the Outlets while we wait just so you know.”
“I don’t care where we go as long as we can sunglasses shop.” Key said loftily, placing his arms behind his head, “And anyway, Minho is whatever, that guy though…”
“Minho has been your boyfriend for two years!”
“Yeah well…okay fine you know I’m kidding, but Mimi he was totally checking you out, you need to get in on that cause unf. Please tell me you saw his face because I was only looking at his arms and hands and-“
“Key, shut up, I thought we were past our hormonal teenage years.”
“We both still jam to Lady Gaga,” Key deadpanned, “I think we’re going to be stuck in teenage land for a while.”
“Well I do turn 18 this year…” Zhou Mi mused as Key squawked an indignant reply. “Come on, what we need is some retail therapy to work out all of that sinuous lust you have inside of you.”
“Ohhh sinuous lust! This totally reminds me of this like SUPER hot cowboy romance novel!”
Zhou Mi rolled his eyes, what was he doing with friends like this.
Key and Zhou Mi were masters at wasting time, especially if there was a mall and money involved. Add a little sale or two into the equation and they could be at it for days.
“Mi, you don’t need that.” Key said trying to manhandle Zhou Mi out of a shirt he was modeling.
“But it’s almost summer and it’s going to get hotter out and I need to be prepared!”
“Zhou Mi. I cannot morally let you out of our house wearing a hawaiian shirt paired with those nice Ralph Lauren trousers.”
Zhou Mi pouted fantastically murmuring about how he had the perfect straw hat to match and disappeared to change.
“Hurry up, it’s almost four and we didn’t even go look at the sunglasses. I’m taking a rain check.”
Zhou Mi emerged from the dressing room, “Yeah, yeah, let’s get back I know you’re dying to see that guy again.”
“Don’t pretend like you aren’t!” Key exclaimed, “Besides, you’re the only who actually has a chance, so fix your hair and here, here’s some lip balm. Apply it like on the inside of your lips yeah okay good. Let’s go”
--
Derek groaned inwardly, the two boys from earlier were back to reclaim a groomed pooch, and if he wasn’t mistaken, they were kind of composing themselves outside the store and sending what they obviously thought were subtle glances his way.
“Here’s the pup.” Laura nudged her brother’s shoulder, “Give it to him personally~”
Derek pretended not to see how she wiggled her eyebrows at Scott and Erika, and was Boyd actually making fun of him???? He was going to kill them all.
The bell tinkled and- “We’re back!” the man announced grandly.
“Yeah, here’s your dog.” Derek said trying not to throw the pet across the counter.
“OMG HE LOOKS ALL SHINY AND NEW!” The man said his eyes lighting up adorably, “I-I mean…it’s been a while since he’s gotten groomed and so he looks really good and ugh how much do I owe you?”
Derek tried to ignore the way the man’s cheeks were pink and how his mouth curled almost kittenishly, “It’ll be-“
“It’s on the house!” Laura called from the back, “First time customers get their first service free, and you can keep getting discounts if you leave your information with us so we can contact you for regular visits.”
“What.”
“You do that here? How convenient!” The man said clapping his hands together giddily. His friend face palmed but it didn’t actually work because he had a phone in his hand so he just ended up with an iPhone shaped red mark on his forehead. Erika snorted.
“Yeah let me just,” Laura wiped her hands on her apron and procured a pad and pen out of thin air, “Just right here, name, number, email, address, and social security number, and we’ll contact you in three months or every month for pickmeup’s depending on the puppy of course.”
“Laura what do you actually think you are you doing?”
“My job.” She said through gritted teeth and discretely stood on his foot.
“All done!” Zhou Mi announced handing the materials to Derek. He picked up his puppy and placed him back into his carrier. “See you soon then!”
As soon as Zhou Mi left, everyone in the shop crowded around Derek to creep on the tall Asian man’s information.
“I have my Facebook app pulled up, come on, what’s his name?”
“Z…Z...Z-h-o-u M-i? How the fuck do you pronounce that?”
Erika jabbed furiously at her phone while Laura threatened her baby brother, “I don’t care how it’s pronounced, but tomorrow, you’re gonna call him and date him and marry him and have babies with him and-“
“What the hell. First of all I don’t like him or want to date him and it’s not possible to have babies with him and secondly, my shift’s over, I’m out.”
Derek was proud that he had handled the situation as passively as he did when, “Well if Derek doesn’t want him, can I take him?”
With inhumane speed, Derek was on Scott in a millisecond, “You.”
Scott pushed Derek off of him, “That worked much better than I thought it would.”
--
Zhou Mi was lounging around upside down on the couch multitasking like only a college student with too much work could do. His books were spread on the floor, the TV was on permanently stuck on a channel that only broadcasted chick flicks, Comme Des and Niqiu were napping together and he of course was on Facebook for mobile.
“Key are you sure you don’t know what his name is?”
“How am I even supposed to…okay let me think... It’s…I don’t…wait…nope.”
Zhou Mi sighed and glanced at the screen as a girl jumped off a train and landed smiling into the snow because she realized she was in love with a man she had only known for 2 days.
“Oh my god that girl is me. I’m in love with a guy I’ve only known for like 14 hours. Key help.”
Key emerged from the kitchen with a ladle in his hands, an apron around his waist, and a manic gleam in his eyes. “Google.”
“What?”
“Google him. Like his store.”
“I knew I kept you around for a reason!” Zhou Mi cried and booted up his laptop because “he was going to need a full screen for this”.
Key snorted and disappeared back into the kitchen, “I’m only here still because Minho’s parents are as conservative as it gets and won’t let us live together until we’re married.”
“Book dat flight to Canada stat.” Zhou Mi said distractedly as he pulled his laptop closer to his face. “Key, Key! I got it! Okay so his name is Derek Hale, and oh my god, Key get over here.”
Zhou Mi’s cursor was hovering over a Facebook picture of the man from the pet groomers and “Zhou Mi I don’t care if you have to pay those 99 cents but you need to Facebook message him and meet him and-”
“Key you’re drooling.”
--
“I hope you’re fiddling with your phone because you’re going to call Zoo Mi.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how you pronounce it.” Erika said unhelpfully while stuffing her face with cake.
Boyd grabbed a piece for himself and Laura winced as crumbs got all over the table. “Remind me why you guys are living here again.”
“Because we have nowhere else to go.”
“And because you’re a nice person who loves us.”
“That’s a stretch.” Laura mumbled as she sipped at her herbal infusion tea.
“Can you guys drop it?” Derek growled completely unamused by the whole situation, “I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me, end of story.”
“The he doesn’t like you bit is debatable.” Scott grinned annoyingly.
Before Derek could reach across the table to strangle the nearest person, Laura plucked Derek’s phone out of his hands and punched in a number.
“What did you just-”
“Hang on its ringing.”
“Put it on speaker,”
“Shut up, is it Zoo Mi?”
“Wei? Zhou Mi here!”
“LAURA”
“Hi it’s Laura from the groomers!”
“LAURA WHAT THE HELL.”
“Oh hi! I didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon…and it’s kind of 2 in the morning, is everything okay?”
“Yes definitely, I was just calling to ask if you could meet Derek tomorrow at around 11 for coffee at the Starbucks by the shop. We just want to know your pet preferences and other…things.”
“LAURA FUCKING STOP IT RIGHT NOW.”
“Oh…sure. Wow, you guys take your job really seriously! But I have class at 12:30 so it’d have to be a quick meeting.”
“Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take too long.” Laura said, avoiding Derek’s violent attempts to grab the phone from her, “He’ll see you then.”
“Okay…bye!!”
“Bye bye now!”
Derek punched a hole in the table, knocked the cake to the ground, spilled Laura’s tea all over the floor and walked into his room and slammed the door.
“That was the most mature thing he’s done all week.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s the best he’s ever handled us trying to set him up.”
“Guys he’s like in love with that Zoo Mi dude.”
--
All Zhou MI had to do was to faintly say that he was meeting Derek the next morning before Key was hauling his ass to bed and slapping a paper mask on his face. “You’re going to get this one Mimi.” Key swore as he picked out the most flattering casual outfit Zhou Mi owned and threw it onto the ironing board.
“Key…I kind of hope so, but….”
“Aw baby, come here.” Key engulfed Zhou Mi in a hug as best as he could while he was laying down. “I know your past relationships were crap and those boys all deserve to die, but you can’t lose hope in love!!”
“Wow we really need to stop watching Lifetime don’t we?”
Key was already at work by the time Zhou MI woke up the next morning. It was a cool 8 AM, and the tall Chinese man got himself out of bed for his daily workout of intricately useless yoga poses followed by a pretentious soy chai latte that he bought a special machine to make.
It was 10:00 by the time he finished his morning routine and showered and dressed. He dabbed cologne onto his wrists and ankles and slipped on one of Key’s weird rings for luck. He slapped his cheeks a little and told himself that it wasn’t really a date, he was only going to discuss Niqiu’s grooming needs and oh good god who was he kidding, he was treating this more like a date than he had treated his whole past relationship. But to be fair, his most recent ex had somewhat of an inferiority complex and kept asking Zhou Mi if he could help him in his quest to regain his honor.
Zhou Mi hurried the puppies into the spare room and closed the door before grabbing his keys and books and leaving for Starbucks.
-
Derek knew he was way too early as he nursed his second coffee, why was he so early, he really shouldn’t have left because everyone was being annoying he should’ve just-. But either way, it was all Laura’s fault. This Starbucks was way too far to walk back from and he knew Laura stationed people all around to prevent him from getting away and if only she didn’t scare the shit out of him, he wouldn’t have to be suffering through his life. He slowly simmered in embarrassment and self doubt during the 30 minute wait all the way until someone plopped into the chair opposite him and stuttered the usual apologies, have you been waiting long, sorry got caught in traffic.
“Whatever,” Derek drained his cup and tried not to slam it down, “Let’s get this over with okay, I don’t want to be here, you don’t want to be here, my sister is just meddling in my love life again so sorry.”
“Oh…” Zhou Mi looked disappointed, “But, I brought Niqiu’s planner and everything.”
Sure enough, a cute tidy little planner was resting on the table next to a steaming “to here” mug of coffee with copious amounts of whipped cream. Derek’s eyebrows flew into his hair, did Zoo Mi really not get the message or was he just dumb?
“LAURA’S TRYING TO SET YOU GUYS UP!” some guy called across the café from the inside of an obscured booth.
“When the fuck did Stiles even get here!?!?!” Derek headdesked profusely.
“Oh…Oh no your head! Are you okay?” Zhou Mi asked all concernedly reaching all over the table and peering at Derek through ridiculously thick, lens less glasses.
“What are you even weari- Okay no, I don’t care. So here’s the deal, Laura will contact you, you tell her we met and we just didn’t hit it off and she will get off of my back and I can go back to just grooming your dog periodically and you can go back to….”
“Being a fashion student!” Zhou Mi chirped.
“Of course you are.”
“And guess what, I moved here from China!”
“Of course you did.”
“You don’t talk too much do you? But that’s okay; my friends say I talk enough for three people!”
“Of course you do.”
“Oh come on, you can think of better responses than that, I believe in you!” Zhou Mi’s face was akin to a text smiley, mouth dipping into a D shaped smile and everything.
NO, NOT THAT KIND OF D. Derek screamed at his thoughts. Oh my god he really needed to leave.
“You know what, Zhoo Mi, let me just like take a picture of your planner as proof that I was here and we can go back to not really knowing each other and pretending that we never had to do this.”
“I have a better idea,” Zhou Mi declared, “Why don’t we take a picture together! Then we can be all creative and draw on it and-“
“Yeah sure if it means we can leave and I can go die somewhere.”
Zhou Mi whole face split when he laughed but it was kind of cute in exactly all the right ways, and it made Derek want to continue banging his head on the table until he forgot everything. Ever. In life.
Zhou Mi hopped out of his seat and scooted in next to Derek on his side of the booth and wow he smelled nice. It was like the inside of a high end boutique crashed into some sunshine or something and it was all up in his business nestled next to his shoulder. Zhou Mi pulled out an obnoxiously adorned cell phone -it actually had a huge bedazzled Mario on it, like how did he fit that thing anywhere- positioned it to “flattering selca angle”, pouted for the camera and snapped a pic. The shutter sound echoed throughout the whole café and Derek jumped against Zhou Mi.
Zhou Mi straightened himself, a little pink around the edges, “Well, since, you need to get going, I guess we’ll just have to meet again sometime so we can talk about Niqiu.”
“Bless you.”
“That’s my dog’s name.”
“Oh.”
Zhou Mi slid out of the booth and unfolded his long skinny frame into the space between the tables. “Uh…c-call me so I can see you later, okay. Bye!”
“WAIT NO ZHAO MING!!” A skinny little kid shot out from out of nowhere, and Zhou Mi winced as a vein in Derek’s temple throbbed.
“STILES. WAIT. YOU. NO.”
Too late, the kid was running through the café leaving wrecks of spilled coffee and overturned tables in his wake. “YOU CAN’T LEAVE YET!”
“Oh…um hi! My name is actually Zhou MI!” Zhou Mi said politely.
“Right whatever it’s not like anyone can pronounce it either way,” Stiles panted, clutching a video camera between his hands. “But you can’t leave! I’m supposed to get evidence of you guys being in love!”
“Stiles. Get out now before-“
“NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR EMPTY THREATS OKAY DEREK. LAURA IS ACTUALLY SCARY AND I NEED TO DO THIS!”
Zhou Mi laughed his silly laugh and dug haphazardly through a satchel that he had with him, “I can send you the picture I took of us!” he showed Stiles the picture on his phone, and Stiles promptly snickered indecently.
“Aw isn’t that just precious? Now let’s get a little rated shall we?” He wiggled his eyebrows in a way that reminded Derek of Laura which reminded him of all the suffering he had to go through in his life and he really just wanted to do something extremely violent to someone. Preferably Stiles.
“How about unleashing some of that ~intensity on cute little Zhao Mi over here?”
“Alright that’s it. First of all, he’s not little; he’s like 60 feet tall,”
“Actually, only six, hehe.”
“Shut up you’re not allowed to talk right now. Stiles I hope your video camera is rolling right now because.”
And with that Derek swept Zhou Mi up into the sweetest most mind blowing kiss ever.
“EW OMG EW Okay that’s good. Yeah you guys can stop now. Uh...”