mini mart meet cute- bang chan x f!reader
summary: Love, as you've discovered, can be found in the energy drink aisle.
content warnings: fluff, no warnings.
a/n: my first post for the leader, what can i say
wc: 1k
You mindlessly wandered up and down the aisles, taking in the universe of snacks and drinks the convenience store offered. Honestly, even though the choices were overwhelming, it felt good to shut off your brain and let your legs walk themselves. You looked at the refrigerated glass cabinets filled to burst with energy drinks decorated with colorful labels and cute animal mascots. You felt like Alice in Alice in Wonderland a little, perusing your pick of poison decorated with a cheeky "drink me" label tied to the cap. With the number of wacko chemicals in these energy drinks, these drinks probably have more in common with Alice in Wonderland than should be safe. Most importantly however, is that these drinks have your favorite chemical in lethal doses: caffeine.
You look at the red bottles first, then orange, then yellow, and make your way down the rainbow. You haven't finished sampling everything from the wonderfully prolific category of "blue" yet, so you grab the last can of a drink with a dark blue label promising 12 hours of energy in bold labels. You figure since it's sold out, it should taste alright and place the bottle in your basket. Right as you do so, you hear a voice behind you.
You turn around a little quickly, surprised that someone else besides the sleepy shop attendant is at the store at 1 AM. The voice is coming from a young man around your age with dark circles under his eyes. He's wearing a black face mask and a black hoodie with the hood up, so you can't see more details. He has messy hair peeking out underneath the hood, and possibly (?) silver lobe piercings as well.
"Ah sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I usually drink Blue Orangeade, and I saw you grab the last bottle."
"Oh it's alright," you respond, holding the bottle out to him. "I just wanted to try something different, but you can have it if you want it."
While you can't see his mouth under the face mask, you can see the corner of his eyes crinkle, so you know he's smiling while he shakes his head. "It's alright, I'll just have something different too. At the end of the day, caffeine is caffeine."
"You got that right," you think to yourself.
The man instead grabs a red bottle of black iced coffee.
"You should grab the one next to that one," you blurt out. "It's awful coffee, but the one next to it tastes like apple juice with no bitter energy drink after taste."
"Thank you," the man tells you. He puts back the iced coffee and grabs the juice instead.
You smile in response and wander to the salty snack aisle, thinking what delicious crispy treat would complement your lovely bottle of Blue Orangeade energy drink while the man goes to check out at the front.
A week later, you find yourself making the twilight pilgrimage to the mini mart when you bump into the same man in the energy drink aisle.
You nod your head at him in acknowledgement.
"Thank you for your recommendation last time. I liked the drink, I think the orange taste reminds me a lot of Citrus Plus but with the sweetness level of Yuzu 143," you tell him.
He's looking at you with raised eyebrows, again wearing a black face mask but you can tell he's taken slightly aback.
"Sorry," you say, trying to correct yourself and cover up your degenerate behavior of possessing encyclopedic knowledge of energy drinks due to your obsessive consumption.
"I just drink a lot of energy drinks..."
Yeah. An understatement, to say the least, you think to yourself.
"No, I- I'm just really impressed," he responds. "I thought the exact same thing. But I would say Blue Orange would be perfected if it had the carbonation of Cherry Spring."
You clap your hands together while exclaiming, "That's exactly right! But think Cherry Spring changed their formula recently because it tastes weirdly medicinal now," you go on.
That night, you chatted with him about the ideal pairing for each energy drink like someone classier would debate the best wine to pair with dinner.
The conversation cheered you up when you were staying up late finishing your work, and you secretly hoped you would see him again.
Finally, after bumping into each other over and over again over the course of a month, the two of you grew a bond, talking a little bit longer each time and learning a little bit more about each other.
One night after showing some convenience store hacks you saw on TikTok to Chan, he gave you his number.
"For us to finally meet in the daytime," he said with a laugh.
"Do you remember the first time we met at this store?" you ask Chan, walking down the dark street together hand-in-hand. 1:30 AM- most people would be asleep at this time, but you and Chan just threw on your shoes and jackets to leave his dorm to go to the convenience store down the street.
You ran your thumb over his knuckles, playing with the feeling of his silver rings he wore. Under the cover of night, you were less afraid of showing PDA with Chan as even paparazzi have to go to bed at some point.
"Of course I remember us meeting," Chan says while squeezing your hand back in response. "The queen of caffeine herself."
"The Gordon Ramsey of Red Bull," you joke.
"The angel of insomnia," he counters.
"The doctor of liquid death," you respond.
"AKA my lovely girlfriend," Chan says while pressing a kiss to the top of your head. Even though the night was cold, you could feel a small blush creeping up to your hair where he kissed you.
You smile, looking up and mentally thanking the meet-cute gods above who brought you and Chan together that day. Somehow, they knew the two of you were at the right spot and the right time.
Love, as you've discovered, can be found in the energy drink aisle.
