You Had Me at Pancakes | Mattparkz

You Had Me at Pancakes

Author Note:

Happy 3rd mini album to ZB1!!!!

I like to spell Jiwoong as "Ji-Ung" since it is a closer romanization. Gyuvin will also be spelled "Gyubin" since there is no "v" in Korean and this has always baffled me.

Thank you to my best friend who made amazing edits and suggestions  that vastly improved this story 🩷

---

Matthew devised two plans to increase his popularity: star in a fried chicken ad and pretend to date one of the Zerobaseone members.

The fried chicken advertisement made good sense. Koreans ate a lot of fried chicken, so there were a lot of ad opportunities. Plus, Matthew loved fried chicken. He was confident he could nail an advertisement for it. Ever since he was a kid visiting his family in Korea, he'd dreamed of seeing his face in an advertisement. He could achieve a childhood dream, earn money, and gain popularity at the same time. It was a great plan.

He got the idea to pretend to date another Zerobaseone member from Hao and Hanbin Hyung. As a rule, idols didn't openly date in Korea. It was considered a scandal to publicly date anyone. Hao and Hanbin were a real couple, but, since that was a "secret", none of the members were supposed to refer to them as a couple, and Hao and Hanbin weren't supposed to publicly confirm that they were dating. Even so, at every performance they saw "Haobin" signs waving in the audience. There were chemistry names for all of them in their separate pairs -- some more popular than others -- but since Hanbin and Hao acted like a real couple their chemistry ship was by far the most popular. Matthew figured that he didn't need to actually date someone in the group to create a similarly successful chemistry ship -- he could just pretend they were dating and have some fun flirting with another member. Fans often paired Matthew with Ji-Ung Hyung and Taerae, who were his closest friends in the group outside of Hanbin, so at first he considered asking one of them to embark on this personal project with him. But as he spent more time with the Zerobaseone members, he realized the member he had the best romantic chemistry with was Gunwook.

Gunwook was two and a half years younger than him, but he was so mature that Matthew often forgot about their age difference. On Boys Planet they were friendly with each other, but not that close. When they joined Zerobaseone, though, they often ended up joking around during their downtime. Gunwook laughed at every goofy thing Matthew did, and Matthew found his big smile adorable. The more Matthew got to know him, the more his affection for Gunwook grew. He was reliable, and strategic, and cool under pressure. He balanced Matthew's off-the-wall energy. He was the best fit for Matthew's plan except for one problem: Gunwook wasn't that physically affectionate, and he was often shy when he needed to do skinship with another member of the group for fan service. He did more skinship with Matthew than with the other members, though, so Matthew decided he would see if Gunwook could get more comfortable with skinship before he proposed his plan.

"Why don't we hug every day?" Matthew suggested once after practice. "You give the best hugs out of everyone."

Gunwook was sweaty from practice, so he toweled off his face and neck and drank from his water bottle. Then he offered the water to Matthew.

"You want to hug me now?" Gunwook looked down at himself incredulously. "I'm disgusting."

"Not now," Matthew agreed, grinning. "But we should hug a lot more."

Gunwook took his time answering, seeming to think about it.

"We can hug whenever you want, Hyung," Gunwook replied eventually, his eyes down. Then his gaze darted up to Matthew's and away. "Do I really give the best hugs?"