Chapter Text
"I had it coming," Sunwoo says, drowsy in speech. "Junyoung hyung made me become an honorary storage guy. We've never hung out before but the hyungs and noonas are wonderful, they know their shits and they allowed me to drive the forklift under supervision and as long as I drive really slow. The problem is that Junyoung hyung also makes me maintain the shopping carts outside before the store opens." He squints under his cap, shielding himself from a 9AM sun. "It's only for the end of the month but I have had enough of Vitamin D."
—
Here is a scene of a young man, sticking his head out of a car's window while shouting, "You baboon, that's my parking space!" Remembering who's actually in the driver's seat, he corrects it into, "It's Juyeon hyung's parking space!"
It starts out with a great morning that has everything to do with the fact that Sunwoo has finally repent his sins of: running away from a job (and Junyoung walking in on him playing a game on his phone in the bathroom not five minutes later) and the preface of how he even got to this point by blowing a fuse that was eating him up in self-cringe (Sangyeon does not need to know). It's his turn to plug his playlist into the car's speakers, a chill beat for a chill start, he has about sixty-ish pages left of Change your way of life in less than 180 pages and he's ready to respectfully say to Sangyeon that it will not change his way of life. And the day just perceptibly bedazzled when they drove past Haknyeon's car—not before Juyeon affably honked to wave—which can only mean one thing: he's going to win one of the many battles in an eight-almost-nine month long-running war.
Unfortunately, after the mishap of an unfiltered mouth and a bet gone off the wire that should not be brought up ever again, he leaps into another pool of atrocity. It comes in the form of a maroon sedan wheeling its wheels where they don't belong.
Younghoon rests his elbow on the rolled-down window, unmoving; only accusingly narrows his eyes and replies, "Wanna play that card? This 'baboon' can get you into Sangyeon and Junyoung hyung's office for calling this 'baboon' a 'baboon'."
"That's one too many baboons," Juyeon says under his breath, sounding genuinely perturbed.
Barking up the wrong tree should be in Sunwoo's CV by now. "I mean..." he trails off, nodding at nothing and thinning his lips at the screech of another car rolling close by, no, "this is unexpected, hyung. Since when was it first come, first serve, I've—Juyeon hyung's always parked there, it's set in stone—things that are set in stone got me thinking, have you ever watched this show where the MC is so dead set on humanizing his enemies and it's just so wholesome?"
"The list of possibilities is endless. Your point, Sunwoo?" Younghoon demands, though there's a slight amusement playing.
"Back up your car and we can have our wholesome moment, hyung," Sunwoo hurriedly says. His attention darts to yet another sedan, overfamiliar with its gleaming silvers making round to its usual spot.
Younghoon knowingly smiles at him. "Nice try. Half-assed flattery will only get you to any other space available." He squints then raises his voice. "Morning, Juyeon! Find another space, will you?" to which the recipient beams and replies with an OK sign.
Sunwoo whips his head back inside, moaning, "Hyung, no! This is not how I pictured my first day back happening."
"What first day?" Younghoon chimes in while backing in. "You still sniff into the coffee kettle every morning and we still see you during morning meetings. You just got thrown to the back after it. Literally."
"That doesn't sound like a gleeful 'welcome back'," Sunwoo says with a frown that's taking over his lips and his mood that's caused by one thing: the one and only Kim Younghoon.
Haknyeon's sedan's engine has been turned off throughout everything, make that two.
Juyeon simply elbows his side, just as light as his tone. "There's an available space right over there." Sunwoo's sight follows the older man's index finger and once it gets past Haknyeon and his backpack and his paper bag getting out of the vehicle with breezy steps, it lands on the empty parking space on the other side of Haknyeon's car.
Make that three. "Yeah—You—" he can't even look at Juyeon right now, this is another level of shame, "stop being so helpful, geez."
"Welcome back, Sunwoo."
"Stop that, hyung," he grumbles with a glower at nothing, the side of his head lolled against the door molding. The 'nothing' happens to be aimed towards the store's extensive entrance.
Right at the entrance, a bleached blond-haired man in a security uniform looks puzzled all over as he points a finger at himself. He glances behind him, seeing nothing but the store's inflated mascot, before looking back at Sunwoo's disgruntled face that's admonished by the sun's glare.
—
"I'm usually good with people but I don't know how to approach that kid," Hyungseo sighs out but he's thinly smiling. "He's always all bleh and eugh, I got a grunt from him when I tried helping out with the shopping grunts—carts, shopping carts. It didn't leave my mind so I took a little deep-dive and I think I found an answer." He assertively raises his smile into a smirk at the camera. "Cliques, duh! Unlike coming-of-age movies, cliques don't end in high-school, it's a false notio—" timely enough, a bunch of people walk in front of him. Long ten seconds later, he's in view again and says, "Notion. It's a false notion. There are few exceptions, of course."
"Good morning, bro!" to which, Sangyeon tightly smiles and replies, "Morning, Hyungseo, never call me that."
"Man, my man, I wish I can pull off a uniform like that," Jaehyun says, feigning a covetous look but overall, he sounds entirely genuine.
"Have a great day today, too, hyung!" Haknyeon greets even though he doesn't seem to be slowing down. Once he's inside, he gets incredibly faster when Sunwoo bolts past the security guard and into an air-conditioned place.
"The brighter one's a nice kid." Hyungseo cannily gazes back at the camera with a pose, resembling the shrugging emoji. "When life doesn't give you lemons, you still gotta make an effort to make some lemonade."
—
The whiteboard, faux-scoreboard in the break room now reads this:
Sunwoo Haknyeon
9 :) 20
"Oh hey, there's a smiley face on your number nine now. How nice," Juyeon says with a delighted smile that's adorning his own face.
Sunwoo is once again too engaged in his own amplified indignation that he hasn't felt for a while. He lasers a frozen-still tunnel vision into sharp turns of a blue marker that results in him just standing there that he literally turns his back on a few things: Changmin muttering 'interesting' as he pops open a morning snack; Junyoung pouring himself a full cup of 'fizzy coffee shit' and contently smiles for a fast second once he downs it all; Younghoon and Youngjae opening the latter's locker once they've made sure no one's looking; Sangyeon standing in front of the aforementioned two men while shaking his head at whatever Jaehyun's saying to him.
The most crucial one though, he doesn't notice Haknyeon lobbing an amused smile at him, then at the camera before he resumes taking out oranges from a paper bag and into an empty bowl.
—
Chanhee is ecstatically grinning, extending an arm out to the front. His phone displays a picture of what just occurred in the break room. "Yes, I know they have an unhealthy rivalry thing going on but it's not just that, it's weird, they have a weird, unhealthy relationship. They go out of their way to get in each other's hair that they hate oh-so-very much, that's the cinematic experience right there. No one can stop me from supporting this."
—
"Chanhee's fond of them, I get along fine with either. Work's work," Younghoon says. "But I can say that they're either really bad at candor or too good at it."
—
Sunwoo discovers that the first day back on the job is just like any other day on the job. He has hands tightly clasped on his chest, shoulders about to sag forward. His customer-service, charitable smile and a looping reply of: "It's alright, sir, it's okay," to a waterfall of apologies are there to hold him back from looking like a man in search for murder at the drooling toddler hoisted up in his dad's arms.
"I'm really, really sorry. He probably gets it from his grandmother, my mother-in-law knocks off a lot of things, too when she's at the market—I'm sorry, I think my wife's done shopping," on cue, a distant shout of 'Jaeyoon, what did Jiung—!' makes its way over, "she's calling me, I'm so sorry. I'll grab a pair, I've been meaning to start jogging again."
"That's great, sir, I can help." Sunwoo politely laughs. It sounds tinny in his own ears. How does Sangyeon pull it off so well every time? "Just hold onto your son."
The dad waves him off with a genial smile. "Oh no, no no no, I can do it on my own, thank you." Maybe he isn't doing a very splendid job at not sounding too gritted because there's an underlying fear in the dad's eyes, satoori dripping from the lilt of his voice at the latest repeat of: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Sunwoo had seen the fear reflected in his dad's eyes when his old man had accidentally stepped on the SD card of Pangya Fantasy Golf. (Brief note: it was his little sister's go-to game on the PSP.) Just as then, recycled as now, he tried to glue the pieces back together like he's left crouching down to pick up the scattered boots and trainers that's flooding the floor in a hyperbolic splash of colors. A more recent discovery: the first day back on the job was going well, up until he was actually arriving at his workplace. Maybe it's not him, maybe it's everyone else.
As if things can't get take any more unfortunate turns, it's so sick that he recognizes the jump scare of the shadow looming over him. He frowns at it.
"And what in the fuck happened over here?" He scowls at this. Not dignifying with a response or a look, he grabs a shoe to chuck at the uncalled-for company's leg. It swerves lanes into a proper slot in the wall-mounted display instead, where it belongs, when he hears Haknyeon changing the course of his voice. "So the clearance sale is just up front to your right, ma'am, I apologize for the profanity."
Sunwoo crudely snorts. "Learned that in How to Save Your Ass 101?" He does chuck a shoe when Haknyeon gets the opportunity to kick his thigh in the midst of sheepish bows to a retreating customer.
"And I'm here to save your ass so," as Haknyeon crouches down as well, he furtively repeats, "what in the fuck happened over here?" that Sunwoo almost gives him the time of day.
"Oh, I don't know, a blizzard walked into the fucking store," Sunwoo snipes. "What do you think? Fucking temper tantrums. This is why I don't like kids when they are doing anything but trying to poke their own stupid eye out in their sleep."
"That's not how you talk about your peers, Employee Kim. Be nice."
Sunwoo hangs his neck low, voice muffled into his shirt as he says, "Getting real old, asshole." He hears Haknyeon shuffling around, his footfalls is dragging on the floor and he sees that stubby finger curling around the pull tab. That fucker really is helping out.
"Yeah, I guess," Haknyeon says. "But then again, you did throw a tantrum the last time we talked, I have to say that I'm up to date with my disparaging."
Sunwoo flatly scoffs and cranes his neck back up. He meets Haknyeon's eyes, a distinct pull that feels like a lot of bullshit hiding behind. "If anything, you're like a fax machine. Fucking obsolete."
Haknyeon snickers, sounding amazed. "Oh, Employee Kim, you're so wrong. It's still in its prime time."
"...You just proved my point—Really? A fax machine?"
"Not that, dimwit. But you'd never know, people like old school. Tandem bikes are in fashion and when I was like ten, I had this thing called a walkman."
"I know what that is."
"Not assuming anything. I was just telling you that some kids are actually buying and using it, I'm being retrospective."
And Haknyeon doesn't add anything more even as Sunwoo arms himself for a blow to his fortitude.
Sunwoo's shoulders actually sag this time, why is this fucker acting so—so—he leans away, reprovingly pointing at Haknyeon with a shoe in hand. "Okay, enough of whatever this is, you make me feel like it's Halloween."
"Funny," Haknyeon says, though everything about his unchanging expression and impassive tone say otherwise. "It's one of my undisclosed desires."
"Damn it," Sunwoo mumbles, glaring at Haknyeon's condescending grin. "What is this? What do you want?"
Haknyeon takes the shoe from him and puts it in its slot. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Save that act. You're talking weird, you're acting suspicious." There's another shoe in his hand now while he narrows his eyes and interrogates, "If this is another one of your horrible punchline again, I'll actually shove this off-brand shit in there."
Haknyeon shrugs, unbothered by the threat. "Honoring our bet." The look in his eyes gets vague. "I'm honoring our bet."
"I said it was off."
"We've never agreed on that."
"Don't need to, it's my decision."
"It's still on, over my dead body that you actually made me feel bad about myself." A few tattered beats of royalty-free music later, Haknyeon adds, "Plus, I've got nothing to do at the P.A., watching Youngjae's face drained in questionable horror when he bumped into Junyoung hyung was the only upside."
"And there it is," Sunwoo concludes.
"Is it so hard to believe if I just can not feel like strangling you all the time, I'd take that chance in a heartbeat?"
Oblivious to a customer checking around the area, Sunwoo says, "Don't do that, don't act like we're gonna be fucking buddies."
Haknyeon is just as oblivious as he calmly retorts, "You're right, 'cause I don't want to fuck you," that sends the customer to turn on his heel with pressed-together lips and anchored brows.
"That is not what I am—I don't need to subject myself to this."
"Look, the point is...I'm gonna try. My hardest. I just need you to stop making me want to wrap my hands around your neck and never let you go."
As much as he wants to drill a lens into the whole 'what the fuck is Youngjae up to these days?' debacle, he takes imposing gratification in the budding bother glinting Haknyeon's eyes. "Fucker, good luck with that."
Haknyeon rolls his eyes, shoving the shoe in the younger man's hand into a weak-willed chest. "I'll find alternatives." Sunwoo coughs. "You're way off about kids anyway, they're a hoot. You can make them cry and laugh at the dumbest thing, it's the best."
"Congratulations, you finally sound like yourself again: a real asshole."
"I stand by my point," Haknyeon brushes him off. "Kids are smart, too, they know when someone doesn't like them. Is this the same kid who made a mess of the ping-pong balls?"
They're actually talking, Sunwoo can feel a shudder coming. "No, I remember that little shit's face."
"You couldn't even make out Changmin hyung in his yearbook picture and he looks the fucking same."
"I remember the faces who've done me wrong."
Haknyeon chuckles, shaking his head at him. "Fucking petty."
"Like you haven't met me," Sunwoo indignantly says, ripping his attention away. But not fast enough not to overthink the proud smirk that his colleague wears that looks just a little bit timorous.
—
"The year was 2019," Younghoon starts, cracking open a can of soda; a conspicuous fizzing fills the silence as six pairs of ears are listening in. "My degree hasn't gotten me the job it promised me for years and the world seemed bleak. A beloved friend of mine took notice and he told me—"
"At least name-drop me," Jaehyun pipes up.
"Fine, that friend was none other than Lee Jaehyun himself." He continues to tell tale over Jaehyun's 'thank you'. "He told me to not dwell on the bad and go for the good instead until I got sick of hearing it. What makes someone feel good? Ice cream? Feel-good television? Trophies? All of the above exactly. And I can get a trophy to feel good about myself. I worked pretty hard that year, my vision board had the EOTY cup at the center of it. Back then, there are a lot more employees that know how to get on Sangyeon hyung's good side and," Younghoon drinks a few gulps then, his nose scrunching up as he coughs and rushes to finish, "okay, I won, got the perks, free lunch for a whole year—too much soda in my nose, too much soda in my nose."
Ensuing from a lackluster end, Haknyeon boos with thumbs downs in front Younghoon's face and unfavorably shakes his head. "That is not how you tell a story, hyung."
Younghoon just shoots Haknyeon a look between his repressed coughs and lands a teasing poke in the younger man's armpit as a comeback.
Sunwoo, unfortunately enough, happens to be the other bun that's sandwiching Haknyeon. He gets a body that he would like to very much stay far away from, bumping sideways into him. "Watch it."
Haknyeon wryly says, "How sweet, you saved your spiteful tone for me." His wrist is crookedly tucked under his attacked armpit.
It's been a few busy weeks as an honorary storage guy and it's still persistent in steadily being so. With cleaning up the leftovers from the overdue clearance sale and new shipments of home furnishings to push into room, the store has truly been given a chance to live up to its slogan: has too much of anything and everything. Except actual food.
Which is why seven, eight minutes ago, Changmin announced the delivery guy's here with their rice bowls and a receipt for Sangyeon's approval signature. They've gathered like a herd of ducklings around the counter nearest to the entrance with stacked-up, cleaned containers that is now filling up on nutshells; only diving back in for the Tupperware of nuts that Youngjae was more than reluctant to let go after he and Sunwoo played cat and mouse with their indicative eyes.
Which is also why it was first come, first serve and Sunwoo is grown up enough to not ask for something so kid-like like changing spots in a pressed space.
But he's still going to respond with a go-to: 'if you don't shut up right now,' with an extra layer added of, 'screw your weird angles on my phone, I'll block your actual face right now.'
He only gets out: "If you don't—"
"Ah, ah, ah, I'm too full and too tired to listen so I'm gonna intervene before you can go any further," Chanhee drawls. He's biting into a dry-roasted nut despite his words, directing the sharp turn to a recuperating Younghoon. "And you, hyung. That story gets shorter and shorter every time you tell it. Might as well abridge it to 'as expected of me, I found a silver lining in free lunches after a shitty year'."
"That doesn't sound unfamiliar, I think I've read a light novel with something like that before," Younghoon says, a shriveled frown making itself known at his own hoarse voice; before he can say anything or even hear Chanhee sighing, Changmin gestures to give him the can of soda, which all three parties highly appreciate.
Sunwoo's comment of 'unreal' is overshadowed by Chanhee aimlessly gestures behind and saying, "Unreal is our first manager who's cooped up in his office, all alone, because he'd rather stay here for hours than bringing work into his house."
"I think that's just Sangyeon hyung being a workaholic," Youngjae offers that elicits an amused laugh from Haknyeon and a snort from Sunwoo.
"Unreal," Jaehyun says, "is our second manager who keeps disappearing to who knows where. He left earlier today, too, did anyone notice?"
"I always assume it was work-related. Did Junyoung hyung ever say why?" Juyeon asks.
Draping an arm over the curious man's shoulder, Jaehyun shakes his head in curt motions; lightly patting his side with an indulgent gaze. "Let's just assume it is work-related, what could it possibly be?"
"Finding new ways to improve the store," Younghoon nonchalantly supplies.
"Promoting the store," Youngjae adds.
"Attending meetings that have something to do with the store," Chanhee also adds.
Jaehyun simply says, "Okay, so some possibilities." A small smile on his lips at the three who were blatantly taking turns on Younghoon's phone. "But you're just reading off of an article."
"Or," now this peeks Sunwoo's figurative twitching ear, "it can't possibly be related to why you've been lurking in Junyoung hyung's office," he stands straighter than a surfboard, "can it, Youngjae?"
Youngjae narrows his eyes at Sunwoo. "Dude, come on, a little confidentiality would be nice."
"We've aborted that ship a long time ago when you were too busy snooping around—that's right, snooping! You were too busy doing that and didn't care enough about me to come to my rescue," and it amuses Haknyeon with his soft mumble of 'Oh, Employee Kim' and draws a 'dude, come on!' out of the intended.
"Oooooh," Changmin enthuses with an epiphanic wide grin. "That must be why I couldn't find you at your station."
"Of course not, hyung," Youngjae drawls while Sunwoo backs away from the circle and vigorously points at him. "Yes—Yes, hyung! He was in there," Younghoon darts a look at the camera, "and Sangyeon hyung is in it for some reason, too, because hyung kept calling him 'Junyoung' and for all I know," he points at Haknyeon, "he's in on it, too, with his schemes and ploys."
"There's a vending machine behind you, you need to rehydrate," Haknyeon says. "Maybe you'd think more clearly after."
"Jokes on you, I don't have any money on me and my thermos is empty. And I think I know what I'm talking about."
Haknyeon unsurely replies, "I don't think you do, I don't have a fucking clue what you're on about." He turns to Youngjae to prove his innocence. "End this madness and confess."
"There's nothing to confess."
"Do it," and Sunwoo agrees with him for once, echoing the words with a tad too much grit. It goes on for about a minute before Sunwoo becomes the most disgruntled one in the room; he squeezes himself back between Haknyeon and Juyeon while Youngjae heaves out a relieved breath that goes unnoticed and the interrogation is dropped.
That is, until Haknyeon opens his mouth and says, "Are you sure you don't want a drink, Employee Kim?"
Everyone barely blinks an eye anymore at what's coming. But concerns are brought to the surface when Sunwoo grabs a fistful of the nuts by Youngjae's courtesy and says, "Are you sure you don't want them in your face—"
"Don't throw them!" three voices belt in unison.
Haknyeon blinks at Youngjae, Younghoon, and Chanhee who instantly retract their reaching-out arms, exchanging abashed looks. "You guys sure are nuts about nuts."
Jaehyun inevitably cuts off his own snicker hearing it.
"They aren't regular nuts," Chanhee slowly says as if he's taming a wild animal.
"These nuts?" (Jaehyun can be seen holding back his laugh.)
"The answer to all of your questions, yes those nuts."
Youngjae shares another look with Younghoon and Chanhee, both who nod at him. Conceding, he says, "Junyoung hyung keeps them stored at perfect room temperture in his third drawer."
"Son of a bitch, that's what you were doing this whole time?" Sunwoo looks around the counter with utter incredulity. "Stealing Junyoung hyung's nuts?"
Jaehyun lets it go for third time's the charm, leaning onto Juyeon for support. "I'm so sorry, how can he not hear himself that time?"
"I can't believe we're the same age," Younghoon good-naturedly muses.
"It's not just nuts," Youngjae defenses, "it's macadamia nuts, Sunwoo."
"You can get them at any convenience store," Sunwoo argues.
"At a very nice price," Juyeon chimes in, Sunwoo's supportive 'yeah, what he said!' overlapping.
"It hits different when it's from someone else's drawer," Youngjae says, sounding very serious. "And it's not just me, why are you only attacking me? Younghoon hyung got me doing his dirty work!"
"Hey!" Younghoon exclaims. "I have my own set of dirty work to do. It's not really about the nuts anyway, now that's just plain idiotic and aimless, they are just a tool to fight for our freedom."
Jaehyun snickers. "How long have you been keeping that one in?"
Younghoon meekly feigns, "Oh, I don't know, I've never thought it would come to this," before proudly declares, "Christmas, baby, Christmas!"
"Wait, wait, wait, you've been doing this for almost nine months?" Unlike the unquestionable horror smeared across Sunwoo's face, Haknyeon sounds genuinely amazed, like he actually looks up to this whole thing, this bastard really is sick.
"The plan just hatched on Christmas," Younghoon excitedly tells, his tone matching the artificial glares lighting up Haknyeon's face. He continues to tell intricate details from the when, the atmosphere, how it was concocted, and concludes it with a gentle rub on the back of Chanhee's head. "It was all this genius' idea. The actual smuggling has been happening for like, a month at most."
"Yeah, the moment Junyoung hyung saved his sealed cans of lovely macadamia nuts during the whole fumigation fiasco and got frustrated, it was the moment I knew," again, those three share a look: a look of absolute morose, "we gotta get rid of those things."
"I really would've not expected you to be that type of person, Chanhee hyung." Sunwoo's voice carries bits of amusement (fake), hilarity (also fake), and a lot of dismay (very real).
"Huh." Jaehyun cocks his head. "I don't know about you but he looks like a two-faced bitch from the start to me." He stares at Chanhee, giving him an exasperated yet fond look that has the worn-looking man gagging. It has Sangyeon, who happens to be walking by to finally head home, shooting a pointed look at the camera.
Sunwoo turns his attention to one of his treasured-and-trusted colleagues who has been pretty calm despite the entire storm washing over in the area. "Changmin hyung, did you know about any of this?"
"I did have my suspicions, I only knew Chanhee was up to something, I didn't pry any further."
"That does not sound like you in the slightest, hyung."
"You better believe it, Sunwoo." He looks dejected as he sniffs without any resounding sniffles. "I don't do anything before 6PM now. I'm a teenager."
"In all seriousness," Jaehyun says, "those nuts are like Junyoung hyung's equivalence to a batting cage, you're not containing a beast, you're letting it starved enough to wreck the cage into unrepairable pieces. There aren't going to be any pieces left to pick up."
"For your information, Jaehyun hyung, the guy gobbles them up like they're halloween candy!" Youngjae exclaims. "Which, by the way, is a good analogy because both are bad for someone his age!"
Jaehyun playfully squints at Youngjae. "How old do you think Junyoung hyung is?"
"Obviously he's pushing for—"
"Old enough that we have to watch what we eat, better safe than sorry," Sangyeon interjects, coughing and clearing his throat and all. "It's not containing a beast inside his cage, Jaehyun, that is not the way to talk about your supervisor. He is a man, a brother before he is a beast. We're containing the beast inside the man."
"Sangyeon hyung's right, we have to watch what we eat," Juyeon says. "I should probably ease down on ordering whatever Jaehyun hyung wants."
"That's true," Juyeon agrees, his lips pursing in approval.
"Hyung!" Sunwoo stares, sort of overwhelmed with one feeling that he has ever really directed at himself: disappointment. It's directed at Juyeon for being on board. "It's like I don't know you anymore."
Juyeon responds with a puzzled look and receives a benign 'don't mind him' from Jaehyun.
And it's directed at Sangyeon, too, for clear and apparent reasons. Sunwoo is, in no way, a martyr. But he is a victim of this store's display of rights and wrongs. So the disappointment is stirred even more at the branch manager. "I can't believe you're actually in it and you gave me shit for—" Haknyeon sends him a smile, so sickly inhumane, "—whatever the fuck he, the actual perpetrator, makes me do! What you're doing is ten times—mmhmph!"
"Are you protecting Younghoon hyung and Chanhee hyung and Youngjae, hyung?" Haknyeon asks, a palm clasped over Sunwoo's muffled: 'unfair, unfair, absolute injustice.'
"I'm protecting all of us. Intervention is for the weak. Junyoung is not weak." Sangyeon points an index finger at Sunwoo's glare. "I see that you haven't touched the book I gave you in a while, Sunwoo. Get back on that horse."
Sunwoo's still-muffled voice says, "You can't keep getting away with this."
"Oh, but we can," Chanhee says, lips tangentially pulled down in faux-gloom at Sunwoo's recycled doom. "We really, really can."
Younghoon says, "Every time, every same hour that Junyoung comes to the monitor room and says that he needs to check on some things, the CCTV won't show him anything that he's looking for."
Even with all these cacophonies of turned cards on the table—despicable, despicable cards—Sunwoo finds an even more irritable addition in his poor shoulder that Haknyeon wipes his palm on. "What do you want from me? Does my breathing space mean nothing to you?"
Haknyeon exasperates him further by snickering. Jaehyun turns it up by a few notches by making a hollow realization sinking in.
"You know what, color me impressed," Jaehyun suddenly says to them all. "All of these nut-stealing and footage-deleting and hush-hush mission, all just for a guy whose only healthy emotional output is crying that I had only ever witnessed once, and it was when Great Dango Family played, and who hasn't cracked a smile in years. Speaking of years, is all of that going to work as a long-term thing? Assuming that this plan hasn't yet reached its expiration. Younghoon, did you say you thought of this since Christmas?"
The man not-so-proudly ducks away from the question. "Chanhee's the genius here."
Chanhee sharply whispers to him, "Oh, so now you're throwing me into the wolf's den?"
"Sangyeon hyung. What's the endgame here?" Jaehyun asks, inquisitively concerned yet teasing.
Sangyeon blanches, though his demeanor is adamant on answering the question with a taut smile. "The important thing is I've known Junyoung for a long time." He's also trying not to run a hand through his sticky hair. "I'll be damned if I don't know how to handle him better than my rapport with the company. I'll surely be damned."
Oh my God. All of this. For a sack-shit of macadamia nuts. Sunwoo, along with the rest (with the exception of Jaehyun), can only makes an expression that scrunches his whole face in utter perplexity.
"Well. It has been a long day. I'll be heading back and not see any of you until tomorrow," Sangyeon says, a sense of finality to his words. "No matter what will happen, I want you to remember that you are all my highly-appreciated, overly-compensated employees. I view all of you in high regards." He twists to look at something, nailed on the wall. "Some far more than others."
The rest of them concurrently turn their heads to see: a tall, long plaque for Employee of the Month that has Juyeon and Younghoon's faces and grins doing catch-up, and slip-ins of Haknyeon's cheeky smile for April, Changmin's unnecessary dynamic pose for July; a picture frame of Employee of the Year 2021 that has Juyeon holding a certificate with Sangyeon and Junyoung posing with twinning crossed-arms by his left and right.
—
"Okay, don't look at me like that, I did know what's up with Junyoung hyung," Jaehyun says, a very gratified smile stubbornly stays put. "Let's just say I took a ride with Gongju one day and the batting cage wasn't really a figure of speech. Yeah, they're gonna be so dead. That one's also not a figure of speech."
—
Once they're all outside, some head for the bus stop: Changmin has his arms up high, walking backwards, waving them all goodbye while Chanhee settles for an impassive wave with his back as the retreating sight. Some head for convenience and comfort: Sangyeon to his parked car in his reserved space. Some head for inconvenience and thrive for comfort: Youngjae leaves his motorbike to rest at the store as he hitches a ride in Younghoon's sedan (Sunwoo sees him diving into the backseat); Jaehyun slips into the passenger seat (his Gongju is back in the workshop).
There's something Sunwoo has been meaning to say to Jaehyun's on-again-off-again relationship with his dearly beloved. So he takes this chance to shout at the marginally wheeling away car. "You drive a Suzuki X-90, that thing's not a gongju, it's the sick queen at the start of every story! It's a wanghu-to-be! You have to let her go!"
"I can't and I won't hear you! I'm not giving up on her!" Jaehyun shouts back.
"You heard him," Juyeon unhelpfully says, still not taking his eyes off of Younghoon's sedan even in front of an open car door. "He's not giving up on her."
"Jaehyun hyung's fucking sick."
Juyeon fondly laughs. "He's a romantic," and Sunwoo fights the urge for his entire body to go into coiling, shuddering mode. As the older man gets into the driver's seat, he waves goodbye at Haknyeon who's still here for some fucking reason when he can just duck in and drive away already.
An arm resting on the hood of his car, Haknyeon scoffs out, "Have a little compassion, the man hasn't gotten the time to process it properly."
"Compassion. I don't want to hear anything coming out of that hole that screams misery loves company," Sunwoo says, aggravated as he stalks to get to the passenger door.
"Where's your self-awareness?"
"Not for you to see."
"It's like saying one useful thing to me will fucking clog the air to your brain."
"What's the use anyway?" Looking at Haknyeon's squinted, inquisitive eyes, Sunwoo sees nothing but swimming vision of Junyoung's perpetual deadpan. "We're gonna be dead either way when Junyoung hyung eventually finds out."
"If he finds out," Haknyeon suggests. "Change your attitude, Employee Kim, it's the second rule to survival. Right up there with 'don't die'."
"Try saying that to Jaehyun hyung's twenty-five-year-old girlfriend. Translate that to car age and he has an eighty-year-old grandma."
Haknyeon lets out a small series of sighs and laughter. "Heads up."
Sunwoo's little 'what' is answered by a can of orange soda that he catches. "The hell—What's this for?"
"You didn't drink anything. Don't say a word if it's not worth both of our time, I didn't shake it, I didn't do anything to it. Just be a good kid and take it." Haknyeon sends him a salutation, head cocked and an impish smile. "Civil Haknyeon: out."
"Fucking ass, I'd rather dry myself out," Sunwoo mutters to himself, gripping the can tighter than he has to, before pointing out, "You're literally eleven months older than me!"
Later, Juyeon amusedly watches as Sunwoo warily pops the can open with his arms out the car's window; and continues to be amused as Sunwoo grits out a low groan whenever he takes a sip.
—
Sunwoo stares at the camera with impassioned bulbous eyes. "What do I think of him? I know I asked for this but Dante was right. Every deal has a catch. The catch is he's fucking freaking me out."
—
"Sunwoo?" Haknyeon says. "I don't fucking know, there's the river, I follow it. There's an annoying chunk of wood blocking my way? Fuck it, I'm not going to let it stop me. He gets on my nerves, he hates me, nothing to write home about. Last Christmas, I tried getting him a mug of some samurai anime that he likes and he's still like this."
—
"Hyung!" Sunwoo hisses at Changmin, who bails on him in strides of side-steps when he asked for help with the bedsheets. "Hyung!"
"I'm tired, Sunwoo! We've been at it for hours, my legs and arms feel like they're about to detach themselves from me!" his colleague bellows a cry, face twisting in discomfort and his ruddy complexion is a result of a sudden work-out rather than the state of being well itself.
"And the heavy-lifting's all done!" Sunwoo coaxes, semi-truthful when at the corners of his eyes, Jaehyun and Youngjae are carefully setting down an unconventionally-designed cabinet. He beckons Changmin over. "All there's left to do is prettify them with frilly outfits, come on, help me with these."
It only makes Changmin to move even further away with a slight pout donning his lips. "No is no. I want to sit down, take a breather, dude. Give me like five, ten—give me fifteen minutes."
Correction: Changmin is bailing on him after being a continuous help with the actual bed and its frame and its legs. Actually, he's been pulling his muscles, moving back-and-forth from the storage room to the space in the middle of the store that's been cleaned out; hauling sofas and low tables, and everywhere his name's called.
Sunwoo, whose job was to mop the floors after Chanhee's dusting, is able to sympathize with the heavy-lifting crew. Something about today is specially getting on his nerves. Partially, it has something to do with the way everybody treats as if what happened that day stays in that day; feigning ignorance that's as thick as ball of yarn and as delicate as Sunwoo's attempt to take a good look at Junyoung's face, trying to imagine his floor manager smiling (which is not at all delicate and completely impossible).
"Give you fifteen minutes to do what?" Sangyeon is suddenly standing in front of a staggering Changmin. The latter closes his agape mouth.
"Take a rest? Take a minute?" Changmin unsurely answers, feeling entirely exposed when Sangyeon decides to give him a once-over. Sunwoo also looks away from the scene as he fiddles with the plastic bags of bedsheets, feeling the same thing for his colleague.
After long seconds, Sangyeon gives in, bopping Changmin's arm with the tablet he's holding. "Fine, ten minutes. Go to the break room. Your face looks like it's going to melt any second and no one's going to want to clean them up."
"Thank you, hyung," Changmin says in a sing-song voice, speckles of flutter in his steps, that the branch manager dismisses with a huff of 'yeah, yeah'. It might be déjà vu, but it's currently autumn season and Sangyeon's soft lifts of his brows turn sharp like sudden hail in the midst of snow as he takes in Sunwoo's stance.
Sangyeon then gestures at the naked mattresses to punctuate his point: "Get them dressed."
"I want to, hyung," Sunwoo off-handedly answers, "but there's like five beds and dozens of pillows. I'm gonna need other help now that Changmin hyung's in transit."
On a marginal scale as to why today feels like it's crawling up his skin, he's still slightly—very slightly (hopefully)—indignant at his branch manager that he almost marred the already-lacking-in-merit self-help book and plunge the annoying bright, bold colors into the toilet.
"Sangyeon!" Junyoung's acute shout carries through the vacuous space, clashing against the swift and light change in Sangyeon's demeanor.
He gives Sunwoo a back-view of his tawny two-piece suit, shouting back, "Yep—Ye-Yeah!"
"Do any of these look like an array of presentable displays to you?" Junyoung is a feline's pair of sharp eyes even in the darkest hour: dilated, laser-focused and letting everyone know, not just Sangyeon, that he isn't having any of it. "We're opening tomorrow, I thought we'd be done before seven but it looks like we're going to be here for the whole night."
Sangyeon immediately moves at an impressionable speed while nodding, targeting the closest glaring problem firsthand: "Deck them, I'll find someone to help you," that Sunwoo grumbly gets on with it. "That's going to hinder people from getting to the restroom, Chanhee, do we really want to make our customers take the long route?"
"Well, as the matter of fact, yeeees. I think the sofa is right where it should be. People should be able to relax while waiting for a bathroom break."
"We already have those, they're called benches and they're right there," Sangyeon dismisses Chanhee's tut, weaving under a strenuous night with Junyoung's 'Juyeon, you will do better than that.'
Rolling out bedsheets and its occupants from their confined packaging, Sunwoo blinks as his eyes continue to follow the branch manager and his hasty footsteps. His blinks slant down into an evident glare, muttering to himself, "Oh my God." At Haknyeon's approaching figure, disappointment seeps into his tone. "Why is it always you?"
Another part, it's the nerves crawling up his skin that decide to have an unsolicited party, mingling with the feeling he gets whenever Haknyeon is nearby. Like turning a jack-in-the-box's crank: you know what you're gonna get but the awful dread is still there anyway; an asshole that's trying to act like he isn't one, but ends up looking like one when he still looks like he can't wait to get this over with (or maybe that's just Sunwoo's disdain-tinted lenses speaking).
Out of anyone, anyone that Sangyeon could've tapped on the shoulder and hauled their ass Sunwoo's way, it's the bastard who is unctuously curling up his lips and retorting, "Don't be like that, you're the cow to my fly."
Sunwoo takes out the sheets, hovering it over his mouth without missing a beat. "Your buzzing just made something come up my throat."
"We usually like to avoid getting anything onto the sheets that could ruin it. If you didn't know, that includes your moo-moo breath."
"Son of a—"
After a minute of hurling sheets and cases and the likes at each other, emerged light-bulbs atop their heads to simply divide and conquer, get shit done as soon as possible, make Junyoung eye their masterworks with a slight-approval, passing hum; and confettis and yetis, before it's even nine, they'll spend their night in the comfort of their own homes.
Their semi-civilized cooperation in grated, back-handed talks doesn't really revered into any of the dreams above. It's being stretched on two opposing ends for stretching long minutes.
"I'm trying to get it in, you pulling is one hell of a nuisance that won't fucking help," Sunwoo waspishly grits out.
"No, I'm trying to get it in. You're the one who needs to stop." Huffing out a wry chuckle, the smile that has been adorning the edges of Haknyeon's lips gets more sickly sweet by the seconds; customer-service voice airs in. "With a pretty please, Employee Kim. Could you do that?"
"Oh, just fucking stop, Rent-A-Girlfriend's author's attempt at salvaging his series is more sincere than you."
Sunwoo defensively pulls down at his end. The corner of the fitted sheet sadly flakes off, wrinkles of gloom pooling on the mattress at the retorting forceful tug on Haknyeon's bullish part.
The self-help book reads like an ebb-and-flow by the time he's more determined to finish it rather than to understand it. It's one of the reasons that won him over from flushing it down the fucking toilet; along with the smidge of it being the first time in a while he and his dad have something to actually talk about; and how as much as he's pissed off at Sangyeon, he's still a decent boss that he appreciates; and maybe, instead of a doughnut, he wants to slam the book into Haknyeon's face.
Treading lightly is a must, it fucking says. However, in the events that things occur differently, this one simple suggestion would do.
Something soft, evenly-fluffed is antithetic to how hard it hits the exact front of Sunwoo's face before plopping down at his feet. "Did you just—"
"I don't know what you're talking about but I'll do that again to make you stop talking so stop. Talking. Stop. Pulling."
Sunwoo regains his sense of self, tugging back his side of the sheet with the attempted same force as Haknyeon. "You, stop pulling, I don't want to deal with you more than I have to!"
Haknyeon pulls in a way that results in Sunwoo sort of stumbling forward. "It's going to be half-naked on my side, Employee Kim."
When in doubt: run. Run. Run from your emotions, run from the things that don't bring you contentment.
"And it's going to be ripped into two if you don't get it in that fucking penguin brain of yours: don't pull."
"Look at the bright side, we'll have someone to blame for that, just like you have someone to blame for literally everything that has happened to you."
"That's fucking low," he grumbles over Haknyeon's 'oh yeah?', "I don't recall you taking any of the blame for the things you did—even months and months ago when I started working here, you tripped me over and laughed when you're supposed to be helping me like who fucking does that? That's right, a despicable asshole. You've never liked me ever since, just admit it."
Haknyeon looks taken aback, a front put behind. And mad; his fistful clutch of the sheet is tossed aside, making sure Sunwoo's listening to every word he says. "Okay, I have taken a lot of bullshit from you but I'm not that petty, it was you, you idiot. You were the one who started acting like a total ass who felt fucking entitled to everything." He rolls his eyes. "Letting the whole store knows I tripped you by accident. Funny enough, that's the part you 'accidentally' left out."
"Don't air-quote me, why in the hell would I do that? Why would I act like an ass if you've apologized for it. Oh my fucking God, you never did!"
"I literally said I was sorry right after I laughed, I even made sure that you know I was sorry because I said it twice. I just started acting like an ass because it's impossible to talk to you! You have this—this impossible prejudice that if someone did something wrong to you, oh, that must means they're a bad guy, this is not a one-mind-track-written cartoon, people are not one-dimensional."
"You can't be fucking serious, you're telling me not to judge you?" Sunwoo gesticulates at Haknyeon from head to toe. "You think of everything as a fucking game, it's useless, you're useless, it's basically playing into your hands trying to talk some sense with you."
Haknyeon takes his time to just stare at Sunwoo, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. "I know you're dense but this is entering pigheaded territory."
"Listen to me, exhibit one! That's right, I use numbers instead of alphabet because twenty-six examples are just the tip of the fucking iceberg."
"Great, you know your alphabets, you're gonna tell me two plus two equals a window now?"
"Right fucking there is exhibit one. You just have to turn everything into a fucking-drag-Sunwoo show."
"It's a knee-jerk reaction because you're fucking impossible."
"Exhibit two! Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas: it's not, it's December 23rd. Orange juice punch, orange candies, you know I had a traumatic experience with that fucking fruit, and you're still trying to spite me to this fucking day."
"You had one bad taste on a school field trip when you were fourteen and how do I know this? Because I actually listen when you open your mouth." Haknyeon gestures at Sunwoo's incoming retaliation to zip it. "And by the way, I wasn't trying to spite you on Christmas, it was Christmas. We actually fucking talked, you actually asked me about my life, we have similar tastes in some fucking things that don't even matter anymore because it was actually nice before you open that fucking mammoth mouth again."
"Easy for you to act like you took the high road, you weren't at the receiving end of your traumatic experience."
"Fucking—" semi-deep shades of red appear in blotches on Haknyeon's face, "fuck my ass hole, would you let that go already?! It's you and your short fuse! That one was on you! I told you that they remind me of something nice and you said they're fucking disgusting. I got you something useful and thoughtful and nice, and you've never even said thank you!"
"What the fuck—Me?!" Sunwoo incredulously argues, jabbing a finger at his own chest. "You're intervention-ing me?!"
"You fucking dimwit, there's no such thing as 'intervention-ing' and no, I'm not giving you an intervention, I'm telling you that there's no fucking way you're that full of yourself."
If they're just a little bit more aware, they would see the camera crew running back to them after filming Hyungseo in his own separate world: a journey of stumbling upon the best skewered tteokgalbi in a food-cart parked outside the store's parking lot. They'd come to their senses and realize that the store is dead silent; Chanhee is stealthily fishing his phone out and up, ready to record the whole thing and Sangyeon is beside him, a part of his finely gelled hair springing in different directions as he pushes Chanhee's phone down; two pairs of eyes that are heavily entranced by what's happening.
"Whatever you want to call it, I don't care, give yourself an intervention. Let's see, you made fun of my favorite show even without watching it, I explicitly said 'they're fucking disgusting to me.' To me, you fucker. And you didn't thank me for giving you a useful gift that I see you jotting down on from time to time either but you thanked Youngjae for giving you vouchers for this fucking store."
"After how you spoke about my home and you expected me to still thank you? Now that's fucking low. It's not just me, Employee Kim, you've never said thank you to anyone! Not to Juyeon hyung, not to Changmin hyung. All you do is find and find faults, change your attitude, shit, take a good look. You call Youngjae a friend but you rat him out for taking Junyoung hyung's macadamia nuts just because he didn't help you?!" They would notice how Youngjae is akin to a deer caught in headlights, flickering gaze from making eye-contact with the prominent camera and an approaching Junyoung as he starts to back away from the mortifying possibility of being caught. "How fucking hard is it to say it, it's literally two words. 'Thank' and 'you', you can even say thanks if you're too lazy for an extra word! Do you know how hard it was to find that goddamn mug? I had to ask for a guy to get it custom-made because the good pre-existing ones took a toll on our exchange rate!"
"Thank you, thank you soooo much, Ju Haknyeon. Thank. You. For listening to me when I speak. Thank you for—I don't fucking know—still going through with the bet and still acting like a total ass somehow, that's really fucking special. Thank you for not knowing that your idea of having fun is making other people the object of your entertainment most of the time!"
Haknyeon derisively snorts. "Oh please, get off your high horse, you don't give a shit about what I do as long as it doesn't involve you. I'm actually done with how you act like you're above saying something so simple as that."
"Alright, fine, maybe I can be a little difficult but that doesn't give you the pass to lecture me because you're no better." Sunwoo takes few small steps, staring down at Haknyeon's fiery gaze. "Draw a fucking line, don't be so fucking condescending."
"You irritate me," Haknyeon grits through his teeth, his voice getting louder with each following sentences: "I can't be fucking nice to people who openly makes me feel like I'm in purgatory. I'd actually look forward to not mess with you and I'd love to know how to stay away from you if you don't jump the gun and always assume the worst!"
"You rat-ass bastard, you do enjoy making me miserable, you can't say a single fucking thing about purgatory. What did you even mean by 'love to know how to stay from me'," Sunwoo's face twists, scrunching up in marginal-disgust and a whole lot of exasperation, "what the fuck is up with you these last few weeks?!"
"And what's up with you?" Haknyeon veers it back at Sunwoo—forget about wanting his eyeballs to stay in the back of his head, Sunwoo wishes they literally pop out from their sockets. "I can feel your fucking eyes from your fucking car every morning."
Just then, a few short reasons swooshes into Sunwoo's headspace, such as: it's just how it is, it's what they do, it's them. And it sounds reasonable, sounds okay. But when it actually comes pouring out of his mouth, it's an overly-defensive overtness of—"Bite me, so what if I want to see you as soon as I get to work?!"
"Nothing! Nothing. That's great, oh wow, Kim Sunwoo is not entirely a heartless asshole after all." Haknyeon shoves his palm out, so aggressive for nothing but the highs of getting caught up in the moment. "Do you want to hold my hand, too, while you're at it?!"
Running from something doesn't mean it will equate to cowardice just as running toward it is equated to a greater good. Patience is not just a virtue, the same as honesty is not just the best policy.
"You know what, fucker, maybe I do!"
"Maybe I want you to!"
Sunwoo, just as bold as he's feeling right now, clasps his palm on top of Haknyeon's. "There! There!" He goes to say, "Here's a little note: maybe if you don't act so fucking atrocious and so fucking annoying like I'm so stupid every time we talk, I'd find you nice to talk to, too."
"Please, if you actually put in an effort to make your fucking neck not invigorating to strangulate, you're actually a not-so-bad of a guy to hangout with! So please, please don't be fucking impossible."
It all comes tumbling, crumbling down just as they're having a staring showdown, tense silence and a beg for a little comprehension of these last minutes; four perplexed eyes speaking even more than the copious amount of words that they've spewed out, all summed up under one word: fucked.
Slowly, very consciously, they sit on opposite ends of the display bed, not even giving each other the gratification of an abashed single glance. Silence, this time around, is a ringing tone in his ears that's accompanying his irregular breathing and palpitations. Sunwoo also feels a sore throat coming tomorrow morning. He stares at the seemingly zooming-in floor, black, expanding dots in his vision; the grasp of their adjoined palms are as tight as the anchor of his pulled brows.
Take the time to let it sink in what you have been told: emotions are temporary. They are a wildfire. They are perseverance, they are the patience to study and understand. They are a conscious decision that you can control. By knowing what you feel, comes you knowing that it's all temporary.
'Always' is an obstinate myth that we dream of. Nothing is concrete, things will change. 'Always' itself is always changing.
"'When you do run, take your time to realize that whatever position you're in now, your next step will not only affect you. But others as well: how they will feel, how they will perceive you.'" Sunwoo clasps the book close in one hand, lips pressed as he absent-mindedly nods at the camera. "If my dad told me that, I'd tell him he's trying too hard."
Fuck fucking emotions, whose smart-ass idea was it. He wants Haknyeon's heart to jump to his throat and choke him right here and now, that's his forever and always.
Always.
Fucking—
"I'm sorry," Sunwoo grits out, hearty pride in his throat.
Haknyeon takes some time, only to reply, "What?"
"I'm. Sorry," he says again, clearer. Realizing it a little more. Means it a little more. "For whatever the fuck—shit, for saying you're useless. And an ass. You're," he heaves out a breath, neck hanging low, "not a one-dimensional character to just hate."
"Yeah, right." Haknyeon lightly snorts, chin supported by his available palm, elbow on his thigh. He stares at nothing, tone heavy as he says, "Gonna say you didn't mean any of it now?"
"No, you really are an ass. A fucking...obnoxious sidepiece of the Devil. You rile me up on purpose and get annoyed when I don't like it and it makes me mad, it's bullshit." Sunwoo doesn't have the courage to lift his face up so he stays put, abashed then says, "I even almost got fired because of your idea of fun."
"What," the stale silence takes over once more, Haknyeon frowning at the mildly-confessed revelation, "what do you mean, Sangyeon hyung wanted to fire you? What for?"
Sunwoo immediately scoffs. "You!" He lowly groans, muttering, "Launcher. Your stupid penguin."
"...That one's entirely on you."
"Fucker—"
"Chill out, I'm not trying to push your buttons." Sunwoo can hear the balls of Haknyeon's eyes gliding around in orbiting half-moons. "Feeling like throwing up after apologizing to me?"
There's a light mirth dancing in Haknyeon's tone; Sunwoo's obstinate annoyance is keeling over to be let out. He keeps it under-wraps and clears his throat. "Not as bad as I thought."
Haknyeon simply hums, finding himself caught off-guard with what he gets from Sunwoo. Seconds later, he reciprocates with a quieter voice. "I'm sorry, too. For pulling one too many on you."
Sunwoo gains back some of his slipping-out snootiness hearing it, saying, "Damn right, you should be." (In the background, a couple of things are occurring: Junyoung comes back—though with no Youngjae in tow—and pointedly stares down at humbly-bowed heads of Chanhee and Younghoon who obediently stagger down the same direction as Youngjae did; Sangyeon breaks after a few more seconds, a yelp belting out at Junyoung's firm grasp on his shoulder.) "It feels like a fucking safari everyday."
"I can't exactly help it. You're just so..." he tapers off, sounding more exasperated with: "...so..."
"Impossible?" Sunwoo supplies, turning a deaf ear to Haknyeon's 'you said it', and soaks in the now-partially-uncomfortable silence. Holding himself back from saying something unhelpfully dumb, he slowly turns askew; his gaze lifts and changing its course, curious and curiouser, and—"Employee Kim, don't you dare look at me."
Sunwoo returns to his initial pose, pink flecks of embarrassment on his cheeks. "As if that's something I'd willingly do."
It's an eerie thing, reaching a semi-agreement that doesn't end with Sunwoo staring daggers and Haknyeon mischievously concocts further plans. Then, it's quiet again for some time. And it's weird. Weirdly quiet. Counting the previous few, they've never gone this long without jabbing at each other; rather than wanting to run into a wall, it's making Sunwoo feel queasy. The clear fact that they're still very much still holding hands—their hands are embracing each other—make him want to go back to the very end of the storage room and possibly, repeatedly thumps his head there.
Every deal as a catch: the catch is that as coarse and as rowdy as Haknyeon's personality is, his hand is somehow the exact opposite, what in the fuck is this?
Sunwoo is deeply perturbed by the fleeting, abashed thought that crosses his mind that he tremulously blurts out, "I still hate you."
Haknyeon entertains him with a snort and by responding with a dry reply of: "Don't be an ass, we're having a moment."
"A moment," he quietly echoes in bafflement. Groaning a bit, he shuffles an unruly hand through the curls of his hair; with a relenting sigh, he then slowly says, "But. I'll do you one. And try my...fucking best, too. Not to make you want to strangle me to death." He quickly adds, "But you gotta fucking stop with your precious oranges."
"...Okay."
"...Okay?"
Haknyeon pulls at their clasped hands, forcing Sunwoo to alternate and look at him dead in the eye. "Okay, Employee Kim." he says again. "Let's give it a fucking try."
Once again, Sunwoo is disturbed that he's currently feeling too many things at once. It's a horror house: dead in his tracks, can't look away if he wanted to, can scream if he wanted to be a literal voiceless member of society. He settles for something mild like the unaccounted gravel churning through his voice as he turns away from Haknyeon's unyielding gaze and says, "Your fingers are so stubby like baby carrots."
"I said don't be an ass."
In their hazed, dazed moment where it feels like they're the only unfortunate two, the fight over the bedsheet momentarily forgotten, their remaining co-workers—Changmin who's watched midway through, not five minutes into his break, quiet gasps as his go-to reaction; Jaehyun and Juyeon who are left lost for words—are delighted faces whose assigned jobs got casted aside for the night.
Juyeon doesn't take his eyes off them, neither does the man beside him. "Are you seeing what I've been seeing, hyung?"
He lays a hand on the scruff of Juyeon's neck. "I'm seeing four poor fools and Junyoung hyung missing out on history. Are you thinking what I'm thinking right now?"
"Forget about that day I found so-affordable-so-good spicy wings, this is the second best day of your life?"
"Forget about that day you found so-affordable-so-good spicy wings, this is the second best day of my life."
—
"Because of a couple of someones, our store will going to have to close for two extra days while we get the place ready. Like I said," Junyoung sighs out, cracking open piece of macadamia nut with his teeth; muted shrieks and wails and moaned 'why?!'s can be distantly heard, "meatheads. All of them."
—
Sunwoo is sitting too straight-up for his perpetually slouched shoulders to like, holding Change your way of life in less than 180 pages as if it's the detrimental source of the pallor that smears across his complexion. Yet, he says, "I guess. In a way. Sangyeon hyung has my...gratitude. And my need for prescription glasses now. And his promise to make him read it."
Off to the very side, someone clears their throat, resulting in both Sunwoo and the cameraman to be a millisecond away from having concurrent whiplashes. It's Haknyeon, wordlessly proffering the wonted mug to Sunwoo. He doesn't linger nor acknowledge anything else. Just takes his leave once Sunwoo mutters, "Thank you," and accepts his offer.
It's salient to take note of just how hard that they tried not to let their fingers so much as touch throughout the small exchange.
"I still hate him," he says into the mug then, taking a cautious sip, "less...he makes a killer cup of regular joe."