Chapter Text
San liked to daydream.
There was something about his minimal effort job at a convenience store that sparked his mind into weaving these fantasies that would never actually play out.
The store he manned was a small one, hidden in the back roads of the college district of the city. So small in fact, that he could walk from the front wall to the back with just six slightly longer than his usual strides, from the left to the right wall in just five.
Because of how small the place was, there was never a need for more than one person to be working at a time. The only time he saw any of his coworkers was when he would arrive at 6pm to shift change with a tall, friendly boy named Yunho, then at 2am, when a guy San could vaguely remember having a class with back in freshman year of college came in to relieve him. It was after a week that San was finally able to wrestle the name Yeosang out of the boy.
So, more often than not, San was alone in this small cubical of a convenience store. Of course there were customers that came and went. Mostly just solo college students picking up some food on their way into class, but there were still a few groups of rowdy students that would surround the vending machine that sat on the porch of the store, or come in and throw items to each other over the tops of the shelves.
But as the type of store would suggest, this place was one for convenience, not for lingering. They did have a small corner where customers were able to prep a bowl of ramen, but the only seating the store provided was a small table with two chairs outside on the front porch, sitting on the opposite side of the front door that the vending machine occupied.
So with the faces that blurred together as they came and went over his eight hour work day, San’s mind had grown to imagine past the reality of the situation.
He would imagine slamming the cash register closed in an act of defiance as a particularly rude customer turned to leave.
He would imagine himself plugging his phone into the speakers of the store and playing his music at just above the acceptable level expected of the store to see if anyone would notice.
And sometimes, he would imagine slipping an extra sweet into the cute boy's check out bag, who appeared at the store so often that San had even given him a nickname.
In his daydream, the boy would come up to the counter with a smile on his face and San would smile back. He would ring up everything the boy had, and while the boy was busy with his wallet, San would slip one of his favorite candies into the bag along with his other purchases.
Sometimes, the boy would come back and fuss over how he wasn’t sure how it had got into his bag, apologizing about taking it. But then San would reassure him that no, it wasn’t a mistake and was actually a gift from him.
In other daydreams he would imagine that the boy would come back and not say anything, but then San would slip in another and then another the next time he came. Then, the two would share private smiles to each other, both knowing the other knew of their unspoken secret.
Daeho, as San had dubbed him, would always arrive around 10pm, the dead center of his shift. Daeho was probably just as familiar to the store as San was at this point.
At first, when San had just started to notice his recurring appearances, it was the start of the school semester and Daeho would meander his way around the store, taking in everything it had to offer.
And as San watched him, the boy would continue to scan the shelves, as if the week before of doing so hadn’t familiarized him with their product selection enough yet.
And if San was to be completely honest, it was the boy's beauty that had first caught his attention. But it was the boy's behavior that had caught his curiosity. As Daeho would pick up a gummi candy bag to look at the flavors that brand provided, San started to wonder what it was that Daeho had been doing before arriving to the store.
Had he just finished his classes for the day and his route back home trailed him to pass this store? San assumed he was a student, since he had arrived with the new school year.
As Daeho would turn the bottles to see their labels better, San would wonder as to why he acted like he had all the time in the world to memorize a convenience store layout. Maybe it was just who he was as a person? Someone who took stopping to smell the roses as a life plan. Or maybe he lived alone, and going back to his empty apartment was more boring to him then this.
But there was one thing that Daeho always ended up buying that really sparked his curiosity. There hadn’t been a visit that he had left without it. Sometimes, near the beginning, he would sprinkle in other purchases, maybe as a ploy to evade the true meaning of his visit. But as their mutual recognition grew, Daeho had cut out the pleasantries and excess spending.
It was the thunk of a soju bottle against the counter every time he came to check out that really got San wondering.
Daeho had yet to leave the store without at least one bottle of soju since he started to arrive to San’s store.
But don’t get him wrong. He, too, had a decent amount of alcohol consumption under his belt, his days off always ending with a beer or two for himself.
So no, it wasn’t any sort of judgment that San was harboring towards Daeho that made him wonder. It was more the fact that Daeho didn’t play the part of a boy who bought soju on a daily basis.
Daeho looked like an athlete. Daeho looked like he could wake up for a 7am class without batting an eye. Daeho looked like the kind of guy that might reprimand you for ordering a third bottle at dinner, a gentle reminder not to go overboard passing his lips easily.
San, if he was being introspective, would say that out of the two if them he looked like the one who would be purchasing a bottle or two of soju on a daily basis.
But of course, San didn’t know if it actually was a daily thing. He only worked four days of the week, so maybe his and Daeho’s schedules just meshed perfectly to create this ruse that he did purchase soju on the daily.
At this time, San was getting swept away by a particularly enticing daydream, one that consisted of San coming in on a day he didn’t work. He would arrive at around 10pm for no particular reason other then he never was doing much at that time anyways, the excuse of introducing himself to his other mysterious coworkers on his mind when he would coincidentally run into Daeho.
The familiar sound of a soju bottle thunking against the counter brought him back to the present.
Daeho looked particularly done up today. There was a hint of black smudged at the corner of his eyes, something San took immediate notice of. Daeho almost always had a small amount of natural make up on, but the night out look was new. It was a Friday, maybe he had plans for the night and had stopped in to stock up for the weekend?
San went to ringing up his item, trying harder then usual to keep his eyes on the register screen. Daeho was a little too good looking for his own good. It was when San was wondering if Daeho got pestered a lot when he went out, that he was brought back to attention with the most polite throat clearing San had ever heard.
“What’s your name?” asked Daeho as he chewed on his bottom lip.
“My name?” asked back San, thrown by the personal question. It wasn’t that conversation was a rarity between the two, it was just that they usually kept the topics of the exchanged words at a surface level. A ‘The weather is great today.’ from Daeho or a ‘Did you find everything okay?’ from San.
“Yeah, I just— I thought that since I— We’ve seen each other a lot and I thought ‘hey maybe I should know his name,’” rambled Daeho and San couldn’t help but take note that rambling was something he hadn’t originally expected from him. If there was one theme with Daeho though, it was that he never was quite what San expected from him.
“I’m San.”
“Oh, that’s a nice name. I’ve always liked short names.” Daeho’s voice was soft, but had a sturdy quality back to it after his initial blunder.
“How about you? Is yours short too?” asked San, because he wasn’t about to not get a name in return. Did it start with a D like how San had imagined? Or maybe it was something obscure, maybe even a name San hadn’t ever heard of before.
“Oh no, I don’t mean to disappoint, but it’s Wooyoung.”
Wooyoung. It was neither short nor an obscure name. But it fit him so perfectly, so much more than Daeho. Even if San had initially thought that Wooyoung looked like a boy with a D name, it was nothing to the reality of knowing what it actually was.
And by no means did he disappoint. If anything, San was ready for any new information from Wooyoung to defy any preset thoughts he had about him. It was like reaching into a bowl of mixed candy to then pull out his favorite kind, not even knowing that it had been in there in the first place.
“It’s nice to formally meet you, Wooyoung,” said San, a smile he couldn’t help on his lips.
“Likewise,” replied Wooyoung, who was handing over his card. San took it instinctually, having forgotten that they weren’t talking just to talk. San turned back to autopilot, putting the bottle of soju into a small plastic bag before handing it over the counter.
“I hope you have a nice night, Wooyoung.”
“You too, San.”
Wooyoung left with the sound of the door sliding closed after him and San was left with four hours to replay how his name sounded in Wooyoung’s voice, a beautiful smile gracing his features as he had said it.