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the fridge is empty. shelf upon shelf of empty space, just all white staring back at raesung. more importantly, there is no orange juice. raesung just wants orange juice at 7 pm on tuesday night after finishing a song and there is none. why is there no orange juice?
'seunghun did you drink the last of the orange juice?' raesung asks.
'i don't drink that shit raesung. ask noa maybe he had it.' the yell comes from somewhere down the hallway, probably jihoon's room. that's not any help, noa is in japan for a modelling job that he was scouted for on the street. raesung remembers it clearly, and to be quite honest he was a bit offended that the casting agent didn't even consider him. he knows he's not unattractive, but for him to be invisible while standing next to the japanese prince noa kazama himself, that made his ego take a blow
'noa is in japan, you asshole.' raesung replies. god, his friends are hopeless
'i don't know what to tell you rae, just go and buy some more.' seunghun responds.
great, now he has to catch the bus all the way to costco because some asshole drank his juice. he grabs his jacket and puts on the first pair of shoes he finds (much to his demise it happens to be the hello kitty slippers jihoon bought as a gag gift) and walks out the door. by the time the bus arrives at the stop, raesung's temper is so bad he could out-anger a soccer mum wanting to speak to the manager.
when he gets to costco, there is only half an hour before they close. begrudgingly, he drags his body towards the aisle with the juice. he grabs the cheapest one he can find and walks towards the register, only to stop walking when he looks up.
standing behind the register is the most attractive person raesung has ever seen. blonde hair, pretty eyes and a mousy nose. raesung is in love.
how is he supposed to keep composed when the human form of perfection is right in front of him? he can’t do this. he doesn’t even need the juice; he can just go to a different store tomorrow morning and not have to deal with the possibility of embarrassing himself in front of the cute cashier. yeah, that’s a great idea.
lost in his thoughts, raesung doesn’t realise that he’s standing in the middle of the store having a mental debate. a boy with legs longer than the empire state building walks up to him.
‘excuse me sir, do you need help to find anything?’ the boy asks.
raesung snaps out of his thoughts and flushes. how embarrassing, he was standing in the middle of the store arguing with himself.
‘no. i’m fine, thank you.’ raesung tries to smile but he’s sure it comes off as more of a grimace.
raesung is determined now. he quickly waddles to the checkout, where the cute boy is. here goes nothing.
raesung places the juice on at the register, taking extra precaution not to make eye contact with the boy in case he accidentally asks for his hand in marriage. instead, he stares at the boy’s name tag. it reads; hyunsuk. bold letters, all capitals.
‘hi! how has your day been?’ the cute boy, hyunsuk, asks him.
‘it’s uh- been long i guess.’ god, raesung hates himself right now. he could have just said good like a non-gay-panic-mess.
‘oh tell me about it. the day feels as though it’s never going to end.’ hyunsuk responds. he looks towards raesung, who is still refusing to lift his eyes from the name tag on the boys chest.
‘that will be $4.50.’ hyunsuk says.
raesung quickly gives him a $5 note, tells him to keep the change, grabs his juice and bolts. that was the most nerve-wracking experience of his life. no more cute boys for at least a week.
-
three days later raesung is standing in the snacks aisle at costco. at least this time he isn't alone, he has dragged seunghun and jihoon with him this time. seunghun though has disappeared. somewhere between deciding what soda to buy and whether or not they should buy the 56 pack of toilet rolls, seunghun caught sight of the boy with long legs from tuesday and had found as he phrased it 'one and only, lifetime partner, love of his life'.
so now jihoon and raesung stand in front of the chips, arguing about crinkle cut versus smooth cut but that's not the first thing on raesungs mind, because when he walked into the store 15 minutes ago, the first thing he saw was the cute boy, hyunsuk, standing at the checkouts again.
'jihoon i do not care if the crinkle cut hurts the edge of your mouth, the smooth cut is 75 cents more. do you have 75 cents to spare? didn't think so.' raesung snaps
'do you really think i'm that poor?' jihoon retorts.
'yes.'
jihoon and raesung find seunghun flirting with one of the staff 10 minutes later. a situation that neither jihoon or raesung wanted to see ever, but it seemed the world was punishing them. 'seunghun leave your boy-toy we need to go.' jihoon belts across the store. oh my god, raesung thinks. can they get more embarrassing? raesung looks around to see if seunghun was walking towards them, only to lock eyes with hyunsuk. hyunsuk was staring at him and he was staring right back. raesung can feel the warmth spreading across his face. did jihoon bring that much attention to them?
'his name is junkyu and i do not appreciate the attitude.' seunghun yells back as he walks towards them.
junkyu, the boy with the legs, is now hiding his face in his hands, but he peaks up from behind them to watch seunghun walk away. seunghun turns around and winks at him causing junkyu to blush and trip into the shelf behind him. seunghun gives him a 'call me' gesture before turning around.
raesung rolls eyes and pushes the shopping cart towards the checkout. when he gets there, hyunsuk is behind the register smiling at him. he looks so cute and raesung is about to combust.
'hi. how has your day been?' hyunsuk asks. raesung stays silent and jihoon and seunghun share a knowing look.
'great.' seunghun smiles, and hyunsuk smiles back. raesung tries to tell himself that the twisting feeling in his gut is just the 2-day old fried rice he had for lunch.
seunghun starts talking but raesung zones him out. he can't help but feel down. seunghun has always had a way with people, always been able to charm people. something that raesung has never been good at, always coming off cold or tripping over his words. raesung snaps out of his spiralling thoughts when he looks up and jihoon, seunghun and hyunsuk are all looking at him.
'what?'
'it's $47.' hyunsuk states. the way he's looking at raesung seems strange but he can't put his finger on it. raesung gets his card out and pays quickly, grabbing two bags and leaving seunghun and jihoon to grab the rest. as raesung is about to walk through the sliding door, he hears hyunsuk call out to him.
'i hope your day was better today!'.
raesung doesn't stop smiling for the rest of the week.
-
noa gets back from japan on a thursday. no one knew when he came back, only walked into the lounge room to find him sitting on the couch binge watching some new netflix original series. he looks like shit but the elephant in the room is his hair, it's blonde. bleach blonde.
'do not say anything.' he grits when raesung walks into the room. raesung raises his arms in surrender and walks to his room.
twenty minutes later noa is at the foot of raesungs bed begging him to go buy hair dye. it's quite the sight, a six-foot-something model at the edge of his bed begging because he fucked up his appearance. the shift in power makes raesung feel energised.
'raesung, please. i'm begging. i just need one box of black hair dye. please.' noa's hair looks horrible, to say the least. there is no way he would be spotted outside with the bleached fried nest that his hair resembles.
'fine. but you owe me. big time.' raesung responds. he feels a little bit bad now, but it doesn't stop him from taking dozens of photos of noa's hair for blackmail.
it takes raesung twenty minutes to get out of the house and in front of the shelf full of hair dye. when he walks into costco, the first thing he notices is that instead of hyunsuk standing at the register, it's a tall boy with blue hair. raesung has never seen him before. he is kind of disappointed but he won't let himself admit it.
suddenly, a voice from raesungs left startles him.
'do you need any help?'
raesung looks to his left and to both his joy and anguish, the voice belongs to hyunsuk. raesung is suffering. instead of the usual long sleeve shirt with a vest on top, hyunsuk is wearing a tank top and the vest, unbuttoned. raesung thinks that is surely violating some health and safety code. if it's not breaking one of costco's codes, it's about to because raesung thinks he might faint.
raesung can't screw this up. he doesn't want to. because hyunsuk is staring at him with interest in his eyes, and raesung so badly wants to do something. what he wants, he's not sure of yet. but he knows he wants hyunsuk.
'i need black hair dye.' raesung states, turning back to the boxes on the shelf. he mentally praises himself, he didn't fuck up.
hyunsuk looks between the boxes and raesungs already black hair. raesung catches his (very cute) look of confusion.
'oh- it's not for me. it's for my roommate.' raesung clarifies. hyunsuk laughs and raesung has never heard a sound quite as nice.
'ok sure. well i would go for l'oréal. at least that's what i use.' hyunsuk responds. he's still smiling and raesung wonders if his cheeks hurt.
'yeah, i'll get that one then.' raesung grabs two boxes of the black l'oréal hair dye and looks towards hyunsuk. he's still smiling, but now his eyes are crinkling in the corner. raesung's chest hurts.
'cool.' hyunsuk says, but he doesn't leave. it's like they're in some sort of awkward standoff to see who will go first but raesung, even though he is a coward, he is still competitive. he won't break first.
they stand there for another minute until hyunsuk speaks, 'is that all you are here for? if it is i'll take you through the checkout.'
raesung doesn't mention that there is already someone at the checkout. he would much rather have hyunsuk do it. when they get to the checkout, the boy is still standing there. hyunsuk makes some quick hand motions which the boy doesn't catch on to.
'hyunsuk use your words.' the boy laughs. he looks confused but his expression changes when he notices raesung trailing behind hyunsuk. his eyes widen slightly and his mouth shifts into an 'o' shape. without saying anything, he walks from behind the counter and disappears into an aisle.
hyunsuk grabs the boxes from raesungs hand, their fingers lightly touch and raesung feels light headed. he scans them through and raesung pays for them, fumbling as he tries to get the money from his wallet.
'you know,' hyunsuk starts, 'i've seen you a lot here, but i still don't know your name.'
raesung snaps his head up. oh my god. hyunsuk just asked for his name. he can feel the blood rushing to his face.
'my name is raesung.' he says.
'cute.'
if raesung wasn't already as red as a tomato, he is now. hyunsuk just said his name was cute.
'thank you.' raesung splutters. he cannot believe that just happened. the cute boy he has been pining over for the past two weeks just called him cute. 'i'm hyunsuk.' he replies. 'i know.' raesung's eyes widen in shock, 'i mean, it's on your nametag.' 'oh right,' hyunsuk laughs. if that wasn't enough to take him out, hyunsuk waving goodbye as he left the shop delivered the final blow. he was done for.
for the next few weeks after, raesung returns to costco every 2-3 days after. his apartment is full of food (enough to last him through an apocalypse), his bank account is suffering and the staff at costco are starting to think he permanently lives there. it's all fine though because he's making enough money with his producing to spend as much on jumbo bags of cheetos and 56 packs of toilet rolls as he wants.
panic strikes on a saturday. raesung is at costco, standing in the pasta aisle, and he still hasn't seen hyunsuk. he has walked up every single aisle twice trying to see him but he still hasn't shown up.
'hey man, do you need help with anything?' the voice shocks raesung, and the ravioli packet he was holding flies out his hand and lands at the feet of the perpetrator. raesung looks up and sees the blue haired boy from the checkout a few weeks ago.
should he ask where hyunsuk is? what if the boy laughs at him? worse, what if he tells raesung that hyunsuk quit because some weird emo boy keeps showing up at his work? raesung needs to swallow his pride and all fifty thousand anxious thoughts.
'yeah i- i was wondering if hyunsuk is here?' raesung asks.
'sorry man he came down with the flu or something. probably won't be back for a week.' the boy answers.
oh. he's just sick. he hasn't suddenly started to hate raesung and decided the only solution was to quit his job and fly to mexico.
'um- ok thanks. i guess.' raesung responds and walks out the store.
-
raesung doesn't go back to costco for three weeks. he meant to after a week and a half had passed but hanbin has been on his ass about producing songs for some up and coming rapper called seung and he hasn't had any free time. he's been holed up in the studio with hanbin and his boyfriend jaewon trying to produce enough songs.
when raesung does go back, he nearly has a heart attack. hyunsuk is standing at the counter and yet again his arms are bare. no sleeves. just bare arms and raesung thinks he might faint. how can someone be so good looking? it's unfair.
raesung walks down the soda aisle and grabs some orange flavored drink, the one that jihoon likes, and walks to the checkout. when he gets there, hyunsuk is smiling at him, eyes crinkling and all.
this time, hyunsuk doesn't ask how his day was. instead he says, 'i heard you asked where i was.'
raesung nearly chokes on his own spit.
'yeah. i did.' raesungs entire face is bright red. whoever that blue haired boy is raesung swears he will-
'you know i could just give you my number so next time i'm not here you can just text me.'
-give him the biggest hug ever and show how fucking grateful he is.
'okay.' raesung responds and hyunsuk giggles. oh my god why the fuck did he giggle, i'm gonna lose it, raesung thinks.
as raesung walks out the store, he looks down at his receipt, and the messy writing where hyunsuk wrote his number and 'text me ;)'.
raesung's apartment is now full of food (enough to last him through an apocalypse), his bank account suffered and the staff at costco probably thought he permanently lived there, but at least he got the cute cashiers number.