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Taeyong accepts the title of hipster. Probably defeats the purpose if he does, but he doesn’t think he has any other noteworthy traits, so he replaces his lack of personality with his taste in music and fashion and the label that comes with it. It’s comfortable. It makes him feel visible.
Being at a pop concert contradicts this label. He’s surrounded by screaming teens and even some middle-aged adults, their gazes completely focused on the stage ahead of them, on the lyrics they’re yelling out, on waving their flowing white — it’s supposed to be silver but it looks fucking white — lightsticks to the time of the beat. None of them care about the fact that Taeyong doesn’t know the words. They ignore him. He’s of no consequence.
“Taeyong-ah!” Yuta yells in his ear, but it feels like a whisper amongst all the cheering, “You don’t even know Growl?”
Taeyong was vaguely aware of Growl, but he cared nothing for it.
The group’s name is EXO. While Taeyong has no interest in mainstream music, he doesn’t live under a rock — of course he knows EXO. Another assembly-line SM group, this time with 11 members, which was excessive if you asked Taeyong. No one ever did ask Taeyong, but if someone did, he’d say it was excessive. He didn’t know any of the individual members’ names except for that Doh Kyungsoo guy, but he is aware of EXO. Aware of their music. Aware of their presence.
The concert’s fucking boring, frankly. (It’s not. There’s this one song where they dance in suits without shirts underneath and it invokes something primal in Taeyong that makes him scared of himself, but like hell he’ll admit it out loud.) (There’s also another song about Tempo that Taeyong secretly thinks is a musical masterpiece, but he’ll take that opinion to his grave.) He’s glad when it’s over and he can finally drive Yuta home.
“What did you think?” Yuta asks, a bright smile on his face. Taeyong didn’t have the heart to lessen it even a little, she smiles back.
“It was bearable.”
“Wow, high praise coming from you. I’ll take it.”
“What’s the group’s name again?”
“Har har.”
Yuta insists on playing his EXO artist playlist on the ride home. Taeyong wants to protest, saying they just listened to their entire discography, but Yuta insisted he needed to listen to the studio versions now after listening to them live.
And plays the blandest of songs.
Using Taeyong’s Holy Aux Cord.
“Three, six, five!” Yuta chants at the top of his voice, as if they hadn’t spent three hours surrounded by screaming girls.
Taeyong was back to being 100% unimpressed by EXO.
Taeyong hasn’t changed much since high school. He hasn’t managed to develop a personality; he’s still relying on his music and fashion to define him. To his credit, he’s working as a composer for a small indie company now. It doesn’t pay much because their albums don’t sell well but it doesn’t pay abysmally because his songs get streamed on Melon and foreign streaming services often enough, so he’s happy. He needs a second job as a barista, but it’s bearable as long as he has his music to return to.
Okay, correction: it’s only just bearable. A bad day on the job has definitely made it unbearable. The café he works at is at Apgujeong, and some of the characters he comes across on shift are the kinds of people he didn’t realise existed.
One day a mammoth walks into his store — no, not a literal mammoth, but Taeyong thinks he might as well be. His hair is dark and perfectly coiffed. He’s wearing a massive fuzzy coat with “GUCCI” embroidered onto the back, sunglasses the size of Taeyong’s chest, and a Louis Vuitton face mask. A Louis Vuitton face mask.
Taeyong steels his nerves and readies himself for an experience as the mammoth steps up to the cash register. “Hello. What are you after?”
The mammoth tugs his face mask down below his chin and licks his lips, and Taeyong, very much unwillingly, follows the movement with his eyes. “Yes, uh, can I have a large iced americano, extra shot, less ice?” Taeyong enters it quickly into his till, but the mammoth interrupts. “Actually make that five and a half shots exactly.”
Taeyong raises an eyebrow but otherwise decides not to say anything. “Sure. Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“That’ll be 5,500 won.”
“Put it on my tab.”
Taeyong’s autopilot halts abruptly. Tab? He’s never seen this guy before. Granted, he’s working a different shift to usual — insufferably early morning as opposed to late evening — but he’s never seen anyone remotely like him. He thinks he’d remember a mammoth if he saw one.
“Your tab?” Taeyong near stutters, quickly pulling up the list of customers that have one open. There are a collection of customers who pay for their coffee in bulk at the end of the week. “Your name?”
Taeyong doesn’t get an answer immediately, so he’s forced to look up. He can feel the mammoth judging him through his oversized sunglasses. “You don’t know who I am?”
Taeyong frowns. “Should I?”
The mammoth continues staring, and Taeyong takes a minute to observe him. It’s only now he realises that there’s a sizeable number of women with large cameras standing at the windows of the café, customers with phone cameras directed at them.
Taeyong’s café is very close to the SM building. He thinks fast.
“Ah, I recognise you!” He snaps his finger, and he thinks the mammoth’s eyes might widen under his glasses. “You’re from that group… Shinee! Ring Ding Dong?”
The mammoth’s entire stance collapses in on itself, the lower half of his face morphing from confusion to disbelief to pure devastation in the space of a few seconds. Taeyong doesn’t understand what the big deal is. So he doesn’t know the name of one of the members of Shinee, so what? Did he have to?
“It’s Seo Youngho,” the mammoth finally offers, voice weak and throat seemingly in serious need of lubrication.
Taeyong searches the name up and finds him on the list. He doesn’t remember an idol named Youngho, but he never expected to anyway. “Okay. A large iced americano with exactly five and a half shots, yes?” He waits for a nod. “It’ll be ready for you on the side, Youngho-ssi.”
“Thank you.” There’s a pause, and Taeyong feels a little uncomfortable when the mammoth doesn’t move along. “Taeyong-ssi.”
He finally steps away from Taeyong’s line of vision, and Taeyong finally feels at peace at the sight of the sun that aforementioned mammoth had previously been blocking.
Well. Somewhat at peace.
There’s the matter of the girls in the window. Taeyong counts 18, but he might have missed a few, all breathing on the glass that Taeyong will inevitably have to clean up himself. There’s the customers seated at the café, gaping at Youngho from Shinee open-mouthed — though, really, with a jacket like that, Youngho from Shinee is practically asking for it.
And also literally asking for it, as he waves at the girls outside and not-so-subtly poses for the cameras inside, twisting his body into a pose that belongs on a teaser photo for a drama and not in real life.
The bar and till area is small to allow for more space for seating, so Youngho from Shinee isn’t standing very far away. It’s not hard for him to catch Taeyong observing. (Staring, if Taeyong wants to be honest, but he doesn’t want to be honest, and he doesn’t want to be honest about the blood rushing to his ears as a direct result of being caught staring, either.)
The mammoth throws him a perfect, plastic surgery smile. He pulls his his Louis Vuitton face mask down so it’s sitting right below his lower lip and mouths “they fund my paycheck” only for Taeyong to see.
Taeyong wants to throw a coffee machine at him and then go throw up.