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The familiar voice of Mariah Carey drifted through the speakers, coating the office in a false sense of Christmas spirit. Your computer had frozen for the fifth time this morning, and you were just about ready to call off the holiday season once and for all as you learned two of your gifts for family members would not be arriving until two days after Christmas due to the ongoing postal backlog. The urge to slam your head into your keyboard was strong, almost too much to resist.
“Merry Christmas, Y/N! Hope you have a lovely break,” The voice of your co-worker Sana, currently leaving early thanks to being heavily pregnant and apparently late for a prenatal appointment, “Sorry I gotta rush. Good luck for the bake sale,”
You winced, the sudden reminder of the annual charity bake sale. It was just a few hours away, and the product you had to showcase left a lot to be desired, “Thanks, Sana. Hope everything goes well for the birth. Merry Christmas,”
It wasn’t that you didn’t enjoy baking - actually, most years you were excited for it. The bake sale was officially the beginning of Christmas break. The company ended the day with a bake sale and a small tea party in the afternoon, with all colleagues leaving early to begin the celebrations. For the past five years, you took part without fail. This year, you weren’t very excited, hence your lackluster cookies currently tucked away in tupperware in your desk.
This year hadn’t been spectacular for you, put it that way. Your car had broken down back in March, and had cost you a hefty amount to get it fixed, putting you in debt due to the ridiculous loan you had to take out. Then your dog, Pickles, broke his leg, adding more financial stress. Then, the cherry on top, your boyfriend of three years, Jooheon, left you. By October, you were ready to call this year a write off and sleep until January.
It was lunch time when you decided to have another check on the cookies you’d hastily baked at five am - all memory of the bake sale having completely vanished from your mind. Lifting the lid, you were greeted with a sweet scent, the basic chocolate chip cookies leaving you feeling bored just looking at them. You tasted the extra one you had baked, and nothing changed. They were good - they just weren’t your best.
Usually, you liked to be on top of your game for the bake sale. It wasn’t that you were a super competitive person, it was just the one coworker who seemed to make it his life goal to trip you up and steal first place all the damn time.
Kim Seokjin had first shoved his way into your life your first year at the company - he’d come to the bake sale with a three tier Christmas cake, decorated beautifully and tasting even better. You hadn’t been upset about losing to him until he came over to taste your white chocolate and peppermint cheesecake. His criticism made your blood boil, and his over-dramatic reaction to the amount of peppermint you had added to the filling irritated you. For some reason, the next year you felt compelled to beat him. And you did, with a gorgeous chocolate orange tart. By the end of the day, most of the staff had taken a bite while Seokjin scowled at you from where he stood next to his barely-touched caramel flan.
It continued like that for the next few years, Seokjin one upping you before you came back and beat him again the year after. This year, it was your turn to win, if the pattern stuck. But, you had a feeling simple chocolate chip cookies weren’t going to match up against whatever he had to offer.
Despite your general dislike for one another - born totally out of your mutual competitiveness, seen as you actually knew nothing about him - you at least could admit he was a phenomenal baker. Sometimes your mouth watered looking at the bakes he brought in, you were almost desperate to try them, even when you feigned disinterest.
Gathering your belongings, you were about to go back up to your cubicle early when you spotted a figure sitting on the fire escape stairs. You were about to tell them that area was prohibited when you realised who it was.
Seokjin perched himself on the first step, long legs bent at the knee as he stared at the ground. He looked peaceful, but you knew he had to be insane to sit outside in just his shirt - the weather was about to hit freezing temperatures, and snow was on its way, due to hit the city tonight. For some unspeakable reason, you were curious about why he was sitting there all alone on his lunch hour. Usually he disappeared up the high street to buy one of those fancy gourmet sandwiches from the deli close to where you both worked. He didn’t have any food with him, not even his bag, so you figured his bake must have been upstairs in the office already.
Funny, you didn’t remember seeing anything on the table.
Gently pushing open the fire escape door, you winced a little at the obvious creak that filled the courtyard, though Seokjin didn’t move or turn to greet you. When the door closed behind you, a strong urge to fill the silence overtook you.
“Seokjin?”
His shoulders twitched, and you just now realised how broad he was. There was no way to walk down the steps without your legs brushing against him - you decided to just stay standing instead.
He answered with a grunt, and a cough, before he turned so you could see his profile - lips pouty and pink. You noted that unexpectedly before your eyes flew back to his eyes, “Y/N? Oh, hi,”
He was missing his usual snarky attitude when it came to speaking to you, and a part of you felt bad for him. Perhaps he was having a bad day, or a bad year, like you. At least you had something in common.
“Why are you sitting out here alone?”
“I’m trying to use voodoo to hurt someone with my mind,” Your eyes widened, and he turned to look at you, fully this time. You felt your stomach twitch when his eyes slid over to you, “I’m kidding. Kind of,”
The sigh in his voice resonated with you, and so you did something very out of character, and sat down to talk to Kim Seokjin.
“As long as it’s not aimed at me, you can do as much mind-voodoo as you like,”
Seokjin snorted, prompting a twitch at the corner of your lips which was quickly brushed away. You had never laughed with Seokjin before, and you were hesitant to start now. After all, he was still the annoying guy who criticised your banana waffles. For that, you would never forgive him.
You hadn’t realised you were lost in your own thoughts until you watched Seokjin’s lips moving, latching onto the last few words of his sentence.
“...I guess congratulations are in order, huh?”
“Wh- what? - “
“I automatically forfeit the competition, you win,”
Frowning, you couldn’t quite believe what you were hearing, and so you asked Seokjin to repeat himself, lips parted in surprise.
“I haven’t brought anything for today,” He murmured, looking back towards the wire fence that separated you from the back road that wound around the back of the building. He glanced at you from the corner of his eye before looking back to the road, waiting for your questioning.
“Nothing? Why not?” The idea that Kim Seokjin was abandoning a baking competition was hard to wrap your head around. While yes, you didn’t know a lot about him, you did know one thing - that he was incredibly competitive. It was one of the only things you knew for sure that you had in common.
“Someone bumped into me this morning and I dropped my bake for today,” He huffed, brushing his hair off his forehead, only for it to fall back down and brush his eyebrows, “I spent hours on that thing. Merry fucking Christmas, right?” He laughed, but you saw no humour in his smile. The forlorn sigh following his brittle laughter kinda made your heart twinge in sympathy.
While you didn’t necessarily like Seokjin, you still felt bad for him. If there was anyone you knew who was more passionate about food and baking than you, it was Seokjin.
“That sucks, I’m sorry, Jin,” He nodded, a small smile gracing his plush lips. They reminded you of the pretty silk pin cushions your grandma used to have, all soft and blushy. You frowned, realising your thoughts were verging somewhere unknown.
Seokjin nodded, a small smile playing on his lips, and so to make peace for today, you pulled out your sad excuse for cookies, “To be honest, I didn’t feel like baking. Not baking properly, anyway,”
You handed him the container, watching as he opened it and plucked out a cookie. When he took a bite, you were surprised by the groan that left his lips. It made your cheeks blush a little - it was too early in the day for food porn.
“God, I’m so sick of pretending you can’t bake,” Seokjin said around a mouthful of cookie. He continued to hum, depositing another cookie whole as you watched on in shock, “These are amazing, Y/N. You definitely would have won anyway,”
The concept of Seokjin complimenting you in any way was so foreign that you just gawked at him as he polished off the rest of your cookies. It was two whole minutes before you spoke again, and Seokjin clicked the lid back onto the tupperware as he glanced over at you.
Suddenly, his eyes on you made you feel something other than annoyance - it was refreshing and spooky.
“Uhh, thank you,”
“No problem,” He murmured, smiling at you for the first time - or at least, the first time you noticed. In fact, Seokjin had sent you many smiles during your time working together, but none of them were picked up by you. Instead, you only got the cover-ups, the sarcastic smirks he would give you after each of his wins.
This real smile of his - wow, it left you breathless. Seokjin was really something when he wasn’t pissing you off or gloating.
When the two of you stood up to go back up to the office, Seokjin cleared his throat, looking as if he wanted to say something.
“Um, hey,” He began, looking almost nervous - another side of Seokjin you hadn’t seen before. You had learned more about this man in the past fifteen minutes than you had in five whole years.
“Yes?”
He smiled again, a somewhat shy grin that gave you butterflies, “Would you like to eat lunch with me tomorrow?”
You frowned, “We’re not working tomorrow, it’s a Saturday,”
Seokjin smiled so big his eyes crinkled at the sides, and you blinked at the brightness of it.
“I know,” Was all he said before he opened the door, stopping on the threshold and turning to you, “Oh, and I’m sorry in advance,”
Seconds later, he took off running and disappeared down the hallway, leaving you standing on the fire escape with an empty tupperware box and a look of utter beguilement on your face. It was only later, as you watched Seokjin win the voucher for a meal at one of the most expensive restaurants in the city that you finally decided you hated him.
“Hey,”
“Oh,” You rolled your eyes, glaring at him over the rim of your coffee cup, “you,”
He was smiling again - though not one of his snarky, ingenuine smiles. This one was real, which just made you all the more confused.
“I know what you’re thinking,” He murmured, “but money is tight. I planned to ask you out today, but I had to get the voucher somehow. You would have beaten me with those cookies,”
“I’m confused,” You replied, standing up from your desk, “I thought you didn’t have anything, where the hell did you pull that pie from?”
“A cafe down the street. I wanted to keep you on your toes,” He winked at you, and a part of you melted. A small part.
“So you cheated?”
“Yep,”
“So you could take me out to dinner?”
He nodded, an odd childlike mischievousness in his eyes. You fought the twitch of amusement that itched at your lips.
Grabbing your coat, you shrugged it on, aiming your glare at Seokjin as he became more and more uneasy with your silence.
“I hope you know this isn’t over,” You pointed a finger at him, wanting to chuckle when he stepped back, “Even if the date goes well, even if we date and get married and have ten children, I will get my revenge. Maybe not next year, or the year after. I just want to keep you on your toes,” You mimicked him, lips stretching into a smile when he looked sufficiently terrified.
Leaning forward, you picked up your bag, dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Pick me up at six, I’ll email you my address,”
Now it was your turn to leave Seokjin speechless, standing by your cubicle. Perhaps Christmas wouldn’t be so bad after all.