Chapter Text
The rain was pouring down like all hell broke loose. Soobin wiped his damp bangs to the side. In disbelief he checked his phone for the tenth time. There was no mistake, his shift had started already, yet no one was here. The little bookstore was completely empty, not a customer, not an employee, all lights were out. Again, he checked his phone… no, it was definitely Friday, a regular workday… so what was going on? Seeing no other option, he decided to call his boss. The answering machine picked up. “Hello Sir, Choi Soobin speaking. I showed up to my shift but no one is here… The store is locked and the person that was supposed do the morning shift today isn’t here either. Um… please call me back.” Soaking wet, he put his hands against the glass and tried looking for the little cat that usually slept on the counter and welcomed the customer with a little purr, but she was nowhere to be seen. That was kind of relieving she would have been so hungry and scared all alone in the dark.
He ordered a tea in the coffee shop opposite of the book store, sat by the big window, checked his phone for any unanswered calls or texts every 45 seconds and blankly stared outside. The flowers needed to be watered; his boss ordered a book that was supposed to be delivered today and his favorite author recently published a new series that should arrive in the evening to be displayed tomorrow. Especially on a gloomy day like this they would usually have a lot of customers pouring in, seeking shelter and eventually deciding to go ahead and look through the store to keep their minds busy while waiting for the rain to stop. Really, there were a lot of things to do, so why did everyone decide to take a day off without telling him? This had never happened before in the 6 months he had worked there, was this day special in some way? Was it a holiday? Why would every other shop be open then? He was so lost in thought that he only started drinking his tea when it was already starting to get cold.
After an hour of waiting, nervously shaking his feet and questioning whether he had actually ever worked at the bookstore or if it was all just imagination, Soobin decided to go home. His phone was low on battery and at this point it was very unlikely that somebody would suddenly show up and explain everything. He didn’t love working, I mean, who did? But he did very much need the money this job made him. He was currently studying psychology in university. He had a month until the new semester started and wanted to use as much time as he could to earn money to be able to finally to move out and live on his own.
“Soobin…” His mom welcomed him with a worried look. “Come in.”
She handed him a towel and slowly guided him to sit on the couch. “Mr Kim had a golf playing accident, apparently he broke his hip. He’s in a fine condition, he can talk and joke like always, but he definitely can’t move and his wife decided to stay by his side for now. So the store will be closed indefinitely, his wife called me just now, she was sniffling a lot, it must be really hard on her. But as far as I can tell he’ll be fine.”
This whole situation sucked. Obviously it sucked the most for poor Mr Kim, breaking your hip really isn’t fun, but playing golf at 67 also isn’t the smartest move. This also meant that Soobin would have to find another job at least until Mr Kim was well enough to return to work, but Soobin was fairly certain that an old man like him would take a year or more to recover from that kind of injury. So now he was back to square one. There was absolutely nothing to do besides applying for part-time jobs at countless cafés, bars and convenient stores and hoping that at least one of them wasn’t already flooded with thousands of students that wanted to up their allowance a little bit. Even his best (and to be honest only) friend Kai was busy these days, which was surprising because he was known as someone that went out of his way to work as little as possible. However, this year he made the grand decision to go travel the world to rediscover himself and find the meaning of life. So for that he started attending cooking and survival classes (Soobin highly doubted that Kai would ever visit a country in which he didn’t have immediate access to food and the internet, but oh well won’t hurt him to learn how to cook or how to turn your pee into drinking water, right?) and obviously worked any job he could find to save up money for his traveling expenses. Soobin did encourage him on fulfilling his dream and he was proud to see his friend work so hard for it, but it was also really lonely to spend every day without him. Every other day Soobin would visit him in the evening, when both of their shifts had ended, but Kai usually fell asleep after an hour or two, too exhausted to entertain his friend.
Now Soobin spent a lot of time roaming through parks, feeding stray cats and checking his mails for any job offers. “Thank you so much for your application. We really appreciate you taking interest in us and applying for a job. But…” Soobin let his shoulders fall hopelessly. They always make it sound so promising in the beginning only to hit you with the sad truth. “I don’t know why you’re stressing out so much. You can stay here for a while. You can live with us until you’re 50 if you want to.” His mom gave him a happy smile.
“The goal is actually to absolutely prevent that from happening.”
Soobin let out a little laugh. He really loved his family and he appreciated the amount of support his parents gave him, but he did feel like he was relying on them too much. All his life he was carried through any hardships and troubles by his parents, it was time to finally face the real world and start working on paying them back for all the hard work. “By the way sweetie, there is this really important looking letter that came for you in the mail. I put it on the kitchen table, you should probably open it.” Soobin shot up from his bed. That might be a job offer, finally some good news.
Dear Mr Choi Soobin,
We are so sorry for the loss of your grandmother, Mrs Choi Jangmi.
We’re writing you to inform you that you have inherited a Chevy Sportscoach RV.
Please call us as soon as possible for further details.
…Huh? What? Who? This must be a mistake.
“Oh my god, dude, that’s so cool?!” Kai shot up from his bed, eyes opened wide. “Imagine living in an RV that sounds like the best life ever.” Soobin bit his lip. “I don’t know… I feel like I’m getting scammed. I’ve never seen my grandma to be honest I don’t know why she would inherit something expensive like this to me.” Kai crossed his arms. “How would you get scammed? They just want you to come pick it up, right? You don’t have to pay anything. Really, aren’t there only advantages? If you don’t want it, you can just sell the thing. You know what?” Kai began to beam. “Maybe you could travel together with me in the first week or so, I do plan on visiting all the hotspots in Korea first. We could do that together and then I get on the plane to Japan and you can either continue traveling through Korea or you just drive home. Also, didn’t you want to move out anyways? Why not try living in the RV for a few months? It’s summer, so the temperature should be fine.” Soobin took a long look at his friend. Damn he was good at changing his mind. “Alright, I’ll at least go look at the damn thing. I probably can refuse if it feels fishy, right?”
It was a sunny Monday afternoon. Soobin dug his shoes into the gravel and nervously played with the letter he held in his hand. The sun was blinding him and he had to squint to be able to inspect the large campsite in front of him. He really should have taken Kai with him, he thought as he suddenly started to feel a wave of nervousness crash over him. He wasn’t good with opening up to new people already, but meeting someone he had never seen before suddenly felt really unsafe and like a dumb idea. But here he was, leaning his weight from one foot to the other, eyes shifting from left to right, waiting for someone to talk to him first.
A loud bang made Soobin flinch and take a step back. The small, blue trailer to the left side of the campsite opened and an old, heavy man walked out. With big, loud steps he walked towards Soobin, who was just about to turn and run for it. The man huffed, Soobin noticed he was limping, his anxiety dissolved as he saw the friendly grin on the man’s face. “Hello, are you possibly Choi…”
“Choi Soobin, yeah that’s me.” Soobin bowed politely and smiled back. “The name’s Park Junghoon. Well, let’s get straight to the case.” He fumbled in his left rear pocket, taking out a fresh handkerchief, some paperclips and finally a big key. “There you go.” He carefully placed the key in Soobins hands and gestured for him to follow.
And there it was.
A huge 1972 Chevy Sportscoach RV, white with a thick green line across it. It was bulky and oddly shaped in the front, the white paint starting to look yellow, chipping off at the corners, the doorknob rusty and cold. “Well, why don’t you take a look inside? I’m gonna go fetch some documents, I’ll be right back.”
The RV smelt slightly musty. Clearly no one had been living in it for years, maybe centuries. The carpet that was spread out inside probably used be white or maybe beige, but now it was completely grey, covered in coffee stains and years’ worth of dust. Somehow it had its’ charm. There was a small kitchen counter with a stove, a sink and even an oven to the left side. On the right side, there was a bathroom with a shower and a toilet. In the back of the van was an old twin-sized bed. “I guess I could work with this.” Soobin whispered and let his fingertips trace the patterns of the wallpaper. He started checking the cabins and found expensive looking dishes, old canned food, a map of Jeju-do, some romance novels and an old brooch.
His heart became heavy. It felt like he discovered a part of his family’s history that was missing for years. He felt the memories and adventures this RV had gone through.
The late nights in which Choi Jangmi would lay in bed and lazily flip through a magazine or a book, while her radio would play popular songs. The people she would take with her on her journeys, the people she found or lost along the way. The days she would sit outside and watch the sun set. The stormy days she would cuddle up in bed and bury her head under the covers, just like he usually did. He began to smile. It really felt like he arrived somewhere he truly belonged.
“Hm, are you included in this thing? Man, this just keeps getting better. A nice new car and a nice new man.” A chipper voice shook him out of his daydream. A tall man with a mullet stood in the door, one hand on his hip, the other leaning against the doorframe. Sharp eyes looked Soobin up and down, a smug smile on the man’s lips. He wore a long leopard coat, a black shirt and leather pants. He raised an eyebrow as Soobin stared at him, mouth hanging wide open. “Sorry?” Soobin came out of his trance.
“Did you consider buying this car? Sorry, it’s mine now.”
The man swayed the keys in front of Soobins face, put his hands in his pocket and strutted towards him. “Yup, good, old grandmother died and left it for me. Great right?”
“There must be some mistake.” Soobin shook his head, showed his own key and stood his ground. He wouldn’t let himself be intimidated by this guy. Sure, he was tall and really handsome, but Soobin was even taller and he had always been confident in his looks. “I actually inherited this. I opened it with this key. You must have confused this with another RV.”
“Nope.” The man shook his head, put the key in the ignition hole and started the motor, only to shut it off immediately after, satisfied with his demonstration. “This is the right one.”
“Ah, you met already?” Mr Park called out to them. “So, here’s where the uh… thing starts.” He started scratching the back of his head and looked somewhat embarrassed, avoiding their eyes. “Both of you have the family name Choi, right? And you both have a grandma called Choi Jangmi, right? Well, the thing is… I don’t actually know which one it belonged to. I know that she had a grandson and that he should be in his early 20s right now. She bought this from my dad and to be honest with you, the deal was kind of under the table, you know? Apparently they were friends or something and this car officially still belonged to my dad, so I don’t have an official record of which Choi Jangmi this actually belonged to. It didn’t feel right to keep it to myself since she did pay for it. So, I did my research and came to the conclusion it could be either one of you, since both of your grandmas spent their younger days in this era. Which one of you had a grandma that used to live in an RV?”
Silence.
Soobin sighed, this was all way too good to be true anyways. “I’m just gonna be honest. I didn’t know my grandma at all. I don’t really have any way of proving if she ever owned this thing or not.”
The man next to him furrowed his eyebrows. “Since you’re being honest, I guess I’ll be as well. I last saw my grandma when I was 8. I lived in the U.S. for most of my teenage years and when we returned to Korea, she was already dead. So, basically I don’t know for sure either.”
“Your parents would know though, right?” Soobin exchanged a glance with the young man, who had lowered his head and was staring at his pointy shoes. For some reason, he looked really nervous and uncomfortable. “Yeah, I guess.” he mumbled, playing with a strand of hair. “Mine wouldn’t know. We should talk with your parents, then we’ll know for sure.” His voice was clear and confident. For some reason, even though he really wanted the car for himself, he also wanted to make the man less anxious. “I can’t today, though. Can we do this some other time?” The old man shrugged his shoulders. “At this point you should handle this between you two. You both have my number, so call me when anything major happens.”
The two were left alone, still standing in the car opposite from each other. “My name is Choi Soobin by the way.” Soobin tried to clear the thick air between them. “I’m Yeonjun. Choi Yeonjun obviously.” He finally lifted his head to meet Soobins gaze again. “So when will you be able to meet your parents? Are they on vacation right now?” Yeonjun looked away again, pausing for a few seconds. “Are you sure your parents wouldn’t know?” He dodged the question. Soobin nodded “They really wouldn’t know, sorry.”
“I could talk to them tomorrow, if that’s OK?” Yeonjun sat on the bed and checked his phone. “Yeah, that’s fine. What will we do with the RV in the meantime?” Yeonjun looked up at Soobin. “To be honest, I don’t trust you enough to just leave this car here, knowing you have a key and could disappear with it whenever you wanted to.” Soobin gasped for air. “Do I look like a person that would do that? Now that you mention it, I guess you could potentially do that as well?” Yeonjun let out a chuckle. “Oh no, I told you my secret plan.” It was supposed to sound like a joke but the way Yeonjun glanced to the side and awkwardly laughed made Soobin think that that was probably what he had planned on doing. Soobin sat down on the bed beside Yeonjun forcefully, shoving him to the side a little. “Well, this space is big enough for the both of us, right? We could both stay in here for the night, that way nobody has the opportunity to suddenly drive away with it.” He smiled innocently and patted Yeonjun’s shoulder.
They agreed on driving to Soobins place to get some fresh bed sheets and blankets, vacuum and get rid of the dust a bit. His Mom stood wide eyed as Soobin and his pink haired new ‘friend’ rummaged through her basement for some camping chairs and a small table. “You boys want some snacks? Should I pack todays’ dinner in some Tupperware for you to eat?” “No, that’s fine.” Soobin said, only to receive a smack by Yeonjun. “That would be lovely.”
“You two are already this close? That’s sweet maybe you two should share the car.” Yeonjun and Soobins Mom laughed, Yeonjun not really sounding all that sincere while doing it.
They decided to park on a hill with a nice view over Seoul to make the best out of this uncomfortable situation. Soobin let Yeonjun drive since he wasn’t really the greatest driver out there and the big, old massive thing combined with the busy traffic of the city scared him, to be honest, but he didn’t tell Yeonjun that, he didn’t want to fuel his ego.
As the night came and the sun started to disappear, the two sat in the camping chairs they brought, quietly munching on their dinner, almost looking like old friends.
“Wanna play 20 questions?” Yeonjun asked before shoving a huge bite of Tteobokki in his mouth. “How old are you, twelve?”
“I guess that was your first question then.” He wiped his cheeks. “I’m actually 21. How old are you?”
“So we’re really doing this? I’m 20.” Soobin bit his lips, slightly embarrassed by how disrespectful he had talked to Yeonjun, unaware that he was his elder. “Yeah we are really doing this! Wow, you’re really wasting your questions here, you know. Do you have siblings?” Yeonjun opened a bottle of Soju.
“Yeah. Two older brothers and one older sister. And you?” Soobin slid his glass over the table, quietly asking for a shot as well.
“Nope, I’m an only child. Why don’t you and your family know your grandmother, like at all?” Ah, here we go, Soobin thought and snorted. After staying quiet for a while Yeonjun asked again. “Did you guys fight or something? Did your parents run away from home and decided to never look back?” Soobin took a shot of Soju, then another one and another one. He sighed heavily and placed his glass down.
“I was adopted.” He looked at Yeonjun for a reaction, but he seemed to be completely unbothered and not surprised at all. “Makes sense, you have a completely different nose and your mom is really tiny.”
Soobin looked up at the stars while Yeonjun swatted away some mosquitos that started to gather around his food. “My biological mom was really young when she got pregnant with me, like fifteen or sixteen, just like my dad, who decided it would be better to flee to Europe or something instead of taking responsibility. Well sadly my mom didn’t survive childbirth. To say the least her parents couldn’t look at me without thinking of their deceased daughter and I guess they began developing a grudge on me, because I resembled my dad a lot, they were really angry at both of us, like it was our fault. So now here I am, they cut all ties to me, I met my real Mom and Dad when I was three and I’ve been nothing but happy ever since.”
Soobin ended his story with a warm smile. Yeonjun nodded thoughtfully, processing what he had been told. Soobin waited a little, enjoying the silence he was used to getting after telling his story, before playfully asking “What? You feel bad now? In that case you can just leave the car in my care.” Yeonjun cocked an eyebrow. “Nope, it was your turn to ask a question, I was waiting until you noticed, smart ass.”
Yeonjun shifted around for the nth time in 10 minutes. Soobin let out an annoyed sigh. “Sorry.” The two men laid back pressed against each other on the small mattress, the rusty bed frame creaking at every small movement. “It’s just… Isn’t this kind of scary?” Yeonjun lifted his head and tried to peek over his shoulder. “What is?”
“I mean, who knows who has been in this thing before us, right? How many people died in here?” “I think people very rarely die in RV’s, unless they’re in a crash and this one obviously hasn’t been in one yet.”
Yeonjun hummed. “’Rarely’, so not never, right? You don’t sound very convincing. Think about how many people might have had sex in here with one of our grandmas. They might have died after THAT.” He took a sharp breath. “Well, I guess they would have been young then, but I can only imagine it being a grandma to be honest.”
“Please stop thinking about grandma-sex while lying next to me.” Soobin deadpanned. “I have to keep myself awake somehow and that topic is really doing the job.” “Why not just sleep?” This time Soobin tried to peek over his shoulder. Yeonjun scoffed. “Who knows what you could do to my beautiful body if I let my guard down.”
“Not interested, thanks.”
“Well that’s a little harsh.” Yeonjun sat up in the bed and shook Soobins shoulders forcefully. “Do you normally disrespect your hyungs like that?” Soobin sat up as well. “I was trying to make sure you don’t feel scared around me. You honestly take anything I say as an attack.” Yeonjun slipped his feet over the frame, ducked to the ground, opened the little cool bag they found in Soobins basement and took out a bag of chips and an unopened bottle of soju. Soobin cleared his throat. “What? You want some as well?” Soobin thought that this might be the only thing that could rid him of this uneasiness he felt, so he nodded hesitantly.
Soobin couldn’t control his laughter anymore. Yeonjun was propping himself against the kitchen counter while telling his story about how Pitbull aka Mr Worldwide sent him an E-Mail because he wanted him as a feature on a track for the 5th time. “That definitely wasn’t the real Pitbull. And why would he write to you with his personal E-Mail? His agency would have contacted you.” “You wouldn’t understand! He and I go way back.” Yeonjun slurred. “I first met him at a Walmart in 2013 and we took a selfie and he obviously just never forgot about me. He wrote to me multiple times but I was too shy to answer, you know?”
“Wait so was this on the same day you met the whole cast of The Walking Dead, or was this on another day?” Soobin teased.
“You don’t believe me? Ugh, you’ve never been to America you don’t know what it’s like.” Yeonjun dismissively shook his finger in Soobins direction. Swaying back and forth Yeonjun started listing all the A-List celebrities that tried to get him to come to their party, told of the times he ran away from the police, the time he found a stash of coke in a public toilet, the time he diffused a bomb. As the stories began getting wilder and his words more incomprehensible Soobin stopped paying too much attention and just laughed at the way he struggled with pronouncing complicated words. Yeonjun hiccupped and started resting his head against a cupboard, slowly becoming quiet. Soobin watched him cool his red, hot cheeks against the cold wood. The moonlight illuminated Yeonjun’s soft figure. Only now Soobin could see the long, muscular legs and the slender, almost tiny waist that were hidden by the long coat before.
Yeonjun had his eyes pressed together, clearly dizzy, mindlessly nibbling on his bottom lip while grumbling something. His long fingers combed through his hair as he threw his head back, opening a small window and taking a big breath of fresh air. He truly looked ethereal at that moment, like he was sent from another planet to give him a message or a mission of some kind, Soobin thought. He noticed it when he saw the older man for the first time, but now he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He felt incredibly attracted to Choi Yeonjun and he couldn’t do anything about it. While stroking some pink strands out of his face Yeonjun made eye contact with Soobin, who quickly averted his eyes. “See? I told you I have to be careful around you.” Yeonjun whispered and let out a low chuckle. “What are you talking about? You’re the one that has been undressing me with his eyes the whole day.” Is what Soobin wanted to say, but he was scared of what would happen if he did, so he just bit his tongue and took another shot of soju.
Soobin felt a light sting in his head as the sun woke him up the next day. The alcohol from the night before left a bitter taste on his tongue. He groaned, sat up from the bed and let out a surprised yap as he saw Yeonjun curled up on the floor, a pillow pressed against his chest. “Did seriously sleep on the floor? Were you that scared of me?” Soobin yelled and nudged Yeonjun with his foot.
“No, I just tried getting up a few minutes ago, but fell back asleep.” Soobin touched the space next to him on the bed; it was warm and the sheets were wrinkled, confirming Yeonjun’s claims. “You should get up, you’ll catch a cold. We have to go to your parents in a few hours. I’ll make some coffee.”
Yeonjun pinched his nose bridge. “Oh yeah, that.” It didn’t feel like they were together to carry out serious business, but now the reality finally dawned on them again. Yeonjun straightened up, excused himself to the toilet to get changed, seemingly wanting to re-establish a more serious atmosphere. Soobin threw on a sweater and his jeans and waited patiently. That’s right, they weren’t friends and after the conversation with Yeonjun’s parents they would finally know who truly owned this car and then after that they would part ways, probably forever. Weirdly, Soobin felt sad about that, even though he barely knew the guy.