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“Don't you think it looks a bit dull in here?” Keonhee says out loud to the entire office.
The typing stops and some heads turn. Keonhee is waiting for the obvious yes to resound in the room but there’s only silence.
“It could use a little décor.” Youngjo says softly, his desk is right next to Keonhee’s.
“Right?”
It could use a lot of décor. There’s literally nothing on the walls, the paint is grey and even darker grey. It’s old and chipping away in some parts, especially by the door. There’s only an electrical box mounted on the wall and a standing air conditioner in the corner.
At the very least, it’s a well-lit room. There’s direct sunlight from two huge windows on opposite walls but the curtains, they aren’t even curtains. Just white sheets put over to diffuse the light.
“We could use some flowers in here.” Keonhee suggests. Half thinking out loud and half asking for Youngjo’s opinion.
“I know where we can get flowers!” Dongju suddenly pipes up. He’s on the other side of Youngjo at the other end of the room. “Really nice ones too!”
“Is that so?” Keonhee replies unconvinced.
“Yeah! I can bring some in tomorrow!” Dongju seems so excited about them but Keonhee has his doubts.
He’s never quite seen Dongju as someone who would understand the finer things or at least not yet. He’s the youngest in their team and has always had what Keonhee believes is somewhat immature tastes.
Since day one, people have always commented how much they look alike. How they look like brothers, how they have similar actions and whenever they say or do things at the same time people call them twins. Except that Dongju actually has a twin who works in a different department.
Aside from their looks and sometimes their mannerisms, they’re nothing alike. They don’t like the same music or food or fashion. And they’re constantly trying to give spoilers for the latest drama shows their watching. It had gotten so heated that they’re keeping the title of the shows a secret so no one knows what the other is watching.
But in this case, when it comes to flowers, Keonhee is confident that his tastes and knowledge about them is far superior and Dongju’s idea of “bringing some in tomorrow” is plucking them from his mum’s garden and putting them in an empty glass bottle that used to hold ketchup.
“That’s ok, Dongju, I’ll handle the flowers.” Keonhee doesn’t hide the condescension in this voice.
“Oh?” Dongju’s voice rises sharply. “You think you know more about flowers that me?” And loudly.
The room is silent again.
Hwanwoong peers from behind his monitor to take a look at Dongju and then Keonhee.
No one is smiling. They’re having a stand-off. Still sitting down but their eyes are telling a very different story.
Youngjo, aware that he’s caught in the cross fire, acts fast before anything happens.
“Calm down, you guys.” He says with his arms outstretched, palms facing both of them as if he could stop them from pouncing at each other. “Why don’t you both bring something tomorrow? I mean we could use as much décor as possible in here. In fact, everybody bring something!” His voice getting louder as if no one was paying attention to the fight that was about to happen. “Something bright to liven up the place.”
He looked at the both of them. Keonhee turned his head sharply with an audible hmmph and Dongju narrowed his eyes and slowly looked away.
***
Keonhee looks at the time on his phone.
If he wants to get to the flower shop before it closes, he would have to go straight away in the opposite direction of this home. And he would have to skip his favourite fried chicken place because that closes soon as well.
But he’s determined to show Dongju that he knows best and that he’s going to walk in tomorrow with the best-looking bouquet of the best selection of flowers known to man, not that Dongju would even know what they are.
There’s a little cart just by the train station on the east side of town that has the best selection you could ever want. Whatever was in season was there and whatever was out of season, the owner could find look-alikes and make it work.
The shop has never failed him once.
Keonhee steps off the escalator at the station and rushes to the exit. He isn’t late but he’s never too sure when the shop closes.
It’s run by a lovely older couple, but he’s mostly seen the wife. Auntie, as he calls her, is usually fussing with an arrangement whenever he greets her. She would always comment on how tall he’s grown (even though he hasn’t really) and would always ask the occasion for the flowers. And it was always if they were for a “special someone”. So far it’s been his sisters’ graduations and his friends’ birthdays, but maybe one day.
He looks into the distance as he exits the station and he sees the cart. The flowers are still on display on and around it. There’s a huge array of flowers in buckets and pots that Keonhee has always wondered where they stored them all. Surely it didn’t all fit in the cart.
He slows his pace but as he gets closer, he realises there’s no sign of the uncle or auntie running the shop. He figures they must be somewhere nearby.
As he reaches the cart, he can hear someone rustling on the other side making arrangements on the cart, he’s about to ask for some assistance but then he thinks no, this is a competition! This is about MY taste and MY skills.
He looks at the flowers around him.
Okay. I can do this.
He nods to himself and walks around picking up stalks that catch his eye.
The theme is ‘bright’ so he heads for the bright yellow chrysanthemums. Then some marigolds that seem to match. He goes for some white as a contrast. He stops to think what kind of baby’s breath he should get. This shop has them in many colours and they’re a nice way to fill an arrangement. He opts for the yellow and heads to the cart.
He’s quite pleased with his choices, in fact he reckons the auntie might be pleased with his choices too. He smiles to himself as he walks up to the person at the cart and looks up.
It’s not the flower shop auntie.
Or the uncle.
Or literally anyone else.
Right there, with a bouquet of colourful roses in his hands, is Son Dongju.
Not just a bouquet but also a single stalk of a yellow rose, as if he’d been arranging them.
And it dawned upon Keonhee that there was no one else there.
Keonhee turned his head at the realisation that everything is about to go wrong.
Dongju is staring at him and he dares not look.
“So. You come to MY shop?” Dongju takes a step closer. “To buy MY flowers?” He takes another step. “To tell me you know MORE about flowers?”
Keonhee, 5’ 11” and obviously taller than Dongju, suddenly feels very, very small.
He tries to take a step aside as Dongju was crowding on him, but Dongju snatches his flowers from him and smashes them onto the lid of a nearby bucket.
“What. the. hell?”
In a rage, Keonhee picks up the nearest stalks and smacks them onto the crate next to him.
Fuming, Dongju throws Keonhee’s flowers right at him.
And he loses it.
He picks up the roses from the cart and throws them to the ground.
Dongju responds by throwing more roses directly at Keonhee until he just throws the whole pot.
Keonhee catches it by reflex and flings it into the air.
They glare at each other. Sweating and somehow out of breath.
“Look at the mess you made!” Dongju shouts.
“Mess I made? I made?” Keonhee’s eyes widens. His voice getting higher and higher. “I did not start throwing things around!”
“Oh you know very well when this started!” Dongju’s face hardens. “Mr. ‘I-know-more-than-you-in-everything’”
“Well, I do.” Keonhee feels like an idiot with each passing second.
Dongju makes a frustrated shriek and hurls another pot at his feet.
“If you’re not going to buy anything, get out!”
Keonhee could answer that but he’s not going too.
He turns, ready to head back to the station and forget about the flowers, but he sees a whole mess of them on the ground. Ruined.
He was a part of that. He didn’t have to throw any of them on the ground but he did.
He turns back and Dongju is already crouched over picking them up.
He takes an entire handful and meets Dongju in the eye.
“I’m sorry. This was all my fault.”
“It sure was.” Dongju tosses the ruined flowers in nearby bucket.
“I’ll pay for everything.”
Dongju huffs. “Do you have any idea how much all costs?”
“I do.” Says a voice from the cart.
They turn to see Dongmyeong, bubble tea in hand and a bit of an obnoxious smile on his face.
“Someone’s in trouble.” He takes sip and looks at the person who is not Keonhee.
Before Dongju can say anything, Keonhee steps between them and bows so low and so much that he looks like a toothpick bird.
“No, this was my fault. Entirely. Please send me the bill. For everything.”
“Sure.” Dongmyeong says casually. “But Son Dongju is not entirely off the hook.”
Dongju frowns at his smiling brother. Dongmyeong is right, of course, and Dongju hates when that happens.
“How- how bad is it? What do I tell mum and dad?”
Dongmyeong takes a deep breath. He pulls out his phone and starts searching his contact list.
“Lucky for you, there’s still time to order a shipment for tomorrow morning.” He looks up at the both of them. “You two can pay… in instalments.” He lifts the phone to his ear and makes the call.
“In- instalments?” Keonhee whispers to Dongju as Dongmyeong steps away from them.
Dongju shrugs. He has an estimated idea of the damage and it is quite the price. But nowhere near the price Dongmyeong will ask of him for saving his ass.
While waiting for Dongmyeong to finish his call, Dongju starts picking up the remnants of bouquets on the ground. Keonhee helps.
“I’m sorry about all of this.” Keonhee says while he picks up the smashed roses on the ground.
“Me too. I mean it was me. I was the one who started throwing things.” Dongju finally admits to it.
“I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.” Keonhee replies, placing the roses in the bucket.
“Same.” Dongju says as he solemnly picks up stray petals.
They continue cleaning up in silence and as soon as Dongmyeong is done with his call Dongju goes up to him, they talk so softly that Keonhee can’t hear a thing.
“Hmm maybe…” Dongmyeong finally says. He picks up a plastic white pot from the ground, wipes it with a cloth and places it on the cart. He produces a pair of shears from a hidden drawer and starts pointing at the buckets full of the ruined flowers and Dongju starts pulling some out one by one.
Keonhee watches Dongmyeong snip off stems and leaves and petals and start stuffing the flowers into the pots quite tightly. They’re packed so close together that it’s hardly noticeable that some flowers are missing a few petals and some flowers are actually two squished into one.
The arrangement becomes a mesh of colours that don’t look half bad.
The twins step away from the bouquet, tilt their head left then right, and nod to each other.
They start making another one and soon they have a small array of perfectly passable bouquets.
“Tell me again why you guys are holding office jobs?” Keonhee asks.
“We eat, sleep and breathe flowers.” Dongmyeong says.
“It’s nice to do something different for a change.” Dongju follows.
It’s already dark and Keonhee offers to buy them dinner but they refuse since their mum has probably already prepared something for them and it’s even more suspicious if they get home later than usual. The twins do however make him come by and pick up the bouquets early next morning.
***
The bouquets really liven up the office and everyone notices.
Keonhee gives full credit to Dongju but Dongju said Keonhee helped… a bit.
“They won’t last forever though.” Dongju says. “We’ll probably have to get some fake ones.”
“We can go shopping for some. I know a place.” Keonhee offers. “We also need to find something for the walls too.”
“Not to worry!” Seoho suddenly says excitedly. “I have just the thing!”
Out of under his desk, he produces a framed picture, quite large in fact that everyone looked at each other with the same thought. How did he even fit that under there?
He walks up to the wall and to the only painted-over nail that had been there since they moved into the office.
He hangs it up and steps back proudly.
Keonhee and Dongju look at each other in horror.
“Is that? Is that the meme frog?” Hwanwoong asks warily.
“Yes! It’s Pepe!” Seoho poses in front of the picture.
“It’s hideous!” Dongju mouths the words to Keonhee.
“We have to get rid of it!” Keonhee replies soundlessly.
Youngjo, in the middle of them, looks to either side and whispers “It’s not that bad.”
But to no avail. Keonhee and Dongju have matching expressions of disgust.
That picture is not going to be up there for long as long as they’re in charge of office décor.