Chapter Text
Another early morning dealing with impatient customers, the majority of whom were apparently physically incapable of being polite or acknowledging him with more than their order. He had gotten used to it pretty quickly in his first week after none of his greetings were reciprocated, but it was still annoying to have to put on a fake smile to greet customers.
If the past 3 months of working the morning shift at a cafe had taught him anything it was that people could be such assholes without their fix of morning coffee. He had had quite a few demanding and rude customers, but luckily, most of them just wanted to get their coffee and get out without giving their barista a second thought. While this was the case for most people there were always the difficult customers.
Somehow they would always find something to complain about. It could be the time it took to make their overly complicated latte that was barely even coffee at that point. It could be that their coffee was too cold, even though they left it on the counter for too long before getting it. Surprisingly enough, there were even customers who complained about their coffee being too hot.
If he had a dime for every rude customer that made him think of quitting, he’d be rich enough to compete with some of those popular Newtubers. Despite hating having to get up so early and having to deal with rude customers, it wasn’t like he could just stop working because he didn’t feel like it. He had bills to pay, food to buy, and other expenses to deal with.
Hobin yawned and looked up at the clock, he still had two hours left to go. Audibly sighing, he finished the latte he was making and went to greet the next customer. Although the morning rush had ended it and it was the slowest part of the day, it somehow always felt like the longest.
He liked to categorize his shift into different sections. First off there was the part where he was tired but would gradually wake up after opening the cafe, catching up with his coworker, Jiksae about whatever had happened after their shared shift had ended, and dealing with all those customers.
Then there was the middle part where everything slowed down, leaving him to feel bored from the lack of things to do and tired after the lack of things to do made him realize just how tired he was. Conversation with Jiksae also slowed down as the things to talk about decreased, leaving them in comfortable yet boring silence. It was like the middle of a dull class period after you've finished all your work and just have to sit there twiddling your thumbs until the bell rings.
Finally, there was the last part where they saw even fewer customers and Hobin busied himself with cleaning the store, even if it was already clean enough, and glancing at the clock at least once every 5 minutes. It was the nicest part of his shift, his energy would slowly return to him and the conversation with Jiksae would pick back up again. When his shift was finally over he would rush to the backroom, quickly take off his apron, and practically skip out of those glass doors. It was the one time when the bell on the door actually sounded pleasant.
Sadly it wasn’t that final period yet and here he was, replaying a song in his head that he could only remember the chorus to. It wasn’t a good song and even without replaying it in his head the part he could remember was quite repetitive. He’d been trying to figure out what came after that for the last five minutes. Sure it could be solved with a quick google search or simply asking Jiksae about the song, but then he’d be back to thinking about nothing. This bad song that sounded even worse the more he thought about it was still better than having that uncomfortable feeling of emptiness in his head until he found some other stupid thing to focus on.
He heard that distinct ding of the bell indicating a customer had entered and quickly walked over, just barely being beaten by Jiksae who welcomed the customer with a fake smile and some kind of generic greeting, but Hobin had stopped paying attention at that point. Of course, Jiksae was just as bored as him, they had almost nothing to do after the morning rush.
With another yawn followed by a sigh, he went back to that god-awful chorus. The song probably slowed down a bit after the chorus, so maybe the same tune just slowed down? It could have also-
Hobin was pulled out of his thoughts with the ding of the bell. At long last, he had something to do. Jiksae was busy with that other customer’s order, so he’d get this one to himself. He was always shocked when he heard himself so eager to make coffee, it never-
“Medium black coffee,” the customer said before he could speak.
It only took a few seconds for Hobin to register the voice as that one regular customer who somehow managed to make the middle section of his shift worse. He wasn’t sure of the guy’s name and didn’t care enough to ask, and thus the nickname “Mullet” was created. Now Hobin was used to rude customers, some of whom happened to stop by multiple times a week, but this guy just rubbed him the wrong way. He always seemed to be annoyed by one thing or another and didn’t bother hiding it.
Rather than just being a jerk because of how early it was, the fact that he was just a coffee shop employee, which some people seemed to think that made it okay to talk down to him, or whatever other normal reasons for being an awful human, Mullet made his assholeyness feel personal.
The first time he encountered Mullet, throughout the entire process of ordering, brewing the coffee, and handing it over, he could feel Mullet’s burning gaze on him. He had just started and thought he might have been doing something wrong, so he asked Mullet if he had messed up somehow or if he wanted something done in a specific way. The worst thing he had been expecting was to find out he had completely messed up his order or to have something embarrassing happen, like being told how awful an employee he was and everything was wrong, but Mullet’s reply was completely unexpected.
In response to Hobin’s question, he paused for a moment before answering with a question of his own. He asked Hobin why his face looked like that. When Hobin stopped to try to process what he had just been asked, Mullet quickly elaborated and asked if it was possible to be that ugly.
Hobin wasn’t particularly good-looking or especially ugly, really he was quite average. He was plain to the point of people forgetting him even after having met him several times before. In other words, putting aside high school bullies, he would never expect to be straight up insulted like that, much less by someone he had met less than two minutes ago.
What really didn’t help was Jiksae overhearing Mullet’s unbelievably direct insult, and not even bothering to try and hide his laughter. Before he had a chance to ask what he meant, come up with a way to insult the guy back, or even fully process what had happened, Mullet grabbed his coffee and walked out of the store like insulting random people was something he did on a daily basis. Hobin wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
After that, all the encounters he had with Mullet would somehow manage to make that middle part of his shift even worse, which was quite the inconvenience considering Mullet made a point of coming several times a week, always on his shift.
Hobin gave a grunt of acknowledgement and began to make his usual order. He often thought about messing with Mullet’s order, maybe add an ice cube which would melt fairly quickly, make his coffee cooler, and leave no evidence, or maybe adding in a bunch of those flavored syrups and watch his face contort after drinking it, but alas, he valued his job and didn’t want to be fired over his pettiness.
The most he could do was leave off the sleeve on the cup. It would be petty and meaningless, but the thought of Mullet juggling the coffee between his hands to avoid getting burnt made him internally giggle.
He slid the sleeveless hot coffee over the counter, hoping Mullet wouldn’t notice, pick it up, and get far enough to be too embarrassed to ask for a sleeve.
While handing Hobin a bill, Mullet reached over the counter with his other hand and grabbed a sleeve for his cup. Damn, almost got him.
“Great customer service you got here,” Mullet sarcastically muttered while putting it onto his cup of coffee.
“Great hair you’ve got there, you’d be perfect for an 80s delinquent movie,” he muttered back, immediately regretting it. For starters, it really wasn’t a good insult, Mullet was probably too used to being teased about his hair, it was just the best thing he could come up with on the spot. Second off, engaging with Mullet was never a good plan, the only thing that came out of it was being insulted more, then being laughed at by Jiksae afterward.
Hobin internally grimaced as Mullet let out a hum, though some of it still probably showed on his face.
“Yeah,” Mullet began, setting down his coffee and running a hand through his hair with a calm expression, which was somehow worse than if he were to wear a smug grin. “a lot of girls tell me I look like a movie star.”
Yep, just as he predicted, though he wasn’t being directly insulted, he still felt a sense of defeat, especially since it was most likely true. Goddamn pretty boys. Oh, and there the other thing was, he heard Jiksae fail to stifle a bark of laughter. Hobin looked away and started incoherently mumbling.
Sensing Hobin’s feelings of loss, not that it was hard, the corners of Mullet’s mouth began to twitch upwards before he took a victory sip of coffee. He turned around and walked for the door, all the while Hobin kept trying to think of something clever and witty to say back to him. Ding, the bell rang and Mullet was gone.
No longer being able to contain himself, Jiksae let himself laugh, at Hobins failed insult, at Mullet’s comeback, and best of all, at Hobin's defeat.
“Jesus Christ,” Jiksae got out between the last of a few chuckles as he pulled himself back together. “You treat him like he just kicked your puppy”
“It’s not my fault he’s a prick,” now finally getting over his interaction, Hobin let his annoyance to the surface. “If he hates me that much he can just go to a different coffee place, it’s not like this is the only one in town.”
“Maybe he just thinks your reactions are funny, I certainly do,” Hobin shot him a glare before continuing on with his rant.
“Why’s he hate me anyway? It's not like I did anything to him. I wonder what I did in my past lives to deserve this,” Hobin said overdramatically. His interaction with his least favorite customer had been particularly bad, he was allowed to be a little dramatic.
“Now I could be wrong here,” Jiksae began. Hobin already regretted talking to him about this. “But I recall him saying it was… ah what did he say it was again?” Jiksae paused again, pretending to try hard to remember. “Oh yeah, your face repulsed him so much he couldn’t bear it!”
Hobin elbowed Jiksae, not that hard, just enough for him to shut up.
“Ow, relax a little” Jiksae pressed his hands on his wounded side.
“I’m being serious here. Why does he hate me? Even if he was just having a bad day the first time, no need to keep being such an asshole!”
“He barely even says anything, you just get worked up on your own then he shuts you down and you pout then complain to me”
“I don’t get worked up on my own, it’s just his… entire existence ruins my day”
“Yeah yeah, he’s an awful demon and you’re a perfectly innocent angel, blah blah”
“Hey-”
They could have kept their back and forth going like that to the end of their shift, but they were cut short by the bell on the door as the next person entered.
From then on the day went by as slowly as usual, Hobin came up with random things to entertain himself, Jiksae took some naps at a table, the day dragged on until it was finally time to go home.
Practically sprinting to the back room, he took off his apron as fast as humanly possible. It wasn’t like he had anything to do after work besides sit at home and do whatever he found entertaining, but it was still something to look forward to.
He didn’t feel like waiting around to say his goodbyes to Jiksae before he headed off to class. His daily Mullet interaction combined with his usual boring work duties had left him completely drained, just wanting to get home so he could flop down on his bed, watch some TV, maybe cook a meal if he was still in the mood to once he got to his apartment.
Leaving the store he heard the wonderful ring of that bell. The walk from there always felt simultaneously both draining and refreshing. On one hand, having to exercise and hear the loud noises of people going about their daily business was tiring. It was impossible to find comfort in the sounds of traffic, yelling, and whatever else was going on, yet the idea of going back to his own space was refreshing.
Knowing that this was the last step on his journey to somewhere quiet (minus the occasional street noise) where he could be completely alone made the walk feel worth it. To him it was the way the last question on a test felt, difficult and tiresome, yet restoring knowing it was the last step to being completely done with it.
Continuing on his walk, he passed an alleyway he always did, before something caught his eye. It was a crumpled-up colorful paper sitting on top of a dumpster lid like someone had wanted to get rid of it, but it wasn’t worth the effort to actually dispose of so they just tossed it there.
There was nothing particularly odd about it, just a paper on a dumpster lid, yet he couldn't walk away. It was pretty normal for him to start feeling revitalized on his walk and for his brain to start working again, but really, it decided to focus on some random paper.
Now that he had wasted so much time looking at it and just thinking about it, he knew if he didn’t look it would keep bothering him for the next hour minimum. Not wanting to spend any more time thinking about something so insignificant, he grabbed it off the lid just to get it off his mind. His brain could be such a pain sometimes.
Slowly uncrumpling it so as not to rip it, he could confirm it was indeed colorful, so colorful it was hard to look at. To be quite frank, it was the ugliest flyer he had seen in a while, and he had handed out some pretty ugly flyers from the various jobs he had worked since middle school.
There was so much going on it almost hurt to look at. At the top, in big, blue, white, and red letters read “JOIN US NOW”. In the upper left corner, it said the instructor was some taekwondo hotshot and gold medalist, Seong Hansoo, There was a lot of other stuff going on, like a bad quality image of some guy doing a kick that looked like it was taken on the cameras people use to record ufos, or the fact all of this was on a background that faded from yellow to green to blue, but the thing that really caught his eye was the “REGISTER FOR 1 MONTH GET 10 MONTHS FREE”.
The first thing that came to mind aside from the ugliness, was how odd it was. It was odd that he could get ten months free just by paying for one month, which was like what, $300? Maybe even cheaper considering the text on top of the “JOIN US NOW” that read “so cheap~”. What made it even stranger though, was the fact that the instructor was supposed to be some professional, yet the flyer made it seem like they were desperate for students.
The second thing he thought of was how cool it would be to learn how to fight. On the off chance it was real, and not some sort of badly thought out scam, learning taekwondo didn’t seem like an awful idea. He didn’t know much about the different martial arts styles, but he did know that taekwondo was the one with all the kicks.
Ignoring all how shady the whole thing was, taekwondo actually sounded like it would be pretty fun to learn. It wasn’t like he had anything going on after his job at the coffee shop, and looking down at the flyer, it looked like there was a lesson that started half an hour after his shift. Even more conveniently, the taekwondo studio was around a 10-minute walk from his apartment.
Was it crazy to be considering it? Yeah, probably, he had just picked up some random old dumpster flyer and was now having a mental debate with himself about whether he should check out the shady location. But what if?
As a matter of fact, if he started off in that direction now, he could probably make it in time to observe the class…no that was a bad idea again, the flyer was way too shady, and he was completely unprepared.
But...if he was just going to take a look and scope out the situation then it couldn’t lead to anything too bad, right? He seriously doubted the second he stepped within 50ft of the dojang something sketchy would happen like he would be mugged by a bunch of thugs or something else just as stupid.
Screw it, he was going, awkwardly standing in an alleyway while arguing with the logical part of his brain was more painful than whatever was in store for him if the advertisement wasn’t legit. It probably was though, you’d have to be pretty stupid to expect people to fall for something like that. Which begged the question, why was it so suspicious?
Starting off in the direction of the dojang, one part of his brain was facepalming at his utter stupidity while the other more in control part couldn’t wait to see what was actually going on.