Work Text:
In hindsight, he should have expected this.
“Hyung, what do you mean there’s no more Pepero?”
Junhui blinks thoroughly from where Chan is barging into his space on the employee's side of the checkout counter. “I mean that this convenience store is out of stock on all kinds of Pepero."
“How could that be? This is a convenience store! It’s supposed to have everything I need so that I don’t have to take the bus to the city just to shop at the mall,” Chan reasons out. “Hence, convenience! ”
“Supposed to have everything you need until supplies last,” Junhui corrects, gently nudging Chan back to the customer side of the checkout counter. "That's kind of the idea of items being ‘sold out.’”
Chan takes the hint and lets Junhui service the mildly concerned ahjumma behind him before resuming his panic mode. “So, that’s it then? No Pepero?” Junhui shakes his head. “But it’s Pepero Day!”
Junhui flashes his annoyingly cute kitten-themed wrist watch. “4:30 PM on Pepero Day,” the older corrects once more. “You're pretty late to the sugar rush. Everyone was already crowding in last night to buy all these random Pepero flavors.” Junhui rounds the checkout lane to restock the candy aisle, a box of gummy worms and snack packs in his grasp. “Cherry Double Dip, Sweet Potatoes, Cheddar Cheese - did you know they had a calamansi yogurt flavor?”
A few steps behind, Chan groans. “I did, which is why I was so hopeful you at least had a pack of the classic Pepero left. Those hardly ever sell out and it’s an honest hate crime!” No one understands his logic behind it but the magic of the chocolate Pepero flavor is that classics never go out of style.
“Sorry, Chan-ah, all sold out, too.” Junhui lowers the box to the floor and allows Chan’s wandering autopilot brain do its magic, the younger mechanically filling in the shelves for him. “I don’t know if this would make you feel better but… we actually did have a stock of the chocolate Pepero until a few minutes ago.”
That pops Chan out of his reverie. “What? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You could’ve set aside a box or two for me! You know that those ones are my favorite.”
“Well, would it have made you feel better that you almost could have had it but didn’t in the end?” When Chan remains silent, Junhui smirks, triumphant. “Exactly. Also, I’m not your personal snack reservation system, you know.”
Chan humphs. In an act of begrudging pitiness, he swaps the positions of the energy bars and gumdrops on the shelves. Justice had never tasted so sweet. Literally.
(He doesn’t stop filling the shelves though.)
Junhui sees this but opts against fixing it. He’ll let the next shift handle it. Employee of the month material. “Why are you so worked up about this anyways? I thought you didn’t do this kind of stuff, let alone be the one giving on Pepero Day.”
“I don’t.” A pause. “I didn’t,” Chan sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, I thought I didn’t.”
Junhui perks a brow. “But…” he continues for the younger.
“But I just wanted to try it, I guess.” Chan’s cheeks redden, much to his dismay. “You see, there’s this guy.”
The older’s lips stay sealed but the way he crouches down to restock the shelves and finally do his job is Chan’s signal to spill the beans. So Chan does as much.
Truth be told, he wasn’t expecting himself to reach this level. For Kim Mingyu of all people nonetheless.
The climb was subtle, barely noticed the calluses on his bare feet until Chan felt the pain of the infinite disaster that was Mingyu as a laboratory partner.
Glassware should consider themselves lucky to be hidden in the far back of the stock cabinets lest they fall prey to the clumsy hands of a 6 ft. giant with the hand-eye coordination of a circus juggler after 5 drinks too much.
If Chan had a coin for every week he got by an analytical chemistry laboratory session without Mingyu breaking so much as an evaporating dish, he’d have a total of 2 coins. Which is not a lot, but it’s strange that it happened only twice.
The pre-experiment worksheets fared no better, an amalgamation of Mingyu’s graceless handwriting and whatever 4 AM energy drink had the pleasure of witnessing theoretical chemistry in its most absurd.
Chan could only gape as he tried to decipher whether the word jumble indicated an end reaction of an evolution of nitrogen dioxide gas or the formation of a yellow lead chromate precipitate. And those elements weren’t even in the starting input.
Don’t even get Chan started on the mishap that was Mingyu mislabeling the acetic acid beaker as sodium thiosulfate for their cupric sulfate titration project. How they managed to bullshit their way out of hell by convincing the instructor that the cupric sulfate sample was of 500% purity, he’ll never know.
But through it all, Kim Mingyu was earnest.
He picked up after his own messes, genuinely tried his hardest not to set the laboratory on fire, shouldered the professor’s endless barrage of questions for them on why it was this diluent or that indicator because, apparently, the heavens decided that inserting a healthy serving of brains alongside unrivaled beauty was the protocol on April 6, 1997.
Even figured out that the solution to the purity problem was impurities , explained with a confidence matched only by the greatest of fast talkers and bullshiters in the history of contemporary science.
Mingyu’s clumsiness is both charm and coup de grace, Chan supposes.
Because, one minute, he was berating Mingyu’s entire existence in a detailed 17-bullet point list to Hansol and, in the next, he was inviting over the said offender to his house at every given opportunity to prepare for assays and cross out post-laboratory experiment reports from their to-do list.
The fall was then like swinging a door wide open just to realize that there was no solid ground on the other side, as if life literally snatched the rug from right under his feet.
In the world’s own twisted way, Chan began to crave the very person he despised every Tuesday morning.
The same person who waits for him every Monday morning at the school gate, laughs at all his stupid jokes about Wednesdays and hump days (ones he knows aren’t actually funny), and walks him all the way back to his apartment block at the end of busy Fridays even though it’s the exact opposite direction of Mingyu's district.
Even though Mingyu has to attend his soccer varsity practices right after the clang of the final dismissal bell.
Even though Mingyu’s coach makes him do 5 jump squats for every minute of his tardiness.
So, yeah. Chan’s signaling was all over the place.
But that was last semester.
Spring leaves burned crisp into summer and they sent each other the occasional KKT, but they attended different summer cram schools and suneung was all about eating up the time, soul, and life out of every aspiring college applicant.
Chan found himself checking his phone traitorously so, from as far as hours to as short as minutes apart just to see if Mingyu sent him the obligatory food picture for the day. He wanted to burn his cursed phone but, at the same time, he wanted to glue his eyes to the screen.
Maybe infatuation was the desire to scratch his eyeballs out.
Summer sunburns soon mellowed out to autumn breezes and Chan feared that the friendship they built up until the submission of their final laboratory report washed away like forgotten sandcastles.
Only to find that same goofy, canine-filled smile waiting for him on the first Monday of the fall semester, waving at Chan like he couldn't wait to see him too. Something about being taller than 97.5% of the student body boded well for Kim Mingyu.
They both grew a few inches and still run different social circles but all Mingyu has to do is ask and Chan forces Seungkwan to give up his desk so that Mingyu could eat lunch with them on Thursdays.
If Chan asked his mom to prepare him the best lunches on Thursdays from that point onwards, it’s nobody’s business but him and his favorite tonkatsu.
Try as Chan might to tune out the itching feeling of Mingyu’s vines wrapping its vice grip around his neck - as it had for a majority of the student body who fell victim to Mingyu’s boy-next-door charms - the incessant need to seek for that familiar warmth became apparent at the first crack of every dismissal bell, the time when Chan searches for that looming figure waiting outside his classroom.
And the thing is - Mingyu was always there.
As they both change out of their school shoes, Mingyu rants about his sister’s constant nagging for this or that bowl of bibimmyeon and Chan tells him that it’s nothing compared to when his brother sheds false tears to earn their parents’ favor.
Along the way home, Hansol would part ways first to dash to Minghao’s book club and Seungkwan would leave second, pretending to be exasperated that he has to take the train to Wonwoo’s academy, leaving Mingyu and Chan as the last ones left.
And Chan really didn’t try to read into the fact that Mingyu never lets him pay for his own tteokbokki or the way Mingyu always wipes Chan’s mouth for him because the younger is a little bit of a messy eater.
Or the way Mingyu’s gaze lingers as Chan instinctually perks his lips, swallowing this nameless anticipation, one he didn’t realize was simmering under the surface until Mingyu suddenly avoids his gaze, flushed, and time runs back to speed.
In hindsight, he should have expected this.
Chan speaks and Mingyu listens. Chan sets up a joke and Mingyu plays along. Chan so much as walks and Mingyu drapes himself all over him. It was only a matter of time before Chan decided to address the inferno fizzling around his shoulders.
After all, Chan liked to play with matches and Mingyu’s gummy smile was dry, dry kindling.
It’s November 11 now and Chan felt his resolve cracking.
Suneung is fast approaching and Chan’s sure that Mingyu’s getting into SKY because of course he’s getting into SKY , as Seungkwan bluntly rolled his eyes at the youngest’s initial doubt. Before he knew it, the length between the burning wick and the ticking time bomb became more and more present.
But he pushed that fact as far back as possible, convinced himself that everything was perfectly fine and that time was still on his good side. That was until he was reminded of just how much his school adores Mingyu.
Chan barely had the opportunity to send his usual morning greetings before a whole group of girls waiting to meet his senior on that very day shoved him out of the hallway. Could hardly squeeze himself into Mingyu’s line of sight from just the sheer amount of Pepero boxes stacked atop the older’s hands.
He’s by no means the jealous or possessive type, but to say his mood dropped lower than his Introduction to College Calculus grade would be an understatement.
Yet an idea, a faulty one at that, sparked in his brain when he saw an act he never thought he'd see in his entire life.
Minghao, the same Minghao that had been giving Hansol the Antarctic cold shoulder for 2 whole years, stopping by their homeroom to give Hansol a box of White Chocolate Cookie Pepero on that same morning. Miracles do come true, he supposes.
After Chan witnessed the most disgusting act of affection in recent history (Hansol sneaking a peck on the nose and Minghao allowing it to happen), the treacherous part of his brain really thought ‘ hey , why don’t you try that too? ’
What a traitor.
But after remembering the number of girls showering Mingyu with sweetened adoration and the limited time before Mingyu inevitably moves out of their district, maybe Chan was just a teeny bit desperate.
Perhaps miracles were stored inside the lightweight aluminum foil magic of every Pepero box. A pack or two wouldn’t hurt then, right?
As soon as the dismissal bell rang, Chan hightailed it to the convenience store Junhui worked at, the closest one to his high school, only to arrive at his current predicament.
“Kim Mingyu, huh?” Junhui comments while affixing a price tag on a pack of jelly snacks. “He sounds attractive.” When Chan challenges with a brow, Junhui raises both arms in surrender. “It was just a comment, I’m not going to steal him from you.”
Chan retreats and sighs, leaning back on the shelf. “You might as well. You have a higher chance of ending up with him than someone like me.”
“What’s with all this sudden negativity? You sound like you’re Lee Can’t , not Lee Can! ”
Once again, Chan creases his eyebrows, laced now with confusion.
Thirty odd seconds pass before Junhui realizes, “Lee Chan .”
Chan rolls his eyes.
“Whatever, doesn’t matter now. This negativity isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Junhui waves off. “Look, there’s at least 5 other convenience stores in this district. I suggest you check those out, get yourself a Pepero box, and win back your man!”
“It’s not that simple, hyung-”
“No, it is that simple, Chan-ah. Don’t let that silly little fear in your brain overwhelm the fact that Mingyu obviously likes you, too!”
A sliver of hope peeks out of Chan’s chest. Chan tells that hope to put a sock in it. “How did you reach that conclusion?”
“Chan, you just told me that you have tteokbokki with him every day after class, correct?” Chan nods. “And you mentioned that he’s a varsity soccer player on a strict high protein, low carb, low fat diet?” Chan nods again to which Junhui gestures with wide eyes, as if the younger were missing some grand point.
“What are you trying to say, hyung?”
Junhui sighs, conceding. “Just go and find yourself that box of Pepero!”
“Alright, alright, I’m moving!” Chan protests as Junhui basically corrals him away from restocking the shelves towards the sliding doors. “Can I ask you this though, hyung?” Junhui hums for him to continue. “Do you know who got the last box of chocolate Pepero?”
Junhui stops to contemplate. “Can’t remember, but he was some tree who came looking for chocolate Pepero. Same uniform as yours,” the older notes, before worry paints his features. “You’re not going to hunt them down, are you?”
“We’ll have to see about that,” Chan chuckles, bidding his adieu. He has a lot of ground to cover if he wants to send his well wishes within Pepero Day.
Except, he’s one foot out the door, mapping out the next closest convenience store, when he runs into an actual wall.
“ Shit! ” the curse tumbles off his tongue.
“Sorry!” comes the immediate response.
A hand rounds his middle, catching him from ricocheting too far back into the glass sliding doors. The grip is firm around his waist but loose enough for Chan to maneuver out of had the surprise not snuck up on him.
The shadow cast over his person is tall enough for him to know that he’s not dealing with any ordinary adversary. Again, an actual wall.
The smell? Of masculinity voided into a bottle of perfume labeled by some concept like Cool Sports Rush or Blue Bath Bodywash , as if those were real scents.
The collateral to his person brings both impatience and embarrassment, the two emotions tinting his cheeks rosy. A day in the life of his Unrequited Crush for Kim Mingyu wouldn’t be complete if said crush didn’t almost end his life in one accidental fell swoop, he supposes.
“Chan! Hey, sorry about that,” Mingyu grimaces, readjusting the younger back on two feet.
“Ya, Kim Mingyu!” Chan feigns aggression, as if the short bout of proximity wasn’t the best part of his entire day. “Honestly, if you were shorter than me, you would be in big trouble.”
Mingyu chuckles, scratching his neck. “Sorry again.” The older looks around before meeting Chan’s eyes again. “I, uhhh.” A cough. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you went home already.”
“What do you mean?”
“After class, I passed by your homeroom but Hansol told me that you ran off early. I came looking for you but couldn’t find you anywhere,” he relays, fiddling with something in his jacket pocket. “Here you are, I guess.”
It’s Chan’s turn to avert their shared gaze. “Oh, yeah. I had to, ummm,” Chan gestures behind him, catching Junhui checking Mingyu out with subdued recognition, sending the youngest a thumbs up of approval. He reminds himself to mess up another one of the convenience store’s shelves on a later date. “Had to buy some gum and stuff. What about you? I thought you had cram school at this time.”
“I skipped it,” Mingyu confesses sheepishly.
Chan tilts his head, impressed. “I see you’re skipping classes now. So close to suneung too. I never thought I’d live to see the day you’d turn into a rebel.”
“There’s a first time for everything. I have to live out the senior lifestyle from now on,” Mingyu grins, his smile boyish in the way that makes Chan want to cry. “Plus, I wanted to give you something.”
Before Chan could even process the statement, Mingyu had already pulled out a familiar red box from his jacket’s innermost pocket.
Well, he’ll be damned.
In hindsight, maybe he should have expected this.
“Wha-what’s this?” Chan asks. Which is a stupid question because he knows full and well what Mingyu is giving him.
A box of chocolate Pepero.
“It’s for you,” Mingyu provides. There’s a hopeful glint in Mingyu’s softening gaze, Capella’s brilliance magnified in space gray technicolor.
Chan’s vocabulary fails him at the most opportune moments, staring agape at the Pepero now in his hands.
“I didn’t, uh, I didn’t get to see you the whole day,” Mingyu explains, motioning for them to step aside from the door. They take to roaming down the sidewalk, away from Junhui’s prying eyes. “Sorry that I didn’t get to have lunch with you guys.”
The younger shakes his head and waves it off, still searching for words in his treasure trove quickly flooding up to the brim.
“It was so weird to spend a Thursday without the group. I kept looking around me like I was unconsciously expecting you guys to pop out at any time. You especially,” Mingyu admits. “So I just wanted to give you something to tell you that...” The older bites his lips, hesitating. Bashfulness is a beautiful hue on him. “I missed you today.”
More and more, Chan feels himself freefall yet his wings have never felt freer. “It’s Pepero Day,” is all he manages to utter.
Mingyu’s face reddens, suddenly finding it difficult to meet Chan’s eyes. “Is it? I didn’t know,” he chuckles hoarsely, rubbing his nape. “I guess that was what all the Pepero gifts were for today.”
At that, Chan’s guard rises up. A vile emotion climbs his esophagus, heavy on his tongue, and he’s not a big fan of it. “Is this from one of the girls who gave you Pepero earlier?”
“What? No!” Mingyu swiftly shakes his head and points back to the convenience store where Junhui works. “After my last class, I went and bought the last pack of Pepero on the shelf. I gave all the other boxes to Minseo. This one's, uh,” Mingyu meets his gaze once more, spawning butterflies alight in Chan's stomach. "This one's just for you."
The devilish awkwardness yet realness of his crush is going to kill him someday.
“Oh, uhm,” Chan gulps, willing his blush to settle. “Thanks for this, hyung.”
Then Mingyu does that thing, where his smile is wide and full of teeth, the same smile he conveys when he knows he did something right. “Anytime, Channie.”
Chan’s so infatuated that it actually hurts.
They trek against the afternoon pedestrian rush and Chan tries to ignore the fact that Mingyu is still standing too damn far away. “Chocolate’s my favorite Pepero flavor,” he mentions out of the blue.
Mingyu nods, “I know.”
The younger perks a brow, thrumming a beat on the Pepper box. “Did you now?”
“Yeah, you told me once that you like the classic Pepero flavor because you believe classics never go out of style,” Mingyu beams, the afternoon light shining against his bright smile. “You also like jjajangmyeon when it’s cold and naengmyeon when it’s hot. All your food delivery apps are at the end of your app list because you can’t stop yourself from getting a midnight snack sometimes. And then...”
Chan doesn’t know how it happens but it’s those recollections that send the wind flying out of his lungs. Like the tiniest drops falling into the world’s largest basin of water, it’s the infinitesimal fractions that form ripples which shake him to his very core.
And he’s all but ready to let the tsunami submerge him 6 feet under.
Chan takes a deep breath and dives in headfirst, counting up to ten and reaching three before he thinks, fuck it .
Launching himself on tipped toes, Chan sneaks a quick peck on Mingyu’s cheek, successfully snapping the older out of his rambling.
In the two and a half seconds it takes to get from point A to point B, from a foot apart to Mingyu’s bewitching scent dancing under his nose, from friends to a little something more, an ember scorches his lips, searing the memory of what it felt like to place courage onto impulse.
Chan feels his heart rate climb then fall over and over again, as do all things concerning this cosmic anomaly ballooning in his chest.
As soon as the surprise wears off, Mingyu responds in full, chasing after Chan’s lips with purpose. It’s close-mouthed and chaste, but Chan learns that there’s a blistering wildfire that blooms when Mingyu wraps his arms around his middle, pursuing him when Chan pulls back a moment too soon.
When they part, there’s a moment of bliss that fills the gaps before cognizance follows suit. Suddenly, they’re a foot apart again, dusting off their ruffled jackets and the matching fluff of their static hair.
Pedestrians flit past them, unaware of the two high school students’ existential crises and how they single-handedly managed to uproot their flowering acquaintanceship in the span of 15 electrictrifying seconds.
But all things happen for a reason. As one birch tree withers, another grows in its wake.
A new beginning.
“Hyung,” he calls to break the silence.
“Yeah?”
Chan grins, feeling the simmer under the surface ascend to a complete boil. “Do you want to get some tteokbokki with me?”
Mingyu quickly nods his head and the rest is muscle memory. They spin on their heels and take the longer, on-foot route to their usual after school spot across from his apartment block.
A foot of separation becomes a couple inches and a couple inches ends up with Mingyu’s arm wrapped around his shoulder, firm enough to keep him close but loose enough for Chan to step away if he wanted to.
Chan doesn’t want to.
As soon as they pass by the convenience store again, Junhui sends him an incorrect salute but Chan only smiles back. He erases his previous scheme and reminds himself to pick out those cute cat refrigerator magnets from Coupang for Junhui instead.
Mingyu stops on his tracks as they wait for the pedestrian light to turn green, smiling at him and taking the chance to unknowingly run his hand through Chan’s apple-scented hair.
He definitely wasn't expecting this today.
Alright, maybe he yearned for this just a little bit.
Just enough to know how not to immediately combust, to feel the crimson of his cheeks deepen and enjoy the fact that only Mingyu can mess up his palette like this.
Absolutely terrifying.
Taking another look at the box of Pepero in his hands, the coveted prize on such a national capitalist holiday, Chan opts to keep the box in his messenger bag for the meantime. Maybe he’ll give it to Gun; he likes sweets more than him anyways.
Maybe Pepero isn’t really their thing and that’s okay. He knows now that he didn’t have to rely on the magic of Pepero to grant his wish, never needed a miracle in the first place.
The only person Chan wanted today, and for the past few months if he were being honest, already helped him pass analytical chemistry last semester and has a resolute arm around his shoulder now, perhaps from this point onwards.
Chan isn't psychic but he is a dreamer - a hopeful one at that.
Mingyu could video call him every day, tell him what it’s like to get dinner at 2 AM in the big city. They'd meet up on the holidays where Mingyu would become an instant family favorite.
Chan could take the train to Seoul and he'll have his first drink or dance under the city's incandescent glow, and Mingyu will only document the events with his vintage camera because he knows better than to stop Chan when his eyes are set on a goal.
But that's for when the wick reaches the bomb, a burst of confetti that’ll paint their peripherals red.
For now, the red pedestrian light condenses to green and they cross the street together, Chan’s hand intertwined with Mingyu’s over his shoulder, a dozen more blocks until they reach Chan’s apartment complex.
Daylight filters through the skyline, recoloring their skin golden. A brisk breeze flutters through just as vehicles race past them and Chan remembers that life hustles and bustles as much as they do, constantly on the run. Changing.
Today is still Pepero Day but Pepero isn’t really their thing and that’s okay.
They’ll always have tteokbokki anyways.
