Chapter Text
It’s 8pm, and as much as Dokja wanted to sleep, he was stuck for the night shift at the bookstore he was working at. Han Sooyoung asked Dokja to take over her shift because she needed to finish some documents on her upcoming novel, totally not to go on a date with Sangah, but before he could decline, she hung up and didn’t answer the calls from him.
He did need the money as he still hasn’t found a new job. Thoughts flooded into his head ‘ Why do we even need a night shift at a bookstore? It’s not like anyone’s gonna buy anything at ni-’ . But then, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of chimes on the door’s entrance.
“Good evening! Welcome to the Star Stream Bookstore” Dokja greeted the customer dressed up in all black. Although worried at the sight of the man that just entered, he just ignored all the worries that flooded his mind.
At least he tried to…
‘Is he a robber? Is this how I’m gonna die?’, ‘Han Sooyoung, I will haunt you if something ever happens to me. Fuck you and Sangah, I HAVE A LIFE TO LIVE TOO’ he thought. As much as he was panicking inside, he let out a very calm demeanor on the outside for the assumed robber to possibly spare his life.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to calm himself down, and the sight he saw once he opened them was not something he was expecting.
‘Wow…’ he thought, feeling speechless as he stared at the man’s face.
“What?” he suddenly heard a deep voice which made him realize what he was doing. He got back to his senses and noticed that this guy was the same ‘robber’ who entered the store.
“Nothing haha! You know uh…”, trying to come up with an excuse, he looked around and saw the things the man was buying. Stickers, cute notebooks, washi tapes, they were all in a big basket of the same intimidating person. “This brand is actually one of my favorites.. I just never expected you to buy them too”. The guy ignored it and just gave him his card to pay.
Now Kim Dokja wasn’t the smartest, but he wasn’t dumb enough to let go of the chance of getting the attention of an attractive man. He might’ve been scared of him at first, he was actually still intimidated by him, but he was weak for attractive guys, so might as well give it a shot as he had nothing to lose. As he was packing the stationery the man bought, he slipped in some other products to serve as
freebies
for the customer.
He gave the things the man bought and greeted him goodbye with a smile on his face. Other than being happy that he was still alive, he had one thought on his mind, ‘Thank you Han Sooyoung’
As he left the store, Yoo Joonghyuk felt confused. His heart hasn’t stopped racing upon seeing a familiar face in their local bookstore. He decided to ignore it for now and focused on getting back home to his little sister.
Joonghyuk got home, being welcomed with the sound of the television still on. He took a peek inside and saw his sister Mia who fell asleep on the couch. He hasn’t hung out with his sister lately, but he made sure that he was going to make up to her tomorrow, her birthday. He moved his beloved sister to her room gently, making sure she wouldn't wake up so that he could start setting up his surprise.
He got the ingredients he bought to make a cake and Mia’s favorite dishes. Surprisingly, he finished earlier than expected, around 3am. He then got the stationery and toys he bought for the little girl. He placed them all around their apartment for Mia to find once she woke up. While taking out everything, he noticed that some of the things in the bag weren’t things he bought.
‘Did he put them here by mistake?’ he thought while taking them out. Then, he recalled the panicked look Dokja had on his face when he was packing the things he bought.
“Cute..” he quietly says, remembering the pretty man.
After finishing the set-up for Mia’s birthday, he then thought about what he should do with the extra products he had from the bookstore.
“What do I do with these?” he said to himself while holding cute little stickers of clouds and fairies “It’s not like there was a buy 1 take 1 deal from the store right, so why was this in my bag?”
After careful consideration about what was happening he ended up having two choices, one is to just keep them, and the other is to return them to the store. He would rather choose the former because he had to practice for the new tournament coming up, but he can’t fight his conscience and so, he decides to return it. I mean who was he to reject the opportunity to meet him again.
A few days have passed and the person Dokja was expecting still hasn’t come.
“You still think he’s gonna come back here again?” Han Sooyoung asked as she entered the cashier counter.
“Look let me have hope okay, you wouldn’t understand since you already have Sangah” Dokja bitterly says.
As the two were arguing, the wind chimes rang together with the entrance of a customer. The two friends didn’t even notice the person because of their conversation, and only realized once he was already at the counter.
Dokja was greeted by the face of the handsome man he was expecting for a few days now. He smiled at the customer and shoved Sooyoung aside so he could talk to the man.
Before he can greet him, he was then dragged to a room by Sooyoung
“Hahahaha, hi Joonghyuk long time no see,” she said “Um can you wait for a second, we need to fix something in our inventory”
The customer named Joonghyuk nodded his head and they were now in a room together.
“HEY WHAT WAS THAT FOR?” Dokja silently shouts
“Look I support you with whoever you like, but isn’t that Yoo Joonghyuk?”
“Who now?”
“King, our university’s heartthrob, Yoo Joonghyuk, doesn’t ring any bells?”
“Not that I know of, no”
“YOU DON’T KNOW YOO JOONGHYUK?”
“Should I know who he is?”
Sooyoung sighs “I knew you weren’t sociable and that you weren’t updated with the issues in school, but I didn’t know you were this oblivious to everything”
Dokja looks at his friend feeling offended “HEY I WASN’T THAT UNSOCIABLE AND OBLIVIOUS”
“Well who are your friends other than me”
“...”
“See! And you still deny it” she said “But going back to Joonghyuk, I support anybody you’ll like but he’s an exception”
“Why? I choose who I like, plus he’s really handsome too so I don’t really have any downsides to it”
“Look, he was known as the coldest king in uni,” she told him “And rather than treating you well, I think he’ll do something bad to you instead”
Dokja then looked at her suspiciously “Is that really the problem or is it something else?”
“Fine” Sooyoung sighed “We may or may not have been rivals back then, you wouldn’t know cause you were in another course”
“Why stop me if that’s the only problem?”
“I do have a grudge against him, but, as I said, he might not treat you well”
“You never know, he might be a changed man” Dokja shrugged
Sooyoung looked at him and sighed “Okay okay, you do what you want. I’ll check if he has REALLY changed as you said”
She went out of the room and went to arrange the books on the shelves. Meanwhile, Dokja went back to the counter to talk to Joonghyuk.
“Oh, it’s you again! How are you?” he says, trying to strike up a conversation “Sorry for taking a while” An awkward silence followed this but he gets a reply after a bit “It’s… okay”
“Well…” he replies as he scans the products. He looked back at the man, noticing that he was trying to say something “What is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been kinda staring at me scarily so I thought you wanted to tell me something”
Joonghyuk took out something from his bag and gave it to Dokja.
‘Oh…’ Dokja thought disappointingly as he noticed that the younger brought out the stickers he gave as freebies to show affection to him.
“Hahaha… Yeah maybe I accidentally put them there whoops…” he said. Normally he would’ve been mad and confused since they were so oblivious, but now he was disappointed. It looks like Joonghyuk had no interest in him, plus if what Sooyoung said was true then it wasn’t that much of a loss, right?
As he was being dramatic in his mind, Han Sooyoung got back from arranging books.
“Hey what happened?” she asks her friend
“The cold king is apparently an idiot” he sighs “He returned the things I gave him cause he thought I put them there by mistake”
“Why don’t you tell the guy that you like him?”
Dokja looked at her confused “Weren’t you the same one who said to avoid him?”
“Well… I haven’t seen him like that ever” she replied
“What do you mean?”
“Normally he would be more aggressive and mad,” she said “but he seemed more calm and affectionate with you”
“YOU CALL THAT CALM AND AFFECTIONATE,” Dokja said remembering the intimidating face of Joonghyuk
“Believe it or not, he’s even more intimidating to others”
“Well, whether or not he was affectionate to me doesn’t stop me from just giving up okay,” he said “It doesn’t look like he’s interested in me in that kind of way”
“You’re an idiot too then,”
“What?”
“You’re an idiot too you dumbass! Just tell him the truth, you gave it to him on purpose”
“Look, the man obviously has no interest in me so I don’t want to force myself onto him”
“Suit it yourself then”
“Tell that to yourself, your opinion on Joonghyuk changed quickly with my short interaction with him”
They finished whispering to each other and Dokja went back to giving the book to the man. He smiled and said goodbye to the customer, not expecting what would happen next.
It was a Saturday, and instead of relaxing at his own home, he was now getting dragged by Sooyoung in Olympus Mall.
“Stop dragging me around!” Dokja told Sooyoung while trying to get out of her grasp.
“Nope, you’re going nowhere,” she said as she gripped his hand tighter “Just hurry up you’ll be late”
They then reached N’Gai Cafe, it was their go-to cafe back when they were in college.
“What are we even doing here?” he asked
“Since you were both two idiots too dumb to make a move, I did it for you,” she said making Dokja feel confused
“Just get inside, sit there and I’ll come back to you later,” she told him while pointing at a seat near the window.
“Why are you acting like my mom?” he asked, still confused about the situation, but Sooyoung just shrugged and left him alone.
He then sat there for 5 minutes awkwardly alone. He was about to leave and go home, but then he noticed a familiar man walking towards him.
‘WHAT THE FUCK HAN SOOOYOUNG’ he thought as he was being approached by the man.
“Oh hello,” the man said in a very monotone voice.
“Hi…” Dokja then replied, panicking about what to do.
Both of them sat in silence while drinking their coffee for a while, but Dokja decided to break it.
“So you’re Yoo Joonghyuk right?” he asked
“Yes” the younger replied with a slight glint in his eyes
“I’m Ki-”
“Kim Dokja, I know”
‘How did he know me?’ Dokja thought as he didn’t really have any presence back in university.
“So why did you want to meet me here?” Dokja asked
Joonghyuk looked at him confused “You were the one who gave me a note, I just came here”
‘I GAVE HIM WHAT?’ Dokja tried to remember if he forgot something that happened, however, nothing was coming to his mind. He then realized Han Sooyoung
“Oh you sly little-” he quietly said but was interrupted by a voice
“What.” Joonghyuk looked at him. Mad
“OH NO, NOTHING! I was just thinking about a friend of mine…” he replied to clear the misunderstanding, but now Joonghyuk was even angrier.
He stood up from his seat, grabbed Dokja’s arm, and dragged him out of the shop.
“Ow ow,” Dokja moaned in pain with the tight grip the man had on his wrist. Thankfully it loosened and they were both now standing in front of the cafe. He looked at Joongyuk but was greeted with an angry face.
‘Maybe Sooyoung was right, he really is aggressive and rude…’ he thought.
“Asshole,” he said as he walked away from Joonghyuk. He was expecting him to get stopped, but thankfully he walked in peace.