Work Text:
The first scrap of paper Yeonho pulls from the Santa hat perched precariously on the reception desk at his new workplace reads ' GYEHYEON' in sparkly gold letters.
Yeonho had started interning at the office only a couple of months ago, but he’s a quick study, and he makes friends fast. Gyehyeon, as his immediate superior, had been his first target- a combination of the boy’s natural charm and Yeonho’s ambition to be made a permanent employee by the end of the year. Yeonho had been expecting the older boy to be cold, closed-off and uninterested in making friends with another hopeless intern who still didn’t understand how to work the copy printer, but they’d actually become fast friends. Not just work friends, either. They’re drinks-at-the-weekend-after-work-hours kind of friends. Should-we-meet-up-for-coffee kind of friends. He knows Gyehyeon has his eye on a new pair of sneakers and that the satchel he uses to carry his laptop into work everyday has a scratch across the front and could do with replacing.
But there’s no fun in an easy win. Yeonho adores Christmas, and he adores Secret Santas, and he’s hungry for acknowledgement in the office outside of his usual circle. There’s also a name he’d kind of been hoping to get.
He glances around himself once, twice, and finds no one is watching closely enough to get him in any trouble, so he quickly tucks Gyehyeon’s name back into the Santa hat and fishes around for another.
'KANGMIN.'
Another intern, the truly hopeless kind, still in school a few days a week. Also friends.
Yeonho shoves his name back in the hat and tries again.
Third time’s a charm .
The third scrap of card he pulls reads ' DONGHEON .'
Yeonho laughs out loud.
“Yeah, no way.”
He laughs again as he folds the paper back up, opening the Santa hat- he’s going to have to shuffle these again when he’s done picking- only to find a cold hand clamping around his wrist, startling him, and a boy jumping up from behind the reception desk.
“Christ!”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Yongseung says, smiling wickedly as he maintains a vice grip on Yeonho’s arm. “That’s no way to talk at Christmas time.”
Yeonho fixes his friend with as stern a look as he can manage when his heart’s still trying to fly out of his throat. “How long were you down there?”
“Long enough to see the sneak attempt,” Yongseung says. “Hands off the hat, cheater.”
Yeonho grumbles and snatches his arm back, and Yongseung leans over the reception desk and jerks his chin in the direction of the little crumpled paper still in one of Yeonho’s hands. “Who is it?”
Yeonho sighs and unfolds the now incriminatingly creased card scrap- he can’t put it back in this state. Yongseung’s laugh when he reads the name written there is loud enough that several co-workers at cubicle desks behind Yeonho yelp with surprise and glare their way.
“Can’t you just let me befriend Minchan in peace?” Yeonho grumbles, shoving the card into the pocket of his jeans.
Yongseung shakes his head, still beaming as if this were the best thing to ever happen to him. “No.”
“But I’ve already picked out a gift!”
It was going to be so cute, too. Yongseung had told him about Minchan’s musical talents on several occasions before Yeonho joined the office, and he knows that the receptionist plays acoustic guitar and he’d seen him tinkering around the office when something was broken and they couldn’t be bothered sending for a technician. Both his handiness and musicality considered, Yeonho had thought the build your own ukulele kit he’d seen at a bookshop last week was the best thing Minchan could hope for from a workplace Secret Santa game.
“Great,” Yongseung smirks, “I could do with some suggestions.”
Yeonho scoffs. Of course Yongseung picked Minchan’s name already. That’s just his luck.
“I hope you get coal for Christmas,” he says, and Yongseung chuckles, sitting on the receptionist’s chair and spinning side to side.
“Cheaters go on the naughty list, you now.”
“Be merciful,” Yeonho begs him, “please. No one wants their boss for Secret Santa.” No amount of beseechingly leaning over the reception desk or batting his eyelashes is going to change Yongseung’s mind- the younger boy is already too busy ducking under the desk and wrestling out the little trash can underneath.
“I should have just stuck with Kangmin,” Yeonho sighs, wistfully, and then realises that rummaging in someone else’s bin is a strange thing for even Yongseung to be doing. “What are you doing behind the receptionist desk, anyway?”
Yongseung drops the trash can back under the desk with a click of his tongue. “Snooping.”
“You’re best friends already, why d’you need to snoop?”
He had the perfect gift all picked out. If anyone deserves to be Minchan’s Secret Santa, it’s obviously him.
“I’m not looking for present ideas,” Yongseung says, as if this should be obvious, opening the drawers of the desk now, peering inside. “I wanna see who he got.”
Yeonho scoffs. “ Now who’s the cheater?”
“Both of us, I believe.”
“So let’s help each other out, hmm?”
There are no folded scraps of paper in any of Minchan’s desk drawers. Yongseung closes them all with an impatient huff. “How should I know what Dongheon wants for Christmas?”
“I don’t know- you work with him?”
“I work under him,” Yongseung corrects, standing, peering down the back of the computer. “We barely interact, except the few times he’s screamed at me.”
Yeonho puts his elbows on the top of the reception desk and buries his face in his hands. “Great.”
“Gyehyeon knows him better than I do,” Yongseung shrugs. His snooping has turned up nothing- he seems to give up, now, seeing this, stepping aside to wheel Minchan’s chair back under his desk. “Maybe he’ll have some suggestions for you.”
“He’ll definitely be more help than you, ” Yeonho grumbles.
Yongseung glances at him. “Don’t you have a meeting to go to?”
Yeonho almost smacks himself in the face with his watch trying to tell the time. Fifteen minutes. He still has fifteen minutes until the meeting.
Yongseung is turning blue trying not to laugh at him too loudly.
“Coal!” Yeonho snaps at him, and then turns on his heels and strides back to his desk. At the next cubicle over, Gyehyeon is just pulling up his chair, coffee cup in hand, frowning at Yeonho as they sit.
“What’s up with you?”
Yeonho fishes in his pocket for the card and unfolds it, shoving it in front of the older boy’s nose. Gyehyeon snorts.
“I’m glad you’re all finding this so funny,” Yeonho mutters, flicking the paper onto his desktop.
“Oh, just get him chocolates or something.” Clearly, Gyehyeon is far too cool to be fussing over a Secret Santa. That’s hardly surprising. Yeonho despairs for whoever’s getting his present. A few minutes pass before the older boy looks away from his computer, realising something, and says, “Wait, no. He doesn’t like chocolate.”
Of course.
Because that would just be way too easy.
Yeonho throws up his hands, far too distracted to work. “What about- I don’t know- a scarf? Gloves?”
“He’s always complaining about being too warm,” Gyehyeon says, shaking his head.
Yeonho’s reflection blinks incredulously back at him from the window a few feet to his left. “It’s snowing!”
“And he really only wears black. Hardly an exciting gift.”
“Well, what does he like? ” No chocolates, no colour, no scarves and no gloves. Dongheon’s starting to sound like a regular Scrooge even before Yeonho sees how Gyehyeon’s expression creases when he considers this question. He’s thinking way too hard. “You must know at least one thing.” It sounds desperate, even to Yeonho’s ears.
Gyehyeon struggles with this a long moment longer, and then huffs, as if still uncertain, “Coffee?”
Yeonho’s expression twists with distaste. “I wouldn’t know how to pick anything good.”
“Liquor, then.”
“I can’t bring booze to a workplace Secret Santa, Gyehyeon.”
“You have any better ideas?”
No.
Obviously not.
The main issue Yeonho has with picking his boss’ name out of the Santa hat is picking his boss’ name out of the Santa hat. Since he hasn’t interacted with Dongheon since his interview, before he knew he’d landed the internship, he hasn’t been able to form much of an impression of the older boy in his mind. He remembers how he looks- kind of tough, like he spends a lot of his time in a gym, dark hair and dark eyes and burnt gold skin. He’d been quiet in the interview, disinterested. And he doesn’t like chocolate.
Who doesn’t like chocolate?
To a foodie like Yeonho, this is an almost unforgivable character flaw.
“You could always ask Hoyoung,” Gyehyeon offers. “They’re really close, I’m sure he’d have some ideas for you.”
Yeonho sighs. It isn’t a bad idea. Right now, it’s the best he’s got.
Hoyoung works in the sales department, and is consistently getting rewards and bonuses and employee-of-the-month benefits. Despite the intimidating first impression (a three piece suit is pretty rare around the office, but Yeonho has never seen Hoyoung in anything else) when they’d been introduced, he’d said if you need anything, you can come to me, I’d be happy to help , and he’d really sounded as if he meant it. Yeonho doubts this is the kind of thing he was imagining helping with, but it’s worth a try.
He catches Hoyoung on his lunch break towards the end of the week, when he doesn’t look quite as swamped as usual. The older boy smiles and invites him into his office, set out of the way of the other cubicle desks, a small room with a desk and short sofa and a tiny bookshelf suffering under the weight of too many books.
“What can I help you with?” Hoyoung asks, closing the door behind them, and Yeonho hesitates, feeling suddenly silly, suddenly shy.
He perches on the sofa as Hoyoung waves him toward it, trying to smile.
“Um, so, it’s about the office Secret Santa thing, and-”
“You didn’t get me?” Hoyoung asks, brows creasing.
“No,” Yeonho says, staring at the alarm plain on Hoyoung’s face, that fades as he says, “no, I got Dongheon.”
“Ah.” Hoyoung sits behind his desk and presses the power button on his computer. He definitely looks relieved now. “Yes, I see what the problem is.”
“Help would be much appreciated,” Yeonho says, laughing breathlessly through the words. Maybe Hoyoung just doesn't want to know who pulled his name, since it’ll ruin the game? From what other people have told Yeonho, and his reputation around the office, that would make sense.
Hoyoung reclines further back in his seat as his laptop fires up. “You have no ideas yet?”
“Gyehyeon mentioned alcohol,” Yeonho shrugs, intent on making it very clear whose idea it was to bring liquor to the office.
Hoyoung just hums, tapping away at his mouse. “I suppose that would work,” he says, voice distracted with his work already, though Yeonho’s fairly certain there’s at least a half hour left of their lunch break. “He’s not picky- I can send you a few links, if you like.”
“Oh, sure. Thanks. That would be helpful.”
Yeonho had been half expecting Hoyoung to oppose the idea, but apparently not.
Maybe there is something S crooge likes, after all.
Hoyoung glances between him and his computer screen, looking antsy. “If that’s all…”
“Right.” Yeonho gets to his feet. “Thanks, again.”
Hoyoung gives him a small smile that clearly means you can see yourself out now , and Yeonho closes the door quietly behind himself.
“Any help?” Gyehyeon asks, as he returns to their corner of the office.
Yeonho nods as he draws out his chair. “Yeah, that was…surprisingly easy.”
“Told you were being dramatic.”
Yeonho hums, slightly dazed as he takes his seat again. Maybe he was making a bigger deal of this than it needs to be- after figuring out the perfect gifts for pretty much everyone in the office except the person he ended up picking, this had seemed like a problem not easily solved. He just wanted his first Christmas here to be great.
He should have known things would work out fine, though. The people in his office are really nice, and even if he wasn’t planning on cosying up to his boss before this, maybe this is a good opportunity! Really, there’s nothing wrong with Dongheon-
The chime of an incoming email breaks Yeonho out of his thoughts. A few clicks of his mouse reveal the email is from Hoyoung, with no subject line.
“Oh. That was fast.”
At first glance, Yeonho seems nothing amiss, and he relaxes back into his chair, a weight lifted off his shoulders. It’s only when he browses through a few of the links that he sees what’s wrong with asking Hoyoung for help.
“Shit,” he says, eyes wide and stuck on his computer screen with far more intensity than usual.
Gyehyeon frowns over at him, surprised by the language. “What is it now ?”
“Hoyoung sent me a list.”
“Pricey?” Gyehyeon guesses, peering over their desk divider.
Yeonho nods, still gaping at a sum with far, far too many zeros at the end for comprehension. He’ll be seeing this number in his nightmares, the shape of it sitting against a white background, tauntingly casual. “I couldn’t afford these bottles if I sold a kidney.”
Gyehyeon laughs. “I’m sure it’s not that-damn, who pays that much for one bottle?”
“Dongheon, apparently.” Yeonho manages to tear his gaze away from the price on his screen to shove the heels of his hands into his eyes, sensing an oncoming headache. The Secret Santa is next week, just seven days to pick, buy and hand in a gift, and now, he’s back to square one.
“Hmm.” Gyehyeon still sounds as if he’d rather forget about the whole thing, but he sees Yeonho stressing, and says, “Maybe Minchan will have some ideas. He’s usually pretty good at remembering random facts about people.”
If there’s anyone in the office busier than Hoyoung, it’s Minchan. The receptionist is only ever away from urgent phone calls and demanding visitors on his lunch breaks, and he never spends those at the office. But is Yeonho desperate enough to make his first Christmas at the office perfect that he shows up before their floor even opens, so he can catch Minchan before the older boy turns on his computer?
Yes. Yes he is.
Minchan yelps when he catches Yeonho’s reflection in the office doors, whipping around towards him with wide, terrified eyes. Once Yeonho has stopped apologising profusely for the accidental jump scare ( and trying not to laugh, since he’d never expected a guy as big as Minchan to make such a fuss) the receptionist seems only too happy to help with the task at hand.
There’s just one issue with that- Minchan’s knowledge of the office and its workers is vast, and it turns out he’s on good terms with Dongheon too, but the older boy is also a little…scatter brained. From him, Yeonho learns that Dongheon hates all kinds of vegetables, that he tires easily and, despite his build, despises working out in any shape or form, is terrified of heights and insects, and doesn’t eat anything with blueberries in it. Minchan also confirms chocolates and woollen accessories are out of the question.
A lot of TMIs about his boss later, Yeonho’s truly at a loss.
There’s really only one option left now; he’s just going to have to stalk him.
As an intern, he’s not an integral part of the workforce yet. He makes notes in meetings and helps permanent employees finish up reports and spell checks social media posts. If he were to take some time out of his day to, say, figure out where his boss eats lunch or what kind of coffee he goes for in the break room, it won’t mess up anyone else’s day too much.
So he helps Minchan power up the office and then he sits at his desk and pulls up his boss’ social media accounts- the personal ones, not the work ones.
They’re not friends on Facebook, and until now, Yeonho hadn’t even known Dongheon has a personal twitter account. It’s full of retweets, just Minchan and Gyehyeon and Hoyoung’s stuff, and Yeonho turns to Instagram quickly. There, there's a few pictures of Dongheon himself, usually full-body shots to show his outfit. He dresses well. All black and grey, though, as Gyehyeon had said.
Yeonho has mixed emotions, sitting there scrolling through his boss’ socials. At first, he only sees someone closed off, kind of stern, not much of a talker. His Facebook is barren and his twitter nearly as empty, unless it’s someone else’s posts. Then on Instagram he sees a bit of a narcissist- granted, this impression is based mainly on the one and only gym pic on Dongheon's account, edited with a black and white filter, to make it all the worse- someone showy and vain. Dongheon is good looking, he supposes.
Okay. He knows. He’s not blind.
Then he finds the pictures Dongheon has taken of other people. There’s Minchan, in an ice cream parlour, goofily grinning at something Dongheon must have said behind the camera. Then there’s Hoyoung, walking down a snowy street in one of his immaculate suits, staring down at his own phone and completely ignorant to Dongheon, by his side, pointing a camera his way. Gyehyeon, over coffee. A few boys Yeonho doesn’t know, who must be Dongheon’s university friends. There’s a particularly adorable shot of one of them and Dongheon sitting knee-to-knee outside somewhere, both of them with bunny rabbits cradled in their arms.
If Yeonho screenshots that one, there’s no one in the office to shame him for it.
There’s another reason for him to arrive early, other than cornering Minchan before the receptionist is overwhelmed with phone calls. Dongheon is always first in the office- something he’d heard a few of the workers bragging about. Their driven boss, never shoving the work onto someone else. Yeonho hadn’t thought much of it then. Isn’t putting in the most effort the boss’ job?
He understands more now, with the early morning chill still in the air as the central heating stutters on, with the tiredness still clinging to him, making his brain foggy, his eyelids heavy.
He rushes to close his computer tabs as the door opens and Dongheon pushes through into the office, smiling at Minchan when the other boy meets his eye.
They talk quietly for a moment as Dongheon shrugs out of his jacket and unwinds the scarf around his neck- a scarf! Gloves, too, now Yeonho is looking. There’s even a pretty pink glow lingering on the bones of Dongheon’s face where the cold had bitten at him.
Yeonho’s not half as good at spying as he wants to be. When he looks back up at Dongheon’s face, it’s to find his boss staring at him, frowning slightly, having spotted Yeonho’s attention. To his dismay, the older boy walks over to his desk and gives him the same I’m-about-to-make-small-talk smile he’d given Minchan.
“You're early, today,” he says.
Yeonho just shrugs, not wanting to lie, not knowing what to say. The feeble attempt at a conversation dies, then, and Dongheon shuffles his weight awkwardly on his feet, coughs into one hand, and nods a goodbye, his tone more curt than before.
“Good morning, Yeonho.”
It’s only when he’s disappearing to his office that Yeonho realises that not only does his boss remember his name, but he’d also known what time he’s usually in the office.
He’s just an intern. It’s both strange and flattering to be noticed so much.
Minchan smiles at him from the reception desk. The clock shows twenty minutes to nine.
Yeonho finds himself clicking once again on the link Minchan had sent him, the one to Dongheon's Instagram. He scrolls to where he left off his search and keeps scrolling. He sees more pictures Dongheon has taken of his friends, some where he's in the shot with them, even some of what must be his family. There are random images too, clearly spur of the moment snaps: the blue of a summer sky, cloud-dotted and unfiltered, a dog walker on the other side of the street beaming down at a well-behaved, eager-faced puppy on one of the leads in their hands, silhouettes of strangers in a midnight dimly lit with streetlights and stars.
He jolts when someone drops into the cubicle next to his.
Gyehyeon looks startled to see him looking so startled. "What?" he says, with obvious suspicion in his voice.
"Nothing," Yeonho says, shaking his head, heart thudding almost painfully fast in his chest as he closes the windows on his computer.
He doesn't stop thinking about that shot of the midnight street for the rest of the day. He's at the office at eight thirty sharp, the next.
Minchan smiles and tells him he appreciates having someone to blabber to as he turns on the office lights and waits for the heating to come on. Yeonho feels guilty, knowing he's only there to snoop, but also like he's getting closer to making another friend around the office. He'd almost forgotten that was the goal, after being so hung up on this Secret Santa thing.
Dongheon arrives at the same time as yesterday, scarf wound around his neck and hands shoved in his pockets away from the icy air, and spots the two of them chatting at the reception desk.
"Good morning," he says, addressing both of them. Both of them return it, Yeonho quietly, unsure of himself, and Minchan loudly, teeth rattling with the cold he hates so much.
Dongheon half-laughs, half-sighs. "Where are the gloves I gave you?"
Sheepishly, Minchan confesses, "I…don't know."
Dongheon tuts and opens his mouth to say something sharp, but then seems to remember Yeonho's presence, his stern frown disappearing the moment their eyes meet. He coughs awkwardly into a fist and makes his exit.
Yeonho watches him go, brows furrowing.
He's not sure how the idea occurs to him, just that it does, that he's all at once aware of an instinct he hadn't had before, but is now almost certain is right.
"Chan," he says, and waits for the receptionist to look his way. "Did you say Dongheon doesn't eat chocolate?" Minchan nods. "How d'you know?"
He only realises how odd the question sounds when Minchan frowns. "What do you mean? He never eats any when there're boxes in the office. He said he doesn't like them."
"He doesn't eat any at all?"
"No,” Minchan says, still looking at him strangely.
It's there in the back of his mind, a half formed image, a vague memory. He could be wrong about it, entirely wrong.
He checks anyway.
He goes back to his desk and opens Dongheon’s social media again- through the link, since he'd still been too scared to follow anything from his own personal account. He scrolls until he finds the picture with Gyehyeon, in the coffee shop.
There, beside Gyehyeon's plate, is a small, golden chocolate wrapper, already empty. It's the kind of chocolate that comes on the side of a hot drink, the kind Yeonho always devours before he's even taken a sip, too eager to wait for his drink to cool so he can enjoy them together as intended. In the photo, Gyehyeon has one of those iced fruit slush things he’s so fond of. Dongheon has a coffee.
Yeonho scrolls and scrolls and scrolls. There are other photographs from the coffee shop, but none that show Dongheon alone.
Fuck it, Yeonho thinks. If he's going to play spy, he might as well do it properly.
The opportunity comes on Wednesday, only two days before their Secret Santa reveal. Dongheon is out of office at a meeting with Hoyoung, and the rest of the workers are in the break room or the cafeteria downstairs or out for lunch. Here's his chance.
He opens the door to Dongheon's office and steps inside before he can hesitate and think himself out of it. He crosses straight to the heavy desk in the middle middle of the room and opens a desk drawer.
Files and more files. A case full of pens and pencils.
He opens the drawer below. Post-it notes, a notepad, and, under it, a half empty box of chocolates. Under the box, the drawer is littered with gold wrappers, where Dongheon has eaten all of his favourite flavour first.
A hidden chocolate stash in the office of someone who says he doesn't eat chocolate whenever there's a box going around the office. A scarf thrown over his shoulders, though he apparently always complains of the heat. He'd given Gyehyeon his chocolate, when it came with his coffee, because Gyehyeon's sweet tooth is infamous and he must have known he'd want it. He gave Minchan his gloves because the office is freezing in the morning, and they're always the first two inside.
Yeonho thinks again of the little stretch of blue sky in one of Dongheon's photos. He thinks of the shot of him smiling with one of his school friends, their heads thrown back with laughter, their faces blurred a little as whoever took the shot laughed along with them and moved the camera.
There’s a funny feeling in his chest, staring down at the empty gold wrappers.
He shuts the drawers in Dongheon’s desk and passes quickly out of the room.
After work, he eats dinner as quickly as possible and bundles up like a giant marshmallow to avoid the worst of the cold, trying to get some shopping done before the stores close for the night. If he buys Dongheon chocolates- and there were a lot of empty wrappers in the older boy’s desk, so he definitely doesn’t think it’s a bad idea anymore- he can’t guarantee the other boy won’t open his gift in front of the rest of the office. If everyone already thinks he doesn’t eat chocolates, is he just going to hand them out and not take any for himself?
Yeonho doesn’t want that. He wants to get something for Dongheon. Only Dongheon.
A small, less than sane part of his mind keeps turning over the possibility of one of those bottles, but as much as he’s tempted now, he still can’t afford them.
He ends up wandering around stores aimlessly for a while, scrolling through Dongheon’s socials on his phone, trying to pick up any sense of what the other boy likes. Clothes are always some form of monochrome, usually plain, though there are a few pieces of jewellery Yeonho likes too. Maybe a necklace? What Dongheon’s wearing is probably real gold, but maybe he wouldn’t mind, if the thought was there.
He turns with the intention of finding a jewellery store, still looking at his phone, and walks straight into someone.
“Oof.”
A person.
Dongheon.
“Oh my God!” Yeonho cries, jumping backwards. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention-”
Dongheon, startled, starts wafting his hands in the air. “No, no that’s okay.” He catches himself fidgeting, and stops, clamping a hand at the back of his head, flattening his hair. “I was a little distracted myself.”
His eyes drop to the floor, and Yeonho is horrified to find that his phone must have flown out of his hands when they’d walked into each other and is now lying face-up on the store carpet, stuck on a picture from Dongheon’s instagram.
Dongheon stares down at it. “Uh…”
Yeonho dives for his phone, laughing nervously as he holds his hand behind his back, trying to ignore the way his cheeks are scalding red, praying Dongheon hadn’t actually seen anything too incriminating. He points at the thing Dongheon’s holding with his free hand, desperate to steer the conversation in a different direction.
“Late Christmas shopping?”
“Hm?” Dungeon looks down at the pair of gloves in his hands as if just remembering he’d picked them up. “Oh, um, no. These are-they’re just for Minchan.”
“Is he your Secret Santa?”
“No,” Dongheon says, and then seems to wish he could take it back and lie instead. “Um-”
Yeonho can’t stop himself from laughing.
“Just because he lost the last pair you gave him?”
Dongheon looks a little surprised. The expression quickly fades into something more self-deprecating, chin ducking to his chest, a small smile, embarrassed at the edges. “He gets cold easily, so…” he shrugs.
“Yeah.”
There’s a long moment of silence, as Dongheon tries to hide the gloves behind his back and Yeonho locks and stuffs his phone in his pocket. By the way Dongheon’s shifting his weight and avoiding his eye, it’s clear the older boy had saw what was on his phone screen.
Oh well , Yeonho thinks. That funny feeling is back in his chest, dizzy and warm, and he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed anymore.
“You’re my Secret Santa,” he confesses, laughing as Dongheon’s eyes jump to his, caught off guard, “but I have no idea what to get you.”
Dongheon laughs a little too, a breathless sound. “Oh.” He shakes his head. “That’s okay, I don’t need anything.”
“I want to get you something,” Yeonho presses. More than ever now, seeing Dongheon after work, hair tousled and eyes tired, shopping for one of his more troublesome friends and not wanting anyone to spot him, that’s true. “Something you’ll like.”
Dongheon’s brows furrow. “Something I’ll like?”
Yeonho nods. “I was thinking of chocolates,” he says, unconsciously smiling through the words, “but people kept telling me you don’t like them, only now I think you do , you just give them away so other people can eat them, and Gyehyeon said you wouldn’t like gloves, but I think that’s the same, you just give them away, and I really cannot afford the drinks you like, so I’m kind of at a loss-” he stops, as Dongheon clamps a hand over his mouth. The older boy’s eyes are creased with laughter, the sound of his chuckling only slightly muffled by his hand. “Why are you laughing?”
Dongheon takes his hand from his face- still beaming- and points in the direction of Yeonho’s pocket, where he’d stuffed his phone a moment ago. “That’s why you’ve been stalking me online?”
“What? How did you know?”
Dongheon’s smile turns sly. “Besides seeing my Instagram on your screen a few times? You liked one of my tweets a few days ago.”
“Oh my God." Oh my God. "Okay, please don’t think I was being creepy, I was just-”
“Trying to find something I’d like,” Dongheon supplies, nodding. “Right?”
Yeonho heaves a relieved sigh, nodding back. “Right.”
Dongheon hums thoughtfully, starting to walk again, slowly, to see if Yeonho follows him. When the younger boy does, he smiles, waiting until they’ve wandered around the store for a while and he's sure Yeonho's more comfortable with him before saying, “Can I give you a suggestion?
“Please,” Yeonho laughs.
“Feel free to reject it.”
“Sure.”
Dongheon hesitates now, now the setup’s done and he only has to reach into his pocket and get it all out in the open. His heart’s beating so loud, the whole store can probably hear it.
This was dumb. It was really dumb, and Yeonho’s going to say no, and it’ll be so embarrassing and he’ll never be able to look him in the eye again when they pass each other in the office.
But there had been something in Yeonho’s smile when he’d been talking about the chocolates, hadn’t there?
Dongheon doesn’t think he was just imagining that. He’d definitely known a lot more about Dongheon than Dongheon had expected him to.
Before he can think himself out of it, Dongheon shoves his free hand in his pocket, pulls out his wallet, and passes Yeonho two thin sheets of paper from one of the compartments inside.
Yeonho frowns, but accepts them. “What’s this?”
“Your Secret Santa gift.” His voice is shaking. He swallows and tries to sound a little cooler as Yeonho looks up at him with a frown, hurrying on: “Movie tickets. I was thinking”- he taps one of the tickets -”I was thinking this one could be mine. You can regift it, if you want. For your Secret Santa.”
Yeonho stares down at the movie tickets in his hands, brain turning slowly. “What…what is going on right now?”
He looks confused, but not like he’s saying no.
A slow smile starts growing over Dongheon's lips.
“I’m asking you to see a movie with me,” he supplies helpfully, looking amused at Yeonho’s confused expression.
Yeonho scoffs a laugh. Dongheon’s grinning down at him, bashfully, Dongheon that remembers his name, that knows the usual time he makes it into the office, that had looked over a few times to see Yeonho in the office and spotted him looking at his socials like a creepy stalker.
“Wait," Yeonho says suddenly, but as Dongheon's stomach swoops horribly, expecting disaster, he says, as if annoyed by the idea, "If you didn’t get my name, were you just not going to say anything?”
Dongheon grimaces, and flattens the same part of his hair as he had earlier. “Um, no. I might have cheated a little bit.”
He knew he’d pick me?
Yeonho gasps when the realisation hits him.
“Yongseung gave you my card!” That’s why he was at the reception desk that day- he wouldn’t need to snoop to figure out who Minchan had picked, the older boy’s so clumsy it would have been easy to get it out of him. He’d been taking Yeonho’s name from the hat and ducked behind the desk so he wouldn’t get caught! And he'd laughed so hard when Yeonho picked Dongheon's name, too.
“That little cheater!"
Dongheon laughs, and pokes a fingertip between Yeonho’s brows, to flatten his frown. “I needed an excuse to talk to you.”
“No you didn't.”
“Okay,” Dongheon admits, canting his head, “no, I didn’t. I was just too shy to do anything otherwise.”
Unprompted, the black and white photo on Dongheon’s Instagram flashes up in Yeonho’s mind.
His laugh is embarrassingly high-pitched. “You shouldn’t have been.”
Dongheon looks at him strangely, brow quirking. “So…this means you’re not rejecting me, right?”
“Of course I’m not,” Yeonho says. Then his expression turns stern. “I still want to get you something, though.”
Dongheon shakes his head, but he’s grinning. It only takes him a moment before he’s suggesting: “Coffee, maybe.”
Yeonho pouts. “That isn’t a very exciting gift.”
“Get coffee with me,” Dongheon explains, more firmly, “after the movie.”
“Oh.” Yeonho blinks at him, cheeks colouring. “Oh. Sure. Let’s do that.”
Dongheon beams. He wants to lean forward, place a soft kiss on Yeonho’s cheeks where the colour’s flooding, but he won’t push it. He settles for planting a hand on the younger boy’s shoulders, looking in his eyes and smiling as if they’re sharing a secret as he says, “Merry Christmas, Yeonho.”
Yeonho smiles back at him. He takes Dongheon’s wrist, pulling the boy’s hand off of his shoulder, and places one of the movie tickets into his palm.
“Merry Christmas, Dongheon."