Chapter Text
Junhyeon’s vision was starting to blur, and he saw the same screen of code taunt him even when he closed his eyes. He was trying to massage the ache away from his temples when he felt a warm object pressed against the side of his neck.
"You still hanging in there?" Taerae asked, brandishing a mug of tea.
“No coffee?” Junhyeon whined, but accepted it gladly, cradling the cup in his hands and blowing ripples across the steaming surface to cool it down. "Barely. I just finally got this stupid bug fixed." He took a slow sip, feeling his body start to relax - he’d been sitting tensely at his desk for the past few hours straight and now the energy was draining out of him with each passing second.
"No more coffee for you. It’s way too late now, don’t you think it’s time for a break?”
"Yeah, you’re right.” Junhyeon yawned. “I'll do the rest tomorrow."
"It's already tomorrow though?"
Junhyeon looked at the clock in the corner of his screen and collapsed onto his desk with an exasperated groan.
"I can't believe I'm still at work after midnight. We've thrown away our youth just to work these stupid hours. Think of all the people our age out partying right now."
He still remembered the first day they’d shown up at work, early and eager to impress as the two newest interns of a blossoming tech start up. This was what Junhyeon had been studying so hard for, and he’d bragged proudly to all of his family members about his first proper job after graduation. It was practically his dream job too, with a comfortable salary and a modern office in the heart of Seoul. He’d felt like an adolescent finally on the brink of adulthood, ready to earn his own money and pay his parents back for everything they’d done for him.
Taerae was two years older, a little more experienced yet a little more anxious, shy at first but easy to get along with. They’d been a duo from day one, because Junhyeon had hidden his nerves under chatter and clung to the one person who felt familiar, and it was rare to see them apart. Lunch breaks were spent rating the cafeteria meals, trading food the other didn’t like, and playing mobile games in the swanky lounge. They spent too long talking at the coffee machine when they should have been working, and explored the area to find the best dinner spots for their biweekly tradition of beer and karaoke.
When the work inevitably piled up and their enthusiasm began to fade, Junhyeon was the one to break up his monotonous days with laughter, Taerae was the one to massage his tired shoulders and bring him coffee.
The years had already flown by, and while his bank account was surely thankful for his hard work, Junhyeon didn’t know if he could survive another season of crunch time, working himself to the bone until the days blended and he forgot what his own bed felt like. His university days seemed like a distant memory now, although it had only been a few years.
"Speak for yourself, I'm old now." Taerae commented, setting his own mug down to knead his fingers into the tense muscles of Junhyeon’s upper back.
Junhyeon let out a long contented sigh, stretching out like a cat across his keyboard.
“I can’t believe I’m closer to my thirties than my twenties now.” Junhyeon bemoaned, face mushed against his desk. “Isn’t that scary?”
Taerae hummed his agreement. “Terrifying. Just wait until 27, that’s when you’ll really start to feel it. Especially in your back.”
Junhyeon chuckled, and Taerae pressed a little harder into his shoulder to get him to stay still.
“We’re not that old, hyung. We’re still got the rest of our twenties and the whole rest of our lives ahead of us.”
That being said, Junhyeon didn’t know what the rest of his life would entail. In middle school, he’d studied hard to make it into a good high school. In high school, his driving goal had been to get into a good university. In university, he worked his butt off for his degree so he could get a good job. There weren’t any more arrows to tell him where to go now, so he guessed this was it, adult life.
He’d mused aloud one day while stuck in a coffee shop on a rainy day with Taerae, work forgotten on their laptops in favour of a meandering conversation, that he’d always been doing it for someone else. It gave him a sense of purpose, he supposed, that he could never really find in himself. He’d always thrived off of other people’s energy, searching for acceptance in their laughter and approval in their words. The face his parents had made when he’d surprised them with a vacation was enough to make the overtime worth it. And if his energy wasn’t going to be limitless, he’d rather give his everything now and burn bright while he could.
Taerae, taking slow thoughtful bites of his sandwich, had nodded.
“I think it’s amazing,” he’d said, voice mellow amongst the chatter in the cafe. “That you work so hard for others. If there’s no instructions for how to live life, and if we have to find meaning for ourselves, then I think it’s alright just to want to make others happy.”
He’d smiled at Junhyeon sweetly, not the wide toothy kind when he was excited, not the bright blinding kind when he was pleased about something, but something softer, reserved for the moments of stillness between them, when Junhyeon felt alright with peeling back the layers because Taerae never seemed to mind.
“Or something like that. That was kind of cheesy, wasn’t it?” Taerae added, sheepish.
“No, that was cool. Like something you’d hear in a movie.” Junhyeon smiled back, soothed as ever by Taerae’s presence. He closed his laptop, resting his head on his palm. “What about you, hyung? What motivates you to work?”
“Besides the pay?”
Junhyeon nodded.
“It’s kind of embarrassing, but when I was younger, I had this grand plan of things I wanted to do in my life.” Taerae admitted. “Stuff like graduating and buying a house and getting married, you know. And then I wanted to save a bunch and retire early to do music and have a family, I guess.”
“Oh, so you’re the romantic type?” Junhyeon remarked. “Though it definitely suits you.”
Taerae looked down at his coffee cup, cheeks warm. He’d been extra cautious when sipping it so as not to ruin the latte art the barista had made for him, a cute bear now slightly lopsided.
“I guess so. I used to want everything to be perfect, to achieve all of these things by their imaginary deadlines or it would be too late. But now I think I’m just trying to enjoy where I am right now. Work is stressful, but it’s fun sometimes too. So that’s why I’m still here.”
“And because you get to spend with me too, right?” Junhyeon grinned.
“Yeah,” Taerae admitted, voice barely a whisper above the patter of raindrops outside. “It’s fun because you’re here.”
Junhyeon hadn’t known the right words to say back then, but he figured it was fine. Taerae knew that he appreciated him just as much. He couldn’t have survived all this time without him - staff turnover was always pretty high in their industry, but no matter how competitive the job offers or how hard the work, he stayed. He’d never had a friendship as easy as theirs, and it hadn’t crossed his mind that things might change one day.
“Should we go and sleep?” Taerae suggested, snapping Junhyeon out of his reminiscence. Right, it was nearly 1am and silent in the office, and he had been running on four hours of sleep and two cups of coffee.
“Yeah, let me save my stuff quickly and I’ll come.”
Taerae went to wash up, and Junhyeon finished his tea before gathering their cups to leave in the sink.
He followed shortly after him, brushing his teeth in the thankfully clean bathrooms and wincing at his reflection in the mirror.
When things got like this, it was widely accepted for people to just bring their necessities into work and bunk at the office, like some sort of school camp for tired adults. It had been weirdly thrilling the first time around, the buzz of anticipation for deadlines motivating him to stay later and later, and with Taerae around, it had felt almost like a sleepover. He had been annoyingly chipper throughout it all, and he brushed off his coworker’s tired glances with the vigour of a fresh graduate, but now he was in their place, feeling particularly horrified at the sight of his eyebags under the fluorescent lights.
“God, why didn’t you tell me I looked this awful?” He asked Taerae, who had refused to give up his skincare routine in spite of his lifestyle choices that were surely putting it in vain.
“You look normal though?” Taerae commented, dodging out of Junhyeon’s reach as he let out an offended yell.
Apart from their cafeteria and the modern lounge attached to it, there was another space for taking breaks between work, a spacious room with floor to ceiling windows and hanging plants, a peaceful sanctuary during the day and a place to sleep for when they dragged on too long. There were booths set up with curtains dividing them, each equipped with pillows and covers and a plush sofa bed. It was supposed to be a revolutionary new idea to improve productivity and mental health, naps during the work day, but like the free coffee machine, it was just another trap tying them to the office. Still, during crunch time it was a lot easier to just crash here than head home in the dead of night.
They crept past the already drawn curtains to an empty booth, careful to avoid the loud snorers across the room. Everyone was barely getting by on caffeine and power naps, such was the life of a busy professional in this industry, but it never really got easier.
Junhyeon settled onto the sofa, pulling a cushion up to his chest and letting Taerae follow after him.
“Our work-life balance is a total mess,” Junhyeon commented, pulling the curtain closed on their little booth so they wouldn’t have to watch Gyubin doze nearby, face down on his pillow and legs dangling onto the floor.
“Work-life balance? What’s that?”
Taerae sat next to him, stretching his legs out long in front of him. Junhyeon pulled the thin blanket up to cover them both.
“It’s this thing I read about once, but it’s probably just a myth.” Junhyeon kept his voice low to not disturb the others, but he didn’t feel ready to sleep yet, weirdly enough.
"If you could go anywhere on holiday right now, where would you go?"
"Hm," Taerae paused to think with a serious expression. "Hawaii."
"Hawaii?"
That was an unexpected answer from Taerae, who sometimes complained when Junhyeon dragged him out to watch a movie on the weekends because he was ready for a cosy Sunday at home. It was the kind of place Junhyeon had imagined going for his honeymoon, on some distant day in the future when he was a proper adult, stable and loved and whole.
"Because it's too cold in Seoul now. I want to sunbathe and have ice cream and forget about the world for a while."
A vacation definitely sounded nice. They’d gone hiking together a few times despite Taerae’s reluctance, and to the beach once during summer, but never abroad.
"Hey, after this project is all done, let's go on holiday together." Taerae suggested, voice soft in that way that indicated his head was already lost in the clouds. “A proper one.”
"I thought you were saving for a new apartment."
"Well even if I couldn't afford my rent afterwards you wouldn't let me live on the streets, would you?"
"So you're planning on just freeloading off of me? We started working here at the same time, you can't use your seniority over me." Junhyeon said, but Taerae had stopped paying attention.
"Your place allows pets, right? We could adopt a dog.” Taerae was just rambling at this point, eyelids heavy. “What breed would be good? Maybe a chihuahua, they look a bit like you.”
Junhyeon scoffed, shifting as Taerae’s head started to loll so he fell on his shoulder rather than off the other side of the couch.
“But chihuahuas are so ugly.”
“They’re not ugly, they’re cute.” Taerae frowned, sitting back up to argue even in his tired state. “They’ve got such shiny eyes and big pointy ears, isn’t it cute?” He fumbled for his phone to search for pictures of them, and held it up next to Junhyeon’s face. “See, you really do look like one.”
“But I don’t have pointy ears, do I?” Junhyeon craned his head to look at him and batted his eyelashes in his most exaggerated puppy dog impression.
Taerae broke into soft laughter in that usual way of his, hunching over with a hand over his mouth and pressing his weight into Junhyeon's side.
"Maybe not, but you do look like a chihuahua."
"No I don't," Junhyeon protested. "I can't be like a golden retriever or something cuter?"
"Nope, you're a chihuahua."
Taerae leaned back down, curling into Junhyeon's warmth.
“But we should get a dog,” he continued. “Or a cat, I don’t mind.”
“Did you just decide to move in with me on your own?”
“We used to have a dog when I was a kid,” Taerae rambled on, eyes slipping shut even as he continued to talk, slurring his syllables. “He used to be my best friend. Living by myself just gets so lonely, I want a dog. Or a roommate.”
He patted Junhyeon’s arm drowsily, and Junhyeon moved to lie down, almost on instinct, manoeuvring a sleepy Taerae besides him.
“You’ll help me take care of it, right?” Taerae mumbled.
Junhyeon gave a murmur of agreement, bringing the blanket up around their shoulders. Taerae fell asleep still going on about dogs, and Junhyeon watched him with an affection sprouting in his chest like a flower after a long winter. He looked down at him, tucked into his side like he belonged, and it bloomed with a realisation years in the making.
Their deadline was in two days and they had a meeting at 7am the next morning, when no doubt he would have to get up and focus back on work.
For now, he thought about coming home to someone, about an ugly dog he would quickly learn to love, about singing duets in their kitchen and making a mess trying to cook dinner together. He thought about a vacation in Hawaii, strolling hand in hand under a cloudless blue sky with someone he had promised to spend the rest of his life with. He thought about what he might say tomorrow, or maybe on a better day when they were both freer, when he could prepare the kind of perfect moment Taerae deserved. The pictures were clear now, startling but comforting all the same, and Junhyeon wondered how he’d gone for so long without realising.
He thought that maybe his reason had been Taerae all along.