Chapter Text
“Not only did she lie about her age and nationality, but she also kept using the dumbest nicknames on me? Do I look like a little pumpkin cupcake to you?! I don’t even want to know what the inspiration for that one was.” Sehun scoffs, “And I have to sit through the entire thing, pretending to enjoy it?!”
“You’ll get used to it.” She holds back a giggle for her angry friend’s sake. “Plus, you get paid for it so..”
“Yeah, well, you made everything sound a lot more fun and a lot easier.” The tall college student crosses his arms in distaste, weighed down by the underwhelming job he’d willingly applied to at the suggestion of his close friend, Heejin.
“It’s only your first day, Sehunnie. Some clients are fun; others are your worst nightmare, and if you think being given pet names is bad, you might as well quit now, cuz it only gets worse from here.” Heejin’s eyes remained glued to the screen.
Sehun huffs in frustration, “This is worse than prostitution.”
Heejin shrugs, “This is clean prostitution.”
He purses his lips in defeat. “What are you doing anyway?” He shifts closer to her desk, taking a peak at her computer.
“Doing my job, unlike you.”
“I just got back, for god’s sake!” He runs his hand through his dark hair.
“Yeah, well, you better get to replying to clients before duck face catches you slacking.” Heejin types away on her computer.
Sehun chuckles at the image of his boss with a duck beak, though it wasn’t that much of a reach with her poorly done lip fillers. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it.”
She pauses to finally look at her younger friend. “Fighting, Pumpkin cupcake oppa!” She holds up a fist to match her exaggerated determined expression.
Sehun crumples a random piece of paper and throws it at her, but she could tell he was holding back a laugh.
“Ah! Finally!” After hours of semi-nonstop work, Heejin was more than ready to go home. She stretches in her seat and glances at her coworker and friend to check on his progress.
“Gimme one more minute then we can head back home together.” He says while yawning.
“Take your time…ish.” She leaves her seat and circles the empty office seats. Their coworkers were almost all gone, except for the ones in higher demand. Heejin had already predicted the popularity Sehun would gain; after all, he had the looks of an idol. She just wondered if he’d be able to hold back his sarcasm and sass for the dates, but he seems to be doing well.
“And done!” Sehun violently clicks a button on his keyboard before shooting out of his seat. “lessgoo!” He cheers.
They say their goodbyes to their coworkers and leave the building.
“So,” Sehun nudges her, his expression already telling her what his next sentence will be, “how’s it going with yeollie?”
Her face heats up at the reminder that Sehun had overheard her earlier phone call with her hopefully-soon-to-be-boyfriend. “Shut up.” She mumbles.
Sehun cackles loudly, earning a light shove from his much smaller friend.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop…for now.” He raises his hands, signaling a temporary truce. “Really, though, how’s it going with him?”
Somehow, her heart flutters just at the thought of Chanyeol, and so she avoids Sehun’s gaze to avoid further teasing. He knew her well enough to be able to tell she was flustered by just looking at her, so she was thankful their walk to the station made it slightly more difficult for him to notice her face.
“Well, he’s just…a dream come true, to be honest.” She smiles to herself, feeling the warmth spread from her chest to the rest of her body.
Sehun makes a gagging noise, “Can’t believe you’re getting like this over a man.”
Another shove.
“As cliché as it sounds, this one is different.”
“Uh-huh.” Sehun remains unimpressed.
Heejin couldn’t blame him though; it wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed her fall head over heels for someone only to later discover how much of a dick they actually were. Yet she had faith in her Yeol.
“Does he know about, you know, your job and all?” Sehun gets serious.
That’s exactly what she didn’t wanna talk about.
“No…” Heejin replies honestly.
“You know you’ll have to tell him sooner or later, right?”
She hated that he was right.
“I know, and he’ll understand.” She poured all her hope in that second part.
“I don’t think anyone would be okay with their partner going on dates as a job.”
“Guess I’ll have to find a different job then.” She sighs, “But the pay here is just too good…”
“True.” He agrees, “Well, no use worrying about it now, I suppose. We’ll think about it when y’all make it official.”
Heejin smiles at the idea of Chanyeol asking her to be his girlfriend. God, she’s whipped.
After taking the subway, Sehun and Heejin were left in front of their usual dinner place- the convenience store.
“Are you hungry?” Heejin asks.
“You already know I am.”
“Let’s go then.” She cheerfully links arms with him and drags him to the store.
It was almost a tradition for them to go have ramen at the convenience store after work, at this point, and if they didn’t do that, they’d have dinner together at one of their apartments. And by ‘dinner’, they mean more ramen.
“Yeol?” Heejin yelps in surprise.
“Heejin?” Chanyeol laughs sheepishly. He was dressed in a suit, indicating he’d come here right after work, and was holding a bag full of all different kinds of snacks. “I wanted to surprise you, but I got overwhelmed with too much work, so I’m a little late.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. Heejin was about to buy some snacks and go home, so you’re right on time, actually.” Sehun lightly pushes Heejin towards her little crush as she calls him- though the man was anything but little.
“Oh?” Chanyeol’s face lights up, “Is that so?” he waits for Heejin’s confirmation.
She looks back and forth between Sehun and Chanyeol hesitantly.
Her friend nods encouragingly, so she brings her gaze back to Chanyeol, “Uh, yeah, it’s true.”
“Great! We can go home and eat what I got you then!” He beams.
Her hearts swells, “Of course!”
“Well, you two get going, I’ll buy some stuff and go home.” Sehun excuses himself and walks further back into the store. Heejin couldn’t tell if he actually needed to buy something or if he just wanted to leave her and her date alone, but either way, she grabs Chanyeol’s free hand and walks out the store.
Swinging their hands back and forth, they walk to Heejin’s building- which also happens to be the same building Sehun lives in. He’s her next door neighbor, and that’s essentially how their friendship came to be. Well, they did get off to a rough start, but that’s a story for another day.
“You spend a lot of time with that friend, Sehun’s his name, right?” Chanyeol breaks the silence, as if reading her thoughts about Sehun.
“Oh, yeah, I guess you could say so.” She wonders what brought that up.
“Ah, I’m jealous. Wish I could spend as much time with Heejin-ah.” He smiles down at her, his dimples peeking through.
Heejin squeezes his hand in hers and smiles shyly, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Me too…I wish I could spend more time with you.”
They finally arrive at her apartment’s door, and she starts fishing for her keys in her bag.
While he waits, Chanyeol begins planting soft kisses on her cheek.
“Yeol…someone’s gonna see…” Even though they were just cheek kisses, any form of pda seems to set Heejin’s cheeks ablaze.
“Guess you have to find the keys faster then.” He teases, his arms wrapping tighter around her waist.
She chuckles despite how hot her face felt. “You’re so mean.” She fake whines.
Before he could respond, however, she’d already found the keys. “Found em!” She grins at the taller man before turning to unlock the door.
Chanyeol follows her inside and shuts the door behind them.
She flicks on an unnecessary amount of lights as she walks into the kitchen, to which Chanyeol protests as per usual, “Your electricity bill is gonna be way more than you can pay.” He flicks off a few light switches.
“Are you calling me poor?”
“Huh?” Chanyeol stares at her, dumbfounded.
Heejin laughs at his expression. “I’m just kidding, Yeol. Here let me help.” She attempts to grab the bag he’s been carrying.
“Nope. I wanna spoil you.” He places the plastic bag on the counter before turning around and carrying Heejin to also place her on the counter. “You just get to watch me, baby, okay?” He presses a kiss to her lips.
“Whatever you say then.” She shrugs, accepting the princess treatment.
Chanyeol takes off his jacket and folds his shirt’s sleeves to reveal his forearm. Heejin tries not to drool.
He then grabs two packs of her favourite ramen and turns towards the stove, “Wait, where do you-”
“Here you go.” She hands him a large pan from a nearby cupboard.
“Thanks.” He chuckles.
“How was work?” Heejin calls out while Chanyeol works on their dinner, his back turned to her.
“Alright, nothing worth mentioning really. What about you?” He glances at her.
She remains silent, her conversation with Sehun popping up in her mind.
“Heejin-ah?”
“Oh, um, yeah, same, nothing worth mentioning.”except of course, you know, the job itself.
Heejin remains quiet after that, silently drowning in guilt.
Chanyeol is the perfect man, but she just has to be sure first before she drops her job for a man.
She tried to shake off the urge to just tell him right now, directing her focus on anything else- like how gorgeous Chanyeol looks as he grabs the two bowls and places them at the table. His arms were threatening to rip through his sleeves. God, this man is beautiful.
She hops off the counter and sits on the chair opposite to where Chanyeol was standing.
She immediately notices how cheesy and creamy he made the ramen- exactly how she likes. She moans in delight after taking the noodles into her mouth, “Chanyeol, these are so good!”
His ears turn a bright shade of pink, “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Glad you like them.”
The almost-a-couple-but-not-quite eat in silence for a few moments before Chanyeol interjects excitedly, “Oh! How could I forget? My friend invited both of us to go out with him and his new girlfriend; kind of like a double date I guess. So, are you free on Thursday night?”
Heejin smiles sadly, “Sorry, Yeollie, I have to work until late this Thursday…”
He pouts slightly, making it hard for Heejin not to go kiss him and tell him she’ll be there. “Oh, well, it’s okay, I suppose we can set up another double date.” He nods as if agreeing with his own suggestion.
After finishing their bowls, Chanyeol grabs the rest of the snacks and leads them to Heejin’s living room, “What do you wanna watch?”
Heejin shrugs.
“Helpful as usual.” He chuckles, earning a light punch to the arm.
Chanyeol sets up some romcom Heejin had never heard of but was happy to watch.
He sits on the couch and holds an arm out, waiting for her to settle in his arms, which she does.
At some point during the movie, Heejin falls asleep, and Chanyeol takes that as his sign to leave, but only after leaving a few- okay, more than a few- kisses all over her face.
~
“I have to go now or I’ll be late.” Heejin announces as she grabs her bag off her desk.
“Have fun and don’t get murdered!” Sehun calls out from his desk.
“I’ll try.”
“If you don’t make it, can I have your PS?”
Heejin eyes him but doesn’t respond.
She rushes out the building, her heels clicking loudly.
“Kim Heejin?” A voice calls out, interrupting her march to the station.
The source of the voice looked familiar, “Uh, is this Lee Hyunwoo?”
“Yes, I had extra time, so I figured I could come pick you up to make things easier for you.” He smiles.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows furrow, “That’s kind of you.” She forces her face to display appreciation.
The drive to the restaurant wasn’t anything outside the usual, just some small talk to fill the silence.
“My friend will be joining us today; I hope you don’t mind.” Hyunwoo says once they reach their table.
It wasn’t strange at all; a lot of clients brought her to friend hang outs and the like, so Heejin smiles, “It’s okay.”
“So, until my friend shows up, would you like to take a look at the menu?” He slides the menu towards Heejin, as if she didn’t really have the option to decline, not that she wanted to but still.
Heejin scans the menu; she’d wanted to go on a diet, so she considered just settling for a salad, but when you’re at a fancy restaurant and someone else is paying, it’s extremely tempting to go all out. Plus, this wasn’t gonna last forever anyway; in fact, she probably needs to quit as soon as possible. So for now, maybe she needs to take advantage of this man.
Absorbed in her thoughts, Heejin doesn’t notice the man approaching their table.
“Chanyeol!” Hyunwoo greets.
Heejin freezes. No. No, it’s fine. It’s just a stranger with the same name. It can’t be.
She slowly lifts her head to look at said stranger. Her eyes meet Chanyeol’s. Her Chanyeol.
“Heejin?”