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Gyuvin’s back hurts. He’s on hour 6 of his shift, and waiting for the minutes to go by is as painful as watching paint dry. It’s one of the worst days of the week, because he’s stuck with drive-through duty - which means dealing with teenagers who think it’s funny to ask for a side of foot lettuce alongside their order. Which, admittedly, Gyuvin would probably have done a few years ago, but right now he’s just tired and wants to go home.
“I want to go home,” Gyuvin taps on the mic to speak to the kitchens.
“Me too, buddy,” Junhyeon says seconds later, and he hears a burger patty being flipped over from its telltale sizzle. “Only an hour to go. I’ll sneak you a Bacon Cheeseburger if you last through this shift,”
Gyuvin groans. “I don’t even eat bacon,” and Junhyeon laughs.
“Deal with it, then,”
He snaps back to attention when the customer service speaker crackles, and someone clears their throat on the other end.
He puts on his best customer service voice. “Hi, what can I get for you?”
“Uhm,” There’s a long pause, and Gyuvin can already tell who’s speaking into the mic. Because nobody ever orders at a drive-through without knowing what they want beforehand, and there is exactly one person Gyuvin knows who would hold up the entire line just to order the most offensive thing you could ever order at Burger King.
“Can I get a cheeseburger? Without the cheese, please?”
“Seriously, Ricky?”
“I’m just messing with you,” Ricky laughs, satisfied. Gyuvin can practically hear his smile through the speakers. “Just serve me whatever. I’ll just be in the parking lot.”
“Okay,” Gyuvin laughs, “Thanks for coming.”
Ricky’s voice softens. “You better have put down the right order, Gyuvin-ssi,”
“Yes, one cheeseburger with extra cheese coming right up.”
True to his word, Ricky is sitting in his car, inside the Burger King parking lot - Gyuvin finds him without a problem, because there is only one car in the parking lot at this hour.
Gyuvin taps on the window of the door, and Ricky unlocks the car with a click.
“Sorry I took so long, closing shift is a bitch,” Gyuvin apologises as he slides into the passenger seat, pushing a paper bag into Ricky’s lap.
Ricky waves him off. “You don’t have to say that every time,”
Gyuvin doesn’t know how this started, but when he first started his job a month ago, he would lament to Ricky about working the closing shift twice a week and how he’d have to wait for the bus home alone. Not that he was scared of people mugging him in the dark or anything. Then all of a sudden, on a random Tuesday, Ricky drove to work to pick him up. And then it happened again. And again. And then they started eating burgers in Ricky’s car, in the middle of the parking lot, in the middle of the night.
“Well, I still feel bad, so I got you a strawberry milkshake,” Gyuvin gestures at the bag. “And extra fries.”
Ricky’s eyes widen then, eagerly opening the paper bag, but still careful. Delicate. Because where Gyuvin would probably have ripped open the bag and downed the milkshake in seconds, Ricky would take care to unfurl the paper bag properly, taking small sips and having a few bites of food in between before finishing the drink.
“Yeah, bad enough that you’re stealing my drink,” Ricky jokes when Gyuvin grabs the cup to steal a sip, but Ricky lets him anyway. He doesn’t fight back when it doesn’t matter.
Gyuvin tilts the cup so Ricky can drink from it. When his eyes light up in approval, Gyuvin makes a mental note to thank Junhyeon for it.
“Good?”
“The best,” Ricky takes about 5 more sips, the most emotion Gyuvin has seen him show that night. “Did Junhyeon make that?”
Gyuvin nods, taking another sip himself. “Wow. Maybe I do deserve employee of the month for asking him to make that.”
“Maybe,” Ricky says, and Gyuvin looks up. “In fact, you probably deserve something better than employee of the month.”
Gyuvin blinks. “What? I thought you said you would only take me on a date if I worked at least 30 hours this week.”
Ricky pauses. “Well. Maybe it’s better than a date. Who knows.”
Ricky is being cryptic, but Gyuvin knows him, and knows that he’s hiding something and he’s worried about how Gyuvin will react to it.
“I know it will be if you say so,” Gyuvin says, and that seems to reassure Ricky a little.
Ricky is suspiciously quiet when they get home.
“Wait here,” Ricky instructs, while he disappears into the kitchen.
When he emerges from the kitchen, he’s holding a large crock pot, that could be none other than Gyuvin’s mother’s. They didn’t own a single pot that looked like that in their kitchen, because neither of them cooked - they probably would not be surviving if it wasn’t for takeaway and Jiwoong’s occasional tupperware meals.
“No way,” Gyuvin says when Ricky puts the pot down, hesitant.
“Yes way,” Ricky pulls the kitchen mittens off his hands, a few sizes too large for him. “I was going to ask your mom for the recipe because you’ve been going on about it for weeks, but I figured I would probably blow up the kitchen and then we won’t get our deposit for the apartment back. So I just drove down to her place to pick up a pot that she made herself. It was really good of her to offer to make it so I didn’t have to, though,” Ricky is rambling, and Gyuvin knows he’s nervous. Like a skittish cat getting the zoomies.
“You drove,” Gyuvin stares at Ricky like he just grew another head, not because Ricky was a bad driver, but because Ricky would have driven hours to where Gyuvin’s mother lived in another town. Just to get a pot of Gyuvin’s mother’s stew - his ultimate comfort food.
And Gyuvin must have started tearing up, because Ricky’s eyes widen.
“Oh, no, don’t go crying on me,” Ricky says, without any bite in his voice, because he doesn’t know how - he probably doesn’t have it in him to bark, either. Because at his core, he’s just a gentle, soft-hearted cat making its way through a world of dogs that bark a little too loudly.
“Not on your YSL shirt I’m not,” Gyuvin takes the tissue Ricky is handing over to him. “It’s just that…” There are words caught in his throat, all jumbled up, and he doesn’t know which ones to say first. It’s a lot. Ricky waits for him.
“Don’t cry, you’ll look ugly tomorrow,” Ricky says, laughing at Gyuvin’s expression, all scrunched up. “There. Have some soup.” Ricky ladles steaming hot stew into Gyuvin’s bowl, brimming full of his mother’s fondness and Ricky’s unbridled affection that he pretends he wouldn't easily give to Gyuvin.
“Too late,” Gyuvin blubbers through his tears. It tastes like unconditional love. “You’re right. This is better than a date.”
“The date might have to wait for next time,” Ricky says. “Your boyfriend over here is running out of ideas to outdo himself. I think I might have peaked with the stew.”
“No, it’s going to happen tomorrow, because I’ll take you on one,” Gyuvin rebuts. If Ricky’s committed to the bit, then so can he. He wishes it were real sometimes. Then he could wonder what it would be like to go on real dates, not play-pretend ones under the disguise of an inside joke.
Ricky smiles then, the corner of his lips quirking up. “You beat me to it,”
“It’ll be better than the stew,” Gyuvin promises. “I’ll emerge victorious in the battle of boyfriends.”
“Okay, good luck outdoing the outdoer,” Ricky says, competitive all of a sudden. Maybe tomorrow, he’ll wake up without the urge to tell everyone that sometimes he wants to kiss his best friend in the middle of the Burger King parking lot, but he supposes you can’t have everything in the world.
Gyuvin just laughs. “Game on.”