Work Text:
Gyuvin remembered the day he casually switched from that god awful, eye-sore of a red hat to a black one. He would finally be able to get more hours in instead of having to clock-out at 6:30 PM on weekdays due to labor laws which meant making more money. But, god, even though he wasn’t a minor anymore doesn’t mean he had to wake up at ass-crack in the morning to deal with people who get pissy when they haven’t had their large diet coke at 9 AM.
They (As in one of his managers, Zhang Hao) have him on head-set at the front counter since they clearly had no budget to afford a screen anywhere else but the front counter. So every now and then when he’s obviously taking an order through the drive-thru, someone would come up to the counter and start spewing their order even though Gyuvin didn’t have the capacity to multitask like that. There’s a lot of things that Gyuvin hates about working here, that’s just one of them.
There are a few things that Gyuvin likes about working. Not many but there’s still some. He likes being able to make the drinks, it’s fun being able to use the whipped cream for the caramel frappuccinos. He also thoroughly enjoys whenever him and Gunwook’s schedules align (They usually don’t because Gunwook is still a minor and wears that ugly red hat which Gyuvin teases him about whenever he gets the chance to.)(To be quite frank, Gunwook is only a year younger than him and he knows he’s going to be devastated when Gunwook gets rid of the red hat and joins him in the black hat crew, so he’s going to take every chance he gets to make fun of Gunwook.), Gyuvin’s surprised they haven’t been fired yet with the way chaos rains upon them whenever they’re scheduled together. He remembers when he was training Gunwook, they had to take a rather large order out to curbside during the middle of winter and not just one of them, but both of them busted their asses when taking the food out by slipping on a patch of ice. They got the scolding of a life-time from Zhang Hao but once they stepped foot out of the manager’s office they hurled over in laughter.
Even though he’s skilled in making drinks and loves when he works with Gunwook, there’s something he loves more. It’s in the form of a blonde headed boy and he walks past Gyuvin at the front counter as if it’s a runway and not a McDonald’s restaurant. They lock eyes for a moment and that annoyingly gorgeous boy gives him a small wave. That gorgeous boy being Ricky, Ricky Shen. Gyuvin stutters a bit while he’s taking an order and definitely stares at Ricky until he vanishes into the back of the store to clock in.
When Ricky comes back, he’s wearing his uniform yet he somehow makes it look good. He’s wearing the same black hat as Gyuvin and the same apron as well but it felt like they were wearing two different articles of clothing. Maybe it’s because Ricky chooses to wear black air forces instead of the required black non-slip shoes they’re ordered to wear but Gyuvin is 99% sure Ricky would look pretty with the ugly shoes on too. Clearly if Ricky was able to look good in the disgusting McDonald’s uniform then he was just attractive, period.
The first time Gyuvin saw Ricky was on a random Tuesday at 11 AM, he wasn’t on head-set this time and was just manning the front counter. He likes it but it gets boring after a while because no one usually takes their order at the front. Most people use the kiosks or just go through the drive-thru. He was leaning against the wall and attempting to hide his phone from Zhang Hao when Ricky walked in timidly. It was obvious that it was his first day. He was wearing the gross blue t-shirt they give you when you first get hired (But Ricky still somehow made it look good), his apron was put on the regular way instead of the “cafe” way which is wrapped around your waist and he was just so unapologetically new .
“Gyuvin, you’ll be training Ricky for today.” The hiring manager, Hanbin informed him.
That’s how Gyuvin and Ricky were put on head-set with Gyuvin towering over him and teaching him where everything was organized on the screen, as well as tips and tricks to make his life a little easier. But, god, did Ricky have a terrible customer service voice. It was monotonous and made Gyuvin wonder if maybe he was the one being too energetic while taking orders. But it’s okay because he hasn’t seen Ricky touch headset once he learned how to do other things with the help of Gyuvin, of course.
He sees Ricky a lot, and because of that he’s usually training Ricky all the time. During those times he’s learned that Ricky is the same age as him, just a couple months older. He learns that he’s Chinese and he also realizes that he comes to work with makeup on and his hair styled everyday. Gyuvin wonders how he manages to still look perfect at the end of a shift or barely break a sweat during a particularly busy rush hour when Gyuvin is practically dying and his hair is flying all over the place. The day Ricky walks into work without makeup on, he can’t decide whether he likes full-face or bare-face Ricky more but he supposes that’s not his decision to make so he opts for just liking Ricky in general (He cringes when he comes to this conclusion because, ew, crushes. He feels like he’s back in middle school).
It’s been a little over half a year since Ricky started working here. He’s usually the one making the drinks which is understandable because his whipped cream always looks way prettier than Gyuvin’s. He’s also the only one who knows how to make a decent ice cream cone, so yeah, if anyone’s qualified to be making drinks it’s Ricky (Even though Gyuvin misses making frappuccinos).
He likes it when he ends up presenting (handing out the food through the drive-thru) because whenever Ricky finishes making a drink for the order, their fingers brush whenever Ricky hands the drink over to him and it leaves a tingling feeling not only on his fingertips but in the pit of his stomach. He always mutters a quick and short ‘thank you’ which Ricky just gives a smile in return. Gyuvin catches himself staring at the way Ricky’s lips twitch up or maybe he’s just staring at Ricky’s lips in general. The shape of them, how soft they look and must feel or the way Ricky’s lip tint would probably smudge and stain Gyuvin’s lips if they were to kiss—that thought gets interrupted quickly when he realizes a customer needs help. He’ll save that thought for another day.
He’s leaning against the wall as he waits for his headset to start beeping or for someone to finally decide they want to talk to someone to get their order taken when a tap was felt on his shoulder. His heart raced at the thought of it being Ricky but when he turns his head it’s just one of the many red-hat workers, Yujin. He adores Yujin like his own son and was one of the first people he ever trained so they just have a tight knit bond like that so he can’t (doesn’t) feel as disappointed when he realizes it’s just his work child and not his soon-to-be work husband.
“Zhang Hao wants you to stock now.” Yujin says and Gyuvin nods, taking the headset off and giving it to Yujin before a list of things that needed to be restocked was spewed into one ear and out the other by Zhang Hao (He paints him to be this mean manager but honestly Gyuvin would definitely be fired by now if it weren’t for Zhang Hao. He actually likes him a lot and doesn’t mind going to work when he knows that Zhang Hao is going to be in charge for the day. He’s also the only manager who sometimes gives him free food at the end of shifts. God bless Zhang Hao). Gyuvin just decides to look around and figure out what needs to be restocked himself. He starts with the cups and hauls them all in his rather large arms (Maybe this is why he stocks all the time). Next, he restocks the fridge with apple juice (Which tastes like absolute shit by the way, he definitely prefers apple juice with a shit ton of added sugar instead of whatever this organic crap is. He almost feels bad for the children that decide to get it with their Happy Meals, which by the way, how did they have the budget to start selling mini squishmallows in Happy Meals when they can’t even afford to give Gyuvin a raise. Just a thought), chocolate milk, regular white milk, water bottles and apple slices. That’s his favorite part of restocking because he gets to make them all nice and organized in a line.
“Gyuvin, can you help me?” He looks over and sees Ricky holding a bucket of ice and his heart flutters. Ricky needing his help? It’s a blessing in disguise and he has no intentions of passing this opportunity in talking to Ricky.
“I need to refill the ice but I can’t haul this thing over my head to fill it up.” Ricky says and Gyuvin’s eyebrows furrow in confusion because Ricky is quite literally the same height as him and he’s pretty sure he saw Ricky refill the ice just fine last week but he shrugs it off and takes the ice bucket from Ricky’s hands and pours the ice into the machine himself all while Ricky watches. He makes sure to flex his muscles a bit while he does it.
“Thanks, Gyuvin.” Ricky says with a small smile once Gyuvin finishes. “You’re the best.”
He’s 101% positive his ears turned red at the compliment and he opens his mouth to say something but then Zhang Hao interrupts their rather romantic conversation. He loves his manager but not at this moment.
“Gyuvin, I need you to restock the sauces, please.” He lets out a pained smile, he likes restocking the sauces but not when he has to do it instead of engaging in a conversation with Ricky. The blonde gets himself busy with making drinks anyway so Gyuvin grabs the sauce containers and makes his way to the back. He has to pull the sliding storage shelves to get to the sauces he needs (Which is Sweet & Sour, Barbecue, Honey Mustard, and Creamy Ranch).
Gyuvin thinks he’s strong, sometimes he hits up the gym with his other co-worker Matthew, who is definitely stronger than him despite his size. But he’s definitely not strong enough to push and pull on these heavy, steel shelves that are stacked with boxes upon boxes. He’d never admit his struggle.
After restocking the fridge, his favorite is restocking the sauces. He truly takes his sweet time with it as it’s a way to just have peace and quiet and be away from the usual chaotic mess in the front. He grabs the sauces by the handful and puts them in their designated containers. He also cries internally whenever he gets a mystery sauce on his hand from a sauce container that somehow exploded, he quickly washes his hands and gets back to work.
He continues his escapade and is halfway done until the sliding shelves suddenly start to move, enclosing Gyuvin. He starts to panic and tries to come to terms with the fact that he’s going to die at McDonald’s and his cause of death is being suffocated by big metal sliding shelves while he was restocking sauces. But the sliding stops once the perpetrator realizes that the shelf isn’t closing fully and slides it back open. Gyuvin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when he realizes he was no longer going to be crushed alive.
“Jesus christ, Gyuvin!” It was Ricky. The perpetrator was his own soon-to-be work husband. “Why didn’t you say something, I could’ve crushed you.”
He felt a bit embarrassed but he was scared! Sometimes he goes mute whenever he gets that close to death. Ricky starts walking closer and Gyuvin feels like the shelves are closing in on him again but he keeps calm this time because at least he can see Ricky up close like this. He takes notice of the brown eyeliner he has on and glitter that sparkles a lot better in dim lighting like this.
“Let me help you.” Ricky says and he lets him. Ricky takes hold of the barbecue container and starts to fill it up while Gyuvin finishes up the Sweet & Sour in his hand. They finish rather quickly now that they were working as a duo and not just Gyuvin by himself. He’s a bit sad knowing that this moment would be over sooner than he’d initially like.
“How long have you been back here?” Ricky asks once they’re finished.
Gyuvin sputters a bit before finally having the courage to actually say something. “Like two, three minutes, why?” Gyuvin asks.
“So you’d be able to stay for a couple more minutes right? Zhang Hao thinks I’m grabbing more coffee beans.” Ricky says and Gyuvin looks at the other with confusion painted over his face. If there was one thing that Ricky made him feel more often than not, it was confusion.
“Uh, I guess.” Gyuvin mumbles, finding out that the packages of napkins look a lot more appealing than Ricky’s engaging and somehow erotic feline eyes. “But, why?”
“Gyuvin, can I kiss you?” He’s like 99.91% sure he blacked out. Ricky, the Ricky Shen just asked if he could kiss him? He has to be dreaming, he refuses to believe this is real. Maybe he actually did die from being crushed from the shelves and is just playing out what could’ve happened if he didn’t suffocate in his head. He pinches himself just to be sure and he nearly faints when he realizes he’s not dreaming and Ricky Shen actually wants to kiss him.
“Some–Someone could find us.” Gyuvin spits out, finally looking at Ricky instead of the package of napkins. He feels his face starting to get hot when Ricky steps closer to him and he really really really wishes this was a dream because there’s no way this is happening and if Ricky gets even a tiny bit closer he’s positive he’s going to lose control and kiss Ricky himself.
“Not if we make it quick.” Ricky quips and Gyuvin gulps, rather loudly. Curse Ricky and his bold self. His lanky 6 foot body can’t handle this right now, he’s afraid he might explode at this very moment.
“We aren’t allowed to engage in romantic relationships.” He lets out, he can feel himself slowly inching back against the wall as Ricky gets closer. “It says so in the handbook.” And he’s right, it’s one of the things that stood out the most. It states “employees aren’t allowed to have ‘consensual relationships’ with other employees” (Which Gyuvin thinks is honestly dumb, he’d understand if maybe it was applied for a big company job but it’s McDonalds). He internally scolds himself for being his own cockblocker because he wants this so badly and he could honestly cry because of the fact he’s refusing himself from getting the privilege to know how soft Ricky's lips really are.
Ricky rolls his eyes and he has a small pout on his face which he wishes he could just kiss right off.
“Seriously? Do you have to be such a goody two shoes right now?” Ricky sulks, topping it off by crossing his arms over his chest. “I see the way you stare at me, I know you want to.”
He so badly wants to. He really does but he has to come to terms with the fact that no matter how much Zhang Hao lets him off the hook, he’s positive he’d get fired for good if they ever get caught kissing.
“I can’t.” Gyuvin sighs just to make sure Ricky knows that he wants this just as much as he does, if not even more. “We’d get in so much trouble if someone caught us.”
Ricky groans and uncrosses his arms. “Not if we make it quick! We still have two minutes to spare, come on.” Ricky whines and begs and honestly, Gyuvin likes it. It’s nice to know that Ricky wants him just as much as he wants Gyuvin. He can’t help the small smile that creeps onto his face at the fact Ricky is getting all desperate for a little kiss.
To be honest, Gyuvin made his mind up a long time ago. He was truly trying to stop himself from giving in no matter how much he wanted to kiss Ricky but he has that ‘fuck it’ mentality that no one can ever top that he’s already prepared himself for when he gets fired because at least he got to kiss this beautiful, gorgeous blonde boy. He just really wanted to see how desperate Ricky would get.
So, to drag it on a tiny bit longer, he puts a finger on his chin to make it look like he was in deep thought about this situation. He can see the way Ricky is getting more irritated and antsy by the second.
Before Ricky was able to open his mouth in an attempt to whine and beg again, Gyuvin smiles. “Fine.” He says and Ricky's face softens and his eyes go all blown out. “Kiss me.”
“Really?” It was Ricky’s turn to be in disbelief now and Gyuvin just smiled even wider, grabbing his hand and pulling Ricky in closer.
“We’re down to a minute and thirty seconds, hurry up.” Gyuvin says and Ricky finally smiles as well before closing the gap between them. The kiss was just as climatic as Gyuvin thought it was going to be, it was also just as pleasant. Ricky’s lips were soft, softer than he imagined and he just can’t stop smiling that Ricky has to slightly pull away, their lips still touching, before telling him to stop smiling because of the amount of teeth getting in the way. He complies easily and brings his big hands to hold the sides of Ricky's face and kisses him again.
The filled sauce containers are long forgotten about and Gyuvin’s hands have slid down to Ricky’s waist while the blondes hands were now holding his face. Ricky pushed and Gyuvin took it all in, his back pressed against the wall in between two shelves as he pulled Ricky impossibly closer. Their tongues slide against each other and Gyuvin has to control himself to not groan at the feeling. He was on cloud 9, he felt like he was high and his drug was unapologetically Ricky.
His mind was just racing with Ricky, Ricky, Ricky. He truly could not get enough of him and he wishes he could just drink all of him up. They’ve definitely surpassed their minute and thirty seconds, it’s been at least a good three minutes of them just purely kissing and Gyuvin has no plans on pulling away. At this point, he’s just asking to get caught but he knows it’ll be worth it because Ricky’s lips are so soft when their kiss is rough and hungry.
They pull away to catch a deep breather, lips still touching and he can feel Ricky’s breath fan against his lips that were wet with saliva. “Did you really need help with the ice bucket?” Gyuvin asks because it just felt right.
“Shut up.” Ricky says and Gyuvin does just that by connecting their lips once more.
A little more than thirty seconds pass by when footsteps are heard. Gyuvin gently pushes Ricky off him by his hips and listens to the footsteps get closer, he’s ready to see Zhang Hao and get fired on the spot and he braces himself until he meets eye to eye with Yujin. That is somehow worse than it being Zhang Hao. How could he break the rules in front of his own Yujin? He’s a terrible, terrible role model.
Yujin stops in his tracks before awkwardly looking around. Gyuvin scrambles a bit and pushes Ricky a little bit more before clearing his throat and fixing his hair while Ricky fixes his apron. The tension in the air is awkward and thick but it gets interrupted by Yujin.
“Uh, I just needed more lids.” He says, his lips pulling into a tight-line afterwards. Ricky and Gyuvin both nod like crazy, letting out strings of ‘Yep’ and ‘Uh-huh’. Gyuvin grabs his sauce containers and walks right out, not even sparing Yujin or Ricky another glance as he walks back to the front.
“What took you so long?” Zhang Hao nags as Gyuvin puts the sauces back in their respective spots.
He wants to brag about how he just made out with what might just be the prettiest boy alive but instead he decides to say, “I had to open a new box of barbecue and couldn’t find the scissors.” Smooth. That was a good excuse, he mentally gives himself a pat on the back.
Zhang Hao squints his eyes at Gyuvin. “Where’s Ricky?” He asks and Gyuvin internally freezes.
“I’m right here.” Ricky says. Gyuvin feels a rush of relief through his body as Ricky walks back to the front, his arms filled with small bags of coffee beans. Their eyes meet and Ricky just smiles at him.
Zhang Hao looks at the two of them and clicks his tongue. “Gyuvin, you have some lipstick smudged on your face. Might wanna wipe it.”
His eyes go wide as he scrambles to wipe at his face, he forgets to process the fact that Zhang Hao definitely put two and two together. He can see the way Ricky laughs out of the corner of his eye and he can’t help but laugh as well.
At least he found out that Ricky’s lip tint would indeed stain and smudge his lips. At least he also found out that that would be just the first of many hidden makeouts they’d have in the storage room and Zhang Hao would just stand there and pretend like he doesn’t notice whenever Ricky’s lip tint is a bit smudged or Gyuvin’s hair is a lot messier than how it looked before.
So, maybe work isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He has a designated gym bro, a best friend that he causes chaos with, a work child, a manager that he’s a million times grateful for, and a beautiful work husband. Yeah, it’s not that bad.