Chapter Text
As the owner of the cafe, he shouldn’t be the one doing all this manual work, but like his soft features, Sungho has a soft heart. Noticing that one of his workers is feeling unwell, he decided to send the teenager home and take over the counter for him – he’s not an exploitative boss! He truly cares for his cafe, and his employees that he loves and treasures so much just like his cats.
Taking over a counter job is not a simple task, although Sungho faced difficulties dealing with orders as it’s been a long time since he did this kind of work. After all, it’s been 7 years since he started his business, and since then it has expanded, but the cafe is too busy and lacks manpower today, maybe he should hire more workers in the future? Definitely.
“Are you going to our high school reunion?”
Sungho’s high school best friend Sanghyeok asks, not caring whether he’s bothering the sit-in worker. The question quickly escaped out of his head as fast as it entered. Sungho, obviously busy with his work, is having difficulty with taking in the orders of the customers. ‘Weird’ Sungho internally said as he asked himself who orders a drink with 5 extra shots of espresso – the customer might die from a heart attack, is it even legal to serve this? Busy with thoughts unimportant to him while subconsciously judging customer orders, he subconsciously mutes his friend's voice.
“Sungho! I asked you a question!” Sanghyeok shouted to snap his friend back to reality. Sungho, finally looking up to his friend, gives a questioning look directed to Riwoo – full of curiosity, like an inattentive cat to its owner.
“Huh?” Sungho said as he continues to deal with customer orders, wanting to finish it as soon as possible so he can finally go home, and sleep in his bed beside his cats. “As I said, are you going to our high school reunion? The invite should’ve been sent in your email.” Sungho nods not paying attention to his friend who keeps on blabbering about wanting to meet old classmates, crushes, and bullies that he wishes have a bad adulthood as a form of reparation for all the shitty things they’ve done in high school.
“Here’s your order sir!” Sungho gives a small smile to the customer, swiftly handing the coffee to them. Forgetting to look the customer in the eye and say have a good day or whatever he immediately faces his friend, not the best customer service coming from him. “What were you saying?” He turns back to his friend, interrupting Sanghyeok from his long monologue about highschool.
“Unbelievable. Unbelievable Sungho.”
And like a laser to a cat, a flash of light caught Sungho’s attention – someone is taking a photograph of someone. Anxiously, Sungho tidies himself as he doesn’t want a stolen shot of him looking like he’s a guy in their fortie’s working as a corporate slave floating somewhere within the internet even if he knows he’s not the one being taken a picture of, he can’t help but go on auto-pilot. As he looks up, he notices that the camera is nowhere directed at him but instead to the “five-extra-shots-of-espresso-guy” walking out of the cafe.
‘He must’ve been a celebrity or something.‘ He thought but he didn’t care enough to pry and continued to converse with his best friend till the cafe finally closed.
Finally at home, Sungho immediately fed his cats and decided to go directly to bed – he’s too tired to clean up, and care for anything else, his heavy eyelids were about to drop. But then his brain suddenly woke him up with unwarranted adrenaline, and a pang of curiosity bit him as he remembered the email that Sanghyeok had told him about. With the light of his phone as the only source of light in his room – blinding his eyes – he scrolled through his phone trying to find the email.
“I should go, I miss them, it’s been a long long time.” He giggled remembering his highschool days like it happened yesterday. He was known for many things, and one of them is his excellent memory, especially with faces. His responsible, and outgoing personality helped him blaze through highschool smoothly not experiencing social isolation, nor what it's like to be an outcast. He himself is a model student, at the top of his class, and the student council vice president leading with his friends; Jaehyun as the president and Sanghyeok as the Secretary.
Smart, Pretty, Kind, Responsible, and did I forget to say that he’s really pretty? He had it all, that’s why it’s not surprising that confessions have become a normal occurrence for him – just another Tuesday – letters and chocolates, left and right, here and there, from both boys, and girls. Alas, he did not experience the high school romance that every teenager wanted to experience, he was too busy from his studies being under constant pressure from his parents, wanting him to become something extraordinary one day – that is… to become a doctor like them, wow so unique.
“Sungho-hyung, I like you.”
“Do you want to go out?”
“Sungho-yah, wanna go on a date?
And the reply is always the same: “Sorry, I’m not currently available for relationships.” But despite having known to have rejected dozens of lovestruck teenagers, it did not stop them from trying as they said he is worth it. Even his friend Jaehyun tried to forward his advances, but unfortunately the ending stays unchanged.
“Jaehyun-ah, you know that I can’t be in a relationship… not right now. Plus you’re more of a brother to me, you know that right? I love you Jaehyun but not in the way you want it to be''
“I understand, I know it’s really stupid of me to try–”
Sungho laughs. “Well I’m proud of you for having the guts to tell me, I thought you’re going to run away and cry about it, you crybaby~” Sungho said teasingly.
Sungho deeply regrets not trying what it’s like to experience highschool romance due to his fear and unending thirst for his parents’ approval. Ever since then, he hadn’t had any serious relationship with anyone, boyfriends only lasted two to three months, it’s a miracle if it lasts up to six months. For god sake, he’s already twenty-eight years old, it’s about time he gets into a serious relationship or he might die alone! Or become a cat-lady… not a lady… cat gentleman perhaps?
After high school it wasn’t easy, he had to fight for which direction his life will be stepping towards. He had to deal with his overbearing father, and control freak of a mother. It took him a lot of convincing, courage, and crying for his parents to accept him. He definitely doesn’t want to become like them, and he’s definitely not into girls. He can’t say that his relationship with his parents after that confrontation are healed nor fixed, not at all – it’s like a fragile glass ready to shatter any moment now. They do not accept him or his identity, but tolerates him instead. He can’t help but feel down, as he’ll never be completely accepted by them…
Sungho snapped back to reality, as he realized he forgot about the email and his brain chose to go somewhere gloomy.
After reminiscing, Sungho decided to reply:
‘Will you be attending?’ the email said. “Yes”.
The next morning, he marks the date on his calendar for the reunion and calls Sanghyeok to inform him that he’ll be coming to the reunion arranged by Jaehyun. He can’t help but feel giddy as he wants to catch up with his old classmates that are deep into their adult life. Aside from that, he’ll be meeting Jaehyun again! The last time he saw him was five years ago before he flew abroad for work, and they haven’t talked much ever since. Sungho heard from Sanghyeok that Jeahyun is now a musician, which is befitting for him since he knows that that man loves music, constantly composing rap songs, and even cheesy love songs that he finds endearing.
Bored, he decided to get Jaehyun’s social media from Sanghyeok so that he can stalk his old friend / classmate. Scrolling through the dozens of posts about music promotions, and untamed pictures to quench his fans’ thirst – he found a picture that piqued his curiosity. It’s a post of Jaehyun, with another man with sharp features that reminds him of a cat, to be specific a black cat. The caption says ‘ Reunion with an old classmate from highschool! Might collaborate for a new song ;)) ’ followed by a random assortment of emojis that screams Jaehyun. But the thing that stopped Sungho from his stalking streak is that… he doesn’t remember this “classmate from highschool”. He has always been proud of his almost photographic memory, especially with faces – but he doesn’t remember the face of this quite handsome man from high school. He should be remembered, look at that face?!
“Who is he?” Sungho thought of asking Riwoo about it but it might seem weird because the post was posted two years ago, and it would be TOO obvious for Sanghyeok to realize that Sungho is stalking Jaehyun. So he decided not to. Thinking of another solution, he decided to go deeper into the rabbit hole and dig more information about the guy like he’s a criminal.
He found out that the guy’s name is Taesan, he can’t seem to remember that name. So he decided to dig deeper, finding that his real name is Han Dongmin, Taesan is his stage name, still it doesn’t ring a bell. Digging deeper, basically from his instagram, Sungho reached the Jaehyun’s mother’s facebook account and found an old facebook post of Jaehyun and Dongmin, and he found out that Dongmin graduated from the same highschool as his, same batch and class!
“How come I don’t remember him?” Sungho questions himself like he’s in a horror movie trying to find out more about a classmate from highschool that died, forgotten by everyone, and became a ghost to seek vengeance. He can’t help but feel guilty, as he placed a phantom responsibility onto himself to remember every person he met in his life.
Suddenly an idea clicked into his head.
He ran to his closet as fast as possible, digging through the boxes looking for something. And that something is their yearbook! Aha! He brought it up to the sky like this yearbook is the next lion king. He skimmed through the pages looking for someone named Han Dongmin, and he was surprised at what he found. The guy is literally beside him in their yearbook.
The guy is entirely different from what he used to look like in highschool. In his yearbook photo, he looked awkward with his side swept jet black hair heavily implying to Sungho that he must’ve been in an emo phase in highschool, he can’t help but find it cute as nothing really changed since he’s still an emo, albeit toned down. Added to that his dark makeup, that makes him indistinguishable from his current self. Despite all these data gathering Sungho does not remember a single memory of the guy.
“I quit. I don’t remember anything about him.” He decided to let go of the matter. For now.
Weeks have passed, and Sungho is hanging out in his cafe bored of his usual routine with his mind distracted and bothered. His head sitting on his palm, the cafe is full as usual but he subconsciously muted the noise because nothing interesting is happening, basically he’s not needed here. Instead, he stares at the physical copy of the invite for his highschool reunion sitting atop of the table where he is sitting burning it with his eyes.
“What should I wear?” He sighs, as despite having no dress code – he doesn’t want to underdress nor to overdress for the occasion. So he stares at the deep black void trying to curate an image of an outfit fitting for a highschool reunion.
“Hello, is it okay if I sit here?” a guy said, waving his free hand in front of the face of Sungho trying to get his attention multiple times. The guy then noticed the invite on the table, and decided to sit uninvited to the table in front of Sungho. Ironic.
“You’re from xx highschool too?!” The guy said excitedly that startled Sungho.
‘Wow this guy looks majestic,’ Sungho concluded.
“U-um yeah… who are you?” Sungho questioned, tilting his head.
“Oh yeah sorry, there’s no free table left in the cafe and the barista told me that this sit is free, and you’re the owner, yeah?'' the guys said, scratching his head lightly, but suddenly, like lightning, something struck the guy in front of Sungho.
“Oh my god! Park Sungho?!”
“Y–yes! It is I.. Park.. Sungho… who.. Are you again?” Sungho slaps himself mentally, disappointed with his extremely awkward response. It’s not like he’s too shy to be in front of this extremely gorgeous specimen of a man. His flushed cheeks does not help his case.
“I’m one of your classmates from high school! Do you remember me?” Sungho panicked with this question, it dropped on him like a bombshell. This must be the most awkward situation he has ever been in his entire life, he tried to scatter inside his brain. His brain swirls around finding an answer. What if this guy is some sort of a scammer, pretending to be an old classmate? Sungho huffs realizing this possibility. Yup, this is definitely a scam.
The guy laughs with a little bit of disappointment. “It’s ok if you don’t remember me.” He said interrupting Sungho’s train of thoughts.
“Kim Donghyun.” The guy said, offering his hand.