Work Text:
It was never Jongho’s plan to get a summer job with his brother.
He feels that’s important to clarify.
But Yunho needed a ride to his interview, and the manager barely skims through his resume before glancing over at Jongho and asking, “What about you? You good with a wok?” and Yunho has always been the aspiring chef but Jongho needs cash, like, yesterday, so the two of them get hired on the spot, and—
That’s how they end up spending the summer at Farview Mall food court.
Manchu Wok
The food court sits at the centre of the mall, a dilapidated little circle of food stalls yellowing with age. Manchu Wok faces the east wing, where linoleum tile meets melamine counters, and egg rolls outnumber people. While the other floors went through gradual refurbishing since being built, the food court remains staunchly unchanged throughout all of these years.
Farview isn’t particularly big, or new, but it’s the only real hangout spot on the north side of town, so it’s chock full of teenagers on weekends and after school. It’s dead quiet on weekdays, though, which is how Jongho likes it, the hum of the heat lamps and the sound of his brother shuffling around the back the only sounds keeping him company.
He’s pretty sure the manager assumes they’re Chinese, but neither of them are bothered to correct him. It’s easy enough slinging chow mein and kung pao chicken when Yunho is doing most of the legwork in the kitchen, and he gets to take home all the leftovers he wants. Even though he smells like grease all the time, it’s not the worst gig he’s ever had.
The best part of his job though, by far, is the fact that the food court forms a sort of panopticon of the mall. From this vantage point, he basically sees the ins and outs of everyone who works here. It gives him something to do while he’s bored during his shifts, at least.
Yögen Früz
The Yogen Fruz cart is nestled between the water fountain and a row of stores with no other stalls to keep it company. It’s usually run by a lone figure wearing headphones the size of coconut shells, tinkering on a clunker of a laptop in between customers.
His name is Hongjoong, and he’s some kind of aspiring Soundcloud rapper, and Jongho gave his stuff a listen once but decided that conscious hip-hop wasn’t really for him. He keeps to himself most of the time, and doesn’t really leave his island of fro-yo unless he’s going to the bathroom or receiving supply shipments.
The only exception is when the manager of Bath and Body Works comes by on his fifteen. When he’s there, Hongjoong drops everything and temporarily becomes a functionally useless human being, stammering and hawing through conversation like it’s his first day on earth.
Jongho gets secondhand embarrassment just from watching him.
Seonghwa doesn’t seem to mind though, perching himself on the counter and sampling the new fro-yo flavours Hongjoong invented while he was bored, legs swinging with delight.
He always lingers a bit longer than he’s supposed to, the two of them making googly eyes at each other until Seonghwa inevitably has to go back to work.
Hot Topic
The manager of Hot Topic is the bane of Jongho’s existence. He can hear the jingling of Mingi’s chain belts coming from a mile away, signalling the fact that Jongho will have to spend the next fifteen minutes pretending not to hear him and his brother making out in the walk-in freezer.
He doesn’t know what Yunho sees in him, is all. It’s just hard to take a man seriously when his biggest challenge each day is keeping his raccoon bangs swooped over one eye.
He’s not as acquainted with the other sales associate, but he seems equally insufferable if Jongho’s being honest. Wooyoung spends most of his shifts arguing with customers about the best pop punk albums of the decade and which emo musicians are “faking it”, and adding to the arsenal of button pins on his enormously wide jeans. Occasionally he picks up a broom to half-heartedly sweep around the front of the store, but that’s probably just an excuse to ogle the guy who works across the aisle.
Hollister
At his job interview, San had talked about his interest in fashion merchandising, showing a head for the logistics of retail operations. He boasted a certification from the best business school in the province, and wanted to apply for a supervisory role.
The hiring manager had smiled kindly at him and proceeded to hand him a pair of low-cut dark wash jeans and some flip flops, and told him to go change in the fitting room.
So now, San and his tanned torso stand outside of Hollister acting as a sort of homing beacon for teenage girls and boys alike. His morose pout only serves to make his face even more attractive. It’s all quite tragic, really. It’s suspected that he has the most job security out of everyone at the mall.
Bath and Body Works
Seonghwa’s reusable Starbucks cup is loaded down with so many accessories that it honestly lends a sort of threatening aura to him, the way it looks like it could double as a bludgeoning weapon. The lanyard hanging from his neck is throttled with charms, hitching a heaving bouquet of mini figurines and plushies. It would make quite the effective flail, Jongho thinks.
Yeosang is the only person in their small town who dresses up in full Decora-Kei fashion every day. They probably wouldn’t be allowed to come in like that if anyone but Seonghwa was the manager, but as it stands they work the sales floor wearing enough rainbow-coloured plastic jewellery to kill a man.
The centrepiece of every outfit is this garland of hand sanitizers that they wear as a necklace, and it reminds Jongho a bit of the way pilgrims used to wear garlic to ward off vampires. It’s their signature piece, though the colourful little scented bottles always remain full. He suspects it might be purely decorative.
So Yeosang is… interesting, to say the least. They spend most of their breaks sitting in the food court blowing bubblegum and sketching god-knows-what in this battered spiral bound notebook of theirs.
Jongho can’t help but watch them, equally curious and morbidly fascinated. He doesn’t know why he finds himself so oddly drawn to them.
One time they come up to the counter and ask if they can trade a drawing for an egg roll. It’s honestly kind of good, a detailed pen sketch of some kind of anime girl. The cross hatched shading is really nice.
Of course, he can’t accept drawings as legal tender.
Jongho pays for the egg rolls himself.
—
It turns out that Yeosang wants to become a manga artist, and is working full-time to save up enough to pay for art school. They start spending the bulk of their breaks sitting behind the counter in companionable silence, Yeosang scratching into his sketchbook as Jongho wipes down the bar and tries not to stare.
Their visits add variety to Jongho’s days, which at this point in the summer are starting to blur into one grease-printed smudge. It breaks up the static in his teeth, at the very least. He finds himself looking forward to seeing what household object he thought previously immutable that Yeosang has managed to turn into a cute accessory. Today it's a telephone cord threaded through the eyelets of their beat-up sneakers, serving as a sort of bouncy corkscrew shoelace.
Eventually they work up the courage to give Jongho a tour of their sketchbook, and it’s incredible, double spreads of neon gel pen splashed across the pages. It’s not the sort of art you placatingly encourage your amateur cousin to keep trying at. It’s the kind of stuff that Jongho can picture gracing the covers of graphic novels five years from now. He says as much, and Yeosang blushes so sweetly that he loses the ability to speak for a moment.
“He’s kind of weird, isn’t he,” Yunho says as they watch him go one day, and Jongho feels his heart jump in his throat.
“That’s a bit rich coming from someone with their boyfriend’s lipstick on their face,” he mutters, Yunho scrambling to check his reflection in a pan.
It’s just… nice being around them, is all. With Yeosang, he never feels judged, or like he’s not enough. They have this way about them, moving through the world like water, fluid and uncaring and seemingly invincible. He likes that they’re not afraid to be different. He likes that they’re not afraid to be themself.
—
A week later, Yeosang comes up to him near the end of his shift and asks if he wants to get slushies after work.
Jongho can’t honestly say ever he’s wanted a slushie in his life, and he’s kind of exhausted, but he feels himself drawing up energy from a reservoir he didn’t know he had. He says yes.
Which is how the two of them end up knocking knees in the parking lot curb outside of 7/11, slurping on raspberry and cherry slushies. Yeosang turns to him with a grin and sticks their tongue out.
“Is it blue?”
Jongho blinks, going cross-eyed. They’re tongue is in fact stained bright blue, so he nods. In the spirit of equal exchange he sticks his own tongue out. “Is mine red?”
Yeosang giggles, which he takes as a yes.
Jongho was never the most outgoing person, but next to Yeosang he feels especially gruff and awkward. They’re just so… them, in a way that makes Jongho’s chest ache, makes him want to fold them in close and not let go.
They turn to him suddenly, eyes lighting up.
“Do you think if we made out right now, our tongues would go purple?”
Jongho laughs for a moment, and then stops when Yeosang just tilts their head, blinking at him earnestly.
It’s like someone shut off the electricity to his brain. Distantly, he hears someone’s voice say, “there’s only one way to find out,” and then realises that the voice belongs to him.
From here, Yeosang smells like scented candles and bubblegum, and there are little flecks of turquoise glitter on their cheeks from where their eye makeup must have migrated throughout the day, and their hands are small but insistent as they tug Jongho closer, and it’s as easy to lean in as it is to take a breath, and—
Jongho swallows a gasp as they brush their lips against his, soft at first, then gently prodding at the seam of his mouth, and just like that they’re sliding their tongues against each other, a slick glide that has Jongho feeling lightheaded in more ways than one.
They nudge themselves closer and closer until they're practically in Jongho’s lap, making little noises into his mouth, their strands of plastic jewellery getting tangled against his chest, and Jongho thinks he might be in love.
Their tongues do, in fact, turn purple.
—
Jongho’s riding pretty high after that.
His last serious relationship was between him and his SAT prep book, so he takes his cues from Yeosang. They continue to seek him out, plopping down behind the Manchu Wok counter between shifts, but otherwise nothing really changes between them. Which is nice, but Jongho can’t help but feel the tiniest twinge of disappointment in his stomach.
He starts worrying that Yeosang kisses all of their friends in parking lots.
—
“So, a little birdie told me that a certain someone showed up to work last week with a massive bruise on their neck,” Mingi says, gangly legs dangling off the counter. Today he’s wearing jack o'lantern printed tights underneath a pair of skinny jeans that look like they’ve been through a paper shredder, and does not seem to notice or care that this is the case.
“Get off of my counter, I just sanitised that,” Jongho says, snapping a dishrag at him. Mingi hisses like a cat.
“Yunho also said that you went out with Yeosang last week,” he says, snapping his gum obnoxiously and ignoring him otherwise. It pops over half his face. “I’m connecting some dots over here.”
Jongho schools his features into a bored expression. “It wasn’t a date,” he says.
“Mhm.” He really hates that look on his face. It’s the look that spells nothing but trouble for him, and Jongho’s seen exactly what havoc that mouth can wreak between thin bedroom walls.
Mingi slides off the counter, ominously slinking off into the kitchen. “We’ll see about that.”
—
Yeosang starts coming by less frequently during their breaks, and then one day just stops showing face altogether. He doesn’t think much of it, just assumes that they’re busy, and then Jongho bumps into them in the parking lot one day and is about to offer them a ride, but Yeosang just continues past him like he doesn’t exist.
He tries not to feel like he’s been stung.
—
“What did you do,” Jongho hisses the next time he sees Mingi, which happens to be in the middle of the night as he’s coming out of Jongho’s bathroom.
Mingi has the audacity to look affronted, as if he’s being accosted in his own home that he pays rent for. “Nothing,” he sniffs, clutching his toiletries bag defensively.
“Then why is Yeosang avoiding me like the plague,” he growls.
“Oh. That,” Mingi says as if Jongho’s just reminding him of some overdue homework. “Come to think of it, I may have said something about you not wanting to date them…”
Jongho groans, dragging his hands over his face.
“For fucks sake.”
“Just because I’m dating your brother doesn’t mean I’m obligated to help you.”
“It does mean that I could replace your shampoo with peroxide,” Jongho says through gritted teeth. Mingi looks infuriatingly nonplussed.
It’s in moments like these where he feels twice, no, triple his age.
“How do I fix this,” he says flatly. It feels pathetic asking Mingi for help, but he’s not above it.
Mingi just rolls his eyes, as if Jongho is the idiot here.
“Do you like them?”
Jongho shrugs. He thought that was obvious.
“Well, they're not a mind-reader. If you like someone, you have to tell them,” he says slowly, like he’s talking to a baby.
Jongho frowns.
“Figure it out,” he sing-songs, climbing the stairs to Yunho’s bedroom two steps at a time.
Jongho makes a mental note to put soap in his toothpaste.
—
Jongho turns it over in his head for the next few days. Hasn’t he made it abundantly clear how he feels? He doesn’t even talk to anyone, let alone voluntarily spend time with other people outside of work.
This kind of thing doesn’t come naturally to him.
But then he pictures Yeosang’s face in the parking lot, stony neutral, brushing over him like he doesn’t exist, and knows that he must have done something wrong.
—
He waits for a day that Yeosang gets off early, bribing their shift schedule out of Seonghwa, and corners them awkwardly near the mall entrance. They’re dressed like they’re in mourning, all dark shades of purple and black and little skulls dotting the fabric of their oversized hoodie. Faint strains of death metal pour out from their dangling earbuds.
”I’ve missed seeing you lately,” he starts, cringing internally. Yeosang blinks at him in that sphinx-like way of theirs.
”I’m not sure what Mingi might have said to you, but hanging out with you has been the highlight of my summer,” Jongho plunders on. “And, I like you. A lot,” he adds, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
He pauses, and for a moment he’s convinced that it’s over, that he’s misread this situation horribly, that Mingi is playing him for kicks and he’s just made a fool of himself. But then—
But then Yeosang’s face does something he’s only seen after pulling an all-nighter— a dark night, then the smallest peek of gold over the horizon, then a bloom of light, setting the sky ablaze with a glorious wash of yellow. They smile at him and for a moment Jongho’s world stops spinning.
“I like you too, Jongho.”
His heart stutters. He hasn’t realised it, but he missed hearing their voice. He says as much, and Yeosang’s laugh is like wind chimes tinkling on his front porch.
—
Jongho’s life pretty much stays the same after that.
Except he starts finding folded up doodles in his pants pockets, chibi caricatures and XOXOs dotting little sticky notes that he hoards in his nightstand drawer. Pieces of the rainbow accumulate in the corners of his life, a pile of candy-coloured hair clips here, a loose gel pen rolling around there. He wakes up with Yeosang’s strawberry body mist lingering on his skin. And his car now smells like something called Candy Apple Glow.
“Dude, why does it reek of cinnamon in here,” Yunho says one day, rolling down a window.
Jongho points at the round freshener pod Yeosang installed two days ago. The case is covered in little fruit stickers.
”Your boyfriend is weird,” Yunho murmurs, and with a small smile, Jongho agrees.