Work Text:
Today was not going how Minje wanted it to go. First of all, the alarm clock on his phone didn’t go off, and to make matters worse, he was running late to work by two hours. He figured he would go ahead and call the day off and have someone sub for his classes since he was already gone for two whole periods, but that clearly wasn’t an option because his boss is ridiculously strict about being on time whether or not he overslept. The man would not take any excuse as stubborn as he was, and he is one of the youngest staff members, so it makes it really difficult to reason with him. Anyways, he would need to go to work today, regardless.
He totally forgets his boyfriend is still asleep, tangled in the sheets of their bed, until he turns on the lights to search for a pair of socks in the drawers and the boy groans dramatically loud, making Minje almost go into a whiplash because of how fast he whipped his head around to look.
Shoot. I hope he’s not mad at me. What should I do? Should I apologize now or later?
The grumpiness for the morning is slowly getting to him when he curses under his breath from the stress of deciding and the still fact that he’s unusually late, and carelessly enough, he turns back to shortly find plain black socks to put on. When he slips on a beige knitted v neck sweater over white dress shirt and goes to wrap his belt over his waist, he hears shuffling and a small sigh.
“Hey.. Why are you being so loud.. it’s like what, 6 or 7 in the morning?”
“I’m sorry. It’s actually almost 10, Donghwa. I’m extremely late to work. I have to hurry my ass up.”
Donghwa sat up and looked at the time on his phone. His mouth dropped open in realization and looked at Minje, who was just getting finished putting on his shoes.
“Minje! Holy shit you’re 2 hours late!”
“I know I am..! I just told you that! Okay I’m off, bye, love you..!”
Minje took two long strides to the bed where his lover was and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek.
“Love you too. Don’t forget your lunch in the fridge! See you after work,” Donghwa replies, voice cracking slightly. He waves at Minje when he leaves the room in a rush.
Minje basically flies down the flight of stairs without a care in the world if he broke an ankle on the way. He grabs his car keys, his carrier bag and the bento box that was wrapped in a light blue cloth then he was out the door. Maybe creating two alarm times isn't a bad idea to do if something like this were to happen again. Scary thing is that the chance of that would be 0.00001%, and if he had bad enough luck for today, he might as well be late for tomorrow as well.
On the way there, he called Mr. Lee to apologize for being late, but all he heard was “students need to learn English and they're not gonna learn English if their English teacher isn’t present” and all that cheesy bullcrap. He doesn’t like how the youngster slurs his words when he’s scolding someone older than him. It doesn’t make him look cool, Minje pouts. Minje hardly composes his desire to hang up the call as he grips the steering wheel to the point his knuckles turn white.
He puts his vehicle in park when he arrives at the school, grabs his stuff, and starts sprinting at full speed; not like that helped him get any earlier than he already was being late, but it was worth a try.
——
Towards the end of the day, he dismissed his last class period by assigning them to write in English, a 3 paragraph essay on what they want to be in 10 years. He sat peacefully at his desk, rereading his favorite manga of all time, Slam Dunk. Obliviously, he didn’t see that some of the girls weren’t working and instead were staring intently at him with goo goo eyes, hearts flying over him. He swatted them away with his hand, thinking they were flies bugging him.
“Mr. Choi? I have a teeny tiny question to ask you,” a girl sitting in the first row audibly asked with her hand raised, getting the attention of some of her other classmates.
Upon hearing his name and the question at hand, he looks up.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“I was wondering… Are you seeing somebody?”
Oh. Out of any question Minje didn’t expect this one to come out in anyone’s mouth. What made her want to question this? She shouldn’t be asking that type of question to begin with.
“Uh.. No? But I’m dating someone,” He grins to himself, wondering if saying this out loud was a good idea. Probably wasn’t, but the damage had been done because a split second later, the class was roaring and attacking him with questions and crowding his desk like wild animals.
“What? Who is it?”
“Tell us!”
“Is it someone in this building?”
“Oh I’m sure it’s Ms. Kang from the floor above us!”
“Just tell us!”
“No it must be–!”
Minje sat there blankly, planning on how to escape from this catastrophe, but he was completely stuck. Then, the door slid open, a heavenly light coming in to save Minje from despair. The students were immediately silenced and they looked at who it was.
“What’s going on here, Minje? I was hearing a lot of commotion from this room, so I came to check.”
It was one of his colleagues just a classroom over, Juwang. Minje stood up and speed walked over to him, having to get through the bodies of students first. He grabbed Juwang's hands and shook them up and down.
“Thank the angels for sending you here. I thought I was gonna.. gonna die,” He said oh so dramatically, eyes blown wide like a scared puppy.
Juwang stared at Minje like he was stupid, and shook out of his sweaty grasp, wiping his hands on his pants.
“What even happened?” He paused. “You know what, I don’t even want to know. Goodbye.”
And Juwang was out the door without question, leaving Minje shook.
——
After that catastrophe, Minje now knows not to blurt out… personal information, outside of work. He sighs tiredly as he walks down the aisle displaying stacks upon stacks of ramen noodle bowls of different colors and flavors. Donghwa had requested Minje to go by the convenience store after work to get the new spicy ramen flavor he’d been waiting forever to get in stock. While he was at it, he picked out a couple more non spicy flavors to try out. When he sat the basket on the desk for the register person, he realized that this guy was new. He was around his age, fox-like eyes, short, even shorter than Donghwa, he noted. Honestly, he looked like he didn’t want to be here. Poor guy. Minje could hardly make out the tag that was written Lee Kyehoon because of how messy the handwriting was.
“Okay your total is $7.00.”
Minje put his credit card in the slot, pushed in the pin, and the transaction was completed.
“Thank you, have a good day.”
“Thank you. You also have a good day,” Minje bowed slightly, and he left the store and was on the way home.
Familiarly, he walked in an empty house, but Donghwa would be coming home shortly afterwards. He changed into some comfortable clothing, and crashed on the sofa, sighing in relief into one of the pillows. The silence was nice, but he’d felt it was too silent. Donghwa had talked about getting a cat or bunny for a pet, and of course Minje loved the idea, but they’ve never actually gotten around to doing that because they’re mostly busy with work or that they forgot. Minje grabbed the remote to turn on a previous basketball game of the Lakers, and he felt his eyes flutter shut.
10 minutes later, Donghwa had come back home.
“I’m home! Minje, wher– oh!”
Donghwa saw the said man sleeping on the sofa with the tv playing at a low volume. He hadn’t realized he was being loud and clasped his hand over his mouth for a couple seconds, hoping he didn’t wake him up. When he was in the clear, he placed his arm bag on the counter and glanced at the sacks full of ramen bowls on the counter at his request. Then he walked over to where Minje lies.
He looks so peaceful.
It might’ve been a bit weird staring at his sleeping boyfriend like this, but he can’t help it. Minje’s too handsome to not be looking at. The way his chest slowly raised up and down, how his perfect lips were slightly parted, his long eyelashes, and he can’t forget about the cute speck sitting underneath his left eye that was his mole. Donghwa is so glad they met in college when they were rooming together in the dorms. Those were the good days. He smiled at the thought, then he grabbed the blanket laying on the end of the couch and unfolded it and gently placed it on Minje’s long body, not quite covering all of him at the feet, but it was enough. Donghwa hesitated, but he leaned in to kiss the slightly chapped soft lips. He pulls back, and he suddenly has to urge to kiss him more, but he holds back because he would want to feel Minje do the same to him as well.
Donghwa entered their room to change his clothes, and there were Minje’s clothes from this morning piled on the floor in front of the bed.
He must’ve been too exhausted to throw them in the laundry basket..
Instead of being mad, Donghwa was humbled at this. It reminded him of when Minje would get back from basketball practice in the mornings he would leave his sweaty gym clothes on the ground in the bathroom and Donghwa would wake up to an god awful stench filling up his nose every morning because of how strong it was. He swore it was making his lifespan even shorter if he didn’t do anything about it. Minje progressively got better at it towards the end of their freshman year when every night Donghwa would secretly place sticky notes inside his bag to keep him on track about it.
After picking up Minje’s clothes off the ground, he changed and propped himself against the front of the sofa, waiting for Minje to wake up as he scrolled through Instagram reels.
——
Minje woke up to the sight of the ceiling, blinking to clear his vision. When he subtly rolled his head to see how bright it was outside, Donghwa’s side profile was in his view instead.
“Donghwa..”
His boyfriend welcomed him with that smile that felt like home. He sat up, the blanket that covered his body bunching up in his lap.
“Your hair is all over the place,” Donghwa laughed, reaching up to tossle his hair.
Minje was mesmerizingly gazing at Donghwa as if he was the only thing that existed. Just when Donghwa started to retreat his hand, Minje was quick to stop him at the wrist, then his hand slid upwards to intertwine his fingers with Donghwa’s.
Donghwa felt small under Minje’s captivating actions, slightly feeling like a spoiled princess or something cheesy along those lines. Even though they’ve been together for quite some time, it’s still hard to get used to how Minje looks at him because it’s so damn attractive everytime. He feels his cheeks rise in temperature.
“How- How was work?” He sputtered out embarrassingly, almost forgetting how to speak at all. It earned a low chuckle from the other, making him even more flustered.
“Let’s skip the usual conversation and get into bed. I’m tired. Do you mind that? Or— if you still wan–“
“Yes..! Wait– I mean no! I don’t mind getting straight into bed..”
Minje suddenly cracked up in laughter at his changing expressions sputtering all of that. Donghwa helped Minje get up from the couch. He slithered his arms around Minje’s neck, bringing them closer. He feels Minje’s large hands land on his waist, fingertips lightly digging into his skin. Minje looks at Donghwa’s hazy eyes, immediately knowing what he wants. So, he closes the gap between them and their lips naturally find each other. Before it got too heated, Donghwa was the first to pull away.
“I love you, Minje.”
“I love you too, Donghwa.”
They continued the night away in their bedroom, forgetting they have work in the morning.