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Myungjun's father would probably be ashamed of him. Teaching Myungjun to change his own oil had been one of the very first things he'd done when Myungjun had gotten his license.
Except, the thing was, Myungjun never had time to change his own oil. And one day, suddenly he looked down and realized he was five thousand miles past when it should have been changed. And at that point, really, he should take it in to a professional anyway to make sure there wasn't any damage, right?
"Mechanics need to make money, too," Myungjun said aloud. The person in the car next to him looked over, and Myungjun gave him a bright smile and a wave. The man gave a small, confused nod, and looked back to the magazine he was reading.
With a small sigh, Myungjun looked back forward. If he was really, really honest, well- it was entirely possible that the oil change lesson Myungjun's father had given him when he first started driving had been forgotten about two months after it happened.
Myungjun drummed his hands on the steering wheel. He glanced at his watch. He drummed on the steering wheel again. He glanced at his watch once more. Okay, he thought. Figuring out how to change my own oil might have been faster than this. He'd been sitting in his car for half an hour now, windows rolled down and engine off to save gas, waiting for his turn to pull into the mechanic's garage. Myungjun groaned and let his head fall back against the seat as the guy next to him suddenly started his car, pulling up into the left hand side of the two-car service garage. Apparently, the right lane was the slow lane.
Another five minutes had Myungjun finally pulling out his phone. Another ten, and he had set his highest record for Flappy Bird yet.
He was about to beat the record again when the car in front of him, the one in the garage, started. Myungjun jumped at the sound, making his little yellow bird die. He was annoyed for about two seconds before he realized that it was finally his turn, and almost dropped his keys in his excitement to start the car and pull into the garage. The time it took him to shift into gear and drive the twenty feet forward was used to rehearse a few sentences about how he didn't appreciate the wait, and perhaps they needed to mark which garage was going to be moving faster with some kind of sparkly light. Myungjun threw his car in park and leaned out of his window to start talking to the mechanic that had crouched down in front of his car. "Hey," he said, to get the attention of the man.
It worked, and all the complaints about the wait immediately fell out of Myungjun's mind, because oh my god, Myungjun's mechanic was made of actual sunlight.
"Hi," the mechanic said, and Myungjun could only stare open-mouthed. It was rare for him to be rendered speechless like this. "What can I do for you today?"
Myungjun blinked. "An oil change," he said. "Sorry, but are you actually my mechanic? I haven't done something to the gods where they've gotten mad and sent one of themselves to come and mess up my life?"
The mechanic's face crinkled adorably as he smiled, eyes disappearing into small crescents. "As far as I know I'm a mechanic," he said, a squashed laugh evident in his voice. Myungjun's heart glowed a bit, knowing this beautiful man found him funny. "Oil change, you said? Go ahead and pop the hood for me."
A yank on the lever under the dashboard made the mechanic-come-god disappear behind the sheet of metal, and Myungjun collapsed backwards into his seat. He spent the next twenty minutes eagerly following the mechanic's directions, from starting and cutting the engine to flashing his blinkers, to shifting into different gears as the mechanic told him.
After a thorough inspection of all the bits and pieces under his hood, the mechanic pulled a bottle of oil off a nearby shelf and stuck it somewhere Myungjun couldn’t see behind his hood. The man then walked around the car, picking up a clipboard off a table that ran between the two halves of the service garage. He then walked towards Myungjun’s window, and Myungjun regarded him as he approach.
“You’re definitely not named Jinwoo,” Myungjun said when the mechanic- who definitely had the name Jinwoo embroidered on his coveralls- stopped and crouched so he was eye-level with Myungjun. “You’ve gotta be Apollo. God of the sun. Jinwoo’s a cover name so that not everyone knows you’re a god.”
Jinwoo laughed, head ducking down for a moment before he popped back up. His smile was blinding, and Myungjun was only more convinced of his theory. “If I’m a Greek god, that’ll definitely be news for my parents,” Jinwoo said, scribbling something on his clipboard. Then, suddenly, he was reaching into the car and ohmygod what is he doing and Myungjun’s heart suddenly felt like it was going to beat out of his chest and-
Oh. Jinwoo was putting a sticker in the upper corner of Myungjun’s windshield.
“That’s your return mileage,” Jinwoo said, retracting his arm and pointing at the numbers he’d written on the clear sticker. “If you go over it by five thousand miles again, the car gods might actually get mad at you.” And then he winked, and if Myungjun hadn’t already fallen head over heels he would have. He couldn’t even come up with a witty response, watching with his mouth hanging open as Jinwoo walked around the car again, pulling the oil bottle out and then tugging the hood of Myungjun’s car down. When it latched in place Jinwoo patted the top of it a couple times, flashed a blinding smile at Myungjun through the windshield, and then walked around to an office on the other side of the garage that Myungjun hadn’t noticed.
There was a scurry of movement on his right, and then a young-looking man with the name Minhyuk embroidered on his coveralls was saying, “Sir? I’ll handle your payment.”
Myungjun blindly handed over his credit card, far more interested in trying to see if Jinwoo was going to come out of the office again. Sadly, he didn’t before Minhyuk was handing his card back to him. Myungjun was loath to make anyone wait longer after he had been through it, so he pulled out of the garage and started driving down the main road again.
After that, Myungjun became a Model Car Owner. He paid attention to all the little details of his car, and even actually washed it properly with car soap (which was apparently different from dish soap, which was his usual choice).
Myungjun had never been more glad to have an old clunker of a car. If anything went wrong, or acted abnormally, or seemed just a little bit funny (which happened really far too often)- he brought the car to the mechanic. In fact, he became a bit of a regular. And each time he went, he guessed a different god to be Jinwoo’s actual identity.
“Hephaestus. God of blacksmiths, a tinkerer.”
Jinwoo laughed. “I wish. The car I’m rebuilding at home would probably be going faster.”
After six months of checkups every couple of weeks, Myungjun had learned the staff of the garage, and they had learned who he was. They were all really competent workers, and all were fun to talk to. However, they also all seemed very aware of Myungjun’s interest in Jinwoo, and were quick to trade cars around if Jinwoo wasn’t available when Myungjun drove up, just so Myungjun could have Jinwoo working on his.
(Once, when he was getting a tail light replaced, Myungjun had gotten out of the car and was talking with Bin, one of the other mechanics, while Jinwoo worked on the back of Myungjun’s car.
“Athena,” Myungjun had thrown out. “Goddess of wisdom.”
Jinwoo had snorted, saying, “Am I a goddess now? What happened to just god?”
“Greek gods took all kinds of forms,” Myungjun threw back. “Gender didn’t limit them.”
“Wisdom would limit that hyung, though,” Bin had said, and then Myungjun had doubled over laughing while Jinwoo shouted, offended.)
If Myungjun’s father would have been disappointed in his going to the mechanics for a singular oil change, he was probably rolling in his grave over how often Myungjun was going now.
But to Myungjun, it was worth it to see Jinwoo’s eyes crinkle up in a smile every time he guessed a different god, even as the guesses got more and more ridiculous and outlandish. Myungjun had stayed up until the wee hours of the night one time, looking up all the Greek gods of the most specific and unusual things he could find, and making a list for when he went to the garage.
It was all fine, nothing but light hearted flirting for a long time. Sure, Myungjun would really like to take Jinwoo out on a date. He’d also really like to hold Jinwoo’s hands, which were big for a guy Jinwoo’s (Myungjun’s) size, but had long fingers that were gifted with a steady and delicate touch, probably meant for playing piano in another life but more than capable at fixing any problem in a car. Myungjun loved Jinwoo’s laugh, and wanted to listen to it all the time. He wanted to listen to Jinwoo narrate as he fixed things in cars, which he’d started doing after Myungjun’s third or fourth visit. Jinwoo would let Myungjun do things sometimes, carefully guiding his hand to where it needed to go to fix the car.
Those were Myungjun’s favorite moments, because it meant Jinwoo would press himself against Myungjun’s back, his head coming over Myungjun’s shoulder as he helped with whatever simple task Myungjun was attempting.
So Myungjun wanted to date Jinwoo. That was fine. It was all fine, until one day, Myungjun’s headlights started acting funny. He had sighed, and simply decided to deal with it the next day, because he definitely did not have time to go to the garage before work. And it probably would have been fine, had it not started raining before the end of Myungjun’s work day. And even then, if not for potholes, it probably still would have been fine.
However, it did rain before Myungjun got off work, and potholes did exist, and whatever was wrong with his headlights had caused them to go out. Which is why Myungjun was currently standing in the rain, with his hazards on and blinking, while his car creaked a bit from where he had driven into and out of a pothole, causing some awful scraping noises and a popped tire.
This was officially Myungjun’s Worst Day of the week. Maybe even the month, he amended, when he went to pull out his spare tire and the rubber gave way under his hand.
Perhaps he hadn’t as been as much of a Model Car Owner as he liked to think.
“This sucks,” Myungjun announced to no one, because not a soul was stopping on their way home from work in the pouring rain to help change a tire.
Well, no one, except for one person. Because now, a pickup truck was pulling off onto the side of the road to be parked behind him, turning their hazard lights on to beat in harmony with Myungjun’s. “Are you okay?” the person shouted, and Myungjun’s heart jolted.
“Jinwoo?” he shouted, and then the door of the truck was opening and- yes, that was in fact Jinwoo’s head, popping up between the cab and the door.
“Myungjun?” Jinwoo’s voice sounded shocked, and a moment later there was a slam and Jinwoo was scurrying over. Instead of going straight to his car, though, Jinwoo ignored it in favor of taking Myungjun’s forearms in his large hands. “Are you alright?” Jinwoo said, and the panicked concern in his voice made a warmth flood through Myungjun’s body that chased away the chill that came from standing in the rain for twenty minutes.
Myungjun rarely got to see Jinwoo’s face up this close, and he was dazzled again by the other man’s beauty. He was so close Myungjun could see every freckle, from the darker ones on his cheek and under his lip to smaller, lighter ones across Jinwoo's nose and forehead that he’d never noticed. “I’m fine,” Myungjun said, and if he sounded a bit breathless, it was surely covered by the sound of the rain. Clearing his throat, he backed away a bit. “My car, however, is not in its best shape.”
Jinwoo seemed reluctant to take his gaze away from Myungjun, but he eventually did look over at Myungjun’s poor, pothole-abused car. With a whistle, Jinwoo crouched down by the front tire that the pothole had taken out. “Do you have a spare?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Myungjun shook his head. “Flat,” he said, and tried not to look too sheepish when Jinwoo tutted at him.
“I’ll hitch it to my truck, then,” Jinwoo said. “The garage is only ten minutes from here.”
“Thank you,” Myungjun said immediately. Jinwoo flashed him a smile, then darted over to his truck.
In a matter of minutes, Jinwoo had pulled his truck in front of Myungjun’s car and gotten it hitched up. He dug around in the back seat of the cab for a moment, and then came back with a sign that read “In Tow.”
“Do you want me to put that in the back?” Myungjun asked.
“I’ve got it,” Jinwoo said. “Please, get in the truck- you’re soaked through.” And then before Myungjun could protest, he was climbing into the back of Myungjun’s car.
Myungjun was at a loss for words again. Funny, how Jinwoo seemed to be the only one capable of that. So he climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, picking up some CDs in order to sit down. When Jinwoo threw himself in another moment later, Myungjun held one of them up. “Ariana Grande?” he asked.
Jinwoo just smiled. “I like her Christmas song,” he said, and then started the car and carefully pulled into traffic again.
Distracting himself from how wet and miserable he was, Myungjun picked through the CDs he’d had to move off the seat. Jinwoo had a mix of all kinds of music, from Jay Park to Red Velvet to English music Myungjun didn’t recognize at all. It was really nice, getting to see this part of Jinwoo he’d not learned while being in the garage. He liked that Jinwoo still used CDs, and he liked that the car felt lived in. The fast food wrappers maybe could have been done without, but they weren’t overwhelming.
As they drove, Jinwoo hummed to whatever CD he had in the player before Myungjun got in the car. It was an English song that Myungjun didn’t know, but recognized maybe from going in a store or cafe.
“Thank you for stopping, by the way,” he said suddenly.
Jinwoo smiled, but didn’t look away from the road. “No problem,” he said. “I always try to stop when I see people stuck. I can usually fix their car issues, and if they’re locals, it usually gains me a client.” Jinwoo’s eyes cut from the road to glance over at Myungjun. “I wasn’t expecting to see you, though.”
Myungjun laughed. “You probably see my face a bit too often,” he said jokingly.
Jinwoo hummed. “I like seeing your face,” he said simply, and there it was again, that ability to render Myungjun speechless.
“Here we are,” Jinwoo continued, turning into the parking lot of the garage. He made Myungjun stay in the truck while he raised one of the garage doors, and then refused to let him help unhitch his car. “Go in the office,” he said, tossing a set of keys to Myungjun. “I’ve got a spare set of clothes. You’ll catch a cold if you stay in those.” And Myungjun let himself be ordered around, shocked by his own compliance even as he walked over to the office and unlocked the door. After a little bit of poking he did, in fact, find the extra clothes. It took a bit of struggling to get out of his soaked jeans, but within a few minutes he was dressed in some baggy sweatpants and an old t-shirt from a concert a couple years ago.
As Myungjun left the office again, his wet clothes over his arm, he was trying to convince his pit-pattering heart that wearing Jinwoo’s clothes didn’t mean anything, it was simply Jinwoo being the kind soul he was. Which is why he nearly choked on his own spit when he looked up.
Jinwoo, who had been dressed in a pair of coveralls when he pulled over to help Myungjun (and had subsequently been wearing while standing in the rain for a good twenty minutes), had not bothered to change clothes. Instead, he had unzipped the overalls halfway, and tied the sleeves around his waist, leaving him dressed in only a white undershirt on the top. A white tank top that had not fully escaped the rain and was slightly damp. A white tank top that showed off Jinwoo’s arms, well muscled by still lean. A white tank top that gave Myungjun a much better view of Jinwoo’s broad shoulders than he ever anticipated getting.
Apparently, Jinwoo noticed Myungjun’s presence, because he turned around, a smile in place. “You found them!” he said happily, and Myungjun nodded and tried to pretend his mouth hadn’t suddenly gone incredibly dry.
“I found them,” he echoed back weakly, and then started tossing his wet clothes over the nearest surfaces he could spread them out on. He was determined to look anywhere but at Jinwoo, because if he looked at Jinwoo, he might try to kiss him, and doing that without permission was generally frowned upon.
“I’m gonna check out the bottom of your car, just make sure no major damage was done, and then worry about the tire, alright?” Jinwoo said, pulling out a creeper (a word Myungjun had picked up while hanging out at the garage- it was one of the things that mechanics rode on to work under cars, and also a thing he had gotten fussed at for using as a sled one day when Jinwoo was taking an incredibly long time to check out his air conditioning.)
“That’s fine,” Myungjun said. He pretended to be preoccupied with spreading his clothes out flat until he heard a gentle woosh that mean Jinwoo had rolled under his car. Only then did he deem it safe enough to face his car.
“How did you even manage to hit that pothole?” Jinwoo asked, voice muffled from underneath the car. “It’s usually easy to avoid.”
Myungjun grimaced. “I missed it in the rain,” he said, hopping up onto the table that separated the two halves of the garage. “My headlights were acting funny this morning, and I didn’t check the weather when I left. I didn’t realize there was going to be a torrent where I needed them.”
Jinwoo tutted, but didn’t continue the conversation. Instead, the garage fell into comfortable silence. While Myungjun had been changing, Jinwoo had unhitched the car from the truck and driven the truck out of the garage, and closed the two doors to keep the wetness from getting inside. As a result, the garage was filled with only the sound of rain hitting the metal roof and the occasional glide of the creeper’s wheels as Jinwoo shifted to look at a different part of the car. It was peaceful and comfortable enough that Myungjun almost felt like he could drift to sleep, right there on the table covered in tools and empty bottles of oil.
“You’re lucky. The underside doesn’t look like it caught any damage,” Jinwoo said, sliding out from underneath the car and standing up, hands planted on his hips. Myungjun hummed in acknowledgement. He let his eyes wander over Jinwoo’s arms this time. Lazily, he traced his way up to Jinwoo’s face, where he realized that Jinwoo had witnessed his shameless ogling. Myungjun’s face flushed, but Jinwoo only smiled. “I’m gonna go ahead and put a new tire on, and stick a new spare in,” he said, still grinning, and Myungjun could only nod.
So Jinwoo went to work on the tire, jacking the car up and making quick work of the punctured tire and rolling it out of the way.
Myungjun watched him quietly, before he finally decided to say what he was thinking. “I’ve decided something.”
Jinwoo looked over at him. “What’s that?” he asked, sounding curious and a bit confused.
“I don’t think you’re a god,” Myungjun announced.
There was silence for a moment, then Jinwoo stood up and leaned against Myungjun’s car. “Why?” he asked.
Myungjun swallowed. It was now or never, and all signs pointed to what he was about to do as a very safe risk. “If you’re a god, you would be very difficult to date,” he said, hopping down off the table.
There was another beat of silence where Jinwoo looked shocked, but his expression very rapidly gave way to happiness. “Why do you say that?” he asked. “Gods don’t seem to have trouble dating in the myths.”
“Yeah,” Myungjun said, taking a step closer. “Except I know I’m not a god. And it would be annoying to have an immortal boyfriend that stays young and pretty while you get old and grey.” He took another step closer, and he was within arm’s reach of Jinwoo.
“You’ll be pretty even when you’re old and grey,” Jinwoo said, and the earnesty in his voice made Myungjun’s heart soar.
Myungjun snorted. “I know that,” he said playfully. “But you are at least as pretty as me now, and if you stay young while I get old, you will become prettier than me. I refuse to have such a thing happen."
Jinwoo’s laugh echoed off the metal walls and roof, and the sound of it mixing with the rain that continued to fall was music to Myungjun’s ears. “You’ll be happy to know that I am not, in fact, immortal, then,” Jinwoo said, reaching out and looping an arm around Myungjun’s waist, bringing him in so that they were as close as earlier, when he had been checking Myungjun for injuries.
Myungjun smiled. “Good,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Then you should kiss me.”
Jinwoo smiled. “Okay.”
And then he did. And Myungjun decided that Jinwoo was much better than any god that could have come down from Mount Olympus. So he kissed him again, and again, and again. And happily made plans to kiss Jinwoo every day for the rest of their un-godly, mortal lives.