w o r d s ; 1 7 7 9

g e n r e ; l o l w h a t g e n r e

s o n g ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUkGmSntgu0

It’s a brand new day, Donghae thinks, waking up at six in the morning. After a week of not going to work because he was on holiday visiting a relative in China, he’s finally back. Sure, it’s a groggy morning and all Donghae wants to do is fall asleep and snuggle with the blankets, but he can do that on Sunday.

Donghae kicks off the very warm blanket and gets out of the inviting, soft bed, and makes his way to the bathroom. He showers quickly, wraps a towel around his waist and grabs another towel from the rack and quickly shakes his hair, then places the towel over his head.

He doesn’t make breakfast that morning; he’s much too busy running to work because he’d spent too much time on his computer after getting dressed. With the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, he runs a free hand through his hair as he makes it into the building with a briefcase in the other hand.

“You’re late,” the security guard grins. Donghae laughs emotionlessly back and the guard chuckles and sits back down.

The elevator arrives and he steps inside quickly, presses the button to the twelfth floor, then presses his finger into the close button a bit more times than necessary.

As the doors finally close, he puts down his briefcase and spins around to face the mirror. He fixes his collar, wipes his palms on his pants and picks up his briefcase again, sighing audibly.

He turns around again just as the doors open, and steps into the small waiting area and turns left to see the large logo of the dreaded company that dares interrupt his sleep.

Donghae smiles and walks up to the door, pressing in the code. There’s a click, and he pushes the doors opens to reveal the reception. Walking up to the front desk, he smiles with what he hopes is charm.

“Good morning, Seohyun,” he says smoothly, trying to hide the tiredness from his voice.

She looks up at him with a raised eyebrow, and then taps a bit too loudly on her keyboard.

“You’re late, Donghae,” she says sternly, but playfully.

“I know,” he says, a large smile blooming on his face, “won’t do it again, promise!”

Then he picks up his briefcase again and makes it through many cubicles and many greetings (he saw his boss and ducked comically to avoid being told off for being late) and after many more steps, he’s finally in his own room.

He walks up to his desk, expecting a large pile of work for him from when he was gone, but there was nothing- nothing but a cookie wrapped neatly in tissue paper with the edge hanging out.

Donghae thanks the stars the walls of his office aren’t made of glass and he grabs the cookie greedily and scoffs it down. Chocolate chip, he thinks briefly. My favourite.

He throws the tissue in the bin after wiping his mouth, and thinks about how lovely of a surprise that was because he still hadn’t eaten breakfast.

Setting up his laptop and putting down his briefcase, he lies comfortably on his chair. When the desktop finally displays, he gets up and leaves his small office room quickly, just for a cup of tea.

He makes his way to the pantry and opens the cupboard, taking out his blue and white cup and a packet of green tea. He fills up the kettle and closes the lid, putting it to boil and sits down one of the three chairs in the small area, resting his arms of the table.

Before he can even begin to think about anything, a short boy with newly dyed platinum blond hair walks in. Donghae smiles as the shorter boy sneaks some of the accountant’s lunch.

“Sungmin,” Donghae says after a while. Sungmin looks up, face stuffed with chips. He swallows them quickly and grins brightly.

“Hae!” He smiles, sitting down. “How was your trip?”

“It was good; the normal,” he says. “You do know Kyuhyun is going to kill you for that, right?”

“Let Kyu do whatever he wants,” says Sungmin. “I’ll just tell him I was hungry. He’ll forgive me.”

They laugh for a few minutes as Donghae finishes making his tea and sits back down, stirring it to cool down.

“Hey, Min,” says Donghae after a while. Sungmin looks at him with mild curiosity. “Do you know who gave me a cookie this morning?”

Sungmin laughs. “I think I might do, but it depends. Was it your favourite flavour?”

Confused, Donghae nods. Sungmin crinkles the bag of chips and throws it into the bin.

“Yeah, I think I know who it is.” He says finally, standing up. “Snoop around the office and give yourself something to do, for once. Find out who it is yourself.”

And with that, Sungmin is gone, and Donghae only sighs and brings his green tea back to his room.

-

Donghae stands in front of his desk at work with mild déjà vu.

There again on his desk are absolutely no piles of work and a chocolate chip cookie tucked neatly in a blanket of tissue paper.

It’s a good thing he hadn’t had breakfast yet.

Donghae picks up the cookie gingerly and nibbles a bit on it, smiling as the flavour hits his tongue.

That day, Donghae spends more time than usual in the office. He sits at his desk with a pen in his ear for ‘professional reasons’ as he types up a report for his boss frantically on the computer. The report is due in a week, but Donghae just really wanted to stay in the office.

Once he hits the five hundred word mark, a smile blooms on his face as he checks the time- time to go.

He closes his laptop and pulls out the charger and rolls up everything and puts it back into the briefcase, and he picks it up and steps out of the office, before looking back and running back in.

Quickly grabbing a blue sticky note and a pen, he pulls the cap off and scribbles a ‘thank you very much, from Donghae’ on it and closes the lid. Smiling as he puts the sticky note on his desk, he walks back outside.

-

The sticky note is in the bin the next day, he finds, and there the cookie is again with a note this time saying ‘you’re welcome’ in very scribbly handwriting.

-

On Saturday, it’s different. He doesn’t just get one cookie; he gets a whole tin of ten mini cookies with a cute note printed on it.

‘Dear Donghae,

I know you don’t know who I am yet, and I was going to tell you on Wednesday, but Sungmin told me not to, so I guess… I’m not going to. Maybe next week.
You’ve worked hard this week! You deserve loads of cookies. It’s the last day of work this week, have a nice day off tomorrow!

Love,’

There’s a name next to the ‘love’ but it’s been so scribbled over Donghae can barely see any of the letters. He laughs, and thinks about how much work he actually hasn’t done, but places the tin of cookies next to where he usually places his laptop and smiles fondly at it.

-

On Monday after work, Donghae swear he’s dying because his boss suddenly piled work on his desk. After the day has ended, he sadly makes his way todays Seohyun, who he finds nibbling on a ginger cookie. He vaguely remembers that to be her favourite.

“Hey, Seohyun, who did you get that cookie from?”

“Hytujkbjae,” she says, tiny crumbles of cookie spitting out. She wipes , swallow, and clears professionally. “Hyukjae.”

Donghae furrows his eyebrows. “Who?”

“New guy,” she then says. Donghae vaguely remembers being told there would be a new guy before he left to China.

“Thanks Seohyun,” he says, then picks up his briefcase and leaves with a smile.

-

Donghae arrives at the office at six thirty that morning. Only Seohyun is there, and she’s shocked to see him arrive not late.

“I’m here to see Hyukjae refill my cookie jar,” he explains briefly before rushing to his room. He places his laptop on his desk and plugs in chargers and charges his phone. He opens to cookie jar and grins- still empty.

He sits on his chair until exactly a quarter to seven when he hears footsteps getting louder and louder, stopping right outside his office door.

The door cracks open and Donghae jumps up and smiles excitedly, only to be faced with Seohyun with a dull look. “I’m here from Mr. Lee to give you more work. Hyukjae comes in at ten to seven.”

Then she leaves, and Donghae sits down for another five minutes before the door cracks open again, and he spins around, catching sight of a particularly attractive deep brown haired male.

“Hello,” he says with a smooth voice. “Are you Hyukjae?”

“Y-Yes,” Hyukjae says bashfully. He walks forward and takes the cookie jar, then opens it, and gently places five small cookies into the tin and smiles appreciatively.

“You’ve been putting cookies on my desk?” Donghae asks, responding with a smile. Hyukjae scratches the back of his head awkwardly and nods. “That’s weird.”

“We’re a Korean company in Paris. That’s weird too.” Hyukjae says. Donghae wordlessly agrees.

“So… why?”

“I don’t know,” Hyukjae smiles, “at first I was giving cookies to everyone every day in a basket, and well, some of them told me their favourite cookies so I stopped giving cookies to everyone who didn’t tell me, then, well, I kind of just gave up until you came back. I saw you walking in on the first day and you looked really hungry so and I just so happened to have a chocolate chip cookie.”

Donghae smiles and urges Hyukjae to continue.

“I… My favourite flavour is chocolate chip too. I was just about to eat it but you looked hungrier than I was, so I snuck in and placed a cookie on your desk.” Hyukjae smiles happy at the memory. “I remember getting the sticky note from you. That was so sweet.”

Donghae laughs. “Not as sweet as the chocolate chip cookies were.”

Hyukjae laughs with him.

“So,” Donghae says after a while. “Why don’t I buy you a cookie sometime, say, tomorrow?”

Hyukjae is confused for a second before a large smile blooms on his face. “Did you just ask me out?”

“Maybe,” Donghae says with a smile. “So, tomorrow?” He says hopefully.

“It’s a date.”

~~
Sorry everyone for being away for aaaaaaaages! >> I feel so guilty omg
This fic is nearly done and I have a huge plan for the last chapter omg which is SO SOON this is already the 8th
I started this nearly a year ago! Should I finish on the same day? :'D I have a feeling someone will kill me bc omg
That'd mean last update is on November 16 HAHAHAHAH no
Maybe >> I'll definitely finish it before then