-not editting any mistakes are regretted-

Kyungsoo lives in a world of overpowering sounds and half-cooked breakfast, the distinct aroma of African beans and the tinkling of coffee cups against table tops, vivid images and a keen sense of logic. He zones out against the countertop at the corner of his empty workplace, mind drifting into images of endless water, sand between his feet and something a little salty.

He tries hard to picture the sights and sounds in his head. It’s been too long, he’s starting to forget, he thinks. It is almost unusual for the café to be empty on a day like this, usually they’d be so busy that someone ends up breaking a plate or two, but it doesn’t bother Kyungsoo. It is in fact all the better for him to sit somewhere inconspicuous and gather thoughts, something he finds incredibly hard to do anywhere else than the workplace he loves.

Monday, remember to pick up the laundry. Tuesday, call up the plumber to fix the leak. Kyungsoo makes little notes like these in his head and repeats them after he wakes up and before he goes to bed, just to make sure he never forgets anything he shouldn’t be forgetting. It’s repetitive, maybe slightly redundant, but it keeps his thoughts in place. For someone who strives for perfection in every little thing, it’s a force of habit, perhaps. It is efficient, and efficiency is exactly what Kyungsoo needs.

It isn’t the Kyungsoo is blind, kind of, well, he sees things in a blur. Making out the outlines of stuff is easy stuff for him, but hardly anything more. But Kyungsoo’s used to it, used to things being vague, because maybe sometimes things don’t have to be precise. Sometimes, details kill.

Somewhere between remembering Thursday’s note and picturing himself at the beach did the café’s automated door bell ring and the shuffling of feet accompanied by something that sounds a little like scratching claws interrupt his train of thoughts—but Kyungsoo doesn’t move. The kids can handle it, he thinks.

It is too soon that he hears someone that sounds awfully, and unfortunately, like his fellow crewmate Oh Sehun—the only one who stayed half as long as he did in this place. Kyungsoo doesn’t really blame those who left, working with him isn’t exactly the easiest job to do, the café’s busy almost all the time and the pay isn’t exactly enticing to say the least, but Kyungsoo doesn’t mind. He thinks he loves it, in fact—the busyness, the repetitiveness, the same routine. Constancy.

At least, it keeps his fears hidden away, behind layers and layers of ‘it’s gonna be okay’ and ‘how may I serve you’. It isn’t easy being Kyungsoo, but he thinks that if he does the difficult again and again, then difficulty will soon deter into something a little easier—a little happier.

“Hyung, come attend to the customer,” Kyungsoo hears the kid call from behind the counter. Given his condition, it was a surprise at first that their boss didn’t fire him.

“Can’t you handle it yourself? I’m not gonna baby you any longer. You already look too much like one,” Kyungsoo tries to be sassy, and maybe a little too loudly. He doesn’t get why someone was laughing, perhaps at him, perhaps at his blatant failure at sassiness, or perhaps because he was shouting at nothingness?

“Hyung,” Kyungsoo doesn’t know when Sehun managed to get near him without him noticing, “You’d want to, trust me. He’s hot. I mean hot, hot. Besides, I think you need to date someone, anyone. He seems like a nice catch.”

Kyungsoo catches himself snickering, “It doesn’t matter if he looks like Won Bin or a frog, it’s not like I can appreciate any of it. Besides, what makes you think he’d be interested in someone like me? Heck, what makes you think he’s even interested in guys?”

Sehun his lips in annoyance—Kyungsoo hates it, the sheer sound of it—and sighs, “Your senses must have weakened, my friend. Didn’t you notice the sound of his shoes against the floor? He’s wearing knee high rain boots for god’s sake. He must be gay.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense—“

“Hyung, just trust me on this,” Sehun pushes Kyungsoo towards the counter, towering over the small body, “Besides, even if it turns out that I’m wrong, you could always feign ignorance and blame it on your eyes or your stupidity or something.”

Kyungsoo blows against his lips and surrenders. There is no winning against his twisted logic. Scratch that, there is no winning against Oh Sehun at all.

“May I take your order?”

--

Kyungsoo hates this feeling—the one you get when you know someone’s staring at you, watching you, anticipating your next move—and feels his hatred grow with each passing second spent sitting behind the counter listening to Sehun go on and on about how his little Chinese boyfriend is all perfect and fabulous and that Kyungsoo should get one too sometime before both of them die.

“Hyung, that guy’s staring at you.”

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows raise slightly, suddenly a little more self-conscious before catching himself, “I’m sitting. There is no way he can see me.”

“Alright, I lied,” Sehun rolls his eyes, capping the cup of toffee nut frappe, “But seriously, he keeps glancing over. Maybe you should go bring him his drink instead of ringing the buzzer as a kind of, you know, service?” Sehun laughs wildly as if it’s the funniest thing in the world. Kyungsoo glares.

“Plus, he asked for lots and lots of whipped cream. Maybe in the future you and him could use it for, I don’t know,” Sehun feigns a cough, “other things.”

Kyungsoo knows what the kid is getting at, maybe a little too vividly. He grabs the drink, breath exhaled, shoulders surrendered.

Table beside the door. Don’t do anything stupid.

It is two steps out from behind the counter that Kyungsoo starts questioning his own thoughts. Why is he actually putting in effort to not look stupid in front of the dude? Why does he even care?

And it is two careful steps from his destination that he settles for ‘because I don’t want to seem weak’. It’s not that Kyungsoo doesn’t want to like anyone, or be friends with anyone for that matter, it’s just that he thinks he’s a solo player, a one-man show. He thinks he’s better off without anyone anyway.

“Here’s your drink,” Kyungsoo reaches the cup out somewhat awkwardly, careful not to use enough force to accidentally punch the guy in the face. He thinks he’d like to at least know him a little more before deciding if he’s a big enough douche-bag deserving of his knuckles against his face.

“You didn’t have to bring it to me,” the guy says, placing the buzzer in Kyungsoo’s free palm, “I believe that’s what this thing’s for.”

Kyungsoo thinks the guy is trying to be polite, at least it sounds a little like it, but there is a tinge of something a little short of sarcastic tailing his words that irked him at a level he doesn’t quite understand.

“Why were you staring at me?”

The guy laughs, “I’m Jongin.”

“No one asked--”

“And you’re Kyungsoo. I read your nametag, you know, just in case you were wondering,” the Jongin dude chuckles even harder, Kyungsoo isn’t sure at what exactly, half-hoping this thing they are doing ends sooner. He prepares to spit back something equally as annoying, something that will get him out of this petty situation victorious, but his thoughts soon gets cut off by the sounds of scurrying and something pulling against his jeans.

“A… dog?”

Jongin picks up the canine and holds her in front of Kyungsoo’s face, “Meet Monggu.” It isn’t that Kyungsoo hates dogs. In fact he rarely dislikes anything to the extent of hatred, but it doesn’t mean he likes it either. Dogs, much like everything else, are added baggage, a liability, and Kyungsoo is bent on living a life with no attachments, nothing holding him back, nothing that can hurt him.

Jongin takes the hint and pouts, settling the furkid on his lap.

“So why were you staring at me?”

Jongin seems to find his questions amusing, “You just don’t give up, huh. You really want to know why I couldn’t take my eyes off you?”

“I’ve only asked like a thousand times, no , sherlock.”

“Well, you see,” Jongin drops the puppy and stands up, closing the distance between them, lips towards Kyungsoo’s right ear, fingers grazing, feet nearly touching. Something a little red rushes to his cheeks and Kyungsoo swears that if only he isn’t in the middle of his shift, he will punch the guy straight in the face.

“I couldn’t resist your beautiful dark locks, what shampoo do you use?”

And he thinks he probably should have.

--

After the second time the two affably meet, Kyungsoo swears he has never wanted to punch Oh Sehun in the face as much as he does now. With something really hard, maybe a pan, or like a bus.

“Please tell me, in full 1080p detail, how does mystery guy disappear for a week and then reappear right where you weren’t supposed to be, and the first thing you two do, as normal people, is to—“

“Shut up Sehun.”

“—kiss each other?”

“I swear to God, it was a coincidence.”

“So you coincidentally kissed him.”

“I did not kiss him for God’s sake, he—he knocked into my lips! It was an outrage of my modesty, I tell you!” Kyungsoo groans.

“What did he taste like?”

“What?”

“What did the beautiful chocolate man taste like?”

“God, Sehun—“

“So he tasted like God? Man, I’m envious.”

--

The third time, they say, is always a charm, though Kyungsoo isn’t too sure.

Because the third time is when he awkwardly and quite stuffily meets the man named Jongin in the lift of his apartment. Maybe because this Jongin seems to know so much about him to a slightly creepy extent, maybe because he is starting to get afraid that if he stays in the confined space that seem to move slower on purpose this day, he might puke overnight waffles and frozen berries on his new shoes.

“Quite stuffy, isn’t it?”

“Uh, sure.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t mention about the kiss, or intimate accident, whatever.

“You remember me, don’t you?” he smirks, which kind of annoys Kyungsoo, in a really, strangely, cute way.

“I wish I didn’t,” how can he not, after Jongin so rudely attacked his lips?

“But you do,” Jongin laughs, pulls out a cigarette and lights it between his chapped lips, “I love it that you do.”

Kyungsoo frowns inwardly, brushing off Jongin’s words because ‘he’s insane’. Jongin lets the smoke filter through the back of his throat for a bit, tilts his head skywards and starts blowing little smoke rings. He laughs.

“You’re kidding me right?” Kyungsoo recognizes the stench a bit too well. Malboro ice mint.

“Can’t you at least wait till you’re out of the lift? You’re probably gonna set off the smoke alarm or something.”

In a split second, Kyungsoo finds the man breathing heavily beside his right ear, “What—what are you doing?”

“Making sure I don’t set the smoke alarm off,” Jongin blows his last puff into Kyungsoo’s ear and steps on his barely burnt cigarette.

The lift, finally and of all times tings, and Jongin steps out and chuckles for a bit, the kind of chuckle that says more than it should, “See you later, Kyungsoo,” and walks away.

The lift door closes on a frowning Kyungsoo, quite unsure if what just happened. He’s pretty sure he hates Jongin’s guts. He hates everything about him, from his stupid delicious scent (maybe vanilla) to his air of smugness in everything he does. It’s the way he says ‘see you later’ like they really are gonna see each other later that pisses him off.

Who does he think he is, telling me when I’ll be seeing him?

The ting of the lift saved him from whatever else Jongin was planning, Kyungsoo thinks. And then he has a thought, maybe, maybe a part of him wishes the ting never came. That both of them, in that small space, trapped together, fingertips slightly touching…

And then Kyungsoo shakes his head and laughs, eyebrows relaxed as he steps out of the lift. It isn’t possible. Kyungsoo hates being in confined spaces for too long, and he probably hates the creep even more.

 Halfway down the street, a corner before his workplace, Kyungsoo realizes maybe it isn’t that, and two steps before he enters the café, he has a thought—perhaps it is he who hates himself for not hating Kim Jongin.

Sehun’s right about one thing though—he is a beautiful chocolate man.

a/n: thank you to all of my subs who did not unsub and waited for me to update this bloody fic for like what idk 6 months??? T_T im so sorry like you know, school life and all. tbh i actually wrote like 90% of this chapter sometime last year only got to completing it today wtf. i will try my best to update as frequently as possible from now on! that is, if i don't get writer's block again. as you may possibly have already noticed, i did try to change the context of this fic a little, like less tragic bc idk i can't write tragic fics anymore!!! dun dun dunnnnnnnn!!!!! =_= so yeah if anyone wants to contribute as to how this story is to progress, drop me a pm!!!