I. Kimbap the superstar, soysauce the peasant

"What's for dinner?"

"You can choose between frozen kimbap and crunchy ramyeon."

"Can I have soysauce?"

"For kimbap? No.."

........

He took a deep breath and blew hot air to the cold surface of the glass door before quickly wiping it off with the pale yellow colored rag in his hand. Squeaky voice that followed, inducing an ugly cringe on his little face (small eyes twitched, thin and pink rose colored-lips bitten). It's been 20 minutes since he started cleaning the door like his life was depended on it, the glass door couldn't be clearer (he could even read his own name tag on his uniform, 'Byun Baekhyun', and also looked at his friend's moving shadow inside the store through the reflection).

"Hyung, the neonbox outside had been flickering since forever. Can you check it? I think we need to change the bulb or something." His friend, a well built guy, 182 centiingmeter tall, suddenly spoke with his clear heavy voice to Baekhyun. He was crouching in the aisle, hands busy arranging cups of ramyeons of all flavors on the metal shelf inside the 24/7 ministore.

"Sure." Baekhyun, who was casually wiping the now almost invisible ministore glass door (because it's too clean, one could barely tell whether there's a glass door or not), answered. He's done with the door anyway. Baekhyun yawned an ugly yawn before throwing the dirty rag into the basket and went disappear behind the storage door. Not even a minute after, he reappeared with a ladder and a new bulb box. A sudden cold breeze of summer night was greeting him when he stepped outside the stuffy little store. His shadow that glued to his feet on the concrete asphalt was like mocking him, disappeared and reappeared thanks to the flickering bulb above him. Baekhyun sighed and positioned the ladder right under the cursed neonbox and climbed it up after made sure for about 3 times that he already cut the electricity to the pastel blue box- '365' was written in bold and capslock- to prevented unwanted shock by the electric wave. 

When Baekhyun done putting the new bulb and closed the clear box, he felt a gush of wind on his back. It felt like someone was walking or running behind him. He looked around, squinted his eyes skeptically while pouting the thin lips, trying to find someone or anything that possibly moving, but found nothing. The midnight neighborhood was possibly as silent as a deserted place. Shrugging it off, Baekhyun finally switched the light on. The light from the neon box soon brightened up the whole area in front of the little store. A group of young girl suddenly showed up from behind a corner.

"Excuse me, did you see someone running this way?" One of them, a medium height girl with brown hair and clad in the school uniform of a neighbor private girl school, suddenly asked the flustered Baekhyun who was climbing down the ladder.

"No..." Baekhyun dragged his answer because he wasn’t sure. He did feel something, but he didn't see anyone.

"Urgh! Where is he?" Another girl asked in frustration, her red curly hair looked messy, and a huge professional camera was hanging on her pale neck.

Another small girl, with thick glasses and chipmunk front teeth, suddenly spoke in her high pitch voice, "Girls, I think he went that way! Let's go!"

And just like that, those girls who came like an uninvited twister, went and disappeared behind another corner.

Baekhyun frowned and tilted his head, amazed by what young teenagers these days randomly doing, ‘Shouldn't they already sleep save and soundly inside their own warm duvets at this time? It's school days right? Oh well..’

He lifted the ladder and push the door glass open, while thinking about his going to be ended shift in about 10 minutes and what should he grab from the shelf for dinner (really, the perks of being a minimarket employee), but not more than five steps inside, he suddenly halted in his track when he saw Jongin- the coworker slash bestfriend- stood awkwardly in front of the ramyeon aisle. He was looking at something on the floor with a shock face.

‘Oh ! Is there a burglar hiding there? I knew it, there was really someone running behind me!’ Baekhyun bit his lips. Frowning, he tried to get Jongin's attention desperately by sending imaginary telepathy. He couldn't just ask Jongin blatantly, what if the burglar got a weapon? Or worse scenarios, what if there is more than 1 burglar with weapons?

"Yah!" Baekhyun hissed carefully.

Luckily, Jongin heard him at his first try, and the younger's eyes got even wider at the sight of Baekhyun.

"What's going on?" Baekhyun lifted and shaped his eyebrows to form the question without really say it literally.

Jongin gulped visibly, raising his right hand and motioning Baekhyun to come closer. Have no other choices to do and too curious to denied the request, Baekhyun steeled up his heart and put the ladder on the floor before trotting his way down the aisle.  When he reached Jongin and looked over the taller’s shoulder, two pairs of huge, round, and clear eyes were staring back at him from the floor. The one that caught his interest the most, was the pair behind a black rimmed glasses that belongs to the guy with sprawled endless limbs, wearing a stylish graphic t-shirt. The guy's hair was gorgeous light brown that reminded Baekhyun of sweet caramel, his nose was standing proud and tall on the small cute face, and the ears were wide like the ones that belong to Dumbo the elephant or Potter's Dobi- it’s cute.

"Shorty is mine." Jongin slipped the words carefully through his gritted teeth.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. He take a look at the other guy in the floor, which was kinda short like Jongin said, and everything about him screamed 'little and adorable so keep me in your pocket forever', except the pair of humongous eyes. "Excuse me, but who are you guys?" Baekhyun couldn't help but ask.

Three pairs of 'really, dude?' eyes were questioning him, hard.

"What?" Baekhyun answered the unspoken question with another question.

Jongin blinked and so did the two strangers on the floor. "You don't know? But he's Park Chanyeol and his... angel?"

"I'm Kyungsoo." The petite male quickly squeaked, still from the floor and Jongin looked idiotically awestruck at the soft voice.

Baekhyun chuckled and the tallest guy chocked in his own saliva. "No, I don't know. And as long as they're not burglars, it's okay." Baekhyun shrugged and went back to the ladder before picked it up. He took a glance at his watch before continued speaking, "My shift is done, I'll take my dinner and get out of here."

When Baekhyun came back from the storage, backpack hung on his small shoulders, he grabbed a pack of kimbap and a sachet of soysauce from the shelf, not minding the three pairs of eyes that were following him in silence. "See you, Jongin,” he paused, “... and Jongin's friends." he nodded politely before leaving the stuffy store and three dumbstruck attractive guys.

..............

22 years old Byun Baekhyun is a big fan of original kimbap, but he got his own unique way to eat it- dip it in the soysauce. Every Korean who watched Baekhyun's way to eat would cringed at the sight, and more often than not, they called him out about the weirdness. Including today.

"Yah! Stop it! Why the hell are you eating Korean food with soysauce?"

Baekhyun, who was munching his lunch at the kimbap stall near his rent room, blinked and lifted his sight to an old ahjussi that sit 2 tables away from him. The old man was frowning at him, a trace of chili sauce from his bibimbap smeared on the left corner of his upper lips.

"Yah, Lee-ssi, don't scare my loyal guess. Let him eat in peace." The owner ahjumma scolded the old man, because she's probably one of the few people (if not the only one these days), who didn't mind with Baekhyun's eating style (or she just want to kept Baekhyun as her regular for as long as possible). Whatever her reason was, Baekhyun still thanked her for that. He sent her a small grateful smile before focusing his mind back to his lunch again. This might be a little thing for other people, but for Baekhyun, it's one of the things that could made him felt insecure. That ahjussi, reminded him of his mother.

Since he was a little, Baekhyun always thinks that he's not perfect. How can he, when his height was only half of most of his (guy)friends' normal height, his skin was so pale that he looked like a sick person most of the time. He has tiny and feminine features (nose, thin lips, small delicate hands), and his eyes... his eyes probably were the biggest complexion that Baekhyun ever had. It was actually a clear pair of brown shades that almost resembled the color of sweet and warm cocoa, but then, there was this little scar above his left eye that he got on the last day he saw his mom.

Exactly 10 years ago, his mother was running away with her affair right in front of his eyes. She even gave him a reminder for his whole life that she chose the young and rough man over her family. Over his father. Over him. The scar was earned when he tried to stop her from getting into the cab and she accidentally- or not, shoving her luggage towards her one and only son's face to made him stay away. So when the cab was speeding away from the house, Baekhyun was lying there, bleeding and forgotten.

There was never a single day when Baekhyun didn't expect his mother to come back knocking on their door. Surprisingly and thankfully though, his father coped up well with the lost, so the father and son household survived for about 4 years after. But then, Baekhyun had to face his second lost- when the caring, kind, and loving dad of his, got into an accident and heading his way to heaven. That time, Baekhyun hoped more than ever for his mother’s return, because 16 years old Baekhyun could impossibly survive by himself. But no, of course he didn't get what he want. He just had to learn to live by himself since then. Juggling between school and part time jobs to get by because he didn’t have any relatives to lean on, he barelly graduated from high school. With all the misfortunes on his hands up till his senior years, Baekhyun started to think that the sole issue was actually lay on him. That all of the misfortunes were because he's the magnet that pull it all in.

Baekhyun stared to the small tv set that was hanging from the old ceiling of the little kimbap stall. A music program was being aired. Baekhyun took another slice of kimbap and dip it in the soysauce (ignoring a slight scowl that the old ahjussi was, once again, sending toward him). It was a performance of duo rappers called EXO or something. When the kimbap almost reached his mouth, it slipped from his chopstick, and Baekhyun couldn't even care, because what he saw on the screen was shocking him.

It's the tall, lanky, but attractive guy from the store a couple of nights ago...

He was rapping. His voice was ily deep, shouting words fast and awesomely like a riffle gun. His hands were moving to the beat of the music. His stage's costume was far different from what he wore that night. Right now he was wearing a black leather jacket with six stars on each of his shoulders, a black shirt, black tight jeans that emphasizing his long legs, and a black scarf that was tied on his right palm. And because he didn't wear glasses, Baekhyun could see clearly, how that huge but mesmerizing eyes looked when they stared to other people. It's kinda weird though, because Baekhyun could see something warm and special glowing from the guy's eyes everytime he was making an eye contact with his handsome partner in the duo group. Seriously the guys are tall like models and definitely good looking, but Baekhyun's eyes always ended up to the guy that he already met a couple of nights ago.

To be honest, Baekhyun felt a little bit attracted to the said guy, although he wouldn’t do anything about it. That's before he knew that the lanky dude was actually a famous rapper (judging from the very loud fans' screams along the whole song). Now that Baekhyun knew, he laughed at his millisecond silly attraction to the young star.

‘Wake up, Baek. You have no time for a stupid crush or fanboying an idol,’

............

The '365' ministore, where Baekhyun worked at, was actually located near one of the high end apartment complex beside the Han River. Everytime Baekhyun went to the river side on his 15 minutes break of the day, he would find rich people walking their expensive and rare breeding dogs while having a chat about business through their earphones. More often than not, he even met some celebrities- or people who looked like them (Baekhyun's not that sure). But, he could positively said that the Park Jisung with the girl that he saw a couple of nights ago, was really the famous soccer player himself. And the news on the next day definitely seconded him on that.

The dark Han River at night didn't make it any less pretty, instead it became more gorgeous with all the city lights around reflected to the dark water. There's a large ship for Han River romantic cruise with lots of colorful bulbs that made it even merrier. There were also some old ahjussi that went around with huge plastic bag, selling fireworks for the night admirers of the river. Baekhyun already contented enough from his usual bleacher, frozen kimbap, and soysauce on his hands for dinner. He got himself a salmon filled kimbap today, so eventhough it's frozen, it's still smelled good enough for his appetite. He was about to eat his second piece of kimbap when he heard a scream from behind.

"Yah, stop! Get back here you, brat! Yah! Listen to me! Noo! Don't go there! Yah, orange person move away!"

Baekhyun frowned, ‘what's with the commotions?’’ He looked over his shoulder to see what happen and saw a guy was moving his arms crazily and doing wild gestures while running to his direction. He tilted his head in confusion, and suddenly realized that he was wearing his orange ministore uniform when a puffy bullet was flying to his stomach and dragged him down with it.

"Ouch.." Baekhyun groaned when the said fluffy things was still perched on his little body while wetting his face. He couldn't open his eyes because of it.

"Yah! Get off of him!" A sudden bariton voice filled his hearing sense up and the heavy weight on his chest was gone in a second. "Oh my God, you killed him!"

Baekhyun opened his eyes slowly and chocked out an unmanly shriek when he saw the guy who was standing before him, trying to pulled his golden retriever dog away from Baekhyun. He was too shocked to even care that the dog was eating his dinner.

"Panda, stop it! You’re a lady, don’t eat randomly from someone’s stomach," The guy was huffing tiredly while holding the leash that connected to the dog's pink collar.

"Ugh.." Baekhyun blinked and finally the person remembered that there's someone else there besides him and the naughty puppy- still lying helplessly on the asphalt because Panda was basically trapped him again with her half front body lying over the poor little man.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry. Yah, Panda! Move girl!" And the naughty puppy finally moved away from Baekhyun's torso reluctantly. "Here, hold my hand," the guy offered Ba