Crack, Romance, Fluff, workmates!au, pharmacy setting au!

Kaisoo

G

Oneshot- 1,827 words

Kyungsoo learns that Jongin’s love is his drug.

Kyungsoo is a young pharmacist, and he works at one of the city’s larger local pharmacies, tending to smiling old people and wailing children to promiscuous teenagers and panicking relatives.

Kyungsoo sighs because today is a really great day but someone is already threatening to ruin it.

There standing to Kyungsoo’s immediate left is their local ‘hot’ security guard, Jongin—or as the smitten people around call him, “the sizzler”.

Up to this day Kyungsoo still scratches his head as he tries to make sense of Jongin, their idiotic, clumsy and annoying security guard as “the sizzler”, which apparently attracts half of the pharmacy’s customers. To him, Jongin was just a pile of muscle, body, height and a pea-sized excuse for a brain—which he hardly thinks as attractive at all.

Jongin is currently trying to act cool but is in reality ogling at Kyungsoo again, absentmindedly drumming his fingers over a stack of condoms in the rack he’s leaning on, staring at the love of his life’s attractive side profile.

Just then a passing clerk, Yixing, sees Jongin and nudges him, nonchalantly pointing toward the unsuspecting pack of condoms underneath his palm. “You gonna use that?” he says and Jongin looks puzzled for a moment before looking down and unattractively chokes on his spit, immediately backing away from the pack of condoms as if he’s been electrocuted.

“I—what—no—huh?” Yixing chuckles and pats him on the back, his gaze flitting back and forth between Kyungsoo and the condoms and then back at Jongin, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively leaving the latter flustered and blinking back helplessly.

Kyungsoo takes note of the commotion to his left and his right eye immediately twitches, he could already feel a migraine coming on.

He turns his face to the left a few seconds later and sees Jongin and Yixing nudging each other in front of a rack of condoms, giggling a little too noisily for his liking. He feels something snap from inside of him and immediately his temper rises, glaring at Jongin and Yixing harder than necessary.

He clears his throat a little harshly and says in a gruff tone;

“The last time I checked we were working for a pharmacy, and not the circus.”

Kyungsoo frowns and Yixing looks at Jongin apologetically and makes his exit, leaving the scene before he incurs any injuries from obliviously jealous co-workers.

Jongin smiles sheepishly at a suddenly fuming Kyungsoo. “Kyungsoo, I—“

“Hmf,” Kyungsoo scoffs and turns away again, completely ignoring Jongin’s existence.

The latter sighs tiredly and scoots off to stand back at his usual post next to the refreshments fridge, and proceeds to stick his head inside, looking dejectedly at one soda to the other.

He was just about to relate his failed love life to an unsuspecting can of coke when Sehun their local clean boy, armed with his feather duster and pastel white cleaning apron, trudges forward with a wet wash cloth in his left hand, eyeing him disapprovingly as his fine sticks out from the fridge’s door.

“Jongin, what are you doing.”

He tuts and then sighs, replying a monotonous “Looking for something to eat,”

“…but the door is see-through.”

“…oh, I knew that.” He says and takes his head out of the fridge and closes it, rubbing his neck in slight embarrassment.

“ ‘course you did.” Sehun brushes past him as he leans forward to wipe the glass squeaky clean, tongue sticking out in concentration.

Jongin shakes a fist angrily at his coworker behind his back, making ugly faces as the cleaning boy sees everything from the reflection on the glass, shaking his head as he lets his friend go on with his childishness.

Jongin sighs loudly, gives up and leans against the wall, deciding that watching Sehun clean was as good as watching paint dry—its not as if he has anything else to do anyway. His love of his life was sort of pissed at him for who-knows-what reason, and the pharmacy looked safe anyway so it was okay for him to laze around for a while.
 

The wind chime rings, signaling the arrival of a customer—or customers, in this case. Jongin immediately straightens up and stares at the entrance.

A group of giggling high school girls enter, mascara-lidded eyes scanning the area for ‘the sizzler’. When they spot him next to the fridge, they immediately decide on buying drinks instead; flirty smiles in place as they wave to both Jongin and Sehun.

“H-hi, Jongin, Sehun.” One of the girls coo and they all giggle more obnoxiously as Jongin responds playfully with a curtsy.

He smiles one of his insanely attractive smiles and from behind Sehun snorts as he walks away to clean lint off a sparkling clean countertop next to another pharmacist with equally sparkling eyes, Luhan.

Next to Luhan no one notices the dark aura Kyungsoo emits, fingernails threatening to make a dent on the counter top he clutches on desperately.

Sometime later the girls walk to the counter and approach Kyungsoo, handing them the lone 2 bottles they bought out from the fridge.

Kyungsoo scans and swipes the bottles for their bar code off angrily, typing in the total payment with much more force than necessary and hissing out a ‘that would be $8, please,’

They pay and they leave eventually, but not before waving Jongin a flirty goodbye.

Jongin responds with a wink and Kyungsoo sees that too, suddenly wanting to flip the whole damn cash register at his face.

Kyungsoo’s work shift ends and so does Jongin’s, and the former is still mumbling under his breath as he slips on his winter coat.

He’s on his fifth button when Jongin suddenly clears his throat and calls for his name softly. His head snaps toward the source of the voice and he hisses out a harsh ‘what?’, which makes Jongin flinch a little.

“K-kyungsoo, I was wondering—…,” but he’s cut off from his stuttering and fidgeting by a glare from the latter, obviously growing impatient by the minute.

“Well?”

“Um, are—are you free tonight?”

Kyungsoo blinks and is at a loss for words as he’s caught completely off guard by it. His mind is a blank and when he shifts his gaze to Jongin’s warm brown eyes, he looks so hopeful and absentmindedly he breathes a small,inaudible ‘yes.’.

Jongin’s face immediately brightens up and he gathers more strength from Kyungsoo’s response, saying, voice a little louder this time,’ Soo, would you go out with me tonight? O-on…on a date,”

He gulps and offers a genuine, shy smile, waiting patiently for the other’s answer.

Kyungsoo recovers and bites his lip, weighing over his options, if it really is worth dating the sizzler.

The sizzler, admired by the whole female population, dorky and hunky body guard Kim Jongin—but then Kyungsoo remembers the times Jongin helps him carry large carton boxes of medicines from the deliveries, greets him with a cheery ‘ Good Morning Kyungsoo!’ every single morning before he clocks in for work, and the secret glances thrown his way when Jongin thinks Kyungsoo isn’t looking.

But then he remembers him flirting with the high school girls from earlier—flirting with Yixing—with Sehun—with Luhan—and—and—no, just…no.

Kyungsoo sighs and reaches over to clasp Jongin’s hands with his own, smiling sweetly at him.

“I said I was free, Jongin. But that doesn’t mean I’m desperate enough to go out with you, on a date, tonight. Sorry,”

Then he lets Jongin’s hand drop along with his heart.

When Kyungsoo gets home that night, he sits himself in his blue couch and rethinks his life.

He finds himself noticing Jongin more and more each day, but he’s not sure if he likes him that way. Then he remembers the flaring of his insides whenever he sees Jongin with anybody else.

He doesn’t want Jongin’s attention on someone else, yet at the same time he also can’t stomach Jongin in his shadow all the time.

He’s confusing himself and in hopes of clearing his mind, he stands up, grabs a box of freebie multivitamins and proceeds to slam his head on it  a couple of times enough to make him see stars.

Kyungsoo doesn’t eat, nor sleep that night.

The next day Kyungsoo goes to work in his all white pharmacist uniform, looking very much like an undead nurse. He groans when he so much as twists his head the wrong way too, an added effect for his zombie look.

Luhan notices this and throws in a casual “You look like you’re taking drugs, Kyungsoo. Had a tough night?”

He merely groans and goes back to stacking the newly delivered boxes of Ritalin, amoxicillin and paracetamols.

Jongin notices zombie Kyungsoo and immediately comes to his rescue after he helps an old lady with her purchases.

“Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo! Are you all right?”

He shakes Kyungsoo by the shoulder’s lightly, taking in his sleeping form slumped on top of the bags of marshmallows.

The sleeping pharmacist stirs a bit and, remembers that he’s still at work, suddenly bolts upright and violently hits his head on Jongin’s chin, causing them both to flinch back and groan in pain.

Kyungsoo sounds like a cowering puppy as he clutches on his hurt head rather tightly, trying to blink away the tears of pain.

Jongin on the other hand feels like his chin has been permanently turned the other way.

After a few minutes of whimpering and hissing and massaging the hurt areas, Jongin finally speaks up. “A-are you okay Kyung?” he says so softly and gazes at Kyungsoo’s eyebag laden eyes with undisguised concern.

Kyungsoo looks up to meet his eyes and then lets out a soft sigh at the irony of everything; the reason for his sleeplessness and insomnia is worrying over him. How ironic can life get?

Then, Kyungsoo does what he’s never done before: smile genuinely in front of Jongin and touch him willingly.

“I’m okay, Jongin-ah. Don’t worry.”

Jongin releases a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding as he takes the smaller man in his arms.

They stay like that for a few more minutes before the lunch bell rings, signaling the end of their break. Before they move away from each other though, Jongin asks a question:

“Hyung, you aren’t on drugs, right?”

Jongin knows he deserved that punch in the gut.

But what he doesn’t know, or expect is Kyungsoo smirking at him.

“What?”

“I just realized, maybe I am.”

“You’re on drugs??” Jongin is on the breaking point of hysteria now.

“Yeah. Your love is my drug.”

Kyungsoo goes home with a bruise on the left arm and a boyfriend on the right.

-

WTF IS THIS

WHAT DID I WRITE

WHAT.

Also. (fandom hug to all EXOstans and the Kris issue. Let us believe and support them.)