Jonghyun hits the steering wheel with his palm, accidentally honking the horn.

“This ,” he mutters under his breath.

The sleek black SUV is, once again, sitting in the parking slot where Jonghyun’s mini cooper is supposed to park.

“I pay for membership, goddammit, who does this person think they are stealing my spot all the time,”

Grumbling, Jonghyun pulls out of the parking lot and locks his car in the underground parking garage of the neighbouring mall.

~~

The receptionist gives Jonghyun a look of wary apathy and her fingers dance on the keyboard to bring up his profile on the screen.

“Yes, and your allotted number is…63? Are you sure you’ve got the right digits? Double checked?”

“I’ve been coming to this gym for almost two years,” Jonghyun says, exasperated. “Of course I’m sure. Since about two weeks ago they’ve been stealing my parking spot and I’m forced to relocate at the mall. Please do something about it.”

“Well, Mr. Kim, it seems this frequent visitor also has a premium membership that allows for a parking space.”

More rapid clattering of the keyboard and the desk lady leans into the blue glow, adjusting her glasses.

“What is it?” Jonghyun tries to get a glimpse of the computer, but she glares and he pulls back with his hands up.

“It seems,” she clears . “we have a misunderstanding. 

There was a data entry error, you see. You were assigned the same space.”

“Oh, alright, then just fix it and everything will be fine, right?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I will move Mr. Choi.”

Jonghyun nods, satisfied, and throws his duffel bag full of sweaty clothes over his shoulder as he turns to leave.

~~

“This dude is driving me nuts,” Jonghyun gnaws viciously on the straw protruding from his smoothie. He makes his way out the mall’s exit, looking both ways before crossing the street to head for the gym.

“Well,” Kibum replies on the other end of the phone. “if consulting the authorities didn’t work, you might consider confronting the man yourself.”

Jonghyun frowns.

“Are you saying I should beat him up?”

“God, no, how the hell did you jump to that conclusion? I meant have a civilized talk. Wait for him to come out by his car or something and work it out. Peacefully. You’re always so hotheaded.”

“Sure. But I’m not going easy on a guy who’s a repeat offender even after I take polite, direct measures to solve a problem. Plus I’m getting tan lines from the extra walking distance. I hate having a farmer’s tan.”

Kibum sighs, and in Jonghyun’s mind he can see his friend rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Just don’t throw the first punch.”

In the locker room after washing off the sweat of an intense workout, Jonghyun realizes he can’t stay to stake out the SUV owner. It’s his sister’s birthday this weekend and he agreed to plan the surprise party with her friends.

“I’ll just write a note.”

He tears a page out of his composition notebook and thinks over what to write for a minute.

Yo man
Respected sir

To the owner of the black SUV,

Stop stealing my parking space. It’s disrespectful and generally a pretty ty thing to do to another human being. I’ve been here much longer than you have. Quit it.

-J

Jonghyun pulls on a clean shirt and dark jeans, flashing a humorless smile to the receptionist on his way out. Striding towards the object of his disgust for the past fortnight, he’s reaching out to stick his note under the windshield wiper when he feels a gaze on the back of his neck. Spinning around, he sees a tall man hurrying towards him and he’ll be damned but the stranger was hot, beads of water still dripping from freshly washed hair and damp tank sticking to some very well-developed pectorals.

“Hey,” Tall Dark and Handsome says, coming to a stop in front of Jonghyun. “Can I help you? That’s my car.”

“Oh hey, it’s just – are you aware that this is my parking slot? You’ve been colonizing it for awhile and I don’t appreciate it.”

“You must be mistaken, I was given this slot.”

“Nooo,” Jonghyun draws out the syllable, speaking as if the other man were a young child. “There was an error. I had this spot first, and then you came along. Somebody in filing entered the wrong data and boom. A debacle.” Jonghyun mimics an explosion with his arms, note flapping in one hand.

“And since you’re always here before me, that leaves me to park all the way down there –” Jonghyun jabs a finger in the direction of the mall. “– and I’m sick of walking down in the scorching sun.”

The sparkling amusement in the tall man’s eyes makes Jonghyun’s heart do a strange little flip.

“Oh, well, I’ll apologize, though I wasn’t informed of this change.”

“You weren’t?” Jonghyun’s glabella wrinkles.

“No. Thanks for alerting me, I’ll find out where I’ve been moved.”

They stand looking at each other for some moments, and Jonghyun begins to find the other man’s features more endearing with each passing second. Large eyes, straight nose; the parking space thief was certainly an excellent specimen of the product from a good set of genes. His plump lips are moving and Jonghyun hones in on the delicious looking mouth.

“If you don’t mind, you’re blocking my door.”

“Oh, right.” Jonghyun doesn’t move.

“Uh, please let me by.”

“Say, would you like to come to my sister’s birthday party?”