Wonwoo’s back was aching. He felt like he was about to drop and faint from exhaustion any minute now, which was ironic considering how much coffee there was around him.

“Good afternoon! Welcome to Shining Diamond Café; may I have your order please?” Wonwoo said for the hundredth time that day. The muscles in his mouth were aching from how much he had to force himself to smile.

If there was one thing he hated about his job, it wouldn’t be the fact he had to stand for nearly eight hours; it wouldn’t be his cheap- boss (who refused to hire another part-timer to help out); it wouldn’t be the annoying customers who tricked him into saying “pee niss” out loud in the middle of a crowded coffee shop (it was a common name, apparently); and it wasn’t the fact his shift was with Jeonghan, who was a great friend but also so ing lazy. If there was one thing he hated about his job, it would be the fact he was expected to smile.

“I’ll take register duty now,” Jeonghan whispered merrily in Wonwoo’s ear, nudging Wonwoo away from the register with his hips.

Wonwoo glanced at the queue that was forming to try and spot the reason that Jeonghan wanted register duty so suddenly. He spotted this reason almost immediately: it was a cute boy. Jeonghan loved cute boys: especially if they were tall and had broad shoulders.

Wonwoo didn’t mind switching with Jeonghan for a while from register duty. At least that meant he didn’t have to fake that mouth-aching smile.

-

Finally, it was closing time. Finally.

“Hey Wonwon,” Jeonghan called out when the last customer left, “could you do all the closing up around here? It’s my mom’s birthday, and I wanna be home early.” Before Wonwoo could reply, Jeonghan said: “Thanks babe, you’re a star!” He grabbed his bags and left Wonwoo with all the final errands.

Wonwoo didn’t mind doing the final errands alone though. On the contrary, sometimes he preferred it. Now that Jeonghan wasn’t around, Wonwoo could use the laptop in the back room.

The wifi in the coffee shop was very fast. A full hour HD episode would buffer in two minutes, and the download speed was extraordinary. Wonwoo was always puzzled by how his cheap- boss would spend so much money on this platinum wifi service, but refused to spend money to hire a third person to work with them during their shift.

Cheap- jerk, Wonwoo thought, feeling his teeth grit at the memory of his dreadful boss.

Wonwoo would have quit ages ago had he not needed the money. But he was a student who had fees to pay and did not have the luxury of quitting his only source of income. He would have switched jobs, but this coffee shop was only two minutes away from his dorm room, and he preferred the short commute to a nicer boss.

Wonwoo resumed some of his downloads (he pirated games and movies and had no shame doing it), and played some music as he wiped the counters and placed the chairs face down on the tables. When he was finished, he went back to his downloads and frowned when he saw that it was going slower than usual.

Usually, his movies would download at 3MB per second, but now it was only 200 KB per second. He groaned and figured there was something wrong with the server today that was making it slower than usual. No big deal.

Little did he know then that there was a thief two stories above him who was stealing the bandwidth, and that this thief would become a huge deal to Wonwoo soon enough.

A/N: short introductory chapter. i promise future chapters will be longer though!

and tbh I have no idea where im going with this story im making it up as I go along lol. Thanks for all your support so far and for trusting me with my whimsical storytelling! ^^