Part 3 - Chapter 17
I Wanna Love17
Niel was back at work, coughing every now and then but generally over the worst of the sickness. After his fever had broken Monday night he felt better. Just a niggling cough was left over now. He strolled through his department, eagle-eyes out for a customer. As he watched for one he thought about Chanhee and Byunghun.
Engaged. Together forever. Wow. He thought, wringing his hands and sighing.
They were finally back on steady ground, and what did Niel have? Nothing but a drunk memory and a crazy idea. He tried to tell himself he wasn’t jealous. He was wrong. He was dying of jealousy. His sweet soul was twisted and terrorised by jealousy.
For years, he had suppressed the envy. He had known them both so long that he knew they were best friends, but the connection between Byunghun and Chanhee had always been on another level. Even back in middle school when they were still “just friends”. Byunghun had loved Chanhee and tolerated Niel. He often treated Niel with disdain and was overly possessive of Chanhee. It wasn’t until Chanhee had been absent and something had happened between Niel and Byunghun that Niel finally realised that Byunghun did actually care about him.
Niel was standing by his locker, completely soaked down his front. It dripped from his hair and blazer into a puddle on the floor. A circle of other kids laughed loudly at him, one held a now-empty bucket.
“Everyone knows fish need water!” One of the girls called, causing the rest to giggle.
Niel stared at them all. It was ok, he could deal with water. Water dried. It was snowing outside but that’s ok he could wait until he dried before he went home. He was trying to wait out their attention span when a boy that often teased Niel appeared beside him. Without warning Niel’s vision turned white. Or rather, Niel turned white. A cloud of flour floated over him and settled into his saturated clothes and hair. He held in his anger, biting his floury lip fiercely. If he reacted they would just become worse.
He was chanting it over and over in his mind when Byunghun appeared.
“Who did it?!” He yelled, his voice sounded like thunder.
The group of students laughing at Niel shrunk away from this short sunbae.
“Who did this?!” Byunghun yelled again.
The leader of the pathetic pack sauntered forward.
“I did,” He admitted.
Byunghun moved before anyone knew what was happening. The leader doubled over, clutching his stomach and groaning.
“Hey!”
“You can’t do that!” One of the girls cried.
“I just did. Get lost. Or the rest of you will be the same way.” Byunghun snapped, easily intimidating to the other students. The few that were left scattered, deciding they would rather go home than see if Byunghun was bluffing.
“Are you ok, Niel?” Byunghun said in a quiet voice when the last of them had dispersed.
Niel nodded mutely. Stunned by the fact that, of all people, Lee Byunghun had defended him.
“Come on. Chan keeps a sport uniform in his locker sometimes.” Byunghun motioned for Niel to follow him.
“You actually like me?” Niel asked, still standing in his goopy puddle.
Byunghun shrugged, “Yeah, I do. Now hurry up.”
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Changhyun poked his head out of his office door, the entryway was empty of people except the Chinese receptionist at her desk. She looked up when he gave a surreptitious “psst!”
“Are you free?” He said quietly.
She glanced around the empty space and nodded.
“Now?” She asked.
Changhyun smiled.
“Now or never,” He beckoned her into the next room, his office.
The receptionist, Ivy, stood up, straightened her pencil-skirt and followed him. They moved straight through Changhyun’s office and into Mr Worthington’s.
“Are you sure about this?” Ivy asked, nervously smoothing her blouse.
“Relax, Ivy. It’s no big deal. I do this every time he goes away.”
“Yeah, but you’ve never done it with me before. I’m new to this.”
“It’ll be great. I promise.”
“Ok.” She nodded and took a deep breath, “I’m ready.”
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Byunghun watched Jonghyun froth the milk for his flat white. He had to admit Jonghyun had talent for coffee making. The younger’s brow was creased with concentration as he tried to get the milk to swirl and whip into a silky texture.
“There. Hear that? That’s the sound you want for a flat white.” Byunghun instructed, the milk sounded like paper tearing as it swirled. Jonghyun nodded, not taking his eyes off the task.
“Hey, Jonghyun?” Byunghun said casually, leaning by the machine as he supervised. “Thanks. For the other day. You actually… uh… you actually helped a lot. I’ll get Chan to come by and apologise to you.”
“So you two worked things out?” Jonghyun flicked the steamer off and examined his milk with a frown. “Is this right?” He asked.
Byunghun peered into the jug. “Almost. You’re getting better. How’s the temperature?”
Jonghyun shrugged. Byunghun sighed and took the jug.
“And yes. We worked everything out. He uh… he actually proposed.” Byunghun still felt a thrill of happiness when he told people.
“Aww! Really, sunbae? That’s cute.” Jonghyun clapped him on the shoulder in joy, “And just remember I’m the cause! I fixed everything between you two!” He crowed.
Byunghun scowled at him.
“Yeah, well, your milk is burnt so don’t get too cocky.”
Jonghyun frowned, “No way!” He protested taking the jug back and pouring it into the coffee shot. He immediately tasted it.
“Ugh. This is burnt. Damn.”
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Byunghun chuckled at him. Jonghyun laughed too. It was a little odd to see his sunbae be so free and easy around him. The brusque persona had finally begun to fall away and Jonghyun could see why the others in the café tolerated him.
“You wanna try again?” Byunghun asked him.
“I dunno. Maybe I just can’t do this stuff. Add it to the list of ‘Tried and Failed’” Jonghyun admitted with a sigh. He felt as though none of the coffees he had made so far measured up to any of the other barista’s standards. Byunghun stared at him.
“Jonghyun. Don’t be ridiculous. Being a barista takes practice. You’ve only been learning a week. And honestly, I don’t usually let people even touch the machine before the end of the first week.” Byunghun crossed his arms and scowled, “You’re doing fine.”
The compliment and posture were so at odds that Jonghyun had to laugh.
“What?” His sunbae demanded.
“It just… it looked like someone pulled your tooth out to get you to say that.” Jonghyun chuckled again.
“I’m not good at touchy-feely crap.” Byunghun shrugged. “And you’d better take the compliment, I don’t give many of those.”
“Thanks, sunbae, I appreciate it.” Jonghyun nodded, serious now.
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Chanhee whiled away the end of his shift on the computer, reading maintenance requests and reports. Occasionally forwarding ones that needed more than one manager to sign them off. There was a knock on the door and it opened. He turned to find Steven half in the door, a scared look in his eyes.
“You, uh, you wanted to see me today?” Steven asked. It was supposed to be his day off but Chanhee had organised him to come in.
“I did. Come on in.” Chanhee gave him a bright smile. “I wanted to thank you for swapping that shift with me the other day.”
“Oh. It was no problem. I mean, I probably owe you way more than just a swapped shift…” Steven rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
Chanhee smiled.
“Anyway, I thought I might pay you back for helping me out.” Chanhee continued, sweeping to his feet easily.
“Uh?”
A third man entered the office abruptly. A whirlwind of activity as he yammered into a phone and tried to remove his overcoat at the same time. He waved distractedly to the other managers, still speaking rapid Japanese.
“Oh, good, Sakurai is here.” Chanhee smiled, helping the newcomer out of his coat before extracting his own from the cupboard in the corner. “We can go.”
“Go where, Troy?” Steven was glancing from Chanhee to the newly arrived night-manager and back again.
“Suit shopping. I can’t stand it any longer.” Chanhee replied brightly.
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Minsu was on autopilot as he worked. His thoughts were tangled up in a knot.
Maybe Raz was right. Maybe he should think about dating. It had been forever. He was chasing the memory of a dream. But the other half of his brain, that seemed to be hardwired to his heart, stormed in and demanded he not give up. He had to keep searching. He was out there somewhere, somewhere close. Minsu’s heart knew it.
It was crazy. He would think about dating again, maybe trying to form a connection with a real person would help him forget his foolish quest. It wasn’t as though he was scarred from the last time he’d dated. His previous lover had been a woman; a tiny thing with tattoos all down her arms and back. Her name was Felicity. She had run away to Hong Kong too, trying to escape a mountain of responsibility in her everyday life. They had clicked instantly, both alternative, both tired of society and its expectations. But when her responsibilities had followed her to the island a year later Felicity had no choice but to break off their relationship and return home.
Minsu had been disappointed. He missed her some days, when he saw places they had been together, places they had made memories. He never thought about chasing her or trying to maintain the relationship across the distance though. They both knew their time had come to an end. It was peaceful.
Now he felt anything but peaceful. He wanted to return to normal. He wanted to feel peaceful again. This constant hammering in his chest to seek was wearing him down. He either needed to forget his little fish or find him. Soon.
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Niel sighed, they had come a long way from middle school. His jealousy would pass. It always did. He would find the person he was looking for. The crazy energy in his heart affirmed it for him. He was on the right path now. Maybe life wasn’t as kind as it was to Byunghun and Chanhee. It hadn’t placed his Someone right in front of him, but Niel knew that he was destined to find him. He believed in soul mates. And he was sure he had found his that night.
When I find him again I’ll never let him go, Niel promised himself. Chanhee didn’t give up on Byunghun, and I won’t give up either.
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Changhyun nodded to Ivy and they descended on the desk. Quickly forming two piles of messy paperwork, one for each of them to sort. Changhyun then opened the drawers and began extracting more piles of paper, this time messy handwritten notes on notebook pages than had been torn from a variety of different books. He stacked these on top of his pile from the surface of the desk before opening the next drawer down. It was scattered with chocolate wrappers. He growled and threw them all into the bin beside the desk. Ivy looked over from her own drawer on the other side of the desk.
“Oh my goodness!” She exclaimed, watching Changhyun empty the drawer of wrappers.
“He’s worse than a kid, I swear.” Changhyun shook his head.
When his drawer was empty, he moved onto the last one. It was neat, piles of manila folders were stacked in it. Changhyun pulled the neat pile out and scanned the names on the sides. He sighed heavily.
“He hasn’t touched these since the last time I did this.” He told Ivy.
“When was that?” She asked, removing piles of business cards from her second drawer.
“Uh, 4 or 5 months ago I think.” Changhyun shrugged. How did his boss accumulate this much mess in 4 or 5 months? And how did it not drive him crazy?
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Byunghun nodded to Jonghyun before busying himself with washing the milk jug. He had to admit, he liked Jonghyun. He was a good guy, easy going and kind. But it would be a while before Byunghun admitted that to him too.
“Hey, sunbae?” Jonghyun said, wiping down the machine as Byunghun usually did.
“Yeah?”
“How did you end up working here?” Jonghyun was looking at him curiously. “Lola says you’re a stray too. And that we’re all family here. And I was just wondering…”
“Lola says a lot of things.” Byunghun snapped in reply, he didn’t particularly feel like telling that story.
“Sorry. I mean, I was just wondering. It doesn’t matter really.”
“Mm.” Byunghun scanned the café, there was nothing else to be doing so he began cleaning a little.
“I came here kind of on a whim.” Jonghyun said, scrubbing down the chrome face of the machine now. “I’m staying with my friend Minsu, he invited me over. I wasn’t going to come but in Korea I was just living this big lie, you know? Lying about being gay and stuff. My parents are ok, not super cool though. I thought some time apart would probably be the best thing.”
“Did they kick you out?” Byunghun felt as though his heart was being squeezed through a tube.
“Hmm, not really. But they didn’t want me around anymore. I think it was too much for them to process.”
“Mm.” Byungh
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