"are you almost done?" chanwoo asked as he spun around in his chair. (he didn't know why there were office chairs in a forever 21, but he didn't question it.)

jinhwan startled, almost as if he'd forgotten chanwoo was there. chanwoo wouldn't be surprised if he did -- jinhwan tended to get pretty distracted when he shopped.

junhoe snorted from his spot on the floor, right next to chanwoo's feet. he'd been given weird looks for the past hour they'd been in the store, but none of the workers have had the courage to tell him to get up yet. chanwoo kicked junhoe in the side before looking back at jinhwan, waiting for an answer.

the elder sighed as he put back the two crop tops in his hands. chanwoo mentally cheered at that, because both of them were ugly; one a nasty mustard color that would've clashed with jinhwan's cotton candy pink hair and the other one so ripped up to shreds that it probably wouldn't have even covered jinhwan's s.

"let me just try on these pants and we can go."

chanwoo nodded in affirmation, then settled back into his seat, lifting up his feet to rest them on junhoe's stomach. ("ow!" junhoe complained, but chanwoo paid him no mind.)

not five minutes later, chanwoo received a frantic call from jinhwan -- something about the pants fitting too tight and him not being able to take them off, or at least that was what chanwoo gathered from the muffled, incoherent sentences. point was, chanwoo had to go help him out, because the only other viable option was junhoe and chanwoo was pretty sure jinhwan wanted real help, not some idiot in jean shorts on a snow day.

"i'll be back." chanwoo told junhoe, not even bothering to see if the older boy was listening. he set off in the direction of where he thought the dressing rooms were...which ended up not being the correct direction at all, because he somehow ended up in the shoe section.

after walking around for a few minutes longer and receiving a couple more frantic calls from jinhwan about how he couldn't feel his legs anymore, chanwoo gave up and decided to ask a worker for help. it wasn't that hard to spot one considering that they all wore floral shirts for some weird, unknown reason.

"excuse me, sir." chanwoo called out to the guy standing near the hat rack. the guy was short -- not jinhwan short, but still short -- and his ugly floral shirt clashed with his purple pants and green jordans. the guy startled at chanwoo's voice, nearly dropping the hat in his hand that said "seoul waves" in big black letters with wave emojis surrounding it. chanwoo cringed at the guy's taste in hats.

"you talkin' to me?" his voice was gruff and he didn't face chanwoo when he spoke. chanwoo found that kind of rude.

"yeah, don't you work here? i mean, you're wearing that ugly shirt and all." chanwoo didn't really mean to say the ugly part, it kind of just slipped out. finally, emoji guy turned around, looking affronted.

"hey, my shirt is not ug--" he abruptly stopped talking mid-sentence, eyes widening when he got a full look at chanwoo's face. chanwoo's own eyes widened when he realized that the guy was giving him the look™.

a few seconds of awkward silence lapsed between the two before emoji guy shook his head, almost sending his blue snapback flying, and cleared his throat.

"i know you from somewhere." he stated, bluntly, left hand coming up to adjust his snapback.

"yeah, I've heard that before." chanwoo nodded as he grabbed the emoji hat out of emoji guy's hand and placed it back on the rack. he picked a simple black snapback, one that didn't say i'm the most obnoxious person in the world, then handed it to emoji guy. "funny enough, no one seems to remember where from."

emoji guy stared curiously at the object in his hands before shoving it under his arm and looking for another one. it was a 2-for-1 deal, after all. "i do."

chanwoo's eyes widened for the second time that day and he swore if they widened for a third time, they might stay like that permanently and he really didn't have the money to fix them if they did. "you do?" he asked eagerly, leaning forward into emoji guy's personal space and he'd be embarrassed if he wasn't so excited. finally, someone was going to tell him where they knew him from and why he'd been getting the look™ for the past three years.

emoji guy's lips curled into a smirk. "i do." he reaffirmed.

"can you tell me?" chanwoo sounded desperate, even to himself, but that's because he was.

"on two conditions." emoji guy said as his eyes glanced over the hat rack. his gaze settled on a plain white hat with silver piercings on the lip. he grabbed it and looked at chanwoo for approval. when he got a nod back, emoji boy put it under his arm with the other one. "buy me these hats."

chanwoo could feel his wallet crying, but he swallowed hard and nodded, accepting the fact that he was going to be eating ramen all week. "and?"

"and you have to..." emoji guy trailed off, trying to think of something else he wanted. his eyes lit up when he finally decided. "and you have to tell me that you like my shirt."

chanwoo rolled his eyes at the pleased look on the short boy's face. "whatever." he muttered, then cleared his throat and started speaking obnoxiously loud. "your shirt's the best thing i've ever seen in my entire life. i love it so much. it does not at all look like a knockoff exo ko ko bop era shirt."

emoji guy frowned at the obvious sarcasm in his voice, but knew that was as good as he was going to get. with a swift nod, he headed to the checkout counter, chanwoo following close behind. they paid relatively fast -- even though the young cashier looked like she'd rather be anywhere else and it showed in the way she moved as slow as physically possible -- and chanwoo literally shook with excitement as they got closer to the entrance. once they got relatively close to it, he shifted all of his attention to the shorter boy.

emoji guy smirked, eyes turning into small lines. "you look exactly like song yunhyeong, an extremely famous gay star."

just like that chanwoo's world shattered, both figuratively and metaphorically, because as soon as the words left the other boy's mouth, chanwoo tripped on a stray glitter-covered jacket that said call me baby and shattered his phone's screen.

emoji guy's giggle was the last thing he heard before he passed out on the floor of a forever 21, jinhwan and his too small pants the last thing on his mind.