Title: Candy and Marshmallows

Genre: fail!fluff (I don't even know lol)

February 13, 2013; a Wednesday.

Jinki had been dreading the arrival of this day, not because it was the eve of Valentine’s Day (oh no, with how long he had already been single, Valentine’s Day didn’t even mean a thing anymore). It wasn’t even because he had been kind – or stupid, whatever – enough to agree to cover his colleague’s shift for the night, but rather because he had been scheduled to work with a certain colleague named Kibum.

Truth be told, Jinki has never met this Kibum person but he sure has heard enough about him from his fellow colleagues, even his manager, and he wasn’t impressed.

Luna, several years younger and new at the job, who has to be by far the chirpiest and most energetic person Jinki has ever worked with, had been partnered with Kibum a few times before and she hadn’t enjoyed it.

“He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t talk unless he needs your help with something, and it just seems as if you’ve done something to offend him from that look on his face!” She had said with a pout, and Jinki wonders briefly if her hyper energy level could have turned the boy off without her realising. He hadn’t been too thrilled with her chipper attitude as well when they first met. It was only after many shifts of working together, him pushing her away and her coming back to bother him, did he slowly get used to her mega enthusiasm and start to take a liking to her bright personality.

His impression of Kibum was made worse when Minho, his usual Sunday morning shift partner, got paired with said boy just last weekend and ended up sending a text to Jinki every half hour, grumbling about why Jinki had to take the day off and leave him in such misery. Minho, while also new at the job, was a little quieter by nature and it may seem like he doesn’t bother about anything. But once the ice is broken, he could get really talkative and was a fun person to work with. Yet, he had said that Kibum had snapped at him, twice.

Jinki had been regretting his decision to take this shift ever since.

“He’s just very professional, and focused on hitting the sales target that he gets a little too serious sometimes. But really, he’s alright.” His manager, Sunny, had assured him, but Jinki wasn’t sure if she’s just saying it so Jinki wouldn’t reject taking up that shift. In terms of seniority, he had been told that Kibum had been working in the shop for even longer than he did, though he was a couple of years younger. This made Jinki all the more uncomfortable since he usually worked with newbies and he was used to being the more experienced one.

So really, when Jinki strode into the shop on the eve of Valentine’s Day at 4.10pm, still twenty minutes early for his shift, he didn’t really know what to expect for the night.

“Oppa! What are you doing here?” Luna came out from behind the counter when she saw Jinki enter the shop, her eyes twinkling gleefully just like always. It took only a moment before those eyes flicked towards the big vintage clock at the back of the shop and she answered her own question. “Ah! Here to take your shift, I see!”

“Jinki-oppa, annyeong haseyo. I’m Sulli.” Jinki turned and nodded at Sulli, a newcomer he hasn’t worked with before. The three of them stood at the counter while Jinki worried aloud about his work partner for the shift.

“Good luck oppa, he’s really scary. Sulli doesn’t like working with him either.” Luna made a face and said. Jinki glared at her from behind his too-long fringe; he honestly didn’t need any more reminders about his shift partner’s hostility.

“He’s late. We’re going to have to go off soon…” Sulli nodded towards the clock that showed that it was already fifteen minutes past the start of his shift. Huh, professional, Sunny said?

“Can’t you girls stay until he gets here, at least?” Jinki asked before quickly smiling at a customer who had come up to pay, and proceeds to serve her.

“Oh oppa, he’s here, he’s here! We’re going!” Luna’s voice fell to a whisper when she saw the familiar male walking towards the shop from the glass display window and she pulled on Sulli’s arm to exit the shop.

“Goodbye, oppa!” They waved and walked out just as Kibum entered. The two girls quickly bowed their heads and mumbled a quiet “Bye, Kibum-oppa” before hastily leaving.

Jinki thanked the customer as he handed over the change, looking up in semi-anticipation. He was rather surprised, to say the least. He had heard a lot about this Kibum person, also the fact that he is a law undergrad at one of the universities in Seoul. So Jinki had imagined someone who was all prim and proper, perhaps donning overly formal clothes, hair a conventional black or brown and sleeked back neatly with hair wax to go with his dull and serious personality that everyone dreaded working with. Instead, his colleague that stood before him looked nothing like that.

Kibum was, if anything, really attractive in a casual, sassy way. So. Very. Attractive.

Funny how nobody had said anything about that, Jinki thought to himself in silent wonder, as he took in the appearance of his colleague. He had striking blond hair, and salmon pink highlights covered his forehead with just a hint of messiness; his eyes, lightly lined in black, were not big like Minho’s, but it sparkled with a kind of intelligence. His complexion was flawless, skin tone a milky white. He wasn’t much different from Jinki in size; in fact they were probably about the same height, although his face was all sharp cheekbones and angular jawline while Jinki’s was quite the opposite. As for his attire, instead of the button-down shirt and dress pants that Jinki had tagged him to in his mind; Kibum was decked in a graphic tee and grey skinnies, completing his simplicity with a pair of cloth loafers on his feet.

Kibum sent a half-smile in Jinki’s way when their eyes first met, and the latter was caught off guard by that action, almost forgetting to return the gesture with one of his own. Neither of them tried to introduce themselves to the other, assuming that they must already know who the other was, and so they each busied about their own things in the shop.

Jinki was on all fours wiping the floorboards with a piece of wet tissue – someone had somehow gotten a huge glob of the new-in hand lotion onto the floor and some unfortunate customer had already stepped on it. He didn’t want anybody else to bring the sticky substance all over the rest of the shop floor – when Kibum came up to him.

“Hey, I’m going to get a drink. D’you want anything?” The blonde asked with slightly raised brows. There was no hidden sarcasm in his voice, no snappy undertones which only served to surprise Jinki even more, though he could say it was a pleasant surprise. Kibum wasn’t turning out like how everyone had described him to be.

“No, I’m good. Thanks!” Jinki smiled at him and continued to wipe the floor when Kibum walked away. It was strange, because that simple question from Kibum made him feel really happy, he wasn’t sure why.

Jinki stood near the back-end of the shop, observing his colleague who stayed near the counter most of the time. He understood what his manager meant by him being professional and on task. Whenever there was a customer who seemed remotely interested in something, Kibum goes right up to introduce that product like a predator going in for the kill. He talks well, knows his stuff, smiles at them a lot and was a charming salesperson if Jinki had to say so himself.

He loved the sound of Kibum’s laughter, and found himself smiling whenever he heard that joyful sound coming from Kibum’s lips at whatever the customer had said to him.

Since he wasn’t that fantastic at selling, Jinki tried to compensate by helping with the cashiering and tidying up the places where some customers have messed up so that Kibum wouldn’t find him a useless partner. He wasn’t too worried about the sales today since Luna and Sulli had already hit their target for the day before knocking off, much to his relief.

“That, was such a pain in the to wrap. A huge challenge to my gift-wrapping skills, which is close to none.” Kibum grimaced when Jinki entered the counter. The younger had just handed over a wrapped stuffed toy to a customer, one which he had spent the last fifteen minutes or so wrapping up.

Wait, was Kibum actually starting a conversation with him?

“I can tell. It didn’t help that he kept staring at you work, did it?” Jinki said in response. He understood that it got really stressful having to wrap something for a customer within a short period of time, and especially if said customer chose to stare while you work. He just wanted Kibum to feel better.

“I know, right! I mean, it’s still going to take me the same amount of time even if he was in a hurry. I would actually be quicker if he would just leave me to it.” Kibum complained some more and Jinki really couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. Why, he actually thought he had gotten himself so guarded about Kibum for nothing; he was really an okay person. An interesting person, in fact.

“I thought you wrapped it really nicely though. I could do it for you next time, if you like. They all make me do the wrapping whenever I’m on shift.” Jinki said and felt like he’d scored one when Kibum smiled that gorgeous smile of his that revealed his pearly whites.

“Jinki-ssi!”

Jinki looked up from the stock that he was arranging and hurried over to the counter when he heard Kibum calling for him.

“Could you just help me check if we still have stocks for this tap designed hanger thingy? There’s a customer on the line.” Kibum said with furrowed brows. He was trying to process a transaction for another customer waiting at the other side of the cashier counter.

“Sure.” Jinki picked up the phone and clarified with the customer about the object and quantity she wanted to reserve before going out to the shop floor to check its availability. When all was done, he thanked the customer after confirming her details and hung up.

“Thanks for that, Jinki-ssi.” Kibum breathed out when he completed the transaction and the customer he was attending to left the shop.

Jinki just realized Kibum was actually calling him by his name, and as ridiculous as it sounds, it made his heart beat just a little faster.

“No worries, and just Jinki is fine, Kibum.”

Just three hours into their shift and Jinki thinks he had managed to build some kind of a rapport with Kibum. Of course, they weren’t exactly super chatty as compared to when he was working with Luna or Minho, but at least he wasn’t being ignored or snapped at by Kibum, and he took it as a good sign.

Kibum made small talk with him sometimes when there weren’t many customers around the shop, but when his assistance was needed, he immediately switched to his helpful-salesperson front and served every customer to the best of his ability. They mostly talked about work, though. How the daily sales target was such a nuisance and a source of stress for everyone, whether their sales today was considered good for a Wednesday (it was freaking fantastic, to be honest), about the crowd in the shop and so on.

There was a certain factor about Kibum that made Jinki want to know him more. The way the younger boy talked with such confidence in his voice, the way he smiles so sweetly and the way he turns serious once he was handling something work-related. But Jinki never tried to ask Kibum any personal questions since he thought the younger might not like it.

“Sunny-noona just said today’s sales target has been changed to $4k.” Kibum looked up from his phone before he continued, “She said since Luna and Sulli already hit our $2k target before our shift, it’s going up to $4k.”

“WHAT. But just look at the customer-flow! There are so few people now!” Jinki said incredulously, mouth agape. While sales was great in the first half of the day, there haven’t been that many people coming in since their shift started. It was annoying how their bosses were never satisfied even when they did manage to hit their sales target, which didn’t happen every day.

“I know, they are crazy with their targets. I’m just not going to bother.” Kibum shrugged and made a rather adorable I-can’t-be-ed face.

“Seriously?” Jinki raised his eyebrows, remembering what Sunny had told him about Kibum being focused on hitting the sales target.

“Ohwell, okay. Let’s just try to get it to $3k, at least?” Kibum said and Jinki nearly roared with laughter. Professional, indeed.

“OH, I know why sales is so good today! It’s Valentine’s tomorrow and everyone is out to buy their presents!” Kibum exclaimed suddenly after he was done processing a customer’s transaction.

“Uhm. Did you only just realize that?” Jinki looked at him a bit oddly and said. Strange how he was clueless about it, he had thought someone as attractive as Kibum would certainly have a special someone to remind him about the occasion.

“Yeah, I guess when you’ve been single for a long time, you tend to forget occasions like that.” Kibum shrugged nonchalantly when he said that and Jinki found himself feeling a certain hope inflate in his chest.

“I’m just going to buy the candy and marshmallow at the back of the shop, sit at home all day tomorrow and gorge myself. I’ve wanted to get it ever since it came in…” Jinki looked longingly at the Valentine’s Day special corner that had been set up for the occasion. It was filled with colourful lollipops, candy and the bestselling caramel-coated marshmallow that was two bucks per piece. Sunny had said it was a renowned brand, air-flown all the way from the US.

“Really? I don’t much like candy…” Kibum mumbled softly, more to himself than to Jinki. Then he looked up and said in a more audible voice, “Why don’t you go on ahead for dinner break since there are so few people now? I’ll go after you.”

And Jinki didn’t want to argue, because Kibum was smiling at him.

“Thank you, have a good night!” Jinki greeted as the last of their customers left the shop, and then pulled the wooden doors together, showing that they are closed for the day.

It was already 10pm; Kibum was at the counter counting up the cash in the till while Jinki went around the shop, flipping off the various switches for the lamps and extra lights shining on the displays. He then went to join Kibum at the counter and helped to do the settlement for the credit card transactions, all the while his heart was pounding harder and harder at the silence between them.

“Done! We were just 70 bucks away from $3k, how close.” Kibum pouted a little and said. Jinki stood beside him, looking at his side profile and thinking how different this Kibum is from the Kibum that everyone had told him about, and how wrong one could be about a person. This Kibum was cute, funny, and straightforward with his words but not at all a nasty person. Jinki decided that he liked Kibum, you know, in a friendly way.

He hesitated a little before pulling out a little paper bag he had kept in his backpack from when he returned from dinner break.

“Hey, Kibum.” He started, and waited for the blond-haired boy to turn to him before continuing. “I, uhm, bought you a little something, y’know. For Valentine’s.”

Kibum’s right eyebrow went up, but he remained speechless.

“I was wondering if, uhm, you might like to go out with me tomorrow,” Jinki started again, “on a completely platonic basis of course!” he hurriedly added when Kibum’s left eyebrow went up as well.

“I mean, Valentine’s doesn’t need to be just for lovers, right? And since we both don’t have dates, what do you say, to uhm… Can you say something?” Jinki was babbling nervously because Kibum hadn’t said a single word since he began his little speech.

Kibum let his gaze linger over Jinki for a moment longer before reaching for the paper bag. It was a slice of chocolate cake in a box from the bakery downstairs that Jinki bought when he went for dinner break.

“Really, Jinki? You don’t even know my surname and you bought me a cake and want to ask me out for Valentine’s?” Kibum said with an amused tone in his voice, and Jinki could feel his heart start to sink.

“Oh, uhm…” Jinki began, feeling a little awkward and unsure of what to say.

“I’m just kidding! It’s Kim, by the way. Kim Kibum.” Kibum was smiling at him again, and Jinki wasn’t sure why he felt a little giddy. It might be from the happiness that had suddenly burst in his heart. He thinks his face might split soon from how wide he is smiling.

“L-Lee. Lee Jinki.”

“I have something for you too.” Kibum said as he reached into his bag and produced a paper bag. Jinki recognized it immediately as the shop’s paper bag.

He opened it up with tentative hands and gasped. There was that packet of straw candy that he had been eyeing for ages and several of the two-bucks-per-piece marshmallows.

“Y-you bought this for me?” Jinki said, feeling oddly touched. Then he felt a little stupid because obviously Kibum bought it for him, he already said so!

“No, I bought it for myself actually, but then I felt bad that you gave me something so.” 

“You don’t even like candy.” Jinki pointed out. He saw a tiny blush bloom across Kibum’s cheeks and thought it was cute how he was avoiding his eyes. Kibum looked back at Jinki after a while; face still a little pink and a shy smile adorning his face. 

“So, about that date tomorrow…”

Jinki never thought that the day he had been dreading for so long could turn out to be one of the most amazing days of his life.

***

When Kibum walked into the shop to start his shift on this night, he wasn’t expecting to meet someone who would reach right in and open up his heart.

Sunny had said his name is Jinki, a little shy with strangers at first but well-mannered and pretty hardworking. He was only slightly junior to himself when it came to his work experience, which Kibum was thankful for, because he really didn’t like to work with newbies who didn’t know much and having to clear up any mess they might create.

Despite getting in late due to a delay in the subway, Kibum was in a good enough mood to send a half-smile in his colleague’s way when they first laid eyes on each other. And when Jinki smiled back after a slight pause, he was blinded. Jinki’s smile was like the sun; bright, warm and all things lovely.

He steals subtle glances at his colleague who usually stands near the back of the shop. He was wearing a plain white sweater and black jeans, simple but not shabby. His hair was a brilliant golden-brown, a little on the long side, and his fringe would fall over one of his eyes whenever he lowered his head to arrange the displays. His eyes. Such gentle and deep brown eyes that bent into little bridges when he smiled.

Jinki walks with a bounce in his steps and a constant smile hanging off his full lips, like there was something that was making him happy all the time. He wasn’t overly enthusiastic in attitude like that Luna girl is (honestly it was so annoying); neither did he have that can’t-be-bothered demeanour Minho exuded. One thing Sunny was right about was that he did his job well, always running around attending to the customers waiting at the counter, arranging things and even getting on his hands and knees to wipe the floor.

There was something about Jinki that made Kibum want to know him more. So he made small talk with the older boy when there aren’t many people in the shop, making sure their conversation revolved around work-related topics. He doesn’t ask Jinki anything personal because it’s just not something he does, when really, he wanted to know if someone as perfect as him already had another person waiting on him. Through Jinki’s words, Kibum could feel that he was a sincere person. And every time their eyes met, there was a weird stirring in his chest that Kibum hasn’t felt for the longest time.

It was a strange feeling, because he usually didn’t grow attached to people he worked with, much less someone he had only just met for a few hours. Yet, when Jinki had absentmindedly expressed that he wanted to have the candy and marshmallow that was for sale at the back of the shop, Kibum was filled with a sudden thought that he wanted to buy it for the older boy, if only to see that bright smile on his face again, directed only at him. So when he sent Jinki away on his dinner break, Kibum quickly grabbed the pack of straw candy he saw his colleague pick up so many times in just one night, a few of those marshmallows that Sunny had said were absolutely heavenly, and processed his own purchase.

Their shift came to a close soon after, and Kibum had felt a little sad knowing that he didn’t manage to so much as ask for Jinki’s phone number (that’s just not something he does, okay), and who knows when will be the next time they will be scheduled to work together again? He was wondering, as the silence stretched between them while they were doing the closing procedures, whether he should even bother to give the sweets to Jinki at all. What if the older boy got freaked out by his sudden actions? They weren’t even close; he didn’t even know Jinki’s surname. He didn’t know if it was appropriate.

That was when Jinki took something out of his bag and started to babble in an extremely precious way, asking him out for Valentine’s Day tomorrow (on a platonic basis, Kibum was slightly disappointed to hear, but that can wait). His voice sweet like honey, laced with nervousness, it nearly made Kibum flush with both shyness and happiness. But he played it cool, careful to keep his expression blank since he didn’t want to seem too eager, but he was sure his heart was near giving up with how rapidly it was hammering against his rib cage.

Of course, given that it was Kibum, he hadn’t given in without tossing in a little bit of sass to tease Jinki. Oh, the look on his face! But he did say yes in the end, of course, and that dazzling smile that followed was enough to warm him for the rest of the night.

Kibum had more than Jinki’s number. He had a date with him for Valentine’s Day, and he had a feeling that something great might just come out of it.

A.N.: A little bit of shy!Onkey for Valentine's Day. Just something that came off the top of my head, inspired by my own shift on the eve of Valentine's, minus the date and happy ending of course, ha. 

Valentine's is already over in my country, but I guess there's about half a day more to go before it completely ends everywhere in the world. Can't believe this is already the second Valentine!Onkey I've written. (I should have been studying). Anyways, the tenses because I don't know how to use my tenses properly and this might have been boring. But I just needed to write some Onkey, okay. 

Comments are love! xoxo.