“Hey! Dude! Have you heard? Those new hallucinating cigarettes from America were recently approved in Korea!”

“Hey! Dude! Have you heard? Those new hallucinating cigarettes from America were recently approved in Korea!”

 

Minseok raised his eyebrows at the teenaged boy on his phone. He looked about 16, with one menthol in one hand and his cellphone in the other. Minseok chuckled, walking into the convenience store.

 

“Hey Seok hyung,” the cash register said absent mindedly, staring at the empty chair next to the door.

 

“Hey Yixing, got anything new today?”

 

The heavy lidded Chinese man shrugged taking his eyes off the chair to look at Minseok.

 

“We recently got rid of whole milk and switched to 2%.”

 

The older scoffed, nodding his head towards the wall of cigarette packs,

“I was talking about the cigs,” his eyes trailed amongst the red, green, and black packages before coming across a wave of bright pinks and blues, “but I guess they can speak for themselves.” Yixing chuckled, “You mean the new Bliss. They’ve been selling fast, and I get why. I’ve been testing them out all day, and they sure as hell ing work.”

 

Minseok snorted, “What do you mean they “work.” All cigs work for me.”

 

“These are special ones hyung, it’s tobacco mixed with some medicinal herb from Myanmar. It causes these hallucinations of the things you really want.”

 

“So you can literally achieve true happiness with this.”

 

“Probably. I’m pretty ing happy right now,” Yixing said, his eyes trailing over to the chair again with a smile. Minseok raised an eyebrow,

 

“What do you see?”

 

“My boss humiliating himself for me.”

 

“Of course you would. Don’t mess with Yifan that much, if he notices you’re not scared of him anymore he’ll figure out you’ve been smoking at work again.”

 

“Yeah yeah yeah.”

 

---

 

*Yixing must be hooked on this ,* Minseok thought to himself, glancing down at the plastic bag he was holding. Two bright pink boxes shook around inside, the noise of the cigarettes evident.

 

“Should’ve just bought the usual..” he muttered to himself, thinking of his idiocy from ten minutes ago.

 

~

 

“So, are you getting the usual?” Yixing said after going on about the magics of Bliss Cigs.

 

“You know what? Just get me two of your new favorites,” Minseok said with a wink, smiling. Yixing chuckled,

 

“Y’know, lately, I’ve been into Marlboro’s Peppermint flavored ones.” The shorter rolled his eyes,

 

“Just get me some of those stupid pink boxes, Yixing.”

 

“Blue ones are less heavy.”

 

“Is there anything I can’t handle?”

 

~

 

“ing who the hell would trust Yixing, especially when buying cigarettes shadier than Baekhyun’s “4 AM karaoke parties.” Minseok mumbled as he recalled Yixing’s last idea of smoking LSD and Bliss at the same time.

 

“Yixing you know how illegal that is here. You’ll get sent to jail for like, life. Also your brain will be ing mush before you even realize you’re in jail.”

 

Before he could change his mind and return the pink boxes for black ones, his phone started to ring loudly. The Korean man sighed at the caller ID before picking up,

 

“What now, Krystal?”

 

Krystal was his boss's daughter (the heir to "Sprinkle Sundae Shop!!!" [the exclamation marks always have to be included, to Minseok’s dismay]). Minseok thought Krystal was very pretty (alas, he wasn't interested in girls) and figured was probably popular with the boys

(and girls, she always fancied both).

 

"Oppa! You know what today is, right?"

 

Minseok continued to walk to work, "California trip?"

 

"Not that.. Well yes, that, but isn't the new employee supposed to come today?"

 

He stopped in surprise, "but you guys never hire.."

 

"Apparently there was an exception or whatever. It's supposed to be today or in three months. (Minseok sighed out loud, Krystal was horrible with time) Whatever, they're supposed to be Chinese, but mom didn't tell me if it's a chick or a guy, so good luck!"

 

The elder male shook his head as the teenage girl hung up, "It’s not like I’d need help today, it’s the middle of December...."

 

---

 

As he held the lit cigarette in his hand, Kim Minseok was expecting a few things from “Bliss.” One, the nearest ATM would explode and rain money on him. Two, Krystal call and inform him that his pay raise has increased tenfold. Three, he’d be back at home sleeping.

 

Sadly, none of those things happened.

 

Instead, he returned to his usual position behind the counter, clocking in and beginning another dull, customer and event-less day. (Mind you, a kid had decided to ram into him just as he took his first puff of Bliss, if you would count that as an event.)

 

After confirming that no customers were coming today (the usual for this time of the year, it’s 0 degrees outside and the ice cream shop is cold as hell), Minseok lit another one of his new cigarettes and leaned against the counter.

 

In this new session of Bliss hallucinations, the 23 year old was expecting anything.

 

Even if it were just a little nonexistent penny of luck.

 

Ten minutes had passed and nothing happened. By now, Minseok had decided that it was getting suffocating and opened the window in front of the store, his elbows leaning against the pink windowsill. 

 

*Thanks Yixing, for recommending me the most normal cigarettes ever. A penny didn’t even appear,* he thought boredly. His daydreams were soon interrupted with a small jingle. Minseok glanced down boredly, and to his shock, saw a penny.

 

He placed his cigarette between his teeth before he bent down to get it, rolling the little coin between his fingers. The Korean male chuckled, tossing it up, only to have it never come down. 

“Hm?” he stood up slowly, pulling the smoke from his mouth, “Where’d it g-”

 

“Looking for this?”

 

“HOLY ING !”

 

---

 

Of all the people that could’ve been the new employee, Kim Minseok was met with the blonde, baby-faced, anti-smoking, Lu Han. (He prefers it as Luhan, the other goes with it, as usual.)

 

Now out of all of those terrifying traits (only joking, Minseok only considers one, maybe two, of those traits terrifying), there is one that truly sticks out to the older male.

 

“So how many cigarettes do you go through a day?”

 

“A box on a normal day, I guess? Maybe one or two more cigs on an extra bad day? I don’t really enjoy going off schedule,” Minseok said lazily, crushing his third smoke of the day against the outer brick wall of the parlor. Luhan’s eyebrows raised in shock, “That’s like, 20 cigarettes a day!" The older of the two chuckled.

 

"Are you afraid of dying of secondhand smoke? Don't worry, the owner hooked all the shops up with air filters."

 

The younger rolled his eyes, “I’m a little more concerned of you dying of first hand smoke… how can you keep smoking that when you know it’s not good for you?”

 

Xiumin shrugged, “I never stop doing things that aren’t good for me. In this end, we’re all dying, so why not be the one to destroy myself?”

 

---

 

To say that Luhan was a bother is one thing, to say that Luhan got on Minseok’s ing nerves is another.

 

“Can you stop smoking in your window corner? You’re scaring away the customers!” the doe-eyed blonde whined. Minseok sighed, Luhan seemed to make it a habit to scold him.. constantly.

 

“Luhan it’s 7:08 AM in the ing morning on a Thursday in the middle of January, of course there aren’t any customers.” Minseok was already in a bad mood from the wave of snow recently, and Luhan wasn’t making it any better.

 

Actually, Luhan hasn’t made his entire week any better.

 

Minseok’s morning routine hadn’t changed at all;

Wake up,

Smoke,

Brush teeth,

Wash face,

Change into uniform,

Smoke,

Grab a quick snack,

Visit Yixing at the convenience store and buy new cigs,

Smoke on the way to work,

Work while smoking.

 

And somehow Luhan had managed to jack it up.

 

Apparently he had just moved to Korea. Conveniently into the apartment next to Minseok. What a coincidence. As if Krystal had absoluTELY NOTHING to do with this.

 

But Minseok wasn’t going to question it. He never questioned anything that the boss’s daughter did. Because there wasn’t a point. But that’s not the point. The problem is that Luhan had personally decided to be Minseok’s late alarm clock.

 

Late, you ask? What do you mean by late, you wonder.

 

It means that Luhan came pounding at Minseok’s door after he had just woken up. Every single day, like ing clockwork, Luhan pounded at his door right after Minseok woke up. The baby-faced blonde doesn’t just pound until you let him in, no, he HAS to scold you about morning smoking habits the second he sees the smoke.

 

“Minseok-hyung, did you know that you have a higher risk of lung/oral cancer if you smoke right when you wake up in the morning?” Luhan had said, following Minseok around the older’s apartment.

 

“Yes Luhan…” Minseok muttered, pulling on his Sprinkle Sundae Shop!!! uniform. At this point, Luhan had seen him so many mornings that he wasn’t even embarrassed anymore.

 

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

The morning walk to work wasn’t that bad, Luhan mainly kept quiet, since there were so many smokers scattered around the area. Also, he and Minseok usually separated before they headed to the convenience store. The deer boy always had somewhere to go before work, but Minseok wasn’t complaining. Okay. Maybe a little. Minseok never smoked on the way to the convenience store, but Luhan always left before he could see those glorious moments. 

 

On that particular morning, though, Minseok decided to change things up. No cigarettes all morning, which was basically the other cause of his bad mood. Another thing that fueled it was that Luhan didn’t even show up.

 

In fact, Minseok had to wake him up. Or at least he attempted to.

 

“LUHAN WAKE UP! WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE!”

 

In the end Luhan never came out. Which wouldn’t have bothered Minseok as much as before, but he hadn’t smoked all morning. Also he got some weird looks from the security on the way out.

 

The blonde Chinese ironically only came when Minseok gave up on his non smoking day and took a puff of his first Bliss.

 

“I’MSOSORRYI’MLATEMYALARMCLOCKDIDN’TGOOFF”

 

“Chill, it’s whatever, there’s no customers anyways.” Minseok said, shaking his head as he blew out smoke lazily.

 

“Thank god,” Luhan said, sighing dramatically as he sat down on the chair next to Minseok.

 

Unfortunately, that relief of no customers led to boredom leading to where we are now. Back to Luhan complaining about no customers.

 

“I mean, why DON’T people want to get ice cream?” Luhan gabbered as Minseok groaned at his complaining. “It’s a weekday morning! The perfect time to get ice cream! AND it’s way below freez-” Minseok gave him a glare.

 

“Okay, even I admit that I don’t make sense right now. It’s probably just the cold going to my head,” Luhan said, chuckling.

 

“Attaboy,” Minseok said, slightly smiling.

 

“So why do you even bother coming every day if no one ever shows up?” Luhan said curiously, sticking a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth (In his defense, his sweater was pretty suffocating). 

Minseok shrugged, “The owner’s daughter is pretty chill, and I respect her enough to show up for what I’m paid for. Why do you show up then?”

“SIR I AM A FAITHFUL EMPLOYEE THAT BELIEVES IN THE IDEA THAT YOU MUST WORK DILIGENTLY TO-” Luhan’s voice raised obnoxiously, making Minseok’s head pound. He blew out the Bliss smoke and shook his head, stopping the younger.

 

“Listen dude, I get it. But now that you’ve gotten me on the idea of not showing up, I wanna ditch. And now’s a perfect time,” he said, looking down at the single cigarette lying in a box of pink. Luhan raised an eyebrow as Minseok grabbed his hand, dragging him out the shop and locking it.

 

---

 

“You’re going to buy more again?” Luhan said, astonished as Minseok held the door to the convenience store open for him. The older shrugged, “I usually just buy a pack for the day, but today’s gone surprisingly quick. You coming in or nah?” Luhan shook his head, “I’m done with cigarettes for the day. You even smoked one on the way here!”

 

“It was my last one!”

 

“Whatever, whatever,” Luhan said, waving his hand as he walked away from Minseok, “I’ll just watch the shop, kill yourself slowly for all I care.”

 

Minseok scoffed, shaking his head at Luhan’s distancing figure before walking into the store. Yixing was sitting behind the front desk as usual, oh, but this time he wasn’t even trying to hide the cigarette. The older rolled his eyes at the string of smoke coming from behind the cash register.

 

“Yixing does your boss give a about anything? I mean from the way you describe Kris, he seems like a strict guy..”

 

The younger jumped with surprise as Minseok’s voice echoed throughout the small store, “Firstly, he does but he only comes here Mondays. Secondly, why the are you here again. Thirdly, where’s your boss?”

 

“Ran outta cigs for the day, Luhan’s asking too many questions today. Also my boss is in Cali, and even if she was here, she loves me,” Minseok said snootily. Yixing’s eyes softened at the mention of Luhan and smiled,

 

“What was he asking about today?”

 

“Usual work days and lack of customers. Basically it all ends up to the amount of s Krystal doesn’t give.”

 

The cashier chuckled, shaking his head, “That’s expected. What’s he doing anyways?”

 

---

uhhhhhh this is actually where I stopped writing! honestly i don't remember where the story was exactly supposed to go, but i definitely have an idea. if anyone actually reads this maybe i'll continue! updates probably will be scattered because i'm a college student now and i wrote when i was just starting high school haha