Here's for you, floppybeib.. ^^

Hyesung groaned in frustration when his alarm beeped loudly that morning. Great, he thought, he just lost one night of sleep. He turned off his alarm and yawned grumpily. All night, when he tossed and his bed unable to close his eyes, he seriously tried to remember whether Eric was really his childhood friend or not. But even after long hours he spent, Hyesung couldn’t remember him. It was as if Eric was being deleted entirely from his brain.

Did I really make a promise to marry him back then? He thought as he sat on the edge of his bed.

Hyesung immediately shook his head in fright. No, no, no. It can’t be. Hyesung groaned once again and ruffled his precious hair with both of his hands.

“Why do I think about that man anyway? That crazy man is surely just making up some stories!” Hyesung nodded firmly as he tried to convince himself. “I had no friend named Eric. And I had never made any promise to marry anyone.” He said as loud and as firm as he could while nodding his head repeatedly.

But how he possibly knows about the scar on his wrist then? One stubborn voice echoed inside Hyesung’s head.

Hyesung could only groan once more when he really had no answer for that. He genuinely wanted to forget about the matter because it only gave him headache. So he spoke loudly to make up his mind – “I had no friend named Eric. And I had never made any promise to marry anyone.” More like he was hypnotizing himself anyway. Because there’s no other reason to speak out loud like that when there’s no one but him inside his bedroom. Hyesung shook his head once again before got up from his bed.

“Gather yourself, Hyesung-ah.” He ordered himself when for the umpteenth times since last night, the silly smile of Eric appeared in his head.

But if Hyesung ever thought his day would be better when he simply gathers himself, well he was wrong.

The first sign of his bad luck appeared on the fact that he couldn’t get rid of Eric’s face all the time. Eric’s handsome yet silly face kept bugging him endlessly when he shampooed his hair, brushed his teeth and even when he made his breakfast. The second sign of his bad luck appeared when Hyesung opened his car door and immediately smelled one unusual fragrance tickled his nose. Rose’s fragrance. Apparently, Eric had left the rose bouquet on the back seat of his car yesterday. So this morning as he and Junjin stepped inside the car, they were surrounded by the rose’s fragrance. It was quite pleasant, honestly. But Hyesung took note in his head, even though he felt a bit guilty he would discard the bouquet later.

And Hyesung finally was sure his day wouldn’t be better the second he saw Eric in his office building. Eric was standing near the elevator and clearly was waiting for someone. Hyesung’s body froze immediately when he saw Eric waved at him in joy. His mind ordered his feet to move when he saw Eric was running towards him, but sadly his feet disobeyed him. All he could do was gripping the strap of his backpack tighter. Why he felt very nervous so suddenly?

Eric stopped running and stood closely in front of the Hyesung whose all over of his body was tensed – afraid of Eric’s sudden approaching. “Hyesung-ah, good morning.” Eric greeted him and ignored Junjin who was standing (and also gawking) beside Hyesung.

Hyesung calculated Eric’s act for a few seconds and after made sure that the other man would not crush him in a bear hug this time, he finally could relax a bit. “What are you doing here?” Hyesung managed to ask despite now his mind was busy regretting his bad luck. Why did he have to meet this guy again?

“Uh, I’m waiting for you to greet you good morning.” Eric answered in much glee and his face was as bright as the sunshine. Hearing his utterly unexpected answer, Hyesung only dropped his jaw while Junjin chuckled amusingly.

Only by that, Eric seemed to recognize Junjin’s existence. But he didn’t seem very happy about it anyway. Instead he asked rather irritated. “And why is this thing always following you?” Eric pointed at Junjin and seemed very annoyed by him.

“Uh, I’m not following him.” Junjin answered automatically but it seemed like Eric didn’t bother to listen to him anyway – because Eric now was smiling again and only looked at Hyesung. Junjin subconsciously pouted because he didn’t like it at all to be called ‘this thing’ by Eric.

“Don’t you have anything else to do?” Hyesung asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do have something else to do.” Eric nodded then smiled. “I’ll see you later. Bye Hyesung-ah.” And without waiting for Hyesung’s respond (he was surely wouldn’t wait for Junjin’s respond), Eric turned around and walked away. Just like that.

Hyesung’s jaw dropped even lower. He couldn’t really contain of the fact that Eric was unexpectedly waiting for him in his office this morning, greeting him good morning and then easily leaving him almost immediately. Eric didn’t even give Hyesung a time to panic. On one moment Eric startled him, but the next moment he just left. Hyesung shivered a little when he thought that the calmness and carelessness emitted from Eric was scary. Very scary.

“Hyung.” Junjin tapped Hyesung’s shoulder lightly later that noon. “Let’s go have lunch.”

“Alright.” Hyesung pressed the button on his keyboard to save his works. He then stretched his arms because he felt so stiff after sitting for hours. After the unanticipated encounter he had with Eric this morning, Hyesung forced himself to do his work harder than necessary. He needed his brain to be fully occupied by the reports he need to work on, in order to prevent any silly face of Eric sneaked inside his mind.

“Hyung, did you drink all those coffee?” Junjin pointed at three empty coffee cups on Hyesung’s desk.

“Um, yeah.”

“Anything wrong?” Because even though Junjin knew that Hyesung loves coffee, drinking three cups of black coffee in the morning was still very unlikely of his hyung’s habit.

“Nothing’s wrong. Hyung only feel a little dozy.” Hyesung stretched his neck this time and silently swore he would never tell anybody that he lost his sleep because of Eric.

“Come on hurry, Hyung. Or the line will be too long.” Junjin urged his hyung to stand up. Then he easily dragged his hyung to follow him to their office cafeteria one floor below.

At first, Hyesung didn’t find anything dubious as he and Junjin walked inside the cafeteria. Junjin and him were chatting in relaxed and standing at the back of the line. Each of them took one tray then resumed their conversation and paid no attention at their surroundings. So Hyesung wasn’t aware of the fact that almost all of the female employees inside the cafeteria were stealing a glance at one particular person. Hyesung didn’t realize that those females were standing in line while busy giggling and whispering to their friends (and few of them were evidently fixing their makeup and or hair by looking at their reflection on their spoon). One thing for sure, Hyesung didn’t see the man behind the counter.

But somehow, Hyesung could not ignore it when one strangely familiar voice called out his name.

“Hyesung-ah, I’ve been waiting for you.”

Hyesung felt a hard tugging on his jacket suit and he knew it was Junjin’s doing. But Hyesung didn’t need it. He knew it was Eric’s voice even when he heard the first word. But he turned his head anyway to the voice’s direction. And his eyes only ensured what his ears had heard.

He saw Eric, wearing an apron and matching white headband covering his hair, standing behind the counter with relieved smile plastered on his face and waving the ladle he held in his hand rather happily to Hyesung.

Hyesung froze on his ground and suddenly he was completely conscious by the numerous stares that were directed to him. Oh , oh , oh , he thought. Why does he always meet Eric when there were so many people staring like this? He unconsciously bit his lip and blinked his eyes frequently because suddenly he felt very very nervous. Hyesung scolded himself for being too affected by Eric, even when he knew Eric’s action didn’t threaten him much. He knew he could always turn around and canceled his lunch if he didn’t want to meet Eric, but it would be too embarrassing – and more importantly, it would make him looked like a coward. And he was too hungry to skip lunch, anyway. So he only pouted and braced himself for the worse. Hyesung really hoped that Eric would stop waving at him with that ladle by now.

Hyesung took a step forward reluctantly when the line moved in front of him. He felt more nervous with the every step he took that shortened the distance between him and Eric. But on the other hand, Eric’s smile was going wider by the prospect of Hyesung was approaching him. He even purposely quickly plopped the stirred meat into the tray’s container so the line would move faster too.

But right before Hyesung came close to Eric, Junjin picked that time to flung his arm to his hyung’s shoulder and whispered closely to Hyesung’s ear, “Hyung, how on earth he could get a job here?”

“I don’t know.” Hyesung whispered back with his eyes unintentionally still fixed at Eric. Hyesung blamed Eric’s round big eyes for that. There was something on Eric’s eyes that weirdly made Hyesung could not retreat his stare. (And no, it wasn’t because of Eric’s handsome face, Hyesung mentally added even though no one ever questioned him). He could see Eric frowned a bit while staring at them but Hyesung didn’t really understand what made Eric frowned like that. But Eric immediately smiled again by the time Hyesung stood in front of him.

He scooped a full ladle of stirred meat to Hyesung’s tray while said, “Hyesung-ah, you’re here. I’ve been waiting for you, you know?”

“What are you doing here?” Hyesung asked the question he had in mind since few minutes ago.

“Oh, I’m working here. I start from today.” Eric answered and smiled proudly.

“At the cafeteria?” Hyesung asked dumbly.

“Yeah, this cafeteria is the only place with job vacancies at the time being.” Eric answered easily.

“Why?”

“So I can meet you every day, Hyesung-ah.” Eric answered as if he stated something so clear, before he added another heap of stirred meat onto Hyesung’s tray. Hyesung blinked at his now-almost-spilling-tray at his hands and seemed lost of what to say anymore.

Junjin nudged Hyesung’s shoulder to urge the older man to move forward and Hyesung felt so thankful because of that. On the other hand, Eric frowned immediately. He sent a hateful glare to Junjin – clearly disapproved by the way Junjin rudely cut their small talk.

“We’re on the line.” Junjin defended himself daringly because he was aware of Eric’s glare.

Eric then grumpily gesture Junjin to step forward, but of course he had his own revenge. If a moment ago Eric gave Hyesung two ladles full of stirred meat, then now he only plopped three or four cuts of that side dish on Junjin’s tray.

“Hey! What is this? You gave Hyesung Hyung much more than this just now.” Junjin automatically protested.

Eric pretended not to hear his protest.

“It’s not fair.” Junjin decided to fight for his right to get a proper amount of stirred meat for his lunch.

“I don’t like you.” Eric said childishly before stuck out his tongue. Despite he was shocked by Eric’s behavior, Junjin quickly opened his mouth to retort when Eric swiftly cut him.

“Shoo! Keep walking. You’re on the line.” Eric said annoyingly while waving his hand to make Junjin go. Even though he felt wronged, Junjin decided to go because he didn’t want to spend another minute bickering with that crazy man over some stirred meat in front of his fellow employees. So Junjin did what mature man should do – he stomped his foot once and gave the most disgusting snort he could manage to Eric before continued to walk and left him in dignity.

He followed Hyesung to sit at one table and immediately whining at his hyung. “Hyung, look what that guy’s doing. He gives me only this.” He pointed his sorry pieces of stirred meat. Hyesung smiled awkwardly to Junjin and glanced at Eric before taking his seat. Unfortunately, Eric wasn’t looking at Hyesung at the moment because he was busy serving.

“You may take mine. I have more than enough.”

Junjin chuckled happily and said, “Thank you, Hyung.” And then, without any reason at all, Junjin continued to speak loudly as if he wanted the whole cafeteria to hear, “Thank you for sharing your stirred meat to me, Hyesung Hyung. You’re really the best.”

And like magic, hearing Hyesung’s name was mentioned, Eric lifted his gaze and directed it towards Hyesung and Junjin’s table. He could see Junjin happily picked the many pieces of meat from Hyesung’s tray. And it burned him.

If looks could kill, Junjin might have lay on the floor lifelessly by now. But instead of died, Junjin stared back to Eric and daringly took another piece of meat from Hyesung’s tray. He then ate it deliciously and stuck his tongue out to annoy Eric. It was childish, of course – but it didn’t really matter now. What’s really matter now was to decide who the alpha and who would be the beta.

Staring contest was surely the simplest way, so they did that.

They stared at each other for more than a minute. Knowing that he could lose, Junjin decided to play smart. He knew that crazy man was jealous of him, so he needed to use that for his own account. So Junjin leaned closer to Hyesung and boldly touched his hyung’s hair while mouthed daringly to Eric, “What?”

Eric blinked. Junjin won. Junjin was the alpha.

Or so he thought.

But soon, Junjin learned that being an alpha in staring contest didn’t always guarantee that he would be an alpha in everything. Not when Eric kept his immature behavior.

The next day, when they had lunch at the cafeteria, Eric greeted Hyesung as sweet as before and ignored Junjin completely just like before. Eric then showed no mercy when he only put few kernels of corn at Junjin’s tray whereas he put a full heap of sautéed vegetables for Hyesung just seconds before. At first, Junjin dared to challenge Eric even more. But on the third day – when Eric only gave him one strand of noodle and small cut of carrot whereas he gave Hyesung enormous heap of delicious japchae – Junjin decided it was enough.

“I’ll go talk to him.” He gritted his teeth.

“Just eat my japchae.” Hyesung tried to stop his dongsaeng. He knew Junjin’s temper. His dongsaeng was not more patient than himself. Knowing his nature, it was very likely that Junjin would pick a fight with Eric.

“It’s not about japchae anymore, Hyung.” Junjin pried open Hyesung’s fingers on his wrist while his stare was fixed to one man behind the counter.

“Yah Jin-ah, what are you going to do?”

“Doing what a man should do.”

A/N

Seriously, I never imagined that this story would receive this much love.. Thank you for subscribing, and for your kindness to press that vote button and most importantly, to leave the comment.. I love it so much because you give extra effort and spare some time to do it.. ^^

And... it's Idul Adha holiday in Tuesday, so I would like to apologize to all of you.. I'm sorry for all my wrongdoings and words that might displease you.. *bow*

Happy Fasting and Happy Holiday for everyone who celebrate it.. ^^