Yellow Umbrellas
Title: Yellow Umbrellas
Pairing: Myungsoo/Sungjong
Rating: PG-13
Genre: fluff, romance, au
Length: 5,723
Summary: In which the weather outside is frightful and Myungsoo wears a rad pair of yellow rain boots.
Yellow Umbrellas
It’s pouring.
Myungsoo knows this because he woke up this morning at exactly 7am-an entire hour earlier than he usually does. Annoyed, he had rolled over and tried to will himself back to sleep, but the constant pattering of rain against the windows had invaded his brain, preventing him from relaxing. With a frustrated sigh, he had finally kicked off the warm covers, spent a few seconds shuddering at the cold, and then managed to heave himself upright.
After such a rude awakening, he is seriously considering not leaving his small apartment at all today for anything. It’s not like he has anything to do-there’s probably some food in the fridge for him to eat, he has his computer, and the work he’s doing for the Japanese-Korean translation agency doesn’t have to be completed until the weekend. But then he remembers that he promised to meet Sungyeol today for coffee so he could listen to him whine about his job and how hard idols are to work with and if it wasn’t his passion he would never be able to keep going, you know?
Really, the only good thing about today being a rainy day, Myungsoo thinks vengefully to himself as he pulls on jeans and an old t-shirt-clothing that he doesn’t mind getting soaking wet-is that he gets to wear his new rain boots. They’re pretty rad if Myungsoo does say so himself. They look just like normal rain boots, nearly knee-high and made of thick rubber, except for the fact that they’re a bright sunflower yellow. Just looking at them sitting in the dark corner of his closet makes him feel a bit happier.
Normally, Myungsoo doesn’t let anyone wear shoes in his apartment, even himself, but he makes an exception today for The Boots, as he’s taken to thinking of them. Stomping happily around the kitchen, he hunts for the bag of rice he’s sure he bought last week, shoving aside a few shoujo manga books he needs to remember to hide in case Sunggyu insists on coming to visit to make sure he’s actually capable of living alone. Come to think of it, Woohyun had recently said he wanted to visit too to “check up” on him. Myungsoo’s not sure why everyone keeps telling him that.
After eventually giving up on finding the rice-maybe he didn’t actually buy any? But he can remember the store! Or was that just because there had been a shopping excursion in that Showtime episode he watched the other night?-he decides he’ll get something to eat at the coffee shop. Goodness knows any sort of pastry will be more interesting that Sungyeol’s conversation.
Pleased at his decisiveness, Myungsoo let himself out, almost forgetting to lock the door before Sunggyu’s disapproving face pops into his mind, reminding him that he doesn’t have roommates anymore-no one will be home to frighten off robbers. Or hide in a corner and call the police, as Woohyun had always more realistically suggested.
He raises his large black umbrella as soon as he leaves the shelter of the building but it does little to help-an intermittent wind blows the thick spattering of rain sideways, soaking through Myungsoo’s rain jacket and jeans in a matter of seconds. Except for the bits of his pants protected by The Boots, Myungsoo thinks happily as he walks over to the bus stop. Luckily, the bus comes quickly and it’s nearly empty, so Myungsoo can sit in his favorite spot-window, right hand side, right in the middle.
Myungsoo leans back against the cold seat, feeling the chill filtering through the glass of the bus window, and rubs his palms against his thighs, trying to restore some semblance of feeling. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that the only other passenger on the bus-a kid wearing black jeans and a hooded sweatshirt sitting a few rows forward-has turned to look at him. Myungsoo quickly ducks his head to avoid eye contact.
After a few minutes, however, the view out the window gets fairly monotonous-endless gray sidewalks framed by endless gray sky, everything wet and grimy-looking-and Myungsoo finds himself sneaking a glance forward again, towards the boy in front of him. He starts suddenly when he realizes the boy has disappeared.
“Hey!”
He whips his head around so fast it takes a few moments for his brain to catch up, and as he winces in pain, his vision slowly clears to reveal the boy sitting in the seat right across the aisle. The boy is smiling widely, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth, and his damp bangs are flopping over his eyes in a way that Myungsoo refuses to find adorable.
“Yes?” Myungsoo says at last, recovering himself enough to shoot the boy a withering look. He, Kim Myungsoo, is not the type to strike up random conversations with strangers on buses. Even if they’re the ones doing the actual striking. As in, conversation, not physical violence. Myungsoo is not in favor of physical violence, especially when directed at himself.
“I like your boots,” the boy says with a smile, and Myungsoo can’t stop himself from smiling back. They are pretty rad boots.
“I found them in the back of this little store a few weeks ago,” he says, happily eyeing his yellow-rubber-encased feet. “This is the first chance I’ve had to wear them.”
“Well, I’m happy I decided to take the bus today, then,” the boy says, shaking his head to push his bangs out of his eyes. Myungsoo snorts, then quickly looks away as the boy glances up at him in confusion.
“What do you usually do?” Myungsoo asks, and he’s not entirely sure why because it’s not like he cares but he kind of sort of maybe wants to know the answer.
“I walk,” the boy says, and Myungsoo suddenly notices that he has very nice eyes. Very nice. Like, Myungsoo could look at those eyes for a solid minute and not want to blink. Maybe. “It’s not that far from my apartment to where I work, so I usually try to get some exercise. But with this miserable weather I’m not up for walking anywhere.”
“Oh, you work around here?” Myungsoo asks before he can stop himself, and he notices a small smile lift the corners of the boy’s mouth.
“Yeah, at this coffee shop, Howon Coffee. Have you heard of it?”
“Oh, I love that place!” Myungsoo blurts out, deciding blushing is less embarrassing than slapping a hand over his mouth.
“Really?” the boy asks, and his eyes probably aren’t brightening, it’s probably all Myungsoo’s imagination. “Have you been there recently? Because I’m pretty sure if you had I would have remembered you.”
Myungsoo takes a moment to reflect on the cheesiness of that last line, but then decides he doesn’t care all that much for originality anyway. This boy is pretty cute.
“No, I’ve actually kind of been avoiding it recently. The owner-Lee Howon? He used to be one of my roommates. And ever since I moved out he and my other former roommates kept bothering me every time I went there. Apparently they think I’m utterly incapable of surviving on my own.”
The boy giggles at Myungsoo’s affronted sniff and Myungsoo smiles at the sound.
“Well, you should start coming around again. If any of your old roommates bother you, you can just start yelling at me about getting your order wrong and hopefully they’ll leave you alone,” the boy offers, and Myungsoo feels his eyes narrowing. Why is this boy being so nice to him anyway?
“Are you sure you’re not trying to kidnap me?” Myungsoo suddenly asks, fixing the boy with his best death glare. The boy looks more confused than terrified, but Myungsoo’s death glare is a work in progress anyway.
“What? Why would I want to kidnap you? What are you even talking about?”
“I’ve been told that I’m not exactly the most observant person on earth,” Myungsoo sighs, leaning back in his seat and ignoring the way the boy is giving him an extremely amused grin. “So I figured I might as well check.”
“Maybe I should let your roommates talk to you after all,” the boy muses, ducking his head to avoid Myungsoo’s second-best death glare. “They might have a reason to be legitimately worried about you if that’s how you respond to friendly conversation.”
“Yes, well,” Myungsoo says, admiring the way the boy’s hair curls around his ears and the way the column of his neck is so smooth and white before remembering that he is not supposed to be admiring any of those things because this boy is a Stranger. “I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”
“Well, this is my stop,” the boy says, getting up as the bus lurches to a halt in front of a bustling, brightly-lit shop. Myungsoo fights the urge to get out with him. “You should come visit me in the shop sometime. Ask anyone for Lee Sungjong and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.”
“What, you think I won’t recognize you?” Myungsoo asks, mentally slapping himself for being so obvious. This is probably one of the things at the top of Hoya’s list of Reasons Why Kim Myungsoo Is Never Going to Get Laid.
“I guess it’ll be a test, then,” the boy-Sungjong-says with a wide smile as he pushes his hair behind his ears and walks towards the front of the bus. Myungsoo reminds himself that staring intensely at attractive people’s behinds is also on Hoya’s list. It’s difficult, but he manages it.
“My name’s Kim Myungsoo!” he shouts suddenly, just as Sungjong reaches the bus doors. Sungjong turns and gives Myungsoo a wide grin that makes his heart stutter just a tiny bit. Then he’s gone.
As expected, by the time Myungsoo arrives at a different coffee shop further downtown, Sungyeol is already there, fighting with the waitress about the exact definition of “a bit of milk.”
“I always tell them-it’s somewhere between two and two and a half teaspoons, but not a single person has ever gotten it right!” Sungyeol fumes, making a face as he sips at what looks to Myungsoo like perfectly good coffee. But, then again, Myungsoo doesn’t know much about coffee. Just like he doesn’t know much about a boy named Lee Sungjong who is therefore a little mysterious and a lot beautiful.
“-and then of course they asked me to be the one working directly with the dancers as well as the idols, which brought the total up to around twenty-four people, all of whom needed to look a little bit different. I tell you, whoever decided having twelve-member boybands was a good idea was obviously not a fashion coordinator because it’s a fucking disaster, I swear-”
Myungsoo wonders if Sungjong likes coffee. It would make sense for him to like coffee-after all, he works in a coffee shop. But then again, Myungsoo once spent a summer working in his uncle’s fish shop and he hated fish. Some types of fish have grown on him since then, but he’s still not a huge fan. He wonders what Sungjong thinks of fish.
“-and then of course they tried to rip me off. But I knew it was coming, so I was prepared. Silk doesn’t cost anywhere near that much per yard, I told them! And then of course they threatened to not sell to us anymore, the higher-ups almost had my head for that but luckily I managed to convince them to sell to us at a price only slightly higher than what I wanted, quite a triumph actually-”
Myungsoo isn’t generally attracted to ear piercings, but he can’t stop thinking about the way the weak bus lights had glinted off the small diamond in Sungjong’s ear, the way it had made him look suddenly older and even more handsome than before. If that was even possible. Come to think of it, Sungjong had nice hair, too. Sunggyu continually accused Myungsoo of looking “shaggy” but his look was nothing compared to Sungjong’s. But Myungsoo liked it. And it was disgustingly endearing how he kept having to shake his bangs out of his eyes. Myungsoo had even caught him blowing them out of his face a few times, and he laughs at the memory.
“Myungsoo,” Sungyeol says sharply and Myungsoo’s smile slips off his face faster than a ray of sunshine being swallowed by the clouds outside. “Are you even listening to me? I swear, I don’t know why I even bother talking to you! You prefer to just stay in your apartment slowly becoming a hermit, forgetting how to even communicate with the outside world.”
“I was listening,” Myungsoo sniffs-a complete lie. “You were telling me about someone who had wronged you.”
“Hmm. Well, maybe you were listening this time but you better watch out,” Sungyeol says, squinting distrustfully at Myungsoo. Myungsoo merely gives him a wide smile, grateful that nearly all of Sungyeol’s stories are about people that have wronged him. But before Sungyeol can restart his monologue, Myungsoo decides that he needs a second opinion.
“What do you think it means if you meet someone and you have a conversation and they invite you to meet them again? Does that mean they like you?”
“What did you just say?” Sungyeol asks, giving Myungsoo a searching look. “Did you actually manage to hold a normal conversation with someone you just met? Without once mentioning manga or alternate dimensions or your unfathomable obsession with plaid or scaring them off in some other way?”
“I think so,” Myungsoo says musingly, resting his chin in his hand. “But now I am very confused as to what to do.”
“What are you talking about!” Sungyeol yells, a bit too enthusiastically for Myungsoo’s taste. Usually the only things that get Sungyeol this excited involve people like Myungsoo coming to some sort of moderate physical or emotional harm. “Of course you have to go see them again! Where do they work? Can I get a name?”
“Lee Sungjong,” Myungsoo sighs, a bit dreamily. “He works at Hoya’s coffee shop?”
“Wow,” Sungyeol breathes. “So this guy actually exists. I was about 80% sure you’d made him up when you first started talking. But you wouldn’t be able to lie about someone working at Hoya’s shop because we go there all the time…”
“But what do I say if I do see him again?” Myungsoo whines, sipping at his rapidly cooling coffee. “I think I used up all my safe small talk on the bus today.”
“Don’t ask me,” Sungyeol says in a strained voice, and when Myungsoo looks up he sees him staring tragically out the window. “I am currently being distraught at the fact that Kim Myungsoo might potentially start dating someone before I do. This is unacceptable on so many levels.”
“Sorry?” Myungsoo tries, but Sungyeol just gives him a heartbreaking look and he gives up.
It’s nearly a week before Myungsoo works up the courage to actually go to Hoya’s-although now he’s started thinking of it as Sungjong’s-coffee shop. In fact, though he’s loath to admit it, the only reason he actually goes is because Sunggyu has left him about ten voicemails in the space of three days warning him that if Myungsoo doesn’t meet him for coffee on Friday at noon he’s going to come to his house and clean. Or do something else equally disastrous, like go grocery shopping or insist Myungsoo figure out his health insurance or get a savings account.
Myungsoo pretends that he’s dropped his keys just as he reaches the door to the shop, swirls of cinnamon- and vanilla-flavored air drifting towards him every time someone goes in or out. As he bends down, shuffling around on the ground, he peers through the window, trying to see if Sungjong is on duty. It’s hard to see around all the people standing in line-curse Hoya for running such a popular business! Can’t he see he’s getting in the way of Myungsoo’s already precarious love life? Some people.
“Did you lose something?”
The words, said in an already-familiar voice, make Myungsoo whirl around in fright, clutching his keys to his chest. Sungjong’s standing there, looking terribly cute in a “Howon Coffee House” apron and smart brown polo. He’s changed his diamond studs to small hoops, Myungsoo notices. They’re nice. Then he realizes Sungjong’s giving him a weird look and he smiles awkwardly, mind frantically searching for a good response.
“No! No, I didn’t lose anything. Just dropped my keys. You know how it is. One minute they’re in your pocket and then next they’ve been transported to an alternate dimension by some space-time wormhole, am I right?”
Myungsoo stops speaking suddenly, realizing that he just mentioned alternate dimensions and according to Sungyeol this is about when Sungjong is going to start getting frightened and start avoiding Myungsoo and it’s not like he’ll really mind because it’s not like they’re even dating, for heaven’s sake they’ve only had one conversation but Sungjong is just so sweet and carefully unkempt that Myungsoo doesn’t want to lose him just yet-
“It does feel like that sometimes, doesn’t it,” Sungjong says with a laugh, and Myungsoo’s thoughts crash to a stop, realizing that not only is he not fleeing in terror, he’s laughing. Like he finds Myungsoo amusing. This is a Very Good Thing.
“Doesn’t it though?”
“You’re still wearing those boots,” Sungjong observes, gazing down at Myungsoo’s bright yellow boots. Myungsoo grins, kicking his feet back and forth a little.
“Yeah, I figured since it’s still a little wet out I’d try to wear them for as long as possible,” Myungsoo says, smiling as he holds open the door so Sungjong can step inside.
“I didn’t actually think you’d show up here,” Sungjong says shyly as he brushes past Myungsoo and into the shop, and Myungsoo’s heart does a strange sort of hop-skip-jump. Maybe he should get it checked out. Maybe Sunggyu was on to something with the whole regular doctor visits thing.
“Why?” Myungsoo asks, trailing behind Sungjong as he fights his way towards the front counter, smiling at patrons and his fellow waiters.
“Well, you know,” Sungjong mutters, running a hand nervously through his hair. His beautiful, beautiful hair. Myungsoo can almost imagine how silky it’d feel against his own fingers. “You’re so…and I…I don’t know.”
“Myungsoo!” Sunggyu’s loud voice cuts over the noise of the coffee shop and Myungsoo turns to see Sunggyu waving embarrassingly from a small table near the back of the shop.
“I’ll see you later?” Myungsoo asks hesitantly, and is delighted when Sungjong nods quickly, bangs falling gently into his eyes.
“Glad to see you socializing,” Sunggyu says jovially as Myungsoo sits down, and Myungsoo seriously considers punching his annoying face until he remembers that that would probably result in him breaking several bones in his hand and getting kicked out of the coffee shop because for some reason Hoya cares about things like whether Sunggyu’s nose remains unbroken. Some dumb line about how that’s what friends do.
“Let it be known, let it be written that I do not require ten increasingly threatening voicemail messages to get me to leave my apartment,” Myungsoo huffs, shifting his chair slightly to the right so he can get a better view of Sungjong standing behind the counter.
“And there wouldn’t have been any messages at all if you’d just picked up your phone,” Sunggyu says in a frustrated manner.
“I need peace and quiet to work,” Myungsoo says primly, sighing slightly at the way Sungjong’s eyes light up when he smiles at a customer. His handwriting on the coffee cups is also horribly adorable-large, slightly blocky letters, usually accompanied by a smiley face or a heart or a star.
“Oh, come on, Myungsoo,” Sunggyu snorts. “You’re not writing a novel, you’re translating textbooks and travel brochures and short story collections. Hardly anything requiring intense concentration.”
“Spoken like a true philistine,” Myungsoo scoffs, craning his neck a bit to glare at a girl blushing furiously as Sungjong asks for her order. Who does she think she is, a damsel in distress? There’s no need to blush in such a vulgar way, no matter how ridiculously attractive Sungjong is.
“Okay, what are you even looking at?” Sunggyu asks in annoyance, turning around himself.
“Nothing, nothing,” Myungsoo says airily, waving a hand. Sunggyu turns back and gives him a questioning look. “Really nothing.”
“If you say so,” Sunggyu says slowly, as if thinking of the best way to wring the truth from Myungsoo’s unyielding lips. “By the way, have you given any thought to my idea of asking your landlord to fix that cupboard door? I swear, I’m afraid that one day it’ll break right off and hit you in the head and send you to the hospital. Which reminds me, you did remember to go to the dentist last week for your appointment, right?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you!” Myungsoo shouts, desperate to get Sunggyu off the subject of all the things he’s not able to do by himself because he can do them, he’s just working on it. “You see that gorgeous boy making a caramel latte for that ghoulish-looking woman?”
“If you mean the mop-headed kid mixing up a caramel latte for an extremely attractive and extremely successful young woman judging by her business suit, then yes.”
“You’re telling me,” Myungsoo says in disbelief. “That-objectively of course Mr. Straight Guy-Lee Sungjong, man of my dreams, is less attractive than that pant-suited vulture trying to get him to smile at her? He’s just too nice not to, that’s why he’s smiling at her. And he draws hearts on everyone’s cups, get over yourself.”
“Oooooh,” Sunggyu coos, and Myungsoo groans. He knows that sound. That is the sound of Sunggyu about to make some very obvious and very annoying statement. “Does Myungsoo have a little crush on that barista?”
“No,” he says in an affronted tone. “It’s not a ‘little’ anything. I think I might actually be falling for this kid.”
“Remind me how many times you’ve actually spoken to him,” Sunggyu says, giving Myungsoo a look. Myungsoo hates that look. That was the look Sunggyu always wore when Myungsoo tried to blame Woohyun for the shattered plate on the kitchen floor or tried to convince Hoya that Sungyeol was the one who used up all his orange yarn in an ill-fated attempt to make a scarf.
“Twice,” Myungsoo says with a sigh. “But it’s enough to know that he’s nice and pretty and sweet and just look at him he’s been smiling nearly non-stop for an hour now without breaking anything! How can anyone this perfect be real?”
“We might need to work on your definition of perfect if imperfect includes violent tendencies and property damage,” Sunggyu says worriedly, but he’s smiling and Myungsoo knows he’s managed to appeal to his inner romantic.
“The only problem,” Myungsoo muses, “is that I don’t know what he wants. Does he just want to be friends? Or maybe he thinks I’m the type of guy who’s not looking for a real relationship? But I really can’t do the one-night stand thing, I get too attached to people’s clothes and pets and faces. Oh, god, what if he just wants me for my boots?”
“You are certifiably insane,” Sunggyu says conversationally. “And you might want to shut up now, because I think I see loverboy heading this way.”
Myungsoo jerks around so violently his neck cracks and Sunggyu winces in sympathy. Sure enough, Sungjong is weaving through the crowd towards them, latte in hand, pausing every few feet to say hello or exchange smiles with a customer. Myungsoo is not quite sure how he feels about all this gratuitous kindness.
“This is for you,” Sungjong says softly, handing Myungsoo the drink before hurrying back to his station. Myungsoo tries to pretend his hand didn’t jerk backwards when he took the drink because of a zing of electricity between Sungjong’s hand and his own. He obviously fails because Sunggyu laughs. Idiot.
“I guess you got around to mentioning how you refuse to drink coffee unless it’s so sweet it’s basically not even coffee anymore,” Sunggyu asks dryly, and Myungsoo shoots him a glare.
“No, I didn’t actually,” he says, sipping gratefully at the coffee. With all the confusing mixed signals Sungjong is sending with his smiles and his warm hands, Myungsoo could use the caffeine. “I guess he just took a lucky guess.”
“Is there something written on it?” Sunggyu asks curiously, turning his head sideways as if that will help him better decipher the writing half-covered by Myungsoo’s hand.
“Huh? Oh!” Myungsoo says, twisting his cup around until he can read the carefully printed, blocky letters spelling out the words, “Wait for me after my shift?”
“Let me guess,” Sunggyu says with all the caring condescension of a very annoying parent, “you’re going to be staying here for a while.”
“Let me guess,” Myungsoo says. “You have somewhere to be because you’re a real adult with a Real Adult Job and you want me to call you the second I get home and tell you what he says to me?”
“I’ve taught you well,” Sunggyu says, standing and ruffling Myungsoo’s hair annoyingly. As Myungsoo hisses, batting away his hand and trying to restyle the haphazard locks, Sunggyu laughs and starts heading for the door.
“Remember!” he yells, miming putting a phone to his ear, and Myungsoo just waves him off with a laugh, taking another sip of his latte. It’s lovely, just the way he likes it-ridiculously sweet with just a hint of coffee.
It takes a long time for Sungjong’s shift to be over and during that whole time the shop remains busy-the most Myungsoo can see of him is his smiling face as he takes orders before he ducks back towards the espresso machines and is lost in a sea of waiting customers. Myungsoo finds various ways to entertain himself-he sketches weird geometric designs onto his napkin, then ponders the plot twists in the most recent installment of his favorite manga, then calculates the percent chance Sungjong might actually like him like that and want a real relationship. He’s in the process of carrying the significant glances and subtracting all the smiles Sungjong’s given to attractive female customers when a shadow falls over his table. When he looks up, Sungjong’s standing there awkwardly, hands shoved deep into his pants pockets.
“I’m technically not finished for another ten minutes or so,” he says, staring out the window rather than at Myungsoo. “But Min said she’d cover for me so we can talk.”
When Myungsoo looks over at the counter, the pretty girl standing there gives him a little wave and a wink. He feels himself blushing and quickly looks away. Sungjong seems a little confused by his silence, and he’s opening his mouth to say something when Myungsoo unthinkingly grabs his hand. Sungjong’s mouth snaps shut so fast Myungsoo can hear his jaw click.
“Yeah, let’s go,” he says with a smile, pulling Sungjong through the crowded coffee shop and out into the chilly air.
Once they’re outside, Myungsoo decides to just start walking, and Sungjong dutifully follows him. They’re walking close enough that Sungjong’s shoulder periodically bumps his own and every time it happens Myungsoo has to hold back a shiver. For some strange reason he wants to throw his arm over Sungjong’s shoulders, or hold his hand, or something else ridiculous.
“So…” Sungjong says a bit nervously, peeking up at Myungsoo through his bangs. “Where do you work? Obviously not anywhere too strict if you can spend all Friday afternoon at a coffee shop.”
“Was it all afternoon? Huh,” Myungsoo says, legitimately surprised at the amount of time that has passed. The sun is already sinking low in the sky as they wander the cold, nearly empty streets leading to Myungsoo’s apartment. “Well, you’re right. I work for a translation agency, so as long as I get all of my work done by a certain deadline I don’t really have regular hours.”
“That sounds nice,” Sungjong says wistfully, and Myungsoo suddenly notices how nice his lips are-full and pink with a slight upwards tilt at the edges. Myungsoo likes them. A lot.
“It is, except for when the deadlines are coming up the next day and I feel like I’m drowning under a giant pile of work and no one even has the decency to throw me an oxygen tank,” Myungsoo huffs, jumping slightly in surprise when Sungjong bursts out laughing.
“You always say the strangest things,” Sungjong says, and Myungsoo feels his heart plummet down to his feet. Stupid Hoya and his stupid list.
“You know, maybe I should just go-” Myungsoo gasps, eyes wildly scanning the nearby side streets for one that doesn’t look too sketchy so he can run screaming down it and never come back.
“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Sungjong says quickly, grabbing onto Myungsoo’s wrist and holding him in place. “It’s pretty cute.”
“You-what?” Myungsoo says distractedly, finally turning his attention away from possible escape routes and towards Sungjong’s wide eyes.
“It’s…cute. You’re cute,” Sungjong says shyly, quickly dropping Myungsoo’s wrist. Myungsoo can barely believe his ears. No one’s ever called him cute before, at least not without the background motive of mocking him.
“I’ll have you know that I am the very picture of manliness,” he sniffs as they continue walking, and Sungjong snorts.
“Yeah, and I look like a professional wrestler.”
“Thank goodness you don’t,” Myungsoo says with a shiver of disgust. He ignores the way the words make Sungjong brighten until he’s shining almost as obnoxiously as Myungsoo’s boots. Suddenly, Myungsoo realizes they’re standing outside of his apartment building.
“Do you…want to come up?” Myungsoo asks hesitantly. Sungjong gives him a searching look, but he must decide that Myungsoo isn’t likely to be an axe murderer or a crazy cat owner, because he gives him a small smile and a nod.
As they climb the stairs, Myungsoo complains about exercise and how he chose this apartment because it was close to Hoya’s coffee shop and therefore Sunggyu could drop by every now and again to make sure Myungsoo hadn’t died of self-neglect but he really doesn’t understand why they can’t just fix the elevator-
“It’s nice how much your friends care about you,” Sungjong says with a laugh, watching Myungsoo fumble with his keys at the door, dropping them at least twice. Myungsoo blames this on having an audience. He doesn’t do well under scrutiny.
“I guess,” Myungsoo grumbles, motioning Sungjong inside. “Make sure you take off your shoes. These floors have been abused enough.”
But just as Myungsoo stepping inside and starting to pull off his own boots, he feels hands shoving him back against the door so it clicks closed, and then Sungjong’s lips-his soft, sweet lips-are pressed against Myungsoo’s own. What a strange turn of events.
Myungsoo leans into the kiss, sliding his tongue gently across the younger boy’s lower lip until his mouth falls open, reveling in the way Sungjong’s mouth taste kind of like coffee and sugar and satisfaction. When Sungjong finally pulls away, panting, eyes bright, Myungsoo spares a moment to record this image in his brain, filing it away next to the word beautiful.
“Is this what you want?” Sungjong asks quickly, as if afraid Myungsoo is going to say no. “Because this is what I want, but you’re just so nice and so gorgeous and so weird that I’m pretty sure you could be spending your time with better people who don’t have low-paying coffee shop jobs but I just really want to-”
Annoyed, Myungsoo decides there is too much talking going on and not enough kissing, and so he swallows the rest of Sungjong’s sentence, pulling him closer and slotting their mouths together again. Sungjong makes a little noise-somewhere between a breathy moan and a grateful sigh-and Myungsoo files that away too, under his To-Do List.
“Just so you know,” Myungsoo says breathlessly, as Sungjong presses kisses to his forehead, his nose, his neck, “if you’re planning on sticking around, you’re going to be subject to the scrutiny of my friends.”
“I think I can handle that,” Sungjong mutters, mouthing at Myungsoo’s collarbone in a very distracting way.
“No, really,” Myungsoo hisses, tangling his hands desperately in Sungjong’s soft, soft hair. “Sunggyu is going to look you up on the internet and expose you to an Inquisition and Woohyun will probably ask you really inappropriate questions about your past sex life and Hoya might do something really annoying like not let me into the coffee shop while you’re working because I’ll be a ‘distraction.’ And don’t even get me started on the theatrics Sungyeol is going to lay on you.”
“Believe me,” Sungjong says, pulling back and staring at Myungsoo with shining eyes. “If it means I get to keep kissing you, I’ll be fine with any sort of Inquisition.”
“You say that now,” Myungsoo hums as Sungjong closes the distance between their mouths again, tongue tangling with Myungsoo’s own. But something about Sungjong makes Myungsoo think that he’s probably right. Sungjong looks like he could handle anything. Deciding the door behind him is really uncomfortable, Myungsoo reaches down and starts trying to pull off his boots without disconnecting their mouths. He jumps when he feels Sungjong’s hand against his own, pulling it up and away.
“I think you should keep them on for now,” Sungjong says, smiling against Myungsoo’s mouth. “They’re pretty and happy. They remind me of you.”
And, as Myungsoo coaxes a few more of those little sighs out of Sungjong, pushing him down onto the couch and flopping down next to him as Sungjong giggles, he thinks that the boots don’t really remind him of himself. They remind him of Sungjong. And that’s reason enough to expose his floors to a bit of damage-if Sungjong’s sticking around, maybe Myungsoo won’t mind.
He’s definitely not calling Sunggyu tonight.
Pairing: Myungsoo/Sungjong
Rating: PG-13
Genre: fluff, romance, au
Length: 5,723
Summary: In which the weather outside is frightful and Myungsoo wears a rad pair of yellow rain boots.
Yellow Umbrellas
It’s pouring.
Myungsoo knows this because he woke up this morning at exactly 7am-an entire hour earlier than he usually does. Annoyed, he had rolled over and tried to will himself back to sleep, but the constant pattering of rain against the windows had invaded his brain, preventing him from relaxing. With a frustrated sigh, he had finally kicked off the warm covers, spent a few seconds shuddering at the cold, and then managed to heave himself upright.
After such a rude awakening, he is seriously considering not leaving his small apartment at all today for anything. It’s not like he has anything to do-there’s probably some food in the fridge for him to eat, he has his computer, and the work he’s doing for the Japanese-Korean translation agency doesn’t have to be completed until the weekend. But then he remembers that he promised to meet Sungyeol today for coffee so he could listen to him whine about his job and how hard idols are to work with and if it wasn’t his passion he would never be able to keep going, you know?
Really, the only good thing about today being a rainy day, Myungsoo thinks vengefully to himself as he pulls on jeans and an old t-shirt-clothing that he doesn’t mind getting soaking wet-is that he gets to wear his new rain boots. They’re pretty rad if Myungsoo does say so himself. They look just like normal rain boots, nearly knee-high and made of thick rubber, except for the fact that they’re a bright sunflower yellow. Just looking at them sitting in the dark corner of his closet makes him feel a bit happier.
Normally, Myungsoo doesn’t let anyone wear shoes in his apartment, even himself, but he makes an exception today for The Boots, as he’s taken to thinking of them. Stomping happily around the kitchen, he hunts for the bag of rice he’s sure he bought last week, shoving aside a few shoujo manga books he needs to remember to hide in case Sunggyu insists on coming to visit to make sure he’s actually capable of living alone. Come to think of it, Woohyun had recently said he wanted to visit too to “check up” on him. Myungsoo’s not sure why everyone keeps telling him that.
After eventually giving up on finding the rice-maybe he didn’t actually buy any? But he can remember the store! Or was that just because there had been a shopping excursion in that Showtime episode he watched the other night?-he decides he’ll get something to eat at the coffee shop. Goodness knows any sort of pastry will be more interesting that Sungyeol’s conversation.
Pleased at his decisiveness, Myungsoo let himself out, almost forgetting to lock the door before Sunggyu’s disapproving face pops into his mind, reminding him that he doesn’t have roommates anymore-no one will be home to frighten off robbers. Or hide in a corner and call the police, as Woohyun had always more realistically suggested.
He raises his large black umbrella as soon as he leaves the shelter of the building but it does little to help-an intermittent wind blows the thick spattering of rain sideways, soaking through Myungsoo’s rain jacket and jeans in a matter of seconds. Except for the bits of his pants protected by The Boots, Myungsoo thinks happily as he walks over to the bus stop. Luckily, the bus comes quickly and it’s nearly empty, so Myungsoo can sit in his favorite spot-window, right hand side, right in the middle.
Myungsoo leans back against the cold seat, feeling the chill filtering through the glass of the bus window, and rubs his palms against his thighs, trying to restore some semblance of feeling. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that the only other passenger on the bus-a kid wearing black jeans and a hooded sweatshirt sitting a few rows forward-has turned to look at him. Myungsoo quickly ducks his head to avoid eye contact.
After a few minutes, however, the view out the window gets fairly monotonous-endless gray sidewalks framed by endless gray sky, everything wet and grimy-looking-and Myungsoo finds himself sneaking a glance forward again, towards the boy in front of him. He starts suddenly when he realizes the boy has disappeared.
“Hey!”
He whips his head around so fast it takes a few moments for his brain to catch up, and as he winces in pain, his vision slowly clears to reveal the boy sitting in the seat right across the aisle. The boy is smiling widely, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth, and his damp bangs are flopping over his eyes in a way that Myungsoo refuses to find adorable.
“Yes?” Myungsoo says at last, recovering himself enough to shoot the boy a withering look. He, Kim Myungsoo, is not the type to strike up random conversations with strangers on buses. Even if they’re the ones doing the actual striking. As in, conversation, not physical violence. Myungsoo is not in favor of physical violence, especially when directed at himself.
“I like your boots,” the boy says with a smile, and Myungsoo can’t stop himself from smiling back. They are pretty rad boots.
“I found them in the back of this little store a few weeks ago,” he says, happily eyeing his yellow-rubber-encased feet. “This is the first chance I’ve had to wear them.”
“Well, I’m happy I decided to take the bus today, then,” the boy says, shaking his head to push his bangs out of his eyes. Myungsoo snorts, then quickly looks away as the boy glances up at him in confusion.
“What do you usually do?” Myungsoo asks, and he’s not entirely sure why because it’s not like he cares but he kind of sort of maybe wants to know the answer.
“I walk,” the boy says, and Myungsoo suddenly notices that he has very nice eyes. Very nice. Like, Myungsoo could look at those eyes for a solid minute and not want to blink. Maybe. “It’s not that far from my apartment to where I work, so I usually try to get some exercise. But with this miserable weather I’m not up for walking anywhere.”
“Oh, you work around here?” Myungsoo asks before he can stop himself, and he notices a small smile lift the corners of the boy’s mouth.
“Yeah, at this coffee shop, Howon Coffee. Have you heard of it?”
“Oh, I love that place!” Myungsoo blurts out, deciding blushing is less embarrassing than slapping a hand over his mouth.
“Really?” the boy asks, and his eyes probably aren’t brightening, it’s probably all Myungsoo’s imagination. “Have you been there recently? Because I’m pretty sure if you had I would have remembered you.”
Myungsoo takes a moment to reflect on the cheesiness of that last line, but then decides he doesn’t care all that much for originality anyway. This boy is pretty cute.
“No, I’ve actually kind of been avoiding it recently. The owner-Lee Howon? He used to be one of my roommates. And ever since I moved out he and my other former roommates kept bothering me every time I went there. Apparently they think I’m utterly incapable of surviving on my own.”
The boy giggles at Myungsoo’s affronted sniff and Myungsoo smiles at the sound.
“Well, you should start coming around again. If any of your old roommates bother you, you can just start yelling at me about getting your order wrong and hopefully they’ll leave you alone,” the boy offers, and Myungsoo feels his eyes narrowing. Why is this boy being so nice to him anyway?
“Are you sure you’re not trying to kidnap me?” Myungsoo suddenly asks, fixing the boy with his best death glare. The boy looks more confused than terrified, but Myungsoo’s death glare is a work in progress anyway.
“What? Why would I want to kidnap you? What are you even talking about?”
“I’ve been told that I’m not exactly the most observant person on earth,” Myungsoo sighs, leaning back in his seat and ignoring the way the boy is giving him an extremely amused grin. “So I figured I might as well check.”
“Maybe I should let your roommates talk to you after all,” the boy muses, ducking his head to avoid Myungsoo’s second-best death glare. “They might have a reason to be legitimately worried about you if that’s how you respond to friendly conversation.”
“Yes, well,” Myungsoo says, admiring the way the boy’s hair curls around his ears and the way the column of his neck is so smooth and white before remembering that he is not supposed to be admiring any of those things because this boy is a Stranger. “I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”
“Well, this is my stop,” the boy says, getting up as the bus lurches to a halt in front of a bustling, brightly-lit shop. Myungsoo fights the urge to get out with him. “You should come visit me in the shop sometime. Ask anyone for Lee Sungjong and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.”
“What, you think I won’t recognize you?” Myungsoo asks, mentally slapping himself for being so obvious. This is probably one of the things at the top of Hoya’s list of Reasons Why Kim Myungsoo Is Never Going to Get Laid.
“I guess it’ll be a test, then,” the boy-Sungjong-says with a wide smile as he pushes his hair behind his ears and walks towards the front of the bus. Myungsoo reminds himself that staring intensely at attractive people’s behinds is also on Hoya’s list. It’s difficult, but he manages it.
“My name’s Kim Myungsoo!” he shouts suddenly, just as Sungjong reaches the bus doors. Sungjong turns and gives Myungsoo a wide grin that makes his heart stutter just a tiny bit. Then he’s gone.
As expected, by the time Myungsoo arrives at a different coffee shop further downtown, Sungyeol is already there, fighting with the waitress about the exact definition of “a bit of milk.”
“I always tell them-it’s somewhere between two and two and a half teaspoons, but not a single person has ever gotten it right!” Sungyeol fumes, making a face as he sips at what looks to Myungsoo like perfectly good coffee. But, then again, Myungsoo doesn’t know much about coffee. Just like he doesn’t know much about a boy named Lee Sungjong who is therefore a little mysterious and a lot beautiful.
“-and then of course they asked me to be the one working directly with the dancers as well as the idols, which brought the total up to around twenty-four people, all of whom needed to look a little bit different. I tell you, whoever decided having twelve-member boybands was a good idea was obviously not a fashion coordinator because it’s a fucking disaster, I swear-”
Myungsoo wonders if Sungjong likes coffee. It would make sense for him to like coffee-after all, he works in a coffee shop. But then again, Myungsoo once spent a summer working in his uncle’s fish shop and he hated fish. Some types of fish have grown on him since then, but he’s still not a huge fan. He wonders what Sungjong thinks of fish.
“-and then of course they tried to rip me off. But I knew it was coming, so I was prepared. Silk doesn’t cost anywhere near that much per yard, I told them! And then of course they threatened to not sell to us anymore, the higher-ups almost had my head for that but luckily I managed to convince them to sell to us at a price only slightly higher than what I wanted, quite a triumph actually-”
Myungsoo isn’t generally attracted to ear piercings, but he can’t stop thinking about the way the weak bus lights had glinted off the small diamond in Sungjong’s ear, the way it had made him look suddenly older and even more handsome than before. If that was even possible. Come to think of it, Sungjong had nice hair, too. Sunggyu continually accused Myungsoo of looking “shaggy” but his look was nothing compared to Sungjong’s. But Myungsoo liked it. And it was disgustingly endearing how he kept having to shake his bangs out of his eyes. Myungsoo had even caught him blowing them out of his face a few times, and he laughs at the memory.
“Myungsoo,” Sungyeol says sharply and Myungsoo’s smile slips off his face faster than a ray of sunshine being swallowed by the clouds outside. “Are you even listening to me? I swear, I don’t know why I even bother talking to you! You prefer to just stay in your apartment slowly becoming a hermit, forgetting how to even communicate with the outside world.”
“I was listening,” Myungsoo sniffs-a complete lie. “You were telling me about someone who had wronged you.”
“Hmm. Well, maybe you were listening this time but you better watch out,” Sungyeol says, squinting distrustfully at Myungsoo. Myungsoo merely gives him a wide smile, grateful that nearly all of Sungyeol’s stories are about people that have wronged him. But before Sungyeol can restart his monologue, Myungsoo decides that he needs a second opinion.
“What do you think it means if you meet someone and you have a conversation and they invite you to meet them again? Does that mean they like you?”
“What did you just say?” Sungyeol asks, giving Myungsoo a searching look. “Did you actually manage to hold a normal conversation with someone you just met? Without once mentioning manga or alternate dimensions or your unfathomable obsession with plaid or scaring them off in some other way?”
“I think so,” Myungsoo says musingly, resting his chin in his hand. “But now I am very confused as to what to do.”
“What are you talking about!” Sungyeol yells, a bit too enthusiastically for Myungsoo’s taste. Usually the only things that get Sungyeol this excited involve people like Myungsoo coming to some sort of moderate physical or emotional harm. “Of course you have to go see them again! Where do they work? Can I get a name?”
“Lee Sungjong,” Myungsoo sighs, a bit dreamily. “He works at Hoya’s coffee shop?”
“Wow,” Sungyeol breathes. “So this guy actually exists. I was about 80% sure you’d made him up when you first started talking. But you wouldn’t be able to lie about someone working at Hoya’s shop because we go there all the time…”
“But what do I say if I do see him again?” Myungsoo whines, sipping at his rapidly cooling coffee. “I think I used up all my safe small talk on the bus today.”
“Don’t ask me,” Sungyeol says in a strained voice, and when Myungsoo looks up he sees him staring tragically out the window. “I am currently being distraught at the fact that Kim Myungsoo might potentially start dating someone before I do. This is unacceptable on so many levels.”
“Sorry?” Myungsoo tries, but Sungyeol just gives him a heartbreaking look and he gives up.
It’s nearly a week before Myungsoo works up the courage to actually go to Hoya’s-although now he’s started thinking of it as Sungjong’s-coffee shop. In fact, though he’s loath to admit it, the only reason he actually goes is because Sunggyu has left him about ten voicemails in the space of three days warning him that if Myungsoo doesn’t meet him for coffee on Friday at noon he’s going to come to his house and clean. Or do something else equally disastrous, like go grocery shopping or insist Myungsoo figure out his health insurance or get a savings account.
Myungsoo pretends that he’s dropped his keys just as he reaches the door to the shop, swirls of cinnamon- and vanilla-flavored air drifting towards him every time someone goes in or out. As he bends down, shuffling around on the ground, he peers through the window, trying to see if Sungjong is on duty. It’s hard to see around all the people standing in line-curse Hoya for running such a popular business! Can’t he see he’s getting in the way of Myungsoo’s already precarious love life? Some people.
“Did you lose something?”
The words, said in an already-familiar voice, make Myungsoo whirl around in fright, clutching his keys to his chest. Sungjong’s standing there, looking terribly cute in a “Howon Coffee House” apron and smart brown polo. He’s changed his diamond studs to small hoops, Myungsoo notices. They’re nice. Then he realizes Sungjong’s giving him a weird look and he smiles awkwardly, mind frantically searching for a good response.
“No! No, I didn’t lose anything. Just dropped my keys. You know how it is. One minute they’re in your pocket and then next they’ve been transported to an alternate dimension by some space-time wormhole, am I right?”
Myungsoo stops speaking suddenly, realizing that he just mentioned alternate dimensions and according to Sungyeol this is about when Sungjong is going to start getting frightened and start avoiding Myungsoo and it’s not like he’ll really mind because it’s not like they’re even dating, for heaven’s sake they’ve only had one conversation but Sungjong is just so sweet and carefully unkempt that Myungsoo doesn’t want to lose him just yet-
“It does feel like that sometimes, doesn’t it,” Sungjong says with a laugh, and Myungsoo’s thoughts crash to a stop, realizing that not only is he not fleeing in terror, he’s laughing. Like he finds Myungsoo amusing. This is a Very Good Thing.
“Doesn’t it though?”
“You’re still wearing those boots,” Sungjong observes, gazing down at Myungsoo’s bright yellow boots. Myungsoo grins, kicking his feet back and forth a little.
“Yeah, I figured since it’s still a little wet out I’d try to wear them for as long as possible,” Myungsoo says, smiling as he holds open the door so Sungjong can step inside.
“I didn’t actually think you’d show up here,” Sungjong says shyly as he brushes past Myungsoo and into the shop, and Myungsoo’s heart does a strange sort of hop-skip-jump. Maybe he should get it checked out. Maybe Sunggyu was on to something with the whole regular doctor visits thing.
“Why?” Myungsoo asks, trailing behind Sungjong as he fights his way towards the front counter, smiling at patrons and his fellow waiters.
“Well, you know,” Sungjong mutters, running a hand nervously through his hair. His beautiful, beautiful hair. Myungsoo can almost imagine how silky it’d feel against his own fingers. “You’re so…and I…I don’t know.”
“Myungsoo!” Sunggyu’s loud voice cuts over the noise of the coffee shop and Myungsoo turns to see Sunggyu waving embarrassingly from a small table near the back of the shop.
“I’ll see you later?” Myungsoo asks hesitantly, and is delighted when Sungjong nods quickly, bangs falling gently into his eyes.
“Glad to see you socializing,” Sunggyu says jovially as Myungsoo sits down, and Myungsoo seriously considers punching his annoying face until he remembers that that would probably result in him breaking several bones in his hand and getting kicked out of the coffee shop because for some reason Hoya cares about things like whether Sunggyu’s nose remains unbroken. Some dumb line about how that’s what friends do.
“Let it be known, let it be written that I do not require ten increasingly threatening voicemail messages to get me to leave my apartment,” Myungsoo huffs, shifting his chair slightly to the right so he can get a better view of Sungjong standing behind the counter.
“And there wouldn’t have been any messages at all if you’d just picked up your phone,” Sunggyu says in a frustrated manner.
“I need peace and quiet to work,” Myungsoo says primly, sighing slightly at the way Sungjong’s eyes light up when he smiles at a customer. His handwriting on the coffee cups is also horribly adorable-large, slightly blocky letters, usually accompanied by a smiley face or a heart or a star.
“Oh, come on, Myungsoo,” Sunggyu snorts. “You’re not writing a novel, you’re translating textbooks and travel brochures and short story collections. Hardly anything requiring intense concentration.”
“Spoken like a true philistine,” Myungsoo scoffs, craning his neck a bit to glare at a girl blushing furiously as Sungjong asks for her order. Who does she think she is, a damsel in distress? There’s no need to blush in such a vulgar way, no matter how ridiculously attractive Sungjong is.
“Okay, what are you even looking at?” Sunggyu asks in annoyance, turning around himself.
“Nothing, nothing,” Myungsoo says airily, waving a hand. Sunggyu turns back and gives him a questioning look. “Really nothing.”
“If you say so,” Sunggyu says slowly, as if thinking of the best way to wring the truth from Myungsoo’s unyielding lips. “By the way, have you given any thought to my idea of asking your landlord to fix that cupboard door? I swear, I’m afraid that one day it’ll break right off and hit you in the head and send you to the hospital. Which reminds me, you did remember to go to the dentist last week for your appointment, right?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you!” Myungsoo shouts, desperate to get Sunggyu off the subject of all the things he’s not able to do by himself because he can do them, he’s just working on it. “You see that gorgeous boy making a caramel latte for that ghoulish-looking woman?”
“If you mean the mop-headed kid mixing up a caramel latte for an extremely attractive and extremely successful young woman judging by her business suit, then yes.”
“You’re telling me,” Myungsoo says in disbelief. “That-objectively of course Mr. Straight Guy-Lee Sungjong, man of my dreams, is less attractive than that pant-suited vulture trying to get him to smile at her? He’s just too nice not to, that’s why he’s smiling at her. And he draws hearts on everyone’s cups, get over yourself.”
“Oooooh,” Sunggyu coos, and Myungsoo groans. He knows that sound. That is the sound of Sunggyu about to make some very obvious and very annoying statement. “Does Myungsoo have a little crush on that barista?”
“No,” he says in an affronted tone. “It’s not a ‘little’ anything. I think I might actually be falling for this kid.”
“Remind me how many times you’ve actually spoken to him,” Sunggyu says, giving Myungsoo a look. Myungsoo hates that look. That was the look Sunggyu always wore when Myungsoo tried to blame Woohyun for the shattered plate on the kitchen floor or tried to convince Hoya that Sungyeol was the one who used up all his orange yarn in an ill-fated attempt to make a scarf.
“Twice,” Myungsoo says with a sigh. “But it’s enough to know that he’s nice and pretty and sweet and just look at him he’s been smiling nearly non-stop for an hour now without breaking anything! How can anyone this perfect be real?”
“We might need to work on your definition of perfect if imperfect includes violent tendencies and property damage,” Sunggyu says worriedly, but he’s smiling and Myungsoo knows he’s managed to appeal to his inner romantic.
“The only problem,” Myungsoo muses, “is that I don’t know what he wants. Does he just want to be friends? Or maybe he thinks I’m the type of guy who’s not looking for a real relationship? But I really can’t do the one-night stand thing, I get too attached to people’s clothes and pets and faces. Oh, god, what if he just wants me for my boots?”
“You are certifiably insane,” Sunggyu says conversationally. “And you might want to shut up now, because I think I see loverboy heading this way.”
Myungsoo jerks around so violently his neck cracks and Sunggyu winces in sympathy. Sure enough, Sungjong is weaving through the crowd towards them, latte in hand, pausing every few feet to say hello or exchange smiles with a customer. Myungsoo is not quite sure how he feels about all this gratuitous kindness.
“This is for you,” Sungjong says softly, handing Myungsoo the drink before hurrying back to his station. Myungsoo tries to pretend his hand didn’t jerk backwards when he took the drink because of a zing of electricity between Sungjong’s hand and his own. He obviously fails because Sunggyu laughs. Idiot.
“I guess you got around to mentioning how you refuse to drink coffee unless it’s so sweet it’s basically not even coffee anymore,” Sunggyu asks dryly, and Myungsoo shoots him a glare.
“No, I didn’t actually,” he says, sipping gratefully at the coffee. With all the confusing mixed signals Sungjong is sending with his smiles and his warm hands, Myungsoo could use the caffeine. “I guess he just took a lucky guess.”
“Is there something written on it?” Sunggyu asks curiously, turning his head sideways as if that will help him better decipher the writing half-covered by Myungsoo’s hand.
“Huh? Oh!” Myungsoo says, twisting his cup around until he can read the carefully printed, blocky letters spelling out the words, “Wait for me after my shift?”
“Let me guess,” Sunggyu says with all the caring condescension of a very annoying parent, “you’re going to be staying here for a while.”
“Let me guess,” Myungsoo says. “You have somewhere to be because you’re a real adult with a Real Adult Job and you want me to call you the second I get home and tell you what he says to me?”
“I’ve taught you well,” Sunggyu says, standing and ruffling Myungsoo’s hair annoyingly. As Myungsoo hisses, batting away his hand and trying to restyle the haphazard locks, Sunggyu laughs and starts heading for the door.
“Remember!” he yells, miming putting a phone to his ear, and Myungsoo just waves him off with a laugh, taking another sip of his latte. It’s lovely, just the way he likes it-ridiculously sweet with just a hint of coffee.
It takes a long time for Sungjong’s shift to be over and during that whole time the shop remains busy-the most Myungsoo can see of him is his smiling face as he takes orders before he ducks back towards the espresso machines and is lost in a sea of waiting customers. Myungsoo finds various ways to entertain himself-he sketches weird geometric designs onto his napkin, then ponders the plot twists in the most recent installment of his favorite manga, then calculates the percent chance Sungjong might actually like him like that and want a real relationship. He’s in the process of carrying the significant glances and subtracting all the smiles Sungjong’s given to attractive female customers when a shadow falls over his table. When he looks up, Sungjong’s standing there awkwardly, hands shoved deep into his pants pockets.
“I’m technically not finished for another ten minutes or so,” he says, staring out the window rather than at Myungsoo. “But Min said she’d cover for me so we can talk.”
When Myungsoo looks over at the counter, the pretty girl standing there gives him a little wave and a wink. He feels himself blushing and quickly looks away. Sungjong seems a little confused by his silence, and he’s opening his mouth to say something when Myungsoo unthinkingly grabs his hand. Sungjong’s mouth snaps shut so fast Myungsoo can hear his jaw click.
“Yeah, let’s go,” he says with a smile, pulling Sungjong through the crowded coffee shop and out into the chilly air.
Once they’re outside, Myungsoo decides to just start walking, and Sungjong dutifully follows him. They’re walking close enough that Sungjong’s shoulder periodically bumps his own and every time it happens Myungsoo has to hold back a shiver. For some strange reason he wants to throw his arm over Sungjong’s shoulders, or hold his hand, or something else ridiculous.
“So…” Sungjong says a bit nervously, peeking up at Myungsoo through his bangs. “Where do you work? Obviously not anywhere too strict if you can spend all Friday afternoon at a coffee shop.”
“Was it all afternoon? Huh,” Myungsoo says, legitimately surprised at the amount of time that has passed. The sun is already sinking low in the sky as they wander the cold, nearly empty streets leading to Myungsoo’s apartment. “Well, you’re right. I work for a translation agency, so as long as I get all of my work done by a certain deadline I don’t really have regular hours.”
“That sounds nice,” Sungjong says wistfully, and Myungsoo suddenly notices how nice his lips are-full and pink with a slight upwards tilt at the edges. Myungsoo likes them. A lot.
“It is, except for when the deadlines are coming up the next day and I feel like I’m drowning under a giant pile of work and no one even has the decency to throw me an oxygen tank,” Myungsoo huffs, jumping slightly in surprise when Sungjong bursts out laughing.
“You always say the strangest things,” Sungjong says, and Myungsoo feels his heart plummet down to his feet. Stupid Hoya and his stupid list.
“You know, maybe I should just go-” Myungsoo gasps, eyes wildly scanning the nearby side streets for one that doesn’t look too sketchy so he can run screaming down it and never come back.
“No! No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Sungjong says quickly, grabbing onto Myungsoo’s wrist and holding him in place. “It’s pretty cute.”
“You-what?” Myungsoo says distractedly, finally turning his attention away from possible escape routes and towards Sungjong’s wide eyes.
“It’s…cute. You’re cute,” Sungjong says shyly, quickly dropping Myungsoo’s wrist. Myungsoo can barely believe his ears. No one’s ever called him cute before, at least not without the background motive of mocking him.
“I’ll have you know that I am the very picture of manliness,” he sniffs as they continue walking, and Sungjong snorts.
“Yeah, and I look like a professional wrestler.”
“Thank goodness you don’t,” Myungsoo says with a shiver of disgust. He ignores the way the words make Sungjong brighten until he’s shining almost as obnoxiously as Myungsoo’s boots. Suddenly, Myungsoo realizes they’re standing outside of his apartment building.
“Do you…want to come up?” Myungsoo asks hesitantly. Sungjong gives him a searching look, but he must decide that Myungsoo isn’t likely to be an axe murderer or a crazy cat owner, because he gives him a small smile and a nod.
As they climb the stairs, Myungsoo complains about exercise and how he chose this apartment because it was close to Hoya’s coffee shop and therefore Sunggyu could drop by every now and again to make sure Myungsoo hadn’t died of self-neglect but he really doesn’t understand why they can’t just fix the elevator-
“It’s nice how much your friends care about you,” Sungjong says with a laugh, watching Myungsoo fumble with his keys at the door, dropping them at least twice. Myungsoo blames this on having an audience. He doesn’t do well under scrutiny.
“I guess,” Myungsoo grumbles, motioning Sungjong inside. “Make sure you take off your shoes. These floors have been abused enough.”
But just as Myungsoo stepping inside and starting to pull off his own boots, he feels hands shoving him back against the door so it clicks closed, and then Sungjong’s lips-his soft, sweet lips-are pressed against Myungsoo’s own. What a strange turn of events.
Myungsoo leans into the kiss, sliding his tongue gently across the younger boy’s lower lip until his mouth falls open, reveling in the way Sungjong’s mouth taste kind of like coffee and sugar and satisfaction. When Sungjong finally pulls away, panting, eyes bright, Myungsoo spares a moment to record this image in his brain, filing it away next to the word beautiful.
“Is this what you want?” Sungjong asks quickly, as if afraid Myungsoo is going to say no. “Because this is what I want, but you’re just so nice and so gorgeous and so weird that I’m pretty sure you could be spending your time with better people who don’t have low-paying coffee shop jobs but I just really want to-”
Annoyed, Myungsoo decides there is too much talking going on and not enough kissing, and so he swallows the rest of Sungjong’s sentence, pulling him closer and slotting their mouths together again. Sungjong makes a little noise-somewhere between a breathy moan and a grateful sigh-and Myungsoo files that away too, under his To-Do List.
“Just so you know,” Myungsoo says breathlessly, as Sungjong presses kisses to his forehead, his nose, his neck, “if you’re planning on sticking around, you’re going to be subject to the scrutiny of my friends.”
“I think I can handle that,” Sungjong mutters, mouthing at Myungsoo’s collarbone in a very distracting way.
“No, really,” Myungsoo hisses, tangling his hands desperately in Sungjong’s soft, soft hair. “Sunggyu is going to look you up on the internet and expose you to an Inquisition and Woohyun will probably ask you really inappropriate questions about your past sex life and Hoya might do something really annoying like not let me into the coffee shop while you’re working because I’ll be a ‘distraction.’ And don’t even get me started on the theatrics Sungyeol is going to lay on you.”
“Believe me,” Sungjong says, pulling back and staring at Myungsoo with shining eyes. “If it means I get to keep kissing you, I’ll be fine with any sort of Inquisition.”
“You say that now,” Myungsoo hums as Sungjong closes the distance between their mouths again, tongue tangling with Myungsoo’s own. But something about Sungjong makes Myungsoo think that he’s probably right. Sungjong looks like he could handle anything. Deciding the door behind him is really uncomfortable, Myungsoo reaches down and starts trying to pull off his boots without disconnecting their mouths. He jumps when he feels Sungjong’s hand against his own, pulling it up and away.
“I think you should keep them on for now,” Sungjong says, smiling against Myungsoo’s mouth. “They’re pretty and happy. They remind me of you.”
And, as Myungsoo coaxes a few more of those little sighs out of Sungjong, pushing him down onto the couch and flopping down next to him as Sungjong giggles, he thinks that the boots don’t really remind him of himself. They remind him of Sungjong. And that’s reason enough to expose his floors to a bit of damage-if Sungjong’s sticking around, maybe Myungsoo won’t mind.
He’s definitely not calling Sunggyu tonight.