The sunrise shift for tsuruhime
For: tsuruhime
Title: The Sunrise Shift
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Kai
Rating: PG
Warning(s): If you squint, a brief implication of bullying
Length: 5.9k
Summary: Jongin’s life was a regular routine of graveyard shifts at work. And then he met the guitar boy.
The job at the convenience store on the university campus is not as bad as Sehun, his constant roommate and sometimes best friend, makes it out to be, really. There’s not much to complain about. Joonmyun, the storeowner, is nice to everyone and is lenient when Jongin arrives at the store for his shift five minutes late (always. He really tries to be on time - he really does - but he can’t seem to get anywhere on time for the life of him). Jongin works the graveyard shift, the shift that starts at ten at night and ends when the sun rises; Joonmyun, trying to be cheerful and optimistic, prefers to call it “the sunrise shift.” And, yeah, it does get a little lonely at night when it’s just him at the convenience store with the occasional customer wandering in for a midnight ramen snack or quick drink, but Jongin thinks it’s nice to have a little alone time, a small quiet enclave in the middle of stressful college life. He likes the routine of it all, to be able to come here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night of the week to work to enjoy the guaranteed peace like clockwork.
Sehun just likes to complain that Jongin would rather spend time at the convenience store, all by his lonesome, rather than go to Baekhyun’s house party, or stay in the dorm and play video games until dawn.
And, besides, it’s not completely lonely at night in the convenience store. There are some people that Jongin’s quickly learned to recognize from their frequent after dark trips to the convenience store - and, Jongin has to admit, he likes people watching. He doesn’t know if it could be considered creepy or not (Jongin hopes not), but the kinds of characters he sees walking through the store from nine to two in the morning aren’t the typical customers that come during the day, and Jongin fancies that it’s like seeing a different side of campus - a quieter, slightly weirder side.
Quite a few of the late night visitors are nursing students - some of them just coming back from long day shifts and others picking up some quick food before spending the night at the university hospital. There’s also an elderly lady who comes by every so often to pick up a few things (mostly cleaning supplies; why the elderly lady needs cleaning supplies so often, Jongin could only guess); she smiles fondly at Jongin every time she comes up to his register to pay for her items, but never strikes any sort of conversation.
This is another thing that Jongin likes about this job. Most of the customers aren’t really looking for small chitchat or conversation - things that Jongin is horrible at, admittedly. He just can’t do the friendly-smile-strike-up-a-convo-with-a-stranger thing. Usually, outside of his job, in the daytime, Jongin gets around by hiding behind his friends, letting Sehun or Yixing do all the talking. In the nighttime, Jongin doesn’t have anyone to hide behind - but that wasn’t a problem, at the convenience store.
There’s another customer who catches Jongin’s attention - a boy around his age, maybe up to a couple years older, but taller and lankier. He sometimes comes in at midnight, or later - one, two in the morning, always wearing tight skinny jeans and always, always has a guitar slung across his back. Unlike all the other patrons, somber from the late hour of night, this boy always wears a smile on his face. Jongin often catches him perusing the shelves bobbing his head along to some music - except he’s never wearing any headphones, like he’s got his own personal soundtrack playing in his head that only he could hear. He doesn’t buy, only looks (at what, Jongin wonders), but he doesn’t cause trouble in the store, so Jongin doesn’t feel the need to kick him out.
Jongin never talks to him either, though.
-
It’s a Thursday when the guitar boy buys something for the first time. Thursday is one of the two days of the week that the convenience store gets shipments to restock, so Jongin is on unpacking and inventory duties tonight. He’s in the back room, categorizing how many boxes of what they received in today’s shipments, so it’s only when Jongin happens to pass by the back room’s open door and glance up that he sees that the guitar boy is at the cashier’s counter, waiting.
The boy is much taller than Jongin had originally thought, Jongin realizes when he draws up to the cashier register after half-running, half-walking over.
“Ah, sorry!” Jongin panics, “I didn’t know you were waiting to check out, I was in the back, um, looking through inventory, and, uh-”
The stranger’s face breaks into a smile - and Jongin is taken aback at first by how big his smile is, so big it splits his face in half, and a little lopsided. “That’s okay,” the stranger says, and Jongin is taken aback for the second time. The stranger’s voice is deep, much deeper than he’d anticipated. It has a nice, low rumble to it, the kind Jongin wouldn’t mind listening to more. “I don’t mind waiting for you.”
Jongin blushes, wondering if the stranger realizes how his own sentence sounds without context. “Um,” he says, focusing his attention on the products on the counter instead. Two caffeine drinks and a box of band-aids. Hello Kitty ones. Jongin bites back a smile; he’s not judging. “Is this all?”
“Yup,” the stranger says, sounding all too cheerful for past midnight.
Jongin scans the items one by one, carefully placing them into a plastic bag. “That will be five thousand won.”
The stranger hands him the cash, and Jongin can’t help but notice the large callouses on his hands. “Have a nice night,” Jongin says.
He catches the stranger in the eye as he gives him the plastic bag, and when he says you have a good night, too, it sounds like he means it.
-
Jongin doesn’t see him again until three days later. The bell over the store’s front door jingles, and Jongin realizes with a skip that it’s him, striding into the store with the omnipresent guitar slung across his back.
Before he knows it, he’s following everywhere the boy is going around the store with his eyes. He can’t help remember the large, toothy smile that he’d given him several days ago; it’s ridiculous. Jongin has to force himself to keep his eyes down and busies himself with counting the change in the cash register to keep his focus and-
“Just these two drinks please,” a deep voice interrupts.
Jongin nearly jumps out of his skin and most definitely loses count of the change. Well. He takes a deep breath and turns to face the boy and- and promptly loses bravado, so he keeps his eyes trained on the drinks on the counter instead. Two cartons of banana milk. “Six thousand won,” Jongin says.
“What was that?” To Jongin’s horror, the boy bends down so that he’s eye level with Jongin; Jongin finds himself staring into a pair of very large, very brown eyes. He hadn’t taken notice of that last time. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Six thousand won,” Jongin repeats, but in an even tinier voice.
“Oh,” the boy says, laughing a little. He draws back, much to Jongin’s relief. His smile’s turned sheepish now, and he raises a hand to run through his hair, making it even messier than before. “I thought you said something else.”
“That’s okay,” Jongin says. It’s past one in the morning by now, it shouldn’t be hot anymore. Especially not the back of his neck.
The stranger fishes out a wallet from his backpack, a worn thing that’s clearly seen better days. “Man, I love banana milk. I’m, like, addicted to these things.” He hands Jongin some bills. “Do you like them too?”
Jongin stares at him for a second. Is the guitar boy trying to initiate conversation with him? Not one of Jongin’s strong points. “Um,” Jongin says. “They’re good? I used to drink a lot of them when I was younger.”
Handing the boy his change, Jongin congratulates himself for being able to string a couple of sentences together.
“Why not anymore?” The boy asks.
“Well,” Jongin says, puzzled. “No reason?” This is usually the point where the customer takes his purchases and leaves, maybe with a thank you, maybe not. But the boy was still standing there, in front of him. Had Jongin forgotten something? “Ah, do you want a bag for your drinks?”
“Nah,” the boy says. “I only have one drink, so I won’t need a bag.”
“...One…?” Jongin repeats. This boy confuses him.
Looking him square in the eye, the boy grabs Jongin’s wrist to gently turn his hand open and places one of the banana milk cartons in Jongin’s palm. “Here you go. Relive your childhood! We could all use a little of that, from time to time, don’t you think?”
Jongin looks at the carton in his hand, and then back at the grinning boy, and back again. “But- but you paid for this!”
The boy laughs, loud and ringing in Jongin’s ears, like Jongin’s just said the funniest thing in the world. Jongin knows, thanks to Sehun’s repeated statements about this, that he’s not funny at all. “Yeah, and I’m giving it to you. Like a present!”
By the time Jongin looks back up, the boy has already left the counter and is on his way out of the convenience store. “Thank you?”
“See you next time!” The stranger waves.
“O-okay! When’s-?” Jongin says, but there’s nothing left of the stranger except the cheery jingle of the bells hanging over the front door.
-
Jongin is prepared. At the beginning of his shift, he carefully counts out, from his own money, the price of a bottle of banana milk, down to the cent, and sets it aside underneath the counter so that he could take it out right away to repay the strange boy with the wild eyes when he sees him again.
But his preparation is foiled - the guitar boy sees him first, and Jongin’s not at the counter when it happens. He’s restocking the drinks in the refrigerated section, trying to tip the Gatorades into their place on the top shelf, but he can just barely reach it - when all of a sudden he feels somebody coming up from behind him and the bottled drink is plucked out of his hand. Shocked, Jongin turns around and finds himself face-to-chest with the boy.
“Oops,” the boy says, grinning. At this close of a distance, Jongin can almost feel the boy’s deep voice rumbling in his chest and also how much taller the boy than he is. Jongin’s never felt particularly short before, but in this moment he does. “Hope you don’t mind if I lend you a hand here?” With that, he shelves the Gatorade in its place.
Jongin feels his face heat up, trapped between this boy’s (nice, very wide) chest and the shelves.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“You got others? I’ll help you with them.”
“Ah, that’s okay.” Jongin takes a step back and almost loses his balance when the back of his knees hit the bottom fridge section. Would his face stop turning even redder? “I probably should have just gotten a step ladder in the first place.”
“It’s alright,” the boy says. He spots the cardboard box on the floor next to Jongin and grabs a couple more bottles to shelve. “I got a bit of time to kill anyway, since my gig ended a little early tonight.”
“You play in a band?” Jongin immediately feels stupid. “I mean, of course you do, you’re always-“
-And now he feels even stupider.
“Always?” The boy slowly grins. “I always what?”
There’s no way out. “You’re always carrying a guitar,” Jongin mumbles quickly.
The boy grins even wider. “You noticed!”
Jongin decides to change the topic. “You never told me your name?”
“Did you want to know, all this time?” The boy teases, and Jongin feels so embarrassed he wants to punch that stupid attractive grin off the boy’s face. “I’m Park Chanyeol.”
“Chanyeol,” Jongin repeats, letting the name roll off his tongue.
Chanyeol looks amused, looking at him like he’s expecting something. “I’d like to know your name too,” he says, nudging Jongin gently with his elbow, before he shelves some more bottles.
“Oh!” Jongin stammers. Of course. “Jongin. Kim Jongin.”
Chanyeol beams at him, which does absolutely nothing for Jongin’s red face. It’s like guitar boy is made of sunshine. “Now I have something to call you besides ‘the cute boy at the register.’”
Jongin’s face is positively on fire with ten-foot flames by now, if it wasn’t before.
“If you’re free one night,” Chanyeol continues, “maybe you can come out to one of my gigs? We make really good music, I promise.”
Jongin busies himself with filling up the lower shelves with the sports drinks. “Sure,” Jongin says. “I’d like that.”
-
Most nights at the convenience store don’t give Jongin much trouble at all. Since the convenience store is located on the college campus near the dorms, Jongin’s rowdiest customers are the drunk college students, and even then, most of them stop by the store for a quick sobering snack or drink and not to ransack the store or cause trouble. Drunk young people are predictably isn’t an uncommon occurrence at a college campus, but they’re still manageable. (And funny sometimes, too.) Jongin hasn’t had to call the cops on anyone, and as long as he continues not having to do that, Jongin counts the convenience store and the graveyard shift as a good, decent job.
What’s kind of funny is that, to Jongin, while none of his customers seem to pose any trouble - there’s Park Chanyeol.
It gets to the point where, when Joonmyun comes in the morning to relieve Jongin of his shift, Joonmyun notices there’s something off about him and asks if there was a reason why Jongin restocked all the cigarettes in the wrong order by brand name, if there’s anything wrong, does he need to talk? Externally, Jongin apologizes; internally, Jongin wishes that his mind were less occupied (more and more by the day) by a certain guitar-touting boy.
-
“What’s gotten into you lately?” Sehun asks as soon as he sits down at their usual lunch spot - one of the benches in the quad. Jongin thinks Sehun is frowning, but it’s hard to tell when Sehun’s default facial expression is usually leaning towards a frown anyway.
“What do you mean?”
“You just seem kind of…” Sehun searches for the word. “Listless, recently. Like you’ve got something on your mind all the time. And you smile randomly.”
“I do?” Jongin says, alarmed. Does he really smile to himself when he’s not realizing it? Sometimes he calls Sehun a traitor when he eats all of his chips in the dorm but in reality his face is the biggest traitor he has. “No, I don’t think so… There’s no ‘something.’”
“Or maybe I should say someone?” Sehun slyly smiles and Jongin groans aloud. “Come on, out with it, who is it? Who is wooing my best friend? I need to give him the seal of approval first before anything happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Jongin says. He means it; nothing ever happens. “And there is nobody.”
“Curious how the denial of there being nobody came after the denial of anything happening,” Sehun says, smug. “I happen to know, for a fact, that there is somebody.”
Sehun really can be downright infuriating when he wants to be. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Jongin says gruffly as he stuffs more kimbap into his mouth.
“There’s a guy in my javascript class. He heard me talking to Yixing about how a Kim Jongin wouldn’t come and hang out with me anymore.” Sehun pauses for dramatic effect. “A Mr. Park Chanyeol?”
Jongin feels like faceplanting into the grass. “Okay?” Jongin says. “So?”
“He was awfully interested in what I had to say about you, and how I knew you,” Sehun says. If it were possible, he looks even smugger than a couple of minutes ago. “Wanna tell me how he knows you?”
“Not really,” Jongin answers truthfully. “And, somehow, I think you already know.”
“Your mind is sharp as ever,” Sehun drawls. “Chanyeol tells me that he knows you from the convenience store.”
Jongin doesn’t say anything.
“And he brought up the subject of you several times.”
Jongin still doesn’t say anything. But, to himself, he can’t deny he’s not pleased.
Sehun shrugs. “If you want my opinion, he’s decent. A little eccentric and he’s a little hipster in his music choices and turns up his nose at the popular songs, but overall he’s okay. His mouth’s nice, but his legs? But, I mean, you could do worse.”
“His legs are fine!” Jongin says indignantly before he can catch himself. “And, anyway, I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Sehun ignores him. “No wonder why you like working at the convenience store so much. Does he visit you every night? Does he bring flowers? He’s a roses type, I bet. A bit on the boring side, if you ask me.”
“You mean a classic,” Jongin says, even though, no, Chanyeol hasn’t gone so far as giving him flowers.
“Whatever,” Sehun says. “I think you’re smitten and you just don’t want to admit it.” He pauses for thought. “He’s definitely smitten, that’s for sure.”
After Sehun leaves reluctantly for his next class, Jongin takes a moment to sit on the bench because if his heart was going to squeeze any tighter, Jongin thinks he just might pass out.
-
“Since you won’t come out and see me at one of my gigs,” Chanyeol says on one of his night visits, “I thought I'd bring the concert to you tonight.”
Jongin feels his face heat up for the millionth time around this guy, watching as Chanyeol shrugs off the guitar from his back and hops backwards so that he’s sitting on the checkout counter. “I’ve been meaning to come to one of your gigs, but I just-”
Chanyeol shrugs. “It’s okay. It’s not like every night I’m looking out at the crowd searching for your face or anything, hoping you’d be there.” He lets out a bark of laughter when he sees the look of horror taking over Jongin’s face. “Relax, I was just kidding.”
Jongin’s shoulders slump; he feels guilty all the same. How does he explain to Chanyeol that he was afraid of going to Chanyeol’s gig only to find out that he hadn’t been that serious when he extended those invitations to him? “I didn’t think you’d really miss me seeing there,” Jongin admits.
Putting on an exaggerated act of looking affronted, Chanyeol says, “Of course I would. I mean everything I say!” He pats the space on the counter next to him. “Come on up!”
There really isn’t that much space on the counter to fit Jongin, Chanyeol, and his guitar - and Jongin’s face says as much, because then Chanyeol is saying, “It’ll be cozy,” with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows that ends up being hilariously weird and anything but suggestive.
Jongin can’t help but laugh. It starts like a small little rumble somewhere deep inside of him, and then starts bubbling up his throat, until he can’t contain it anymore and lets the laughter spill out of him. More and more bubbles of laughter.
It’s cozy, alright. Chanyeol’s all gangly limbs and sharp elbows and the guitar sometimes pokes Jongin in the side - but he finds that he doesn’t mind.
“Prepare to have your mind blown,” Chanyeol grins at Jongin. At this close of a distance, Jongin swears he could count each individual eyelash on Chanyeol’s eyes. “Bet you won’t ever hear another guitar player like me.”
Jongin gives him a doubtful look, which makes Chanyeol laugh. (It sorta makes Jongin proud. He did that.) “We got a skeptic in the crowd tonight, I see, a hard one to impress,” Chanyeol says, mirth glittering in his eyes. “Well, I’m just going to have pull all the tricks in the trade.”
Chanyeol launches into a song that Jongin doesn’t know; and honestly if somebody had asked Jongin later which songs Chanyeol sang and played for him, Jongin wouldn’t have been able to recount even one of them. Yes, Jongin would never admit it to him but, Chanyeol’s voice is nice and the songs he’s playing are nice, but Jongin is too preoccupied with just simply watching Chanyeol being immersed in playing the guitar that neither of those things really sink in.
Chanyeol plays the entire shift. Sometimes some of the store’s customers would drop some change into Chanyeol’s open guitar case that he’s laid out on the floor in front of him, one of them the elderly lady that Jongin often sees come by. Sometimes Jongin has to leave his spot next to Chanyeol on the counter when a customer wants to check out, but this happened only every once in a while and Jongin always reclaimed his seat afterwards.
“What do you think?” Chanyeol asks after the last song. He’s getting too tired to sing, but his eagerness for approval doesn’t seem to be wearied. Jongin is immediately reminded of a golden retriever puppy awaiting a pet on the head. Cute.
“I think you need to shut up!” Comes a male voice hidden somewhere in the aisles.
Making a face akin to a five year old sticking his tongue out, Chanyeol yells back, “sorry, not any time soon!”
“It was good,” Jongin concedes, stifling his laughter.
Now Chanyeol looks like a kicked puppy. “Only good? Not amazing, stupendous, great?” He cracks a smile. “Now that just means you have to come to one of my gigs to get the full concert experience.”
Jongin plays with the edge of his shirt. “Maybe, one day.”
Chanyeol hops off the counter and begins packing up the guitar, collecting the loose change and some bills that the customers had thrown in the case at the same time.
“Not bad for several hours of playing for a concert of one person,” Chanyeol says. He shows Jongin what he’s collected. “This is going into my college savings account.”
That’s not what Jongin was expecting Chanyeol would say. “College savings account?”
Chanyeol laughs. “What? Is that so surprising? Let me guess- you thought I’d be blowing this on food and alcohol, right?” He doesn’t look offended though. “Nah, I gotta work my way through college. Why do you think I do gigs so often?”
“Because you like music?” Jongin says. He really thought this, all along.
Chanyeol’s blinking at him like he wasn’t really expecting an answer from him, but then his face breaks into a small smile. “True, I do,” Chanyeol says. “I count myself lucky that I can do something I love that earns me a couple of bucks for my tuition as well. Not everybody can do that.”
Jongin thinks about the convenience store job. “Yeah. You’re right.”
-
“You look happy,” Joonmyun cheerfully notes when he comes to relieve Jongin from his shift at the crack of dawn.
Jongin catches himself. “I do?”
“Yes,” Joonmyun nods, starting his usual rundown of checking the store to ready it for the new day. “Did something happen last night? Something good?”
Joonmyun’s questions are good-natured, but Jongin hedges around the questions. “Actually, I was wondering, if you need somebody to cover more graveyard shifts on more days…”
Looking surprised at first, Joonmyun smiles curiously. “Are you sure? I can’t imagine shifts everyday would be good for your schoolwork…”
Jongin tries to rein in his eagerness. “I could use the extra hours,” is all he says.
“Well, Minseok was saying that he wanted to cut back on his hours lately, so, sure, if that’s what you want-”
“Yes,” Jongin smiles. “It’s what I want.”
-
“Joonmyun likes calling it the sunrise shift,” Jongin is saying, swinging his legs back and forth. They're sitting side by side on the counter again, but this time the guitar is left alone in its case.
Chanyeol laughs, loud and boisterous. “Sunrise shift. I actually like that a lot. It puts a positive spin on things? That can never be a bad thing.”
“Figures you would be in the same line of thought as Joonmyun,” Jongin says. He can’t help but smile. “Always wanting to be optimistic.”
“Life’s a downer,” Chanyeol says, “but you don’t have to let it be a downer to you.”
Jongin nods. “That was deep,” he jokes, but Chanyeol’s statement settles deep in his chest.
“So let’s talk about what you like about this job.” Chanyeol smiles. “What makes it a sunrise shift to you?”
Talking to you, Jongin thinks. “I like the solitude,” is what Jongin says instead. “It’s nice to be alone.”
“Sometimes,” Chanyeol says. Jongin doesn’t get what he’s trying to say at first, so Chanyeol elaborates. “Sometimes, though, it’s nice to be alone. Not all the time, right?” His bottom lip juts out. “Or are you trying to hint to me that you don't like it when I visit you?”
“No!” Jongin says quickly. “I mean. Sometimes. Yeah.” He looks down and plays with the popsicle stick in his hand, turning it around and around, wishing he hadn’t eaten the red bean popsicle Chanyeol had bought for him so fast. “You... Come here to visit me?”
Chanyeol stares at Jongin (which Jongin steadfastly ignores by continuing to fiddle around with the popsicle stick) until he bursts out laughing. “Kim Jongin, you are incredible,” he says. “You think I just come here for fun?”
“No... I thought- well, I thought you just come here for a snack or a drink after your gigs. Isn’t that true?” Jongin finally looks at him, from the corner of his eye. “Are you making fun of me?”
Chanyeol reaches over and ruffles Jongin's hair with his hand. “No,” Chanyeol says, “I just think you are a very interesting person.”
For the first time in a while, Jongin feels uncomfortable in a way that doesn't set off flurries in the pit of his stomach. “Interesting?” He's heard that before. There were other ways of saying that, like weird, or strange. Things he’s also heard before. “If that’s the way you think, then...”
“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” Chanyeol says, sensing Jongin’s stiffness. “I just mean, you’re a person who’s hard to figure out and who I want to learn more about.”
Oh.
“I wish you’d talk about yourself more,” Chanyeol continues. He nudges Jongin gently with his elbow. “I feel like I’m always talking and I’m boring you with all of it.”
“You’re not,” Jongin says hurriedly. “I don’t mind at all.”
Jongin sneaks a peak at Chanyeol and finds him beaming back at him.
-
Chanyeol doesn’t visit for an entire week.
At first, after the first day or two of no-show, Jongin just assumes that Chanyeol was sick, or something along those lines. Jongin finds this to be a reasonable explanation to the absence and tries not to think that Chanyeol had gotten bored of him, despite what Chanyeol had told him.
But going into the third or fourth day, Jongin starts worrying more and more. He tries asking Sehun whether he’s seen Chanyeol in class, or whether they’ve met up lately for their project they’re supposed to be working on together, but Sehun huffs that, no, they haven’t because Chanyeol keeps saying he’s too busy to meet up.
But at least that means Chanyeol at least is alive, so Jongin’s relieved that he doesn’t have to file a missing person report. But he still feels oddly disappointed, a hollow feeling that settles in the pit of his stomach.
-
Jongin (kinda, maybe) starts walking with Sehun to his computer programming class on the off chance that Chanyeol decides to show up in class again.
Of course, as life works out in strangest ways, Jongin runs into Chanyeol exactly when he wasn’t trying to run into Chanyeol - literally, running into Chanyeol (late, with his nose buried in a notebook, running as fast as possible) on campus as Jongin was walking to his contemporary literature class (late, again - but he never rushes).
Yelping in surprise from the almost head on collision, Chanyeol bends down and quickly gathers the notebook that’s fallen to the floor.
“Chanyeol!”
Chanyeol looks up and is taken by surprise for the second time. “Jongin! Wow, I haven’t seen you in-”
“-a while,” Jongin finishes. He fiddles with the straps of his book bag. “You don’t visit the store anymore.”
“Ah,” Chanyeol rubs the back of his head. “I’ve been busy… writing songs. I’ve been having trouble lately, and sometimes holing myself up in my room helps…”
“Has it?” Jongin’s already late to class, it doesn’t matter if he’s even later. All he wants is to just keep Chanyeol here for a little while longer before he disappears again.
Blinking at Jongin, surprised with the direct question, Chanyeol says, “Well… no, not exactly. Actually, very far from it. I’m drawing up a blank.”
“Why?”
“The subject is too complicated? I guess?” Chanyeol messes up his hair some more.
Jongin stares at Chanyeol. “What are you writing about?”
“Let’s just say, I feel like it’s like a philosophy problem,” Chanyeol laughs. “But, what is this?” He bends down, teasingly, face to face with Jongin. Those damn round, soft brown eyes again. “Are you telling me that you missed me?”
Blushing, Jongin pushes Chanyeol’s face (and his ear-to-ear grin) away from him, but he feels the laughter bubbling up again. Chanyeol always manages to make Jongin laugh like this. In that moment, Jongin realizes how much he’d missed laughing the way Chanyeol makes him laugh.
“I’d never do such a thing,” Jongin says.
-
Chanyeol continues to be MIA, and Jongin starts to hate how he can’t get back to his regular life. Technically, he is back to his regular life - everything about his life is the same as it was before he met Chanyeol, but, at the same time, it feels very much different. During the day, he goes to the same class at the same time on the same days, and at night he starts the graveyard shift at the same time - which is everyday now, ever since he asked Joonmyun to increase his hours.
But Chanyeol threw a wrench in all of that routine. Even when he’s not there, Chanyeol is still the twist, still there. Much like how a puppy always leaves a group of people much happier than they were before he was there. Much like how his laugh fills Jongin’s thoughts long after Chanyeol has already told him good night.
-
“There’s someone out there for you,” Sehun says upon entering the dorm room that Jongin shares with him.
Jongin’s not liking how Sehun looks so satisfied with himself. Like he know something else, but he’s not going to give Jongin the extra information because doing so would ruin his entertainment - which, to oh Sehun, is the worst possible thing. “Who? And what do you mean ‘out there’?” Jongin asks.
“Why don’t you go see for yourself?” Sehun points to the window.
Jongin throws Sehun a long, hard look before slowly getting up from the bed and walking over to their room’s sole window. Their room overlooks the quad, the area of grass in the middle of all of the dorm buildings on campus. Many students spend their free time out on the quad, to study or to hang out and enjoy the outdoors. Today is no exception, it being a particularly nice day - the quad is busy again, with people lying around in small groups on the grass.
Curiously, though, the area right below their dorm’s window is a bit emptier than the rest, and when Jongin takes a better look, he realizes - with a sharp intake of breath - the reason for that.
Standing in the middle of the emptied area on the quad is Chanyeol.
It's not just him, either. Chanyeol’s with several other people. A guy on another guitar, standing next to Chanyeol. Somebody else - Jongin thinks he’s seen this person before, in his contemporary lit class - is fiddling around the last steps of set up of his drum set. There’s also an amplifier (Jongin thinks that's what it’s called? Chanyeol may have shown him once) and several speakers and microphone stands set up. It dawns on Jongin, with a skip of his heart, that, because Jongin had never gone to see his band, Chanyeol’s brought his band to him.
Hurrying, Jongin cranks open the dorm room’s window and sticks his head out. “Chanyeol?” he yells, finally attracting Chanyeol’s attention from talking to his band mates and making sure everything is set up right. “What are you doing?”
“Jongin!” Chanyeol shouts back, half-panicked, half-excited. “You weren’t supposed to see us yet! Sehun was supposed to tell you to look out your window at three, and right now it’s only two fifty! Oh Sehun, you had one job-“
Behind Jongin, Sehun grumbles something about well he never told me to wait until a certain time. Jongin wants to laugh. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything!” Jongin yells down. “I’ll just come back in five minutes-“
“No, no!” Chanyeol starts jumping up and down, waving his arms around like a lunatic to get Jongin’s attention back before he turns away from the window. Now Jongin's really laughing. “We're ready! I promise!” Chanyeol calms himself down and clears his throat. “Kim Jongin, I have a present for you. Would you hear my song?”
Jongin rests his elbows on the window sill, hoping that's enough to ground him because right now he feels like his heart is so light that he might float right out of the window and into the sky. “Yes,” he says.
-
(“And now,” Chanyeol is speaking into the mic in the center of the stage - where Chanyeol truly shines, Jongin thinks, no spotlight could ever be bright enough for Chanyeol - “before we end tonight, I want to dedicate the next song - the last song - to a very special person-”
-Jongin, realizing what is happening, instantly jumps to his feet to leave-
“-a very, very special person seated at this table right over here-”
-and then very slowly sits down as dozens of pairs of eyes around the bar swivel to stare at him-
“-whom I have been dating for exactly one hundred eighty three days. This song’s for you!”
Groaning to cover up the smile that is threatening to creep up on his face and grow bigger by the second, Jongin plays around with the straw in his drink to hide his embarrassment. He’s surprised that Chanyeol has counted the number of days they’ve been dating - and yet, he’s not surprised, because Chanyeol was that kind of person.
On their way back to the dorms after the show is over, Jongin makes sure to tease Chanyeol is over about still covering “Hey There Delilah” (which Chanyeol had masterfully rewritten the lyrics to Hey There Jonginnie since the day Chanyeol serenaded him on the quad) when all the other songs Chanyeol and his band play are originals.
“Jongin,” Chanyeol says with the dramatic sigh befitting a tortured artist, “No original song I write would ever be good enough for you. You know I’ve tried! You’re the philosophy problem I could never solve.”
Jongin gags at the cheesiness of it all and hits Chanyeol in the arm for it, but he lets Chanyeol wrap his arm around his shoulders as they walk.)
-
Title: The Sunrise Shift
Pairing(s): Chanyeol/Kai
Rating: PG
Warning(s): If you squint, a brief implication of bullying
Length: 5.9k
Summary: Jongin’s life was a regular routine of graveyard shifts at work. And then he met the guitar boy.
The job at the convenience store on the university campus is not as bad as Sehun, his constant roommate and sometimes best friend, makes it out to be, really. There’s not much to complain about. Joonmyun, the storeowner, is nice to everyone and is lenient when Jongin arrives at the store for his shift five minutes late (always. He really tries to be on time - he really does - but he can’t seem to get anywhere on time for the life of him). Jongin works the graveyard shift, the shift that starts at ten at night and ends when the sun rises; Joonmyun, trying to be cheerful and optimistic, prefers to call it “the sunrise shift.” And, yeah, it does get a little lonely at night when it’s just him at the convenience store with the occasional customer wandering in for a midnight ramen snack or quick drink, but Jongin thinks it’s nice to have a little alone time, a small quiet enclave in the middle of stressful college life. He likes the routine of it all, to be able to come here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night of the week to work to enjoy the guaranteed peace like clockwork.
Sehun just likes to complain that Jongin would rather spend time at the convenience store, all by his lonesome, rather than go to Baekhyun’s house party, or stay in the dorm and play video games until dawn.
And, besides, it’s not completely lonely at night in the convenience store. There are some people that Jongin’s quickly learned to recognize from their frequent after dark trips to the convenience store - and, Jongin has to admit, he likes people watching. He doesn’t know if it could be considered creepy or not (Jongin hopes not), but the kinds of characters he sees walking through the store from nine to two in the morning aren’t the typical customers that come during the day, and Jongin fancies that it’s like seeing a different side of campus - a quieter, slightly weirder side.
Quite a few of the late night visitors are nursing students - some of them just coming back from long day shifts and others picking up some quick food before spending the night at the university hospital. There’s also an elderly lady who comes by every so often to pick up a few things (mostly cleaning supplies; why the elderly lady needs cleaning supplies so often, Jongin could only guess); she smiles fondly at Jongin every time she comes up to his register to pay for her items, but never strikes any sort of conversation.
This is another thing that Jongin likes about this job. Most of the customers aren’t really looking for small chitchat or conversation - things that Jongin is horrible at, admittedly. He just can’t do the friendly-smile-strike-up-a-convo-with-a-stranger thing. Usually, outside of his job, in the daytime, Jongin gets around by hiding behind his friends, letting Sehun or Yixing do all the talking. In the nighttime, Jongin doesn’t have anyone to hide behind - but that wasn’t a problem, at the convenience store.
There’s another customer who catches Jongin’s attention - a boy around his age, maybe up to a couple years older, but taller and lankier. He sometimes comes in at midnight, or later - one, two in the morning, always wearing tight skinny jeans and always, always has a guitar slung across his back. Unlike all the other patrons, somber from the late hour of night, this boy always wears a smile on his face. Jongin often catches him perusing the shelves bobbing his head along to some music - except he’s never wearing any headphones, like he’s got his own personal soundtrack playing in his head that only he could hear. He doesn’t buy, only looks (at what, Jongin wonders), but he doesn’t cause trouble in the store, so Jongin doesn’t feel the need to kick him out.
Jongin never talks to him either, though.
-
It’s a Thursday when the guitar boy buys something for the first time. Thursday is one of the two days of the week that the convenience store gets shipments to restock, so Jongin is on unpacking and inventory duties tonight. He’s in the back room, categorizing how many boxes of what they received in today’s shipments, so it’s only when Jongin happens to pass by the back room’s open door and glance up that he sees that the guitar boy is at the cashier’s counter, waiting.
The boy is much taller than Jongin had originally thought, Jongin realizes when he draws up to the cashier register after half-running, half-walking over.
“Ah, sorry!” Jongin panics, “I didn’t know you were waiting to check out, I was in the back, um, looking through inventory, and, uh-”
The stranger’s face breaks into a smile - and Jongin is taken aback at first by how big his smile is, so big it splits his face in half, and a little lopsided. “That’s okay,” the stranger says, and Jongin is taken aback for the second time. The stranger’s voice is deep, much deeper than he’d anticipated. It has a nice, low rumble to it, the kind Jongin wouldn’t mind listening to more. “I don’t mind waiting for you.”
Jongin blushes, wondering if the stranger realizes how his own sentence sounds without context. “Um,” he says, focusing his attention on the products on the counter instead. Two caffeine drinks and a box of band-aids. Hello Kitty ones. Jongin bites back a smile; he’s not judging. “Is this all?”
“Yup,” the stranger says, sounding all too cheerful for past midnight.
Jongin scans the items one by one, carefully placing them into a plastic bag. “That will be five thousand won.”
The stranger hands him the cash, and Jongin can’t help but notice the large callouses on his hands. “Have a nice night,” Jongin says.
He catches the stranger in the eye as he gives him the plastic bag, and when he says you have a good night, too, it sounds like he means it.
-
Jongin doesn’t see him again until three days later. The bell over the store’s front door jingles, and Jongin realizes with a skip that it’s him, striding into the store with the omnipresent guitar slung across his back.
Before he knows it, he’s following everywhere the boy is going around the store with his eyes. He can’t help remember the large, toothy smile that he’d given him several days ago; it’s ridiculous. Jongin has to force himself to keep his eyes down and busies himself with counting the change in the cash register to keep his focus and-
“Just these two drinks please,” a deep voice interrupts.
Jongin nearly jumps out of his skin and most definitely loses count of the change. Well. He takes a deep breath and turns to face the boy and- and promptly loses bravado, so he keeps his eyes trained on the drinks on the counter instead. Two cartons of banana milk. “Six thousand won,” Jongin says.
“What was that?” To Jongin’s horror, the boy bends down so that he’s eye level with Jongin; Jongin finds himself staring into a pair of very large, very brown eyes. He hadn’t taken notice of that last time. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Six thousand won,” Jongin repeats, but in an even tinier voice.
“Oh,” the boy says, laughing a little. He draws back, much to Jongin’s relief. His smile’s turned sheepish now, and he raises a hand to run through his hair, making it even messier than before. “I thought you said something else.”
“That’s okay,” Jongin says. It’s past one in the morning by now, it shouldn’t be hot anymore. Especially not the back of his neck.
The stranger fishes out a wallet from his backpack, a worn thing that’s clearly seen better days. “Man, I love banana milk. I’m, like, addicted to these things.” He hands Jongin some bills. “Do you like them too?”
Jongin stares at him for a second. Is the guitar boy trying to initiate conversation with him? Not one of Jongin’s strong points. “Um,” Jongin says. “They’re good? I used to drink a lot of them when I was younger.”
Handing the boy his change, Jongin congratulates himself for being able to string a couple of sentences together.
“Why not anymore?” The boy asks.
“Well,” Jongin says, puzzled. “No reason?” This is usually the point where the customer takes his purchases and leaves, maybe with a thank you, maybe not. But the boy was still standing there, in front of him. Had Jongin forgotten something? “Ah, do you want a bag for your drinks?”
“Nah,” the boy says. “I only have one drink, so I won’t need a bag.”
“...One…?” Jongin repeats. This boy confuses him.
Looking him square in the eye, the boy grabs Jongin’s wrist to gently turn his hand open and places one of the banana milk cartons in Jongin’s palm. “Here you go. Relive your childhood! We could all use a little of that, from time to time, don’t you think?”
Jongin looks at the carton in his hand, and then back at the grinning boy, and back again. “But- but you paid for this!”
The boy laughs, loud and ringing in Jongin’s ears, like Jongin’s just said the funniest thing in the world. Jongin knows, thanks to Sehun’s repeated statements about this, that he’s not funny at all. “Yeah, and I’m giving it to you. Like a present!”
By the time Jongin looks back up, the boy has already left the counter and is on his way out of the convenience store. “Thank you?”
“See you next time!” The stranger waves.
“O-okay! When’s-?” Jongin says, but there’s nothing left of the stranger except the cheery jingle of the bells hanging over the front door.
-
Jongin is prepared. At the beginning of his shift, he carefully counts out, from his own money, the price of a bottle of banana milk, down to the cent, and sets it aside underneath the counter so that he could take it out right away to repay the strange boy with the wild eyes when he sees him again.
But his preparation is foiled - the guitar boy sees him first, and Jongin’s not at the counter when it happens. He’s restocking the drinks in the refrigerated section, trying to tip the Gatorades into their place on the top shelf, but he can just barely reach it - when all of a sudden he feels somebody coming up from behind him and the bottled drink is plucked out of his hand. Shocked, Jongin turns around and finds himself face-to-chest with the boy.
“Oops,” the boy says, grinning. At this close of a distance, Jongin can almost feel the boy’s deep voice rumbling in his chest and also how much taller the boy than he is. Jongin’s never felt particularly short before, but in this moment he does. “Hope you don’t mind if I lend you a hand here?” With that, he shelves the Gatorade in its place.
Jongin feels his face heat up, trapped between this boy’s (nice, very wide) chest and the shelves.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“You got others? I’ll help you with them.”
“Ah, that’s okay.” Jongin takes a step back and almost loses his balance when the back of his knees hit the bottom fridge section. Would his face stop turning even redder? “I probably should have just gotten a step ladder in the first place.”
“It’s alright,” the boy says. He spots the cardboard box on the floor next to Jongin and grabs a couple more bottles to shelve. “I got a bit of time to kill anyway, since my gig ended a little early tonight.”
“You play in a band?” Jongin immediately feels stupid. “I mean, of course you do, you’re always-“
-And now he feels even stupider.
“Always?” The boy slowly grins. “I always what?”
There’s no way out. “You’re always carrying a guitar,” Jongin mumbles quickly.
The boy grins even wider. “You noticed!”
Jongin decides to change the topic. “You never told me your name?”
“Did you want to know, all this time?” The boy teases, and Jongin feels so embarrassed he wants to punch that stupid attractive grin off the boy’s face. “I’m Park Chanyeol.”
“Chanyeol,” Jongin repeats, letting the name roll off his tongue.
Chanyeol looks amused, looking at him like he’s expecting something. “I’d like to know your name too,” he says, nudging Jongin gently with his elbow, before he shelves some more bottles.
“Oh!” Jongin stammers. Of course. “Jongin. Kim Jongin.”
Chanyeol beams at him, which does absolutely nothing for Jongin’s red face. It’s like guitar boy is made of sunshine. “Now I have something to call you besides ‘the cute boy at the register.’”
Jongin’s face is positively on fire with ten-foot flames by now, if it wasn’t before.
“If you’re free one night,” Chanyeol continues, “maybe you can come out to one of my gigs? We make really good music, I promise.”
Jongin busies himself with filling up the lower shelves with the sports drinks. “Sure,” Jongin says. “I’d like that.”
-
Most nights at the convenience store don’t give Jongin much trouble at all. Since the convenience store is located on the college campus near the dorms, Jongin’s rowdiest customers are the drunk college students, and even then, most of them stop by the store for a quick sobering snack or drink and not to ransack the store or cause trouble. Drunk young people are predictably isn’t an uncommon occurrence at a college campus, but they’re still manageable. (And funny sometimes, too.) Jongin hasn’t had to call the cops on anyone, and as long as he continues not having to do that, Jongin counts the convenience store and the graveyard shift as a good, decent job.
What’s kind of funny is that, to Jongin, while none of his customers seem to pose any trouble - there’s Park Chanyeol.
It gets to the point where, when Joonmyun comes in the morning to relieve Jongin of his shift, Joonmyun notices there’s something off about him and asks if there was a reason why Jongin restocked all the cigarettes in the wrong order by brand name, if there’s anything wrong, does he need to talk? Externally, Jongin apologizes; internally, Jongin wishes that his mind were less occupied (more and more by the day) by a certain guitar-touting boy.
-
“What’s gotten into you lately?” Sehun asks as soon as he sits down at their usual lunch spot - one of the benches in the quad. Jongin thinks Sehun is frowning, but it’s hard to tell when Sehun’s default facial expression is usually leaning towards a frown anyway.
“What do you mean?”
“You just seem kind of…” Sehun searches for the word. “Listless, recently. Like you’ve got something on your mind all the time. And you smile randomly.”
“I do?” Jongin says, alarmed. Does he really smile to himself when he’s not realizing it? Sometimes he calls Sehun a traitor when he eats all of his chips in the dorm but in reality his face is the biggest traitor he has. “No, I don’t think so… There’s no ‘something.’”
“Or maybe I should say someone?” Sehun slyly smiles and Jongin groans aloud. “Come on, out with it, who is it? Who is wooing my best friend? I need to give him the seal of approval first before anything happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Jongin says. He means it; nothing ever happens. “And there is nobody.”
“Curious how the denial of there being nobody came after the denial of anything happening,” Sehun says, smug. “I happen to know, for a fact, that there is somebody.”
Sehun really can be downright infuriating when he wants to be. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Jongin says gruffly as he stuffs more kimbap into his mouth.
“There’s a guy in my javascript class. He heard me talking to Yixing about how a Kim Jongin wouldn’t come and hang out with me anymore.” Sehun pauses for dramatic effect. “A Mr. Park Chanyeol?”
Jongin feels like faceplanting into the grass. “Okay?” Jongin says. “So?”
“He was awfully interested in what I had to say about you, and how I knew you,” Sehun says. If it were possible, he looks even smugger than a couple of minutes ago. “Wanna tell me how he knows you?”
“Not really,” Jongin answers truthfully. “And, somehow, I think you already know.”
“Your mind is sharp as ever,” Sehun drawls. “Chanyeol tells me that he knows you from the convenience store.”
Jongin doesn’t say anything.
“And he brought up the subject of you several times.”
Jongin still doesn’t say anything. But, to himself, he can’t deny he’s not pleased.
Sehun shrugs. “If you want my opinion, he’s decent. A little eccentric and he’s a little hipster in his music choices and turns up his nose at the popular songs, but overall he’s okay. His mouth’s nice, but his legs? But, I mean, you could do worse.”
“His legs are fine!” Jongin says indignantly before he can catch himself. “And, anyway, I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Sehun ignores him. “No wonder why you like working at the convenience store so much. Does he visit you every night? Does he bring flowers? He’s a roses type, I bet. A bit on the boring side, if you ask me.”
“You mean a classic,” Jongin says, even though, no, Chanyeol hasn’t gone so far as giving him flowers.
“Whatever,” Sehun says. “I think you’re smitten and you just don’t want to admit it.” He pauses for thought. “He’s definitely smitten, that’s for sure.”
After Sehun leaves reluctantly for his next class, Jongin takes a moment to sit on the bench because if his heart was going to squeeze any tighter, Jongin thinks he just might pass out.
-
“Since you won’t come out and see me at one of my gigs,” Chanyeol says on one of his night visits, “I thought I'd bring the concert to you tonight.”
Jongin feels his face heat up for the millionth time around this guy, watching as Chanyeol shrugs off the guitar from his back and hops backwards so that he’s sitting on the checkout counter. “I’ve been meaning to come to one of your gigs, but I just-”
Chanyeol shrugs. “It’s okay. It’s not like every night I’m looking out at the crowd searching for your face or anything, hoping you’d be there.” He lets out a bark of laughter when he sees the look of horror taking over Jongin’s face. “Relax, I was just kidding.”
Jongin’s shoulders slump; he feels guilty all the same. How does he explain to Chanyeol that he was afraid of going to Chanyeol’s gig only to find out that he hadn’t been that serious when he extended those invitations to him? “I didn’t think you’d really miss me seeing there,” Jongin admits.
Putting on an exaggerated act of looking affronted, Chanyeol says, “Of course I would. I mean everything I say!” He pats the space on the counter next to him. “Come on up!”
There really isn’t that much space on the counter to fit Jongin, Chanyeol, and his guitar - and Jongin’s face says as much, because then Chanyeol is saying, “It’ll be cozy,” with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows that ends up being hilariously weird and anything but suggestive.
Jongin can’t help but laugh. It starts like a small little rumble somewhere deep inside of him, and then starts bubbling up his throat, until he can’t contain it anymore and lets the laughter spill out of him. More and more bubbles of laughter.
It’s cozy, alright. Chanyeol’s all gangly limbs and sharp elbows and the guitar sometimes pokes Jongin in the side - but he finds that he doesn’t mind.
“Prepare to have your mind blown,” Chanyeol grins at Jongin. At this close of a distance, Jongin swears he could count each individual eyelash on Chanyeol’s eyes. “Bet you won’t ever hear another guitar player like me.”
Jongin gives him a doubtful look, which makes Chanyeol laugh. (It sorta makes Jongin proud. He did that.) “We got a skeptic in the crowd tonight, I see, a hard one to impress,” Chanyeol says, mirth glittering in his eyes. “Well, I’m just going to have pull all the tricks in the trade.”
Chanyeol launches into a song that Jongin doesn’t know; and honestly if somebody had asked Jongin later which songs Chanyeol sang and played for him, Jongin wouldn’t have been able to recount even one of them. Yes, Jongin would never admit it to him but, Chanyeol’s voice is nice and the songs he’s playing are nice, but Jongin is too preoccupied with just simply watching Chanyeol being immersed in playing the guitar that neither of those things really sink in.
Chanyeol plays the entire shift. Sometimes some of the store’s customers would drop some change into Chanyeol’s open guitar case that he’s laid out on the floor in front of him, one of them the elderly lady that Jongin often sees come by. Sometimes Jongin has to leave his spot next to Chanyeol on the counter when a customer wants to check out, but this happened only every once in a while and Jongin always reclaimed his seat afterwards.
“What do you think?” Chanyeol asks after the last song. He’s getting too tired to sing, but his eagerness for approval doesn’t seem to be wearied. Jongin is immediately reminded of a golden retriever puppy awaiting a pet on the head. Cute.
“I think you need to shut up!” Comes a male voice hidden somewhere in the aisles.
Making a face akin to a five year old sticking his tongue out, Chanyeol yells back, “sorry, not any time soon!”
“It was good,” Jongin concedes, stifling his laughter.
Now Chanyeol looks like a kicked puppy. “Only good? Not amazing, stupendous, great?” He cracks a smile. “Now that just means you have to come to one of my gigs to get the full concert experience.”
Jongin plays with the edge of his shirt. “Maybe, one day.”
Chanyeol hops off the counter and begins packing up the guitar, collecting the loose change and some bills that the customers had thrown in the case at the same time.
“Not bad for several hours of playing for a concert of one person,” Chanyeol says. He shows Jongin what he’s collected. “This is going into my college savings account.”
That’s not what Jongin was expecting Chanyeol would say. “College savings account?”
Chanyeol laughs. “What? Is that so surprising? Let me guess- you thought I’d be blowing this on food and alcohol, right?” He doesn’t look offended though. “Nah, I gotta work my way through college. Why do you think I do gigs so often?”
“Because you like music?” Jongin says. He really thought this, all along.
Chanyeol’s blinking at him like he wasn’t really expecting an answer from him, but then his face breaks into a small smile. “True, I do,” Chanyeol says. “I count myself lucky that I can do something I love that earns me a couple of bucks for my tuition as well. Not everybody can do that.”
Jongin thinks about the convenience store job. “Yeah. You’re right.”
-
“You look happy,” Joonmyun cheerfully notes when he comes to relieve Jongin from his shift at the crack of dawn.
Jongin catches himself. “I do?”
“Yes,” Joonmyun nods, starting his usual rundown of checking the store to ready it for the new day. “Did something happen last night? Something good?”
Joonmyun’s questions are good-natured, but Jongin hedges around the questions. “Actually, I was wondering, if you need somebody to cover more graveyard shifts on more days…”
Looking surprised at first, Joonmyun smiles curiously. “Are you sure? I can’t imagine shifts everyday would be good for your schoolwork…”
Jongin tries to rein in his eagerness. “I could use the extra hours,” is all he says.
“Well, Minseok was saying that he wanted to cut back on his hours lately, so, sure, if that’s what you want-”
“Yes,” Jongin smiles. “It’s what I want.”
-
“Joonmyun likes calling it the sunrise shift,” Jongin is saying, swinging his legs back and forth. They're sitting side by side on the counter again, but this time the guitar is left alone in its case.
Chanyeol laughs, loud and boisterous. “Sunrise shift. I actually like that a lot. It puts a positive spin on things? That can never be a bad thing.”
“Figures you would be in the same line of thought as Joonmyun,” Jongin says. He can’t help but smile. “Always wanting to be optimistic.”
“Life’s a downer,” Chanyeol says, “but you don’t have to let it be a downer to you.”
Jongin nods. “That was deep,” he jokes, but Chanyeol’s statement settles deep in his chest.
“So let’s talk about what you like about this job.” Chanyeol smiles. “What makes it a sunrise shift to you?”
Talking to you, Jongin thinks. “I like the solitude,” is what Jongin says instead. “It’s nice to be alone.”
“Sometimes,” Chanyeol says. Jongin doesn’t get what he’s trying to say at first, so Chanyeol elaborates. “Sometimes, though, it’s nice to be alone. Not all the time, right?” His bottom lip juts out. “Or are you trying to hint to me that you don't like it when I visit you?”
“No!” Jongin says quickly. “I mean. Sometimes. Yeah.” He looks down and plays with the popsicle stick in his hand, turning it around and around, wishing he hadn’t eaten the red bean popsicle Chanyeol had bought for him so fast. “You... Come here to visit me?”
Chanyeol stares at Jongin (which Jongin steadfastly ignores by continuing to fiddle around with the popsicle stick) until he bursts out laughing. “Kim Jongin, you are incredible,” he says. “You think I just come here for fun?”
“No... I thought- well, I thought you just come here for a snack or a drink after your gigs. Isn’t that true?” Jongin finally looks at him, from the corner of his eye. “Are you making fun of me?”
Chanyeol reaches over and ruffles Jongin's hair with his hand. “No,” Chanyeol says, “I just think you are a very interesting person.”
For the first time in a while, Jongin feels uncomfortable in a way that doesn't set off flurries in the pit of his stomach. “Interesting?” He's heard that before. There were other ways of saying that, like weird, or strange. Things he’s also heard before. “If that’s the way you think, then...”
“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” Chanyeol says, sensing Jongin’s stiffness. “I just mean, you’re a person who’s hard to figure out and who I want to learn more about.”
Oh.
“I wish you’d talk about yourself more,” Chanyeol continues. He nudges Jongin gently with his elbow. “I feel like I’m always talking and I’m boring you with all of it.”
“You’re not,” Jongin says hurriedly. “I don’t mind at all.”
Jongin sneaks a peak at Chanyeol and finds him beaming back at him.
-
Chanyeol doesn’t visit for an entire week.
At first, after the first day or two of no-show, Jongin just assumes that Chanyeol was sick, or something along those lines. Jongin finds this to be a reasonable explanation to the absence and tries not to think that Chanyeol had gotten bored of him, despite what Chanyeol had told him.
But going into the third or fourth day, Jongin starts worrying more and more. He tries asking Sehun whether he’s seen Chanyeol in class, or whether they’ve met up lately for their project they’re supposed to be working on together, but Sehun huffs that, no, they haven’t because Chanyeol keeps saying he’s too busy to meet up.
But at least that means Chanyeol at least is alive, so Jongin’s relieved that he doesn’t have to file a missing person report. But he still feels oddly disappointed, a hollow feeling that settles in the pit of his stomach.
-
Jongin (kinda, maybe) starts walking with Sehun to his computer programming class on the off chance that Chanyeol decides to show up in class again.
Of course, as life works out in strangest ways, Jongin runs into Chanyeol exactly when he wasn’t trying to run into Chanyeol - literally, running into Chanyeol (late, with his nose buried in a notebook, running as fast as possible) on campus as Jongin was walking to his contemporary literature class (late, again - but he never rushes).
Yelping in surprise from the almost head on collision, Chanyeol bends down and quickly gathers the notebook that’s fallen to the floor.
“Chanyeol!”
Chanyeol looks up and is taken by surprise for the second time. “Jongin! Wow, I haven’t seen you in-”
“-a while,” Jongin finishes. He fiddles with the straps of his book bag. “You don’t visit the store anymore.”
“Ah,” Chanyeol rubs the back of his head. “I’ve been busy… writing songs. I’ve been having trouble lately, and sometimes holing myself up in my room helps…”
“Has it?” Jongin’s already late to class, it doesn’t matter if he’s even later. All he wants is to just keep Chanyeol here for a little while longer before he disappears again.
Blinking at Jongin, surprised with the direct question, Chanyeol says, “Well… no, not exactly. Actually, very far from it. I’m drawing up a blank.”
“Why?”
“The subject is too complicated? I guess?” Chanyeol messes up his hair some more.
Jongin stares at Chanyeol. “What are you writing about?”
“Let’s just say, I feel like it’s like a philosophy problem,” Chanyeol laughs. “But, what is this?” He bends down, teasingly, face to face with Jongin. Those damn round, soft brown eyes again. “Are you telling me that you missed me?”
Blushing, Jongin pushes Chanyeol’s face (and his ear-to-ear grin) away from him, but he feels the laughter bubbling up again. Chanyeol always manages to make Jongin laugh like this. In that moment, Jongin realizes how much he’d missed laughing the way Chanyeol makes him laugh.
“I’d never do such a thing,” Jongin says.
-
Chanyeol continues to be MIA, and Jongin starts to hate how he can’t get back to his regular life. Technically, he is back to his regular life - everything about his life is the same as it was before he met Chanyeol, but, at the same time, it feels very much different. During the day, he goes to the same class at the same time on the same days, and at night he starts the graveyard shift at the same time - which is everyday now, ever since he asked Joonmyun to increase his hours.
But Chanyeol threw a wrench in all of that routine. Even when he’s not there, Chanyeol is still the twist, still there. Much like how a puppy always leaves a group of people much happier than they were before he was there. Much like how his laugh fills Jongin’s thoughts long after Chanyeol has already told him good night.
-
“There’s someone out there for you,” Sehun says upon entering the dorm room that Jongin shares with him.
Jongin’s not liking how Sehun looks so satisfied with himself. Like he know something else, but he’s not going to give Jongin the extra information because doing so would ruin his entertainment - which, to oh Sehun, is the worst possible thing. “Who? And what do you mean ‘out there’?” Jongin asks.
“Why don’t you go see for yourself?” Sehun points to the window.
Jongin throws Sehun a long, hard look before slowly getting up from the bed and walking over to their room’s sole window. Their room overlooks the quad, the area of grass in the middle of all of the dorm buildings on campus. Many students spend their free time out on the quad, to study or to hang out and enjoy the outdoors. Today is no exception, it being a particularly nice day - the quad is busy again, with people lying around in small groups on the grass.
Curiously, though, the area right below their dorm’s window is a bit emptier than the rest, and when Jongin takes a better look, he realizes - with a sharp intake of breath - the reason for that.
Standing in the middle of the emptied area on the quad is Chanyeol.
It's not just him, either. Chanyeol’s with several other people. A guy on another guitar, standing next to Chanyeol. Somebody else - Jongin thinks he’s seen this person before, in his contemporary lit class - is fiddling around the last steps of set up of his drum set. There’s also an amplifier (Jongin thinks that's what it’s called? Chanyeol may have shown him once) and several speakers and microphone stands set up. It dawns on Jongin, with a skip of his heart, that, because Jongin had never gone to see his band, Chanyeol’s brought his band to him.
Hurrying, Jongin cranks open the dorm room’s window and sticks his head out. “Chanyeol?” he yells, finally attracting Chanyeol’s attention from talking to his band mates and making sure everything is set up right. “What are you doing?”
“Jongin!” Chanyeol shouts back, half-panicked, half-excited. “You weren’t supposed to see us yet! Sehun was supposed to tell you to look out your window at three, and right now it’s only two fifty! Oh Sehun, you had one job-“
Behind Jongin, Sehun grumbles something about well he never told me to wait until a certain time. Jongin wants to laugh. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything!” Jongin yells down. “I’ll just come back in five minutes-“
“No, no!” Chanyeol starts jumping up and down, waving his arms around like a lunatic to get Jongin’s attention back before he turns away from the window. Now Jongin's really laughing. “We're ready! I promise!” Chanyeol calms himself down and clears his throat. “Kim Jongin, I have a present for you. Would you hear my song?”
Jongin rests his elbows on the window sill, hoping that's enough to ground him because right now he feels like his heart is so light that he might float right out of the window and into the sky. “Yes,” he says.
-
(“And now,” Chanyeol is speaking into the mic in the center of the stage - where Chanyeol truly shines, Jongin thinks, no spotlight could ever be bright enough for Chanyeol - “before we end tonight, I want to dedicate the next song - the last song - to a very special person-”
-Jongin, realizing what is happening, instantly jumps to his feet to leave-
“-a very, very special person seated at this table right over here-”
-and then very slowly sits down as dozens of pairs of eyes around the bar swivel to stare at him-
“-whom I have been dating for exactly one hundred eighty three days. This song’s for you!”
Groaning to cover up the smile that is threatening to creep up on his face and grow bigger by the second, Jongin plays around with the straw in his drink to hide his embarrassment. He’s surprised that Chanyeol has counted the number of days they’ve been dating - and yet, he’s not surprised, because Chanyeol was that kind of person.
On their way back to the dorms after the show is over, Jongin makes sure to tease Chanyeol is over about still covering “Hey There Delilah” (which Chanyeol had masterfully rewritten the lyrics to Hey There Jonginnie since the day Chanyeol serenaded him on the quad) when all the other songs Chanyeol and his band play are originals.
“Jongin,” Chanyeol says with the dramatic sigh befitting a tortured artist, “No original song I write would ever be good enough for you. You know I’ve tried! You’re the philosophy problem I could never solve.”
Jongin gags at the cheesiness of it all and hits Chanyeol in the arm for it, but he lets Chanyeol wrap his arm around his shoulders as they walk.)
-