Work Text:
1.
"Oh my god, don't look." Said very fast, almost all at once, the only thing Chae-young's hushed voice does is make Eun-hye look up.
"Eun-hye!!" Chae-young hisses, "I said don't look!!"
"Oh," Eun-hye looks back at her phone, even though she hers the jingle of the shop door. If their manager finds out she didn't immediately hide her phone and pretend to be productive, they're both going to be banned from phones on floor for the next week. Ugh.
Both because Eun-hye believes that sharing is caring and she's not going down without bringing Chae-young with her. If she has to give up her lifeline while on shift, they're both going to suffer — that's friendship, truly.
After working this after school job for so long — after the gruelling slog of orientation — the greeting they're supposed to rattle off to every customer is drilled into Eun-hye's mind. She could probably recite it in her sleep, and she knows it's the same for Chae-young.
"Hi Ahjussi!!!" Chae-young chirps, which is not at all what she's supposed to say. Immediately death gripping her phone, Eun-hye tries to play it cool, doing her best to school her face from 'obvious excitement' to 'attentive worker.' There are only three situations where Chae-young goes off script.
One: when their other friends come in to use their staff discount for doughnuts. They're definitely not old enough to be greeting like that and there's a distinct lack of noise.
Two: when Chae-young's actual uncle comes in on his way home from work. It's immediately obvious that it's not Si-hyuk ahjussi because she'd never sound so excited if it was. Not that Chae-young's uncle's a bad guy or annoying or anything, but her friend typically greets family visits with affection rather than… this.
Not that Eun-hye can blame her!
Shoving her phone in her pocket now that she's not going to blow their cover by snapping her head towards the door, Eun-hye moves to stand next to Chae-young, pressing close together so neither man can see the subtle way they begin to elbow each other subtly.
"Nice night," greets the slghtly younger ahjussi. Black hair, handsome face, tall; a suit that means he almost certainly works in one of the offices around here. Given what Eun-hye knows from her own family, the faint shadows under his eyes makes that a 'definitely.' He looks like reliable, she thinks, like the type of guy her dad would compliment if they worked in the same department. This is only remarkable because the other man… doesn't.
Grey hair pulled back into a messy tail which means he's definitely older, even though the wrinkles on his face are subtle. Perpetually slouched so it's impossible to tell whether he's taller than his friend or not — it's required knowledge and Eun-hye's always a little bit annoyed when another appearance comes and goes without any more information on that front. He's always wearing some weird coverall that flatters him exactly as much as a big blue potato sack would — but Eun-hye can see it.
The Vision.
"…Hi…" Jay-ssi manages to say before the pair of them reach the counter. They have a name for him because one time the younger ahjussi addressed him by name and Eun-hye had to find out by text. Last time she swaps her regular Sunday shift to study for a class test! They come to a stop in front of the register and the tiny slip of counter next to it and — yes! Jay-ssi immediately begins to lean against the younger ahjussi!
"What can we get for you today? The usual~?" Even without looking, the smile on Chae-young's face is obvious. Eun-hye elbows her, a quiet little tone it down signal. Chae-young, without so much a twitching any other muscle in her body, elbows her back in an obvious no.
Now don't get it twisted — not like their supervisor, who was here once when the younger ahjussi came in by himself one afternoon, and then wouldn't listen to their very reasonable explanations — they're not into these two old guys.
First of all, they're so old. Even the younger one is definitely older than her eldest hyung! Jay-ssi has grey hair! If she was going to crush on some weird old guy, she'd spend her time mooning at her hyung's stupid, messy friends but Eun-hye doesn't want some guy who's just kind of handsome and isn't a total creep, okay? She has standards! Taste!
Besides, more importantly, she has to keep on top of both studying and all her fanclub commitments. Is there a guy out there who could be more important than both of those things combined? Absolutely not, no matter what her friends have tried to tell her. If Eun-hye ever crushes on some older guy he's gotta be perfect and super pretty and extremely talented, like Youngrin is. Anyone less than that is not worth her time.
Secondly — and most importantly!! — isn't it obvious that these two ahjussi are in love!?
To that her manager had said:
'Don't make up weird stories about customers.'
But Eun-hye and Chae-young know the truth! They cannot be dissuaded by the hardened heart of their manager!
With a years worth of doughnut shop work under her belt, Eun-hye has developed an eye for the types of people who walk in the door. There are people who are serious about their doughnuts; those who've come in on an impulse; there are customers on errands for other people.
These past months, the dark haired ahjussi has become something of a regular. Despite this, he's firmly in the last category — and unless he's pulling nightmare hours at some black company, he's not out on an office job. Usually a six pack, sometimes twelve, and he selects each doughnut individually after giving the display case a look over. Apart from the way he never bought any doughnut with chocolate in it, he was an entirely unmemorable customer.
Until that first, glorious Saturday evening shift when he'd come in with his older 'friend' slinking along in his wake!
They'd stood in front of the display case and the dark haired ahjussi waited patiently for Jay-ssi to talk, no matter how long it took for an answer to appear. Leant against each other, faces heart-poundingly close, Eun-hye had listened as Jay-ssi was chided for trying to choose a chocolate covered doughnut.
Eun-hye had just about died when they'd sat at one of the tables and shared the doughnuts, right there in front of her! It'd taken every bit of willpower she had to remain chill and non-chalant when they shared the first indirect kiss! With the very lemon meringue doughnut that Eun-hye had specifically recommended to them!! Jay-ssi had eaten six doughtnuts, and each time he'd offered his 'friend' a bite, which was taken — usually! While Jay-ssi!! Was still holding the doughtnut!!!!!
As soon as possible after the couple had left that day, Eun-hye had made an excuse to dart away from the counter and hurriedly text Chae-young.
Since then, Chae-young has come to see The Vision as well. Unlike their manager, Chae-young hadn't given her a look in askance or told her how absurd she was. Instead, like the very best friend that she is, she'd started theorising about where he's taking the doughnut boxes whenever he comes in alone.
Eun-hye thinks he's picking them up on the way home from work; Chae-young thinks he's taking them to his boyfriend who's working the nightshift.
And now they're both here, and they're both here! The only way this Sunday could get better was if Youngrin, or Miri-nay, made a comeback announcement. Once the shop's empty again, Eun-hye and Chae-young will dissect every moment of this until their older coworker comes in for the seven til close shift… that they're already late for. Not that Eun-hye cares about that, given it's allowed her to watch The Ahjussis together, up close, after almost a month since their last paired sighting.
Despite the overwhelming urge to stare at both men without blinking, Eun-hye steps to the side and gets ready to load up on the requests as they come through. Probably through design, they never come in together when it's busy. Probably because the younger ahjussi doesn't want to rush his 'friend', despite his slow way of speaking — so thoughtful of him! Jay-ssi is lucky to have a patient boyfriend! Settling in for a wait, Eun-hye is shocked to hear the younger ahjussi say,
"Just one doughnut tonight."
Eun-hye almost drops the box she'd just assembled. For a brief moment, she worries if this is a sign that their relationship is on the rocks — is this one last doughnut for the road?! Will they tearfully split this single doughnut and then walk separate ways down the street? Will she and Chae-young glance out the front window and witness their very own KFC breakup scene???
"New diet?" Chae-young effortlessly fishes for more information while Eun-hye stands there, frozen and panicked. This is why they work so well together, covering for each others flaws with their own strengths; the dream team!
"We have about twenty other shops to visit after this. Don't want to fill up too soon."
"Oh? A special occasion?"
"Winter solstice," the dark haired ahjussi gives a small quirk of his lips. Just over his shoulder, cheek distorting as it presses against his boyfriends neck, the grey haired ahjussi squints in happiness.
"…Longest night of the year," Jay-ssi adds.
Through a combination of years fangirling and pure strength of will, Eun-hye does not squeal her head off. Amazing, amazing. An extended doughnut date! A doughnut crawl! Well, they probably won't be going to only doughnut shops, be realistic Eun-hye. She wonders who organised their route? Maybe the did it together! No, it would be so much cuter if it was a surprise.
Maybe it's their anniversary!
"Wow that sounds so fun! I hope you have a really, really enjoyable time together, ahjussi."
Chae-young probably laid it on a bit thick, given the way the dark haired ahjussi winces at her words — their manager says he's too young to be an ahjussi and that's why he makes this face sometimes but. Come on.
Despite his more obvious signs of being old, Jay-ssi doesn't seem to mind. Or maybe he doesn't mind because of his grey hair and everything? Hm, food for thought - fodder for her and Chae-young's walk to the train station once they clock out.
All Jay-ssi ever does is huff out a laugh while muttering 'ahjussi' directly into his boyfriends ear which — Eun-hye's been thinking about that. She has some work inappropriate thoughts that she has been dying to tell Chae-young about but she needs to wait for their next sleep over. If anyone overhears what she has to say she can never show her face in public, ever again.
"So, what singular doughnut can we get for you tonight?" Chae-young, entirely unaffected by Eun-hye's thoughts, continues acting like a normal staff member. Eun-hye does her best to do the same.
"…Coffee…?"
"Your best selling coffee —" With a single word prompt the dark haired ahjussi starts talking and then immediately cuts himself off. Angling his head, he looks over at his boyfriend who doesn't seem to do a thing. But there must be some secret couples signal that Eun-hye isn't privy to, however, because he turns back to Chae-young and says,
"Your weirdest coffee doughnut, please!"
Eun-hye, wrapper in hand, scans up and down the rows of doughnuts before she swoops in and picks up the doughnut she likes the least out of them all. She doesn't mind coffee as a flavour but it's not her favourite and this one had just been, well. Weird. She'd never recommend it to anyone but when a weird doughnut has been requested, what can she do but acquiesce?
Popping it neatly into a small bag, she hands it over as Chae-young handles the payment. Before the round of 'goodbye, stay warms' are even exchanged, the grey haired ahjussi has pulled the doughnut half out of its wrapper and takes a massive bite. Chewing slowly as they walk towards the door, he gives an odd bob of his head and Eun-hye and Chae-young clutch at each other as they wait.
Grey haired ahjussi holds the doughnut out for his boyfriend who then — yes! — takes a bite, his mouth expertly placed!
With the wisdom of two teenaged girls whose worst nightmare would be discovery, they wait until both men have walked past their front window before the gushing starts.
Barely a metre away from the store, J3's ears twitch at the sudden, high pitched sound erupting from behind them. This happens every time they visit, for some reason; he must be even more out of touch with kids than he'd already thought.
2.
Yeon-woo and Hye-jin have been working this market stall together for… Okay, Hye-jin is not going to do the math on this one because it'll only remind her of how old she's getting. All the accumulated aches and pains, the grey no longer just 'starting' to settle into her hair — at least Yeon-woo's aging gracefully, more and more beautiful with every day that passes. The dashing way her hair has gone salt and pepper, the cute laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, the way her tits sag once they're home and she flings her bra to some unknown corner for Hye-jin to pick up later.
All these years and Hye-jin's still enjoying every minute of it.
All these years and she and her partner don't need to speak in order to talk. It's the sort of intimacy that she'd once assumed she'd never find and while sometimes she takes it for granted, sometimes it still steals her breath away. To throw a quick look over her shoulder and see Yeon-woo looking back. A half smile, a quick wink, and they're both back to work, rejuvenated by the quiet love shared between them.
Keeping an eye out for customers while Yeon-woo cooks an order, Hye-jin spots them immediately. It only takes her a second before she knows what they are, slipping easily from the little column in her mind marked 'potential customers' and instead into something more like 'community.' Now, it's not as though Hye-jin can spot another queer every time, or even most of the time, but these two aren't even trying to be subtle. Walking so closely together they must be getting in each others way, faces so close their cheeks are brushing, a single scarf thrown around two necks; she likes them for it immediately. Even better, they approach the stall.
Hye-jin knew they had good taste!
One of them has grey hair, impossible to tell if it's natural or just a fantastic dye job until he gets close enough that she can see his eyebrows. Almost certainly naturally grey, prematurely grey; she wonders if he bothers him at all. If his pretty boy whispers the same sweetness into his ear as Yeon-woo does to her.
"Wait, let me guess," she says before either can open their mouths. This is a little trick she likes to do, a skill refined over the decades. It's part intuition, part body language — and sometimes it's just because she's got sharp eyes and an excellent awareness of where each menu item is. A single flicker of an eye can tell her exactly what to serve up next. But it's much more impressive when she pretends it's something less logical than that.
"Kkwabaegi?"
One raised eyebrow and one bemused smile; not exactly the best reactions she's ever gotten but not unimpressed, either.
"…You're good."
"Eh, I try." Despite her words, Hye-jin knows she's preening. "Two?"
"Just the one," says the same man who pulls out his wallet. His eyes flick from her to Yeon-woo and maybe he reads them just as well as she did to him, because he adds, "we'll share."
It's not an especially grand announcement, not something people would overhear and gossip about. People like them are even on TV, now, as more than just a joke — there's a whole world of people who don't still, habitually, relapse into the realm of plausible deniability at the drop of a hat. But there are still plenty of people like her, like this man, who still live and love in subtle ways, even if they're also sometimes bold enough to take their lover's hand in public.
So, no, it's no grand love confession. But Hye-jin knows, and this man knows, and for a moment the quiet camaraderie in it warms her right through.
(She only gives them one kkwabaegi — let them have their quiet intimacies — but if she slips one or two other things into the bag, well. Who could blame her!)
(Yeon-woo. Yeon-woo will blame her and sigh about profit margins and then kiss her stupid anyway.)
3.
Hyeon, despite having worked here part time for the past three years, does not have playlist privliges. Given the employee turn over, he's the most senior member of the team apart from their manager, but that lady remains tight fisted over something as inconsequential to customers but momentous to employees as the music.
It's just about eight thirty on a Sunday night and Hyeon can tell you, from excruciating experience, that it's been dead for twenty minutes and will continue to be dead for another thirty. If he's lucky, a customer or two will wander in before close, but other than that it'll just be Hyeon, the sickly smell of all these damned doughnuts, and this. fucking. music.
Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with the music constantly bopping from their speakers. Objectively it's good music, even. Popular. Hyeon's not the type of person who pretends he doesn't like anything that's popular or something like that; in fact, he used to like most of these songs! He used to have several of them on his own playlists but now, whenever he hears a single one of them outside of work, he's compelled to change the music.
Sometimes, if his manager is feeling especially bold, she'll hit the 'shuffle' button.
Otherwise it's just the same songs, in the same order, on a two and a half hour loop.
Admittedly, that doesn't seem too bad — but Hyeon's been working here for three years. Over three years, technically, and for those years it has been the exact same playlist. Every shift. He doesn't even have to look at the clock to know the time, anymore — where in the playlist, how many times a song has played, tells him everything he needs to know.
He needs a new job.
He needs some agency!
…He needs to graduate uni already.
As the hauntingly familiar sounds of a song he once loved blare through the speakers — the Nation's Siblings his own, personal enemies — a sound every bored worker both loves and dreads is heard overtop it. The jingle of the door; customers; something to do that isn't wiping down counters or nudging already perfectly aligned tables and chairs out of and then back into place. If this was a different sort of doughnut store, maybe he'd have something to do in the long stretches of quiet, but all their doughnuts are made off-site and all Hyeon has to do is pack the display case.
Standing up from his lean, Hyeon's well practiced greeting is cut short when he sees the two men coming through the door. They're both the type of guy his coworkers would quietly squeal over; tall, sharp featured, neither exactly slim in the shoulders. One of them even has grey hair like he's some sort of idol — or someone in a much less reputable industry.
No matter what his colleagues would think, no matter what his girlfriend would say about him judging someone based on a dye job, Hyeon trusts his own instincts.
On the back of his neck, every single hair is stood on end. His heart's beating a nervous pulse in his ears and throat. There's nothing explicit he can point to, nothing he'll be able to properly explain if anyone asks, but —
These men cannot get out of his store fast enough.
"Last time I was here, I think I got you —"
Last time!? Clearly Hyeon hadn't been on shift then, which his greatful for, but does this mean the guy comes here sometimes? Occasionally? Regularly? Hyeon'll do his best to find out and then avoid those shifts religiously. His manager won't like it but then, she doesn't like much within the bounds of this shop. Maybe they should both quit and do something that doesn't suck the life from the very marrow of their bones.
As the men converse in front of the display case, Hyeon realises that he hasn't greeted them. Hasn't done any of the good, polite staff things he should be doing. He realises this and then continues to not do anything. He'll nod. He'll pack up whatever they buy. He'll ring them up. Then, finally, they'll be gone and Hyeon can laugh about this later. Make fun of himself about how rattled two customers made him.
When he meets the eyes of the dark haired man over the counter, Hyeon gives a jerky nod and presumably picks up the correct doughnut. He doesn't remember, but since he wasn't corrected, he assumes he successfully auto-piloted it.
The man has red pupils.
They must be contacts, surely, but… Hyeon doesn't think so. He rings them up and doesn't meet either of their eyes again. Stares at their hands, instead. Strong, calloused; the grey haired man has scars.
Hyeon thinks of a nightmare he had, years ago. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over an—
The bell above the shop door rings, high and clear and jarring.
The shop is empty.
His parents took him to a mudang.
Hyeon's hands are shaking.
Trembling.
When he tries to laugh, his voice breaks.
He quits.
"…That kid…" J3 pauses, taking another bite. Soleum can still taste the strawberry-ginger flavour in his own mouth. He wants to taste it again, he thinks, eyes intent as he watches J3's mouth.
"Yeah?"
Their shoulders bump as they walk down the street. Longest night of the year means they've got plenty of time before J3 has to get back. Even after more than half a dozen stops, they've still got hours and hours before the sun starts to rise. Soleum's been wondering if J3 might like to come back to his apartment, for a little while.
Is that too forward?
It'd be a shame to ruin an honestly good night by fumbling at the last minute.
"…Nevermind," J3 shrugs, taking another bite of the doughtnut. There's some icing clinging to his lips. Soleum wipes it off before he can second guess himself, then sucks his thumb clean. For a moment, J3 eyes him with an unfamiliar sort of hunger, more like the wolf that lurks in his skin than the man Soleum knows.
It's not an unpleasant feeling, to be looked at like that. It gives him just enough courage to open his mouth again.
"Would you like to. I… I have an apartment. I mean —" Soleum cuts himself off, because he did mean, he's just too much a coward to throw the words out into the air between them.
"…Yeah." It doesn't seem like a wholehearted yes, but that heat returns to J3's face. With his free hand he reaches out and holds Soleum's. Despite having already sucked J3 off under the security desk during lunch break three days ago — and two days before that, and a few days before that, and the hand job, and the leisurely fingerf— . Well. After all that, it's ridiculous that this is what makes him giddy.
They hold hands through the next three doughnut shops and then all the way into Soleum's apartment.