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Skeptics and True Believers
Title: Skeptics and True Believers
Pairing: Kyungsoo/Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Rating: PG
Words: 9,500
Summary: Professionalism isn't always required, especially when one works a dead end job at a suburban furniture store, but sometimes it is still nice to maintain such.
Notes: written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
troisbang.
Skeptics and True Believers
There’s something peaceful about an empty furniture store at night. Kyungsoo’s tucked into one of the display beds (against his own policies) next to two other sleeping bodies. There’s the occasional kick of the feet, the frequent exhale of breath, and the incessant hum of the air conditioner, which, with enough imagination, sounds like the whisperings of a ghost. Kyungsoo almost chuckles that he even came to that comparison, an absurdity that wouldn’t even have crossed his mind before.
The root of this absurdity, Kyungsoo thinks, began with that managerial promotion and the reluctant hiring of a new employee. Someone kicks again and the blankets twitch. Kyungsoo's thoughts rush of the bright possibility of his future and his heart beats twice as fast but not necessarily from the idea of stepping up the corporate ladder, from something else entirely. Something warm. The ghosts whisper and Kyungsoo closes his eyes.
ϟ
The real reason why Kyungsoo, who’s been recently promoted, holds these weekly meetings is that he likes the sound of his own voice—at least this is the popular opinion held by his employees. Lu Han pretends to stare out the window when he's really checking out his own reflection, Jongdae pretends to study the meeting notes when he's really sleeping, and Yixing pretends to listen to Kyungsoo when he's really staring at Lu Han.
Kyungsoo taps his fingers to the rhythm of the air conditioner and peers over the plant in the middle of the table.
"First order of business: Zitao, you can’t sleep on the beds.” Kyungsoo folds his hands. "I'm paying you to sell mattresses. I'm not paying you to model them.”
"But how about—"
"Off hours is still not acceptable."
Zitao has this dejected expression, which disappears when Lu Han pats his thigh reassuringly, probably adding in a gentle caress for good measure. He smiles at Zitao, eyes full of sincere sympathy. It’s very convincing—Lu Han has been the Star Employee for the third consecutive month and he's never stuck with mundane tasks like inventory. He has a sweet smile and a natural wink, which is also why he gets commission on everything. He can sell everything—Yixing kicks Zitao’s chair.
"Second order of business: we, unfortunately, have a new employee."
Zitao raises his hand, indifferent to Yixing’s kicking. Kyungsoo sighs.
"I thought we were under budget cuts." Zitao is always the only attentive one during meetings. He hasn't worked here long enough and is still under the impression that this place is a stepping-stone to his real dream, something in the fashion industry. Kyungsoo has yet to see the real correlation there. "I thought this is why you rejected my proposal to improve our required work attire."
"Yes." Kyungsoo pinches the bridge of his nose, rubs in circular motions to try and relieve the pressure in his brain. None of Zitao’s proposals ever fit in the budget anyway, even before the cuts. "But he's a friend of the family, very distant friend, just graduated. Apparently, nobody is hiring."
He decides his employees don't need the details about the long phone calls his mother had been making to him all week regarding this very issue. Don't you remember him? He used to make you mud pies. You use to eat them. She had said. Kyungsoo really doesn't remember. He was very young and in the toddler stage of his life when they moved to the next neighborhood and thereby left his childhood playmate behind. It might count as a distant memory, but definitely not something worth remembering.
Kyungsoo massages his nose some more. Zitao raises his hand again.
"No. You're salaries are not going to be affected."
Zitao puts his hand down.
Lu Han bats his eyelashes. Liking the way the sunlight catches them, he lets out a sigh. The breathy sound mingles in with quiet mumblings of the room. Yixing sighs as well.
“This will probably only be temporary. I’m assigning him to inventory.” Kyungsoo looks nonspecifically at Yixing, as if incriminating him with something. Zitao writes this down on his yellow notepad with Jongdae’s pen; his own ran out of ink.
Somebody claps under the table, probably glad that they no longer have to do inventory, probably Yixing. Kyungsoo massages his nose some more, decidedly more irritated.
When Baekhyun finally joins the meeting thirty minutes late, bursting through the doors with a smug expression and ruffled hair like he just woke up from bed, he should consider himself especially lucky that Kyungsoo doesn't fire him on the spot.
Kyungsoo takes a very deep breath. Baekhyun abuses their friendship entirely too much.
Lu Han, however, looks particularly jubilant and perks up immediately, dragging his eyes away from the window to smile smugly in Baekhyun’s general direction, because this means he’s just secured his Star Employee position for this month. If Baekhyun were more punctual, he would have been a valid rival.
Kyungsoo glares with his fingers on his nose as Baekhyun slides into the empty seat beside him. Baekhyun, a bit cocky about his attendance to work, or non-attendance, because Kyungsoo is his friend, chews on his bottom lip to suppress his laughter. He doesn’t exactly like to brag about special privileges, but Baekhyun is sure he has them.
“Third…” Kyungsoo begins slowly, eyes still fixed on Baekhyun, “we have one employee restroom. And it is adjacent to my office. Let’s keep that in mind the next time we use company facilities for any unauthorized activities.”
Kyungsoo looks each of his employees over, as if incriminating them all with something.
He possibly has a fourth point, but by then no one is even pretending to listen. Baekhyun is twirling a pen around his fingers and everyone is fascinated by it.
Kyungsoo is too, for a very small moment.
"Meeting dismissed." He slumps back into his chair, headache worsened.
The air conditioner coughs a few times and Kyungsoo imagines small puffs of dust escaping the vents. This is his precious furniture store begging him for a renovation. Budget cuts. Kyungsoo sighs some more.
Baekhyun pats his back and Kyungsoo can’t help but smile at him, albeit a rather threatening smile. The former opens his mouth to say something, probably an excuse of the sorts for his tardiness but then Kyungsoo’s phone rings and he decides otherwise.
There’s a flurry of paper collecting and hushed whispers. Jongdae finally wakes up when Zitao nudges him on his way out. Jongdae smacks his lips, tasting the unpleasantness of his own marinated saliva, and follows Yixing, who's following Lu Han, out of the meeting room.
Kyungsoo’s head rolls to the side as he lazily glances at the caller id. It’s his mother.
ϟ
He meets his mother for dinner at a restaurant near the edge of the city—somewhere with spacious parking spots she had requested.
It probably says something about his own life that the only plans he has on a Friday (the only plans for the past few weeks in fact) are with his mother. It’s not like he’s actively searching for more anyways. Work is quite consuming especially with the promotion, he thinks.
She has this look on her face when Kyungsoo sits down across the table from her. There’s a smile she’s fighting back and words of gratitude that they both silently take for granted. She takes his hands into hers, greeting him. Kyungsoo feels like a teenager again.
“You look tired.” She says. She means thank you for doing this.
Kyungsoo nods and sips on his water.
“I already ordered for the both of us.” She takes her hands back and sips on her own water, smiling more as she does so.
Kyungsoo watches one of the couples at a table near them. The guy is waving his hands dramatically, probably trying to narrate an impressive story. Kyungsoo snorts, sourly.
“He’s really a sweet kid.” She says with a bit of forced enthusiasm referring to the soon to be new employee, or maybe Kyungsoo just imagines that part.
He nods silently.
“Tell me, how are you?” She says as the waiter brings them the food. “Have you met anyone… you know, since—”
“—No…” Kyungsoo stares at the geometric pattern of the tablecloth, trying to decipher the shapes, maybe piece together a face. “No I haven’t.”
She just smiles again and begins cutting her chicken.
There might be nothing exciting about his night, but at least it's comfortable. His mother laughs at all of his jokes.
ϟ
Kyungsoo has one of those introspective moments when he’s sitting at the foot of his bed and kicking his shoes off. Its scenes like these, quiet nights with lingering taste of watered down wine, that remind Kyungsoo of him. Usually he’d be the one to unlace Kyungsoo’s shoes and set them against the wall next to the door. There would've been a bit of whispering, maybe a bit of touching, but there always would've been the warmth. He sees a flash of a smile. Kyungsoo thinks, if anything, that’s what he misses the most, the slight rise in temperature.
It’s this flood of feelings from a time before (read: three weeks ago) that has him suddenly itching to dial a familiar number. The vindictive part of Kyungsoo wants him to be having dinner with his mother on a Friday too. That way, Kyungsoo would feel a little less boring, like it’s a competition or something.
Instead he stares at his shoes against the wall, a feeling of inferiority simmering in his stomach.
At least Kyungsoo has his managerial promotion to brag about if they ever happen to run into each other again. There’s a bit of an ache in the heels of his feet, from patrolling around the store too much—mostly from trying to prevent his employees from lounging on the merchandise. Kyungsoo chuckles, bitterly.
ϟ
Zitao has a proposal for attracting more customers, something along the lines of very expensive advertising.
“As a sacrifice for the company,” Zitao brushes his fringe to the side, “I would gladly offer my face as the face of EXO FURNITURE.”
Kyungsoo drums his fingers against the surface of his desk, thumbing through the file Zitao has just presented him.
“I don’t think billboards are really necessary.” He traces the elaborate advertising designs. “Billboards don’t really fit into our budget.”
Zitao’s logic is that with more advertising, there’d be more customers, and more revenue, and then they’d be able to do away with budget cuts and finally improve their uniforms. Zitao tugs at his company issued polo, a distasteful olive green with Sofa, So Fine on the back that Kyungsoo had designed himself.
Kyungsoo sometimes thinks that Zitao has more invested in the shop than he does himself. Maybe he should offer him a raise. Zitao continues tugging at his shirt, grimacing rather rudely, and Kyungsoo drops the idea of a raise.
“I like the uniforms.” Baekhyun pops into the office, uninvited. His own olive green polo recently ironed and tucked into his khaki pants. He reads over Kyungsoo shoulders and swallows his laughter at the ridiculous proposals. Kyungsoo thinks briefly about abusive friendships and Zitao scowls.
There’s a faint jingle of the bells on the door and a fresh pair of feet that walk into the store.
Lu Han, thinking it’s the first customer of the day, dashes out of his seat at the vanity and bombards the newcomer. He adjusts the collar of his company issued polo. The olive green is delightfully flattering on him, Yixing thinks, from his cracked door of the storeroom.
“Hello. Welcome to EXO FURNITURE. What can I help you with. My name is Lu Han. This way please.” Lu Han touches light fingers to the stranger's forearm and leads him through the center aisle of the store. “I assure you we have this season’s latest selection, amazing woodwork, and very affordable payment plans.”
Lu Han’s eyes sparkle. The newcomer eyes the suspiciously small store and makes each step with caution. He stops abruptly near the dining room section and appears disinterested in the furniture. Lu Han looks a little displeased, but he masks it with one of those smiles. If there were anyone that could convince a customer that yes a complete remodel of their home is entirely necessary, it would be Lu Han. He is not star employee for nothing.
“Is there anything specific you have in mind? We have,” Lu Han coughs, “a large array.”
He smiles, fingers brushing at the stranger’s forearm again, tugging him towards a table. He winks, too. Somewhere Yixing kicks a shelf and a lamp crashes to the floor.
“Um… I’m here about a job?”
“Yes,” Lu Han’s smile doesn’t falter. He runs his hand over the top of the table. “but can I still interest you in a new dining room set, perhaps? Finest oak.”
“Where is your manager?” The itch in the stranger's arm is telling him that it is indeed a very nice table. However, he doesn’t own a place of residence to put that table in. He stares, instead, at the discolored tile.
Lu Han lets his smile fall and points to the back, rather grudgingly.
Kyungsoo sneezes when a third person joins them in the office, interrupting his own losing argument against Zitao.
“Hi I’m Park Chanyeol.” Chanyeol lets himself into the office and doesn't shut the door behind him.
He extends his hand in the most professional of ways, and through the sternness of his grip, Kyungsoo is actually quite impressed, despite all of his under-qualifications detailed in his file. Kyungsoo had only briefly glanced at it this morning and noted the zero work experience and questionable college degree. He is still mildly impressed, nonetheless, at this initial professionalism.
Chanyeol smiles, radiating endless optimism like he just landed his dream job.
Kyungsoo pities him a bit.
“Welcome aboard. I'll be with you in one moment.” He smiles too, adding more enthusiasm into the handshake. "Um, Baekhyun get him a shirt."
Then he turns his attention back to Zitao.
Baekhyun nods obligingly and motions for Chanyeol to follow. There's a cabinet in the back of the office with extra shirts. Baekhyun is very familiar with Kyungsoo's office, for obvious reasons.
Zitao and Kyungsoo continue to argue and Baekhyun has difficulty finding one that fits Chanyeol longitudinally and latitudinally: it's either too wide or too short. He holds out the array of ill-fitting shirts. Chanyeol picks one that's too short and later, whenever he raises his hands at meetings in future weeks, would flash the pale expanse of his stomach.
Shirt dilemma dealt with, Baekhyun stands up and is suddenly unable to make up his mind whether to look at Chanyeol or not. He doesn't know what to study first, his towering height, the toothy smile taking up a large proportion of his face, or the thick framed glasses taking up the rest of the proportion of his face. Baekhyun points to the chair, offering Chanyeol a seat as if this were his office.
Chanyeol looks happy about his free shirt, pushing his glasses up his nose as he sits down and hooks his feet around the legs of the chair. There's something about glasses that makes a person look incredibly intelligent. Baekhyun, unadmittedly, thinks.
Chanyeol strokes the shirt in his lap, eyes taking in the expanse of the small office. He swipes a finger across the underside of Kyungsoo's desk, collects the dust, and smells his finger. Kyungsoo, who's reminding Zitao to please stay away from the bedroom section, doesn’t notice and Chanyeol nods his head approvingly.
Baekhyun, who is paying attention, decides to be hospitable. He fumbles with the miniature coffee machine installed inside one of the large drawers of Kyungsoo's desk and makes, with a bit of added difficulty from nervousness or something like that, one cup of steaming coffee. His intention is to set it in front of Chanyeol.
However, he misses the desk and spills the scalding liquid onto Chanyeol's lap instead.
"I AM SO SORRY. OH MY GOD. MY BAD. I'M—THIS IS HORRIBLE. I'M SO SORRY." Baekhyun shouts, frantically, and before Chanyeol can even properly react, Baekhyun showers him in tissues. Kyungsoo stops mid-sentence, mouth opened, and blinks.
He dismisses Zitao, deciding that he can only deal with one problem in his office at a time.
Zitao pushes his own glasses up, studies Chanyeol's glasses, Chanyeol's conspicuously dark hair roots, and the coffee stain on his pants and brand new company issued polo, both of which he's uselessly dabbing at, and bursts out in rude laughter. The stained shirt is very fitting for his argument. Kyungsoo glares and Zitao collects his files quickly, planning to casually pitch his ideas when Kyungsoo is in a more susceptible mood to change his mind about necessities and budget cuts.
Momentarily, Kyungsoo forgets what to say. He watches Chanyeol breathe heavily, his only physical response to the burning coffee, as he stares at the wet spot on his pants and his new shirt. His overall expression remains rather expressionless. Kyungsoo doesn't know what to think about that.
Once Baekhyun has successfully offered the last of the office's tissues, he goes limp, unsure what to do with himself. He picks up the fallen over cup, now with only a drop of liquid inside, and blushes.
Chanyeol folds his hands over the stain in his lap and stares expectantly at Kyungsoo.
"Just. Sit." Kyungsoo barks when Baekhyun's about to make another cup of coffee. He points to the chair next to Chanyeol—though, Kyungsoo's not really sure why Baekhyun's presence is even necessary in the first place.
Chanyeol smiles again with that unwavering optimism, coffee incident completely forgotten about. Kyungsoo feels like he’s remembering something from his childhood. A picture of a mud pie and a toothy grin flash across his thoughts, but maybe because he thinks he should be remembering something and it's just a fabricated memory. He digs out Chanyeol's file from his desk.
Baekhyun, meanwhile, whistles an unfamiliar tune and studies Chanyeol through his peripherals. Kyungsoo casually flips through the file. He squints about half way down the page.
"Tell me about…" Kyungsoo's eyes land on an item in the education section of his resume and he's not sure if he's chewing on the bottom his lip to prevent an outburst of laughter or an outburst of rage. He takes a deep breath and thinks about his mother. "Tell me about this college major of yours."
Baekhyun tries to lean over the desk and peek at the file.
"Paranormal Studies?" Chanyeol whispers it as if it were some sort of secret.
A heavy silence ensues.
There's something about the way Chanyeol's glasses move up and down when he talks about the metaphysical universe that has Baekhyun cease his whistling and instead, grip the edge of his plastic chair, heart swelling and pulse decidedly faster. He's not exactly talking about science but he seems so knowledgable regardless. So interesting.
Kyungsoo stares.
"So what’s the pay like?" Chanyeol’s smile never seems to go away. Kyungsoo feels the onset of a stomach ache at the thought of paying this guy.
"I—" Kyungsoo begins without an idea of how he would finish the sentence.
Baekhyun takes the opportunity to cut in, knuckles turning white from his grip on the chair. All of the aspects of Park Chanyeol within the last five minutes of knowing him have added up to become a person Baekhyun cannot simply pass up on befriending.
"LET ME GIVE YOU A TOUR." He says, trying to bite back his enthusiasm, and jumps out of his seat.
Chanyeol finds himself literally being dragged by the collar without a second of hesitation. He finds only a brief window of a moment to shout a goodbye—
"THANK YOU."
—and stealthily tuck a stalk of Catnip into the bookshelf on his way out. For good luck, he had read somewhere in a book or saw on tv.
Kyungsoo finds it, partially rotted, a week later.
Chanyeol takes a liking to the bedroom section, Baekhyun observes. He strokes the duvet as they walk by. Baekhyun slows his pace, as if trying to savor the tour. He'd already shown off the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. It's like taking him around his house, Baekhyun chuckles, nervously.
Chanyeol, now changed into his company-issued shirt, rubs his stomach absent-mindedly where the coffee stain is.
"It's okay," Baekhyun nods towards the bed, blood rushing in his ears for unknown reasons, "as long as Kyungsoo doesn't see you."
Kyungsoo had adopted the Do Not Touch the Merchandise policy even before his promotion to manager. He has always held steadfast belief in professionalism.
Chanyeol's eyes light up, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he sits at the foot of the bed. Baekhyun sits as well. The mattress dips from their collective weight and Baekhyun feels himself leaning into Chanyeol.
A very quick tangential thought flashes across his mind, something about thank god Kyungsoo and his budget cuts did not install surveillance cameras, and Baekhyun looks sheepishly over at Chanyeol.
"So—"
"—Shhhh," Chanyeol whispers. "Do you feel it? The positive energy?"
The air conditioner suddenly kicks on, the inconsistent draft billowing through Chanyeol's messy curls. His eyes are closed like he's meditating. Baekhyun, on the other hand, thinks he looks incredibly intelligent.
Kyungsoo doesn't know exactly how to react. His forehead dramatically meets the desk. No wonder no one is hiring.
He thinks about the list of people to call and complain to. He thinks of one person, well he thinks of two, but the second one is no longer a valid option. Maybe a few weeks ago, that number would have been his first instinct, his go-to every time he wanted to whine—a few weeks ago Kyungsoo had called and heard a different voice on the other end, unfamiliar and a little out of breath, and when he had taken the phone back, his voice had reeked of guilt. Kyungsoo was never good at reading into things, he thinks in retrospect, maybe that's where it all went wrong.
He calls his mother again. Instead of being of any emotional support, she insists that Chanyeol is a sweet boy and that his mother is sweet also and that Kyungsoo should give him a chance and that unfortunately she has to cancel their dinner plans next week. Kyungsoo decides, after hanging up and staring thoughtfully at his miniature fish tank, he needs to find new people to listen to his problems.
ϟ
Baekhyun starts showing up for work on time, coincidentally. Jongdae still sleeps, maybe a bit less or maybe Kyungsoo is just seeing things through an optimistic lens. He celebrates still with caution this improvement in professional behavior.
Kyungsoo buys them donuts for the next meeting, grocery store ones and not bakery to be safe. His management philosophy is to celebrate when necessary but not to indulge. Zitao, of course, wants to know how donuts fit into the budget. He has files ready, for rebuttal.
ϟ
"He came by the house yesterday."
"What?"
"He said you weren't home when he went by your apartment and so he dropped a box off at the house." His mother says, nonchalantly, while twirling her noodles. "Just remember to come by and get it."
Kyungsoo counts on his fingers, this is the fourth Friday night he's spent with his mother. Does he know that? It's not a competition, except it is. That's how break ups are, at least Kyungsoo thinks so.
"Ok…"
He should've returned the those belongings weeks ago. Kyungsoo doesn't know if it's an honest mistake or if it's a point he's trying to prove—Kyungsoo has a flash of his smug grin—it could also be a spiteful apology of sorts and if that's the case, Kyungsoo has lost this round.
ϟ
The thing about special privileges is that, unofficially, Baekhyun has them. Baekhyun always spends lunch in Kyungsoo's office instead of crowding around the one table in the break room with the other employees. Kyungsoo says he doesn't have time to order takeout and thus has Baekhyun do it. The part where they eat together is just a side effect.
The thing about unofficial privileges is that Kyungsoo is unsure why they have extended to Chanyeol. Moreover, he's unsure why Chanyeol thinks it's okay to not only eat in Kyungsoo's office, but also eat from Kyungsoo's bowl. Baekhyun says he was too busy to order take out and thus had Chanyeol do it.
"Are you going to eat that." Chanyeol points to Kyungsoo's food, untouched because he's busy trying to process the scene.
Baekhyun has his nose buried in his own food and does not appear to exhibit any emotion. Kyungsoo, still cradling his untouched food, doesn't like when his routines are intruded upon.
"I ordered something different for everyone." Chanyeol points to Kyungsoo, Baekhyun, and himself. He picks another piece of chicken from Kyungsoo's bowl. "Try some of everything."
Kyungsoo's about to kick him out of his office, but then Baekhyun perks up, smacking his lips, and smiles at Chanyeol as if silently saying good idea. He scoots his chair a bit closer to Chanyeol and sticks his spoon into Chanyeol's rice. Kyungsoo, momentarily, forgets about kicking anyone out. Baekhyun has this piece of rice at the corner of his mouth and Kyungsoo stares at it throughout the rest of his break. Later, Chanyeol is the one that flicks it off.
ϟ
It's not that Chanyeol is a useless employee, Kyungsoo reassures himself, it's that he just isn't made for things like inventory, or customer service, or handling the cash register, or even janitorial tasks involving a bucket and a mop. There is a special job out there for him. Somewhere. Chanyeol has just yet to stumble upon it.
As a last resort, Kyungsoo makes Chanyeol his secretary. He has a desk outside Kyungsoo's office, in the hallway just behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY DO NOT ENTER door, and affirms that everyone who visits does indeed have an appointment. It's an extraneous job, but at least it's an improvement on Chanyeol standing guard at the store entrance and greeting every customer by sprinkling holy water on them.
It's not his fault, Kyungsoo breathes, adhering to the kind of positivity his mother wants him to think, he's just trying to protect the store… from spirits. Evil ones.
He has good intentions. Kyungsoo makes himself another cup of coffee from his desk. His miniature fish watch him from the miniature tank.
ϟ
Baekhyun knows this is against the rules, not that he's a stickler for them in the first place. He just doesn't like being on Kyungsoo's bad side, too much. They are friends after all, old friends, and he likes his privileges.
Chanyeol, probably deciding that Baekhyun is a friendly and susceptible enough person, asks him if he wanted to see something cool. He had read somewhere that the store was in close vicinity to a cemetery and thus he wanted to witness something, anything. Kyungsoo didn't even flinch when the two of them offered, with relatively reserved enthusiasm, to stay late and lock up.
"Do you really, you know, study ghosts." Baekhyun shivers and imagines that he can see his own breath. Chanyeol had turned the thermostat down very low. Necessary, he said it was, for what they were trying to do. Baekhyun, lying on his stomach between the sheets, inches closer to Chanyeol for warmth.
"The metaphysical universe. Yes." Even with his pretentious tone, Chanyeol secretly likes talking about this, especially with Baekhyun. Baekhyun has eager eyes and seems to take Chanyeol very seriously, very easily so. There are less a handful of people who take Chanyeol seriously. He likes this.
"How do you do it?"
"Hmm?"
"Ghosts. Do you talk to them?" Baekhyun's lying on his stomach with his face buried in the display pillow, and he takes in a big whiff, which is a bad idea because it's very dusty. "How?"
"Shhh…" Chanyeol holds a finger up to his lip. He shifts, leaning slightly closer to Baekhyun. For warmth. "If you're quiet, if you listen, you can hear them."
They fall into a comfortable silence, listening intently for something, anything. Baekhyun stares across the center aisle at the bathroom. The ghostly porcelain seems to glow.
For a moment he hears something, a mechanical moan. It echoes throughout the empty store, low and rumbling and sounding faintly melancholic. Chanyeol looks over and smiles. He hears it too. A whisper. A secret. Something.
Baekhyun knows, subconsciously, that it's just the outdated air conditioning system, but it's nice to believe. He takes another whiff of the dusty pillow and ends up in a coughing fit. Chanyeol glares at him for breaking the silence.
ϟ
Most of the time Kyungsoo doesn’t understand the point of having employees if they’re so incompetent at the job they’re hired for, or maybe he is just especially bitter for having to stay late and redo the entire inventory spreadsheet himself. He thinks he really ought to fire Yixing, who seemingly cannot correctly make a list of the things in stock and not in stock or refrain from breaking lamps. And Jongdae too, who Kyungsoo's seen sleep more often than not. But then Lu Han would quit, unadmittedly because of Yixing's dismissal, and Zitao, inspired by everyone else's actions, would ask for a transfer to somewhere where his presence and ideas would be better appreciated. Then Kyungsoo would be left with only Baekhyun and Chanyeol—the former decidedly more bearable than the latter, but the combination of the two hypertension-inducing—therefore, Kyungsoo cannot afford to mess with the equilibrium. For the time being, he’d just have to continue deducting broken lamp expenses from Yixing’s salary.
“Oh hi.” Chanyeol, wide-eyed, emerges from the employee bathroom, the door of which leads into Kyungsoo’s office. “You’re still here.”
Kyungsoo stares, a bit bewilderedly. “Yes… I am. This is my office.”
Chanyeol rubs his feet together sheepishly. Kyungsoo notices that he’s barefoot, and upon further inspection, that his hair is wet and that there’s a faint smell of magnolia in the air.
“Did you just… shower?” Kyungsoo squints, “here?”
“Is that not allowed? There is a shower in there. And soap.” Chanyeol points to the bathroom. “Also towels.”
Kyungsoo has the list of employee regulations somewhere in his mind along with an exclamation that that is his personal shower, with his personal soap, and personal towel and that those are reserved for special occasions in which he has to work late, much like tonight, but instead he’s paying attention to the trickle of water running down Chanyeol’s neck. It's not until it disappears into Chanyeol's coffee stained polo that Kyungsoo stops staring.
He mumbles something incoherent and returns his attention to transferring the information on the clipboard in front of him to a spreadsheet, ignoring the onset of a migraine.
Chanyeol snaps his fingers casually—his glasses are a bit foggy, Kyungsoo notices—and points to the door that leads to the hallway. "So… I'll be in my office, working, if you need me."
Kyungsoo glances at the clock, only a little curious as to why Chanyeol is still here in the middle of the night and what work he could possibly be working on. The scent of magnolia lingers in the air even after Chanyeol shuts the door behind him.
ϟ
Probably as an expression of her sympathy, Kyungsoo's mother spends most of their dinner later that week blabbering about Chanyeol's virtues. The exceedingly small amount of virtues he has, Kyungsoo thinks. Maybe she's also avoiding certain topics of discussion, of which Kyungsoo is particularly sensitive about—about the box of belongings Kyungsoo has yet to retrieve.
"None of the other kids played with you in the day care. He was the only one."
That doesn't make him feel any better. Kyungsoo doesn't really have any appetite for the sandwich he ordered either. He still has a residual headache from his day spent at work.
His mother talks about the tea she had with Chanyeol's mother and how she had been so delighted that Chanyeol is finally assuming responsibility for something in his life. She smiles, a piece of lettuce stuck between her teeth.
Kyungsoo, for some reason, decides against complaining about Chanyeol to his mother. He keeps all of his recent rule breaking to himself.
"He's dedicated." Kyungsoo says, instead, thinking about how Chanyeol pays full attention during all of the meetings and how he really does have good intentions just questionable courses of action.
He takes a bite of his sandwich, appetite slightly restored. It's only temporary anyway. Chanyeol is going to find a real job somewhere. Soon.
ϟ
When Baekhyun had stayed late to work on the things that are technically in his job description (read: lounge on the sofas and listen to Chanyeol's predictable ghost stories) and lost track of the hours, he offers out of colleague etiquette to drive Chanyeol home.
Chanyeol stares at him wide-eyed, like his earth-shattering secret had just been discovered, and fumbles over an excuse about having to stay even later and help Kyungsoo clean the fish tank.
"The miniature one." He says, flushing as if embarrassed.
Baekhyun chuckles nervously, unsure as to which one of them is more embarrassed right now. "Um... okay. Uh maybe… next time…"
Chanyeol doesn't like the fall in Baekhyun's expression, but he doesn't do anything about it. When Baekhyun stands up, the imprint of his ass lingers on the cushion and Chanyeol traces it after he leaves.
Later he watches from the small window in the employee bathroom, as Baekhyun pulls out of the parking lot and drives home alone. The car is a little run down and Chanyeol can see the exhaust fumes emitted from the pipe. He observes that Baekhyun takes his turns a little too sharply and notes down the license plate number. Just in case.
Getting dropped off is quite difficult if one does not have a location to be dropped off at, Chanyeol thinks in hindsight, even later after Kyungsoo leaves as well.
He turns off all the lights and stands in the darkness of the empty store. The air conditioner moans and Chanyeol hums along.
ϟ
Surprisingly Kyungsoo never noticed any of the obvious signs, not the disheveled sheets in the bedroom section, not the fact that Chanyeol was always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave, in fact, now that he thinks about it, he has never physically seen Chanyeol leave—Kyungsoo revisits that one shower run in. Definitely not even the mysterious rearrangement of furniture really caught his attention.
However, it's the appearance of a toothbrush in the employee bathroom along with a series of misaddressed packages containing shady spirit-warding herbs that set off the warning bells in Kyungsoo.
“You can’t live here.”
“I’m not living here. This is a store. If you are referring to my constant presence due to overtime hours that make it seem like I'm living here, then yes, i am "living" here.” Chanyeol airquotes "living".
“You have your mail addressed to the store. I have been getting your mail here at the store.”
“It’s just temporary.”
Kyungsoo squints at him.
“You've been sleeping in the beds.” Kyungsoo says, incriminatingly. "Oh my god. I have to sell those. Why does no one understand that? I thought I've made myself perfectly clear during the meetings. Beds are Off Limits. There is already one Zitao. I don't need another."
Chanyeol really didn’t want to have to pull this card.
“It was Baekhyun's idea."
Kyungsoo squints until his eyes are tiny slits. Chanyeol, without much coaxing, confesses to the sleepover he and Baekhyun had on the Victorian set and how that act warranted the rest of the nights Chanyeol spent at the store.
Kyungsoo is not angry. Managers don't get angry, Kyungsoo thinks. They get disciplinary. He thinks about his mother, about Chanyeol's mother, and maybe it's Chanyeol's completely unconvincing sob story about being essentially homeless (read: living with his parents), but Kyungsoo finds himself allowing Chanyeol to sleep, in a sleeping bag, on one of the extra mattresses in the storeroom, instead of infuriatingly firing him on the spot. In retrospect, Kyungsoo has no idea why he did that.
Maybe he's just grown use to the luxury of having a secretary and the idea of doing without one is simply unimaginable.
ϟ
Zitao isn't a big fan of discipline, really, he doesn't care because it's not his store. He doesn't care that Jongdae is essentially the most useless employee they have, more useless than Chanyeol, who at least attempts to protect them from evil. What he cares about is his indignant belief that he deserves some more recognition and appreciation.
Moreover, he finds it absolutely hilarious to wake Jongdae up in various, mostly unwelcoming ways, and record it on video. Zitao finds the appreciation from the internet when he uploads said videos.
ϟ
"The box is still in my attic."
His mother had picked the restaurant this time, a place with bland food and spacious parking due to the lack of customers.
"Yeah." Kyungsoo says, rolling his shoulders. He avoids looking at her. "I know."
He had spent the day re-rearranging the furniture that Chanyeol had rearranged, claiming something about positive energy. His shoulders ache, despite Baekhyun's added help in re-rearraging, and he wonders how Chanyeol even moved everything by himself in the first place. Kyungsoo suspects that Baekhyun also helped with that.
ϟ
Kyungsoo isn’t exactly irritated when he finds Baekhyun and Chanyeol playing with a Ouija board together, or when they break a lamp while doing so and blame it on the spirits. Managers don't get irritated. They get disciplinary.
"I don't think you understand. Lamps, when added up, are expenses too. Large ones. They are expensive to constantly replace." Kyungsoo peers over the plant, "I am very serious when I say that your jobs are in danger."
Kyungsoo looks at everyone at the meeting: Lu Han and Yixing who keep sharing fleeting glances from opposite sides of the room, Jongdae who is awake and trying to bear holes into Zitao's forehead, and Zitao who upgraded from taking notes on paper to typing furiously at his laptop.
"All of your jobs are in danger."
Chanyeol looks genuinely remorseful for his actions. Baekhyun just looks remorseful because Chanyeol does. Nobody else takes Kyungsoo seriously since he has only made threats and has never physically fired anyone before. There's also an unanimous skepticism that Kyungsoo would even be able to find viable replacement employees.
Maybe this is why everyone cheers when Kyungsoo, with an incredible amount of reluctance, announces his weekend business trip. Even Jongdae perks up.
"Are you holding me hostage in my own office?"
Baekhyun stands guard at Kyungsoo's office door after the meeting. He relaxes his grip on the knob when he hears the lock click. From the outside.
Briefly, Kyungsoo wonders why he even installed a door that locks, from the outside, in his office in the first place.
"Is Chanyeol harassing a customer?"
"Did he break out the holy water again is that why you won't let me out there?"
Baekhyun shakes his head and walks over to plant himself in Kyungsoo's chair. Kyungsoo just stares after him.
"Can you please explain to me what is going on?"
Baekhyun touches the mouse and the screen saver on Kyungsoo's computer disappears. He's prompted for a password. Baekhyun, thinking for only a second, guesses it correctly on the first try.
"Oh I just thought. We barely talk anymore. You know. You're the big manager. Thought we'd catch up. For old times sake."
Kyungsoo's mouth tastes bitter. Baekhyun whistles the Windows start up tune. Kyungsoo starts banging on the door.
"HEY IS ANYONE OUT THERE."
Baekhyun opens up solitare.
"LET ME OUT."
"HELLO?"
"THE OFFICE IS ON FIRE."
"ANYONE??"
Baekhyun makes himself a cup of instant coffee from the compartment in Kyungsoo's desk.
"HELP."
Kyungsoo gives up after a few minutes. He sits himself down on the floor, leans against the bookshelf, and studies the motivational posters on his wall. The fish blub in the miniature fish tank.
"Is this a conspiracy?" Kyungsoo asks, a little out of breath, "Am I being overthrown?"
Baekhyun doesn't answer. About hour later, after he knocks out all of Kyungsoo's high scores on the card game, Baekhyun logs out of the computer and digs a walkie talkie out of his pocket.
"Alpha to sigma. Repeat. Alpha to sigma. Has the target left the vicinity? Over."
There's a slight pause and some static on the other end.
"Sigma to Alpha. That's a positive. Over."
Baekhyun puts the walkie talkie back into his pocket, smiles assuringly, and knocks on the office door, three short knocks and two long ones. The lock clicks again.
"Okay you can go now." Baekhyun says addressing Kyungsoo, who's face has been washed with complete unamusement.
He opens the door to see Park Chanyeol pushing his glasses up, one hand holding a walkie talkie and the other moving to sling around Baekhyun's shoulder.
Kyungsoo decides to hold off on all courses of disciplinary action for the moment being. He runs, as fast as his legs could carry him, down the center aisle of the store, frantically checking that all the merchandise is properly intact.
Kyungsoo later learns that he—Jongin, Kyungsoo thinks it's okay to refer to him by name now—had come in looking for a new sofa. Suspicious of his furniture buying intentions, Baekhyun had instructed Lu Han to sell him the most expensive one on the lot.
Baekhyun, who possibly knows Kyungsoo better than himself, knows Kyungsoo is sensitive about these things and that he does not like surprises. Rather than let him revisit memories of Jongin and the ruthless breakup, he had enlisted Chanyeol with a plan. Chanyeol had been more than happy to oblige.
Upon learning the truth, Kyungsoo is still revisiting the ruthless breakup, albeit in a much less painful and surprised way.
Jongin. He tastes the name on his tongue, liking that it's not so sour anymore. He thinks about the box of belongings collecting dust at his mother's. Maybe it is just a genuine apology and maybe there is no competition. He's not good at reading into things, but maybe he just came to the store looking to apologize. Kyungsoo, with his newly found optimism, appreciates the sentiment, but he's glad he didn't have to face it.
He decides Baekhyun deserves a few friendship points, Chanyeol too, maybe.
ϟ
Regardless, Kyungsoo is still a bit hesitant to leave his store unsupervised for the weekend he has to fly to the city and attend one of those bigger corporate meetings.
Zitao, rather dubiously, had assured him that everything would be okay. Kyungsoo didn’t find comfort in that. He exhales exasperatedly and sinks into his office chair. Most likely, Jongdae would just continue to sleep in the store rooms, Baekhyun would barely show up for work (hopefully Chanyeol would skip work with him and Kyungsoo wouldn't have to worry about the physical well-being of his store), and Zitao would sneak into his office and sit in his chair. Kyungsoo rubs the arm of his chair and decides he could live with that.
“Can I come with you?” Chanyeol sticks his head into Kyungsoo’s office the afternoon before he has to catch the flight. Chanyeol has never been to the city before.
Kyungsoo rubs his face and looks up, blearily and through his fingers, at Chanyeol.
“Uh... no?”
“Oh…” He says, dejectedly. “Oh. Okay.”
Later, Chanyeol sprinkles water on Kyungsoo as he walks out the store. It doesn't burn his flesh or anything of the sort—
"Just to be sure." Chanyeol says, smiling.
—In fact, Kyungsoo hardly reacts at all, his mind too busy thinking about the things he has to present at the corporate meeting to really pay attention.
ϟ
Despite the questionable work ethic of his employees, the overall stance of the store is at a good place. They've made good revenue, despite broken lamps, and Kyungsoo would like to think that it's mainly the fruits of his own labor, maybe with a little added help from Zitao.
He presents this to corporate, a board of members lead by someone named Wu Fan. They nod approvingly and whisper about possible opportunities in store for him.
After attending the meeting, Kyungsoo finds something attractive about the city. For one, it's a complete contrast to his own mundane routines, and he thinks, it could possibly be a turn around for his stagnant life.
He dines at an upscale restaurant—alone but he imagines an alternate universe in which he's eating with a few friends, friends that he tries really hard to not imagine as Baekhyun and Chanyeol, classy friends who wear expensive suits and nice watches, and they'd discuss politics, not ghosts. An alternate universe in which he spends Fridays with friends, not his mother.
He has one of those dreams, later that night at the hotel, where he wakes up covered in sweat, stomach churning at the empty feeling.
He’s inside the store, in one of the back corners—the kitchen section. He's afraid to look around, afraid that the rest of the store is vandalized or on fire or something equally disastrous that resulted from his absence.
Despite the lack of windows, there’s warm lighting, a tint like late afternoon, maybe a sunset somewhere. Kyungsoo feels warm.
There’s the slight hum of the refrigerator, which upon further inspection, Kyungsoo sees is fully stocked. Fresh flowers are on the counter and the smell of dish detergent lingers in the air.
There is something unfamiliar about this familiar setting, but the warm feeling that rushes through his blood stream hints that this is where he belongs—something like home.
Then he hears a door click. He hears the scuffle of shoes and the quiet pads of bare toes across the tile floor. Kyungsoo turns, leaning his elbows on the counter, and looks at the archway. A smile unintentionally spreads across his face—happiness he seemingly can’t control because this feels right.
A head darts out from the archway.
“Boo.”
Chanyeol’s ugly smile beams back at him and Kyungsoo wakes up, frightened.
Absent-mindedly his hands dart for his cell phone, about to dial a familiar number and check in. But it's the middle of the night and the only person that'd be at the store would be Chanyeol, maybe, and Kyungsoo doesn't want to speak to him. The ugly smile pops into his mind again. Kyungsoo mentally slaps himself, blaming the disconcerting dream on the foreignness of a hotel bed and returns to sleep instead.
He returns to the same dream, too. Except this time, Baekhyun's sitting at the table nursing a bowl of soup. The flowers are gone, replaced with a bottle of dish detergent. Kyungsoo, still leaning against the counter, sniffs it. Magnolia.
Chanyeol still appears around the corner.
"Boo."
And he sits down in front of Baekhyun. His bare feet scrape the tile making unpleasant noises. Baekhyun smiles with soup covered teeth, his bare feet scraping the tile too. Kyungsoo, with caution, watches them. Baekhyun shares his soup. Chanyeol doesn't catch all of the liquid in his mouth; some of it drips out the corners and down his chin, staining the already stained olive-green polo, company issued.
Kyungsoo sleeps through this rendition of the dream.
He wakes up feeling particularly good about flying home, possibly from an adequate night's worth of sleep, possibly from to the early morning phone call that had woken him up, and sends a gleeful message to Baekhyun.
On the plane, he thinks about the future, about the past (about Jongin), about soup, and he thinks about his second promotion in less than a year—the phone call had offered him a position in the city where he'd be working for corporate and no longer burdened with management of his store in the suburbs—and decides that he must be doing something right, right? Maybe he's not good at certain things, but he's good at this. The alternate universe is more like a future universe now. He had accepted the offer without hesitation and had tasted the rush of adrenaline that comes with surprises. They're not too bad.
The flight attendant reminds them all to please put their seats in the upright position and fasten their seat belts and that the weather where he's headed is sunny with a chance of wind. Kyungsoo grips the arm rests, bracing himself for home.
He should have expected that they'd come and pick him up. Although, Kyungsoo would have much rather preferred riding in Zitao's car (Zitao is a decidedly safer driver, Kyungsoo thinks), Chanyeol's mom's van would suffice as well.
Baekhyun hugs him as Chanyeol loads his suitcase into the vehicle.
"Congrats on the promotion." He pats his shoulder.
Kyungsoo smiles, proud of himself, but frowns when he's made to sit in the back.
When Chanyeol's at the toll booth, Baekhyun drops some news of his own—or not really drops, but hands Chanyeol a few coins to throw into the basket and kisses him afterwards. On the lips. Briefly. Twice. And Kyungsoo, with horror, deduces.
He chokes, as if he hadn't expected it. He didn't, of course. Kyungsoo is not good at reading into things. He immediately thinks about the fact that he had left them alone for an entire weekend, in a furniture store, with beds. Maybe he's over thinking things, though. Hopefully. "Wh—how? Since when." He says, throat rather dry.
Baekhyun and Chanyeol, with their hands intertwined, beam rosey smiles at him, as if silently saying since always.
"Since Friday." Chanyeol offers, pushing his glasses up with his free hand and turning back to watch the road.
From his seat in the back, the coffee stain on Chanyeol's polo is plainly visible. Kyungsoo stares at it and wonders why he doesn't try to wash it out or just ask for a new shirt. Externally, he expresses disapproval of intimate relations in the workplace with his flummoxed expression. He stares out the window, avoiding eye contact with their intertwined hands, Baekhyun's thumb stroking Chanyeol's.
"Beds are still, as they always were, extremely off limits." He says to the window, petrified.
Internally, he thinks, observing through a series of reflections, that Chanyeol looks good with that kind of smile. Baekhyun, too. Like Kyungsoo, who's riding on a cloud of good feelings from his life finally set in motion, maybe they're off to somewhere good as well. He, however, keeps this to himself.
After not being able to concede on a radio station, they drive the rest of the trip from the airport to the store in complete silence. A comfortable silence, Kyungsoo corrects, relatively. He spends most of the time texting Zitao anyway, trying to determine if any disasters had occurred. He finds later, upon through inspection of the store, that everything is intact, even his fish have been regularly fed.
ϟ
For the very last meeting Kyungsoo holds, he doesn't talk about the budget or employee regulations. He gives a motivational speech, something with the underlying theme Carpe Diem, partially inspired by watching his best friend and Chanyeol and their nauseating Public Displays of Affection.
"So what I am saying, I guess, is that if I had any lingering advice to give, it would be to wear sunscreen," Kyungsoo is trying to recall that graduation speech he once read in a book or heard on tv, "because you never know when there's going to be sun." that's probably not how it goes but he continues anyway. "It's important that we live in the moment and do something crazy—Not. Too crazy—surprises are good sometimes. Seize them. Live your life to the fullest. Love is just around the corner if you know where to look."
A heavy silence ensues, mostly out of confusion. Zitao raises his hand.
"I've been promoted. I'm leaving. To the city. At the end of the week."
Zitao puts his hand down. Kyungsoo smiles at all of his employees, who are all avoiding his eyes for their various individual reasons.
Chanyeol takes the opportunity to lead an applause, but for genuinely congratulatory reasons. Baekhyun follows Chanyeol's lead like he always does.
He would have preferred a cake party, but a roaring applause would also suffice. Landing a nice corporate job in the city is quite praise-worthy, Kyungsoo thinks smugly, and moving there would definitely win him points in the competition against Jongin. He's back to categorizing it as a competition again, a competition in which Kyungsoo's decidedly in the lead. Last he heard, Jongin started a band and it has gained quite a following. He has also heard whisperings about a boy named Sehun. Baekhyun had assured him during the small talk before the meeting, rather unconvincingly, that Sehun is short and ugly. Kyungsoo's comforted, nonetheless.
After Kyungsoo's speech, Yixing is met with his own desire to change his life. He needs to seize the day, too.
He tells Lu Han, while sheepishly scuffing his feet across the tile, that he needs help moving one of the sofas in the back. Lu Han rolls his eyes, pretending to be annoyed but agrees regardless. He smoothes out the wrinkles in his polo and follows Yixing, with slow graceful steps, through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.
"So where's the sofa."
"In here."
Lu Han squints.
"That's a broom closet."
Yixing responds by dragging Lu Han into the closet.
With his heart hammering in his chest, he locks the door behind him and seizes the day.
Zitao, caught up in the atmosphere of Carpe Diem, quits, says he's fooling himself with this job. He gives his two week notice to Kyungsoo later in his office after the meeting had dispersed. His real passion is somewhere else and—
"It was a pleasure working with you."
—He ends up applying for management at the department store two blocks over.
ϟ
It's funny how things turn out, or don't turn out. Kyungsoo never pegged himself for a corporate guy and yet he still finds himself packing away his life into boxes. Baekhyun helps him iron his nicer dress shirts for the new job and Chanyeol cooks. He also never expected he'd allow Chanyeol into his own home, especially not near the stove. He definitely never expected to develop non-hostile feelings towards Chanyeol.
"Remember to feed my fish." He says addressing them both at the same time. Chanyeol salutes him.
Chanyeol ends up burning the omelets, but they eat them anyway. Baekhyun grimaces when Chanyeol feeds him a very large piece of burnt egg. He awards him, however, a quick peck on the lips for eating it.
"Don't ever cook again." Baekhyun says wiping his mouth.
The sun sets in a picturesque way and Kyungsoo, after finishing his own burnt omelet with much difficulty and taping up the last of his boxes, his mind full of the fluttery excitement of the future and all its possibility, has an idea.
Kyungsoo, much to the bewilderment of Chanyeol and Baekhyun who are washing the dishes together, suggests they go back to the store.
They are tucked into one of the nicer beds, a victorian model, wrapping themselves in blankets and friendship. Baekhyun makes a joke, with his new authority as the new manager, that this is against company policy. They laugh. Even Kyungsoo laughs.
In addition to the body heat, there's something else in the raised temperature, something everlasting and unbreakable even with Kyungsoo impending move to the city a few hundred kilometers away. It's not that he likes surprises now or even actively welcomes them, it's just that he's finding slight deviations from the planned course of action bearable. He finds Chanyeol bearable. Maybe a little more than bearable, he thinks, as Chanyeol tells them all to hush and listen.
They're quiet and there's a mechanical moan, a bit melancholic. Baekhyun still has those eager eyes and believes everything Chanyeol says a little bit too easily. Kyungsoo feels a tug in his heart, a warm one. Reluctance is only natural. It's the reward he gets for the past months of chronic headaches, but he's off to somewhere good. Somewhere exciting. His life is in motion.
On Kyungsoo's last night in the suburbs, he falls asleep to the warmth, to the whirl of the outdated ac, and to Chanyeol's exceedingly predictable ghost stories.
Pairing: Kyungsoo/Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Rating: PG
Words: 9,500
Summary: Professionalism isn't always required, especially when one works a dead end job at a suburban furniture store, but sometimes it is still nice to maintain such.
Notes: written for
troisbang.Skeptics and True Believers
There’s something peaceful about an empty furniture store at night. Kyungsoo’s tucked into one of the display beds (against his own policies) next to two other sleeping bodies. There’s the occasional kick of the feet, the frequent exhale of breath, and the incessant hum of the air conditioner, which, with enough imagination, sounds like the whisperings of a ghost. Kyungsoo almost chuckles that he even came to that comparison, an absurdity that wouldn’t even have crossed his mind before.
The root of this absurdity, Kyungsoo thinks, began with that managerial promotion and the reluctant hiring of a new employee. Someone kicks again and the blankets twitch. Kyungsoo's thoughts rush of the bright possibility of his future and his heart beats twice as fast but not necessarily from the idea of stepping up the corporate ladder, from something else entirely. Something warm. The ghosts whisper and Kyungsoo closes his eyes.
ϟ
The real reason why Kyungsoo, who’s been recently promoted, holds these weekly meetings is that he likes the sound of his own voice—at least this is the popular opinion held by his employees. Lu Han pretends to stare out the window when he's really checking out his own reflection, Jongdae pretends to study the meeting notes when he's really sleeping, and Yixing pretends to listen to Kyungsoo when he's really staring at Lu Han.
Kyungsoo taps his fingers to the rhythm of the air conditioner and peers over the plant in the middle of the table.
"First order of business: Zitao, you can’t sleep on the beds.” Kyungsoo folds his hands. "I'm paying you to sell mattresses. I'm not paying you to model them.”
"But how about—"
"Off hours is still not acceptable."
Zitao has this dejected expression, which disappears when Lu Han pats his thigh reassuringly, probably adding in a gentle caress for good measure. He smiles at Zitao, eyes full of sincere sympathy. It’s very convincing—Lu Han has been the Star Employee for the third consecutive month and he's never stuck with mundane tasks like inventory. He has a sweet smile and a natural wink, which is also why he gets commission on everything. He can sell everything—Yixing kicks Zitao’s chair.
"Second order of business: we, unfortunately, have a new employee."
Zitao raises his hand, indifferent to Yixing’s kicking. Kyungsoo sighs.
"I thought we were under budget cuts." Zitao is always the only attentive one during meetings. He hasn't worked here long enough and is still under the impression that this place is a stepping-stone to his real dream, something in the fashion industry. Kyungsoo has yet to see the real correlation there. "I thought this is why you rejected my proposal to improve our required work attire."
"Yes." Kyungsoo pinches the bridge of his nose, rubs in circular motions to try and relieve the pressure in his brain. None of Zitao’s proposals ever fit in the budget anyway, even before the cuts. "But he's a friend of the family, very distant friend, just graduated. Apparently, nobody is hiring."
He decides his employees don't need the details about the long phone calls his mother had been making to him all week regarding this very issue. Don't you remember him? He used to make you mud pies. You use to eat them. She had said. Kyungsoo really doesn't remember. He was very young and in the toddler stage of his life when they moved to the next neighborhood and thereby left his childhood playmate behind. It might count as a distant memory, but definitely not something worth remembering.
Kyungsoo massages his nose some more. Zitao raises his hand again.
"No. You're salaries are not going to be affected."
Zitao puts his hand down.
Lu Han bats his eyelashes. Liking the way the sunlight catches them, he lets out a sigh. The breathy sound mingles in with quiet mumblings of the room. Yixing sighs as well.
“This will probably only be temporary. I’m assigning him to inventory.” Kyungsoo looks nonspecifically at Yixing, as if incriminating him with something. Zitao writes this down on his yellow notepad with Jongdae’s pen; his own ran out of ink.
Somebody claps under the table, probably glad that they no longer have to do inventory, probably Yixing. Kyungsoo massages his nose some more, decidedly more irritated.
When Baekhyun finally joins the meeting thirty minutes late, bursting through the doors with a smug expression and ruffled hair like he just woke up from bed, he should consider himself especially lucky that Kyungsoo doesn't fire him on the spot.
Kyungsoo takes a very deep breath. Baekhyun abuses their friendship entirely too much.
Lu Han, however, looks particularly jubilant and perks up immediately, dragging his eyes away from the window to smile smugly in Baekhyun’s general direction, because this means he’s just secured his Star Employee position for this month. If Baekhyun were more punctual, he would have been a valid rival.
Kyungsoo glares with his fingers on his nose as Baekhyun slides into the empty seat beside him. Baekhyun, a bit cocky about his attendance to work, or non-attendance, because Kyungsoo is his friend, chews on his bottom lip to suppress his laughter. He doesn’t exactly like to brag about special privileges, but Baekhyun is sure he has them.
“Third…” Kyungsoo begins slowly, eyes still fixed on Baekhyun, “we have one employee restroom. And it is adjacent to my office. Let’s keep that in mind the next time we use company facilities for any unauthorized activities.”
Kyungsoo looks each of his employees over, as if incriminating them all with something.
He possibly has a fourth point, but by then no one is even pretending to listen. Baekhyun is twirling a pen around his fingers and everyone is fascinated by it.
Kyungsoo is too, for a very small moment.
"Meeting dismissed." He slumps back into his chair, headache worsened.
The air conditioner coughs a few times and Kyungsoo imagines small puffs of dust escaping the vents. This is his precious furniture store begging him for a renovation. Budget cuts. Kyungsoo sighs some more.
Baekhyun pats his back and Kyungsoo can’t help but smile at him, albeit a rather threatening smile. The former opens his mouth to say something, probably an excuse of the sorts for his tardiness but then Kyungsoo’s phone rings and he decides otherwise.
There’s a flurry of paper collecting and hushed whispers. Jongdae finally wakes up when Zitao nudges him on his way out. Jongdae smacks his lips, tasting the unpleasantness of his own marinated saliva, and follows Yixing, who's following Lu Han, out of the meeting room.
Kyungsoo’s head rolls to the side as he lazily glances at the caller id. It’s his mother.
ϟ
He meets his mother for dinner at a restaurant near the edge of the city—somewhere with spacious parking spots she had requested.
It probably says something about his own life that the only plans he has on a Friday (the only plans for the past few weeks in fact) are with his mother. It’s not like he’s actively searching for more anyways. Work is quite consuming especially with the promotion, he thinks.
She has this look on her face when Kyungsoo sits down across the table from her. There’s a smile she’s fighting back and words of gratitude that they both silently take for granted. She takes his hands into hers, greeting him. Kyungsoo feels like a teenager again.
“You look tired.” She says. She means thank you for doing this.
Kyungsoo nods and sips on his water.
“I already ordered for the both of us.” She takes her hands back and sips on her own water, smiling more as she does so.
Kyungsoo watches one of the couples at a table near them. The guy is waving his hands dramatically, probably trying to narrate an impressive story. Kyungsoo snorts, sourly.
“He’s really a sweet kid.” She says with a bit of forced enthusiasm referring to the soon to be new employee, or maybe Kyungsoo just imagines that part.
He nods silently.
“Tell me, how are you?” She says as the waiter brings them the food. “Have you met anyone… you know, since—”
“—No…” Kyungsoo stares at the geometric pattern of the tablecloth, trying to decipher the shapes, maybe piece together a face. “No I haven’t.”
She just smiles again and begins cutting her chicken.
There might be nothing exciting about his night, but at least it's comfortable. His mother laughs at all of his jokes.
ϟ
Kyungsoo has one of those introspective moments when he’s sitting at the foot of his bed and kicking his shoes off. Its scenes like these, quiet nights with lingering taste of watered down wine, that remind Kyungsoo of him. Usually he’d be the one to unlace Kyungsoo’s shoes and set them against the wall next to the door. There would've been a bit of whispering, maybe a bit of touching, but there always would've been the warmth. He sees a flash of a smile. Kyungsoo thinks, if anything, that’s what he misses the most, the slight rise in temperature.
It’s this flood of feelings from a time before (read: three weeks ago) that has him suddenly itching to dial a familiar number. The vindictive part of Kyungsoo wants him to be having dinner with his mother on a Friday too. That way, Kyungsoo would feel a little less boring, like it’s a competition or something.
Instead he stares at his shoes against the wall, a feeling of inferiority simmering in his stomach.
At least Kyungsoo has his managerial promotion to brag about if they ever happen to run into each other again. There’s a bit of an ache in the heels of his feet, from patrolling around the store too much—mostly from trying to prevent his employees from lounging on the merchandise. Kyungsoo chuckles, bitterly.
ϟ
Zitao has a proposal for attracting more customers, something along the lines of very expensive advertising.
“As a sacrifice for the company,” Zitao brushes his fringe to the side, “I would gladly offer my face as the face of EXO FURNITURE.”
Kyungsoo drums his fingers against the surface of his desk, thumbing through the file Zitao has just presented him.
“I don’t think billboards are really necessary.” He traces the elaborate advertising designs. “Billboards don’t really fit into our budget.”
Zitao’s logic is that with more advertising, there’d be more customers, and more revenue, and then they’d be able to do away with budget cuts and finally improve their uniforms. Zitao tugs at his company issued polo, a distasteful olive green with Sofa, So Fine on the back that Kyungsoo had designed himself.
Kyungsoo sometimes thinks that Zitao has more invested in the shop than he does himself. Maybe he should offer him a raise. Zitao continues tugging at his shirt, grimacing rather rudely, and Kyungsoo drops the idea of a raise.
“I like the uniforms.” Baekhyun pops into the office, uninvited. His own olive green polo recently ironed and tucked into his khaki pants. He reads over Kyungsoo shoulders and swallows his laughter at the ridiculous proposals. Kyungsoo thinks briefly about abusive friendships and Zitao scowls.
There’s a faint jingle of the bells on the door and a fresh pair of feet that walk into the store.
Lu Han, thinking it’s the first customer of the day, dashes out of his seat at the vanity and bombards the newcomer. He adjusts the collar of his company issued polo. The olive green is delightfully flattering on him, Yixing thinks, from his cracked door of the storeroom.
“Hello. Welcome to EXO FURNITURE. What can I help you with. My name is Lu Han. This way please.” Lu Han touches light fingers to the stranger's forearm and leads him through the center aisle of the store. “I assure you we have this season’s latest selection, amazing woodwork, and very affordable payment plans.”
Lu Han’s eyes sparkle. The newcomer eyes the suspiciously small store and makes each step with caution. He stops abruptly near the dining room section and appears disinterested in the furniture. Lu Han looks a little displeased, but he masks it with one of those smiles. If there were anyone that could convince a customer that yes a complete remodel of their home is entirely necessary, it would be Lu Han. He is not star employee for nothing.
“Is there anything specific you have in mind? We have,” Lu Han coughs, “a large array.”
He smiles, fingers brushing at the stranger’s forearm again, tugging him towards a table. He winks, too. Somewhere Yixing kicks a shelf and a lamp crashes to the floor.
“Um… I’m here about a job?”
“Yes,” Lu Han’s smile doesn’t falter. He runs his hand over the top of the table. “but can I still interest you in a new dining room set, perhaps? Finest oak.”
“Where is your manager?” The itch in the stranger's arm is telling him that it is indeed a very nice table. However, he doesn’t own a place of residence to put that table in. He stares, instead, at the discolored tile.
Lu Han lets his smile fall and points to the back, rather grudgingly.
Kyungsoo sneezes when a third person joins them in the office, interrupting his own losing argument against Zitao.
“Hi I’m Park Chanyeol.” Chanyeol lets himself into the office and doesn't shut the door behind him.
He extends his hand in the most professional of ways, and through the sternness of his grip, Kyungsoo is actually quite impressed, despite all of his under-qualifications detailed in his file. Kyungsoo had only briefly glanced at it this morning and noted the zero work experience and questionable college degree. He is still mildly impressed, nonetheless, at this initial professionalism.
Chanyeol smiles, radiating endless optimism like he just landed his dream job.
Kyungsoo pities him a bit.
“Welcome aboard. I'll be with you in one moment.” He smiles too, adding more enthusiasm into the handshake. "Um, Baekhyun get him a shirt."
Then he turns his attention back to Zitao.
Baekhyun nods obligingly and motions for Chanyeol to follow. There's a cabinet in the back of the office with extra shirts. Baekhyun is very familiar with Kyungsoo's office, for obvious reasons.
Zitao and Kyungsoo continue to argue and Baekhyun has difficulty finding one that fits Chanyeol longitudinally and latitudinally: it's either too wide or too short. He holds out the array of ill-fitting shirts. Chanyeol picks one that's too short and later, whenever he raises his hands at meetings in future weeks, would flash the pale expanse of his stomach.
Shirt dilemma dealt with, Baekhyun stands up and is suddenly unable to make up his mind whether to look at Chanyeol or not. He doesn't know what to study first, his towering height, the toothy smile taking up a large proportion of his face, or the thick framed glasses taking up the rest of the proportion of his face. Baekhyun points to the chair, offering Chanyeol a seat as if this were his office.
Chanyeol looks happy about his free shirt, pushing his glasses up his nose as he sits down and hooks his feet around the legs of the chair. There's something about glasses that makes a person look incredibly intelligent. Baekhyun, unadmittedly, thinks.
Chanyeol strokes the shirt in his lap, eyes taking in the expanse of the small office. He swipes a finger across the underside of Kyungsoo's desk, collects the dust, and smells his finger. Kyungsoo, who's reminding Zitao to please stay away from the bedroom section, doesn’t notice and Chanyeol nods his head approvingly.
Baekhyun, who is paying attention, decides to be hospitable. He fumbles with the miniature coffee machine installed inside one of the large drawers of Kyungsoo's desk and makes, with a bit of added difficulty from nervousness or something like that, one cup of steaming coffee. His intention is to set it in front of Chanyeol.
However, he misses the desk and spills the scalding liquid onto Chanyeol's lap instead.
"I AM SO SORRY. OH MY GOD. MY BAD. I'M—THIS IS HORRIBLE. I'M SO SORRY." Baekhyun shouts, frantically, and before Chanyeol can even properly react, Baekhyun showers him in tissues. Kyungsoo stops mid-sentence, mouth opened, and blinks.
He dismisses Zitao, deciding that he can only deal with one problem in his office at a time.
Zitao pushes his own glasses up, studies Chanyeol's glasses, Chanyeol's conspicuously dark hair roots, and the coffee stain on his pants and brand new company issued polo, both of which he's uselessly dabbing at, and bursts out in rude laughter. The stained shirt is very fitting for his argument. Kyungsoo glares and Zitao collects his files quickly, planning to casually pitch his ideas when Kyungsoo is in a more susceptible mood to change his mind about necessities and budget cuts.
Momentarily, Kyungsoo forgets what to say. He watches Chanyeol breathe heavily, his only physical response to the burning coffee, as he stares at the wet spot on his pants and his new shirt. His overall expression remains rather expressionless. Kyungsoo doesn't know what to think about that.
Once Baekhyun has successfully offered the last of the office's tissues, he goes limp, unsure what to do with himself. He picks up the fallen over cup, now with only a drop of liquid inside, and blushes.
Chanyeol folds his hands over the stain in his lap and stares expectantly at Kyungsoo.
"Just. Sit." Kyungsoo barks when Baekhyun's about to make another cup of coffee. He points to the chair next to Chanyeol—though, Kyungsoo's not really sure why Baekhyun's presence is even necessary in the first place.
Chanyeol smiles again with that unwavering optimism, coffee incident completely forgotten about. Kyungsoo feels like he’s remembering something from his childhood. A picture of a mud pie and a toothy grin flash across his thoughts, but maybe because he thinks he should be remembering something and it's just a fabricated memory. He digs out Chanyeol's file from his desk.
Baekhyun, meanwhile, whistles an unfamiliar tune and studies Chanyeol through his peripherals. Kyungsoo casually flips through the file. He squints about half way down the page.
"Tell me about…" Kyungsoo's eyes land on an item in the education section of his resume and he's not sure if he's chewing on the bottom his lip to prevent an outburst of laughter or an outburst of rage. He takes a deep breath and thinks about his mother. "Tell me about this college major of yours."
Baekhyun tries to lean over the desk and peek at the file.
"Paranormal Studies?" Chanyeol whispers it as if it were some sort of secret.
A heavy silence ensues.
There's something about the way Chanyeol's glasses move up and down when he talks about the metaphysical universe that has Baekhyun cease his whistling and instead, grip the edge of his plastic chair, heart swelling and pulse decidedly faster. He's not exactly talking about science but he seems so knowledgable regardless. So interesting.
Kyungsoo stares.
"So what’s the pay like?" Chanyeol’s smile never seems to go away. Kyungsoo feels the onset of a stomach ache at the thought of paying this guy.
"I—" Kyungsoo begins without an idea of how he would finish the sentence.
Baekhyun takes the opportunity to cut in, knuckles turning white from his grip on the chair. All of the aspects of Park Chanyeol within the last five minutes of knowing him have added up to become a person Baekhyun cannot simply pass up on befriending.
"LET ME GIVE YOU A TOUR." He says, trying to bite back his enthusiasm, and jumps out of his seat.
Chanyeol finds himself literally being dragged by the collar without a second of hesitation. He finds only a brief window of a moment to shout a goodbye—
"THANK YOU."
—and stealthily tuck a stalk of Catnip into the bookshelf on his way out. For good luck, he had read somewhere in a book or saw on tv.
Kyungsoo finds it, partially rotted, a week later.
Chanyeol takes a liking to the bedroom section, Baekhyun observes. He strokes the duvet as they walk by. Baekhyun slows his pace, as if trying to savor the tour. He'd already shown off the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. It's like taking him around his house, Baekhyun chuckles, nervously.
Chanyeol, now changed into his company-issued shirt, rubs his stomach absent-mindedly where the coffee stain is.
"It's okay," Baekhyun nods towards the bed, blood rushing in his ears for unknown reasons, "as long as Kyungsoo doesn't see you."
Kyungsoo had adopted the Do Not Touch the Merchandise policy even before his promotion to manager. He has always held steadfast belief in professionalism.
Chanyeol's eyes light up, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he sits at the foot of the bed. Baekhyun sits as well. The mattress dips from their collective weight and Baekhyun feels himself leaning into Chanyeol.
A very quick tangential thought flashes across his mind, something about thank god Kyungsoo and his budget cuts did not install surveillance cameras, and Baekhyun looks sheepishly over at Chanyeol.
"So—"
"—Shhhh," Chanyeol whispers. "Do you feel it? The positive energy?"
The air conditioner suddenly kicks on, the inconsistent draft billowing through Chanyeol's messy curls. His eyes are closed like he's meditating. Baekhyun, on the other hand, thinks he looks incredibly intelligent.
Kyungsoo doesn't know exactly how to react. His forehead dramatically meets the desk. No wonder no one is hiring.
He thinks about the list of people to call and complain to. He thinks of one person, well he thinks of two, but the second one is no longer a valid option. Maybe a few weeks ago, that number would have been his first instinct, his go-to every time he wanted to whine—a few weeks ago Kyungsoo had called and heard a different voice on the other end, unfamiliar and a little out of breath, and when he had taken the phone back, his voice had reeked of guilt. Kyungsoo was never good at reading into things, he thinks in retrospect, maybe that's where it all went wrong.
He calls his mother again. Instead of being of any emotional support, she insists that Chanyeol is a sweet boy and that his mother is sweet also and that Kyungsoo should give him a chance and that unfortunately she has to cancel their dinner plans next week. Kyungsoo decides, after hanging up and staring thoughtfully at his miniature fish tank, he needs to find new people to listen to his problems.
ϟ
Baekhyun starts showing up for work on time, coincidentally. Jongdae still sleeps, maybe a bit less or maybe Kyungsoo is just seeing things through an optimistic lens. He celebrates still with caution this improvement in professional behavior.
Kyungsoo buys them donuts for the next meeting, grocery store ones and not bakery to be safe. His management philosophy is to celebrate when necessary but not to indulge. Zitao, of course, wants to know how donuts fit into the budget. He has files ready, for rebuttal.
ϟ
"He came by the house yesterday."
"What?"
"He said you weren't home when he went by your apartment and so he dropped a box off at the house." His mother says, nonchalantly, while twirling her noodles. "Just remember to come by and get it."
Kyungsoo counts on his fingers, this is the fourth Friday night he's spent with his mother. Does he know that? It's not a competition, except it is. That's how break ups are, at least Kyungsoo thinks so.
"Ok…"
He should've returned the those belongings weeks ago. Kyungsoo doesn't know if it's an honest mistake or if it's a point he's trying to prove—Kyungsoo has a flash of his smug grin—it could also be a spiteful apology of sorts and if that's the case, Kyungsoo has lost this round.
ϟ
The thing about special privileges is that, unofficially, Baekhyun has them. Baekhyun always spends lunch in Kyungsoo's office instead of crowding around the one table in the break room with the other employees. Kyungsoo says he doesn't have time to order takeout and thus has Baekhyun do it. The part where they eat together is just a side effect.
The thing about unofficial privileges is that Kyungsoo is unsure why they have extended to Chanyeol. Moreover, he's unsure why Chanyeol thinks it's okay to not only eat in Kyungsoo's office, but also eat from Kyungsoo's bowl. Baekhyun says he was too busy to order take out and thus had Chanyeol do it.
"Are you going to eat that." Chanyeol points to Kyungsoo's food, untouched because he's busy trying to process the scene.
Baekhyun has his nose buried in his own food and does not appear to exhibit any emotion. Kyungsoo, still cradling his untouched food, doesn't like when his routines are intruded upon.
"I ordered something different for everyone." Chanyeol points to Kyungsoo, Baekhyun, and himself. He picks another piece of chicken from Kyungsoo's bowl. "Try some of everything."
Kyungsoo's about to kick him out of his office, but then Baekhyun perks up, smacking his lips, and smiles at Chanyeol as if silently saying good idea. He scoots his chair a bit closer to Chanyeol and sticks his spoon into Chanyeol's rice. Kyungsoo, momentarily, forgets about kicking anyone out. Baekhyun has this piece of rice at the corner of his mouth and Kyungsoo stares at it throughout the rest of his break. Later, Chanyeol is the one that flicks it off.
ϟ
It's not that Chanyeol is a useless employee, Kyungsoo reassures himself, it's that he just isn't made for things like inventory, or customer service, or handling the cash register, or even janitorial tasks involving a bucket and a mop. There is a special job out there for him. Somewhere. Chanyeol has just yet to stumble upon it.
As a last resort, Kyungsoo makes Chanyeol his secretary. He has a desk outside Kyungsoo's office, in the hallway just behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY DO NOT ENTER door, and affirms that everyone who visits does indeed have an appointment. It's an extraneous job, but at least it's an improvement on Chanyeol standing guard at the store entrance and greeting every customer by sprinkling holy water on them.
It's not his fault, Kyungsoo breathes, adhering to the kind of positivity his mother wants him to think, he's just trying to protect the store… from spirits. Evil ones.
He has good intentions. Kyungsoo makes himself another cup of coffee from his desk. His miniature fish watch him from the miniature tank.
ϟ
Baekhyun knows this is against the rules, not that he's a stickler for them in the first place. He just doesn't like being on Kyungsoo's bad side, too much. They are friends after all, old friends, and he likes his privileges.
Chanyeol, probably deciding that Baekhyun is a friendly and susceptible enough person, asks him if he wanted to see something cool. He had read somewhere that the store was in close vicinity to a cemetery and thus he wanted to witness something, anything. Kyungsoo didn't even flinch when the two of them offered, with relatively reserved enthusiasm, to stay late and lock up.
"Do you really, you know, study ghosts." Baekhyun shivers and imagines that he can see his own breath. Chanyeol had turned the thermostat down very low. Necessary, he said it was, for what they were trying to do. Baekhyun, lying on his stomach between the sheets, inches closer to Chanyeol for warmth.
"The metaphysical universe. Yes." Even with his pretentious tone, Chanyeol secretly likes talking about this, especially with Baekhyun. Baekhyun has eager eyes and seems to take Chanyeol very seriously, very easily so. There are less a handful of people who take Chanyeol seriously. He likes this.
"How do you do it?"
"Hmm?"
"Ghosts. Do you talk to them?" Baekhyun's lying on his stomach with his face buried in the display pillow, and he takes in a big whiff, which is a bad idea because it's very dusty. "How?"
"Shhh…" Chanyeol holds a finger up to his lip. He shifts, leaning slightly closer to Baekhyun. For warmth. "If you're quiet, if you listen, you can hear them."
They fall into a comfortable silence, listening intently for something, anything. Baekhyun stares across the center aisle at the bathroom. The ghostly porcelain seems to glow.
For a moment he hears something, a mechanical moan. It echoes throughout the empty store, low and rumbling and sounding faintly melancholic. Chanyeol looks over and smiles. He hears it too. A whisper. A secret. Something.
Baekhyun knows, subconsciously, that it's just the outdated air conditioning system, but it's nice to believe. He takes another whiff of the dusty pillow and ends up in a coughing fit. Chanyeol glares at him for breaking the silence.
ϟ
Most of the time Kyungsoo doesn’t understand the point of having employees if they’re so incompetent at the job they’re hired for, or maybe he is just especially bitter for having to stay late and redo the entire inventory spreadsheet himself. He thinks he really ought to fire Yixing, who seemingly cannot correctly make a list of the things in stock and not in stock or refrain from breaking lamps. And Jongdae too, who Kyungsoo's seen sleep more often than not. But then Lu Han would quit, unadmittedly because of Yixing's dismissal, and Zitao, inspired by everyone else's actions, would ask for a transfer to somewhere where his presence and ideas would be better appreciated. Then Kyungsoo would be left with only Baekhyun and Chanyeol—the former decidedly more bearable than the latter, but the combination of the two hypertension-inducing—therefore, Kyungsoo cannot afford to mess with the equilibrium. For the time being, he’d just have to continue deducting broken lamp expenses from Yixing’s salary.
“Oh hi.” Chanyeol, wide-eyed, emerges from the employee bathroom, the door of which leads into Kyungsoo’s office. “You’re still here.”
Kyungsoo stares, a bit bewilderedly. “Yes… I am. This is my office.”
Chanyeol rubs his feet together sheepishly. Kyungsoo notices that he’s barefoot, and upon further inspection, that his hair is wet and that there’s a faint smell of magnolia in the air.
“Did you just… shower?” Kyungsoo squints, “here?”
“Is that not allowed? There is a shower in there. And soap.” Chanyeol points to the bathroom. “Also towels.”
Kyungsoo has the list of employee regulations somewhere in his mind along with an exclamation that that is his personal shower, with his personal soap, and personal towel and that those are reserved for special occasions in which he has to work late, much like tonight, but instead he’s paying attention to the trickle of water running down Chanyeol’s neck. It's not until it disappears into Chanyeol's coffee stained polo that Kyungsoo stops staring.
He mumbles something incoherent and returns his attention to transferring the information on the clipboard in front of him to a spreadsheet, ignoring the onset of a migraine.
Chanyeol snaps his fingers casually—his glasses are a bit foggy, Kyungsoo notices—and points to the door that leads to the hallway. "So… I'll be in my office, working, if you need me."
Kyungsoo glances at the clock, only a little curious as to why Chanyeol is still here in the middle of the night and what work he could possibly be working on. The scent of magnolia lingers in the air even after Chanyeol shuts the door behind him.
ϟ
Probably as an expression of her sympathy, Kyungsoo's mother spends most of their dinner later that week blabbering about Chanyeol's virtues. The exceedingly small amount of virtues he has, Kyungsoo thinks. Maybe she's also avoiding certain topics of discussion, of which Kyungsoo is particularly sensitive about—about the box of belongings Kyungsoo has yet to retrieve.
"None of the other kids played with you in the day care. He was the only one."
That doesn't make him feel any better. Kyungsoo doesn't really have any appetite for the sandwich he ordered either. He still has a residual headache from his day spent at work.
His mother talks about the tea she had with Chanyeol's mother and how she had been so delighted that Chanyeol is finally assuming responsibility for something in his life. She smiles, a piece of lettuce stuck between her teeth.
Kyungsoo, for some reason, decides against complaining about Chanyeol to his mother. He keeps all of his recent rule breaking to himself.
"He's dedicated." Kyungsoo says, instead, thinking about how Chanyeol pays full attention during all of the meetings and how he really does have good intentions just questionable courses of action.
He takes a bite of his sandwich, appetite slightly restored. It's only temporary anyway. Chanyeol is going to find a real job somewhere. Soon.
ϟ
When Baekhyun had stayed late to work on the things that are technically in his job description (read: lounge on the sofas and listen to Chanyeol's predictable ghost stories) and lost track of the hours, he offers out of colleague etiquette to drive Chanyeol home.
Chanyeol stares at him wide-eyed, like his earth-shattering secret had just been discovered, and fumbles over an excuse about having to stay even later and help Kyungsoo clean the fish tank.
"The miniature one." He says, flushing as if embarrassed.
Baekhyun chuckles nervously, unsure as to which one of them is more embarrassed right now. "Um... okay. Uh maybe… next time…"
Chanyeol doesn't like the fall in Baekhyun's expression, but he doesn't do anything about it. When Baekhyun stands up, the imprint of his ass lingers on the cushion and Chanyeol traces it after he leaves.
Later he watches from the small window in the employee bathroom, as Baekhyun pulls out of the parking lot and drives home alone. The car is a little run down and Chanyeol can see the exhaust fumes emitted from the pipe. He observes that Baekhyun takes his turns a little too sharply and notes down the license plate number. Just in case.
Getting dropped off is quite difficult if one does not have a location to be dropped off at, Chanyeol thinks in hindsight, even later after Kyungsoo leaves as well.
He turns off all the lights and stands in the darkness of the empty store. The air conditioner moans and Chanyeol hums along.
ϟ
Surprisingly Kyungsoo never noticed any of the obvious signs, not the disheveled sheets in the bedroom section, not the fact that Chanyeol was always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave, in fact, now that he thinks about it, he has never physically seen Chanyeol leave—Kyungsoo revisits that one shower run in. Definitely not even the mysterious rearrangement of furniture really caught his attention.
However, it's the appearance of a toothbrush in the employee bathroom along with a series of misaddressed packages containing shady spirit-warding herbs that set off the warning bells in Kyungsoo.
“You can’t live here.”
“I’m not living here. This is a store. If you are referring to my constant presence due to overtime hours that make it seem like I'm living here, then yes, i am "living" here.” Chanyeol airquotes "living".
“You have your mail addressed to the store. I have been getting your mail here at the store.”
“It’s just temporary.”
Kyungsoo squints at him.
“You've been sleeping in the beds.” Kyungsoo says, incriminatingly. "Oh my god. I have to sell those. Why does no one understand that? I thought I've made myself perfectly clear during the meetings. Beds are Off Limits. There is already one Zitao. I don't need another."
Chanyeol really didn’t want to have to pull this card.
“It was Baekhyun's idea."
Kyungsoo squints until his eyes are tiny slits. Chanyeol, without much coaxing, confesses to the sleepover he and Baekhyun had on the Victorian set and how that act warranted the rest of the nights Chanyeol spent at the store.
Kyungsoo is not angry. Managers don't get angry, Kyungsoo thinks. They get disciplinary. He thinks about his mother, about Chanyeol's mother, and maybe it's Chanyeol's completely unconvincing sob story about being essentially homeless (read: living with his parents), but Kyungsoo finds himself allowing Chanyeol to sleep, in a sleeping bag, on one of the extra mattresses in the storeroom, instead of infuriatingly firing him on the spot. In retrospect, Kyungsoo has no idea why he did that.
Maybe he's just grown use to the luxury of having a secretary and the idea of doing without one is simply unimaginable.
ϟ
Zitao isn't a big fan of discipline, really, he doesn't care because it's not his store. He doesn't care that Jongdae is essentially the most useless employee they have, more useless than Chanyeol, who at least attempts to protect them from evil. What he cares about is his indignant belief that he deserves some more recognition and appreciation.
Moreover, he finds it absolutely hilarious to wake Jongdae up in various, mostly unwelcoming ways, and record it on video. Zitao finds the appreciation from the internet when he uploads said videos.
ϟ
"The box is still in my attic."
His mother had picked the restaurant this time, a place with bland food and spacious parking due to the lack of customers.
"Yeah." Kyungsoo says, rolling his shoulders. He avoids looking at her. "I know."
He had spent the day re-rearranging the furniture that Chanyeol had rearranged, claiming something about positive energy. His shoulders ache, despite Baekhyun's added help in re-rearraging, and he wonders how Chanyeol even moved everything by himself in the first place. Kyungsoo suspects that Baekhyun also helped with that.
ϟ
Kyungsoo isn’t exactly irritated when he finds Baekhyun and Chanyeol playing with a Ouija board together, or when they break a lamp while doing so and blame it on the spirits. Managers don't get irritated. They get disciplinary.
"I don't think you understand. Lamps, when added up, are expenses too. Large ones. They are expensive to constantly replace." Kyungsoo peers over the plant, "I am very serious when I say that your jobs are in danger."
Kyungsoo looks at everyone at the meeting: Lu Han and Yixing who keep sharing fleeting glances from opposite sides of the room, Jongdae who is awake and trying to bear holes into Zitao's forehead, and Zitao who upgraded from taking notes on paper to typing furiously at his laptop.
"All of your jobs are in danger."
Chanyeol looks genuinely remorseful for his actions. Baekhyun just looks remorseful because Chanyeol does. Nobody else takes Kyungsoo seriously since he has only made threats and has never physically fired anyone before. There's also an unanimous skepticism that Kyungsoo would even be able to find viable replacement employees.
Maybe this is why everyone cheers when Kyungsoo, with an incredible amount of reluctance, announces his weekend business trip. Even Jongdae perks up.
"Are you holding me hostage in my own office?"
Baekhyun stands guard at Kyungsoo's office door after the meeting. He relaxes his grip on the knob when he hears the lock click. From the outside.
Briefly, Kyungsoo wonders why he even installed a door that locks, from the outside, in his office in the first place.
"Is Chanyeol harassing a customer?"
"Did he break out the holy water again is that why you won't let me out there?"
Baekhyun shakes his head and walks over to plant himself in Kyungsoo's chair. Kyungsoo just stares after him.
"Can you please explain to me what is going on?"
Baekhyun touches the mouse and the screen saver on Kyungsoo's computer disappears. He's prompted for a password. Baekhyun, thinking for only a second, guesses it correctly on the first try.
"Oh I just thought. We barely talk anymore. You know. You're the big manager. Thought we'd catch up. For old times sake."
Kyungsoo's mouth tastes bitter. Baekhyun whistles the Windows start up tune. Kyungsoo starts banging on the door.
"HEY IS ANYONE OUT THERE."
Baekhyun opens up solitare.
"LET ME OUT."
"HELLO?"
"THE OFFICE IS ON FIRE."
"ANYONE??"
Baekhyun makes himself a cup of instant coffee from the compartment in Kyungsoo's desk.
"HELP."
Kyungsoo gives up after a few minutes. He sits himself down on the floor, leans against the bookshelf, and studies the motivational posters on his wall. The fish blub in the miniature fish tank.
"Is this a conspiracy?" Kyungsoo asks, a little out of breath, "Am I being overthrown?"
Baekhyun doesn't answer. About hour later, after he knocks out all of Kyungsoo's high scores on the card game, Baekhyun logs out of the computer and digs a walkie talkie out of his pocket.
"Alpha to sigma. Repeat. Alpha to sigma. Has the target left the vicinity? Over."
There's a slight pause and some static on the other end.
"Sigma to Alpha. That's a positive. Over."
Baekhyun puts the walkie talkie back into his pocket, smiles assuringly, and knocks on the office door, three short knocks and two long ones. The lock clicks again.
"Okay you can go now." Baekhyun says addressing Kyungsoo, who's face has been washed with complete unamusement.
He opens the door to see Park Chanyeol pushing his glasses up, one hand holding a walkie talkie and the other moving to sling around Baekhyun's shoulder.
Kyungsoo decides to hold off on all courses of disciplinary action for the moment being. He runs, as fast as his legs could carry him, down the center aisle of the store, frantically checking that all the merchandise is properly intact.
Kyungsoo later learns that he—Jongin, Kyungsoo thinks it's okay to refer to him by name now—had come in looking for a new sofa. Suspicious of his furniture buying intentions, Baekhyun had instructed Lu Han to sell him the most expensive one on the lot.
Baekhyun, who possibly knows Kyungsoo better than himself, knows Kyungsoo is sensitive about these things and that he does not like surprises. Rather than let him revisit memories of Jongin and the ruthless breakup, he had enlisted Chanyeol with a plan. Chanyeol had been more than happy to oblige.
Upon learning the truth, Kyungsoo is still revisiting the ruthless breakup, albeit in a much less painful and surprised way.
Jongin. He tastes the name on his tongue, liking that it's not so sour anymore. He thinks about the box of belongings collecting dust at his mother's. Maybe it is just a genuine apology and maybe there is no competition. He's not good at reading into things, but maybe he just came to the store looking to apologize. Kyungsoo, with his newly found optimism, appreciates the sentiment, but he's glad he didn't have to face it.
He decides Baekhyun deserves a few friendship points, Chanyeol too, maybe.
ϟ
Regardless, Kyungsoo is still a bit hesitant to leave his store unsupervised for the weekend he has to fly to the city and attend one of those bigger corporate meetings.
Zitao, rather dubiously, had assured him that everything would be okay. Kyungsoo didn’t find comfort in that. He exhales exasperatedly and sinks into his office chair. Most likely, Jongdae would just continue to sleep in the store rooms, Baekhyun would barely show up for work (hopefully Chanyeol would skip work with him and Kyungsoo wouldn't have to worry about the physical well-being of his store), and Zitao would sneak into his office and sit in his chair. Kyungsoo rubs the arm of his chair and decides he could live with that.
“Can I come with you?” Chanyeol sticks his head into Kyungsoo’s office the afternoon before he has to catch the flight. Chanyeol has never been to the city before.
Kyungsoo rubs his face and looks up, blearily and through his fingers, at Chanyeol.
“Uh... no?”
“Oh…” He says, dejectedly. “Oh. Okay.”
Later, Chanyeol sprinkles water on Kyungsoo as he walks out the store. It doesn't burn his flesh or anything of the sort—
"Just to be sure." Chanyeol says, smiling.
—In fact, Kyungsoo hardly reacts at all, his mind too busy thinking about the things he has to present at the corporate meeting to really pay attention.
ϟ
Despite the questionable work ethic of his employees, the overall stance of the store is at a good place. They've made good revenue, despite broken lamps, and Kyungsoo would like to think that it's mainly the fruits of his own labor, maybe with a little added help from Zitao.
He presents this to corporate, a board of members lead by someone named Wu Fan. They nod approvingly and whisper about possible opportunities in store for him.
After attending the meeting, Kyungsoo finds something attractive about the city. For one, it's a complete contrast to his own mundane routines, and he thinks, it could possibly be a turn around for his stagnant life.
He dines at an upscale restaurant—alone but he imagines an alternate universe in which he's eating with a few friends, friends that he tries really hard to not imagine as Baekhyun and Chanyeol, classy friends who wear expensive suits and nice watches, and they'd discuss politics, not ghosts. An alternate universe in which he spends Fridays with friends, not his mother.
He has one of those dreams, later that night at the hotel, where he wakes up covered in sweat, stomach churning at the empty feeling.
He’s inside the store, in one of the back corners—the kitchen section. He's afraid to look around, afraid that the rest of the store is vandalized or on fire or something equally disastrous that resulted from his absence.
Despite the lack of windows, there’s warm lighting, a tint like late afternoon, maybe a sunset somewhere. Kyungsoo feels warm.
There’s the slight hum of the refrigerator, which upon further inspection, Kyungsoo sees is fully stocked. Fresh flowers are on the counter and the smell of dish detergent lingers in the air.
There is something unfamiliar about this familiar setting, but the warm feeling that rushes through his blood stream hints that this is where he belongs—something like home.
Then he hears a door click. He hears the scuffle of shoes and the quiet pads of bare toes across the tile floor. Kyungsoo turns, leaning his elbows on the counter, and looks at the archway. A smile unintentionally spreads across his face—happiness he seemingly can’t control because this feels right.
A head darts out from the archway.
“Boo.”
Chanyeol’s ugly smile beams back at him and Kyungsoo wakes up, frightened.
Absent-mindedly his hands dart for his cell phone, about to dial a familiar number and check in. But it's the middle of the night and the only person that'd be at the store would be Chanyeol, maybe, and Kyungsoo doesn't want to speak to him. The ugly smile pops into his mind again. Kyungsoo mentally slaps himself, blaming the disconcerting dream on the foreignness of a hotel bed and returns to sleep instead.
He returns to the same dream, too. Except this time, Baekhyun's sitting at the table nursing a bowl of soup. The flowers are gone, replaced with a bottle of dish detergent. Kyungsoo, still leaning against the counter, sniffs it. Magnolia.
Chanyeol still appears around the corner.
"Boo."
And he sits down in front of Baekhyun. His bare feet scrape the tile making unpleasant noises. Baekhyun smiles with soup covered teeth, his bare feet scraping the tile too. Kyungsoo, with caution, watches them. Baekhyun shares his soup. Chanyeol doesn't catch all of the liquid in his mouth; some of it drips out the corners and down his chin, staining the already stained olive-green polo, company issued.
Kyungsoo sleeps through this rendition of the dream.
He wakes up feeling particularly good about flying home, possibly from an adequate night's worth of sleep, possibly from to the early morning phone call that had woken him up, and sends a gleeful message to Baekhyun.
On the plane, he thinks about the future, about the past (about Jongin), about soup, and he thinks about his second promotion in less than a year—the phone call had offered him a position in the city where he'd be working for corporate and no longer burdened with management of his store in the suburbs—and decides that he must be doing something right, right? Maybe he's not good at certain things, but he's good at this. The alternate universe is more like a future universe now. He had accepted the offer without hesitation and had tasted the rush of adrenaline that comes with surprises. They're not too bad.
The flight attendant reminds them all to please put their seats in the upright position and fasten their seat belts and that the weather where he's headed is sunny with a chance of wind. Kyungsoo grips the arm rests, bracing himself for home.
He should have expected that they'd come and pick him up. Although, Kyungsoo would have much rather preferred riding in Zitao's car (Zitao is a decidedly safer driver, Kyungsoo thinks), Chanyeol's mom's van would suffice as well.
Baekhyun hugs him as Chanyeol loads his suitcase into the vehicle.
"Congrats on the promotion." He pats his shoulder.
Kyungsoo smiles, proud of himself, but frowns when he's made to sit in the back.
When Chanyeol's at the toll booth, Baekhyun drops some news of his own—or not really drops, but hands Chanyeol a few coins to throw into the basket and kisses him afterwards. On the lips. Briefly. Twice. And Kyungsoo, with horror, deduces.
He chokes, as if he hadn't expected it. He didn't, of course. Kyungsoo is not good at reading into things. He immediately thinks about the fact that he had left them alone for an entire weekend, in a furniture store, with beds. Maybe he's over thinking things, though. Hopefully. "Wh—how? Since when." He says, throat rather dry.
Baekhyun and Chanyeol, with their hands intertwined, beam rosey smiles at him, as if silently saying since always.
"Since Friday." Chanyeol offers, pushing his glasses up with his free hand and turning back to watch the road.
From his seat in the back, the coffee stain on Chanyeol's polo is plainly visible. Kyungsoo stares at it and wonders why he doesn't try to wash it out or just ask for a new shirt. Externally, he expresses disapproval of intimate relations in the workplace with his flummoxed expression. He stares out the window, avoiding eye contact with their intertwined hands, Baekhyun's thumb stroking Chanyeol's.
"Beds are still, as they always were, extremely off limits." He says to the window, petrified.
Internally, he thinks, observing through a series of reflections, that Chanyeol looks good with that kind of smile. Baekhyun, too. Like Kyungsoo, who's riding on a cloud of good feelings from his life finally set in motion, maybe they're off to somewhere good as well. He, however, keeps this to himself.
After not being able to concede on a radio station, they drive the rest of the trip from the airport to the store in complete silence. A comfortable silence, Kyungsoo corrects, relatively. He spends most of the time texting Zitao anyway, trying to determine if any disasters had occurred. He finds later, upon through inspection of the store, that everything is intact, even his fish have been regularly fed.
ϟ
For the very last meeting Kyungsoo holds, he doesn't talk about the budget or employee regulations. He gives a motivational speech, something with the underlying theme Carpe Diem, partially inspired by watching his best friend and Chanyeol and their nauseating Public Displays of Affection.
"So what I am saying, I guess, is that if I had any lingering advice to give, it would be to wear sunscreen," Kyungsoo is trying to recall that graduation speech he once read in a book or heard on tv, "because you never know when there's going to be sun." that's probably not how it goes but he continues anyway. "It's important that we live in the moment and do something crazy—Not. Too crazy—surprises are good sometimes. Seize them. Live your life to the fullest. Love is just around the corner if you know where to look."
A heavy silence ensues, mostly out of confusion. Zitao raises his hand.
"I've been promoted. I'm leaving. To the city. At the end of the week."
Zitao puts his hand down. Kyungsoo smiles at all of his employees, who are all avoiding his eyes for their various individual reasons.
Chanyeol takes the opportunity to lead an applause, but for genuinely congratulatory reasons. Baekhyun follows Chanyeol's lead like he always does.
He would have preferred a cake party, but a roaring applause would also suffice. Landing a nice corporate job in the city is quite praise-worthy, Kyungsoo thinks smugly, and moving there would definitely win him points in the competition against Jongin. He's back to categorizing it as a competition again, a competition in which Kyungsoo's decidedly in the lead. Last he heard, Jongin started a band and it has gained quite a following. He has also heard whisperings about a boy named Sehun. Baekhyun had assured him during the small talk before the meeting, rather unconvincingly, that Sehun is short and ugly. Kyungsoo's comforted, nonetheless.
After Kyungsoo's speech, Yixing is met with his own desire to change his life. He needs to seize the day, too.
He tells Lu Han, while sheepishly scuffing his feet across the tile, that he needs help moving one of the sofas in the back. Lu Han rolls his eyes, pretending to be annoyed but agrees regardless. He smoothes out the wrinkles in his polo and follows Yixing, with slow graceful steps, through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.
"So where's the sofa."
"In here."
Lu Han squints.
"That's a broom closet."
Yixing responds by dragging Lu Han into the closet.
With his heart hammering in his chest, he locks the door behind him and seizes the day.
Zitao, caught up in the atmosphere of Carpe Diem, quits, says he's fooling himself with this job. He gives his two week notice to Kyungsoo later in his office after the meeting had dispersed. His real passion is somewhere else and—
"It was a pleasure working with you."
—He ends up applying for management at the department store two blocks over.
ϟ
It's funny how things turn out, or don't turn out. Kyungsoo never pegged himself for a corporate guy and yet he still finds himself packing away his life into boxes. Baekhyun helps him iron his nicer dress shirts for the new job and Chanyeol cooks. He also never expected he'd allow Chanyeol into his own home, especially not near the stove. He definitely never expected to develop non-hostile feelings towards Chanyeol.
"Remember to feed my fish." He says addressing them both at the same time. Chanyeol salutes him.
Chanyeol ends up burning the omelets, but they eat them anyway. Baekhyun grimaces when Chanyeol feeds him a very large piece of burnt egg. He awards him, however, a quick peck on the lips for eating it.
"Don't ever cook again." Baekhyun says wiping his mouth.
The sun sets in a picturesque way and Kyungsoo, after finishing his own burnt omelet with much difficulty and taping up the last of his boxes, his mind full of the fluttery excitement of the future and all its possibility, has an idea.
Kyungsoo, much to the bewilderment of Chanyeol and Baekhyun who are washing the dishes together, suggests they go back to the store.
They are tucked into one of the nicer beds, a victorian model, wrapping themselves in blankets and friendship. Baekhyun makes a joke, with his new authority as the new manager, that this is against company policy. They laugh. Even Kyungsoo laughs.
In addition to the body heat, there's something else in the raised temperature, something everlasting and unbreakable even with Kyungsoo impending move to the city a few hundred kilometers away. It's not that he likes surprises now or even actively welcomes them, it's just that he's finding slight deviations from the planned course of action bearable. He finds Chanyeol bearable. Maybe a little more than bearable, he thinks, as Chanyeol tells them all to hush and listen.
They're quiet and there's a mechanical moan, a bit melancholic. Baekhyun still has those eager eyes and believes everything Chanyeol says a little bit too easily. Kyungsoo feels a tug in his heart, a warm one. Reluctance is only natural. It's the reward he gets for the past months of chronic headaches, but he's off to somewhere good. Somewhere exciting. His life is in motion.
On Kyungsoo's last night in the suburbs, he falls asleep to the warmth, to the whirl of the outdated ac, and to Chanyeol's exceedingly predictable ghost stories.
notes:
- title from The Academy Is
- picture credit