Chapter Text
Oh, he’s gorgeous.
That had been the very first thing that had flitted across his then naive mind when he had first laid eyes on Beomgyu.
It was about half past seven, he remembers, on that particular day. He was ill-dressed: a sleeveless tank top with his jacket tied around his waist, even though the bitter morning chill hadn’t removed its teeth yet, and the dew was still fresh and clinging to the grass blades. The sun was high and bearing down without relent, though it did nothing to fight off the bite of crisp, spring morning air.
He was leaning against the brick wall outside the new shop, enjoying a morning cigarette before his shift officially started, when Beomgyu had sped in and swung his car into a spot a few cars down from his, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
He’d watched with boredom and mild curiosity as he stepped out, and Yeonjun vividly recalls the way the breeze had so artfully brushed away the strands of hair from his face, like even Zephyrus himself had become smitten; longing to look into his soft eyes, to gaze upon his sharp nose, to run a cool finger along his pouty lips, to brush against the dark lashes that Yeonjun could discern, even from this distance.
Back then, his heart had not only skipped a beat; it had completely lost its footing and landed face first onto the ground, swallowing a mouthful of dirt.
Embarrassing as it was to admit it, he had been so focused on admiring Beomgyu’s delicate features that he hadn’t even noticed another person step outside the shop until he was right next to Beomgyu. Tall, blond, well-built, and greeting him with a guileless smile that did not have a place so early in the morning. Beomgyu had sent him a tired smile of his own before he walked over to open the trunk, and began to unload some boxes, handing them to the other who then delivered them to their own back door.
If he squinted, he could barely make out the bright petals that peeked out over the edge of a few boxes.
“Hyung, you okay?”
Beomgyu shook his head, and then he opened his mouth.
And Yeonjun recalls, with clear, ice-like clarity, that that was the moment his initial impression of him was abruptly shattered.
“Kai, you wouldn't fucking believe,” he grumbled, “last night my really wonderful, super considerate neighbours decided that having a raging party that went on until three in the fucking morning was a great idea.”
“Oh, that's not good—”
“And of fucking course I had forgotten to set my alarm so I overslept, and when I got on the road, the traffic was so shit that by the time I got there all I could get were these fucked up, half-dead heathers. Also, the dalgona lady also ran out long before I got there so I haven’t even had my morning coffee yet.”
Kai could only purse his lips and nod in understanding at the constant stream of complaints that spilled from the boorish mouth of a sailor that rested on the celestial face of an angel.
“And then this,” and Yeonjun’s cigarette paused at his lips as Beomgyu gestured angrily to his car, “piece of shit car takes my parking spot. Whose fucking car is this, anyway?”
“Mine,” Yeonjun had spoken up then, lifting the hand that still held his burning cigarette in between two fingers and finally making himself known. He wasn’t going to stand there and let Beomgyu insult Betty like that. Sure, she was beat up, and sure she was perhaps a few decades past her prime and had seen much better days, but he didn’t have the right to hurt her feelings like that.
The two of them whipped their heads around to look at Yeonjun like they hadn’t noticed him standing there for the past five or ten minutes, and really, they probably hadn’t, judging by the way the Kai had jumped at his sudden intrusion, and clutched at his chest.
“You probably don’t know this,” Beomgyu had said, voice calm but dripping with rancour, which—at the time—caught him off-guard, “but that’s my usual spot.”
“Interesting,” Yeonjun drawled, looking around, “I could’ve sworn this was a public carpark.”
When Beomgyu scoffed in Yeonjun’s direction at this, he had barely managed to stop himself from barking out a laugh, because, wow, he’d only just met the guy and he was already copping an attitude. Yeonjun couldn’t imagine being so entitled that he’d start foaming at the mouth because someone took that spot for one day.
“Look, I know you’ve been here for all of, what, half an hour?” Beomgyu checked his watch, and Yeonjun had found it so amusing that someone could be so ill-mannered while dressed in a cozy sweater with a goddamn cartoon teddy bear printed on the front, “But I’ve been parking here for a couple of years now. Everyone here knows that.”
“What?” Yeonjun looked over to where the door of the shop was located only a few metres away, “You can’t walk that distance?”
“Well, today wasn’t bad!” he defended himself, “But if you keep taking my spot I might end up one day parked like, I don’t know, over there or something,” he pointed to the far end of the carpark, where the ground is made of loose gravel and there’s no lines to delineate any distinct parking spots. Honestly speaking, if someone was to get shanked in the kidney, it’d probably take place in that exact location.
“I mean, it’ll be good exercise,” Yeonjun suggests conversationally, “get your steps in.”
“Wh—I don’t need the extra exercise,” Beomgyu argues, affronted, waving his hands in the direction of the boxes piled at the door, “I need to not be lugging all this shit back and forth.”
“Alright, alright,” Yeonjun lifted both his hands up and conceded, because upon checking his phone he realised it was almost time for him to clock in and help Taehyun with all the set up, not because he was done arguing, “fine. I won’t park in your special spot again.”
Beomgyu narrowed his eyes at Yeonjun, “Yeah, you better not.”
And to be fair, Yeonjun will give credit where credit is due. Most people were often too intimidated by Yeonjun to even look him in the eye when they spoke, especially on a first meeting. He’s been told it’s the way he looks at people; his gaze so intense that it makes others nervous, and the way that he towered over most.
This guy, however, was ready to tear into a Yeonjun on sight, even if it was totally undeserved. But he’ll still give him that, at the very least.
“Oh I won’t, I pinky promise,” Yeonjun cooed, tone syrupy sweet, sticking out his lips, “no need to get your panties in a twist, baby.”
Beomgyu bristled, “Don’t call me that.”
“Then what should I call you?” he asked, pushing off the wall, “You know, so we can make you a little sign to put here.”
In response, Beomgyu took a deep breath, fixed him with one of the dirtiest looks Yeonjun had ever received in his entire life, and spun around without answering. Yeonjun still remembers the face he made: a pouty, resentful expression that Yeonjun would later describe, in retrospect, as oddly endearing in a petulant sort of way. But at that moment, all he thought about was how rude and audacious he had been.
Yeonjun had done nothing wrong. He’d just happened to park in apparently the one spot in the entire carpark that he ‘shouldn’t have’—in quotation marks, because technically he was allowed to park wherever the fuck he wanted—and he had to start his day off being chewed out by some entitled twink in a parking lot for committing such a heinous crime.
“Come on, Kai,” he said, and oh yeah, Yeonjun had forgotten about him. For someone so big he was quite unassuming.
Kai looked over to Yeonjun and then back at Beomgyu, and then he sent Yeonjun an apologetic little wave before he trailed after Beomgyu and disappeared into the shop.
So that’s how Yeonjun had come up with his second, and current standing thoughts about Beomgyu.
Impolite, annoying,
but still so crushingly beautiful.
—
“—so yeah, it’s pretty cool that we don’t have to be so cramped in this building,” Taehyun had said with his hands on his hips, looking around, “I couldn’t get around the old place without getting in someone else’s way.”
Yeonjun only nodded absent-mindedly as Taehyun walked him around the new shop, showing them all the space they had to utilise as they wished. The decision to move had been on the table for a while now, and it was only recently that they had the funds to actually go ahead with it. Their old building had been decrepit and on the verge of crumbling on top of their heads at any moment—it was essentially a ticking time bomb. In fact, Yeonjun is surprised that all of them had come out of there unscathed.
Actually, no, that was a lie. He remembers when their boss had to take a trip to the doctor after his foot had come through a weaker part of the flooring while he was cleaning up on the second storey. He’d royally fucked his knee up, then, but they were just lucky he didn’t fall right through and land on a client.
But the point is, Yeonjun couldn’t focus properly on what Taehyun was trying to tell him. All he could think about was the unpleasant interaction he’d had that morning. On a first meeting too. Yeonjun may look the way he does—like he wants to murder anyone for looking at him wrong—but he would never think to lash out at someone like that on a first meeting.
“—that okay?”
Yeonjun snapped his head up, “Huh? What?”
“Are you even listening to what I’m saying? Taehyun asked, “I was wondering if you were okay with this being your space. I tried to give everyone enough room to work as evenly as possible, but it’s kinda hard with the way the rooms are set out but…”
“Yeah, no, that’s great. Thanks,” Yeonjun smiled at him, “sorry, I just had a bit of a weird morning.”
“Oh?” Taehyun turned to him as they walked back out to the front.
“Yeah, the uh…” Yeonjun waved in the general direction of the flower shop, “shop next door, one of the guys just suddenly jumped down my throat this morning, just because I parked in his ‘usual’ spot. As if I knew.”
Taehyun’s eyebrows had furrowed like he was trying to figure out who it could’ve been, “Really? When me and Jun came here to assess the building we met them briefly and they seemed pretty chill?”
Yeonjun laughed, “Chill? You probably didn’t meet the one I did today then.”
“What’d he look like?” Taehyun questioned, as if he didn’t believe Yeonjun’s story.
“Black hair about…this long—” Yeonjun held his hand to his shoulder.
“Oh! That’s Beomgyu,” Taehyun clicked his fingers.
Beomgyu.
“Hmm, weird, you must’ve caught him on a bad day.”
Yeah.
He sure fucking did.
ꕥ
Since starting off on the wrong foot, the two had never really corrected their footing. It wasn’t for lack of trying though. Beomgyu had arrived the next day upon noticing that Yeonjun had kept to his word and left the spot open, he had muttered a quiet “thanks”, and even went one step further and offered a curt apology.
“No problem,” Yeonjun had said, but he wasn’t about to let him off the hook, “you shouldn’t be apologising to me, though.”
“What?”
And really, if his personality wasn’t so unpleasant, Yeonjun would probably be head over heels for, or at the very least infatuated, with him and the oddly charming way his eyebrow lifted and his lips quirked in confusion. He is pretty, Yeonjun can’t deny that. So pretty and so annoying, in fact, that Yeonjun just could not resist the urge to tease him.
“Betty,” Yeonjun said.
“Betty? The fuck are you on about?” Beomgyu asked, and then he shook his head and turned on his heels, “Look, whatever, I need to get to work.”
“My car,” Yeonjun explained, “you called her a ‘piece of shit car’ yesterday.”
And honestly, while Yeonjun was extremely fond of his car, he wasn’t a revhead who had a borderline romantic relationship with his vehicle and believed it actually had feelings. He just wanted to nettle Beomgyu, really. Wanted to see how many buttons he could push before the other snapped and punched him in the face.
“Dude,” Beomgyu pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, back still turned to Yeonjun, “I don’t have time for this, okay? I said I was sorry—”
“Yeah, you did,” Yeonjun agreed, “to me. But not to Betty, who is the real victim here.”
Beomgyu exhaled heavily through his nose and frowned, “I’m not apologising to your fucking car.”
“Why not? She deserves it.”
“She’s a car.”
Yeonjun pointed at him with a big grin, “Ah! You said ‘she’!”
Beomgyu had finally turned around then, just so he could spit directly to Yeonjun’s face, “You are so fucking annoying.”
“No, I’m Yeonjun,” he smiled, reaching out a hand, “nice to meet you.”
Beomgyu only stared at his hand, unimpressed, “I don’t care. And for the record, she is a piece of shit car.”
ꕥ
“Morning, princess,” Yeonjun calls out.
They’d been here for a few weeks now, and every morning without fail, Yeonjun would have his pre-shift smoke facing the carpark and readied himself to go head-to-head with Beomgyu. It wasn't all bad though, hurling insults and slander back and fourth, because during this time also he’d gotten to know the guy who was built like a jaguar but was seemingly possessed by the spirit of a golden retriever.
It didn’t take long for Yeonjun to develop a rather soft spot for him. He was easy to talk to, friendly, chatty, very excitable, and actually seemed interested in what Yeonjun had to say.
On the days when they both found themselves out the back of their virtually conjoined buildings at the same time, he found that having a conversation with him against the wall of the shop felt more like a respite rather than a tedious chore.
He could only hope that Beomgyu treated him nicer than he treated Yeonjun.
Beomgyu, on the other hand, did not warm up to Yeonjun so quickly; he knows that he had not helped his case in the slightest. But Yeonjun, for all the barbed jabs and hostility, had admittedly developed some bizarre fascination with him, like a house cat would a bird.
At first he’d just been frustrated and irritated by Beomgyu’s shitty attitude, but now he was past that. Now, Beomgyu was starting to bite back, and unbeknownst to him, that did nothing but egg Yeonjun on.
Any time Beomgyu was unfortunate enough to find himself within his line of sight, he was overcome by an insatiable urge to just say something—anything—just like a misbehaved dog will bark and howl and jump on one’s leg just to get some attention. Because any attention, regardless of whether or not it was positive or negative, was good attention. And for some inexplicable reason that Yeonjun himself was all too reluctant to dwell on, that was what he wanted.
Though, one would be wrong to think it was just a one-way relationship, with a clear distinction between perpetrator and victim.
Very wrong.
Because on several occasions, Beomgyu had actually been the one to instigate. Occasions such as accidentally-on-purpose launching an empty coffee cup at his head under the guise of missing the bin that was located on the complete opposite side of the lot. When Yeonjun had pointed out that the bin was a good five or so metres in the opposite direction, Beomgyu had just dramatically slapped his hands over his eyes in faux-shame and blamed it on the wind.
Everyone and their mothers could tell you that there had been no wind that day.
Or occasions such as asking Yeonjun if he was dressed for Betty’s funeral when he’d decided to don his all-black ensemble for the day, and offering his condolences in the form of his hands pressed together and an insincere bow. Yeonjun was close to flicking the ash from his cigarette onto his stupid little round head, the only thing stopping him from doing so being the distance the flecks would have to travel. An exercise in futility.
So lately, he’d taken to calling Beomgyu as many pet names as possible, trying to figure out which one is the one that pisses him off the most and puts him in as shitty of a mood as possible. So far he’s had general success with most of them, though the ones that have gotten him the dirtiest looks were ones related to food like ‘sugarplum’ and ‘cupcake’.
‘Princess’ seemed to be mid-high tier on the Shitty-o-meter, but it didn’t instill as much rage as when he’d called Beomgyu his little honeybun. Shame, Yeonjun likes that one, and he thinks it suits Beomgyu more than many of the other ones he’d called him so far.
He thinks he’ll continue using it anyway.
“Need me to carry that to the door for you?” Yeonjun asks, when Beomgyu grabs his bag from the front seat.
“You sure?” Beomgyu shoots back, locking his car, “Wouldn’t want to snap those weedy little arms of yours, would you?”
He doesn’t even spare Yeonjun a glance.
Obviously not, because if he did he would see that Yeonjun’s arms were in fact not weedy, and most definitely not little.
“That’s not very nice, darling,” Yeonjun calls out.
“Don’t care,” Beomgyu replies with a smile in Yeonjun’s direction, before he blows a kiss in his direction and, without missing a beat, skips up the steps and into the back door.
It would be a while before he would ever admit how long he stood there, cigarette burning dangerously close to his knuckles, as his heart leapt to attention.
—
Beomgyu understands that he had been wrong to snap at Yeonjun when they had first met, hence the apology that he had extended so sincerely the next day. But what did he do in response? Did he accept the apology and move on with his life like a normal person would? No, he fucking threw it back in Beomgyu’s face by insisting that he apologise to his fucking car instead.
And now, all he does is tease and prod at Beomgyu like it was his second job and he’s got overdue rent to pay. Sure, he’d perhaps been a little brusque, but he had recognised that and said sorry. What more could he do to get him off his back? Beomgyu hadn’t an inkling of what else he could have done to earn this incessant harassment, with all the jabs about him not being able to walk the few metres to the door without needing someone to carry his bag for him and…and…the pet names.
He cringes at the memories of them, sickening nicknames that leave Beomgyu feeling like he'd been doused in honey.
Beomgyu doesn’t need a mirror to know that he is beginning to resemble the blushed petals of the flowers he’s currently carrying in his arms. The fact that it had not been incited by anger and something else completely different makes him want to slam his head onto the table…because the interaction had been enraging, but not enough to instill in him the indignation that he so wished would be present to solely justify the heat rising so rapidly upon his cheeks.
Dropping the box of peonies down onto the table a little harder than he intended, he startles Kai where the younger was tending to the card stand, rearranging and straightening them to his liking.
“Shit—you scared me!” Kai breathes out, picking up the ‘Get Well Soon!’ card he’d dropped on the ground and placing it back where it belongs.
“Sorry,” Beomgyu mumbles, picking out a few nice flowers to start cleaning up.
“Everything okay?” Kai asks, tightening his apron and walking over to where Beomgyu begins to methodically pick off the damaged petals off the flowers. One thing about Beomgyu, if he doesn't speak, his expression will do it for him.
“Yeah,” Beomgyu mutters, blowing a lock of hair out of his face.
“You sure?” he says, leaning over Beomgyu, “You look like you want to send those flowers to the shadow realm.”
Beomgyu sighs, placing the flower on the table, “Kai, I’m fine.”
And he is. He didn’t care that this morning, Yeonjun had called him ‘princess’ and ‘darling’. It did absolutely nothing to him. It didn’t make his hands shake, nor did it make his legs feel like pathetic little strands of overcooked dangmyeon, and he absolutely did not feel the words like cupid’s arrow through the heart. He’s totally chill, man, and anyone who says he isn’t is a goddamn teller of untruths.
“What happened?” he persists, not giving Beomgyu an easy way out.
“Nothing, I told you,” Beomgyu replies a little too quick, and then he closes his eyes and rubs his forehead, “just…something that asshole next door said this morning. It just annoyed me.”
“Oh, the one that took your spot that one time?” Kai asks, and when Beomgyu nods, he smiles, “Yeonjunnie-hyung!”
Beomgyu drops his hand and shoots him a baffled, almost betrayed look, “What? Since when were you guys friends?”
“I talk to him in the mornings sometimes,” Kai shrugs, “he’s actually really nice.”
Beomgyu scoffs, and continues pulling leaves off the stems, “Nice? He’s been nothing but insufferable to me.”
“Maybe it’s just his way of trying to get to know you,” Kai suggests.
“What? By being an asshole?”
“By pulling on your pigtails.”
The implication of Kai’s words has Beomgyu taken aback and his cheeks growing hot, and he ducks his head and pretends that snipping buds off the stems requires his full attention. He hopes that Kai will mistakenly recognise the rosiness of his cheeks as annoyance and anger.
It was a waste, truly, that his personality and antics were such powerfully repellant forces. If he worked on being less irritating, Beomgyu thinks he could be considered attractive, because objectively that’s what he was. Emphasis on the objective.
Beomgyu would simply be a liar if he denied it.
It was hard not to notice, after all. If he wasn’t wearing a jacket, he would almost always be wearing some dumb tank top that exposed his stupid biceps; Beomgyu had known it was a straight up lie when he called them weedy and little this morning. Beomgyu suspects he likes to show off the sleeve that he had wrapping around his left arm, the design that began on his shoulder, extending down past the upper arm, and petering out as it curled around his forearm. Beomgyu has never been close enough to see what it depicted, and to be perfectly honest, he didn’t intend to ever do so.
And yes, maybe he had those really, stupidly, annoyingly plump lips and dangerously sharp eyes that made Beomgyu’s hair stand on end when he could feel them on him. Whenever Yeonjun was around, he always felt a pressure at the back of his neck, like he was standing in the centre of his cross hairs, and he had never before felt so much like prey about to be pounced on; though the truth of the matter was, rather than being some kind of apex predator, he was most likely just watching and waiting for the opportunity to say something incredibly idiotic and irritating.
“Whatever, if I don’t give him the reactions he wants I’m sure he’ll get bored of me eventually,” Beomgyu mumbles, “I don’t even have pigtails.”
ꕥ
After finally finishing the consultation with his last client, he'd found Taehyun already lounging outside, eating whatever healthy lunch he’d planned for himself today. The guy was always so meticulous in everything he did; he had his meal plans sorted every week and a routine of going to the gym that he stuck to faithfully, and that quality of his clearly showed in his work, having a steady client base that refused to see anyone but him.
He slumps into the chair next to Taehyun with his own nutritious lunch of red bull, a muesli bar, and a cigarette.
“How was it?”
“Alright,” Yeonjun answers, eyes squinting in the sun, “she was pretty indecisive so ninety percent of it we were just going back and forth, and by the time we settled on a vague idea our time was almost up. So…”
“Ah, right,” Taehyun shrugs, “hopefully once you have a design in mind she can be a bit more specific in what she wants.”
Yeonjun nods and takes a sip of his red bull when the door next door swings open and the sounds of rich laughter reaches his ears.
Kai and Beomgyu come stumbling outside, Beomgyu with his head tilted back as he laughs at whatever Kai had said to him before, and Kai joining him with raucous laughter of his own. Yeonjun watches with vague interest as Beomgyu grabs onto Kai’s arm to stabilise himself with the hand that isn’t holding a bag of what he assumes is dead leaves and petals, ready to be thrown away. It’s the closest Yeonjun had ever come to seeing unbridled joy on Beomgyu’s face, and seeing him like this…it was…well.
It was something.
Different.
“Oh, it’s you,” Beomgyu says when the laughter dies down, and Yeonjun had never seen a smile drop from someone’s face so fast before. A tiny part of him wants to be amused, while another is tasked with convincing the rest of him that it doesn’t sting, not even a little bit. His smile returns just as quickly, however, as he leans over so he can see around Yeonjun, and with a dainty wiggle of his fingers he calls out sweetly, “Hi, Taehyun.”
Taehyun lifts a hand in greeting, “Hey, Beomgyu.”
“No need to be so happy to see me,” Yeonjun says with a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight, beaming over at Beomgyu like this isn’t some juvenile way of attracting his attention.
“Sorry, you know I just can’t contain my excitement around you,” he maintains his own smile on his face and the saccharine tone of voice, “anyway, would love to stay and chat but I have better things to do than to stand here and chat with the likes of you,” and then he’s steering Kai away with the hand still on his arm towards the outside bins, “have a great rest of your day, Taehyun!”
“Hi guys! Bye guys!” Kai calls out from over his shoulder and the two of them wave as he gets dragged away by a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Man, he really doesn’t like you, huh?” Taehyun says, watching the other two throw their trash bags into the bin.
“Nope,” Yeonjun laughs, bringing the can to his lips, “not at all.”
ꕥ
Something delicate, she had requested. Something delicate and pretty. It didn’t really need to have a meaning, but she did just make some big changes in her life, like breaking up with her boyfriend of five years, moving to a different city, and she’s now in the process of stepping into an entirely new and different career. The trajectory of her life had completely derailed and she wanted something to commemorate her own act of bravery.
Yeonjun often tried not to take his work home with him, but he thought he’d at least try and do some brainstorming while he waited for his microwave meal to heat up since the initial consultation had a bit of a slow start. If he could come up with somewhat of a vague idea it would speed up the process a little bit. His next meeting with her was already approaching pretty fast, and he had told her that he should hopefully have a few drafts drawn up for her by then, but honestly, he hadn’t actually really given it much thought until now.
Something delicate and pretty…
Yeonjun rubs his chin in thought.
—
Spring’s Bounty, reads the small wooden sign hanging above the front door. Yeonjun stands beneath it, admiring the flourished letters burnt into the wood.
He doesn’t know why he didn’t just google it to begin with; it probably would’ve saved him the trouble of losing half his lunch break and he could’ve avoided the death glare that he received the moment the small bell chimed to signal his entrance.
Beomgyu had been busying himself with watering the flowers that were on display, his back to the front door. When he turned around, though, and saw Yeonjun standing in the middle of the shop…
If looks could kill, Yeonjun would be in several pieces scattered across the country.
“What are you doing here?” Beomgyu asks accusingly, before continuing on with his duties.
He’s wearing a plain white top, black jeans, and a simple beige apron cinched around his tiny waist with a small bunny printed on the left pocket. The pocket holds a rather intimidating pair of scissors, and Yeonjun notes in the back of his mind to make sure not to push Beomgyu too hard during this interaction, lest he receive a pair of shears in his eyes. Yet despite the sharp instrument in his pocket, he still looks rather darling, pottering around the shop and tending to the plants in his cute little outfit.
Yeonjun saunters closer, the wooden floorboards creaking under his boots, “I hope you don’t greet all your customers this way.”
Beomgyu is gracious enough to spare a glance in his direction, and Yeonjun makes a startling comparison between him and the adorable rabbit on his apron. He wonders if it’s the large, guileless eyes that—despite everything—has Yeonjun hopelessly endeared, or if it’s the puffed out cheeks of vexation that Yeonjun wants to squish between his thumb and forefinger.
“My customers usually don’t annoy the hell out of me.”
“I haven’t even done anything.”
“Yet,” Beomgyu says, narrowing his eyes at Yeonjun as he gets closer.
Rather than the bunny on his apron, he thinks perhaps Beomgyu would be more closely compared to the The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, ready to tear a hole through his jugular without warning.
Yeonjun stops about a metre away from him. His knowledge of botany and horticulture is pretty much non-existent so instead of bothering Beomgyu, for now he opts to read the descriptions of all sorts of different flowers and admires the bouquets that they have on display. For a moment he even forgets why he’s here, too engrossed in reading about gardenias and their very specific needs.
It’s warm here. Not just because the afternoon sun is pouring in through the windows and bathing everything in a mellow golden haze, but the soft wood and the abundance of flowers and foliage creates a sense of homely coziness, like stepping into a cottage situated in the middle of the woods where fae dwell. The air smells like an assortment of flowers but rather than being overwhelming, it’s a gentle, soothing aroma that puts his mind at ease. At least, it did, until Beomgyu’s voice jars him out of his thoughts.
“Did you actually need something, or did you come here just so you can keep standing where I need to be?”
“Nah, I think I’m pretty comfortable where I am,” Yeonjun teases, and really, Beomgyu should’ve known better than to ask something like that, given Yeonjun’s track record of being extremely talented at getting on his nerves and doing the exact opposite of what he wants.
He lifts an eyebrow at Beomgyu and smirks, and the other just looks away immediately, before stomping over to the other side of the room so he can stand at the till and water the flowers sitting on the counter instead. Yeonjun watches as he sets the bottle down and flips through some loose pieces of paper on the desk. During a brief pause, he lifts his hands and re-ties his half-ponytail, artfully pulling some strands loose to frame his lovely face. He doesn’t mean to ogle, but Yeonjun is a simple man who likes to look at pretty things, even if said things were as venomous as they were pretty.
“What?” Beomgyu snaps, when he looks up and notices Yeonjun’s staring.
Yeonjun makes his way over, and he can almost see the way Beomgyu’s metaphorical hackles raise as he approaches.
He leans both hands on the counter. From this angle he can admire how his lashes fan across his eyelids, long and arranged like the petals of a daisy. His eyes flick up to meet Yeonjun’s, and it’s insane how someone can look so deadly and so soft at the same time.
“I was kidding before, by the way,” Yeonjun says, “I did actually come here for a reason.”
Beomgyu lifts a slender finger and brushes a bit of hair out of his eyes, pursing his petal-pink lips and tilting his head, waiting for Yeonjun to continue with an exasperated expression on his face like he’d rather be anywhere else but here.
“I just wanted some…advice? I guess?”
“You guess?” Beomgyu repeats in the exact same tone as Yeonjun.
Yeonjun rolls his eyes, “Yeah. About flowers.”
“Oh, sorry, you’ve come to the wrong place,” Beomgyu says with a pout, crouching down to file the pieces of paper away in a drawer, “maybe you should try the mechanic down the road?”
Yeonjun sighs, a tired smile making its way onto his face, “C’mon, why do you need to be so difficult?”
“Me? Difficult?” Beomgyu’s eyes widen as stands back up and points to himself, “As if you’re not the one that makes it a life mission to antagonise me at every opportunity!”
“Oh? Do you not remember the first day we met?”
“And I apologised for that,” Beomgyu reminds him firmly, “an apology that you didn’t want to accept! You tried to make me apologise to your dumb car!”
Yeah, Yeonjun remembers that, and he laughs to himself. It was kind of funny, but he supposes it was the wrong thing to do.
“It’s that funny to you, huh?”
“I mean, a little—”
“You’re not as funny as you think.”
“Oh, you know that’s not true, pumpkin.”
“Okay, you need to stop with all those fucking pet names,” Beomgyu says firmly, and he looks like he’s two seconds away from reaching into the bunny pocket and pulling out those scissors that Yeonjun had told himself to be careful of, “I swear to god.”
“Aw, but cupcake—” Yeonjun starts.
Beomgyu inhales, and exhales, and Yeonjun swears he can see the steam coming out of his ears with how his face starts to heat up, “Don’t. Just—what do you want?”
“My little shmoopie.”
“You know what?” Beomgyu looks up at him, with his lips stretched in a thin smile that is anything but friendly, and he takes a small breath before hitting Yeonjun with a curt little, “Fuck you.”
And then he’s turning his head to the side and grabbing more sheets of paper to clean up. Yeonjun wishes Beomgyu would look at him because every time he sees Beomgyu’s disgruntled little face it adds another five years to Yeonjun’s life span.
“Is that a promise?”
“Wha—I—” Beomgyu stutters, before he firmly places the pieces of paper back on the desk, and with that same exasperated smile, he lifts both hands into the air in surrender, “Forget it. I’m not helping you with whatever it is you need.”
“Oh, no wait, no, come on—”
And he can only watch as Beomgyu drops what he’s doing, spins around with a huff, and disappears through a door leading out to the back of the store that’s for staff only.
Yeonjun stands there with one hand on a cocked hip and the other picking at his bottom lip. Yeah, he’ll take responsibility for that, he supposes. But he just can’t help it. There’s just something about Beomgyu that makes it impossible for Yeonjun to not tease him at every opportunity. His reactions are just…just…cute. For lack of a better word.
He’s not sure if he should leave, but after a minute or so of standing around awkwardly and considering ringing the bell, he hears something like a scream and a laugh, and then the door swings open. It’s Kai this time, who greets him excitedly, waving with a big smile on his face.
“Hey, Kai,” Yeonjun waves back with a grin, and he ruffles his hair when he takes Beomgyu’s place at the counter. He’s also wearing an apron but his one is a mint green gingham patterned one, sitting over a chocolate brown top, and the entire ensemble makes him look like the human embodiment of mint choco ice cream, a severely underrated and misunderstood ice cream flavour in his humble opinion.
“Beomgyu-hyung sent me out here, apparently you needed some help or advice or something?” he asks, “What’d you do to him? He was not happy.”
“Yeah, that’s my bad,” Yeonjun scratches the back of his neck, “I might've pissed him off. Sorry if he took it out on you.”
“Ah, he’ll get over it. He never really takes it out on me in a way that actually matters, don’t worry. Though, it wouldn’t hurt you to be nicer to him, you know,” Kai says, and his bottom lip jutting out is almost enough for Yeonjun to agree, “I got a spray bottle to the head because of you.”
“But it’s just so fun to tease him.”
“I know, right? He gives the best reactions,” Kai says with a laugh of his own, and then he leans forward, “Between you and me, I don’t think he’s as angry at you as he makes himself out to be. Honestly, I think he’s more flustered than anything. He could barely string a proper sentence just now, and he was blushing like crazy.”
Yeonjun is taken aback.
So the pink tint on his cheeks wasn’t just a figment of Yeonjun’s imagination?
“Wait, what? Do you think so?” Yeonjun questions, “You think he was really blushing? Or are you fucking with me?”
Kai shakes his head earnestly, “No why would I lie about that—wait, why are you…?” and then his eyes widen, “Oh my god, are you…interested in him?”
“No, I—”
“Do you think he’s cute?”
“Well—I…I just didn’t expect you to say that. I thought he hated me,” Yeonjun stammers out, because Yeonjun…doesn’t really know what to do with this information. Maybe Kai was just trying to make him feel better, and he really just pissed Beomgyu off, but if he was telling the truth…
“I mean…he could still hate you,” Kai says with a casual shrug of his shoulder, but his eyes are still trained on Yeonjun for anything that may betray his feelings. When Yeonjun remains stalwart after his smooth recovery, he claps his hands together, “Anyway, what did you need help with?”
As if he didn’t just drop that bomb on Yeonjun and expect him to continue with business like it was nothing.
“Oh, uh right,” Yeonjun snaps to attention, straightening up, “Um, I was just wondering if you could help me pick a flower for a design…”
—
The door rebounds off the wall with a bang with how hard Beomgyu swings it open. The moment he’s sure he's out of earshot, he starts rambling.
“Annoying piece of—he thinks he can just waltz in here and just…and just…ugh!” Beomgyu paces back and forth in front of Kai, pressing his hands against his heated face in an attempt to settle the humiliating dusting of pink that’s settled on his cheeks.
Kai is watching him with curious eyes, drying some vases he’d just finished rinsing out.
“He’s so…so…” Beomgyu says eloquently as he paces around, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Is everything okay?” Kai asks, as if Beomgyu isn’t making a motion like he’s trying to strangle the air in front of him.
“No!” Beomgyu exclaims, whipping around, “I hate him! He’s so…annoying. Everything he does is so annoying.”
Beomgyu can’t stop thinking about that stupid smug expression of his face as he leaned on the counter with those veiny forearms of his and looked down at Beomgyu with those piercing eyes, grinning like he’d gotten the better of him. The way he stood over him made Beomgyu feel like a small mouse backed into a corner, and he could finally see the serpentine creature that curled its way down his arm.
It made Beomgyu feel prickles underneath his skin, a wave of them rippling through his body as Yeonjun smirked at him.
“Yeonjun-hyung?”
“Yes, who else?”
Who else indeed.
Who else could get under his skin so easily with just a smirk and the uttering of the word ‘pumpkin’? A smirk that was so frustratingly—
“Tell me again what you think of him,” Kai says.
Beomgyu almost falls for the bait, but he reels himself in just in time, before he can call him annoying for the hundredth time in the span of a minute.
“Why do you let him get to you so much?” Kai asks with a laugh, putting down the vase in his hand so he can give Beomgyu his full attention. He didn’t verbally ask for Kai’s full attention outright but the loud huffing and the stomping around told him as much.
“Because…because…”
Kai looks at him and lifts a suspecting eyebrow, “Because?”
“Because!” Beomgyu yells with his hands linked around the back of his neck as he pulls his elbows together like he’s trying to choke himself out.
Kai tilts his head, waiting for Beomgyu to elaborate. Beomgyu knows it was not a satisfactory answer, and he sniffs petulantly, rubbing his nose. To stall, he picks up a flower pot to move it somewhere where it’s not sitting so close to the edge of a table.
“I—I don’t know, okay?” Beomgyu finally says, as if that were enough explanation, “Something about him just…he makes me—”
“Horny?” Kai asks suddenly and without shame.
Beomgyu drops the pot he was holding, soil spilling out all over the concrete floor, and he hurriedly grabs a brush and shovel to sweep up the mess, “Jesus, what the fuck, Kai?”
“Well, does he?” Kai leans back on his chair, balancing on the two back legs and Beomgyu has to resist the urge to walk over and kick the chair out from under him to teach him a lesson, “Do you think he’s hot?”
“Kai, stop. And that’s…that’s—why would you ask me if I’m horny, you fucking weirdo! And just so you know, I find him extremely irritating!”
The younger doesn't relent, “I didn’t ask if you were horny, I asked if he made you horny, they’re not the same thing. Also, that wasn’t exactly a no.”
“I’m—I—he’s…” Beomgyu stutters out, and then he shakes his head in an attempt to give his mind a bit of a soft reset and get all his words and thoughts back into place, “whatever, that’s not the point, I’m not—”
Kai can’t suppress the grin that slowly begins to form on his face. Beomgyu’s face had been pink before, but now it’s reaching mortifying levels of beetroot, and he probably doesn’t even realise it.
“Stop. Stop making that face and…and go and help him with whatever dumb shit he needs so he can get the fuck out of here. He’s out the front and I can’t look him in the face right now,” Beomgyu snaps at him before he’s storming off towards the nursery.
“Why? Is it because you’re horn—”
Beomgyu shuts up him by throwing an empty spray bottle in his general direction and Kai yelps as it bounces off his head, with an empty thunk, “Because he’s pissing me off, Kai! Now go!”
—
He spends the rest of his afternoon out the back, taking the time to sweep the nursery of all its fallen petals and leaves and wash out the rest of the vases that Kai had yet to finish before he’d interrupted and sent him out.
It takes him a few minutes of completing the mindless tasks in front of him for his face to come back down to normal temperatures, and he tries to focus on those instead of the man currently standing out the front.
He only braves the venture back when he’s absolutely sure that Yeonjun has left.
ꕥ
It’s a bit hard to hear what he’s saying because his phone is old and he refuses to buy another one. It doesn’t help that the roar of Soobin’s rangehood fan is drowning out most of what he’s saying, and there’s a lot of banging and clanging of pots and pans, interspersed with Soobin’s voice dropping in and out. The way his phone is positioned also means that Beomgyu can’t really see what he’s doing either; all he can see is the top of Soobin’s head moving in and out of the frame.
All in all, an A+ video-calling experience thus far.
“Hyung!” Beomgyu calls out, “I can’t really hear you—” but it would appear that Soobin can’t really hear him either. Without realising that Beomgyu can barely discern word from boiling water, he just continues talking about the stressful day he had at the cat cafe.
From what he can piece together from the snippets that he can catch, one of the cats had a bit of a sore tummy and let loose some diarrhoea on some poor customer’s shoes while they were trying to enjoy their tea.
“—luckily, she wasn’t mad—” he drops the spatula with a loud clatter right next to the speaker, making Beomgyu flinch, but he continues talking, “—discount anyway, it was the least I could do, after offering to clean her shoes.”
“Hyung!” Beomgyu yells again to be heard during the pause in his story when it seems like Soobin is done making his herbal chicken soup.
“Hm?” the phone shakes a bit, and then suddenly Soobin’s face is in view.
“I can hardly hear you!” Beomgyu points upwards, “Your fan!”
“Huh? Oh! Right!” Soobin reaches up to switch it off and suddenly Beomgyu doesn't feel like he’s standing right behind a plane getting ready to take off, getting his face melted off, “Sorry, totally forgot. Did you hear the part where the cat had diarrhoea?”
“Yes,” Beomgyu sighs, “unfortunately.”
He had been eating his black bean noodles when Soobin had so lovingly described the colour and consistency of the cat’s bowel movements, and he had gagged, dropping the noodles out of his mouth. Why, out of the entire conversation, was that the part that he had heard the clearest?
“Cool, cool,” Soobin says, even though the story was anything but, “but how are you? How’s work? How’s life?”
And Beomgyu, more than happy to change the subject, tells him all about it.
Spring was always a good season for business. People tended to buy more flowers during this season, whether or not there was a reason for it, which made perfect sense. It was spring. Flowers were kind of the symbol of spring.
Lately they’d been swamped with orders, too, but nothing that they couldn’t handle. Their boss was a workaholic and she tended to take the brunt of most of the hard work on the days she was actually in, leaving Beomgyu and Kai with less to do for the rest of the week when it was just the two of them. Not that he was complaining. It just meant he could take his time prepping the flowers and making the bouquets, which always turned out prettier when he didn’t feel the need to race against the clock.
“But there’s this guy…” Beomgyu starts.
“Ooh,” Soobin croons, waggling his eyebrows at him through the screen.
“No! No,” Beomgyu objects, waving a hand in front of the camera, “it’s not like that. At all. In fact, it’s the opposite of what you’re thinking. I hate him so much.”
And hate might be a bit harsh but he needed to get his point across. He couldn’t have Soobin getting the wrong idea.
“Oh. That’s no good,” Soobin says, and then he takes a big slurp of his soup.
“Tell me about it,” Beomgyu says, “he actually goes out of his way to pester me. Calling me all sorts of weird names, asking if I need help carrying basically anything—and he’s not doing it to be nice, trust me. He once asked if I was okay because I was carrying a small bag of lilies.”
“How annoying,” Soobin says.
“Annoying is right,” Beomgyu grumbles, “guess he’s the kind of guy who thinks he can get away with anything just because he’s hot.”
Soobin looks up, “Hm?” and then he smirks, “Come again?”
“Anyway,” Beomgyu says quickly and a little louder, adjusting the phone so Soobin can’t see his face turn red, “other than that, work’s been fine. Busier this season, but doable.”
“How hot, though?” Soobin asks, ignoring his previous sentence and focusing on the wrong part of their conversation, “Scale of one to ten.”
“It doesn’t matter if his personality is a zero, hyung,” Beomgyu says, and he wishes he didn’t say anything, because now Soobin is just going to cling to that part and not listen to anything else Beomgyu is going to say from now on.
“So what, is he like, a newbie at work or…”
Beomgyu rubs his temple, as if the mere thought of Yeonjun is enough to give him a headache which, now that he thinks about it, it kind of does.
“No, no,” he says, “his name’s Yeonjun. He works at the tattoo parlour next door. They literally just moved in like, two months ago, and he acts like he’s the shit.”
“Wait, did you just say Yeonjun?” Soobin lifts his head up, “Choi Yeonjun?”
Beomgyu side-eyes his phone, “Uh, yeah?” and maybe he panics a little, “Do you know him or something?”
Please say no.
Please say no.
There’s a brief pause, and then Soobin turns his attention back to his dinner, “Something like that. I knew him back in primary school.”
What an unfortunate fucking coincidence. He hadn’t heard Soobin speak of Yeonjun before, and he's known Soobin ever since high school, so this is quite the unwanted curveball. He wonders why he'd never mentioned him before.
“Are you guys close?” he asks, taking great care to not reveal how urgently he needs to know this information.
Soobin taps the spoon against his lips in thought, “I wouldn’t say that…”
And at that, Beomgyu breathes an audible sigh of relief.
“Hey, completely unrelated,” Soobin pipes up suddenly, “but Arin and I are thinking of having a party at ours this weekend.”
“Hm? Why?” Beomgyu asks, mouth full of the noodles that he’d only just started to eat again after recovering from the cat cafe story.
“For a good time? What else?” Soobin answers like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “Anyway, you’re coming. Oh, and bring your cute friend with you.”
“Who?”
“The oversized puppy.”
“Oh, Kai?”
Soobin clicks his fingers and points directly at Beomgyu, “That’s the one.”