Chapter Text
Keonho knows he shouldn’t be doing this.
But the thought of finally owning a heater in this wretched apartment, warmer sheets and maybe even a fridge that’s always stocked with food tempted him like a siren song.
He switches off his second-hand phone, which has probably seen multiple owners since it came out 10 years ago, and drops it onto his bed, watching it flop uselessly on his creaky bedframe that has definitely seen better days.
He closes his eyes for a second, already getting shivers from the chilly breeze that sneaks in from the multiple cracks in the walls in his shoebox apartment.
He thinks about a life where he doesn’t take up multiple part-time jobs throughout the week just to get in at least a somewhat proper dinner four times a week and sighs hopelessly. (Proper in his world meant a microwaved ready-made meal from a convenience store, other times it’d be a pack of instant noodles or none at all.)
The thought entices him more than his stubborn little mind could handle and he ultimately grabs his rusty iPhone 7 that probably had only 10 uses max left on it.
He opens up the app with much difficulty, willpower still fighting back against him.
The page loads again after a good 4 seconds, still showing his almost-done profile and the big “tap to complete account” button stares at him mockingly.
He sighs again, big and defeated and internally curses James.
-
Pushing the doors to a quaint cafe down the street, Keonho wrings his hands together.
He feels oddly out of place with his worn out band tee paired with an oversized oddly-coloured windbreaker and ripped jeans so dirty it could pass off as a luxury Golden Goose item.
James had never called him out to a cafe before, they’ve only talked about it in passing, joking about how one day they’d be out of college debt and that they’d finally be able to sit down at some aesthetic cafe drinking overpriced coffee for the size of a palm.
So it took him by surprise when James called, voice too gleeful for it to be anything worrisome, “Keonho can you come down to that cafe opposite the flower shop you work at? My treat.”
And even before Keonho could get a word in, he had already hung up.
He sighed, already packing his messenger bag with his thesis papers that he was planning on completing while on shift at that exact flower shop later.
Just as he twisted the rusty knob of his door to exit the apartment, it comes apart and drops lamely to the wooden floor with a loud crack.
With the metal knob lying uselessly at his foot, the cold gusts of wind racking through his thin frame and the thought of having to contact a locksmith for the tenth time this year, Keonho could already feel the impending headache that was bound to dawn on him soon.
He clenches his hands, fingernails digging into the skin where he curled them, and mentally counts to ten before forcing himself to plaster on a big, wide smile.
Another breeze of the cold autumn air hits him and he fumbles around to find his windbreaker that was still going strong despite him buying it from a local flea market for 10 dollars four years back.
After haphazardly shrugging it on, he steps out of his house, closing the door by slipping a finger through the hole where the knob used to sit and praying that no one would break in.
He was still saving that half-finished strawberry milk from two days ago for later.
Other than that, there was truly nothing else worth stealing.
As he made his way to the cafe, he couldn’t help but think about what James was going to tell him.
Just as he entered the cozy little shop, the strong smell of coffee immediately hits his senses and the inviting waft of pastries instantly made his mouth water.
Scanning the small area, he spots James waving happily to him, beckoning him to come closer.
Unconsciously, Keonho, too, felt the corners of his mouth quirk up as he approached the older boy, settling into plush seats that sent a wave of comfort up his spine.
“I thought we’d agreed to never come here until we finished paying off our college debt?” Keonho started, voice light but teasing as he shuffled on the cushioned chairs, the unfamiliar softness of it making him unsure of how to even sit properly.
“Cause I’ve finally paid mine off!” James announces radiantly, grin deepening as his eyes shone.
Keonho stops half-adjustment, head immediately lifting as wide eyes met James’ own.
“…What?” Keonho squeaks out, mentally running through the numbers of James’ and his own student loans, silently calculating if the amount of money James earned weekly could cover twenty thousand dollars in less than a year.
“That’s why I told you to meet me. But before that, what do you want to drink? My treat,” James winks, pulling out a heavy platinum card from the breast pocket of his denim jacket that looked uncharacteristically new to Keonho.
He shrugs and mumbles, “I don’t know anything about these kinds of things. Just something sweet? Strawberry flavoured? Nothing too expensive though…”
James nods understandingly and slides out of the booth to go order their drinks.
He returns after a while with a cute wooden tray filled with two cups and a cake.
Keonho eyes the drinks suspiciously, registering one that looked pretty and pink whereas the other one looked like death in a cup.
He also tries not to notice how James nudges the strawberry shortcake to him and graciously accepts his drink.
He sips it carefully, letting the liquid sit on his tongue, savouring the fragrant strawberry flavour and the creaminess of caffeine.
James watches in adoration at the way the younger eyes light up as he hesitantly scoops the smallest bit of cake into his mouth.
He lets the comfortable silence envelope them for a while longer before starting again, “Anyways. I’m a sugar baby now.”
Keonho nearly drops his fork in bewilderment, throat constricting as he coughs violently.
James doesn’t look the least bit remorseful, letting Keonho continue on choking until he had finally calmed down.
Keonho regains his composure and stares at James with wide eyes, bewilderment evident in his gaze.
James leisurely takes another sip of his iced americano before carrying on, “That’s why, as your bestest friend ever, I’m trying to put you on!”
Keonho nearly spits out his drink this time, hands flailing around as he sputters, “James! W-what? Are you hurt?”
James just grins before he dives into how he had stumbled across an advertisement promoting this app and he had just clicked on it jokingly, not expecting it to be an actual, legitimate app.
Curiosity clawed at him so he had set up an account and not long after, DMs had flooded in and somehow he managed to bag an heir to some major corporation that never stated his purpose on being here but still paid off James’ debt and gave him a monthly income at that.
“And the best part? We met up a day ago and he was genuinely so freaking hot—the cutest baby face but insane biceps. He’s called Juhoon and he’s, like, younger than me, I’m meeting him later today!” James yapped away, eyes lighting up at the recollection of this Juhoon guy.
“So in conclusion, there’s no harm in trying it out. No pressure, Keon, just another option,” James ended, voice warm as he reached over to grab Keonho’s cold hands in his own, giving it a quick squeeze.
Keonho stared at his half-eaten cake, expression yonder but his mind was running too fast for his tired self to keep up with.
Just as he was about to say something, his phone vibrated irregularly in his pant’s pocket, signalling that he had less than five minutes to his shift.
Giving the older boy a tight-lipped smile, Keonho gently pulled back his hands and bowed his head, “Thanks Hyung, for everything today. I’ll think about it.”
Without waiting for a response, he stood up from the cushioned chair, legs feeling wobbly from the lack of familiarity and made his way out, hearing a faint ‘call me’ from James before he crossed the empty street to open the door to the flower shop.
The bell chimed as he entered, quickly unzipping his windbreaker and hanging it at the jacket rack at the door.
“Sup bro,” a thickly accented voice sounded from in front of him and when he looked up, he saw Martin, his coworker, shooting a bright grin at him as he headed to the same rack to pick up his coat.
“Today was pretty slow. I had plenty of time to sort out the garden and the shipping. Saved you some bouquet orders due in about an hour though. Catch you later, buddy,” Martin yells over his shoulder, fixing his coat over his tall frame before leaving the shop, words spitting out in rapid succession so as to distract Keonho from clocking that it was technically a good three minutes until his shift truly ended.
Keonho nods and murmurs a soft ‘thanks’ that he knows Martin most likely he caught thanks to his superhuman hearing.
He heads to the storage room, limbs feeling uncharacteristically heavier than usual and changes into a white dress shirt and sleek, brown pants before tying a half apron around his waist absentmindedly, running on muscle memory as his mind was still stuck to his and James’ earlier conversation.
He lethargically makes his way to the counter where Martin had snuck a note for two bouquets on the cherrywood table, written messily in cursive that Keonho had to twist and turn the paper to make out the exact order.
Magnolias and peonies in an ombré of warm colours for one while the other one was…Keonho rubbed his eyes, hopefully blinking away the blur of his vision before re-reading the note.
Dark purple petunias and yellow carnations. Martin’s handwriting had this specific sentence down carefully, letters in perfect font as if he too could not believe his ears.
As beautiful as both flowers looked visually, the meaning was as clear as day—resentment.
It could have been perhaps a lucky coincidence, that these colours were something the buyer liked, or the type of flowers they enjoyed. But with these two, put together in a carefully crafted bouquet, the insinuation was as clear as day—hatred that words could not spell out, so the flower was doing it for them.
Keonho sighed and shook his head gently, making a mental reminder to clearly explain the meaning of the bouquet to the buyer later, although knowing full well that these flowers had been intentionally picked.
But, a job was a job and he would rather make money peacefully than to argue with someone about something as trivial as flowers so he dived head first into curating both orders with the utmost dedication—trimming stems and cutting out browning leaves.
As he made the first bouquet, he couldn’t help but be reminded of James, magnolias had always been his favourite and the ranging colours of red to yellow matched the older perfectly. The peonies were an elegant touch, the pure whiteness blending in seamlessly with the vibrancy of the other colours.
His heart swelled with adoration for the lucky couple that was about to receive it and made sure to secure the flowers with a deep, emerald ribbon.
Once he had finished, he let himself grin, accomplished and happy at the outcome.
This was why he loved the flower shop so much. Keonho bathed in the deeper meanings of each singular flower, watching bouquets craft beautifully together with the bigger message sending a semblance of warmth down Keonho’s heart.
It reminded him of when he was still a kid, on his birthday, every Valentine’s Day, his father would make sure to bring home two bouquets, a different one every year, yet the message remained the same—the smaller one filled with colourful petals, representing youth and eternal innocence, whereas the bigger one would be thrust into his mother’s waiting hands, adorned with the deepest reds and the softest pinks, signalling his father’s reverent love for his mother.
They’d stay up well into the night, his parents would softly tell him to write down each breed’s definition into his small, glittery notebook and tell him to carry on this tradition with his lover in the future.
Even after his parents passed away in a car accident when he was thirteen, Keonho would still save up his monthly allowance made from mowing the neighbour’s lawn and the meagre amount his grandparents gave him, thinking that prices had never went up ever since decades ago (partially due to Keonho being too shy to ask for more and settling for just an apple juice at lunch everyday), to buy a small bouquet home.
He’d spend tens of minutes asking the shop assistant what every single flower had meant before carefully deciding on three types, bringing the flowers home and setting it in a vase in the middle of the dining table.
He’d spend his afternoon staring at them before taking out the same notebook, blue sparkles barely visible and pages yellowed from age and gingerly writing down each flowers’ meanings.
Snapping back to reality, he quickly started on the second order, heart twisting uncomfortably at the suggestion of each stem.
He painstakingly wrapped it up, abiding the buyer’s wishes to wrap it up in black and secure it with a plain band—no ribbons at all.
He makes sure to speed up the process so he wouldn’t have to think about the flowers anymore and sets it aside hastily, away from his line of sight and returns to the storage room to take out his thesis papers that he planned on finishing by the end of his shift.
Keonho settles on the cherrywood table once more, letting the speaker play a soft Keenan Te tune and gets ready to finish off his paper by hand.
Time passed by fairly fast, he had already reached the start of his last paragraph when the bell chimes and hushed whispers filled the room.
He jolts up and stands up quickly, putting on his best customer-service smile and greets cheerfully, “Hi, welcome to Park’s Gardenia! How may I help you?”
The two young men give him a once over before nodding their heads slightly and continuing on with their quiet conversation and Keonho puffs out his cheeks in disbelief.
Whatever, his mind defends, judging by their attire, they’re probably stuck-up nepo babies.
Keonho lets his gaze roam over them now, taking in their tall, broad physiques and their boyishly charming features.
They both wore tailored suits, the one with sharper features dressed in an all black three piece while the other, with a cuter look adorned a grey suit paired with a white button up on the inside.
They looked young, not a day older than twenty-two and boy, did they look filthy rich .
The cologne they wore clung to their bodies strongly, invading Keonho’s senses with a mix of ink, wood and rain.
He wrinkled his nose, trying his best to grow used to the scent and not sneeze.
The way they carried themselves—confident and poised, spoke wealth in ways that made Keonho cower slightly.
Just as he was about to return to his paper, the pair turned around and walked towards him.
Keonho smiles at them, waiting for them to speak but seconds passed without a single word exchanged between them.
He laughs nervously, feeling self-conscious under their intense stares and darts his eyes around, “Yes? Do you need anything?”
The cuter one speaks up first, throwing Keonho off guard from the deep octave of his voice, “Yeah, we ordered two bouquets this morning. Do you happen to have it?”
Keonho quickly recovers and heads to stand behind the desk to grab the note, squinting slightly at the illegible handwriting before asking, “Order name?”
“Kim Juhoon.”
Hearing that the name tallied the one on the note, he nods, satisfied, proceeding to turn around to grab the orders before his mind short-circuits.
Kim…Juhoon? The name sounded so familiar, as if someone had talked about him just earlier.
But he shrugs off the thought, as if someone he knew would know some rich boy.
He returns with the two bouquets hugged delicately to his torso before settling them on the desk.
“Okay! Here they are. Feel free to voice your opinion so I can fix them right away!” Keonho speaks enthusiastically, clasping his hands together in hopes for a semblance of praise.
Juhoon reaches for the multi-coloured bouquet first, fingers tracing the red petal of the magnolia and a smile reaches his lips, “It really does look like him.”
The other side-eyes the boy chuckling softly to himself and stares at his own dull bouquet with a look of disgust.
Keonho finally remembered something and started, wringing his hands together and meeting the other’s indifferent stare, “Oh right! I don’t mean to offend your choice in any way but, uh, do you perhaps know what these flowers represent? In this specific colour?”
He tries to keep his tone light and smile bright but the boy just fixes his gaze back at him, voice coming out in a gruff tone, “Yes. It talks about warnings and resentment. Exactly what I intended for.”
The smile on Keonho’s face nearly falters but he forces himself to nod.
“Seonghyeon, isn’t this just the perfect bouquet for my Jjamie?” Juhoon cooed, holding the bouquet with such profound fondness that Keonho would have never expected from him.
And Jjamie sounded oddly familiar…
“Yeah whatever, are you done?” Seonghyeon rasps out impatiently, barely even making an effort to grab his own flowers.
Juhoon sends him a stink eye but quickly turns his attention back to Keonho, “Okay, great. The flowers are beautiful, by the way. I’ll make sure to put in a good word to my acquaintances. Thanks again.”
He ends it off with a slight smile and Keonho can’t help but return the sentiment, “It was my pleasure! Your choice of flowers are truly perfect.”
Juhoon nods once more before taking Seonghyeon’s bouquet into his other hand and they walk out of the door together with Seonghyeon leading the way.
Keonho feels an unsettling feeling linger in his chest and when he lifts his gaze out the glass windows, he meets Seonghyeon’s cold stare and immediately averts his eyes.
What an odd fellow…
The rest of his shift passes by in a blur with a handful of customers coming in to pick up some flowers and some to put in orders for the following week.
As the last song of his playlist fades into an end, he stands up and winces at the cracks produced from his stiff back that resound throughout the shop.
He smiles, tired but satisfied as he safely tucks his 6 page long essay into his messenger bag, ignoring the cramp in his right wrist and the ink stains covering the entirety of his palm.
He quietly packs up the shop and changes back into his own clothes. Once he ensured that everything was in place, he took his belongings and swiftly locked up the shop.
On his way back, his mind drifted back to the topic of sugar babies that he and James had been talking about.
He ponders on the topic as he reaches his apartment complex, as he enters the elevator and as he pushes the broken door to his house open.
He hoped that maybe a cold shower would clear his head a bit more but as he sat on the edge of his mattress, hair damp at the ends and clothes so soft and worn out it was making his head fuzzy with drowsiness, his cracked phone screen stares back at him, the pink heart shaped icon with ‘Sugar Finder’ in orange letters smacked in the middle of the icon at the top right corner and his nearly completed profile haunting him.
He sighs and scrolls back to the top of his account, waiting as his phone lagged and scrolled down. With every swipe down, his resolve crumbled uselessly.
His profile picture was a bleary selfie he had taken once last month on the whim, clad in an oversized hoodie that showed off his collarbones, dark strands falling into doe eyes and mouth slightly parted in the dark, almost pitch black room.
He shrugs and scrolls down more, username, ddalgikeon, name, Ahn Keonho, age, 21, occupation, third-year university student studying health sciences, description, just a broke student trying to get a better door knob.
And without wasting another second, he presses the ‘complete profile’ and throws himself onto the cold mattress.
The days’ exhaustion catches up quickly and he succumbs wordlessly to his body’s desire for rest.
He’s already in deep slumber when multiple notifications pop up on his phone, the old device barely keeping up with the amount of messages.
Amidst the dozens of people texting Keonho, one specific account appears:
EommSeann
> Hi