Step Into My World (and see)

4. New mail

It was after three days of Jeongguk going on and on about the mail that he got from Taehyung that Jimin realised that he hadn't even read the mail yet.

"Ggukie, show me the mail once," he said as the two of them sat in the living room that night, a little after they had dinner. Jeongguk was on his bean bag as usual, waiting for the clock to strike nine so that he could call his parents.

Jeongguk opened the mail and passed his phone on to Jimin dutifully.

"Ggukie, you didn't even give him a reply!!" Jimin exclaimed outrageously.

He knew Jeongguk never replied to texts. And even if he did, they were always dry. But he hadn't expected Jeongguk to simply ghost Taehyung of all people, especially as Jeongguk had still not stopped talking about the mail.

"What should I say? There's nothing worth replying to," Jeongguk said with a small shrug.

Jimin sighed, knowing that Jeongguk simply did not see the point in talking through texts. He simply never understood the mechanism of texts.

"Still!! You see the last line? That's a question in disguise. Reply to that at least. You can't just ghost him like that," Jimin said and handed the phone back to Jeongguk.

"Question in disguise? Why disguise a question instead of asking it directly? Weird people," Jeongguk mumbled and looked down at the mail.

Seriously, he was over the moon that Taehyung had mailed him, but what was he supposed to mail back to him?? Weird people.

He read the last line over and over again and concluded that Taehyung was 'indirectly' asking him if it was okay that he took his contact details from the fanmeet registration.

"It's okay!! It's definitely an okay!!! Perfectly okay!!!!" Jeongguk exclaimed, answering the question to Jimin instead.

"Ggukie, I'm not the person you are supposed to answer to," Jimin said without looking up from his phone.

"Huh?"

"Tell that to Taehyung, Ggukie," Jimin said.

"Oh, okay," Jeongguk said and typed the reply out to him and sent it before calling his parents. He was two minutes late already.

"Eomma!! Why didn't you call me at nine?!" he whined angrily when his mom, Jihyo, picked up right after two rings.

"I'm sorry, baby, I'm really so sorry, I was cleaning the kitchen," Jihyo apologized, scooting over to the side of the couch so that her husband could join her.

"Hello, Ggu-"

"We were one hundred and twenty eight seconds late, did you know that?! I could have told you that I replied to Taehyung saying it was okay if we had not been late!!"

"....it's okay, baby, you can tell me now. No problem," Jihyo said and Jaewan, his father, simply resorted to chuckle.

"I replied to Taehyung saying it was okay," Jeongguk said.

"Ohh," Jihyo snickered, "that's good, honey." 

Jimin and his parents snickered as well. Sometimes, it was just hard to hold their laughter in while talking to Jeongguk. It was always fun. 

Jeongguk neither noticed the snickers, not cared about them. He just went on and on about how his 'cafe hyungs' were now planning to use him to call Taehyung to their cafe as they had lost his contact a few years ago. 

"And how exactly is that going to happen?" Jimin asked. 

Jeongguk shrugged. "Maybe through my mail."

"Hmm."

..................

"Jeonggukie, are you sure you are okay with calling Taehyung here?" Hyungsik asked.

The four of them had given it a lot of thought the previous three days before finally coming to a conclusion that it would really be okay to call Taehyung to the cafe. They had no other means to contact him, after all.

Seojoon had met Taehyung once, a year after their break up, but he had not taken his new contact number, not wanting to have anything to do with him or his fame.

That had been one of the reasons for their break up in the first place. He didn't want to date someone who everyone would openly drool over. At least, that was what he had told everyone. After all, just because he understood Taehyung didn't mean he was okay with everything that he had done.

Taehyung had cut all kinds of contacts with all of his University friends after the breakup because it had been very hard for him despite how cool he had tried to act. But it wasn't that way anymore. Taehyung had moved on completely and Seojoon knew it. 

Taehyung's recent lyrics had made that clear to him. That thoughts about his breakup didn't hurt him anymore. That he was completely fine now. 

"Of course, of course. I replied to him last night that it was okay for him to take my contact details," Jeongguk said, his eyes unknowingly shining with stars.

"Okay, then. Call him to our cafe if you can. You need not mention us, though. We want to surprise him," Wooshik said.

"Okaayyyy," Jeongguk looked down at his phone and pondered on what to say. After a couple of minutes of his fingers hovering over the keypad, he finally typed the message out.

"Meet me at the Wooga Sitting. I work in that cafe until three in the afternoon. My co-workers told me not to mention the fact that it belongs to them and that they were your friends and that they are excited to-"

"Gguk.......you literally mentioned us by saying you were not supposed to mention us!!" Seojoon exclaimed as he chuckled after having seen what Jeongguk had been typing over his shoulder.

"....what am I supposed to say, then?"

"Just ask him to come here. That's all. Remove the rest of the matter. And ask him, Gguk. Ask him. You literally ordered him to meet you," Seojoon continued with amusement twinkling in his eyes.

Jeongguk stared open mouthed at Seojoon. He closed it soon, however, and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see any difference," he mumbled and retyped his message.

"I work at a cafe called Wooga Sitting until three in the afternoon. Meet me there?" he 'asked' and without further thought, he sent the message.

"Gguk, two Iced Americanos, a Macchiato, an Espresso with little sugar and three pieces of dark forest cake," Sunghwan called out from the platform, knowing Jeongguk would be able to remember the whole list he just read out by heart.

"What, what??" Hyungsik and Wooshik asked, getting ready with their machines to distribute the work.

Jeongguk readily repeated the list Sunghwan just read out and the three of them got to work while Seojoon hurried out to the reception to take care of the payments and accounts.

The morning and afternoon went by without much change. There were a few regular customers who greeted them and many new ones that seemed to be impressed with the cafe.

It was as Jeongguk busied himself with carrying a customer's cake to him about half an hour before his shift was supposed to end that he noticed a man with familiar eyes enter the cafe.

There was no way he wouldn't recognize those eyes.

"Hyung!! Seojoon hyung!!" he hollered before the masked singer could even spot a seat for himself.

"Yes, Gguk??" Seojoon called back, but Jeongguk noticed how his favourite singer locked eyes with him right away.

However, Jeongguk, much to Taehyung's chagrin, didn't maintain the eye contact. He looked for Seojoon instead.

"Your ex is here!!" he yelled back at Seojoon.