the one that got away | seongjoong (✓)

• XIX •

"be careful, okay? and call me when you're done for the day, i'll pick you up and we can get dinner together."

"okay... i'll see you later, hwa," hongjoong said with a soft smile.

"see you later."

seonghwa had a bright smile on his face as he made his way over to his cafe, where he saw that there were only two customers inside. chuu was serving them with a bright smile on her face, but seonghwa's attention was quickly diverted from the heartwarming sight by yelling in the stock room.

he quickly ran towards the noise to find minhee and one of his newer hires, eric, fighting over something.

"hey, hey, what's with the yelling?" seonghwa asked, stepping between the two.

"he was trying to steal from you, hyung!" minhee yelled.

"minhee, lower your voice. i want both of you in my office, now."

the two boys nodded and walked into seonghwa's office with their heads hung low, seonghwa following behind them. he sat in his office chair and noticed a sticky note message from hongjoong that had been left the last time he had been there, which caused the older's heart to flutter before he turned his attention back to the boys in front of him.

"i'm going to ask both of you to explain your sides, okay? don't interrupt each other, just stay quiet and listen until it's your turn to speak, sound good?"

the boys nodded again, afraid to make eye contact with their boss.

"do either of you want to start?"

neither boy raised his hand.

"okay... minhee, you go first."

"okay... well, stock's been off the past few weeks when i've been helping jungwoo hyung with inventory. we knew someone had to be stealing, and today, eric was acting really suspicious when he said he was going to grab a new bag of coffee beans to put in the grinder. i followed him and he wasn't just grabbing coffee beans, so i called him out."

"okay... thank you. eric, your turn."

"i initially went in there for coffee beans, yes... but then i realized that i had seen the sugar getting low and also decided to grab another thing of vanilla since it's so popular. i figured we'd probably need it at some point today and didn't want us to have to go searching for it in the middle of a rush. that's why i was taking so long and why i wasn't just grabbing coffee beans. it upset me when minhee accused me of stealing, so i retaliated."

"okay. thank you, eric."

"a-are we in trouble, hyung?" minhee asked timidly.

"no, neither of you are in trouble. i just want you both to think back on your actions for a moment. i know i've been a bit busy these last couple of days, but i still care about all of you and want you to feel like a family."

minhee was the first to react to this, nodding before he turned to eric.

"i-i'm sorry for accusing you of stealing... it's just... this job means a lot to me and it upsets me that someone might be stealing from seonghwa hyung."

"i'm sorry for yelling back at you... i should've kept my calm and explained better."

"there we go... minhee, eric, i appreciate both of you for listening to each other and not getting upset again. minhee, can you hang back here for a moment? eric, you're free to head back to the floor."

the boys both nodded again and eric made his exit, then minhee nervously looked up at seonghwa.

"a-am i in trouble?"