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Ring Me Up - chanmin

Chan runs out of medication for his headaches, so he heads to the corner store by his job.

He doesn't expect a certain college student to be there, and he doesn't originally intend to go back. - moseungz

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Chan groans as he presses the delete button, undoing the last ten minutes of his work. His head is fucking pounding, sending him in circles over the music, disliking each new sound he adds, each new take on the lyrics he instructs Jisung to do. He stubbornly clicks around the software until he decidedly gives up, saving the work and leaning back in his chair. "This song is not coming together."

"Dude, we still have like, two months to submit it. It's fine."

Chan looks at Jisung, who's currently on the couch, thumbing through his lyric pages through the different verses and raps he'd come up with. "I know. I just... I have a headache."

"Don't you have something in your bag?"

He, in fact, does not. He knows because he very distinctly remembers running out just a few days ago, but had been too busy to get more so he just prayed that coffee and energy drinks could persuade the headaches to stay off him. Apparently that's not the case. "No. Shit... Jisung I think I need to head out early."

"That's fine, man. Get some rest." Jisung smiles. "Changbin should be here soon, we can work on some of the b-sides together and lyrics for those beats you did give us."

"Yeah. Okay. See you, then." Chan slings his bag over his shoulder and heads out.

The elevator is an awful ride down, and by the time he gets down to the bottom, he regrets taking the elevator at all, wishing he'd just toughed it down the stairs. He rubs his temples as he slow walks down the street, toward the drug store on the corner, where a stop light and crosswalk stand just before its doors.

It's fucking horrid, with LED lights flickering in some spots, a rancid smell of overly used bleach product and some kind of lemon scented cleaner, and it's damn near dead. There's many two or three other people, one in the nail polish center, two right by the personal care, and the cashier at the register. He's seated, with stacks of paperwork and a textbook in front of him, and Chan almost takes pity on him. His headache reminds him why he's there, however, so he sneaks over to the pain medication section, fingering through the miscellaneous off brand drugs until he stumbles on the Tylenol, grabs a box (he doesn't remember the count) and walks up to the cashier.

Looking at him closer, Chan can see the glasses slipping down his nose, the tired expression worn on his face, and the hoodie that appears almost slightly too big for him. He looks up, setting the books aside to check him out. "Did you find everything okay?"

He even sounds beautiful. There's no way in hell a kid this pretty should be working at a store this dingy. Looking at the name tag, he just barely reads Seungmin . "Yes I did, Seungmin. Sorry to bother your studying."

He rings up the box, tells him the total, and gets back to studying. "It's fine. Used to it."

Chan waits for the ding that his card had been approved before removing it, looking at the title of the unopened textbook under Seungmin's elbow. Something about film. The cashier grabs the receipt without as much as looking at it, giving him a quick thank you, before completely ignoring his existent.

He takes the pills dry, too bothered to grab his water bottle off his bag. He really wonders how a film student could be working at such a shitty place anyhow. Shrugging it off, he quickly gets on the bus to head home.

***

The headache disappears after a few hours, though Chan does not particularly enjoying being made to stay up as late as he has. The clock in his at-home studio says something about 2am in the morning, or whatever, but he continues to work through exhausted eyes, at the very least on something basic he can take in tomorrow. But his mind only focuses on Seungmin, how tired he looked, how bored out of his mind he seemed, how fucking pretty he is, despite being a lowly cashier working in a dingy place.