drivethru [nct dream]

s1e8

jeno and renjun were working at their stations in the kitchen. jeno by the grill, and renjun by the deep fryer.

jisung stepped in to the kitchen, taking another bag from jeno.

jeno heaved a tired sigh, making sure to say thanks before he left. he proceeded back to the grill, letting his stream of consciousness entertain him.

"yup!" he called from afar.

he started thinking about a funny tweet he saw earlier that day. he tried not to laugh out loud, mainly because he didn't want renjun looking at him funny.

then he started thinking about how it had to do with the movie him and jaemin saw in theaters last week. the memory of their night out brought him a mix of good and bad feelings.
those mixed feelings had resulted in jeno burning his finger on the grill. he hissed in pain, holding his finger tightly. he harshly rubbed the burnt skin in hopes that would help. but really, it didn't do much.

renjun was already rushing to jeno's side. he took his hand in his, rushing him over to the sink.

"i'm fine, jun." he mumbled.

but renjun had already turned the sink on cold. when he put jeno's finger under the water, jeno whimpered in pain once again. not wanting to deal with the stinging of cold water, he pulled himself back.

but renjun yanked his hand back under the water, jeno mumbling an 'ouch' at renjun's slight aggressiveness. but in the end, he let renjun run his hands under the tap water.

"sorry, i wasn't really paying attention..." he apologized. he heard renjun scoff at his statement.
"i don't know why i can't focus today..."

he was about to go off about what was on his mind, but he decided not to. he wasn't sure if renjun would want to hear it.
sure, he's talked to renjun multiple times during their shifts...but truly, it was just jeno talking and renjun listening (or just tuning him out. sometimes jeno couldn't tell).
but normally these one-sided talks consisted of not so serious topics. and he didn't want to burden renjun with his problems.

but as renjun shut the sink off and handed him a paper towel, he saw the shorter give him this look... a look that possibly showed he was willing to let him continue. but still, jeno was still unsure. so renjun sighed before eventually speaking up.

"you can talk about it if you want," he said, his voice running soft. "you look like you're gonna explode if you don't."

even though jeno had heard him speak before, he was still a bit taken aback. after all, it was a while since he last heard him speak–well, about a week or so...

"you sure?" asked jeno.

"yes...now start talking before i lose interest..." he said, trailing off as he returned to the deep fryer.

💫

in his second day, jisung learned to like that he didn't have to close on the weekdays. he worried that because of this new job, he would get home too late during the week. but had it not been that they closed drive thru early on his weekday shifts, he probably would've had to close. and for that, jisung was grateful.

as he was gathering his things in the backroom, donghyuck walked in and went to check something on his phone.
when he noticed jisung was in the room, he spoke up.

"oh right, your shift ends early this time..." he recalled.

"yeah..."

donghyuck huffed a long sigh, closing his phone.
"lucky duck. i'm stuck with these headasses."
he added, gesturing out the door.

"you mean the employees or the customers?"

donghyuck threw his head back, laughter resulting from the younger's question.

but really, jisung was serious. who did donghyuck dislike the most? customers or his coworkers?

if you were to ask donghyuck, he would choose the customers.

"you know, maybe both.." donghyuck answers, but then laughs again.
"nah, i'm just kidding. these guys are pretty cool."

"ah, okay..."

donghyuck patted jisung on the back before heading towards the door.
"and you seem pretty cool too."

jisung couldn't help but smile at the older's words.
"thanks, donghyuck."