【Ａｓｐｈｙｘｉａ】 seongjoong

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One whole week. Seven days. 168 hours. 1,008 minutes. 60,480 seconds since Hongjoong had the life as he knew it ripped right out from underneath him.

It had taken Hongjoong three days to finally get out of bed and sort of wrap his mind around the fact that his life had been completely changed. For those three days the man had done nothing but lay in bed. He had ignored all texts and calls from Mingi, claiming that he needed a little more time to recover and come to terms with his supposed "car accident". His giant baby of a best friend was not happy with his answer and tried to find every chance he could to come over and take care of the other. The red head knew this would happen though and prepared as many excuses as possible to dodge his friend's efforts. Mingi was obviously upset and would try to pout but the other would not budge, no matter how upset it made him.

Hongjoong would often wake up and forget the happenings of the last few days. It would all feel like some strange dream until he set foot into his kitchen to make something to eat. Once the first bite of food would hit his tongue though, the whole thing would come crashing back into him. The situation was enough to make his stomach clench and turn violently.

It was one of those mornings that he had forgotten about his situation and made himself a bit of cereal. His stomach growled as he absent mindedly poured milk into a bowl before reaching to grab the box of empty calories. Once he took that first bite, his throat violently clenched and he spit the flakes onto the counter immediately. The world crashed back down. He was different now. He could no longer enjoy the food he once loved.

And he was hungry.

On the fourth day, he finally looked at his messages and saw a few from an unknown number. After opening the text, he saw that Yunho had gotten his number from Mingi and had been texting him for the past few days. Each message was full of concern and asking if he needed anything. Hongjoong appreciated the gesture and found it sweet but he was also still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that gentle Yunho was technically a flesh eating monster and had to eat people to stay alive.

Accompanying the messages about his well being were offers to help out at the cafe. Like for Mingi, Yunho figured that it would be a good way to get his mind off of things and, if he were around Ghouls, he could better understand his new situation. Hongjoong wasn't stupid though, he knew this was most likely a plow to keep an eye on him. Wooyoung and Yunho themselves have admitted that they had never seen anyone actually turn into a Ghoul. It was rather unheard of.

After thinking it over, Hongjoong decided to take up blonde's offer of working at the cafe. If anyone was going to be able to tell him what kind of changes were happening to his body, it would be an actual Ghoul. And while the group was using it as excuse to watch over him, he felt safer knowing that if anything did happen, someone would be there to help control him.

The job wasn't in name only, however, and Hongjoong was quick to discover that he was a rather terrible barista and that Yunho was not an easy boss despite his cheerful nature. The red head found working in a moderately popular cafe was very far out of his comfort zone. However, the blonde was patient as he explained the process of making siphon coffee and the differences between different coffee brands to him over and over again while gently guiding him.

It was surreal to think that he was regularly spending time with Ghouls. Each day he would have to remind himself of this fact when he saw Yunho smiling at a customer while delivering their drinks without salivating and laughing with Mingi, or Wooyoung casually eating a sandwich when he stopped into the shop as if it weren't the most vile thing to ever enter his mouth. However, the more time that he spent at the cafe and interacted with them, he was seeing that maybe not all Ghouls were so bad. It wasn't as if they chose this life, just merely dealing with the hand they were given.