title: mellow
pairing: lee taeyong/reader
genre: candy store!au/crush!au
summary: candies in all shapes, wrapped by all types of papers, end up pressed to the confines of her backpack for her to enjoy when she gets back home—but she doesn’t buy them, much less does she steal them, this all comes from the mere opened heart of her secret admirer. with little notes attached, someone is trying to make her life more dulcet…and it’s obviously lee taeyong, her coworker.
type: fluff/romance/humor
word count: 16,364
This morning of summer can almost be tasted.
It’s humid and dense, with a sense that reminds her of the dripping of popsicles. Most of the time, she likes a passion fruit popsicle—it has some taste and is a thousand times more refreshing than some general strawberry one, but the stickiness that clings to her fingertips in reminders of the sugar overload that will follow soon after brings some sense of guilt to the back of her brain. That, maybe, a juice would be more beneficial for an adult like her, or, in this case, with all the metaphors aside, that working at a candy store is quite clearly what anyone but a Willy Wonka enthusiast wants.
Though the heat outside the store is a thousand times more unbearable than what one would imagine. The streets are filled with people in ripped shorts, oversized t-shirts and enjoying the sweetest treats from them. Though, ice cream parlors may be working on the business with more efficiency than them. She takes interest, with one hand propped underneath her chin, for the one boy that did buy a lollipop from them and he has been dipping the dulcet treat into a cup of water. He takes a lick, dips it in water, and repeats. Her bets go on the fact that this child may end up drinking the water in about ten minutes, but that may be the boredom speaking.
How not to be bored when this place is so big, yet so unpacked? The shelves, locked and only opened by workers, showcase variety of sweets, some prepared by the workers, others simply bought. The yellow walls with white flooring only remind her of the intense cleaning that comes on Wednesdays and Saturdays for her, and it will only be more of a headache with the heat that is welcoming this summer. In a way, her mind tries to wrap around the idea that there is some purpose to this: to being a candy store worker, other than simply hating the smell of sweets now that she has been there for over a year.
And maybe, feel functionable.
But this is not a lifetime worth of dreaming.
