7-Elevens were truly a work of art, if Yongguk was being honest. A magical place -- always there whenever and wherever you need it, one you go in, look around and find yourself having everything you may ever desire, despite the seemingly small size. Whether you seek a certain item, a moment of peace or simply a spot to go to, for someone like himself, it was always a good choice of a destination. Inside, nobody ever cared about other people, who they were, their intentions; in the most casual clothes and the biggest bags under his eyes, Yongguk was as incognito as possible, a real nobody between rows upon rows of flavored milk and cans of soda. The averageness (and ridiculousness) of it all was quite honestly a blessing.
It’d been quite a long while since he had stopped in the packed instant meals section, one of the biggest and probably the most sought after of all. It was rather absurd, how many different types, tastes and variants of ramyeon there was, all those multiplied times as many manufacturers made these; he was pretty sure it’d take months of daily eating for a single person to try each and every one of them. The plastic packages -- bags here, cups there, and even entire boxes somewhere on the side -- all seemed to scream at the potential buyers: take me, I’m the best!, through the loud and bold designs, trying to stand out in such similar fashion, that it all blended in together instead. As someone who might’ve as well been considered a connesieur of those, Yongguk knew better than to trust the packaging alone, anyway. (He still took his sweet time in choosing, simply because he liked the limbo that 7-Eleven’s space provided him with, which meant that real life and real responsibilities were momentary on hold right outside of its sliding door.)
Usually not paying much attention to the co-customers, in the true convenience store fashion, it was rather difficult to ignore someone who, apparently, was even more focused and determined to pick the right ramyeon than Yongguk himself. From the corner of his eyes, he found himself observing the female’s actions -- scanning the long rows of different packages, reaching out and inspecting them like some kind of scientific object; she weighted them in her hands, turned around and around, read about every little thing that was written on it (or so it looked like, to Yongguk), and seemed to find something in each and every one of them that, in the end, had her put the item back in its place on the shelf. To him, the sight was slightly amusing and, for reasons unknown, a whole lot interesting -- especially how she looked a little too covered in a bit too expensive clothes, for him to think of her as any less than a fellow celebrity of some sorts.
“This one is nasty.” He said eventually, when she kept holding onto that one package far longer than any other before. His voice was only halfway to its regular volume, as if he was sharing some confidential or illegal knowledge, and he threw her only one quick side-glance, before turning back to the assortment of 짜파게티. They really should change their design, but he figured they didn’t care for it, with how established their item’s brand already was. People would buy it anyway.
“Trust me. Been there, tried that--it’s neither ‘the spiciest’ not ‘the most exiciting’.” The continuation came just a few breaths later, a small scoff resounding when he recalled the way the brand picked up by the girl next to him advertised themselves through.
“Exciting, really... I had more fun sitting in full make-up, hair-do and performance clothes on, behind the MuBank stage, waiting for over half an hour on stand-by, when one of the key lights broke last minute and halted our recording right before it started.” It was a bitter memory, as bitter as the one of eating that particular ramyeon -- even more so, considering the fact that he had bought the entire bulk package of those and had to either eat it or come to terms with wasting money. Yongguk hated the idea of wasting money, so he simply dumped the remnants into B.A.P’s dorms and let the leeches of his groupmates to eat it. They did, and then complained -- the ungrateful bastards -- but they never quite figured out who exactly had gotten these in the first place, thankfully.
