convenience and leisure are primary reasons for his regular patronship, but they aren’t the only reasons. for example, the drinks are pretty good and reasonably priced… and he may be developing a habit of chatting up the bartender there, much to his amusement and far less to hers. his efforts aren’t completely unwarranted though. they’ve seen each other around at gigs, share mutual acquaintances, kick around in the same circles. you’d think she’d at least be a little more receptive of his attempts at ‘friendship’ yet alas, here he is. he thinks deep inside, miss tsundere here might be growing fond of him too; alternatively, it’s his delusional ego speaking, but he brushes this possibility off to the side.
“hey there,” he greets her with a frisky grin as he plops into his usual seat at the end of the countertop. “i don’t think i’ve dropped by since like… a solid ten days ago. hopefully you didn’t miss me too much,” he jokes. his eyes watch her with a curiosity, wondering if his antics would stick with her this time around; not that they ever have, but hey – maybe hundredth time is the charm. his lays off her for a second to do the practical thing and order a drink. “i’ll have my usual by the way.” a slight pause. “so are you going to ask me how i’ve been? or do you want to tell me how you’ve been for once? we can do either.”
over the years she’s spent standing behind this bar counter on almost every night, sohee’s amassed quite a few regulars, who frequent the bar for varying reasons of their own. but no matter what that reason is, to lay it all bare, it always just boils down to the need to talk to someone. specifically, the need to talk to someone who’s bound to this bar counter, just so they will actually listen...and that person happens to be sohee. (luckily for them, being a good listener is part of the job scope.) for the most part, she doesn’t mind them, and in fact there are a select few she actually looks forward to seeing, those who offer conversations she (surprisingly) doesn’t find intolerable.
unfortunately, nam dohyun is one of those people━and sohee would much rather walk across a bed of burning coals before she ever admits it to anyone, herself included. only because it’s mortifying how quickly he brought a smile to her face the first time they spoke, and how easily he does it over and over again every single time he comes by. she makes sure to hide it all the time, of course. sohee sure as hell didn’t spend all that time practicing her poker face, only for him to come tear it all down with his horridly gleeful smiles.
outside of the bar, their interactions are limited to passing greetings after gigs or hasty nods, but the nights he comes to sit by the counter until it’s closing time are different; these are the nights with no obligations to uphold, nights where they let loose of the guise they’re typically compelled to put on. letting down her guard was never something that came easy to sohee, but for inexplicable reasons, being around dohyun makes it more effortless. and that not only confuses her, it’s disconcerting.
so she does what she can to keep him at arm’s length, engages all her defenses the moment he’s within so much as a five-meter radius of her. but try as she might, things never work out the way she wants it to━despite the edge she deliberately injects into her tone and the eye roll she gives him when she sees him stroll over to his usual seat (which is, truthfully, more instinctive than done with ill feeling), her true sentiments are given away by how she already has his drink ready within seconds after his arrival and by the way she’s leaned across the counter; a part of her is fond of dohyun showing up, and he knows it, too.
“damn, it’s only been ten days? i can never get enough of a break from you,” sohee has her eyes narrowed at him as she speaks, a contemptuous front she’s learnt to put on whenever she wants to drive someone away. (it hasn’t worked on him so far.) “as always, i’m going to pick the lesser of two evils, which is listening to your day,” sohee relents, though it’s not like she even bothered putting up a fight, and a sigh slips past her lips. “and you’ve clearly got more of a knack for talking than i do. so go on, hit me with it.” and it’s true━she’s convinced that, if given a chance to, he’d probably be able to talk for three days straight. though, contrary to the outward appearance she fabricates, it’s not really like she’s complaining. there’s a strange comfort in spending time together with dohyun like this, a sense of familiarity sohee just can’t seem to ever fully make sense of.
