Chapter Text
Seungcheol was nervous. Even more nervous than usual. His palms were already sweating and they kept slipping off the wheels of his wheelchair, making it nearly impossible to move, which meant that he couldn't make a quick get-away out of his first job.
The manager had called an employee to push him around, which made Seungcheol feel, small and disabled.
Well, he was disabled.
Paralyzed from the waist down all because of a car accident, oh how he hated it. But it didn't stop him from living his life just like any other twenty-four year old.
Well, to be perfectly honest, Seungcheol knew deep down that his paralyzed legs were stopping him from living his best life.
Firstly, he was still living with his mom. Heck, he couldn't even make it down the stairs without her help.
Secondly, he couldn't talk. Well... okay, he could talk but he had an awful stutter which meant that it took him ten seconds to mutter out a simple 'hello.' So most of the time he just kept his mouth shut.
And lastly, his paralyzed legs had stopped him from getting a job.
Every job except this one.
An employee in an old record and CD shop.
Not that he wanted to work in a smelly old shop that was run by a complete stoner, but what choice did he have?
He held his breath as a guy, apparently named 'Jihoon' flipped the 'Sorry we're closed' sign to the 'Hi! We're open!' side. He felt like he was going to get sick. He was going to get sick. He could feel the beads of sweat starting to drip down his forehead.
"Whoa, are you okay?"
Seungcheol jumped. It was the guy the manager had sent to help him out.
Seungcheol nodded, terrified. He was bad at talking to new people.
He was bad at talking in general.
"Look, you'll be okay. Just... relax, alright? You look like you've just been told the zombie apocalypse is happening or something." he said with a small smile.
The boy's appearance was cool, his hair blond and he had a nose ring. Seungcheol wondered if he ever had problems with his nose ring when he had a cold. That was the thing that was stopping him from getting one anyway.
"So... how'd you end up in this, eh?" the boy asked as he patted the chair.
Seungcheol just shrugged. He was afraid he'd scare the boy away with his stutter.
"What, you don't talk or something?"
Seungcheol nodded and the boy sighed.
"Well i'm Soonyoung anyway, and from reading your name tag, you must be Seungcheol?" Soonyoung asked.
Seungcheol nodded again.
Then Soonyoung smiled at him.
Then the bell of the shop's door tingled and a group of teenagers tumbled into the shop.
"Welcome to the world of sorting and stacking CD's." Soonyoung grumbled as he folded his arms.
Seungcheol swallowed and stared fidgeting his hands. He wondered if it was too late to make that get-away now.
Jeonghan
Jeonghan was pissed off when he stepped out of Starbucks. Minghao had called him to cancel their date again. This was the third date he'd dropped out of and he was getting tired of his lame excuses.
He stomped down the street, kicking moodily at puddles on the ground. Stupid Minghao... stupid date. He was so steamed.
He thought about calling Mingyu and asking him if he wanted to share a bottle of soju with him, but then decided against it, because getting wasted wasn't going to make anything better, although it would numb the sting of rejection a bit.
No, he'd go say hi to Soonyoung at the old record and CD store. That would help. Soonyoung would let him go through the records as long as he wanted to.
Yeah, he'd definitely go there.
He sighed as he started to trudge towards the store, his heart heavy in his chest.
Ever since he had returned to Seoul, after loosing his job in Busan, things had been shitty.
First of all, he had gotten smashed on the first night back, and he couldn't remember what had happened, plus he woke up with a weird rash in this leg, which creeped him out. The hangover was horrible as well.
Then there was his boyfriend, Minghao, who was avoiding him ever since he'd come home.
What was up with that?
He sighed as he swung the door of the record shop open, the familiar scent of weed and dusty old vinyls greeting him like old friends. He stepped inside and immediately, Soonyoung waved at him.
"Well would you look at what the wind blew in!" he laughed as he smirked at him.
Forgetting all about his bad mood, Jeonghan smiled back at him.
"What's up Hoshi?" he asked as he winked at him. Soonyoung scowled at him.
"That's Soonyoung to you, Yoon Jeonghan." he huffed, then he turned away and disappeared to the back.
Chuckling to himself, Jeonghan headed towards the start of the CD shelves.
And that's when he saw him.
He had been in this store so many times that he had lost count, and he had never seen this boy here before.
He was in a wheelchair. That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing he noticed was the employee lanyard slung over his t-shirt and he frowned.
Yep, he definitely didn't remember any boy in a wheelchair working here.
The third thing he noticed was that he was putting Mariah Carey's "The Emancipation of Mimi" into the wrong section. That pissed him off.
Seriously, he couldn't believe that they had hired someone who obviously didn't have a clue about music.
He was holding a bunch of them in his hand, the box in his lap.
"Hey!" Jeonghan said loudly.
He didn't hear him.
Or maybe he's ignoring me Jeonghan thought.
"Hey!" he said again, a little louder this time.
Nothing. He didn't even blink.
Getting irritated, he marched over to him and tapped on his shoulder.
"HEY!" he practically yelled this time.
He definitely didn't anticipate what happened next.
The boy nearly jumped out of the wheelchair and he let out a scream. Then, to let matters worse, he dropped the CDs and they crashed to the floor, making Jeonghan wince.
He stared at the Emancipation of Mimi's on the floor.
"You're putting them in the wrong section." he grumbled as he scooped one of the ground.
The boy stared at him like he was speaking some foreign language he didn't know.
"Look, it's Mariah Carey, so it belongs in the "M" section, not the "G" section." he sighed, getting impatient.
He just stared at him blankly at him.
"Just.. ahh..." he trailed off and stomped over to the 'M' section.
"See?" he put it into the Mariah Carey section and gestured wildly at it.
"It's not rocket science."
Maybe he was imagining it, but Jeonghan swore he saw tears starting to form behind the boy's circular eyeglasses.
He started to feel guilty. He was making him very uncomfortable.
"JEONGHAN!"
He turned around and saw Soonyoung giving him a look.
He practically stormed towards him.
"What?" he asked in an exasperated voice.
"I was just trying to-ow!" he yelped as Soonyoung grabbed his ear and started dragging him to the back room.
Soon enough, the wheelchair boy was out of sight, and he still couldn't tell if he was crying or not.
Seungcheol
Seungcheo had never been so embarrassed in his entire life. To be told by someone that he was doing his job wrong was bad, but being told by a very good looking man that he was doing his job wrong was... well it was kind of bad.
It was off the scale bad.
Sometimes Seungcheol really wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole.
The confrontation with the cute guy had made his anxiety worse. He was crying.
Jesus, he hated his life so much sometimes.
He couldn't even bend down and scoop up the CDs. He couldn't reach. Heck, he couldn't even call anybody to help him.
He sighed as he wheeled nervously over to Jihoon, who was intensely reading a Batman comic.
He tapped his back and he turned around.
"What's up newbie?" he asked, not impressed that he had disturbed him.
He jumped back and pointed to the pile of CDs on the floor.
Jihoon's eyes softened a little.
"Oh yeah... geez I forgot about your condition." he sighed as he put down his comic.
He looked kindly at Seungcheol.
"Hey, it's alright. It's not your fault that you need a little help sometimes." he said with a shrug, then he walked off.
Seungcheol was definitely having the worst day of his life.
JEONGHAN
"What is wrong with you?!" Soonyoung hissed at him as he slammed the door of the backroom.
"I was just trying to help him!" he sighed as he folded his arms and leaned against the counter.
"You weren't helping! You were being a dick!" he scoffed.
Jeonghan rolled his eyes.
"Well, you should've hired someone with a little more experience!"
"Jesus christ, Jeonghan! The boy is in a fucking wheelchair!"
Jeonghan froze, remembering the boy now. Now that he thought about it, he had been in a wheelchair...
"Oh." he said finally, realizing what was going on.
He felt bad. Of course they had hired a boy in a wheelchair. It was probably the only job he could get around here.
Soonyoung punched his arm and Jeonghan scowled at him.
"Alright! Alright! I get it! I'm sorry!" he huffed.
He punches his arm again.
"Don't apologize to me! Apologize to him!"
Jeonghan sighed and peeked out of the back room window. The wheelchair boy was flicking through the Mariah Carey section.
"Look, I'm sure he's forgotten about it-"
"Don't you start!" Soonyoung grabbed him by the ear again, opened the door, and shoved him outside.
"Apologize or else I'm kicking you out of the shop!" he threatened.
Jeonghan cursed and stared making his way over towards the wheelchair boy.
This was so stupid. Why should he apologize to him? He was only trying to help the boy out.
As he approached him, he noticed the smell of mint that lingered around him. He walked right up to boy and coughed loudly, alerting him about his presence a little more subtly this time.
He looked up at him, his big brown eyes nearly burning holes into him, they were that shocking. For some reason they made Jeonghan feel nervous.
"I'm sorry for scaring you." he grumbled as he tried to hold his gaze. His eyes flickerd down to the "Seungcheol" name tag pinned to his shirt.
He didn't say anything, so he continued.
"I realize that I was being a dick and that I didn't consider the fact that you're... I don't know disabled or something." he said awkwardly.
The boy, Seungcheol, raised an eyebrow at him.
He felt his face flush. Jeonghan wished he'd stop staring at him.
"Here... I'll help you." he said finally, cautiously taking the box off of his lap. Seungcheol didn't object and instead, sat back in his wheelchair and raised an eyebrow at him, looking slightly amused. His eyes were shining playfully at him.
"Ehhhh... okay." he mumbled, running a hand through his hair.
"Right, so....ah! It's more Mariah." he said, a smile spreading across his face.
"Butterfly, eh?" You've listened to this work of art, right?" he said, eyeing Seungcheol with curiosity.
Seungcheol shrugged silently, not implying that he had or had not listened to the album.
Jeonghan wondered if this boy ever talked.
"It's a good album." he said finally, placing a couple of the albums on to the shelf.
"You've got your hits like 'My All' and obviously 'Honey' but people forget about 'The Roof' and 'Fourth of July'..." he trailed off, noticing Seungcheol watching him closely again. It was like he was hanging on to his every word. He was one of those people who actually listened to people when they spoke.
He was so used to Mingyu and his attention span of a five year old, that he'd forgotten what it was like for someone to actually listen to what he's saying.
He coughed awkwardly.
"Yeah... so you should listen to it." he said after a while, ignoring his gaze.
Seungcheol nodded and took out a pen and scrawled 'The Roof' down on his hand.
Jeonghan smiled.
"Cool." he said.
Seungcheol
As much as he didn't want to admit it, Seungcheol kind of liked Jeonghan. He was actually kind of cool, what, with his rose tattoo and his perfect black hair that fell in all the right places on his head.
He felt much more relaxed in his company now that he'd spent nearly the whole afternoon with him. He seemed more relaxed too. Jeonghan stopped looking at him like he was disabled (even though he was, but he seemed to be getting over the fact.)
Jeonghan had even wheeled him around for a while, showing him artist he'd never herd off. Apparently, Jeonghan wasn't the biggest fan of pop music.
Soonyoung had taken out a CD player and they were currently listening to the famous Mariah Carey that Jeonghan coulnd't stop blabbing on about.
"It's great isn't it?" Jeonghan said over the sweet melodies.
Seungcheol closed his eyes in bliss. He definitely enjoyed these songs.
Noticing his facial expressions, Jeonghan laughed and folded his arms. He was leaning against the counter, much to Soonyoung's annoyance, but Seungcheol thought he looked cool.
"You don't talk much, do you?" he asked as he looked at Seungcheol.
"Jeonghan!" Soonyoung yelled. He hit him over the head with one of Jihoon's comics.
Jeonghan rubbed his head and looked grouchily over at Soonyoung.
"Seriously! What is your problem?" he huffed at Soonyoung.
Deciding that he didn't want Soonyoung to explain, Seungcheol tugged on Jeonghan's hand gently.
He turned back around to face Seungcheol, his eyes confused, but somewhat soft and caring.
He felt himself blush. He scrawled a quick note on his hand and held it in front of Jeonghan.
CAN'T TALK. BAD STUTTER IT TAKES ME A MILLION YEARS TO SAY HI.
"Oh." Jeonghan said, sending him a sad look.
He swatted it away and shrugged. He was used to people's reactions to his disabilities by now.
There was an awkward silence, which consisted of Seungcheol staring down at his shoes and Jeonghan running his hand through his hair. As creepy as it sounded, Seungcheol loved when he did that, and he'd only know Jeonghan for a couple of hours.
Finally, Soonyoung broke the silence.
"Hey... I think I've got an idea!" he said excitedly, making Seungcheol jump.
Soonyoung started typing and clicking frantically on a little laptop he was working on and then suddenly he plonked it on Seungcheol's lap.
Seungcheol stared at it, confused.
"Type something into it!" Soonyoung said eagerly.
Seungcheol blinked and stared at the black screen through his thin round glasses. Then, slowly, he typed in the first thing that popped into his mind.
"MARIAH CAREY IS GOOD."
The computer had spoken for him.
Jeonghan beamed at him, probably glad Seungcheol had technically said that he liked Mariah.
"See I told you that you'd like her! She's an R&B legend!" he said as he stared dreamily at the CD player.
Seungcheol, thrilled that he could talk, began to type quickly.
"I LOVE THE ROOF."
Jeonghan smiled at him again and then there was a lot of awkward eye contact.
Wanting to keep the conversation going, he typed in a question that was annoying him all day.
"DO YOU ALWAYS TELL PEOPLE THAT THEY DO THEIR JOB WRONG OR IS IT JUST BOYS IN WHEELCHAIRS?" he typed, a smirk on his face.
Jeonghan laughed and smiled at him, making him feel warm and fuzzy inside.
"I didn't mean to sound like a douche when I told you that you were doing your job wrong." he said with a shrug, and Soonyoung whacked him with his hand.
"Jeonghan is naturally a douche, so don't take anything he says personally." he said.
This made Jeonghan laugh and then Seungcheol was laughing too.
Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad working in the record shop after all.