Ah, this was going into the folder holding all his embarrassing memories he would remember for life, wasn't it?
"Dokja-yah,"
Please don't ask about the ice cream. Please, don't bring it up.
"Do you need a new phone?"
Thank fucking god.
"No," he said. "My phone's good enough. Why do you ask?"
"Well, consider it, it might have a few cracks," Uriel continued.
"Is there a policy saying that I have to use a certain phone while I work at the company?" Kim Dokja asked.
"No, you're free to use whatever," said Uriel. "But just in case."
"Oh, no, my phone's in perfect condition," Kim Dokja said proudly. He had invested especially in getting the screen reinforced and it was waterproofed. In a way, his phone was his most prized possession, it was in great condition considering just how much he used it.
Uriel's fingers tapped at something on her iPad screen and then said that they had to go up a few floors in that case, according to the schedule she had made. Why did they even have a schedule?
They took the escalators this time and Kim Dokja didn't make any more blunders with the ice cream and consumed the treat like a normal person.
Kim Dokja was under the impression that it would be some window shopping like he usually did with his other friends, and then maybe buy himself a new formal shirt, maybe a pair of pants and then head home.
He didn't think much about it when Uriel in the lead, Yoo Joonghyuk walking next to him, took him to a rather popular luxury brand's clothing store. Hey, rich people had their own thing, he had zero opinions about that.
Now that he was actually tasting the ice cream, it was the same as all the others. It was nice.
Kim Dokja didn't think much of anything, not even when the saleswoman showed them to a different section of the store, one he would never have guessed existed. Kim Dokja thought it would make a good setting for a murder mystery kind of story.
Yoo Joonghyuk settled on the couch and Uriel caught Kim Dokja before he could do the same.
She asked him a few random questions about his favourite colours and stuff. Kim Dokja told her he didn't really have a colour preference.
Kim Dokja only realised that things were going awry when he found himself standing on a little platform, getting his measurements taken.
"Why're the doors closing?" he said, listening to the clear buzz of the shutters falling on the store's entrance.
"Privacy," Yoo Joonghyuk said simply.
"And this is not private enough already?" Kim Dokja said, feeling the measuring tape get pressed to his elbow.
"Would you rather do this outside, then, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk said.
Kim Dokja barely resisted himself from groaning in exasperation.
"Joonghyuk-ssi," he said slowly. "Why are we even doing this?"
"May I be honest for a second? Your clothes are ill-fitting," Yoo Joonghyuk declared.
"I am aware," Kim Dokja stared at the man. "But I don't think I must dress to look flattering. I'm not trying to be a model."
"It's a gift, Dokja-yah. For signing with us," Uriel said brightly, cutting off whatever Yoo Joonghyuk had in mind when he opened his mouth.
Kim Dokja had never appreciated Uriel as a secretary before, but she was excellent at her job, wasn't she? She had her back slightly turned towards Yoo Joonghyuk, so she could say that she hadn't really noticed that her superior had been trying to talk, and she had very cleverly saved Yoo Joonghyuk from saying something that Kim Dokja just had an inkling was likely to annoy him.
No, seriously, why were they doing this? It wasn't like they did this for everyone who signed to work for the company.
It wasn't like he could pay them back either. Of course, he wouldn't be able to pay them back. This whole thing was pointless, he would much rather take ten more of those ice cream cones and just go home for the day.
Whatever, rich people and whatever the hell they wanted to do. He wouldn't understand them even if he tried.
Han Sooyoung would have a very fun time when he told her about this though. . .But that would mean going into who Yoo Joonghyuk was. Well, he was sure he'd find a way to get around that little part. He was sure his Yoo Joonghyuk would explode with anger if he ever found out that Kim Dokja was friends with the family he absolutely despised.
But that wasn't really Kim Dokja's thing to care about, was it? Sure, he understood where Yoo Joonghyuk was coming from, but this CEO Yoo Joonghyuk wasn't a horrible person. He was pretty nice, actually. And Kim Dokja could already imagine his Yoo Joonghyuk's reaction to finding this out.
"Nope, not doing that," Kim Dokja shook his head, stepping off the platform when he was brought whole three-piece suits to change into.
"Aww, please?" Uriel said.
No! That was going to take ages. He would have to get out of what he was wearing, then get into that suffocating fit and then change back. Absolutely not.
"What's the dress code again?" Kim Dokja grumbled.
"No, don't bother, I have the scanned copy of the contract and have it with me on my phone," Kim Dokja pulled his phone out of his pocket and went through his little evidence. He didn't usually do this, but this whole thing was a bit abnormal, so he had to deviate from his habits as well.
"It says business casual," Kim Dokja found the bit from the little welcome brochure that he had taken pictures of, with the company values and other stuff printed out onto gloss paper.
"I am not going to be wearing any of that."
"Oh, alright, how about you try just one?" Uriel said, drumming her fingers softly on the back of the iPad she was clutching.
"It's good to have a business professional fit, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Joonghyuk said. "It might come in handy."
Easy for him to say. All he'd been doing was sit on the couch and watch him get measured. Kim Dokja didn't even know why the man had overseen the whole thing with a hawk-like gaze. It wasn't even that interesting.
"Just one, Dokja-yah?" Uriel said and Kim Dokja sighed.
"Just one," he gave in.
"Why do you listen to her and not me?" Yoo Joonghyuk had the nerve to sulk.
"Uriel Noona asked very nicely and cutely," Kim Dokja said dryly. "And it's in solidarity. She's been standing all this time, like me."
Kim Dokja muttered thanks to the salesperson who got him the darned suit and dragged his feet, heading towards the fitting room.
Why? Just why was he doing this?
He knew he was going to end up with a shit ton of work, but he didn't think it would begin before his starting date.
Handy? Where was he even going, dressed up all formally?
Kim Dokja thought it was a waste of time, getting out of his comfortable white button-up and having to wear another, new, crisp white shirt. Did he have to button up the cuffs? Couldn't he just leave them that way? What about the collar button? He was going to be getting out of it soon anyway.
There was a tie? Why was there a tie?
Well, at least that saved bothering with the collar button. He could just fix them over each other and put the tie over it and be done with it.
There was a vest. He was tired. He needed a break, it was tough breaking into the new buttons and doing so with care because he couldn't treat this like his own, comfy clothes.
The fabric of the waistcoat was smooth under his hands and Kim Dokja wondered if he'd gone a bit too far. Was he aiming too high? Did he get caught up in the tide? Getting a bit over in his own head?
Fuck, he had to change his pants too. That meant he had to take his shoes off. Ugh.
Whatever. Whatever. Life never went the way he wanted, what's new? He should just get this over with.
He didn't bother buttoning up the coat. He would be taking it off soon, it was just an unnecessary hassle.
When Kim Dokja exited the fitting room to show (he supposed he had to do that, there was no other reason he was going through this), the first thing he noticed was that Yoo Joonghyuk was standing now, leafing through a catalogue.
Uriel was the first one to spot Kim Dokja and she let out a loud gasp that got everyone else's attention.
"Oh, my!" Uriel cried. "Oh, my, you look so handsome! You almost took my breath away."
Kim Dokja couldn't help but laugh. "That's very nice of you to say."
"It's the truth," Uriel said, catching his arm and turning him around a little to observe his fit better. Should he do a twirl or something?
"Sajangnim, what do you think?" Uriel turned her head around to look at Yoo Joonghyuk. Kim Dokja thought the look in her eye was a little suspicious.
"It's very good," Yoo Joonghyuk nodded. "It suits you."
Yoo Joonghyuk even held up his hands, giving him a double thumbs up.
That was surprising.
"Thank yo—Hang on. Are you—Was that you trying to act cute?" Kim Dokja said before he could stop himself. . .because he mentioned that before?
"Is it working?" was what Yoo Joonghyuk responded to it.
"Working?"
"Yes," the man nodded. "You've been strangely passive-aggressive this whole time."
Huh? When?
"I have not," Kim Dokja said confused.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. What made you think that?"
"Did you not like the ice cream?"
Ah, that. . .Fuck.
"It's not like that," Kim Dokja, feeling his ears boil. Goddamnit. "I used my sensitive tooth, so I was in a little pain. I'm sorry if it came off as my being in a bad mood. That wasn't my intention at all."
"So it's like that."
Kim Dokja nodded.
"Are you alright now? Is it still aching?" Yoo Joonghyuk asked.
"Oh, no, I'm fine now," Kim Dokja waved a hand in the air. "I should've been more careful, haha. . .I really wasn't being passive-aggressive. You don't have to trouble yourself because of that, Joonghyuk-ssi."
"You're not trouble, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Joonghyuk said. "And I do mean it, you look good."
Kim Dokja swallowed and mustered a weak grin.
"Thank you," he said. "Can I go change out of this then?"
"Does it fit fine, Dokja-yah?" Uriel took over and Kim Dokja had an excuse to move his eyes away from Yoo Joonghyuk who had already gone back to the catalogue in his hand.
Kim Dokja nodded.
"Is it uncomfortable anywhere?"
Kim Dokja shook his head. It fit him perfectly, to be honest, and it was quite comfortable even though he had been complaining about it all this time. It was the best clothing he had ever put on his back, of course, it felt nice.
Uriel's 'just one' turned out to be a fucking lie, because she handed him another suit, saying that it was business casual this time, like he had said before.
Bullshit! It had suspenders. It was just the waistcoat that had been traded away for the suspenders. And it wasn't the clip-on ones, but the button-up suspenders.
Kim Dokja took some time to look at his reflection properly before taking off the formal wear he had on at the moment.
Well, it wasn't too bad. He still looked dead tired, but that was just his default face, really. Nothing he could do about it.
Otherwise, it made him look pretty good. Maybe people did have a point with suits.
. . .Suspenders were still a little frustrating though.
This reminded him of the time when he got his first full-time office job. He, Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk had gone out to pick out a suit for him. It wasn't this fancy or anything. It was a cheap little store that sold ready-made formal wear. Han Sooyoung said he should wear the sparkly hot pink one that looked like it was clearly made for a comedy show host. Yoo Joonghyuk picked an all-black, like he always did and Han Sooyoung called him emo. Like she wasn't emo either.
Kim Dokja still remembered, all three of them were dressed head to toe in black. Different outfits, sure, but it was all black in the end, down to their shoes. When Kim Dokja pointed it out to them, those two assholes asked him to shut the fuck up. He had rolled his eyes, scoffed, and probably said something in return though he no longer had any recollection of what it could have been.
He smiled a little at the memory as he changed into a blue shirt.
There was another time they went to pick clothes with Jung Heewon; him, Han Sooyoung, Lee Hyunsung and Yoo Sangah. Jung Heewon had some event coming up and she called her friends for help, which led to all of them getting the train to go shopping. That was another treasured memory of his.
And that time when Mia needed new shoes. Kim Dokja got dragged along with Yoo Joonghyuk and Lee Seolhwa.
It was a memory he couldn't give a proper classification. Bittersweet would be the best way he could describe it.
It was incredibly sweet in the way, Yoo Joonghyuk and Lee Seolhwa had a great time, Kim Dokja had specifically shooed them away saying that they could have some time together and he'd stay with Mia, like a good friend, like a good uncle figure.
If he stepped back a little and pretended it was a story, where he was just the reader and not a character, it was a wonderful love story.
It was bitter in the way he had his stomach churning. Even the faint giggles he heard from Lee Seolhwa a few feet away made him want to throw up, Mia's usual comments just went over his head. It was bitter in a way that he hated every single bit of it.
But that's a little thing about love. It's difficult to fall in love with a person and a person alone. It might be one of the first steps, but eventually one would come to love every single story associated with that person.
And falling in love with a person's stories, a person's entire being, the good, the bad, the special, the mundane. . .It might just be near impossible to ever recover from that.
Kim Dokja would know. He was still going strong, eight years and still stuck, suffering over unrequited love.
He wished he were a little more dense. He wished he could be completely obtuse. That way he would never have figured it out, he would never have felt it, and he never would have to ruin his own mental peace like this.
Kim Dokja stepped out again to get the opinion of the people who were accompanying him at the moment.
Uriel giggled happily.
"Blue looks great on you, Dokja!"
Did it? Well, that was good to know. He'd keep that information in the back of his head for later use. . .If it ever had a reason to come up.
Yoo Joonghyuk took a little longer to pass his verdict. He looked Kim Dokja up and down, and frowned at where his suspenders were hooked to his pants.
Oh, yeah, Kim Dokja did think they looked a little weird. Honestly, suspenders would look good on people with muscles. Yoo Joonghyuk would look great in them, he felt.
Both of them would, but he meant the Yoo Joonghyuk standing in the same room as him at the moment.
As much as formal, fancy suits made the man look like god had descended. He would look great in suspenders.
"Is it bad, Joonghyuk-ssi?" Kim Dokja said.
"It's not bad," Yoo Joonghyuk said slowly. "It looks good on you, in fact. It just looks a little. . .impractical."
Kim Dokja nodded. He did think it was impractical too. It was a hassle to get in and out of. Besides he was going to be working behind a desk, what did he need suspenders for? He could even forgo his belt for a day and would probably be fine.
"Brown or grey?" Uriel interrupted and Kim Dokja looked away from Yoo Joonghyuk again.
"I think brown goes well with it," Kim Dokja said, running his fingers over the brown coat he had on.
"Try the grey," Uriel insisted, and Kim Dokja was handed a grey coat.
He thought it was pointless to go into the fitting room again just to change a coat, so he carefully took off the one he was currently wearing and transferred it just as carefully back to the salesperson.
"Dokja-yah, I want to put you in a corset," she said as he slipped his hand through the sleeve of the grey coat.
What was that supposed to mean?
Even as Kim Dokja held his arms out a little so that Uriel could conduct her appraisal of the grey suit, he could feel Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze on him again. That guy had a very piercing glare, but over the months they'd known each other, Kim Dokja had become used to it.
Kim Dokja could ignore it if he wanted to.
He could do that for nearly anyone, really. He'd had to face countless eyes staring at him since he was a child, he was used to ignoring it all.
But Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze didn't feel threatening or uncomfortable. If he was ignoring him, it probably meant that Kim Dokja was embarrassed for some reason or he was just trying to joke with the older man.
"Do you have ties to go along with it, Dokja-ssi?" Yoo Joonghyuk said when Kim Dokja was finally done with being a dress-up doll for the day.
"I do," Kim Dokja said. "I have two," he added when Yoo Joonghyuk opened his mouth. "Though I don't wear the second one out. . .ever."
Yoo Joonghyuk raised his eyebrows curiously.
"It was a gag gift," Kim Dokja explained. "A blue tie with butts printed all over it. I still have it because my friends wouldn't let me throw it out. But it's not something I wear often."
"Or ever," Yoo Joonghyuk said.
"Or ever," Kim Dokja nodded.
"We should take the opportunity to get you more ties, then, Dokja-ssi," Yoo Joonghyuk said. He looked determined for some reason.
"Is it compulsory to wear a tie?" Kim Dokja asked.
"It's more of an unspoken norm at this point, but not mandatory, no," Yoo Joonghyuk said as a saleswoman showed them a collection of ties that Kim Dokja would hate to use, afraid that he would accidentally crease them.
"I think it would be good to have a few."
Kim Dokja figured out why Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to be in a better mood quickly.
Ties were more or less his area of expertise and Uriel had to step away for a bit to give instructions to salesperson to get their shopping bags down the Yoo Joonghyuk's car in the parking lot.
This left Yoo Joonghyuk alone with Kim Dokja, free to flaunt his knowledge of ties and tie knots.
Kim Dokja thought it was ridiculous, but he listened anyway. It wasn't particularly interested in ties, but Yoo Joonghyuk looked enthusiastic about it, so he let him have it.
"A black one would go with all, wouldn't it?" Kim Dokja said.
"That is until you want to make a statement," Yoo Joonghyuk told him. "Sometimes you require colours that will stand out."
"I see, I didn't know that," Kim Dokja said. "Though I'm not sure where I'd have to make a statement, but I'll keep that in mind. . .Ah, what if you just don't wear a tie? Everything else remains the same, but no tie, what about then?"
"It would look a little out of place," Yoo Joonghyuk said. "You could substitute it with a bowtie. Or change the dress shirt into something without a collar. However, it will make it look a little casual."
Uriel joined them and their little discussion about ties got snuffed out and Yoo Joonghyuk was pretty miffed about it.
Kim Dokja thought it was done, head the car and go home, but nope.
"Why am I getting shoes?" he said watching Uriel frown at the mismatched pair of oxfords he had on, black on his right leg and a brown one on his left.
"We can't just leave one thing out, can we?" said Uriel. "It's the whole set."
"You really don't have to, Joonghyuk-ssi," Kim Dokja sighed.
"You can consider this as me paying you back," Yoo Joonghyuk said.
"Paying me back? For what? The idea?"
Yoo Joonghyuk gave a single nod.
"Oh, I think you've already done more than enough for that!" Kim Dokja cried.
"I do not think so," said Yoo Joonghyuk. "Please, don't think too much of it, Dokja-ssi. I don't have like owing someone."
Whatever Kim Dokja said in protest fell on deaf ears and Kim Dokja gave up by the time he got taken to find a bag.
Kim Dokja had a trusty old brown messenger bag he carried around with him and it worked just fine. He was apparently switching to briefcases now. It was going to make it a lot more difficult for him to read his phone.
With a messenger bag, the strap would be hung on his shoulder and he could just let it rest on his lap. It was secure, in a sense and he was free to entertain himself with his phone without worrying about it. But with a briefcase, if someone were to try to steal it, one tug and he'd lose the briefcase. Kim Dokja wasn't exactly strong, he wouldn't be able to defend himself from a robber.
He had to remind Yoo Joonghyuk to tone it down a little very often.
"Joonghyuk-ssi, functionality. It's sleek and classy, but there's not enough space inside."
"You're quite right, Dokja-ssi. That slipped my notice."
"Don't you think that's a bit too large?"
". . .It is."
"The strap is going to end up being painful in the end."
"I did think the rounded handle was a bad idea on it."
What were they doing? Dissing bags and briefcases? And the poor salespeople couldn't even tell anything because Yoo Joonghyuk was just that intimidating.
"The lock is too complicated."
"Yes, it is."
"That will snap within a week."
"I agree. It is flimsy."
"That's chipping off. That's chipping off for sure."
"It's going to be incredibly noisy, every time you put it down on any hard surface."
. . .Well it was pretty fun in its own way.