Work Text:
일요일 - 주원탁
It’s Sunday night and Wontak is in a nightclub.
The rational part of Wontak’s brain informs him that he really should not be in a nightclub on a Sunday night when he has to wake up at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow morning to go to his thankless office job where he doesn’t do anything but stare at screens and pretend to care about his job. Therefore, drowning the rational part of his brain in alcohol is the absolute best decision that Wontak can make.
The music is way too loud and Wontak is way too drunk when he trips over his own feet and bumps into a guy with bubblegum pink hair. Wontak apologizes and buys him a drink to replace the one that Wontak apparently knocked over when he’d tripped into him. They try chatting and the last sober brain cell of Wontak’s rational brain tells him it would make more sense to move away from the speaker to talk to the pink haired guy than just yelling louder, but Wontak takes another shot and kills off his brain entirely.
And that is probably how Wontak and the guy end up frenching right next to the speaker and then in the bathroom with Wontak’s jeans around his ankles and the guy’s mouth on him. He has braces and it kind of hurts but it’s also kind of hot and Wontak hasn’t gotten laid in ages because corporate life just sucks the life out of him. Wontak’s knees buckle as he comes and the bathroom spins a bit when Wontak stoops to try pulling his pants back up.
Wontak’s rational brain makes a valiant attempt at a comeback and tries to remind him about work, but Wontak is leaning on the guy heavily as he hails a cab and pulls him along with him and keeps sloppily kissing him in the backseat. Fuck his job.
월요일 - 서성혁
Sunghyuk thinks he asks for very little out of his work life.
He works in an ordinary office, has an ordinary computer, does ordinary tasks, and lives an ordinary life. He even does ordinary things like trying to spruce up his cubicle to make it less grey and drab, tapes a picture of his dog to the wall behind his computer and reminds himself he needs to make money to support her. He has a mini succulent and a daily positive affirmation calendar and an alarm set on his computer reminding him to drink water and stand up at regular intervals.
Sunghyuk does all this to form a semblance of sanity because his office is a madhouse.
His boss barely looks older than him - and when Sunghyuk met him, he nearly cried because he was so convinced his hiring process had been a scam and he was going to be destitute - and yet he’s still his boss, and Sunghyuk has to listen to him and follow his orders.
His coworkers are really no better. Eunki is nice, but Eunki orders food every day (and the smell makes Sunghyuk cry inside as he eats his plain chicken breast in an effort to diet) and he flirts with the delivery boy. Wontak eventually tells Sunghyuk that the delivery boy is Eunki’s boyfriend’s boyfriend which is already too much for Sunghyuk to unpack. Wontak is probably Sunghyuk’s favorite coworker but every Monday he comes into work hungover and grouchy. Sunghyuk thinks he could befriend his fellow newbie, Hyunmin, but somehow Hyunmin has already hit it off with Seongri, they even go to the gym together. Sunghyuk could go to the gym with them if only they knew he worked out but they never seem to pay attention when Sunghyuk lifts heavy things.
Daehyeon has probably been the nicest to him since they started working together, and they even had a prolonged chat about losing weight, which is why Sunghyuk spiritually apologizes to Daehyeon for using his business to try to talking Hyunmin.
Sunghyuk swears he’s just trying to make friends by whispering office gossip to the neighboring cubicle.
“Hey,” Sunghyuk whispers. “Did you know Team Leader Jang is sleeping with Kim Donghan in accounting?”
Hyunmin seems to snap out of a daze. Dammit, he didn’t hear. “What?”
Sunghyuk takes a deep breath, and then bellows, “Team Leader Jang is screwing Donghan in accounting!”
A loud crash comes from the behind the cubicle where Wontak has tripped over Sunghyuk’s trash can.
Hyunmin just looks at Sunghyuk and says, “Oh, worm?”
Sunghyuk hates his job.
화요일 - 장대현
Tuesdays are really perfect for skiving off work. Daehyeon gets ahead of his workload on Monday so he can dick around in accounting on Tuesdays, leaning over Donghan’s cubicle. Donghan always looks different at work than he does anywhere else, mainly because Donghan doesn’t wear anything sheer or lacy to punch numbers in a grey cubicle all day long.
“Hey,” Daehyeon says, hanging his upper body over the top of Donghan’s cubicle partition.
“Hey,” Donghan answers. “What’s up?”
Daehyeon shrugs. “It’s boring up there, so I decided to come down here.”
“Didn’t come to just look at me?”
“Yeah, looking at you is nice too.”
Donghan snorts and rolls his chair to his filing cabinet and then pulls himself back. “You busy this weekend?”
“Not too busy,” Daehyeon answers. “Yourself?”
“Might go to a club. But I might also sit on my couch in my underwear watching Netflix all weekend. It’ll depend on how I feel on Friday when I clock out.”
Daehyeon nods. “Hey, did you hear the rumor that we’re screwing?”
“Yeah, Taedong was telling me about it this morning.” Donghan shrugs his shoulders. “How’d they even figure that? Seeing us hang out at a club one time?”
“To be fair,” Daehyeon says, “your shirt was see-through. Everyone saw your nipples. And you were wearing a leather harness. It was a look.”
“I’m a fashion icon, what can I say?” Donghan looks at Daehyeon. “Do you want to come over and watch Netflix with me all weekend?”
“Are you going to be in your underwear?”
“Are you going to be in yours?”
Daehyeon shrugs. “Maybe I’ll take mine off.”
Donghan smirks. “Maybe that was my plan all along.”
“To get me to take my underwear off? You could have just asked me directly.” Daehyeon drums on Donghan’s cubicle partition. “Whatever. It’s a date.”
수요일 - 변현민
Hyunmin leans back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and bellows out “Hump day!”
Sunghyuk bangs his head on the underside of his desk and rises to glare over the cubicle partition. “Why are you doing that?” he asks miserably.
Hyunmin stares at him. Is it not obvious? “Because it’s Wednesday, my dude.” And then Hyunmin lets out another loud, long shriek.
“Why do you do this?” Sunghyuk whispers. “Why do you do any of this?”
Hyunmin just shrugs as Sunghyuk slinks behind his wall again. In Hyunmin’s humble opinion, Sunghyuk is just too uptight. He has timers going off to drink water and to take a walk and to water his desk plant but Hyunmin has yet to see Sunghyuk do anything fun. Hyunmin hates office work and pencil pushing as much as the next person, and he hates being one of the youngest workers on the floor because menial errands tend to fall to him, like moving illegally parked cars or buying drinks. (The boss had once asked for a hot iced americano and meant it and Hyunmin really had no idea what to get for him so he settled on putting ice cubes in a hot americano which was shockingly not what a hot iced americano was.)
So if Hyunmin screams in the privacy of his partially open cubicle every Wednesday, why is that anyone’s business?
목요일 - 홍은기
Eunki can smell his delivery before it gets into his office.
“Oh my god, you’re amazing,” Eunki says, practically yanking the bag out of Insoo’s hands. “I love you.”
Insoo still has his bike helmet on and eyes him suspiciously. “You’re worse today than usual. It’s Thirsty Thursday, you must have plans.”
Eunki pouts at him. “Can’t I just be hungry and happy to see you?”
“You know, Kenta says the exact same thing and I don’t believe either of you. You aren’t happy to see me. You’re happy to see food.”
“You’re just projecting onto me,” Eunki says, ignoring Insoo and unwrapping his lunch.
“See! You’re not even looking at me! You still haven’t paid. Or tipped me.”
Eunki digs through his desk drawer to find his wallet and fishes out a handful of bills. “Here, here.”
“Like I said,” Insoo pockets the money. “You must have plans tonight. Don’t get too drunk. Kenta’s going to have kittens if you do something dumb.”
“Why do you have such little faith in me? Look! I have this respectable office job! I’m a responsible adult.”
“Yeah, okay,” Insoo says. “That’s why I met you when you were busting splits on the dancefloor of a gay club.”
“You were also in the gay club,” Eunki reminds him.
Insoo shrugs. “So was Kenta.”
“And it all worked out, right?” Eunki asks.
“Don’t come home too drunk. It’s okay for you to crawl to work hungover but I have to wake up early.” Insoo sighs.
Eunki blows him a kiss. Insoo rolls his eyes.
금요일 - 김성리
Friday is a surprisingly quiet day in the office. The weekend is looming so everyone is hunched over their desks trying to finish up as much work as humanly possible in order to dash out of the office as early as they can. Of course, Seongri himself always lingers on Friday afternoons in order to chat with the boss.
“Aren’t your lips going to turn brown from kissing all that ass?” Wontak asks him dryly.
Seongri just ignores him because Wontak is a grumpy worker and he probably feels maligned because no one tends to listen to his ideas during staff meetings and he has a poor work life balance. Seongri has a great work life balance. He goes to the gym every few days, sometimes with Hyunmin, and he spends his time at work trying to endear himself to the boss. He relaxes when it’s time to relax and works when it’s time to work. (And he kisses ass when it’s time to kiss ass.)
Kiwon emerges from his office and Seongri bounds over to him. “Mr. Lee! How are you?”
“I’m great!” Kiwon answers. “You’re still here late!”
Seongri had already seen Daehyeon scurrying out with Donghan from the accounting department, Eunki had similarly left with his boyfriends (plural), Sunghyuk had slunk out of the office on his own, and Hyunmin had chased Wontak out of the office trying to show him memes.
“I enjoy the quiet.” Seongri replies. In reality, Seongri didn’t care that the office was noisy. He didn’t even care about Hyunmin’s midweek ritual of unprompted screaming. He was trying to ingratiate himself to his boss.
“I do too,” Kiwon says. “Well, good night, Seongri. Have a good weekend.”
“Goodbye, boss!” Seongri waves as Kiwon leaves, silently punching the air in triumph. Another smooth maneuver of kissing the boss’s ass, and he still had time to make it to his kpop dance fitness class. This week they were going to learn IOI songs. Seongri even prepared a pink tank top.
토요일 - 이기원
Kiwon considers himself a good boss. He doesn’t think he asks for too many unreasonable things (the hot iced americano was an outlier and should not be counted, Kiwon had been having a bad day). He plays well with his employees during company get togethers. He thinks that his employees like him well enough too. He’s close to them all in age so he hopes he can sometimes feel like a friend instead of a boss.
Kiwon even lets his employees do yaja time in the office. It had been one chaotic afternoon. Sunghyuk had kicked Kiwon out of his office and taken over for that brief time, putting his feet up on Kiwon’s desk. Kiwon hadn’t been angry at all. He’d actually been proud of Sunghyuk for being so bold. Hyunmin tried to get Seongri to go park his car, but Hyunmin didn’t have a car, he was just really good at moving other people’s for some reason. The others had laid low until yaja time was over, so Kiwon brought it back every time they had a departmental gathering, insisting that it boosted the morale of their department. Daehyeon said something that sounded like no other department did that, but Kiwon insisted it was what made their department special. Anyway, Kiwon didn’t care what his employees did as long as they did their work while on the clock.
Kiwon spends his Saturday sorting through work papers and emailing other departments. As much as he likes having time off and being out of the office, he finds himself waiting for the start of a new work week. Because inevitably, Wontak is going to come in hungover, Eunki will order his lunch from the place his boyfriend’s boyfriend works, Hyunmin will run out to go move someone’s car and buy someone a tea, Sunghyuk’s alarms will go off throughout the day, Daehyeon will sneak to the accounting department, and Seongri will linger by Kiwon’s office at the end of the day. It’s the way things are in the office, and Kiwon likes things that way.