Hansol was standing at the convenience store counter, staring blankly at the candy bar display in front of him. He shifted his weight to his other hip and raised his hand thoughtfully up to his lips, chewing distractedly on his thumb.
You rested your head on your hand, raising an eyebrow towards the contemplative boy.
He did this every day.
"What are you thinking, a snickers?" You asked, your voice completely flat. He glanced at you, his cheeks reddening ever so slightly.
"I'm not sure, maybe?"
You stifled a small laugh and just settled for staring at the peculiar boy.
Hansol had been in your life for years now. When you transferred to a new school in a new city, you had been terrified of what life would bring you. You had always worried about making new friends and fitting in in a strange new environment.
Hansol was the very first person to give you a chance and you were forever indebted to him for that.
A single soft smile and a personal introduction from Hansol had meant that everyone in the school suddenly found you to be an acceptable person to associate with.
You still didn't really understand why it was like that here.
If Hansol was willing to talk to someone, everyone just assumed they were a good person to associate with.
Either way, the day that a cute boy with sandy brown hair had introduced himself to you as Chwe Hansol, you had assumed that he would be your best friend. You could feel the way he watched you when he thought you weren't looking, and you knew that he said nice things about you to other people.
Even if you weren't best friends, you would surely be friends.
You knew that he had gone out of his way to get even the cruelest teachers at school to be nice to you, and he put in a good word for you at your job when you had applied, and you had a sneaking suspicion that when your dad almost got fired and suddenly the company was bought out and your dad's job became secured with crazy benefits that he had something to do with that too.
You had no solid proof of course. He was good enough at covering his tracks that you were pretty sure you were right, but couldn't really mention it to anyone without sounding completely and totally insane.
He was smart... But you were smarter.
He came into your store every day that you are working. Every day he wandered around the store for almost an hour, striking up conversation with you periodically only to finally purchase a single Twix bar, and leave.
He had been doing this for months now. He had to know that you knew that he did it all on purpose.
And you knew why he did it all on purpose.
God, it was obvious.
He had a crush on you.
Normally, you wouldn't be so self-centered thinking that a guy liked you just because he happened to buy a candy bar every time that you worked. You could explain away the lengthy strolls he took. Maybe he was just indecisive.
You knew that you were inclined to be a little bit obsessive over the whole "cute boy talks to you" sort of situation. You were a little intense when it came to that sort of thing.
But you were sure about this one.
Whenever you talked to him or helped him out at school his cheeks got red, his voice got a little higher, and he got really flustered and clumsy.
You saw how he reacted around other girls. While he did get this unique smile that you didn't see when he was hanging around his guy friends, he didn't get all flustered like that. It was only with you.
Plus, when his friends were around and knew that you were there too, they always teased him hard for being single or being so gullible and sweet. You knew that couldn't be a coincidence, and even your own friends had noticed the behavior.
He knew when your birthday was and had given you gifts before for it, and one valentine's day you had caught him loitering in front of your desk, where you later found a letter to you from a "secret admirer".
You knew it was him. It had to be him. He definitely had a crush on you.
You brushed a strand of your hair out of your face, an action that seemed to entrance Hansol for a moment. You two made eye contact and his face reddened once again.
"I think I'll get a Twix bar," he stated suddenly. He leaned forward and grabbed the candy bar from its usual spot.
"Yeah? That's unusual," you commented conversationally. His cheeks grew darker and he looked down at his wallet.
"How much?"
Geez, he was ridiculous. He knew how much it was.
"1523.18 won," you replied, pretending like you needed to in any wayscan the item to know what it cost. He put a bill back in his wallet as if he hadn't known the whole time how much it would be before finally giving you the amount.
You took the money and took a little longer then you needed to give him his change back. You smiled brightly at him when your fingers brushed one another.
"Have a lovely day!" You said politely as he left the store. He gave you a short smile and waved as he left. The bell gave out a shrill ding as the door closed behind him.
"See you at school," you murmured even though you knew he was too far away to hear. You watched him silently as he walked past the large glass windows of your convenience store. Just before he got to the window you looked down to pretend like you weren't watching him.
Once he got to the corner he liked to glance back at you.
He definitely liked you.
And you were tired of pretending you didn't know.
At first, you had just wanted to ride it out. Nothing in his behavior had insinuated that his little crush was any more than a passing fancy. Course the longer it had dragged on the more you had begun to realize that maybe, just maybe it was more than that.
And the more that you thought about how he liked you, the more that you found reasons that you were kind of starting to like him.
His shy attitude towards you was so cute. Especially, considering the fact that you had seen what he was like when he didn't know you were around. He was pretty quirky and outgoing when the time called for it. Polar opposite of what you were used to seeing from him.
Of course, it had been years since you had met Hansol. That meant it had been years of him liking you. It wouldn't be easy to get him to admit that he liked you. Hansol seemed pretty stubborn, he wouldn't just tell you if you just asked. You knew he would deny it.
You just had to be inconspicuous. Force him into a corner, and make him admit that he liked you.
You sighed and stared at the spot that Hansol had been occupying not long ago.
But... how would you get him to admit the truth?
"Hey, we just got a shipment of candy bars in," your manager stated, sending a box on the counter in front of you sharply. "Twix will be happy."
You tried not to smile at the nickname that your coworkers had given Hansol. You and him always acted like you didn't know one another outside of school, apparently well enough that everyone believed it. They always joked that "Twix" only came in nowadays to see you, insinuating he would probably come even if they were out of Twix bars.
You didn't think he would do that. It would kill his cover.
Besides, he really was obsessed with Twix bars. You'd heard it had partially come from his friend Joshua, they both spent their summers in the United States, rumor had it that Hansol went by Vernon there. You thought it was pretty fitting. A dorky name for a dorky guy.
Anyways, he was always eating a Twix bar. In every class you saw him in, every time he was going to class or waiting for a school even to start or anything, you could almost swear that he had a partially eaten candy bar in his hand.
Always the same candy bar.
You hated to admit it but like Pavlov's dog, every time you saw the dumb product you thought of the even dumber boy.
"You should take some extra. We have too many... Even if Twix came in ten times a day we wouldn't sell them all, and he's about the only person in Korea to buy the dumb things," your boss over exaggerated. You opened your mouth to reject the offer.
You liked candy bars, but you didn't need that many laying around your house just tempting you to eat them all the time.
But then you stopped.
"Yeah, actually I'll take some," you said hesitantly. Your boss smiled and began to put a bunch of candy bars in a grocery bag for you.
This was it. This was your chance.
Hansol loved Twix bars.
Maybe if you offered him a free candy bar he would give you something in return. All you wanted was a confession. That was a pretty fair trade.
"I have no clue what you're talking about."
You raised your eyebrow.
His cheeks were red, eyes wide, his chest heaving with every breath that he took. If that wasn't the sort of expression someone made upon being caught with a crush on someone else you didn't know what was.
He was still playing dumb.
You waved the Twix bar in front of his eyes, and he followed it like a dog being teased with a treat.
"Come on Hansol. A free candy bar just for a confession," you said suavely.
"I have nothing to confess y/n!" He protested. "Well, nothing that you actually want to hear."
"I know you've liked me since the day we met," you replied your voice dropping an octave. "Just admit it and the bar is yours."
"I don't even like candy that much," he stated.
"You always have a Twix bar on you!" You protested.
"Isn't that some sort of American candy bar? Why would I eat that?" Hansol asked innocently. His voice quivered at the end. Geez, if he was going to try and play you like this, he could at least do it well.
You dropped the hand holding the candy bar momentarily letting it hang at your waist. You scrunched your nose and stared at Hansol for a minute. You didn't say anything you just stared.
The longer that you two stood there like that, just staring at one another in the school parking lot, the redder Hansol's face got, and the more you realized just how stubborn the boy truly was.
"I know you like me Hansol, there's literally absolutely no point in keeping it a secret. Just look at me and say, 'hey, I really like you'," you said. Hansol stared at you, but he didn't say anything at all. You groaned and pinched the bridge of your nose.
"Okay, so that's how this is going to go huh?" You asked. "Fine. We'll do it the hard way."
You took a quick few steps towards Hansol, apparently sufficing in looking scary enough that he took a step back with every step forward you took until he eventually bumped into the hood of his car.
You glared him down, the height difference between the two of you meaning absolutely nothing when it came down to you being pissed at him. You raised a steady hand, the one holding the candy bar, brandishing it like a knife.
You pressed it directly under his chin, your face so close to his that you could smell his breath.
Of fucking course, it smelled like chocolate.
"You have made some big mistakes before in the past," you mumbled threateningly. "But none like the one you just made. I will make it my mission to make you admit to me that you do in fact have a crush on me, and I will not be easy on you."
You turned away from him with a sharp whip of your head. You heard him say something behind you, but it was broken and too quiet for you to properly make out so you ignored him in order to properly process your plan.
It was pretty simple really.
You would just use his sweet tooth against him.
You started a "green month" initiative at school. Now, in reality, you had thought that would be pretty hard. Getting your school to "go green" and replace all the sugary foods in the vending machines for a month seemed like a major loss for them. Students would be angry, the school would lose money, and they would have to switch suppliers and pay for a lot of unnecessary labor.
But instead, the minute that "month-long healthy food initiative" left your mouth your principal was announcing it to the school. The next day all of the vending machines were flushed of anything with more than 5 grams of sugar in it. Any fundraisers selling candy bars were suspended, and you were heralded the hero of the month by all the teachers and helicopter parents.
The next thing was even easier.
Dressing up pretty officially and going into every convenience store within a forty-mile radius and saying that all of the recent Twix shipments were contaminated with some form of disease simply by clicking your tongue may seem a bit... Insane, but it got every store to take the bars out of their shop front.
All you had to do in your own shop was convince your manager that the boxes of Twix bars had gone missing and so there were none to stock out in the front. She was so lazy she wouldn't notice them sitting where they were supposed to be for the next few weeks or so.
The last thing you had to do was probably the easiest of all.
While Hansol was out with his friends you visited his house to say hi to his mother. You claimed your mom sent you with pie, and so she let you in because the two were pretty close. Of course, his mom insisted that you stay while she make a dessert for your mom in return, and at some point left you to take a phone call.
That gave you just enough time to search the house for every single Twix bar that you knew Hansol would have hidden.
There were 28.
And once that was accomplished, all you had to was sit on your throne of Twix bars and wait for Hansol to come knocking. (Disclaimer, you didn't actually make a throne out of the candy bars. You did, however, put them all in your backpack and carry them around instead of your books for a week.)
It took one day and three hours for Hansol to come to your house. You opened it expecting a serial killer to be completely honest.
It was two in the morning and you had just watched a shit ton of scary movies instead of sleeping so you were already on edge and then a rapid four knocks came from the front door?
Yeah, you were ready to die when you opened it.
Hansol's presence for once was a happy surprise.
He looked like a drug addict going through rehab. His hair was messy, his shirt on inside out, one of his pants legs was rolled up while the other was down, the guy was missing a shoe, and he even looked like he hadn't slept for a week- where did those under eye bags even come from?
"Oh, Hansol," you stated, leaning comfortably in the door frame. "What are you doing here?"
"Don't be coy with me,' Hansol said. "I haven't gone more than two hours without a Twix bar in ten years give me some candy, now."
You were surprised with his sudden surge of confidence towards you. He had always been so nervous around you, and he hardly ever lost his temper. He must like candy a little more then you had accounted for. For a moment you thought maybe you had gone overboard.
"What are you talking about?" You asked, mimicking the same false innocence he had tried to pull on you before.
"Every store that I have the time to drive to isn't selling them because of Twixeritis? What the hell even is that?" Hansol blurted back. You placed your hand over Hansol's mouth shushing him.
"My family is sleeping," you murmured. "Try and keep it down."
He still looked pissed.
You slowly slipped the front door closed behind you, putting your hands behind your back shyly as you did so. You had never been in front of a guy in your pajamas before. Nor had you ever been alone with a guy at two in the morning.
You had always had this sort of feeling that if you were with a guy like this, it would be because he was super cute and you really liked him.
And that sort of was why you were in this situation.
"What kind of girl are you?" He blurted.
You raised an eyebrow at him.
"Oh, just one that has 56 Twix bars in my room upstairs just waiting to be eaten," you replied coyly.
Hansol stared at you, clearly trying to intimidate you with the crazy in his eyes, but he underestimated you if he thought that would work. After only fifteen seconds he had backed down. He sighed loudly, running his fingers through his hair.
"Fine, fine, I like you alright? I don't know why because you are clearly insane, but I have liked you for like ever now," Hansol blurted. "I mean everyone told me you knew and that I should just ask you out already cause if you dealt with my shenanigans at the store every day you must like me too, but I didn't cause..."
He trailed off.
"Because?" You prompted
"Because I'm a wimp," he mumbled back.
Someone with a heart would have probably felt bad for him.
Luckily, you had sold your heart away years ago. You pointed at him, a Twix bar in your hand as your ammo.
"Hah, I knew it."
Hansol's face was of course red, it always was when he was talking to you, but he still took the candy from your hands and begun to eat it as soon as he possibly could. You watched him for a moment, just happy that you were finally able to get him to admit it.
"You eat like a pig," you said pleasantly. "I can't believe I like you."
Hansol shot you a glare.
"Shut up and give me another one."
It was pretty entertaining to watch Hansol eat 17 candy bars in five minutes, but after you started to worry about the other boys' health. Eating so much sugar in such a small amount of time couldn't be healthy. Besides, more importantly, after a while you got bored.
"So, does this mean we are dating now?" You asked pointedly.
Hansol choked halfway through the seventeenth candy bar.
"What?"
"I mean you're in my room eating candy in the middle of the night," you replied pointedly. "We're not exactly friends and the only other option is that we must be dating. That or we are psycho."
"We are psycho," Hansol exclaimed. "You literally quarantined me from every Twix bar in the city, and I still like you for it."
You two fell silent, staring at one another the way you two always ended up doing. You scrunched your nose.
"So we are dating right?"
"Yeah."