at the end of the day || booseoksoon

=͟͟͞͞ ✯ 3

if someone asked soonyoung how often he wanted to yell at work, he would say there weren't enough fingers on his hands to count.

it could be for a number of reasons. a number of people, really. in most cases, it was because of a table being rude to his friends. he knew his friends were nice and nonconfrontational, but some days he wished he could just go to the front and curse out a table of businessmen. out of love for his friends, of course.

on other days, it was his coworkers themselves who pissed him off. in particular, the line cooks and the head chef. when soonyoung first started working at the restaurant, the line cooks back then spent half of their time smoking in the back, which left just soonyoung and the chef alone during most of their shifts together.

soonyoung remembered that man. he was past middle age, so he was feeling the weight of his age and needed to constantly remind everyone that he was the oldest person in the kitchen and he automatically deserved their respect. soonyoung didn't have an issue with authority figures before working there, but this specific man just seemed to push his buttons at all times.

the man would ask soonyoung to grab things out of dry storage at the worst times, like when soonyoung was helping a server run their food or when he needed to use the bathroom after working seven hours with no break. and all he could do was say yes, chef because the man was his superior. he was expected to drop everything to help the chef and line cooks just because they prepped poorly that morning, and the boy found it incredibly annoying.

but even if soonyoung did everything right and played by the older man's rules, whenever something wrong happened, like a dish going out to the wrong table or the chef himself cooking the wrong item, it was always soonyoung's fault (according to the head chef). and the boy wasn't going to stand for it, which began the two long years of arguments between the two of them.

when jeonghan announced in a weekly meeting that the head chef had been fired, he explained to the staff that it was from the numerous complaints the restaurant had received about him being too loud and rude, but jeonghan shot him a wink and the younger boy knew he had a part in it, as well. and the boy finally felt like he could smile.

of course, this meant that a new head chef had to be hired. along with the managers, the head chef was also an important figure in the chain of command, so they couldn't go long without one.

this was where kim mingyu came in. highly skilled, extremely personable, and worked well under pressure. jeonghan knew he had to hire mingyu, or else someone else would hire him first. and his fellow managers agreed, especially when jeonghan described the younger boy's great work ethic he had displayed when they were in college.

now, mingyu and soonyoung were never friends, mostly due to the rivalry between him and seungkwan. if seungkwan disliked someone, soonyoung automatically disliked them. that's just the kind of friend he was. and mingyu knew soonyoung didn't like him much, so he never bothered acting friendly with the older boy.

rest assured, mingyu fulfilled his role of the overbearing head chef. because soonyoung was not a lucky person, despite what his best friends claimed. and it was even more annoying because mingyu was younger than him, so he had to address him as his superior.

so annoying.

soonyoung rolled his eyes as he heard mingyu continuously call his name. he noticeably nodded, trying to signal that he was listening while he was handing a dish off to myungho. the younger boy smiled awkwardly at soonyoung as he handed the dish to seokmin and the two of them scurried away. from the yelling, he presumed.

soonyoung slowly turned towards the window, plastering a fake smile on his face as he leaned his elbows onto the window. "yes, chef?" soonyoung asked between gritted teeth, still maintaining his smile even as mingyu scoffed at him.