Work Text:
Clang-dong
The sound of someone walking through the door was muffled by the slow electronic music that was playing in the cafe, its bass strong enough to be felt through the bodies of everyone who was currently visiting the cafe.
Though the people visiting the cafe at this instant were... non existent.
The only people that could be seen in the cafe were two young men who appeared to be waiters, and a man a little older who was considered the owner of this place. However the person who had just walked in had changed the room from three people to four, and both waiters and the owner looked toward the stairs, waiting for this person to show their face.
A man who appeared to be in his early twenties entered the room, taking in the smell of brewing coffee and the sound of the music still playing through the speakers, although the volume had been turned down as to not disturb visitors who would be conversing.
One of the waiters was the first to speak up. "Welcome, I'm Jung Wooyoung. Take a seat and we'll be right with you," he said with a cheerful voice.
The man, however, walked up to the counter and looked right at the owner of the cafe.
"You're Kim Hongjoong, am I right?" he said with confidence in his voice.
The owner looked at him, his eyes showing expectation. "Yes, I am. What can I do for you?"
Hongjoong had phrased it like a question, although he didn't need to. He knew exactly what the man in front of him was here to do.
"I'd like to return to the past."
☕︎
Yunho had his legs crossed under the table at which they were sitting. Yeosang and Jongho were deep in conversation, and Yunho, honestly, didn't really want to join in.
It had been two and a half months since Mingi had abruptly died in a car accident, and it seemed to be impossible for Yunho to think about anything else. He had never felt grief like this, not for anyone else. Mingi was his other half, and Yunho wasn't sure how he was supposed to keep moving forward without that part of him.
Mingi and Yunho had become friends in high school, and stayed glued to each others side all the way through university, too, even sharing a dorm. Well, that was until Mingi died with no time to say goodbye.
Now, every time Yunho returned to their apartment, he felt himself fall into an endless void filled with suffering. A suffering so strong that it kept him under. No matter how hard he tried to swim back to the surface, it would only suffocate him stronger.
Mingi was everything to Yunho, and Yunho would do anything to see him again even if it was only for a second.
"-right, Yunho?"
"Yunho?"
Yunho looked up to see both his friends looking at him. Their eyes were filled with worry, and Yunho felt something akin to annoyance build up in him.
He obviously understood why his friends looked at him like this. He had been bottling up all of his emotions since the funeral, and he refused to talk about it with anyone. No one understood him anymore anyway. No one looked at him like Mingi did.
"What's wrong?" he said looking at Jongho, who was the last one to call his name.
"We were talking about a famous cafe," Jongho replied, not taking any interest in Yunho's nettled tone.
"A cafe?"
"Yeah," Yeosang chimed in. "Apparently you can return to the past if you drink a coffee there or something."
Yunho almost wanted to laugh aloud. "What? Return to the past? That's gotta be a scam."
"They say it's for real. You can return to the past when they pour you a cup of coffee, but you can only stay there for as long as the coffee is warm," Jongho said.
This peaked Yunho's interest. "What kind of a rule is that? Can't you just drink the coffee when it's cold?"
"It's said that if the coffee gets cold, you turn into a ghost which stays in the cafe forever."
Yunho looked at his friends dumbfounded. "And what then? You're a ghost and you just... die?"
Jongho shrugs. "I guess so."
Yunho swallowed the desperation he felt coming up in him.
It sounds completely absurd. He could go back to the past, to whenever he wanted, and if he wouldn't drink the cup of coffee that would sent him back, he would simply disappear?
"I don't know if it's real, honestly," Yeosang said. "It sounds like it could be something like hypnotising."
Jongho nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like it would make sense."
But Yunho wasn't listening anymore. He knew what he wanted to do. No, what he needed to do.
He'd do anything to see Mingi again, and be with him for eternity.
☕︎
Exactly three months ago, Park Seonghwa had disappeared from his seat as a ghost, and had been replaced by a man who the cafe was not yet familiar with. Even though Hongjoong had long accepted that Seonghwa died, he still felt a tug on his heart every time he looked at the chair in which was now sitting another man. Hongjoong had loved Seonghwa, and Seonghwa had probably loved Hongjoong even more. Now, the two were forever separated. Only for a new story to unfold, one which Hongjoong could not prevent.
☕︎
"Very well," Hongjoong said. "If you want to return to the past, you may."
Yunho looked at him with a hardened look.
"Do you know the rules?"
"The one which says that you need to drink the coffee before it goes cold?" Yunho replied.
"That's one of them yes, but there are more."
Yunho gave Hongjoong an unbelieving look. "What kind of other rules?"
"The most important rule is in fact that you should drink the coffee before it goes cold. However the other rules may make travelling to the past a bit more disappointing." Hongjoong took a breath before he continued.
"You may not stand up from your seat while you are in the past. If you do, you will immediately return back to the present. The person you want to meet has to have been to the cafe, otherwise you cannot meet them. Another important thing to note is that while you are in the past, nothing you do will change the present. It does not matter if you try to prevent whatever troubles happened, the present will not change."
Yunho didn't say a word while Hongjoong explained the words. All he did was look around the cafe, analysing the coffee machine and touching the counter with his fingertips.
"Is that all of the rules?" Yunho asked unbothered.
Hongjoong raised his eyebrow, stunned by Yunho's uninterested demeanor.
"There's one more thing," he replied. "You can only go to the past while sitting in a specific seat, and that seat is usually occupied by a ghost who only goes to the toilet once a day. It is at that specific moment that you can go back."
One of the waiters, the one who Yunho remembered was called Wooyoung, interfered.
"And that moment is now! The ghost has been gone the entire time you two have been talking. If you aren't quick, you won't have the chance to go back today."
This made Hongjoong look over Yunho's shoulder and realise that the ghost had, in fact, been gone the entire time.
"Oh, well, let's be quick then. Take a seat, Yunho," Hongjoong said while pointing to the seat behind him.
Yunho sat down, ignoring the way the seat felt awfully familiar. Almost as if he had sat in this exact place before.
The other waiter then started talking to him.
"Nervous?" he asked.
Yunho looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.
"Not really, I guess everyone's a little while they go back to the past, though."
The waited smiled at him. "Yeah, I guess so. Have you been wanting to come here for a long time?"
Yunho hesitated if he should tell this waiter who's name he didn't even know the reason why he had come here, but he guessed that it'd be fine to keep this small talk going a little.
"Not a long time. I just came as soon as I heard this place existed."
The waiter nodded and glanced at Wooyoung who was leaning against the counter behind him.
"Do you know if the person you want to meet has ever gone to this cafe?" he asked cautiously.
"Yeah, he probably did. He might've been a regular, honestly. He always really liked coffee," Yunho gave a small smile.
San hummed in understanding.
Hongjoong then returned from behind the counter with a metal coffee pot and a cup.
"Well," the waiter said. "My name's San, it was nice talking to you."
Yunho smiled at him. "My name's Yunho, nice to meet you, too."
San gave a smile back, however it looked off, showing the raw emotions that were hidden behind it.
Yunho tried to ignore it, and instead looked at the cup that Hongjoong had just placed in front of him.
"Remember the rules?" he asked.
Yunho nodded. "Yeah, I do."
Hongjoong repressed the words he really wanted to say to the man in front of him, and instead started slowly pouring the coffee into the cup.
"Just remember," Hongjoong said. "Drink the entire cup of coffee before it goes cold." But his voice trembled while he released the words. He only had to look into Yunho's eyes to know what the future would give him, and there was nothing he could do about it.
The steam from the cup rose until it blocked Yunho's eyesight, and he took a deep breath in before exhaling again.
This was it. This was all he wanted. To see Mingi again and be with him till the end of times.
☕︎
"Hongjoong," Wooyoung started, and it took only a glance to see that his entire body was shaking. "Are you sure we shouldn't have stopped him? There must have been something we could have done."
Hongjoong sighed. "I wish there was, but not even we can change what is bound to happen. You've seen the ghost that has been with us for the past three months. It looks exactly like him."
"But maybe his faith could've been changed. Maybe, just this one time," Wooyoung muttered.
San walked up to Wooyoung and threw his arm around his shoulders. "It's not our fault," he said. "Some things can't be prevented. It's not our fault."
"That day when he appeared three months ago," Hongjoong started. "That day I wished I knew that was the last time I would see Seonghwa."
Wooyoung and San both looked at him.
"I know that's a selfish thing to say, because instead I should have been focusing on Yunho who was sitting right there talking to Mingi. But instead all I could think about was Seonghwa. And deep down, honestly, I get where Yunho is coming from. I understand why he's doing this," Hongjoong sighed.
"The only reason that what will happen to Yunho hasn't happened to me, is because I had all these years where I could still see Seonghwa in that chair."
The three of them stayed quiet like that for a long time, they know what will happen any minute from now.
When all that returns to the present was an untouched cup filled with now cold coffee, tears started to form in Wooyoung's eyes, and Hongjoong looked away when the ghost--Yunho's ghost--appeared from the toilet and sat back down in the seat that had been his for the past three months.
☕︎
Once his vision clears, he looks around the cafe, which appeared to be empty on this day in the past too. Wooyoung and San both seemed to not have gone to work on this day, and the only person that Yunho could see was Hongjoong, who was standing behind the counter with his back facing Yunho.
The cafe looked exactly the same, and the three clocks that hung high on a wall were the only thing that had really changed. Only the middle one was working, and it showed that it was one o'clock in the afternoon.
Yunho looked at Hongjoong's figure before he tried to catch the owner's attention.
"Excuse me," Yunho said.
As soon as the words left Yunho's lips, Hongjoong turned around with big eyes.
"God you scared me," he said, but the smile on his face showed that he wasn't mad.
"Sorry, I just wanted to ask what the date was."
Hongjoong looked at him a little stunned. "Oh, sure!" Hongjoong glanced at his phone.
"It's the sixth of January."
Yunho's eyes widened.
The sixth of January. The exact day Mingi died.
As if only thinking about him was a sign, the door to the cafe opened.
Clang-dong
Right there, standing in the doorway, was Song Mingi. The man Yunho had grieved and longed for the past three months.
He wanted to say so much, he wanted to wrap his arms around Mingi's neck and he wanted to tell him to stay with him. All he wanted was for Mingi to not have died on this day. He wanted Mingi and everything that came with him, and seeing him standing there only made those feeling grow until they were too big for his body to handle.
"Mingi."
It was the first thing that came out of Yunho's mouth, and god had he missed calling out his name. How had he even survived these past few months without the other?
Mingi still stood in the doorway, too perplexed to take a step forward.
"Yunho? What are you doing here?"
Yunho's mouth felt dry, but he couldn't risk not talking. There wasn't enough time for Yunho to say everything that he wanted to say.
He wanted to tell Mingi how beautiful he was. He wanted to tell him that he missed him so terribly he wasn't sure if anything was worth it anymore. He wanted to tell him how gray the world was without him. The way his favourite drinks tasted bland, and his favourite colours had lost their beauty.
He wanted to tell Mingi that he couldn't die. He couldn't do this to him, it was too unfair.
But he didn't say any of that. Instead he let his presence and silence speak for him. They knew each other entirely, and they didn't need words to speak with one another.
Yunho smiled. "I just wanted to come see you."
His smile obviously hadn't worked, because Mingi was looking at him with confusion and fear. Mingi most definitely knew the rules of the cafe, and he one hundred percent knew that Yunho hadn't come from the future just because he wanted to play some kind of joke on him.
Mingi took a few steps forward and sat down in the chair in front of Yunho.
"Why are you here, tell me."
Mingi didn't even phrase it as a question. He demanded the answer in such a kind way that Yunho couldn't help the first tears that fell down his face.
His nose scrunched up, and with every second that he looked into Mingi's eyes, he felt more tears rolling down his cheeks.
"I missed you," he said.
"I missed you so much, Mingi."
Mingi looked at him even more confused. "Why, what happened? Can you just please tell me what happened?"
Yunho buried his face into his hands, his sobs growing in volume.
This was absolutely not how he had wanted this to go, but he couldn't help it. The second he saw Mingi's face alive he had felt all the love he had buried deep inside his heart. The love he had tried so hard to bottle up and release. However now he was drowning in it.
He was drowning in his love and grief for Mingi.
He was dying in his sorrow.
He had been living while Mingi had been dead, and he refused to keep on doing this for any longer.
With every tear, another minute passed.
With every minute that passed, the coffee went a little colder.
Mingi had been looking at Yunho for the past two minutes, while Yunho still had his face buried in his hands.
Slowly, Mingi reached for Yunho's hands and intertwined their fingers together, leaving Yunho with looking at Mingi as the only possible option.
And Mingi,
Mingi didn't speak.
He didn't need to. His eyes spoke for him, and together they had an entire conversation in silence.
The corners of Mingi's lips lifted the tiniest bit and his mouth formed into a sad and knowing smile. He pulled their still interlinked hands towards his lips and softly kissed Yunho's knuckles.
Yunho could only think about how this was the last time that Mingi would ever do this to him.
"It'll be okay. You'll get over me."
Yunho shook his head immediately, so fast that it seemed unnatural.
"No," he said.
"I tried, Mingi. I really did try, but it's like I'm being sucked into the deepest pits of hell without you. None of this is worth it without you, and it never will be."
Mingi's almost pitiful smile didn't falter, it only seemed to soften with warmth.
"I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy without me."
Yunho again shook his head, but Mingi continued before he could respond.
"I want you to forget me with time, and grow old with a wife and kids to take care of you when I'm not there."
Yunho just kept on shaking his head, the tears filling his eyes again.
"I can't do it. I won't do it," Yunho said.
Mingi let go of Yunho's hands.
"Drink the coffee, Yunho. Please drink it for me."
A sob tore out of Yunho's body. "I can't," he said.
"I can't do it. I don't want to do this."
Mingi pushed the cup further toward Yunho, his eyes searching for Yunho's in despair.
"You need to drink it. Even if you can't, you need to do it for me."
"No."
Yunho's voice didn't even sound confident anymore, it just sounded tired, as if all the thought that had gone into this moment had drained him.
"Come on Yunho, please." Mingi's voice started to form a scared edge to it.
"No," he said louder now.
"Just drink it for me, Yunho. I know that's not what you're supposed to say in these situations, but please do it for me."
Mingi looked destroyed. His eyes glossy and his bottom lip trembling, but to Yunho he was still the prettiest man in the universe.
"I can't do this without you, Mingi," Yunho whimpered.
The coffee was definitely turning cold now, for Yunho could feel the effect on his body. He glanced at the counter and saw Hongjoong standing there with clamped fists and a face scared and unknowing at the same time.
Yunho looked back at Mingi only to see that Mingi was standing up from his seat.
Mingi took a single step forward and dropped to his knees. His kneecaps hit the ground so hard that Yunho could hear the ground grumble beneath the weight.
And right here, in this moment, Mingi was on his knees right next to the chair Yunho sat in.
"Please drink the coffee. Please don't let it go cold. Please," Mingi said while shifting closer and dropping his head into Yunho's lap.
"Please don't die."
Mingi sounded wrecked and desperate and hopeless all together.
Yunho worked his fingers through Mingi's black hair and smiled to himself.
All he could think about was that this must have been the most comforting way for someone to pass away.
On the sixth of January, Jeong Yunho and Song Mingi both died with only each other to hold onto. A love so great that it could surpass the border between time and space.