Chapter Text
On a mostly ordinary day, a chill in the air in spite of the sun shining bright, is when a grand plot begins to unfold.
...
On second thought, perhaps "scheme" is a better choice than "plot", given the situation.
The situation of course, being a ploy hatched between best friends/coworkers/perhaps even soulmates, given how well they understand each other on an almost molecular level.
A ploy hatched within seconds of glancing at each other...
Okay, it's time to stop beating around the bush: here's where this story really starts.
"You didn't hear it from me, but allegedly during our all staff meeting today the Director is going to announce the location for our next work retreat," one Lee Minho casually lets slip in the doorway of one Bang Chan's office, Minho's best friend and fellow team lead.
Chan, in turn, grins at his friend's sudden arrival.
"Thank you for sharing no secret information with me whatsoever, Min," he says with a chuckle. "I appreciate that you haven't told me a single thing."
"Oh, but of course, Mr. Bang," Minho responds with an exaggerated bow. "But anyway that aside, I do actually have a reason to be here - have you gotten any updates on the shipment of those donated children's books?"
Chan's mouth twists into an almost-frown before he shakes his head.
"No, nothing yet. In their email they said it would be coming either yesterday or today, and seeing as it's still not here I'm starting to think they haven't shipped it yet... or worst case scenario, it got lost in the mail..." he explains. He hums before continuing, "Do you think it would be considered rude if we called them? Or should we just wait?"
"Hmm... If it hasn’t come in by tomorrow and they still haven't said anything then a call-out call, as it were, makes sense to me," Minho says after a moment of contemplation. "If it comes to that, maybe we should get Felix on it. I've heard a wild rumor that he genuinely enjoys talking over the phone. And it doesn't hurt that he manages to gently intimidate everyone he calls."
Chan laughs at the, admittedly, very accurate description of Felix, a Youth Services librarian and their main front desk person. His fairy-like appearance and very sunny disposition draw in people from all walks of life, and his baritone, sometimes even gravelly voice is both captivating and really comes in handy whenever he speaks with (read: scares the shit out of) anyone trying to be purposefully difficult. Chan can't be sure if Felix knows he has this power. But then, he has seen the man's devious side during a Staff Bonding Board Game Night, so perhaps he's making a conscious choice to use his powers for good... unless, of course, winning a game is on the line.
"Sounds like a plan to me. Anything else you were wanting to discuss?" Chan asks warmly.
Minho shakes his head with a feline-esque smirk that Chan has known for years, and it always makes him smile right back.
"Nah. Honestly, I could have messaged you about this. This has all been an excuse to stretch my legs and bother you. And hide from Changbin. He didn't do anything, I just wanted to see how long it would take before he notices."
Chan hides his mouth behind his fist for a moment in an attempt to stop a chuckle from escaping, and fails spectacularly.
"How long have you been gone from your desk?" he asks when he pulls himself together again.
"Hovering just under an hour and a half," Minho deadpans, though when Chan bursts out laughing his lips quirk up in a tiny smile. "I have been working, just, y’know, around the library instead of the office. He was in such a zone compiling each department’s book rec articles for this month's blogpost. He didn't even notice when I threw a paperclip next to his keyboard."
"Ah, yes, that sounds like Changbin."
Seemingly putting several old proverbs to the test, it's as if the mention of his name summons him.
"LEE MINHOOOO!"
Or at least, summons his voice.
"Oops, time's up!" Minho chirps, causing Chan to laugh once again. "See you at the meeting where we'll learn nothing!"
"See you then," Chan says fondly as Minho decides to perform a complete twirl before jogging away from Chan's office.
Chuckling to himself, Chan shakes his head and turns back to the email he had been writing - thankfully for a client who has been much more cooperative - and finds that the prospect of the rest of the day seems just a little brighter.
How about that?
The end of the work day finally arrives, and, after they close a little early and all the patrons have left, it finds every employee of the library sitting around several large tables in their lobby space - the only area that can hold all of their staff at once. Everyone is approximately sitting at a table with the members of their team, with a couple of exceptions. Notably, their HR admin assistant Seungmin who is, as per usual, avoiding the rest of the HR department and has decided to sit with Chan at the Children's Librarians table. (He's always welcome, of course.)
Chan's laptop is open in front of him, but with the screen tilted down, because in the thirty minutes they've already been here listening to their Director drone on about things that concern only him and the rest of upper management he hasn't once had to notate anything. He sneaks a glance over to Minho at the Materials and Handling table, sitting with his arms crossed, legs crossed, and slumping so far into his chair there's no way Chan could replicate it without immediately feeling the repercussions in his back. Sitting next to him is the rest of his team; his co-leader Changbin, who is clearly very bored but putting in the effort to pretend like he's listening by nodding and shifting his expression at the appropriate times; Hyunjin and Jisung, his senior staff who handle the patron side and the computer side of Circulation respectively, and who are both smart, dedicated, and experts in the art of tomfoolery; and a small handful of junior staff that Chan thinks he remembers just started a few months ago. He makes a note to himself to get to know them better next time he stops by Minho’s office.
"For the next order of business," comes the Director's voice with only the slightest amount of change in tone, but Chan's worked here long enough he knows exactly what he's going to say. "At the end of June, we will be holding our first work retreat of this fiscal year. I'll sum up the most important details, and everything else will be sent as part of a building-wide email."
Min was right, Chan thinks to himself with a tiny smile, which soon grows into a grin he has to hide behind his hand as he glances over and sees Minho’s exaggeratedly smug smirk and wiggling eyebrows already facing his way.
Their library has an... interesting, might be the right word, but overall liked tradition of going on biannual ("The twice a year kind, not the every two year kind," Jisung makes sure to chime in whenever the topic comes up. It's quite possible that at this point literally only Hyunjin still finds it funny, seeing as it never fails to pull a poorly stifled laugh out of him no matter how many times Jisung says it.) work retreats. Chan has to agree that he does find them enjoyable, and so far he's made a point to go on as many as he can... Mostly so that he has an excuse to go on a break with Minho and spend time with him without work related things getting in the way. It reminds him of the way they used to spend breaks hanging out and traveling when they could afford it during their university years, and it doesn't hurt that Minho is one of the most caring and funniest people he's ever met... He's getting distracted, he needs to tune back in or he's going to miss the reveal.
"We wanted to surprise everyone with a different sort of trip than we normally do. It seemed like the perfect time to finally go on a retreat that offers far more options than we have previously, and what better way to do that than to change up the scenery?" His words have a slight buzz running through the room, curiosity spiking as all attention goes to their Director.
But then he finishes his proposition.
"We have narrowed down our selections to two different locations, but I am happy to announce that our next work retreat will be at a beautiful seaside villa!"
Chan holds in a groan, doing better than his senior Children's Librarian Jeongin who sighs heavily. Chan just barely resists elbowing him in the side, if only because he feels the same. And from the sounds of the other sighs, groans, and if his ears don't deceive him, a head thunking onto a table floating around him, so does the rest of the staff.
It's not the seaside part that bothers him, far from it. He loves the ocean. But there’s no ocean nearby, so the real problem is this:
Normally their retreats aren't so far away, often finding a space to stay in a nearby city, sometimes even their own. A trip to a villa, not only in a completely different region but also a short walk away from what must be a well-kept beach and potentially a tourist destination? The baseline cost alone is likely going to be drastically higher than any of their previous retreats. And if he as a team lead is worried about the cost, surely his employees who, in spite of his and other leads' protests to upper management, get paid less than he does are going to find the fees unfeasible. He's already feeling a strong probability that this trip won't be worth it if only those in management positions will be able to go. Even if he was going with Minho, which judging by the unapologetic death glare Minho is giving the Director, he’s not planning on it, paying higher fees just to be surrounded by upper management on a beach sounds unpleasant. He'd much prefer staying at work in the company of Jeongin and his snappy comebacks to every other sentence that exits Chan's mouth to a vacation with other team leads and, in the most respectful way possible, the squad of uptight airheads that makes up their upper management team.
Chan snaps back to attention and the Director regains control of the room with his next words.
"Of course, there will be some considerations made for those who are not in a lead position. The fees for each employee will be reflective of their pay, with only those in upper management paying full price. I myself will cover the remaining costs through our allotted trip fees and from my own pocket."
Huh. Genuinely, Chan thinks, that is a pretty shocking claim to make - he wasn't aware that their Director gave conscious thought to the living situations of anyone other than himself. (And perhaps the Deputy Director who must love the taste of synthetic leather with all the bootlicking he does.) Maybe this trip could be fun after all…
"And of course, the discount for partners of employees is still in place - I'm sure we all know but to make sure we are all on the same page, I am referring to the half price discount given to employees so that they and their partner pay half price each, adding up to be the original fee of an individual employee."
The discount helps those who want to bring along their long term partners still be able to afford a trip by sharing a single room between them instead of having one to themselves or rooming with another employee in a more expensive double room. Chan has yet to use this discount, seeing as he's been single pretty much the entire time he's worked here, but he appreciates what it means for his coworkers who do use it.
He finds that he must have zoned out at some point again because the next thing he knows the Director begins wrapping up.
"That's everything I had to share, and to my knowledge nobody has requested to discuss anything in particular at this meeting. So, if there's nothing else, then we can-"
He's cut off with a raised hand and a clear, confident voice.
"I have a question about a potential alteration to the division of retreat fees, actually," Bae Joohyun, head of Collections, calls out, her calm yet piercing gaze seeming to freeze the Director in place for a few seconds. He shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the feeling, before answering.
"Umm, yes, what would that be?"
Joohyun decisively lowers her hand to the table before lifting her chin just slightly to respond.
"Given my change in status from the last trip I was able to attend nearly three years ago from single to married, my partner of course being our wonderful Youth Services lead," she says, fondness creeping into her otherwise carefully even tone, and Chan can't help but smile at Joohyun's inability to not sing praises toward her wife, Kang Seulgi. "I am curious about how that affects the aforementioned partner discount benefit?"
That... is not where Chan thought that was going. And judging by the way everyone in his peripheries perks up, neither did anyone else.
Their Director frowns, thinking through the question. Quiet anticipation floats around the room for several long seconds, all eyes on their Director as he finally comes to a conclusion.
"Well... I suppose the discount would remain the same for you both, meaning together you'd pay the sum of one person... I guess that would cut the total cost for your household in half, huh," he muses to himself, seemingly unaware of the wave of eyebrows that raised in response.
Joohyun, for her part, seems satisfied with his answer, thanking him politely before letting that same arm drop to her side and linking her hand with Seulgi - of course, sitting right next to her, and grinning at her wife with an air of contentment.
Chan, eyes wide as he considers the full meaning of the Director's declaration. A whisper of a thought starts to form in his mind as he turns to face Minho, looking just as surprised as him but also just as thoughtful. Their eyes meet, and almost as though they'd coordinated it through a psychic link forged from years of friendship, they both lift their laptop lids, and for the next few seconds Chan waits as patiently as he can as Minho begins to type.
Minho and Chan reacting via text to upper management being The Way They Are and making mild to moderately unusual decisions is a long-held tradition, started when phones were allowed at their meetings and they would try to write texts as discretely as possible. Then once a soft-ban on phones during meetings went into effect (Chan is about seventy-two percent sure the ban wasn't directly caused by him and Minho, though he is certain their shenanigans didn't help the cause.), they switched to having their company issued laptops in front of them, open to a decoy notes page with a tiny window in the corner of a messaging app they'd downloaded completely separate from the one their entire staff uses to communicate.
minmin: Are you thinking what I'm thinking? reads the new bubble of text from Minho, and Chan just barely stops himself from grinning as he begins to type.
channie: hehehe, you know i am ૮₍ ´ ꒳ `₎ა
minmin: Good. ₍ᐢ. ̫ .ᐢ₎ Then let's discuss further at a secondary location.
channie: you mean my apartment living room with takeout?
minmin: Of course. What else would it mean?
channie: lolol, you got me there (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)
The hours following those texts sees this set of events pass: the meeting ends, the tables and chairs are tidied up and put away in preparation for the next work day, Chan and Minho order dinner delivery as they take the bus back to their neighborhood, they get comfortable in Chan’s apartment while they wait for their dinner delivery, and once it arrives they eat said dinner delivery sitting on Chan’s living room floor around his low coffee table.
It’s only once they put their utensils down, sighing in satisfaction, that they broach the topic of their probably psychic link and subsequent messages.
“So just to be sure, we really are on the same page about what we should do for the work retreat?” Chan asks.
Minho blinks rapidly for a second and scrunches his nose in a way that Chan’s always found pretty cute.
“Yeah. Duh,” he deadpans. Then he sniffles, and continues, “As long as you’re okay with lying to everyone around you.”
Chan chuckles, then pauses.
“Wait, why just me?”
“Cuz I already do it all the time. It’s fun, you should try it.”
“Min!” Chan yells through a laugh.
“What? It’s never about anything important!” Minho defends himself. “I cannot recommend enough doing it just to experience the joy of fooling Hyunjin and Jisung with a trivial lie for the third time in one day.”
Chan finds himself rushing to grab the table for support, lest he completely fall over from cackling. Minho holds his serious expression for only a few seconds before he cracks, joining Chan in laughter.
They go on for nearly a full minute before they sigh happily in sync, and risk breaking into giggles again before Minho clears his throat.
“So… how far are we going to commit to this bit?”
Chan hums thoughtfully.
“You’re right that we’ll have to alter the way we act around our coworkers, especially the ones in our department, or nobody will buy it.”
“Ah, so you’re saying I should look into getting you flowers delivered every day, got it,” Minho says, nodding with an air of faux seriousness. It turns into a grin when Chan pushes him playfully.
“No, Min, that’s overkill,” he says, rolling his eyes playfully. “Just like, y’know, saying things to each other that only partners say? Like flirting, petnames, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, I see. So then, are you opposed to me calling you my darlingest, most adorable, cutie patootiest sugar boo?” Minho asks, and Chan doesn’t know how he can pull off such a ridiculous sentence while keeping such a straight face. His cheeks are heating up and he has to hold in an embarrassed giggle just hearing Minho say it, he doesn’t know if he could take saying anything like that in front of his team. (Though now that he’s thinking about it, if this is the face he uses when he makes up outrageous lies he’s starting to understand how Jisung and Hyunjin keep falling for them.)
“Again, overkill,” Chan says with a sigh, fanning his face and trying to ignore Minho’s smirk at the reaction he’s caused.
If Minho’s going to commit this hard… then Chan should too, and he might as well get some practice in while he can. So, pink painted cheeks aside, he switches his tone to join in the teasing.
“Unless you want me to call you my sweetest bean, angel baby, pumpkin pie, cuppycake with sprinkles,” he coos, and feels vindicated when a matching flush creeps over the tips of Minho’s ears.
“Alright, alright, I see your point,” he retorts. “We can stick to just ‘babe’ and ‘honey’ and things like that.”
“Thank you for seeing it my way,” Chan replies, and this whole situation is so ridiculous that the embarrassed giggle does finally escape. He finds he doesn’t care much when Minho releases one as well.
“Anyway, is there anything else we should plan tonight?” Chan says after a few seconds pass.
“Mmm… is there anything we need to do on the official side of things? Like, do we need to write an email to upper management so they know we should also be getting that discount?”
Chan thinks about it for a moment, then a vague memory, and it might actually be from a TV show he used to watch but he’s pretty sure it’s accurate regardless, pops into his head.
“I think there’s a form you can fill out to disclose a romantic relationship, we can look up what it’s called later… And I suppose, see if our library even requires we submit one, then if they do need one we just go for it,” he says, shrugging slightly at the end.
“Not too soon though, “ Minho adds. “Or they’ll think we’re doing this for the wrong reasons.”
“... We are doing this for the wrong reasons.”
“Yeah, but they don’t need to know that.”
“Pfft, fair enough.”
There’s some more quiet that passes as they try to come up with anything else they should know before they start making their full plan.
“Oh! Do we know how much it will cost?” Minho asks after a while. Chan blinks before Minho clarifies, “Like, did they announce it and I missed it, or will it be in that email they’re going to send?”
“Ah, that… I don’t know,” Chan confesses. “I’m pretty confident they didn’t say it at the meeting, but if he said we’d know everything through email then my guess is that’s where we’ll learn about the trip costs. Though, I don’t remember if he specified if the info would go out tonight, or just ‘later.’”
“Check and see if that email was sent out already,” Minho requests, already leaning toward and subsequently digging into Chan’s workbag, then pulling out his laptop. He hands it over as he continues, “Maybe there’s already a salary to retreat fee ratio in there.”
Chan hums in agreement as he nods, setting his laptop on the table and booting it up, then shortly after, and rather impatiently, opening the email app. He makes another noise, one of interest, and then another of excitement as he flips the screen around to show Minho.
“Yes! It came in about half an hour ago, and it has the full comparison matrix for every salary level!” he cheers triumphantly.
Minho cracks a tiny grin at Chan’s enthusiasm before leaning in to read over the info.
“It looks like the baseline fee is… Just under double what a normal retreat fee would be…” he muses. “Meaning that going through with the plan would get us back down to a normal level!”
“Perfect!” Chan replies happily, clapping his hands rapidly and quietly.
It’s then that a nagging feeling creeps into the back of his mind, becoming more powerful until the thought is impossible to dismiss. He wants to see something in that matrix. Instead of asking Minho to turn the laptop back around, for some reason, he simply shuffles into Minho’s space to read over his shoulder. He’s pretty sure Min won’t mind.
If Minho does find it strange, he certainly doesn’t say anything - in fact, if Chan’s not imagining things, Minho might even be subconsciously letting his head tilt in toward Chan’s… but wait, he came over here for a reason. It’s time to refocus.
He blinks a few times before narrowing his eyes at the screen as he reads through the numbers again. Then he sighs, a frown pulling at his mouth. It’s exactly what he was hoping he wouldn’t see. The considerations the Director claimed he would make for staff that weren’t in a management or leadership position of any kind weren’t nearly as accommodating as he’d hoped.
When he relays this to Minho, he furrows his brow in clear frustration.
“If the fees are really that high for everyone in our departments, they might not want to come on the trip…” he mutters, before his mouth twists and glares at the laptop as if he could send his anger through the email directly to the Director. For a brief moment, Chan wishes it were possible and that he could join in.
Then, a thought occurs to him. A thought that kind of, sort of, maybe just a little undermines the whole point of this scheme… but it feels like the right thing to do.
“Say, Min… the fees are a lot for us, but overall manageable, yeah?” he asks slowly. Minho turns his gaze to meet his, anger softening just enough that Chan doesn’t feel like he’s getting laser eyes directly into his soul. Then he grunts in affirmation, and Chan continues.
“If that’s the case, and if we are saving all this money after all… maybe we could put the fees we would have spent toward something useful?”
For a moment, Minho just rapidly blinks at him, processing the true meaning behind Chan’s words. Then his eyes widen, and once again Chan can’t help but smile as Minho’s frown melts away into that same catlike smirk from this morning.
“Why, Channie, you wouldn’t happen to be proposing that we put the money saved from our scheme into ensuring that each of our departments can attend this work retreat with us?” Minho says, putting on an air of mischief that has Chan stifling a giggle behind his hand. Then he matches Minho in tone so he can respond.
“Indeed, dear Minmin, I am in fact proposing that! What a grand scheme this has turned out to be!” he cries, and just like that they’re both laughing again.
It takes a moment for Chan to collect himself, and when he does he can feel his expression become just a hint more serious.
“It seems like you’re on board, but I wanted to make sure you’re definitely okay with paying basically the original fee after we’d be putting in all the work to get the discount,” he says softly.
Minho smiles just as gently back at him.
“Of course, Channie. I don’t think I’d want to go on a trip that’s meant to include everyone if the fees could be a barrier to most of the staff.”
Chan feels warm inside. He had a hunch that Minho would feel the same as him, and it’s nice to have it confirmed. And as an added bonus, he gets to hear Minho’s quiet voice that almost never makes an appearance in the library - bold, confident, and typically loud Minho is front and center there. Though Chan has always liked (adored, perhaps?) that side of Minho, it feels special to also witness his soft, gentle side. A stray thought goes by, wondering if anyone else gets to hear it, before he shakes his head and brings himself back to the present moment when Minho speaks up again.
“Besides, if this whole scheme doesn’t work, we can always just have our own mini trip with our departments. Or just the two of us, it’s been a while since we’ve done that and to be honest, I miss it.”
“I feel the same… That plan sounds perfect, Min.”
There’s a sort of peacefulness that falls between them, both smiling somewhat serenely at the outcome of the evening.
Which is probably why they both jolt in surprise at the sound of Chan’s phone sounding out his evening alarm, the one that reminds him to start doing his nighttime routine or he’ll lose track of time and forget to go to bed.
He grins sheepishly, snoozing the alarm and turning to see Minho already looking at him with a knowing smile and mirth dancing in his eyes.
“So, we have our plan then? When should we start?” Minho asks, standing up and stretching before grabbing his plate and taking his dishes to the kitchen. Chan follows suit, making a neat stack of his and Minho’s plates in the sink before he answers.
“Next Monday, perhaps? It’ll give us the weekend to iron out the finer details and figure out other ways to be convincing around the staff so no one thinks we’re faking it… Which I mean, I guess we will be, but the point is that they don’t know but we know and… yeah. Or something.”
Minho snickers at his ramblings.
“Sounds good to me. We can meet on Saturday then? Have lunch and a plotting session?”
“It sounds like you’re trying to take over the city when you say it like that,” Chan says with a chuckle, and Minho rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “But yes, that works. I can text you about it tomorrow.”
“Perfect.”
Another moment of comfortable silence, then Chan opens his arms for a hug.
As always, Minho lets out an exaggerated groan of displeasure, letting his body slump in apparent disgruntlement, before completely willingly folding himself into Chan’s embrace and wrapping his own arms around his closest friend.
“Thanks for dinner,” Minho mumbles into Chan’s shoulder, and Chan nuzzles happily against the side of Minho’s head in response.
“Of course. Thanks for scheming with me.”
A soft chuckle, then,
“Anytime.”
After a few more seconds to hug, they slowly pull apart, linking pinkies for a moment before letting go. Then it’s time for goodbyes, and Chan walks Minho to the door.
He keeps the door open as he watches Minho walk home, about a block away and across the street, just to make sure he gets there without incident.
And just as he does every time Chan keeps an eye on him, just before Minho punches in the key to his apartment building, he turns around to wave goodbye before doing a silly pose that makes Chan laugh. Tonight, he blows a kiss, and Chan giggles even as he returns the gesture. They wave goodbye one more time, and then Minho’s safe in his home.
He can’t name a reason for it, but he finds himself lingering in the doorway, still staring at Minho’s apartment building down the road in spite of the bite of cold air on his skin. He stays for a long while, only broken out of his trance when he jumps at his snoozed alarm, insistently reminding him that he needs sleep.
He turns the alarm off for good this time, then closes the door carefully as he makes his way down the hall to his room. It’s time for bed, after all, and he should get started on his routine.
And the sooner he gets to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come.