619w. pg. chorong/bomi.
chorong works at a movie theater and bomi is indecisive.
for jen unnie. happy birthday! ♡
yoon bomi was, as she liked to say, a bit of an expert when it came to food. homemade goods, store bought meals, restaurant menu items, concessions - you name it, and bomi had eaten it. she often thought of herself as a food aficionado, spreading her knowledge and love of eating to everyone around her. of course, her friends thought otherwise.
“bomi, please, just pick something,” naeun whines, tugging on her friend’s arm. they’ve been standing in the concession line at the local movie theater for close to five minutes now, and they had yet to even tell the clerk what they wanted.
“shh,” bomi replies harshly. naeun frowns. “you can’t rush perfection. i just need to decide between the nachos or a hot dog...”
standing on bomi’s other side is eunji, who takes a moment to roll her eyes dramatically. “for god’s sake, bbom, you’re holding up the line.”
several people standing behind them grumble in agreement. bomi sighs.
“fine. but if i make the wrong choice, i’m going to go all black belt on your asses later.” she pauses for a moment before looking at the concessions clerk, only just realizing that it is a young woman serving them. “hey, you’re pretty cute...” she trails off before leaning forward, hands on the countertops between them. “say, concessions expert. what would you recommend?”
the girl scoffs, flipping her long hair behind her shoulders. “well, most people just get popcorn,” she says. bomi notes that the sound, despite its slight hostility, is soft and raspy - a cute voice to match her cute face.
“popcorn? ...meh.” bomi sticks her tongue out. “i’m not big on popcorn. if you had to choose between nachos or a hot dog, what would you pick?”
“good lord,” eunji mumbles under her breath. the worker, whose nametag reads charismatic chorong, strokes her chin as if deep in thought. bomi waits expectantly.
“i’d pick popcorn,” she finally says.
bomi blinks. “i just said i didn’t want popcorn.”
“well, what do you want? because there are people waiting and i can have you kicked out of here, you know,” chorong says, staring straight a bomi with a blank expression. bomi stares back, unwavering, while naeun shifts uncomfortably next to her.
“bomi-ah, come on, we’re going to miss the beginning of the movie,” she prods, reaching out to grab on the older girl’s hand. bomi brushes her off lightly and gives chorong another once over before opening her mouth again.
“if i order popcorn, will you give me your phone number?” she asks.
eunji snorts and naeun’s doe eyes go wide. chorong, however, remains unfazed.
“sure,” she responds easily with a shrug. for a moment, bomi stands there in disbelief. she hadn’t expected that. normally when she asks random cute strangers for their numbers, they just laugh at her or run away. usually the latter.
“wait, really?”
chorong nods before pulling a sticky note out of her uniform pocket and scribbling down some digits. “why not? you’re pretty cute, too,” she says, handing bomi her number with a sly smile. bomi gawks after her for a moment before smiling back.
it takes a very loud cough from eunji for them to snap out of it, and chorong, slightly embarrassed by her lapse in attentiveness, turns to get some popcorn ready.
“so, do you want butter?” she asks.
a collective groan sounds from the other side of the counter, where bomi has now begun to weigh the pros and cons of plain popcorn versus buttered carefully in her head.
in the months to come, yoon bomi decides that being a food expert isn’t really her thing. she much prefers critiquing movies.