Chapter Text
“You’re fired.”
In the silence of the dining room, Jimin’s voice rang cold and heavy, just like the untouched serving of premium steak in front of him.
His personal assistant—butler, if you will—swallowed thickly and stuttered, “S-Sir?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?” Jimin asked, letting his voice lower an octave, to something saccharine sweet. He glanced up to his face and leveled a withering glare at the fidgeting young man- what was his name again? Hyunsoo? Hyunwoo? Whatever. Names were irrelevant. “I said, you’re fired.” He averted his gaze and looked out the window.
Outside the mansion, snow was slowly piling up in heaps on the street. Sheets of white cascading on a bleak, grey world.
Jimin always hated the snow.
In front of him, Hyun-whatever’s eyes grew as round as coins, and Jimin had to hold himself back from scoffing at the way they glistened. Like pools filling with tears of cowardice. “May I… may I kindly ask if there’s anything I’ve done wrong, Master Park?”
Now he was asking the right questions. Jimin pursed his lips and pointed at the silverware before him. “First of all, this isn’t the correct plate that I normally use for breakfast. These are my dinner utensils, you hear? Strike one.”
His butler’s shoulders lifted, tense and waiting with bated breath.
“Secondly, and I really cannot forgive this one,” Jimin glared at the meat on the plate, “this steak is well done. Well fucking done. How could you be so stupid as to not know that I only eat medium rare? Strike two.” Against his better judgment, the anger boiling his blood turned his rasp to something dangerously thin and low. “Seriously, though. You want me to starve, don’t you? Because how hard could it be to get something as simple as my preferences right, huh? You… you decrepit old man!”
Wrong plate, wrong steak. Somehow, everything in his life was wrong. Jimin clenched his jaw and fisted his fingers, dumbfounded with this sorry excuse for a human being in front of him. Talk about model incompetence. “And lastly, I don’t like your face. Strike three, you’re out.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Jimin sighed, like it was too much of a burden to have to repeat himself over and over again. What was his father thinking, hiring anybody above the age of thirty? Butlers were supposed to be active and young and useful, weren’t they?
“Just… leave,” he said, waving the man away before he could make any more scathing remarks. Jimin liked to think he was doing the world a favor by not unleashing the full force of his wrath. “Leave right now, and tell my dad to have your paycheck processed by the end of the day, because I don’t want to see you tomorrow. Bye bye~” he flashed a crocodile smile and made a lighthearted shoo-ing motion, which meant it was Hyun-whatever’s cue to exit from the mansion, and from Jimin’s life.
Standing rooted to the ground, his ex-butler pointed a trembling index finger at Jimin, making him bristle. “You, young man, are rotten on the inside.”
Jimin chuckled humorlessly, carding one hand through his silver-streaked blue hair in a blatant show of boredom. “Tell me something I don’t know, oldie.”
“…one day, you will regret wielding that black heart of yours,” his ex-butler continued, a quaver in his voice. “And when that day comes, I will only feel sorry for you, young master.”
And with that, Jeon Hyunjoon ripped off the white apron tied around his waist and stormed off the Park compound, leaving nothing but a spoiled rich heir glowering in deathly silence.
Jimin stared at the empty space the man had left behind, aghast. Did he just get cursed at? That oldie had just cursed him, didn’t he? Unbelievable. The audacity! This was what happened when your employees were ungrateful twats.
What a great start to his 24 December.
Hell, it was only 8 a.m in the morning and this ruckus was already enough to warrant the beginnings of a massive headache throbbing at Jimin’s temples. Just another day, he mused, in the life of the oldest son of the owner of Park & Sons Co.
Furious, Jimin grabbed his phone and hit speed dial.
“Dad, I need a new butler.”
For as long as he could remember, Jimin had always known that you could buy just about anything with money. Sex. Power. Loyalty. With the world at the mercy of paper currency, Jimin had learned from his early childhood years that money was the key getting the world to bow down at your feet.
He supposed he was lucky in that department. Being heir to one of the biggest retail conglomerates in Seoul sure had its perks. High-end brands and premiere car companies were at his beck and call. Coco Chanel was just a phone call away; his pajama sets were personally customized by Dolce & Gabbana; hell, even his chopsticks were Gucci—glittering gold like he deserved.
Because if there was one thing Jimin knew for sure, it was that everything he had, he rightfully deserved.
So when his new personal assistant knocked on his office door—Jimin was already being trained to take over the company despite only being nineteen years old—he fully expected to meet someone of outstanding charisma, preferably with an ascended aura of intelligence and a hot bod to boot. Jimin would like it better if his designated assistant carried at least an ounce of the beauty he himself possessed. You know, somebody remarkable.
Not… this.
Before him stood a young man who, at most, probably looked two to three years older than Jimin himself. He sported a mop of dark, curly hair, like that of an overgrown cherub, and he was clad a dark green suit—green, of all colors!—that reminded Jimin of cheese mould. From where Jimin sat, he reckoned that the man couldn’t possibly be any taller than he was, and what irked him the most was his complexion. Smooth and milky and impossibly elflike. How could such perfect skin exist? It wasn’t fair. Jimin licked his lower lip, trying not to let his gaze meander down to the man’s pert, pink mouth.
And then there were his eyes. Unlike most humanly colors, they were silver, but not in the way mercury or melted coins were—dull, drab. No, his were luminous, unsettling and strange, like sphere filaments of fairy glitter caught in moonlight. Jimin blinked, and forced his lips to form words.
“Are you… my new butler?” he ventured, dubious. This was whom his father had hired as a replacement?
I asked them to hire somebody competent, not some poster child for flower boys.
The young man bowed deeply before speaking, and his voice was an unexpected contrast to his fragile appearance. “Good day, Park Jimin. My name is Min Yoongi.”
Jimin’s eye twitched. “Young Master,” he corrected.
“I’m sorry?” Yoongi frowned.
Rolling his eyes, Jimin leaned against his chair, tilted his chin up, and folded his arms. “You will call me Young Master, or Sir, or Master Park, just like every single one who did before you.”
To his surprise, Min Yoongi’s face remained impassive. “Uh. No thanks,” he said, voice calm and even, as though he hadn’t just uttered something blasphemous. Who in the world did he think he was?
Well. This one was a simple fix. Jimin smiled sweetly. “Then you’re fired.”
He expected the man to gasp and protest and perhaps beg for forgiveness on his knees, but this one, this Min Yoongi with his silver eyes and dark green velvet suit, only smiled back, equally as fake-sweet. “I’m afraid you can’t do that. I was hired especially to… assist you.”
Appalled, Jimin let out a disbelieving scoff . What the fuck. Who was this man, and where did he have the guts to behave like that? He stood up and pointed a shaking index finger at Yoongi, nostrils flaring. “Who are you, and who let you have such disgusting manners towards me?”
He watched, focused and intent, as a mysterious glint flashed in Yoongi’s eyes. “Oh, I’m just nobody.”
The PA smiled a knowing smile that seemed to carry more weight and years than his age allowed, and for the first time since meeting Yoongi, Jimin felt as though a stage spotlight was shining down directly on him, blinding his eyes from seeing his surroundings clearly. What was going on? “Did my dad hire you?”
“Maybe.”
What. Jimin’s pulse picked up its pace, and this time when he spoke again, his tone carried a hint of suspicion. “Where are you from?” Did nobody do a background check on this guy?
Yoongi shrugged, lips still quirked in that assured half-smile of his, as though secrets were playing at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, you know. Just here and there.”
Jimin frowned. Strange. Very strange. What was up with the whole mysterious guy act? Was his father playing some kind of prank on him? Jimin didn’t grace just anyone with his presence, especially the likes of random people from ‘here and there’.
He parted his mouth to say more, but then Yoongi held up an ID card with his full name and details, and Jimin let his words hang in the air, appeased.
Surely if Yoongi had an ID card, it meant he’d gone through the whole employment process, which meant he wasn’t some random weird spy/creep/murderer out to get Jimin, and was authorized to work for him.
Jimin’s shoulders relaxed. Good. Nothing to worry about then.
He told himself not to act too brashly for the time being. Jimin liked to think he was a fair and reasonable man in the workplace. Perhaps he could give this so-called Min Yoongi a chance to prove himself. Moreover, if he fired him right away, he’d lose somebody to order around for the rest of the day.
Besides, whoever this man was, it was none of Jimin’s concern, right? Heaven forbid he lasted more than a week with him, as was the usual case. Jimin was grateful there were over seven billion people in the world, because at least that guaranteed that he would never run out of new personal assistants to hire because nobody was good enough to last longer than a few days.
“Well then, Yoongi- ssi,” Jimin began, strolling back to his desk and sitting on his swivel armchair again, before raising both feet on his desk. The perfect picture of disinterest. His polished black shoes gleamed in the morning sunlight shining through the floor-length windows behind him. “You can start your duties by reading out the report on what was discussed during yesterday’s board meeting.”
He tried not to feel too unnerved by the way Yoongi studied him wordlessly for a moment longer than necessary—seriously, what was up with this dude?—before lowering his eyes to the stack of papers he was holding.
“Yesterday,” Yoongi droned. “You started a bid on a piece of land in Jeju island for a place to build your private villa, but since that land is currently occupied by a diner, you tried to force its owners to sell the place to you by blackmailing them.”
Jimin’s spine went rigid, and both his feet dropped from the desk to the wooden floor with a thud . “That’s not part of the board meeting—“ he spluttered.
“And the day before that,” Yoongi continued reading off the page, unbothered by Jimin’s unease. “You got into a drunk-driving, hit-and-run accident, but didn’t go to jail because your father paid a handsome price for your freedom. Am I right?”
Jimin’s fists clenched around the chair’s armrests until his knuckles turned white, his blood boiling. “Shut up. Shut the up right now. How do you even know—“
“And last night, you scheduled a New Year’s Eve countdown rave.” Yoongi’s tone was monotonous, like he was reciting numbers off a phone directory, but the words he was saying only served to send Jimin’s guts twisting with rage and dread. “But the hall you wanted was already booked by a non-profit organization for a charity donation event. But still, being the spoiled child you are, you paid everyone off and kicked them out so you could have that hall for your… party.” Yoongi’s voice curled around the last word with disdain, and Jimin couldn’t bring to look his new personal assistant in the eye.
What was this, some sort of Judgment Day where his sins were read out to him one by one? Just who was this Min Yoongi that he knew all of this nonsense? Jimin grit his teeth. A heated mixture of shame and fury and irritation threatened to swallow him whole, and he slammed his palms against his wooden office desk.
Yoongi flinched and paused, long enough for Jimin to rasp—
“Where in the world,” he seethed, heart thudding madly, “did you gather all this horseshit?”
It was impossible. It was downright unbelievable. Panic coursed through Jimin at the feeling of being so vulnerably stripped this way, regardless of the fact that it was just him and Yoongi in his office. He didn’t like people knowing his personal business. No butler or assistant or secretary of his had ever had access to the worst of his misdeeds. How did Yoongi-
“I have my… sources,” Yoongi yawned, filing his “report” back into a clipboard he held in one hand. Then he took out a smaller folder, and held out two small postcards – both decorated in Christmas reds and greens – in Jimin’s direction. “These were sent to you, by the way. Signed, Park Yejin-“
“Shut up,” Jimin cut through, his blood freezing in his veins. No. “Don’t say another word, Min Yoongi, and don’t you dare mention that bitch’s name to me, because I don’t know anyone called that.”
Yoongi pressed on, “But these were from—“
“Throw them out,” Jimin spat. “I don’t need that, and I don’t need you. Get out of my office.”
Nobody was allowed to see him like this, let alone some rookie personal assistant who didn’t know his boundaries. Whoever had leaked information to Yoongi, Jimin was ready to end them. He had money and power and nothing to fear.
Yoongi’s silver eyes remained calm. “I thought it was my job to know—”
“Get out,” Jimin shrieked with finality, before hurling a half-finished Styrofoam cup of cold coffee in Yoongi’s direction. It landed smack dab in his chest, brown goop splattering over his green suit and staining the crisp white shirt underneath. “Get out!”
Swearing inaudibly, Yoongi’s eyes hardened. Jimin noted the way his hands shook as he struggled not to crumple the papers and postcards he carried, like he was holding back from throwing those at Jimin as a form of retaliation.
Terse silence permeated the air between them, Jimin panting as though he’d run a mile, Yoongi stewing as he stood stock-still. Neither of them spoke a word, only glared shards of ice at each other, and for all the snow falling outside, it was probably colder inside the office in which they now stood.
“And don’t come back,” Jimin added. He didn’t need Yoongi and his ugly green suit. He didn’t need anybody reminding him what a shit human being he was.
Here was a new record for the most short-lived career under his discretion. With a huff, he turned away from Yoongi to face the window, where, outside, a late morning blizzard was picking up and whirling about the skyscrapers of Seoul. “Don’t ever show your face in front of me again.”
There was no answer, only the whir of the heating vents overhead, and Jimin thought Yoongi had left the office without excusing himself. When he turned around, though, Yoongi was still there, regarding him with disappointed eyes that made him feel… small.
“You’re going to take a lot more work than I thought,” he said, voice low with anger, and Jimin’s frown deepened, forehead wrinkling.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Then without bidding farewell, Yoongi spun on his heel and strode out of the office, leaving Jimin alone to deal with his nasty temper. As usual.
Which was okay, in Jimin’s opinion.
Because nobody had ever bothered to stay, anyway.
The day chugged on with the speed of a snail. Morning morphed into afternoon, and afternoon darkened to dusk. Jimin busied himself with nothing but paperwork, paperwork and even more paperwork, and silently he cursed himself for refusing to take Christmas leave for himself. There was hardly a single soul inside the Park and Sons Co. building, what with everyone away for the holidays.
Perhaps he’d go home a little earlier tonight, wine and dine with… himself, as usual, because there was no one else he could think of spending the eve with. His dad was likely the only other workaholic in the office with him, but Jimin couldn’t bear the thought of meeting up with him for dinner, only to find some other nameless blonde or brunette latched onto his arm.
Jimin scrunched up his nose as his thoughts strayed to what his employees must be up to. He’d overheard them sharing their plans at the lounge pantry a few days ago, when they thought he wasn’t around. Mrs. Jang had mentioned something about visiting a mountain resort with her husband for some skiing. His secretary Ryeowook was in Gwangju with his family, probably nibbling on gingerbread cookies and clinking mugs of eggnog with his cousins. The receptionist girl Mari should be at Namsan Tower with her girlfriend by now, holding hands against the bitter cold of the high altitude.
Good for them. Jimin was happy for them. Truly. It wasn’t like he cared, or felt a current of envy at their merrymaking. Let them rejoice, let them carpe noctem.
Seize the night. Glancing out the window, he found a lone snowflake clinging to the windowpane, before getting whisked off by the wind and fluttering back into the air. The evening skyline was a jumbled mass of Technicolor city lights and shimmering blankets of thick snow. Down the streets, pedestrians decked in their holiday outfits weaved past one another in threads of green-red-white-gold, lost in their own bubbles of bliss.
Jimin wondered if Yoongi was still in the building. If he’d even stayed.
He shook his head. No way. Not after receiving such scalding treatment from a boss like him, Yoongi surely would have quit.
The digital clock on his desk snapped to 6 p.m, and Jimin deemed it was time to throw in the towel. With nobody to file his finished papers for him, he had to do it himself, so he stood up carrying one stack after another to his secretary’s office for safekeeping.
When he returned to his office, Jimin picked up his briefcase, adjusted the only decoration on the table—a standing photo frame of toddler him being carried by a young woman—re-arranged his stationery in a penholder… and paused.
There was something on his table.
It was a rectangular parcel, small but heavy upon picking up, and it was wrapped in the cheesiest, candy cane-patterned wrapping paper. Red and white stripes and all that jazz. A gold, star-shaped ribbon was tied in a knot around it to secure the package, and Jimin glanced around, mystified.
Where was it from? Could it be for him?
A present… for me?
He received presents all the time, but none had ever made it to his personal office because he had a dedicated team of people taking care of such gifts, checking each parcel and box before sending them to his address for his maids and butlers to store away.
Weird. This had to be some kind of mistake. Jimin placed the box down on his table, but not before he caught the name scrawled over a small card stuck to it, in handwritten script.
To: Park Jimin, N.L.
From: Santa Claus, Christmas Town
Eyes squinting to read, Jimin picked up the gift-wrapped box again. N.L?
And seriously—a gift from Santa Claus himself? What was he, a six-year-old kid with no inkling of the world around him? Jimin rolled his eyes and stifled a disbelieving chortle. It must be some meaningless prank.
And yet.
Prank as it might be, it was still a gift nonetheless, addressed to him, and Jimin supposed that a fake gift was better than no gift. He deserved at least one on this cold, unforgiving night.
And so with a small, hopeful smile, Jimin tucked the parcel under one arm before stepping out of the office.
The private elevator to his penthouse suite announced his arrival with a shrill ding! and Jimin stepped into his condo, which stood as a huge contrast to his minimalistic office.
He liked to think that homes were personal spaces where you could express yourself. Warm light flooded his vision instantly as three giant, rose-shaped ceiling lights hanging from the slanted roof switched on upon his entrance. One side of his suite’s four walls was completely wrought of transition glass that he could darken and lighten at will. Right now it was turned on full transparent mode, and the pulsating bokeh of Seoul’s skyline twinkled up at Jimin from down below. His footsteps were muted as he plodded across the living room carpet.
With a weary sigh, he dropped his briefcase on a coffee table and sank against one of his white leather sofas, one arm covering his eyes while the other splayed out to his side.
A soft, barely audible thud caught his attention, and Jimin lifted his head to find that his little gift had rolled off from his grasp and onto the carpet.
He sat upright, then bent to pick it up.
Studying his name on the packaging, Jimin wondered just who exactly it could have come from. He was dead certain he was already alone by the time he returned to his office from his short trip to the secretary’s desk. And anyway, the distance between both areas was relatively short. If someone had slipped into his office without permission to sneak in a random gift, surely Jimin would have spotted them.
Eyeing the parcel warily, he wondered if it was the right choice to bring this thing into his house. What if it was something dangerous? Like… like a spy tracker to snoop on him, or worse, a time bomb?
Perhaps he should call security and have them take it away.
But curiosity always did get the best of him, and Jimin figured that he might as well open the one gift he received this year. Call it gut instinct or pure dumbness, but something told Jimin he’d be okay opening the box to check out what was inside. After all, presents were made to be unwrapped.
Swallowing thickly, he slowly pulled the ribbon loose, and with trembling hands, ripped the wrapping off the bulky item.
The cardboard box was plain brown, with no distinct logo or brand for Jimin to discern which company was from (he wasn’t the biggest fan of cheap gifts, or anything secondhand for that matter). Opening the box, he reached in…
…and pulled out something spherical.
Spherical, heavy, and fragile.
Jimin tilted his head to one side, baffled. In his hands he held a snowglobe—those crystal ball-looking ornaments with water inside that scattered bits of glitter and snow whenever you shook it. Its base was made of clay and painted a deep, rouge red, and when Jimin turned the snowglobe this way and that, its transparent glass reflected prisms of light coming through from the window.
Holding it close to his face, Jimin studied the scene depicted inside the crystal glass.
It was a café. Or the al fresco area of one, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s famous Café Terrace At Night painting. Miniature tables and chairs no longer than a toenail were artfully strewn about the round, flat perimeter of the snowglobe’s surface, behind which the backdrop of the café’s door and windows were painted. Peering closer, Jimin spotted two acrylic figurines of uniformed waiters wearing black aprons frozen into poses that mimicked wiping tables, and they were carved with so much detail that Jimin thought them more lifelike than necessary.
He shook the snowglobe, and a nebulae of tiny stars exploded and tumbled down over the café’s subjects like a gentle meteor shower, all glitz and glimmer. A cascade of starlight in an otherwise peaceful evening tableau.
A small smile pulled at the corners of Jimin’s lips. Huh. For a prank gift, this sure was a pretty one. He uttered a silent word of thanks to whoever was thoughtful enough to give it to him, walked into his bedroom and set the snowglobe down on his nightstand.
Later when he laid down to sleep, he cast the crystal glass one last glance, and felt his heart stutter.
It must be pure imagination, because Jimin could’ve sworn that the waiters had... moved from their previous positions.
Where they had been bent over a table, wiping nonexistent leftovers, the two waiters now stood side by side near the café’s windows, hands clasped behind their backs.
A shiver danced down Jimin’s spine.
Shaking his head, he slapped one of his cheeks lightly. He was overthinking, letting his imagination run wild. That must be it, yeah. Pulling his sheets over his body, Jimin put on his sleeping eye mask and willed his mind to quiet down. Nighttime was usually when the mind went abuzz, and come morning Jimin was certain everything would return to normal.
…
Or would it?