Chapter Text
After sunset, New York was a firefly in an ocean of darkness. A beam, a beacon of life cutting through the black of nothingness. The activity never stopped—people swam through the neon colors and noise like minnows in a tank.
The stars barely showed, unable to compete with the energy of the city below. Instead, unlike New York, they slept.
One hour and twelve minutes until midnight, converse thump on asphalt.
A flurry of floppy purple hair weaves in and our between bodies in a crowd outside a bus station, giving no response when heads turn and people scoff. Check wristwatch, tick tock tick tock. Time (money?) was wasting.
Almost late. But he still has time.
The wearer of the converse descends the entrance to the General Photobased Transportation Station of Downtown Brooklyn—the first of its kind on the east coast of the Greater American Supernation. The station is divided into three branches—northern, central and latin American light paths.
He takes the middle path, running towards the rows upon rows of glowing circles on the floor in front of the far wall.
Disintegration points.
Each circle is sat in front of a keypad with a small, glowing screen. Ice blue, like the overhead lights, like the light paths, like the glowing tracker wristband on the boy’s wrist.
There are at least thirty people queued in front of each point, but the lines are moving incredibly fast—almost constantly. The boy with the purple hair and the worn-out converse bounds into the shortest line.
The subway system had been the prime paragon of New York culture. Bright, bustling, busy. Running 24 hours, it gave New York it’s insomniac reputation. But after the introduction of Personal Transportation Devices, the systems were shut down, replaced with the Light Paths along which PTD owners could travel.
It had been devised in 2419 by a pair of Chinese scientists and despite that nowadays, ‘China’ no longer existed as a nation, it had truly been the innovation of its time.
The line moves quickly, and he soon finds himself in front of the keypad. Muscle memory compels him to key in the correct postcode without even looking, and it’s without looking that he presses the ring on his finger against the machine, scanning the device attached to it.
He steps onto the light circle.
In the 30th century, even a small child could convert atoms into light energy and back—all that was needed were a few Katzogenic crystals (costing only a few dollars) and the right microscale toolkit.
However, the use of the PTD has continued despite it’s three-hundred-year-old roots—the only changes that have been made are minor improvements and fine-tunings. For example, the downsizing of the PTD from the size of the average palm to the average human fingernail.
Thanks to the work of scientists in the current generation, the average light path travel speed had gone from approximately 50 to 1000 kilometers a seconds — making it possible to travel from San Francisco to Miami in just under 5 seconds.
The circle erupts in light, shooting off a beam of blue that envelops the boy’s body and quite literally pulls him apart. The disintegration process was never painful, but it did take some time to get used to the sensation of having your cells ripped away from each other and then reassembled miles and miles away.
Normally, Bobby wouldn’t use his Light Transfer Credits (the currency involved in light transportation) to travel to Manhattan from Brooklyn, but he only had four more minutes to get to The Climax and he sure as hell wasn’t going to pay 30 dollars for a taxi to fly him across the two boroughs.
He blinks, and when his eyes open, he’s in the Manhattan GPT station.
He doesn’t even pause—the second his eyes are open, he’s hitting the concrete, serpentining through the crowd of the much larger station. Luckily, the biggest bar in New York is just across Times Square—conveniently adjacent to the station. With wings on his converse, Bobby sprints 300 meters and darts down an alleyway behind an old apartment building.
The one part of New York where darkness lives.
One hour and two minutes until midnight. He steps up to a cast-iron door and raps on the surface. A pale red laser shoots out, scans his irises.
“You’re late.” A deep voice booms, shaking the black door.
He bends at the waist, submissive. Despite there being no cameras, he knows he’s being watched. Aware that even though he’s actually one minute early, he really needs this job, and defers.
“I apologize, sir. It will never happen again.”
“You’re right about that.” Then, the door’s surface is suddenly reflective, swirling and shining and undulating frostily in the dark of the alley. Bobby steps through the denatured particle field with ease.
When he steps through, his converse have been replaced with a pair of leather dress shoes with glowing soles, his tattered jeans with a pair of tailored suit pants, and his oversized T-shirt with a fitted lavender dress shirt, as well as a black silk bowtie. His street styled silver ear chains have been swapped out for black studs and he can feel the extra weight of the makeup and silver eye contacts that have taken residence on his face.
He feels a weird sensation on his face and brings a hand up to his lip to feel the black piercing that has taken residence on it. Luckily, the rolled up sleeves of his shirt prove that his sleeve tattoos haven’t gone anywhere.
It’s clear the funds for The Climax had been focused much more on improving the interior of the building rather than the outside. The ceiling is at least twenty meters high, with arched ceilings and contemporary geodesic stained-glass windows.
There are six different dance floors, each with an appearance similar to the face of a Rubix cube—squares upon glowing squares, cycling through a spectrum of neon colors.
It’s early just now, so there aren’t many people, but the few dancers who are cutting a rug on the floor trigger patterns of swirling fleurs and star-trails with each step on the specialized flooring.
It seems whoever decorated the place put special effort into making sure it was as neon as possible, as signs were hung in every nook and cranny, giving the bar a very chic, yet chill atmosphere.
There are pools of fluorescent liquid dotted haphazardly around the edges of the club, being fed by numerous taps hung from the ceiling pouring fluid directly into them. It’s like a hundred rainbow waterfalls, like lava in a thousand colors.
The trickles of the bright fluids define walkways that divide the club into specific partitions, making it easier for the patrons to find their way around.
Waitresses dressed in cyberpunk outfits are busing drinks, their too-short electronic clothing highlighting every curve and edge of their bodies. They relay back and forth between the ground floor and the VIP bar, which is essentially a circular disc floating halfway between the floor and the ceiling.
It consists of a closed ring containing the bartenders and drinks, which is contained by another ring surrounded by bar stools that allow the customers to order their drinks. The bottom of it is covered in, predictably, neon lights, which cast a subtle halo on the patrons below.
The VIP bar is accessible via two spiral staircases on either side of the room, which wind directly upwards and then connect to the bar area in the middle using suspended catwalks. The catwalks, staircases, and even the main bar area are barely lit, however, giving privacy to the celebutants who frequent it. Although The Climax is almost exclusively an A/B list celebrity underground hangout, it is only the cream of the crop that are allowed to sit in the privacy of the VIP bar.
Why? The owners, of course.
Bobby doesn’t know much about them, but he knows that one of the owners of The Climax was famous across the galaxy for his beauty and had a cross-dimensional modelling contract that earned him billions of billions of dollars.
Easily one of the most famous people across all conceivable dimensions, it was said that Song Yunhyeong would sometimes surprise the guests of his (multiple) bars by paying them a visit.
Despite being done with modelling, he was still too busy to frequent his properties too often – although no one was certain why. Bobby had heard from Chanwoo (the main bartender, his boss and supervisor) that Yunhyeong’s business partner was even more famous, but he didn’t even know his name.
The walls are painted charcoal – upon closer inspection, what could be easily mistaken for a concrete texture is actually a collection of circuitries. Bobby knows if he places his hand on the wall, a set of algorithms could easily identify him by the shape and pressure points of his hand and automatically order his usual. That is, if he were a customer, and not the assistant bartender.
He skirts to the edge of the club, where a winding staircase is conveniently placed behind a marble palm tree sculpture framed by pink and purple LEDs.
On the way, there isn’t a single face he passes that he hasn’t seen on television at least once or twice. Popular singers, dancers, television personalities and artists surround him, but he feels no interest at that fact. He’s just here to get a paycheck.
Bobby clambers up the staircase to the main bar, nodding at the two bodyguards manning the entrance. One has wacky Neapolitan hair, half-pink and half-yellow. The other is absolutely enormous — one of his biceps easily as thick as Bobby’s thigh. Absolutely masculine, the both of them.
“Jiwon.” They nod at him together.
Bobby feels himself relax a little bit at the kindness in their voices. He’s always been grateful for the fact that despite being far under their ranking, they have always treated him with respect. Off-hours, they’re the kind of people that Bobby wouldn’t mind getting a drink with.
If only he had time to do so.
“Shownu, Taehyung.” He responds politely, but distantly, and crosses the distance over to the bar. As he traipses over to the bar, he sees the main bartender – Chanwoo – wiping down the gleaming obsidian of the bar.
He knows he’s using a polish imported from the closest galaxy nearby—he doesn’t remember the name, but he knows it’s the best thing on the market to polish diamond, which is what the bar’s counter is encrusted in.
He walks up to the bar, trying to ignore the hungry stares thrown his way by the men and women sat around its perimeter.
“Bobby! Hey baby!” He recognizes that voice of that woman.. a singer who just recently left her husband after being cheated on by him many times. If he remembered correctly, she was one of the regulars.
“There’s our beautiful bartender. You finally gonna give me more than just a drink or what?” He resists the urge to roll his eyes at the comment dropped by none other than Lee Taemin—talented, gorgeous, charismatic, and all too aware of it.
Bobby looks up just long enough to notice a man with violently sharp cheekbones and pastel pink hair sat next to him, silent and staring blankly into the gently rippling surface of his drink. He finds himself frowning at the man’s dysregulation, about to ask him if he’s okay when—
“Forget Yunhyeong, he’s the most beautiful man in the multiverse!” Okay, that made him blush.
He presses his hand to the underside of the counter—it’s covered in the same circuitry as the walls downstairs and the servers of the bar identify him in an instant.
The portion of the counter directly in front of him adopts the same shimmery effect as the door had earlier and he steps through it with ease, the disintegrated particles tickling his skin as he passes through them.
“Hey, boss.” He smiles warily at Chan, who turns around and regards him with a grimace.
“If you’re ever late again, you will be fired. Immediately. Do you understand?” Bobby scowls internally, but wears an apologetic pout on the outside, nodding a silent apology. Chanwoo gives him a once-over and rolls his eyes.
“You’re lucky you’re so popular with the patrons— God knows why, what with those tattoos and piercings.” Bobby grins innocently, sticking his tongue out and making a peace sign with his fingers, shrugging at the same time.
Chan opens his mouth to chastise him for the unsophisticated behavior, but is interrupted by an indignant shout from a rather angry patron.
“How many fucking times do I have to ask for a Mazolaxian Mama? Are you actually sending someone to Mazolaxia to get the liquor?”
“Coming right up, Mr. President.” Chanwoo shoots Bobby a sharp look as he goes off to fulfil his orders, a look that’s a mix between ‘I hate my life’ and ‘Get the fuck to work, NOW.’
Bobby thinks he heard laughter coming from the body guard’s post.
Resigning himself to his work, Bobby sighs, walking to the other edge of the ring from Chan and approaching a quadruplet of girls sat together, giggling drunkenly to each other. As soon as they notice him, they all perk up.
Bobby’s been working here long enough to know what a starlet looks like when she’s trying to display her best assets: puffing the chest out, exposing the vulnerable flesh on the neck, raising of the natural vocal pitch by two or three octaves.
The girls from Blackpink are no different, except in the sense that unlike when other idols do it, it actually brings him some satisfaction to see them get flustered when he engages with them.
“Oh, hi Bobby!” The shortest, Lisa, coos, smiling a thousand-volt smile that reveals two rows of perfectly straight teeth. Ah, she’s cute. Bobby thinks, amusedly.
“Hi ladies, what can I get for you?” Bobby grins at them, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “Rose, you dyed your hair red—it looks good.” He maintains eye contact with the aforementioned girl, who crumples like paper under his gaze and looks like she’s doing all she can not to swoon to the floor.
“I’m impressed you noticed! The purple doesn’t look bad on you either.” She winks at him and smiles, a wide, toothy grin that illuminates her face with childlike joy and naiveté. It’s clear she’s a little farther gone than the rest of the group by the way she sways just a little when she smiles.
Bobby opens his mouth to answer, but is interrupted by the most beautiful of the four.
“Hey, hey. Before we all get into what I’m sure is a very interesting conversation about hair, can we get our drinks?” She gives Bobby a very pointed look, like don’t flirt with my groupmates or I’ll kill you. Putting his hands up in submission, he concedes to Jisoo’s request.
“Fine, but you gotta tell me what you want first!” He drawls, hyperaware of the contrast between their sophisticated, exotic accents and his working class New Yorkern accent. Part of him wondered if that was why he was so desirable to them—because he made them feel superior.
“Mic check, one, two, yeah my name is B.I!”
The response B.I’s crowd gives him is deafening. He feels on top of the world, as he’s becoming more and more used to feeling. Of all the places in the universe he’s performed, Earth’s crowds produce the most ecstatic responses. He loves it here, especially right here in the underground venues of New York. The crowd are wild and it makes him go wild.
With his encore finished, he returns to the backstage area, adrenaline still rushing through his system.
Normally when he finishes a gig like that, he’s ready to crash for the night; get a whole day’s sleep to recover, but right now he’s still too excited.
He wants to channel that energy somewhere else, and he knows exactly the place. With the swipe of a card he’s changed from his concert persona into a chic, flashy suit. His hair is gelled and styled, and he’s wearing a pair of designer sunglasses - despite it being now half past midnight.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
He makes his way as discreetly as he can from one back alley to the next - and there is his destination; Climax. His lips quirk up into a smile and he approaches the door guards; simply having to lower his sunglasses and look at them for the guards to know who he is.
He sways rather than walks into the venue, the music blasting from the place taking over his body already, and he’s able to ignore the pairs of eyes that fall on him and stare - he’s trained in doing that now.
While making his way up the spiral staircase to the VIP bar, he presses his hand to the wall out of habit, an order for his regular being sent to the bar.
He takes a seat at the counter, only now taking his sunglasses off and hanging them on the collar of his shirt. His legs bounce as he looks around; he’s still so full of adrenaline.
He can feel even the people on either side of him are kind of looking at him. Everyone here seems to be absorbed in conversation already, having a good time.. he’s not sure who he’ll talk to yet, but he’ll find someone. There’s the usual crowd of giggly, drunk girls - he’d rather not.
There’s guys in business suits too, and again, he’d rather not - being a rapper they’ll act superior in intelligence, and there’s no way he can be bothered with that. At this point he’s considering just dancing with randomers in the non-VIP area. He taps his fingers against the counter, his eyes flitting between the bartenders.
Where’s his drink?
The silver contacts in Bobby's eyes are also fitted with a convenient micro-display that illuminates his vision with information about incoming orders. When a dialog box pops up showing an order for the most expensive cocktail on the menu (costing around a thousand dollars for two unit's worth), Bobby's eyebrows shoot up.
He knows the customers in the VIP bar are rich, but they usually don't usually splurge unless they're trying to impress someone-- and while pissing matches are common among people with goliath egos such as those surrounding Bobby, it still comes as a shock because most of them grow out of the showy phase quite quickly.
His eyebrows raise further when the name of the patron shows up in futuristic lettering in the top left hand corner of his vision: Hanbin Kim.
Bobby finds himself scurrying over to the safe they kept under the bar containing the more expensive ingredients. He uses his biometrics to unlock it and pulls out a Ziploc bag containing a large red rock.
"Someone ordered the Aviqean Glow?" He hears Chanwoo standing above him, questioning.
"Yeah, someone named Hanbin Kim." Bobby brings the bag onto counter and pulls out a hammer.
Chanwoo suddenly looks deep in thought, pensive. "Huh."
"You know him?" Bobby's surprised at Chan's reaction— usually he's very casual or even apathetic towards patrons, so any show of emotion from him must mean this guy is a big deal. Chanwoo opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by the loud sound of Bobby smashing the rock into pieces. When he opens the Ziploc afterwards, it's filled with a variably textured, glittering powder.
"You don't?" The boss replies dazedly, looking down the end of each catwalk as if he was looking for someone.
"Are you fanboying?!" The older asks as he pulls out a pitcher of golden liquid.
Bobby is bewildered at his behavior. He'd spent the past 9 months working for 'Chanbot' (as he so a affectionately referred to him behind his back) thinking that the terminator was emotionless and terrifying. To see him show even this soupçon of interest in a patron shook Bobby to his core.
He pushed against his lip ring with his tongue— a behavior that was both a nervous tic and a result of him not yet being used to the accessory.
"Do I look like a fanboy?" Chanwoo growled. Bobby took in the taller man's dapper suit, broad build and arms strong enough to break diamond and, after a second thought, swallowed quickly and shook his head.
"That's what I thought." But Bobby didn't miss how Chans emerald green eyes kept flicking between the entrances to the two catwalks on either side, a dead giveaway of his thoughts.
Bobby tried not to smile as he poured the Aviqean crystals into a tall cocktail glass, then pours the liquid gold over it until the glass is half full.
He finishes it off by torching the glass with the flamethrower until the two substances explode in a violent chemical reaction that expands them to twice their original volume.
The resultant drink is a nebulous, sparkling liquid that fills the glass to near overflowing— but Bobby has so much experience making it that he has the proportions just right.
He pops a cute cocktail umbrella and a sprinkling of red sugar around the rim and admires his work. How beautiful is it that he can make a drink to mimic the milky way? It even has small white particles swimming in it that reminisce of stars.
As he pops a solid gold straw into the cup, he hears a gasp from behind him. He knows it's Chanwoo by the fact that he can now see a figure walking down the catwalk.
His eyes narrow— he can't see the man's face, but that swagger is definitely the walk of the kind of person who would order an Aviqean Glow, and that kind of person is a douche.
Not a surprising encounter in his line of work by any means, but he's still on edge by the way this man carries himself like he's God's gift to the world.
Disgusted and unsettled by the celebrity’s demeanour, Bobby pops the drink down on the counter and scuttles over to Chanwoo.
"Do you wanna serve him? I think I'll stick to Shinee and Beyoncé." Chanwoo grins.
"If you thought, even for a second, that I was going to let you serve him— covered in tattoos and piercings, then, well, maybe you do have a sense of humour." He pushes past Bobby to go communicate with Hanbin, who has since pulled up to the bar counter.
Bobby walks over to the other end of the bar, back to Shinee and back to feeling like he's the tits.
Leaning across the bar, he opens his mouth to greet Taemin and his pink-haired friend, but then regrets his decision to come over immediately when he feels a pair of hands on either side of his face.
"Bobby! Did you finally decide you want to give oppa Tae what he wants?" Taemin coos. Bobby wonders if he'll lose his job if he punches this guy in his big lipped face.
"Ah, Taemin-ah, leave the kid alone." Taemin’s hands are slapped off Jiwon’s face, and he feels grateful. The pink haired man speaks for the first time that night, and Bobby's jaw drops as he recognizes the voice. Is that Kim Jonghyun?!
Bobby had heard of Jonghyun a very long time ago, but not for good reasons. The artist’s suicide had wreaked havoc on the pop music industry, nearly bankrupting the record label that had signed him as it’s employees had been too inconsolable to record or write music due to his death.
He remembers watching Jonghyun’s memorial service on TV-- watching the citizens of the Greater American Supernation placing dusty pink roses in floating lanterns and setting them free in the sky. Thousands upon thousands of bright candles dotted the sky, and all of New York had been alit that night.
But if Jonghyun had died, why was he here, right now, in the flesh, saving him from Taemin?
“Oh, hyung, I’m just giving him an opportunity!” Taemin’s melodious voice rings in Jiwon’s ears, and he can’t help but scowl.
“A city boy like him will never have a chance to fraternize with people on our level again.. regardless of how cute he is.” As he says that, he shoots Bobby a wink that makes him sick.
He hated the way that these celebrities saw themselves— as another species rather than slightly luckier members of the same one. Taemin’s smirk held a wry note, like he was doing Bobby a favour by even interacting with him.
He wasn’t a fan of the concept. It was part of the reason that he’d definitely not fare well dating a star—not that the opportunity would ever arise, but he was grateful for that because as he looked into Taemin’s warm eyes, he was sure he wanted nothing to do with this life as soon as he could afford to do… literally anything else.
“Leave him alone.” Jonghyun repeats, sighing down into his drink like he’s used to dealing with Taemin’s shit. Taemin just huffs and turns away from Jonghyun, placing his chin on the bar stool.
“A-ah, excuse me, if you don’t mind..?” Bobby finds himself bowing to Jonghyun. “Are you Jonghyun-ssi?” The pink-haired man nods, eyeing Jiwon warily.
“Why do you ask? I figured all of you bartenders would know your clients by now.”
“I heard that you’d—” Taemin immediately jumps forward, trying to cover Jiwon’s mouth by clamping a hand over it. However, confused, Bobby dodges the hand, giving Taemin a weird look, and finishes, “—died. Like, years ago.”
As soon as the words leave Jiwon’s mouth, Taemin grabs him by the collar and yanks him across the counter so sharply that his feet lift off the ground. Too shocked to respond, Jiwon does nothing as Taemin snarls in his face.
“You-- ” But he’s interrupted by Jonghyun, who tilts his head and stares at the glowing neon countertop, body slowly melting into a slumping position. Bobby swears he can hear whirring coming from the inside of his body as he moves.
“I’m dead? Hah! No I’m not, I’m not—” He chuckles, and mid-laugh, a jerk overcomes his body. He twitches. He sits upright so quickly that Bobby is sure he heard his spine snap as he does so.
Broken sounds erupt from his body, sounding like knives upon knives sharpening. The sound of a soulless body’s screaming.
“Kim Jonghyun, best known as the lead singer of popular South Korean pop group SHINee, has passed away. He was 27.” Jonghyun is the one talking for sure, but Bobby knows this isn’t his voice. He sounds too inanimate… too neutral... too robotic.
Jiwon realizes he’s made an enormous mistake. The scape between Jonghyun’s upper and lower lashes turn to static, monochromatic flickering in place of pupils just for a second, then they flash back. Jonghyun’s head jerks to one side erratically, like a marionette with broken joints.
“Jonghyun was one of five members of SHINee, a prolific band formed in 2948 and which quickly shot to fame in South Korea. D—d—dead…” The voice that comes out of this body is a far cry from the beautiful vocals he’d heard on TV growing up. No, this voice is slow, corrupted, deepening in pitch by the second.
It’s at this moment that Bobby realizes this is not Jonghyun.
“I’m.. dead…” He breathes. Bobby fusses with his lip ring nervously. Taemin looks on with shock in his eyes, but there’s something underneath that as well—a panic, a terror. A fear of losing a loved one a second time. Black, inky fluid oozes from his tear ducts and slides down his cheeks. This Jonghyun looked lost, helpless, confused, and inhuman.
This Jonghyun was an android.
“You fucking idiot!” Taemin screams, lunging at Bobby, no doubt about to try and take him out. Bobby closes his eyes in preparation for the impact of fists on his face, but after a few seconds pass, he opens his eyes to see Taemin approaching the malfunctioning bot, who had begun to seize as it registered the paradox of its own existence.
He collects Jonghyun in his arms and hoists him to his feet, helping him walk out of the bar even as smoke starts to billow out from the sides of his head.
By now, the other patrons of the bar are all staring at Jiwon, who’s too occupied staring after the two Shinee members to even remember his own existence.
He’d seen some fucked up things in his time at this job— aliens hiding as people (although he’d never reveal HyunA’s secret), people with multiple heads, people who could perform actual magic (that night he’d spent with Dreamcatcher had been wild), and more, but he’d never in his life seen a cyborg before.
He wondered if that Jonghyun had actually been a taxidermy of the original artist’s body or a work of bio-circuitry and synthetic materials.
He took a second to rest his head against the cold obsidian of the counter, then shook himself off and straightened up. He had to keep going, semi-traumatic experience or not. After all, he was only paid by the drink and off tips.
He turns around to see Chanwoo chatting up Hanbin with a sycophantic grin on his face and rolls his eyes. Such a kiss-ass. It makes something sink in his stomach, wondering what must be so special about this guy that even Chan is sucking up to him.
Chan, who punched the ruler of the neighbouring GALAXY in the face and threw him out of the establishment. Chan who took shit from no one, Chan who even talked back to the owners of the bar(or so he’d heard).
He knows he’s supposed to be working, but instead he finds himself leaning against the counter and staring over at Hanbin and Chanwoo talking, a bitter expression on his face. What a jackass, wearing sunglasses indoors at night.
Before all this had unfolded, Chanwoo had sauntered up to Hanbin with his Aviqean Glow in hand.
“Welcome, Hanbin-ssi.” He gives a little bow and slides the drink in front of him, unable to rip his eyes from him.
“What brings you to The Climax? From what I’ve heard, you usually frequent the bosses’ other bars—” He pauses to think.
“Is it B-day that you’re usually in? I know the bartender there—Hongseok, great guy.” He realizes he’s babbling, and instead of stopping, he continues, but decides that he’ll look cool doing it if he wipes down the table at the same time.
“You know, it’s really a fantastic thing that you’re here today— I’ve heard from boss that they might be coming over tod—” He’s interrupted by frantic screaming from the other side of the room and freezes, not wanting to turn around.
This kid is definitely fired. He feels his face heat up in rage as his one-on-one time with Hanbin is interrupted. He slowly turns around and his jaw drops at the spectacle of two Shinee members storming across the catwalk, one literally smoking.
“That fucking kid,” Chanwoo growls, so angry he doesn’t notice himself violating bar procedure and using foul language in front of arguably the most important patron they’ve ever had. “First he’s late, now this-- what did he screw up now?”
Hanbin looks up as a tall man who’s considerably more formally dressed than the other VIP-bar staff approaches him.
He offers a lazy smile and cocks his head, thanking the man as his drink is set down before him. This member of staff seems to be quite apprehensive at the moment, and Hanbin kind of wants to laugh, but doesn’t.
Instead, he expresses thanks for his drink, and upon looking at said drink, his eyes widen. The Aviqean Glow served in Songhyuk bars is normally good, but this particular one looks exquisite, looks like part of the galaxy itself.
No doubt it was made by someone skilled in the art. He made the right choice trying Climax out, he thinks. He’s so engrossed in examining the drink that he doesn’t really catch most of the staff member’s excited babbling (not that he’d have had much of a chance to get a word in edgeways, anyway.)
His thoughts are broken by the same thing that stops the man’s rambling. He also looks over at where the scream comes from, his eyebrows raising as two members from SHINee walk (well, one walks, the other is hauled) out.
Taemin’s in for a fun night.. that’s what he gets for trying to bring back someone who’s passed away, he thinks, rather indifferently.
It’s sad, no doubt; he was a fan of Jonghyun’s vocals and personality himself, but Hanbin is a firm believer of leaving the past in the past. He prefers to focus on the here and now, which is exactly why his gaze fixates on a rather stormy looking member of staff - who seems to have been involved in the incident that just unfolded.
Purple hair, illuminated by the neon lights, sleeve tattoos and a jaw that could cut glass. Hanbin is interested.
He takes an appreciative sip of his Aviqean Glow, wondering if the cute, glowering boy made his cocktail. He hopes that’s the case.
Despite the manager (he assumes that’s the tall man’s position) standing in front of him, he remains fixated on the purple-haired boy, hoping the other will return eye contact eventually.
After a while of serving drinks to other guests (and finally giving in and writing an admittedly fake phone number on Rose’s wrist in permanent marker), Bobby gets the sense he’s being watched. It sends chills down his spine.
He turns around, slowly, after passing a frothy Udoxian shot to Beyonce, and sees Hanbin watching him. Or at least, he thinks he’s watching him—he can’t tell with the sunglasses on(seriously man, get a grip—you’re indoors).
Bobby frowns in Hanbin’s direction, holding the ostensible eye contact with a glower before turning around and tending to the bar, rearranging, reorganizing and replacing supplies.
He knows it’s irrational, but after their little stare-off, Jiwon finds himself seething.
How dare that fucker even look at him? He doesn’t notice the snarl that’s overtaken his features while he works until the president of Korea (singular) asks him why he’s glowering. He’s not supposed to talk to any of the patrons unless they engage with him first, and by God is Jiwon glad that someone’s talking to him right now.
“Homie,” he starts, dropping all pretence of respect for the man in favour of allowing raw emotion to shine through his northern accent, “Do you see that guy over there?”
“Wow, is that Hanbin Kim?” The president looks surprised to see him there. “He hasn’t visited Korea since his first debut!”
“That’s not the point!” Bobby snaps, and the president adjusts his posture, towering threateningly over Bobby. He wears a frown on his face that shows clear disapproval for the disrespectful way that Bobby just spoke to him.
“I’m so sorry.” Bobby apologizes rapidly, bending down and bowing before promising him a drink on the house.
“What is the point, then?” The president asks, sipping on a quality home(planet)-brewed beer.
“He just looks so.. douchey.” Bobby wrinkles his nose. “How else do I explain it? So full of himself, so self-assured. It’s like he carries this aura that screams ‘disregard for humanity’.”
He looks over at Hanbin again, sending a glower in his direction that says I hope you leave.