Chapter Text
Jungkook is a mess.
It’s only his third shift at his new job, and so far, it’s like being thrown into the deep end of an Olympic swimming pool. He knows nothing about books (can’t tell the difference between Byron and Brontë) and equally nothing about good customer service (he’s been yelled at by various blonde women a total of three times in the past few days). He drags himself to work every day with an incredibly heavy heart solely motivated by his incredibly light bank account.
Right now, he’s fumbling with a few boxes, unloading them on the doorstep as the delivery truck idles on the road. The alley behind the store is where deliveries usually take place, connected to the rest of the shop by the storage room door. The narrow stretch of space between buildings is filling with smog and the metallic tang of exhaust. Hoseok, the driver, is fiddling with a clipboard while he waits.
“You want to sign off on this?”
“Oh, right,” Jungkook says awkwardly, unsure if he even has the jurisdiction to sign off on deliveries. Mr. Kim is in the shopfront, dealing with a customer. He has no idea where Jimin, his ornery co-worker is. Probably asleep in the storage room.
“You new here?” Hoseok is leaning casually against the truck while he watches Jungkook scrawl his name on the sheet.
“Can you tell?” Jungkook returns drily.
“Don’t worry about not knowing anything. Mr. Kim runs things pretty casually around here. I wonder how long you’re gonna last though.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hoseok has a roguish grin on his face. “Oh, nothing really, just… you know why the last person who worked here quit right?”
Jungkook frowns. Hoseok’s words have an ominous ring to them. “No, what happened?”
“Well, let’s just say there are rumours that the other worker here is a little bit, well,” he waggles his eyebrows, circling his temple with his index finger in the universal sign for crazy. “Nuts.”
Hoseok must see the fear on Jungkook’s face because he laughs, patting him on the shoulder with a few words of consolation before he drives away in his truck. Jungkook is left alone in the alley, along with a stack of boxes to lug into the store. The door swings before he can shoulder it open, and Jimin stands in the empty space, his refined features contorted into a look of contempt. The light streaming from behind him gives him an almost otherworldly glow. Speak of the devil.
“Mr. Kim wants to show you something with the register.”
“Uh, okay.” Hoseok’s words ring in his brain as he sidesteps Jimin carefully, leaving the boxes in the storage room. The room is connected by door to the shop front – a wide room with the front counter along one wall and rows of shelves making up the empty space. Pieces of furniture are sporadically and strategically spaced: best-seller displays, chairs, comfy-looking sofas. There are already people milling about. Serendipity Books has a nice atmosphere – calming, sunlit and quiet – a little refuge from the noise and colour of the shopping district outside.
“Ah, Jungkook!” Mr. Kim calls him over, a cheery-looking smile on his face as he gestures to the register. “I’m about to run some errands. Think you can handle this?”
No. “Uh, yeah sure, of course.”
“I knew I could count on you! My son might drop in in a few, so if you need any help you might be able to ask him. Good luck!” He slaps Jungkook on the shoulder, making his way to the front door. Jungkook winces, rubbing his shoulder surreptitiously after he leaves. There are a still a few vestiges of pain in his muscles from last night’s gruelling swim practice.
Jungkook isn’t really even a big book enthusiast. He’s never even had time to read – his life before had consisted of sleep and study and swim in an endless, repetitive cycle. Then he’d gotten a swim scholarship to one of the best universities in the country – his parents had been overjoyed of course, even if it meant he had to leave his small country town for a fast-metropolitan life in the city. He still misses his parents, small, random moments when he comes home from swim practice to an empty dorm and yearns for his mother’s soft touch or his father’s cooking.
He remembers a phone call with them when he had complained about his job and they had been thrilled he had found employment at a small bookstore. He knows that one of his mother’s fears was that he was going to join a gang or start dealing drugs – parents were crazy like that. He looks at the photo frame of his parents every night before going to bed.
But really, Jungkook can’t complain about his job – Serendipity Books is close to his dorm, has pretty good hours and it means he isn’t subsisting solely on ramen and fast food. The only drawback is Jimin, his co-worker who hates his guts and looks at him like he’s a piece of shit he just smushed into the sidewalk. When Jimin isn’t glaring at Jungkook he’s too busy doing dizzyingly complicated pieces of math on spare pieces of paper or falling asleep on the job.
“Hey, are you the new kid?”
Jungkook looks up, realising he’s supposed to be looking after the store and not zoning out. A young man is standing on the other side of the counter, looking like he’s just walked out of the pages of a high fashion magazine. He has the most artfully designed face Jungkook has ever seen, like the perfect proportions of a statue come to life. He's also impeccably, elegantly dressed. Jungkook snaps his jaw shut, realising suddenly that he’s gaping in stupefaction like a goldfish.
“Uh, yeah, that’s me?”
“Oh, cool, I’m Taehyung, maybe my Dad let you know I was coming in today?” He raises his eyebrows, looking charmingly like a model in an advertisement for the most perfect eyebrows in existence. Jungkook blinks, trying to goad his one brain cell into forming a coherent response.
“Oh! You’re Mr. Kim’s son?” He can see the similarities now – their jocular dispositions, the shape of their eyes, and also, as Taehyung joins him behind the counter with an amiable arm around his shoulder, their complete disregard for personal space.
“Yeah, that’s me! I drop in sometimes to help my dad out with the shop, so you might get tired of my face after a while.” He laughs, his face startling close to Jungkook’s own. He can almost count the individual strands of Taehyung’s long eyelashes, smell the flowery citrus scent of his hair. Too close. Way too close.
“Is Jimin around?” Taehyung casts a look around the store, giving Jungkook a few seconds to step back and secretly put some space between them.
“He’s, uh, somewhere in the store room.”
Taehyung gives him a pitiful look. “He giving you a hard time?”
“Not exactly,” Jungkook hedges. He doesn’t want to insult Jimin behind his back, even if Jimin hates his guts and told him on his first shift that the only useful purpose he served in the store was dispensing carbon dioxide for the indoor plants. “He’s just – well, a little prickly.”
“Like a cactus,” Taehyung agrees, with all the insightful wisdom of a spiritual monk. “And also like a cactus, he has a soft interior. He’s a good guy, he just… has trouble opening up to people.”
“Right. Are you guys close?”
“Childhood friends! I love him, prickles and all.” He reaches forward to put a hand on Jungkook’s arm, the sudden touch sending little fluttering bubbles up into his stomach. He doesn’t even register the slight twinge his muscles make in protest. Taehyung’s gaze is a light brown, the sunlight in the store drawing out small specks of honey in his eyes. Jungkook swallows, feeling a rush of vertigo that only stops when he leans away and breaks contact.
“Well, I should get to class, if you see Jimin let him know I stopped by? It was nice to meet you, Jungkook!” Taehyung hops over the counter, tossing a smile over his shoulder.
Jungkook rests his head on his hand, watching him leave the store and step out onto the sidewalk. He watches through the wide windows until he sees Taehyung’s head disappear into the crowd, and then leans back against the wall and expels a deep breath. The prospect of working at Serendipity Books has just become startingly more appealing for a reason unknown to him. He wouldn’t mind getting more shifts, maybe he should let Mr. Kim know the next time he sees him.
That feeling of anticipation sweeps him into next week, when he walks into the store at the start of his next shift. He has the opening shift this time - 8 am - early enough for the syrupy light of the winter sun to drench everything in pale yellow. The shopfront is strangely deserted: Mr. Kim had let him know that it would be only him and Jimin in the store today, which means that Jimin is probably irritatingly – and predictably – late.
Jungkook makes his way to the storage room, fumbling with the keys to the door that opens up to the backstreet alley way. Hoseok should be waiting for him – he can already hear the rumble of the truck filtering through the door. The door swings open into the soft dawn, and Jungkook steps out onto the uneven cobble stones.
Other than the truck, the alley is strangely empty. He rounds the truck, spotting Hoseok in his red delivery shirt, kneeling on the ground. Something doesn’t seem right.
“Hey, Hoseok? You okay?”
Hoseok looks up with terror written on his face. He’s leaning over a body, the crumpled shape of a man in a grey business suit. Jungkook comes closer, notices the man’s pallid, familiar face, his eyes open in a milky, vacant stare.
“You need to call the police, Jungkook,” Hoseok says, his voice reverberating in the empty alley. “He’s dead.”