Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day One - New Recruit 

Stefan took a moment to gather his thoughts as he pulled into the carpark and killed the engine. Now that the rumble of the car had stopped and the radio had died with it, he sat in silence as he watched a mother dragging four bratty children behind her - a fifth one sitting in the cart that she was pushing - out of the store and over to her minivan. He watched her until she’d bundled them all into the van, and then didn’t even flinch when the cart she’d abandoned rolled away and crashed into the car a couple of spots away from him. Instead, he just sighed heavily and got out of his own car. 

The superstore, sadly, the countries’ largest and best example of modern capitalism, loomed over him, a building way bigger than any store ought to be, clad with corrugated tin and a huge sign that stayed lit 24/7.

H-Mart Superstore.

Striding over to the runaway cart, Stefan pulled it away from the car it had collided with and winced at the dent it had left in the middle of the rear door. His satchel containing his ID and personal documents that he’d had to bring ready for his induction banged against Stefan’s hip as he returned the cart, and then when he made way to the entrance and was hit by a blast of air-conditioning as he stepped through the doors it finally sank in that this would be his new home for 37.5 hours a week.

The store was vast, almost overwhelmingly so, with a cafeteria, garden centre, home & décor section as well as groceries, a pharmacy, electronic goods, games & toys and frozen produce. Both customers and staff in the signature blue and yellow uniforms milled around, and Stefan cleared his throat as he stopped by the register closest to him.

The employee manning it was currently nothing but a mass of curly blonde hair slumped over on their stool onto the conveyor belt, face buried within their arms. They didn’t look up when Stefan coughed, and so he tried again, a little louder this time.

“Sorry, but can’t you see that this register is closed?” came their voice through an exasperated sigh that was muffled by their arms. They didn’t make any effort to raise their head, and a half limp hand raised to point at the red light above the register before it dropped back down again.

“I’m not a customer. I, uh, today is my first day as an employee.” Stefan said, not liking how his palms had suddenly grown a little clammy at the thought. Then, from beneath a heavy sweep of curls tumbling over the cashier’s face, Stefan’s gaze was met by theirs as they raised their head a few inches and let their chin rest on their arms.

They slowly gave him a once over, gaze lingering a little too long for Stefan’s liking, but then when they began to stand up and ambled around the register painfully without haste to stand before him, he realised that their movements were just slow and lazy in general.

“Name’s Lukas, he/him pronouns,” he said, then pointed to his name badge before shoving his hands firmly into the pockets of his oversized fleece,

“and it’s Lukas with a ‘K’, but corporate got it wrong. I’d get used to that if I were you.” Lukas finished with an eyeroll, and Stefan glanced at his tag.

It read ‘Lucas’, and there was a single little bronze star above his name.

Now it was Stefan’s turn to give Lukas a once over, though he made much quicker work of it. From what he could actually see, there wasn’t anything particularly striking about him. Most of him was hidden beneath oversized clothing and a mop of curls, and though his complexion wasn’t awful, it was hard to miss the dark circles that looked pretty set in beneath his eyes.

“And you are?” he drawled, and Stefan blinked and adjusted his glasses.

“Oh, Stefan.”

Lukas nodded, then unpinned his name tag and pocketed it.

“Right, well I’ll take you to Matthias. I’m on my break though, so you owe me.” He said bluntly, then stepped around Stefan to head further into the store.

Striding just behind Lukas, Stefan looked around at the store as they passed the aisles and tried to get his head around the layout. Lukas weaved in and out between customers with ease, narrowly avoiding shopping carts and screaming children while Stefan had already apologised to two customers under his breath for bumping into them by the time Lukas slowed down a little and matched Stefan’s pace.

“So… do you not have a break room?” Stefan asked cautiously. He knew that big box stores weren’t the kindest to their employees, but no break room -

“What do you mean?” Lukas eyed him as they walked, looking a little puzzled, and Stefan pointed over his shoulder as though to gesture back over to the registers behind them,

“Back there, at the register, you were… taking your break?”

“Oh, no we do have a break room. It’s just that to take my break I have to get up from the register, walk to the staff area just to sit down for ten minutes then get up to walk back just to sit down again. So I just stay at the register.” Lukas shrugged, making to and fro motions with his hands, and Stefan pursed his lips and nodded once to himself, not really knowing how to respond to that.

“Gotcha. The Store Manager okay with that?”

“You mean Timo?” Lukas gave another glance, then a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth,

“As long as you stay on his good side, you’ll be fine.” He said as he brought a finger up and drew tiny circles by his temples and cast Stefan a warning look.

Great, he was probably just about to start working under a dictatorship.

Just as Lukas led Stefan around the corner and the double doors of the staff area that he remembered from his initial interview came into sight, a mop and bucket wheeled out from one of the aisles, followed by a weedy looking employee who was pushing it.

“Emil, you look paler than usual.” Lukas stopped beside him, and Stefan watched as he leant a little on the handle of the mop looking as though he might throw up,

“I just had to clean up a… well, substance is the only word coming to mind, from aisle 17.”

Emil gestured toward the bucket and shuddered, his face growing even paler still that Stefan wouldn’t be surprised if he turned see-through.

“You’re so lucky that you’re a cashier y’know. Why do you get the cushy job?” He continued, then his attention turned to Stefan as though he’d only just realised that he was standing there. He straightened up a little and sighed ever so slightly,

“How can I H-Mart Help you, sir?”

Stefan quickly looked over his shoulder a little awkwardly just in case Emil was talking to an actual customer behind him, but the aisle was empty. Before he could explain himself yet again, Lukas began to answer for him.

“This is Steven-“

“Stefan.” He cut in, and Lukas rolled his eyes,

“ Stefan , is starting today. I was taking him to Matt.”

Emil relaxed once again, deflating against the mop handle now that he was safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t in the presence of a customer.

“Oh, I thought that this was you dragging a customer all the way around the store to find a Team Member to help him find something ‘cause you’re ‘ a cashier and that’s not your job .’”

Raising the pitch of his voice and taking in an exaggerated soft drawl, Emil made air quotations with his fingers and narrowed his eyes at Lukas as he mimicked him. Then he dropped his arms loosely by his side and gave Stefan an apologetic look,

“Welcome to Hell.” Were his parting words before he disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared, the sound of the squeaky wheel of the mop bucket growing quieter as he got further away.

Lukas turned to Stefan and flipped his hair from his eyes with a jerk of his head.

“Well, this is where I leave you. Head through those doors and take a right, Matt should be busy-bodying around somewhere. He’s the ridiculously tall ginger one, ya can’t miss him. Once again, welcome to Hell, Steven.”

With a quick pat to the shoulder as he passed him, Lukas left Stefan in the middle of the main aisle.  

“It’s Stefan-“ he began to call after him, but then stopped himself short deciding that it was probably no use.

Clutching the strap on his satchel, Stefan pushed through the double doors and took a right just as Lukas had said to and was met by a long corridor, the ugly strip lighting making it seem longer than it probably was. The walls were clinically white and covered with all manner of back of house jargon typical of probably most stores like this no matter the brand or corporation.

Stefan slowed his pace a little and couldn’t help but smirk a little in amusement as he passed a noticeboard covered in photographs printed out on cheap looking copy paper. Each photograph looked like a mugshot, printed in black and white, of a person holding a handmade sign that said things such as “ I’m a worthless shoplifter ”, “ I don’t know how that got in my bag ” and “ at least my mom believes in me ”.

Just as he was about to stop walking completely to get a better look at the board, Stefan jumped as a warm hand landed on his shoulder. When he turned around swiftly on the spot he was met with a freckly face and a wide smile made up of the straightest teeth he’d ever seen in his life. 

“Hey, buddy! You must be Stefan! I’m Matthias, Assistant Manager.” Matthias enthused as he extended a hand out toward Stefan. Compared to Lukas and Emil, Matthias was a bowling ball of energy that took Stefan very much by surprise.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me.” he said as he shook Matthias’s hand.

Letting his eyes run quickly over the noticeboard behind Stefan, Matthias rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment and let out a whistle as he looked at it,

“Pretty impressive huh? No shoplifter gets past Timo without making the board.” he grinned, then pointed to one of the photographs as Stefan returned his attention to it,

“That guy was one of ours. Shane from the warehouse. Nice guy too, woulda never believed it either had Timo not dragged him into the break room and forced him to take his clothes off in front of us all to reveal that he’d been concealing stuff on his person. Man, that was a crazy day.”

From behind his glasses, Stefan’s eyes slid to look at Matthias as he stood still grinning and looking over the board,

“Soon this’ll be your legacy though.” Matthias mused, an oddly wistful tone to his voice, then tore his eyes away from the board and met Stefan’s,

“C’mon, I’ll show ya to your lair and get you a uniform then we’ll go work out your shifts with the Big Guy!”

As Matthias continued with the same level and tone of enthusiasm, Stefan quickly realised as he followed him down the corridor that that was probably just how he spoke, and so he mentally braced himself for the 8 hour shift ahead of him.

“I bet yer excited, first day on the job and all that, right?” Matthias said as he stopped in front of a door at the end of the corridor and pushed it open.

“Thrilled.” Stefan deadpanned, and followed him into the room.

It was much smaller than he expected, and only grew darker when Matthias closed the door. The wall in front of them was lined with 8 or so security monitors, each one split further into two screens displaying different parts of the store in realtime.

“So, whaddya think? Pretty neat, huh? We’ll give you full training on how to use the systems of course, and we’ll need to get you watching some loss prevention DVD’s today, but Emma from regional who did your interview seems to think you’ll do just fine.” Matthias finished with an overzealous slap to Stefan’s back.

Matthias spent another couple of minutes going through Stefan’s job role as Store Security Associate with him as he finished showing him the CCTV room, then led him further into the back to a little locker room full of shelves upon shelves of the signature blue and yellow uniform. Unlike Matthias who wore a bright yellow polo shirt, Stefans uniform gave him the choice between either a blue sweatshirt or a t-shirt which would then be accompanied by a very flattering yellow vest. 

Stefan, who wasn’t very good at small talk, found that after only spending little under half an hour with Matthias his neck was beginning to ache from nodding so much along to what he was saying. Once he’d ended up choosing the sweatshirt over the t-shirt, Stefan had been allowed five blissful minutes to himself while he got changed in the mens room. 

He stood at the sink and ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it down where it was sticking up at the back with a little water as he peered at himself in the mirror. Then, it finally sunk in. He’d really taken a job at a big box store in a brand new town with no friends, no family nearby, and nothing but a couple months worth of rent in the bank. 

“Hey bud, ya doing alright in here?”

Matthias interrupted Stefan’s thoughts as he poked his head around the door and met his eye through the mirror.

“Ooh, lookin’ good! I just radioed through and Timo’s in his office ready for ya. Let’s go make it official!”

Practically bouncing out of the mens room, Matthias disappeared again into the corridor, and when Stefan followed him out he led him back towards the big doors that opened out onto the store floor and stopped outside one of the first office that they came to. The door was closed and locked with a keycode. 

As Matthias punched in the code, Stefan looked at the metal plaque on the front reading ‘Store Manager’ and prepared a mental image of Timo as he thought about how he’d been described in passing. The fact that Lukas had made reference to staying on his ‘good side’ and Matthias had referred to him as ‘The Big Guy’ quickly conjured up an idea in Stefan’s mind of exactly the type of person his boss would be. Not forgetting the shoplifter board either, Stefan sighed through his nose as he pictured the typical tall, well built, slightly unkempt wannabe businessman that would no doubt be sat lounging in a swivel chair on the other side of he door. Dark hair, dirty stubble, probably made sexist jokes; Stefan had more than experienced this guy reincarnated several times. 

The keycode pad beeped as it granted Matthias access, and he opened the door to step into the room. He held it open and motioned for Stefan to step in first, and Stefan had to hide his shock when he was met with the exact opposite of the image he’d been holding in his head. 

“Ah, Mr Oxenstierna, please come in and take a seat, it’s great to meet you. Matthias, go and fetch us three a coffee will you?” 

Timo began to rise up from his chair in greeting as Stefan entered the room, and Stefan felt his brows raise in surprise when he’d stopped at no more than 5 foot 6. With smooth blond hair, round face with plump cheeks, and well, large build, for want of a better word, Stefan half expected the man before him to be an intern, But sure enough the ID badge pinned to his shirt and name plate on the desk both read Timo . 

Perhaps he should take this as a lesson learnt not to stereotype . 

Taking a seat in the chair opposite Timo, Stefan sank into it and clasped his hands in his lap.

“Welcome aboard my ship, Stefan, I’m sure the crew gave you a warm welcome?” Timo beamed as he too sat back down and opened his arms out widely to gesture to the room and the rest of the store beyond the walls. 

The red carpet hadn’t exactly been rolled out, and Lukas and Emil hadn’t exactly given off the best first impression of the store, but Stefan didn’t have the heart to break that to Timo upon his first encounter, and so he just nodded curtly.

“They did.” he said, and Timo’s smile grew impossibly wider,

“Good. Now, I won’t keep you too long, but I just thought that we should have a quick little chat before you sign your contract.”

Opening a drawer in his desk, Timo rummaged around and leafed through a heavy stack of papers that he pulled out and dropped loudly onto the desk. The pink of his tongue poked out as he thumbed quickly through the pages until he found the document that he was looking for.

“Okay, here we are. So,” he paused to slide the single page document toward Stefan who leaned forward to look at it on the desk before him.

“Matthias will go through the store policies with you in a moment and make sure you’re up to speed with the code of conduct, but I just wanted to draw your attention to this little contract.”

Standing up again, Timo placed both his palms flat on the desk and leaned over it so that he was nearly looming above Stefan while he was seated, but still not quite.

“This is my store. That means that everything goes through me, and me alone. Regional hired you to be my head of security, but that doesn’t mean you’re not on the same level as the rest of our family of troops. You report to me, and you receive your orders from me. Is that clear?”

Despite the light tone to Timo’s voice, Stefan felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at his words. He swallowed thickly, giving Timo a firm nod of understanding as he was pinned beneath his glare.

Then, the door behind them opened as Matthias returned, and Timo settled back into his chair with a content sigh as his bright smile returned. 

“Perfect timing, Matthias, thank you!” 

Pulling up another chair, Matthias sat down beside Stefan and handed him a styrofoam cup of coffee. Stefan took it gingerly and held it a little awkwardly in his hand as he looked between Matthias and Timo.

“Do you take sugar, Stefan?” Timo offered, holding out a couple of little sachets as he nodded toward the cup in his hand.

“Oh, uh, no thanks. Just black is fine.” he said, setting his cup down on the desk.

“Snap, me too! I think we’re going to get along just fine.” Timo enthused, setting down his own cup so that he could lean his elbows on the desk and place his chin in his palm,

“Now, if you want to sign your contract and make it official, the job’s all yours.” he smiled sweetly, so sweetly in fact that Stefan began to second guess himself and wonder if he’d read too much into Timo’s words just moments ago. Matthias didn’t seem to sense the tension in the room, and instead grinned at Stefan eagerly as he picked up the pen on the desk and held it over the dotted line. 

He hesitated for a moment, casting a final glance between Matthias and Timo before he let out a breath that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding and signed his name.

“Nice one buddy!” Matthias smiled warmly at Stefan, and Timo took the contract from him as he handed it to him, then once it was away in the drawer he extended his hand toward Stefan again, though this time to shake it.

“Welcome to H-Mart.”

Chapter Text

Day Two - Shoot for the Stars

Lukas blinked blearly and sighed in exasperation when the bus stopped and dropped him off in a huge puddle. Looking down, his feet were below at least an inch of water, and the yellow of his canvas converse were quickly staining dark with water.

“ Great. ” he grumbled, cursing under his breath as he stepped up onto the pavement, his shoes already squelching. 

It was 06:57am and the sun hadn’t long since risen above the trees, the light still low and dim.

Zipping his fleece up to his chin and burying the lower half of his face in it, Lukas stifled a yawn as he set off towards H-Mart. Cars passed on the highway as he walked along while savouring the last dregs of his coffee, and so he turned the volume up on his podcast playing through large headphones in a vain attempt to drown out the noise of the traffic.

Between working part time at H-Mart, Lukas was a geography student, and found that he was in a state of constant exhaustion as he neared the end of his final year. The topic of the podcast wasn’t particularly thrilling - 60 minutes of sedimentary rocks - but Lukas had to study them somehow, and pulling an all nighter last night for what would have been the 3rd in a row wasn’t the smartest idea; even he knew that.

As he walked, the corrugated cladding of the store soon began to appear, and Lukas felt his shoulders slump at even just the thought of the day ahead. He’d been at H-Mart 6 years too many, currently one of the longest serving employees, and had long since stopped wondering if today was going to be any different from yesterday. It never was.

The parking lot itself was at least the size of a football pitch, and Lukas picked his way through the gap in the bushes the same as he did every morning to cut across and save having to walk all the way around. Many would think that only staff would be in the parking lot at this time in the morning, but oh that would be such a naive thought. 

Lukas pursed his lips and nodded in awkward greeting as he walked past the guy who’d parked his camper at the back of the parking lot 8 months ago and only moved with Timo called the police, but only to come back again a couple hours later. He stood leaning against it smoking a cigarette, and Lukas quickened his pace. There were a few other cars parked too, one with suspiciously steamy windows that Lukas avoided with a wide berth. 

Finally, he got to the staff entrance and tossed his empty coffee cup in the trash. Just as he was turning the corner he spotted Stefan; the poor guy from yesterday who’d actually shown up for his next shift. Hovering on the spot for a moment, Lukas debated turning around and waiting around the corner for a moment until Stefan had gone inside and just pretend that he hadn’t seen him. But as he watched, Stefan seemed to be growing frustrated, looking between his phone and the door code keypad. 

“ Of course the code doesn’t work .” Lukas muttered to himself, pausing his podcast and taking his headphones off and let them hang around his neck. He debated turning his hearing aids off to avoid small talk, but his mother raised him better than that.

With a quick, sharp inhale, Lukas turned the corner and exchanged an awkward half-smile with Stefan as he approached him,

“Mornin’.” Stefan greeted lowly, taking a step back from the door and gesturing to it with a shrug. 

“Code doesn’t work.”

Nodding in acknowledgement, Lukas began to punch in his code to let the pair of them in, stealing glances at Stefan as he did so from beneath his mop of hair. The bright blue and yellow of the nylon uniform was garish, and it was impossible for anyone to look good in it, Stefan unfortunately was no exception as he stood there fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt.

“Such ugly colours, don’t you think?” Lukas said as he opened the door and stepped inside, then held it open for Stefan, “I don’t mind the blue, but clashed with the yellow it’s like they want to make look obvious that we’re paid minimum wage.”

Following Lukas inside, Stefan let out a single, deep awkward laugh,

“Don’t think I should comment on that. I’m Swedish.” he said, and Lukas just blinked at him, confused. Stefan laughed again, though this time with a little amusement on his face,

“Colours of the flag? Blue and yellow?”

At his words, Lukas felt his face redden and his jaw slacken in realisation. Spluttering an apology, the person who was supposed to be a geography student turned and dashed up the stairs, hurrying to put distance between himself and the Swede out of embarrassment.  

Despite the time of the morning, the staff back area was busy. As Lukas pushed open the door to the break room with his shoulder he walked in on the room three quarters full already. Hanging his bag up, he swiped his ID card through the machine on the wall and clocked in, then made a beeline for the coffee machine. He stifled another yawn as he watched the beautiful, dark liquid fill the paper cup, and then jumped and nearly spilt it over his hand as he picked it up when Timo entered the room and clapped his hands loudly.

“Good Morning, troops!” he announced, his voice way too loud and way too chipper for 07:15am as he addressed the room. Slinking across the room, Lukas found an empty chair and sat down. Chatter began to ceace, but not quickly enough for Timo’s liking as he clapped his hands again, and Lukas listened to the overall tone of annoyance through the grumbles and groans as everyone stopped talking at once. 

“Alright, let’s settle down! Thank you. Yesterday we took a total of 78 thousand across all departments, and we have a two for one offer on kids apparel until next Thursday so make sure you push the seasonal items.” he rattled off, then paused as he glanced up, 

“Now it’s nearing the end of the week, so you know what that means.” he paused for dramatic effect, then threw his arms open wide, “H-Points!”

Another wave of exhales and unenthusiasm travelled around the room at Timo’s words, but he ignored them as he looked down at his clipboard again,

“Rachel is in the lead, again , with 62 sign ups, everyone give her a round of applause,” he stated enthusiastically, and Lukas glared at her and her smug expression across the room as he brought his hands together in three short claps while Timo continued.

“But there are some of you who aren’t doing so well. I need you to work hard at it this week if you don’t want a disciplinary. I know my office is great, but at the moment it has too many frequent visitors that I might as well just call it tourism!”

Despite his light tone and poor attempt at humour, Lukas felt the weight of Timo’s eyes narrowed in his direction and folded his arms tighter across his chest. 

“And lastly, my final point is to welcome a brand new team member on board.” 

Quickly scanning the room to pick him out, Timo paused for a moment before raising his coffee cup in Stefans direction as he sat awkwardly in the tiny plastic chair, his legs too long to fit under the breakroom table,

“Stefan will be joining us as Security Associate! Now I need volunteers to show him how we like to do things around here, preferably a cashier and a team member. Any takers?”

Putting his clipboard and mug down, Timo stood like a sergeant with his hands behind his back and watched as a few people raised their hands, but the majority sank lower in their seats. 

The silence in the room was growing awkward the longer that Timo stood there, and Lukas’s gaze flickered between the Store Manager and Stefan who looked uncomfortable with the attention suddenly on him until a smile spread across Timo’s lips and Lukas found him looking at him once more,

“Lukas! Thank you for volunteering! You’ll be letting Stefan shadow you for a few hours on the register.” he said, and Lukas looked around the room, sitting up in his chair in confusion,

“But I didn’t volunteer.” he deadpanned, causing Timo’s smile to turn into a smirk,

“Oh, I know.”

Pinned beneath his gaze, Lukas wanted to argue, but the warning look in Timo’s eye silenced him so he pursed his lips and muttered into his fleece.

“When you’re done, Tolys can walk the floor with Stefan and show him how to price and restock, can’t you Tol?”

“Uh, yeah no problem.” Tolys nodded shyly from where he sat on the front row, one of the few who’d actually raised his hand to volunteer, and Lukas rolled his eyes.

“If you don’t step out of your comfort zone, you’ll never know what you can do!” Timo said proudly, ending on what was supposed to be a motivational sentence like he did every morning, “Now let’s get out there, troops.”

Weakly raising two fingers against his forehead in sarcastic salute, Lukas dragged himself up from his chair and followed the crowd of employees out of the break room.

Once on the shop floor, the sea of yellow vests began to disperse into their various departments, and Lukas walked around to his register. He spent a moment setting up his space, and hid his coffee cup in it’s usual spot behind the loose fruit and vegetable code sheet. Timo was fussing with unlocking the doors, making a show of greeting the first customers who for some ungodly reason were stood waiting to come inside and browse at 07:30 in the morning. Lukas watched him for a little while from beneath his hair as he handed out shopping baskets and made idle chit chat with his customers, pointing out various aisles where they could find the products that they were looking for.

For at least the first hour of every day Timo could be found greeting customers like this, something that he clearly found pride in.

Lukas continued to watch him from his register until he felt Stefan’s presence by his side.

“What d’ya make of him?” he asked, only taking his eyes away from Timo to slide his gaze up to meet Stefans, who just shrugged,

“Dunno. Seems nice.” he said, then Lukas glanced at his name tag that now was pinned to his vest.

“Well, let's see how long those last and then you can make your mind up.”

Nodding toward the five stars that were in a neat row above Stefan’s name, Lukas explained how the 5 star system was Timo’s idea, and that he liked to take away stars as a warning, and that if an employee ended up with zero stars then they were fired. 

“Everyone walks around with what the manager thinks of you in plain sight, for all to see.” he finished with a sharp exhale, the hair that constantly hung in his eyes blowing up and out of his face momentarily. 

Stef smirked, and Lukas followed his eye as he glanced at the single gold star on his name badge.

“Well, what did ya lose yours for then?” he asked, and Lukas stared at his feet and shrugged,

“Lateness, I guess. And falling asleep at the register.”

He looked up when Stefan shifted to lean his weight on one leg and crossed his arms across his chest, brow raised and smirk still in place. He didn’t even have to say a word, his expression showed exactly what he was thinking, but Lukas wasn’t in the mood to defend himself over it.

“Whatever,” Lukas brushed him off then pointed to his chair, “Okay sit down and let me show you how to ring up items.”

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The hour and a half that Lukas spent showing Stefan the register went by surprisingly fast, unlike his usual shift where a single hour seemed to drag on for several. Although he’d been a little awkward with the customers, practically ignoring their small talk, Stefan was fast at scanning items through and soon got the hang of how to manually enter in items where the barcode wouldn’t read. Lukas bagged up the items for him as to not give him too much to do, and asked each customer if they were interested in the H-Points membership card until Timo disappeared from the front doors by his register.

“There isn’t really much to learn honestly, it’s just pretty much scanning items and pushing buttons. But you picked it up quickly, I guess.” Lukas flipped his hair out of his eyes as he watched Stefan stand up out of the chair behind the register and stretch, pulling his shoulders back.

“Yer a good teacher.” Stefan said, and Lukas felt his face turn a little red as he scoffed,

“Nah, my job is just stupidly easy.”

For a moment, Stefan just looked at him, and Lukas fidgeted a little under his gaze.

“If it’s not challenging then why do ya do it?” he asked, as he looked between Lukas’s name badge and his face, a strange sincerity in his tone.

The question caught Lukas off guard, and so he stood for a moment and crossed his arms over his chest to cover his name badge, suddenly bothered about the fact that he only had a single gold star for the first time in his ‘career’.

“Well, for the money, just like everyone else, right? I know this job isn’t glamorous but it pays my bills and my adult learner fees. It's not easy being a student at our age with no funding.” Lukas said, then watched as Stefan’s usually steely expression softened a little behind his glasses and he held his hands up,

“Didn’t mean to upset ya.” he apologised needlessly through the tiniest of smiles before neatening his yellow vest by pulling on the ends to rid it of any creases that had set in while he was seated.

“Likewise,” Lukas nodded toward the vest, “the colours aren’t that bad really. But only a Swede could pull it off.” 

As his words left his own lips, Lukas found that he too was smiling a little, however it soon slipped away and was replaced by a scowl when a customer began to dump her shopping along with her toddler, that had been squirming beneath her arm only moments ago, on the conveyor of his register.

“Better go find Timo and Tolys.” Stefan took one look at the customer and cast Lukas an apologetic look before he walked around the register and disappeared into the store. 

Sighing between his teeth, Lukas took his seat once more and plastered on his best friendly face.

“Will you be needing any plastic bags today?” he asked the customer as she approached, then bit the inside of his cheek when she scoffed at him,

“What does it look like? Am I going to walk out of here with all these items in my pockets?”

Blinking slowly, Lukas reached for the first item and scanned it through, 

“Of course not, ma’am, how silly of me. Bags cost 20p each, how many would you like?” He kept his tone sickly sweet, already expecting and, sadistically waiting for with relish, the way the customer's face twisted into anger at the fact she had to pay for the bags, and wanted nothing more than the batteries in his hearing aids to run out just as she opened her mouth again.

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6 hours later, Lukas slumped against the register as the light above his head blinked from green to red, signalling that his lane was finally closed. A couple of hours into his shift, not long after Stefan had left him, Lukas had slipped his wet shoes off and sat behind his register in just his socks. Although they had dried a little, they were still uncomfortable damp, and so reluctantly Lukas dipped below his register to retrieve them and began to lace them back up again. 

“ Good Afternoon, this is a colleague announcement. Can Lukas please report to the management office, that’s Lukas to the management office, thank you. ”

At the sound of Timo’s voice crackling over the speaker system, Lukas froze, his heart suddenly lurching up into his throat. He remained hidden under his register while his mind jumped to all sorts of conclusions, none of them good. Over his 6 years at H-Mart, Lukas had only ever been called to the manager's office for disciplines, even more so since Timo took over as Store Manager 3 years ago.

“ Shit .” he hissed, angrily pulling the knot closed on his converse before he stood up. It felt like all of his colleagues eyes were on him as he left his register and walked through the store, though none of them made eye contact with him, probably knowing that this was it; Lukas was fired. 

Racking his brains as he punched in his keycode and heaved the door open to the staff area, Lukas couldn’t even think what he’d done this time apart from accidentally insult a Swedish person. Oh, fuck .

The corridor that usually seemed too long at the end of a shift when Lukas had to trudge to the break room just to grab his bag and trudge all the way out again suddenly felt shorter than ever. Swallowing thickly as he arrived at the door to Timo’s office, he stared at Timo’s name written on the plaque before raising his hand to knock and screwed his eyes shut.

This couldn’t be it, it just couldn’t. He couldn’t afford to be fired.

The sound of the back of his knuckles against the solid wood of the door echoed through the corridor, and he heard someone shift on the other side, their chair scraping across the laminate floor. When it swung open, he found himself face to face with Timo, who was already smiling widely, probably pleased that he’d finally been able to get rid of his worst employee.

“Lukas! Come on in and take a seat.” he chirped, standing aside to let Lukas in, and his worst fears were confirmed when he stepped inside to find Stefan sitting at one of the two chairs before Timo’s desk. His heart sank.

Cheerfully, Timo closed the door and flopped himself down heavily in his leather chair that was nearly bigger than he was, and Lukas gingerly took a seat opposite, avoiding Stefan’s gaze as he hung his head.

“So! I bet you know why you’re here, Lukas.” Timo began, lacing his hands together in front of him on the desk, still smiling ear to ear.

“I-” Lukas stammered, suddenly the most anxious he’d ever felt. He felt his face burn red at how his voice cracked,

“I apologised, kinda, but I really didn’t mean it.” Tearing his gaze from the floor, Lukas finally looked up once more, but found a look of confusion now cross Timo’s features as he looked between Lukas and Stefan and he laughed awkwardly,

“Well, I know this isn’t like you but you don’t need to apologise, Lukas.” he said, and then it was Lukas’s turn to be confused. 

“Stefan told me how thankful the old man was when you returned his wallet to him. This is exactly what I like to see in my employees.”

Pulling his shoulders back, Lukas turned to Stefan, his eyes wide, and just managed to catch the faintest of winks that Stefan sent him.

“He was getting used to the camera’s in the security room about an hour ago and caught you leave your register to chase after him when you realised he left it in the bagging area.” Timo rambled, and Lukas just sat in his chair, stunned, “You did leave your register unattended which was a security risk in itself, but I’m willing to overlook it on this occasion. There’s nothing that I admire more than honesty in my troops.” he finished, then opened the top drawer to his desk and pulled out a laminate gold star.

Then, Timo stood up and leaned across the desk, holding it out toward Lukas, and for the first time since he became his superior looked at him with a genuine smile. 

“But, I didn’t- Timo I can’t-”

“S’alright, Lukas.” Stefan interrupted firmly as he too stood up quickly, taking the star from Timo and handing it to Lukas. 

He hesitated for a moment, but then took it and looked down to pin it to his name tag, his hair falling across his face concealing the huge crooked smile that spread across his lips.

“Now I want to see more of this. Maybe soon you’ll only be the second laziest employee in the store.” Timo nagged, but Lukas just brushed off the patronising comment that would normally have made him harshly bite his lip to stop himself talking back, and instead found Stefan’s eye when he looked up again.

“Thank you.” he said, and Stefan simply shrugged, 

“No problem.”

Timo wrapped up by reminding Lukas to never leave a register unattended again or he’d have to re-watch the loss prevention DVD before sending both him and Stefan on their way.

Once in the corridor, Lukas reached forward and grabbed Stefan’s shoulder just as he was walking away back to the security room.

“Hey, you shouldn’t have done that. If Timo finds out that you lied to him and made that whole thing up you’ll be as good as dead.” he snapped under his breath, narrowing his eyes at Stefan. No matter how thankful he was, he needed to make sure that this didn’t come back to bite him on the ass.

“He won’t find out. Promise. I know his type. Hot headed and likes to be in control, but easily fooled.” Stefan said, leaning against the wall.

Lukas scoffed, “I wouldn’t be so sure. Once a General Major, always a General Major.” he said with an eye roll, and Stefan’s mouth formed a soft O in realisation .

“So that’s where all the military phrases come from.”

The pair of them snickered like school children, though quickly stopped when Matthias came out of the men’s room and stood up straight.

“What did I miss?” he paused when he found both Lukas and Stefan's eyes on him, but then his face lit up when he caught sight of Lukas’s name badge,

“Lu! You got a star back! How’d ya manage-” he began, his voice loud and excited as it bounced off the walls of the narrow corridor, but cut himself off when Lukas held a finger to his own lips. 

“Just doing my job.” he said, then gave Stefan a curt nod as he took his leave, squeezing past Matthias and disappearing back into the security room. Matthias just stood like a lost puppy, looking between the door to the security room and Lukas for way too long until Lukas turned on his heel to head for the staff room to clock out, and for the first time in a very long time he didn’t have a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach at the thought of doing it all over again tomorrow.