Chapter Text
Jeongin felt like he was walking on cloud nine. He had spent months looking for a new job to be able to help his brother out with the bills. Minho had insisted that he didn’t need to, but Jeongin just didn’t feel right free loading in his house like he had been ever since he moved in. He didn’t want to be a burden to his brother more than he already had been, and the only way to do that was to help take on some of that extra burden himself.
Jeongin hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to get a job. Sure he was only 19 and didn’t have any fancy schooling under his belt, but he was a hard worker and anyone would be lucky to hire him. At least, that’s what Minho always told him.
Every morning he woke up, circled all the help wanted listings in the newspaper, and went out to speak to anyone willing to give him the time of day. His hand was in a constant state of feeling cramped from all the applications he had been filling out. But Jeongin couldn’t help but smile as he made his way home, because after today, he will never have to do any of that again. He finally found someone that wanted to hire him and he couldn’t wait to get home and tell Minho the good news! Working at a convenience store probably wasn’t the most glamorous thing in the world, but it was better than nothing.
Celebrating his small victory, Jeongin was humming to himself as he made the trek back to his house. The humming stopped suddenly when he felt like he hit a brick wall and fell flat on the ground. He looked up, slightly dazed and confused, and was blinded by a bright light. Within that light, he could see the shadow of a person slightly shorter than him, and he promptly realized that he was thinking so loudly to himself that he was hadn't been paying any attention to his surroundings.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Jeongin said hastily while standing himself up from where he had sprawled out on the sidewalk.
“You just got the job at Bibimbap Stop, right?” The person asked.
“Uh..yes?” Jeongin answered unsure of himself.
He supposed it wasn’t that weird for a stranger to ask, since they weren’t that far from the convenience store. It was a pretty popular one, with a fun name a lower prices compared to anywhere else. Everyone shopped there to get snacks when they had a craving. Jeongin was actually surprised to see they were hiring and was even more surprised that they were ready to hire him on the spot.
“You probably shouldn’t go," the person in front of him said curtly.
Jeongin blinked a couple times as he let the words settle over him, a habit he had recently picked up from his brother since moving in with him.
“I..think I’m gonna go now,” Jeongin said with a nervous giggle as he tried to step around the strange person blocking his path.
“I mean it,” the voice yelled out.
Jeongin let out a gasp as the deep voice somehow seemed to rattle his bones. He promptly followed the gasp with a distressed yelp as the man grabbed at his wrist.
“You’ll be in danger if you go,” the man said pleadingly.
“Look, I’m sorry if you wanted the job, but there’s plenty of places hiring. Just grab a paper and start asking around,” Jeongin whipped his wrist out of the other man’s grasp. “Actually, maybe take a second to get yourself together before you speak to anyone else. This is really not any way to treat a person.”
The man’s mouth opened and closed multiple times, as if he was about to say something and kept changing his mind. It reminded Jeongin of all the different fish he used to watch at the dentist’s office. As amusing as it was, Jeongin had no intention of sticking around to see what this crazy person was finally going to decide to say. With a huff, he finally stepped around the man and was able to continue his walk home.
“Hyung, are you home?” Jeongin shouted while he chucked his shoes off by the door.
“In the kitchen,” Jeongin faintly heard Minho shout back.
As Jeongin made his way to the kitchen, he couldn’t keep the excited smile off his face.
The house the brothers lived in wasn’t very big. What started as a small one bedroom house became even smaller when Jeongin moved in and they had to create space for him. The living room was split in half by a long bookshelf to act as a wall to the space Jeongin now called his room. The kitchen, which once had a nice dining table and chairs to match, was reduced to nothing but a long counter that held all the equipment required to get any cooking and cleaning done. The furniture that used to make up the living room was replaced with smaller chairs and a small coffee table to give the brothers a place to eat. It wasn’t the most ideal way to live, especially with all the little trinkets Minho had a habit of collecting, but they made it work the best they could.
“You’re back early. I’m guessing you have good news?” Minho asked, his back facing Jeongin, frantically stirring whatever was in the pot on the stove.
“Hyung, Bibimbap Stop just posted their opening this morning! I was the first one to stop by, and they offered me the spot immediately!” Jeongin said as he made his way closer and hopped onto the only clean sliver of the counter he could find.
“That’s great baby bread!” Minho responded while taking the pot off the stove and moving over a few inches to place it in the sink to be out of the way as it cooled.
Jeongin took a whiff of the air around him and felt his nose wrinkle at the unpleasant smell he was starting to notice.
“Uhh, hyung, is that supposed to be lunch?” Jeongin asked worriedly.
“Of course not. It’s just something I was working on. I thought you would be gone longer, and you startled me a bit. I’ll dump it out after it cools a little so it doesn’t mess with the pipes.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to mess you up,” Jeongin said sheepishly.
“Nonsense,” Minho said with a wave of his hand. “So when do you start?”
“Tomorrow morning!”
“You’re going to work for the first time on your birthday?” Minho asked with a raise of his eyebrows. He grabbed a cloth from one of the few drawers they had to start wiping down the mess he had made around where Jeongin was sitting.
“It’s taken me forever to find anything. I didn’t want to risk them changing their mind if I said I couldn’t start right away,” Jeongin shrugged, “and it was probably a good thing too. I ran into somebody who wanted the job on my way back home and they probably would have offered it to him. Between you and me, it’s better for everyone that I got the job and he didn’t.”
“Oh?” Minho asked, pausing his cleaning to glance at his brother.
“Yeah, he was upset I got the job first. Tried to tell me it would be dangerous if I took it instead of him. I don’t think he has a good future in customer service," Jeongin said with a shrug.
“He said what?” Minho asked, suddenly taking the conversation much more seriously than he was a few seconds ago.
“It’s nothing to worry about, hyung. It’s a nice place to work. He was just upset that I got there first. At least that’s what I’m choosing to think, otherwise he was just some crazy guy in the middle of the street.”
“And what if you run into this crazy guy again tomorrow?”
“I’ll give him my copy of the newspaper with all the help wanted listings circled,” Jeongin answered brightly.
Minho blinked rapidly, which told Jeongin he had a ton of thoughts whirling around in his head that he was currently trying to make sense of. Jeongin wasn’t surprised by this reaction. Minho had always been a bit on the superstitious side. It wasn’t strange to see piles of salt randomly placed throughout the house, or blue bottles sitting in their doorway in an effort to keep ghosts away. Well, Jeongin would bet other people would find it strange, but to him, that was just Minho. Jeongin knew his brother tried toning his superstitious side down since moving in, but there were some things he wasn’t willing to compromise on. Jeongin really couldn’t have cared less what Minho did. He was just happy to have a place to live and be close with his brother. It was lonely living without him.
“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” Minho had finally settled on. He walked the few steps it took to get to his own bedroom before returning a few moments later. “I was going to give this to you tomorrow night at dinner, but I think I’d rather give it to you now in light of recent events.”
In Minho’s hand sat a silver chain. At the end of the chain was a black prism that Jeongin is sure represented more to Minho than it ever would to him. The prism had silver wire wrapped around it, connecting it to the chain in an intricate manner.
“I found the stone a couple weeks ago when I was running some errands and I wrapped the wire around it myself, so it doesn’t look as nice as it would if you’d get a crystal from a store,” Minho said, his eyebrows furrowed with concern, genuinely worried that Jeongin might not like it.
“I think it looks great, hyung. Gimme,” Jeongin said as he made grabby hands for the necklace.
“It’s black tourmaline. People argue that it’s the most powerful stone a person can find. It will protect you from negative energy.”
“Thanks, hyung,” Jeongin said as he slipped the necklace over his head. “I’m sure it will help me a lot with all the people I’ll be seeing at work all the time.”
Jeongin smiled brightly at Minho, who smiled back at Jeongin just as bright.
To be honest, Jeongin didn’t believe in all this stuff like Minho did. Where Minho sees a powerful stone, Jeongin just sees a jagged rock. But Minho saw the rock, and worked hard to make it into a necklace that Jeongin could wear, and he would eat his shoe before he did anything to make Minho think he didn’t appreciate the gesture. While Minho saw the necklace as a symbol of protection, Jeongin saw it as a symbol of his brother loving and caring for him, and that was all he needed to wear the necklace proudly.
“Shit, shit shit,” Jeongin repeatedly mumbled while he stumbled out of bed.
He couldn’t be sure what time it was since his clock had apparently decided to stop working overnight, rendering his alarm useless, but he knew one thing for certain: he was absolutely running late. He made a quick dash to the shower, leaving a trail of clothes as he undressed on the way. He took the necklace off that Minho gave him and set it on the bathroom sink. He didn’t ask Minho if it was okay to get wet, and he would rather not risk it after having it for less than a day.
He made quick work of the shower. If he was honest, he wasn’t even sure it counted as a shower with how quick he had hopped in and immediately hopped out. He ran back to his room to rummage through his bundle of clothes until he found something suitable to wear. It was a bit wrinkled, but that was the least of Jeongin’s concerns. As he ran past the kitchen, Jeongin could see a small pastry sitting on a plate in the middle of the counter with a note sitting underneath it.
Don’t forget breakfast! Have a good first day at work. Happy birthday, baby bread.
Jeongin smiled as he took his first bite of the pastry. He made sure he had his wallet and keys on him before scurrying out the door. If he walked fast enough, maybe even jogged a little, he would still be able to arrive at work right on time.
He let the door slam behind him and headed in the direction of the convenience shop without a second thought.
Inside the house, in lieu of the rattle caused by the slamming door, the necklace rolled off the sink where Jeongin had left it and landed on the floor with a loud clatter. Simultaneously, the clock inside Jeongin’s room began to chime as if it was never broken at all.
Jeongin was making good time. What started out as a slight jog slowed down to a brisk walk as he turned into a nearby alley. The amount of time he spent walking from one place to another looking for jobs gave him a good layout of the area. While he could get to Bibimbap Stop easily enough by going down all the right streets, Jeongin knew cutting through this particular alley would shave a good few minutes off his trip. Knowing that the risk of being late was pretty much over with this short cut, Jeongin walked with a much more relaxed pace. There was no use showing up to work haggard and upset because he woke up too late. It was much better to take the rest of the walk at a more relaxed pace and allow himself to calm down a little bit so he wouldn’t make a bad impression when he arrived.
Jeongin was about half way down the alley when two men he didn’t recognize walked out from the shadows and stopped in front of him. He thought it was a bit strange, but didn’t think much more beyond that. Jeongin went to step around them, but stopped suddenly when they stepped to the side to remain blocking his path.
“Oh. Excuse me,” Jeongin said with a nervous giggle. He tried to move further to the left, only for the men to also step further to the left. When he tried to step right, the men moved to the right too.
“Ah, I see. I’ll just go back the way I came then,” Jeongin said, turning around. It was clear these guys didn’t want him in this alley, and he wasn’t about to cause any problems over it.
Except when he turned around, there were three more men blocking the way he came.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” Jeongin said raising his hands up in a passive gesture. “I can just leave, and we’ll forget I was ever here, and I won’t come back.”
“It’s a little late for that I’m afraid. We’ve seen you wandering around these streets for a while, little fox. And now that we’ve caught you, you’re going to do us a small favor.”
“Listen, I’m just trying to get to work. I really don’t -ACK.” Jeongin’s sentence was cut off by a pain in the back of his head.
Before he could fully comprehend what was happening, Jeongin was laying on the ground, curled up in a fetal position as he felt pain exploding from all around him. The men in the alley were kicking at him with all their might, and there was nothing Jeongin could do to stop it. There was pain everywhere. His head, his back, his stomach. Were his ribs broken? Every breathe he took felt like a shard of glass was rolling through his chest. His head was throbbing, something he’s sure was caused by that first blow that sent him to the ground in the first place.
When all the kicking finally stopped, Jeongin took a second to raise his head from where he had tucked it into his chest to see if the men had finally decided to leave him alone.
Jeongin yelled out in terror as he saw the boot of one of the men aiming directly for his face. He scrunched his eyes closed, and waited for the pain to begin again. He waited and waited, but somehow the pain never hit. In fact, all the pain he was previously feeling had suddenly disappeared.
Jeongin cautiously peeked one eye open only to be met with absolute confusion. He opened the other eye and stared at the scene in front of him in, not comprehending the scene he was seeing at all.
Because instead of laying on the ground in the fetal position, he was now standing. In front of him, he could see all the men that had circled around him. Inside the circle that the men had formed, Jeongin could see his small body curled up into a protective ball.
“Alright, that should be enough,” the man who had spoken before said.
“What’s happening?” Jeongin asked desperately. “What are you doing?”
“Put the ring on him, and then let’s get out of here.”
Jeoning watched on in continued confusion as one of the men grabbed his arm and slipped a ring on his middle finger. It was when Jeongin’s arm fell limp back down to the ground, that he finally realized what happened. That final kick Jeongin saw coming must have killed him. That was the only explanation for this out of body experience he was having.
Jeongin’s terror grew as he watched one of the men drag his body to the side of the alley. There was a hidden crevice in the wall, the same spot those first men came out of to stop Jeongin in his tracks.
“Stop, just leave me here. What are you doing?” Jeongin yelled out in despair.
He could do nothing but watch as one of the men dowsed his body with some sort of liquid.
“NO!” Jeongin yelled again when he saw one man flick open a lighter.
Jeongin ran forward, trying to block his body from the view of the men that had killed him. Jeongin gasped when the man threw the lit lighter, and it flew right through him and landed on his body.
Jeongin didn’t know that ghosts could cry, but he felt the tears flowing down his face as he watched his body go up in flames.