Chapter Text
The club was bustling with people, lights were glaring, some girl was crying, and her friend was comforting her – normal for late Friday hours. Nam-gyu was behind the bar as usual serving up a group of very loud, annoying, and extremely drunk girls.
"Here's your White Rabbit," he said, passing the drink he just made to one of the girls. "Thanksss," she answered, a blush creeping onto her cheeks. Her friends got suspiciously quiet and giggly, which made Nam-gyu worry. "Listen, uh – oh my god, girls, shush – would you maybe like to go out sometime?" she asked shyly, shushing her friends halfway through her sentence. "Uhm, thanks but no thanks," he answered, looking her up and down with a disgusted face, and then turned to serve his other customers.
She wasn't ugly per se, just the wrong gender. He then heard sniffling and words of comfort coming from the group of girls still crowded around his bar, which annoyed him very much.
"Oi, you long-haired skank!" someone shouted from behind him. He turned around to see that one of the girls had stopped comforting her friend and had now decided to give Nam-gyu a stern talking-to, as if that was going to change anything.
"Never had an interaction with a girl before I see? That's not how you let down people, but you probably never learned since that's the first time you got asked out since your grandma wanted to take you for ice cream!"
The bartender pinched the bridge of his nose, and before he could say anything, a boy with shockingly purple hair came over—
"Hey, hey, hey, señoritas, what's the problem?"
Oh great – Nam-gyu thought – their pimp has come to save the day.
"This son of a bitch doesn't know how to talk to a lady!" the girl continued, still angry. The purple pimp dude looked Nam-gyu up and down, his eyes squinting to look at his nametag.
"Listen, Nam-su,"
"It's Nam-gyu."
"Yea, yea whatever, Nam-gyu," he dismissed, waving his hand. "That wasn't very nice of you now, was it? You upset this pretty lady and made my girl Se-mi over here angry."
"Oh I am ever so deeply sorry," Nam-gyu replied, his sentence dripping in sarcasm.
The Tinky Winky knockoff huffed and turned around to the girls – "Ladies, ladies, calm down," he said in broken English, which made Nam-gyu have to bite his tongue in order not to giggle. "I'll take care of your drinks, if you come sit with me instead of talking to this fucker" – the lavender cosplayer exclaimed with a dramatic pause at the 'if'. It made Nam-gyu cringe from the inside out.
The girls happily agreed, minus the girl who was telling him off earlier. The walking-and-talking grape paid their tab, swung his arms around two of the girls, and led them away.
Fucking whore, the bartender thought.
He carried on the rest of his night with almost no hiccups, minus the random Karen who found her vodka shots "too spicy" and some guy who looked a lot like a YouTuber Nam-gyu used to follow shouting at him for talking—well, more listening—ok, more ignoring his girl then rejecting him.
"He knows I'm pregnant," she said, sniffling. "Why would he take me here?"
"I don't know," he answered, wishing she would go away soon.
"I do so much for him, and he just ignores it. 'But I need to let loose sometimes too.' Ok? I never get to!" her voice cracked at the end, bursting into tears again.
Nam-gyu had had more than enough of this girl. Sure, he felt sorry for her, but Christ, didn't she have any friends she could talk to about this? Is the random mixologist who just wants to go home and get high off his tits the best option?
He passed another tissue to the sobbing mess, and she thanked him quietly, reaching out for it before someone snatched it right in front of her.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" the random guy screamed at her. Nam-gyu came to the conclusion that this was her so-called boyfriend.
"I was just–"
"No!" he cut her off without even letting her finish. "First, you make a scene and now you're flirting with this… this?!" he exclaimed, pointing at Nam-gyu, like to prove his point.
"Ouch, man. Rude," Nam-gyu huffed, putting his hair behind his ear.
"Oh fuck off, you can tell she's taken, she's literally fucking pregnant! Or do you just get off on being a homewrecker?" the man screamed at him, making a scene.
Kinda hot, not gonna lie. Protective, the bartender thought. "Listen man, the only person here who I'd be interested in fucking is you, I have no interest in your girl."
"Wha–what?!"
Oops, now he's even more angry.
"I'm not asking for a relationship dude, maybe just, a one-night stand?" Nam-gyu asked, raising his arms in defence.
The man stared at him for a second in disbelief before grabbing his girlfriend by the arm roughly and telling her, "Come on Jun-hee, we're leaving."
Ouch. Double rude.
He looked at the clock and saw 15 minutes left of his shift. Fucking finally – he thought. He wiped down the counter, cleaned some glasses, and ushered the rest of the crowd outside.
It was just after 3 AM when Nam-gyu finally got to clock out. He left through the employee exit, and as he was passing the main entrance, he saw the guy with an eggplant salad as hair giving out autographs and taking photos with a group of over-the-moon teenagers.
He didn’t really pay attention to them; after all, Club Pentagon was the most popular in Seoul, and they got celebrities here all the time. He turned back for a second and noticed that the purple idol was staring straight at him, which made Nam-gyu quickly turn his head back around and walk at a faster pace than usual.
He got home, threw his coat off and practically flew to his sofa. His apartment was small: one bedroom, one bathroom, and an entrance-dining-kitchen-living room.
But it was cosy, and a little messy. There were takeout containers all over the counters, dirty dishes in the sink which ended up looking like a bad game of Jenga, different random half-empty bottles, an unfinished piece of cold toast on the coffee table, and Nam-gyu was currently lying down on a week's worth of laundry.
He looked around and then groaned, turning his head back into the random hoodie laying on top of the pile. Why should he clean if it'll become a mess in a matter of days again?
He slowly rose and swung his legs off the sofa onto the floor, where he put his foot into... something. Probably a sandwich? Well, it used to be a sandwich. The ex-sandwich was his breaking point. He left the room and went straight to his bedroom, opening a drawer in his desk. There lay random bottles of pills, joints, some edibles and cocaine – for special occasions only. He took 3 Xanax into his hand and swallowed them without drinking.
"Fucking sandwich..." he murmured to no one but himself. He slammed the drawer shut and went to the bathroom, turned the shower on, and waited for the warm water to gracefully show up. Once it did, he got undressed and just stood under the water, letting it drip down his aching legs and stiff shoulders. He sighed in relief – standing for 8 hours takes its toll on you. He washed himself up and his hair with about 50 different products – it’s the only part of himself he actually takes care of – stepped out of the shower and went on a hunt for some clean clothes. Whilst looking, he thought he found a black T-shirt, until it meowed at him.
"Shit, sorry Yeon-eu," he said, looking at the angry ball of black fur stretching in front of him. He found this cat at the back of a sushi place eating salmon – hence his name. Nam-gyu pet him, and the cat never really wanted to leave after that. It didn’t mind him though, he had no other company to speak of anyway.
For a job where he got paid to mostly talk to people, Nam-gyu was extremely lonely. Most of the time, he didn’t care — it was peaceful, not having to worry about anyone but himself. But sometimes, when the silence stretched too long or the city felt too full of strangers, all he wanted was someone he could actually count on.
He finally found a shirt that wasn’t soaked in god-knows-what, went to the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of cola and cheap whiskey. Poured himself a drink that was mostly alcohol, then dumped some cat food into the old ramen bowl Yeon-eu used. The living soot ball came trotting over and started munching away happily. Nam-gyu gave him a little scratch behind the ear before heading back to his room with his 90% whiskey cocktail.
He flopped onto the bed, plugged in his phone, and sighed when the screen lit up.
"No notifications..." he muttered.
He opened Instagram anyway, scrolling through stories from half-strangers and party acquaintances. Most of them he met at the club, the rest at house parties or bar crawls. Every once in a while, he’d run into one of them, catch up for five minutes, and then not hear from them again until the next party with free shots and bad music.
He exited the app and turned on YouTube, sipping at his beverage. Even though he was a mixologist, he found the most simple drinks to be the most satisfying. He was halfway through a random gaming video when the pills finally kicked in. He felt his mind stop working in overdrive and let out a sigh of relief, his joints loosening.
He looked over to see his fluffy companion strut into the room and jump onto his bed. Nam-gyu patted his stomach and the cat walked over, curling up on his owner’s chest, purring contently. He smiled and stroked Yeon-eu happily, before returning to his video.
Two hours had passed since then, and Nam-gyu still couldn't sleep. Barney's cokehead cousin – the guy with purple hair from the bar – wouldn't leave his mind. He was annoying and cringey, but he knew him from somewhere. He grabbed his phone in annoyance and started searching the internet for this mysterious walking bruise.
"Thanos, what a shit name," Nam-gyu giggled to himself. Turns out he recognized him from some TV show he watched half-sober at a party a couple months back. He was a rapper – a genre he never listened to. He heard enough shit rap at work, why would he want to listen to more in his free time?
Yet still, Nam-gyu searched him up on Spotify and played the most popular song. Surprisingly, his songs were better than his hairstyle choices. It wasn't something he'd listen to often, but it wasn't bad. He put the phone with the music still playing onto his pillow, lay down comfortably hugging the fast asleep cat, and finally nodded off.