Work Text:
“and this is the register. i’ll spell it out for you: don’t fucking touch the register until you’ve read the manual on how to use it properly.”
yoongi thrusts a coffee-stained manual into the kid’s hands, gets a proper look at him. he’s tall, pretty, all wide eyes and long fingers and a rounded nose. he looks at yoongi with mild disinterest juxtaposed with raw excitement, like he’s stuck between wanting to come off as cool but not being able to keep his face composed. yoongi thinks it’s all in his expression. his eyes give everything away.
the shop’s last employee had only been around for a week until she showed up drunk half an hour late to shift and threw up in the backroom, left the shop unattended for a cigarette break, and completely took off in the middle of her and yoongi’s shift without telling anyone. inevitably, she had been fired, and a new vacancy opened up, filled almost immediately. yoongi thinks it’s because desperation doesn’t look good on an ice cream shop made entirely of pastel walls and cute, bubbly menus, but he’d never say it openly.
“okay, i can do that. yeah. i got it,” the kid says, like he’s convincing himself. yoongi squints at the name tag printed on the strap of his apron: jungkook.
“you sure?”
“i’m sure.”
“i’m not going to repeat this, and i’m not going to train you how to scoop ice cream into a cup. you got hired because you have two working hands and enough neurons in your brain to tell them to move.”
jungkook bites his lip like he’s trying not to say something offensive. “i know. i can do it.”
“alright.”
“yeah.”
GOOD DAY is a confectionery dream, or that’s what yoongi is supposed to advertise. it doubles as an ice cream chocolate shop, selling eight flavors of ice cream along with fudges and chocolates and chocolate-dipped sweets and other assorted chocolate bullshit yoongi lost interest in as soon as he started having to dole it out to others. they do coffee and they do milkshakes and they do service with a smile and the customer is always right and would you like a receipt? no? okay, i’ll just waste this paper for you while our ecosystems deplete at an alarming rate due to global warming.
yoongi feeds into it. he needs those tips like how he needs to breathe.
to say that yoongi is ecstatic to have a new coworker is an exaggeration. to say he’s looking forward to it even borders the wrong side of hyperbole. this may be accentuated by the fact that it’s eleven in the morning and yoongi is running on forty-five minutes of sleep.
jungkook fills the uniform out better than yoongi does. his shoulders are broader. it’s a pink collared shirt and blue apron that reads HAVE A GOOD DAY! on it in cursive, soft colors that blend into the alabaster of jungkook’s skin easily. yoongi watches him struggle to find the drawer in the back with all the plastic gloves in it for thirty seconds before taking pity and opening it for him. jungkook’s sheepish expression is worth it.
“thanks,” he says.
“no worries,” yoongi replies.
/
“say, what’s your name?”
“i’m wearing a name tag, and so are you.”
a nervous laugh. “isn’t it the proper thing to ask, though?”
“alright, alright. i get it.” a pause. “i’m min yoongi.”
a smile. “cool. i’m jeon jungkook. nice to meet you, yoongi-ssi.”
“nice to meet you.”
/
jungkook has a hard time remembering the passcode to open the register and has started writing it on his hand at the beginning of every shift.
a few hours before closing, yoongi sticks a post-it on the freezer in the back:
the code is 4487963. 4+4=8, and 7x9=63, so remember it like that. i’d rather you not get ink poisoning.
jungkook’s fingers fold over the note delicately, a small smile blooming on his face that yoongi can see from the window on the backroom door.
his laugh is full of awe, and the sound of it mixes together like watercolor.
/
yoongi makes himself coffee for the third time, having pulled an allnighter and knowing he's working till closing, which is not for another five hours. he swears under his breath at the realization and pours more into his cup, sets it on the counter, scalding.
“jungkook, can you get me the milk? it’s in the fridge in the back, i’m just tired and can’t be bothered.”
wordlessly, jungkook passes yoongi the milk. yoongi pours too much into his cup but doesn’t find himself caring too much about it. he thanks jungkook and lets it cool for a few moments before deciding he doesn’t give a shit and burns his tongue pouring it down his throat.
he’d been working on a track too late, inspiration finally coming to him at four in the morning and exiting an hour after he was supposed to get ready for work. he stumbled in just barely on time, just barely presentable for the day. jungkook looked like he wanted to get the first aid kit.
“how can you take all the food like that?” jungkook asks when yoongi has sat down on the counter, glaring at the door like he’s daring anyone to come in.
“what do you mean?”
jungkook points to the camera at the front of the store that overlooks everything inside. “there’s security footage of you taking all of it?”
yoongi just snorts into his coffee. decisively he sets it down, grabs a styrofoam bowl and fills it with two scoops of ice cream and layers caramel and chocolate sauce on it, sprinkles and maraschino cherries, the whole fucking deal. jungkook watches his every move with his mouth gaping open, and it nearly hits the floor when yoongi sets the ice cream in front of him.
“dig in,” yoongi insists, and grabs his mug again. it’s warm in his hands.
“but hyung —”
“the camera broke about six months ago and the manager still hasn’t bothered to get it fixed. trust me. nobody gives a shit, kid.”
jungkook’s expression is hesitant: eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed. he scowls at the ice cream like it’s a test of his morality and ethical behavior.
it’s only when yoongi hands him a spoon that he relents, giving into childish excitement. his face changes and he stuffs his face with the ice cream and gives a downright filthy moan at the taste, corners of his mouth stained with chocolate. his eyes close. he hums, mumbles out a “thank you, hyung,” and chases the sprinkles with the tip of the spoon.
yoongi coughs, eyes never leaving jungkook’s face. he feels his heartbeat skip and move just the slightest bit faster, and denies himself the truth that he’s flustered.
/
“hello!” yoongi greets cheerfully, bowing as two customers walk into the shop, mother and daughter. he gives them a friendly smile and a, “can i get you started on anything?” before rattling off the newer ice cream flavors the shop has and the best selling chocolate on display.
the couple says they’re just browsing. yoongi watches the way their shoes track mud on the tiled floor. it’s been raining buckets outside for the past few hours, and the knowledge that yoongi is going to have to mop up the fuss before closing makes him almost whine.
eventually, they decide on a scoop of strawberry ice cream to share. yoongi rings them up and forces his bubbly, work smile to reach to his eyes. he thanks them for coming in and watches the mother put a five thousand won note into the tip jar.
when they leave, yoongi’s scowl returns. jungkook is in the backroom laughing so hard that the sound shakes the floor and seeps into yoongi’s bones.
“what’s so funny?” yoongi asks, opening the door to the backroom, his no-nonsense tone on.
jungkook is sitting at the desk doing homework for his computer science class, or he must have been. now, his eyes are screwed shut and laughter is spilling out of his mouth. his smile is wide, slight overbite and big teeth that are inexplicably cute, in whatever odd way teeth can manage to be cute . he catches his breath for just a second, and between giggles, looks at yoongi. he holds his gaze. and then just as quickly, he bursts out laughing all over again.
god, yoongi thinks, where did this kid even come from?
“it’s just,” jungkook says, putting his pencil down, voice breathless. “you do this thing,” another giggle, “whenever customers come in. you flip like a switch and pretend to be all bubbly and adorable —hyung, wait, no stop it’s so funny don’t look at me like that, stop—”
yoongi hits him over the head lightly, tries to look unimpressed or disinterested in whatever nonsense jungkook is saying, but he’s laughing, too.
“get back to fucking work,” he says, ignoring the light in jungkook’s eyes that seems to saturate the air and ask it to come out and play.
as he bends back over his textbook, yoongi commits every detail of jungkook’s face to memory. the crinkle in his nose when he laughs, the natural upturn of his lips, the juncture where his jaw meets his neck. he drinks it like tea, in sips, with sugar, and then longer draughts until it washes down his throat.
/
the sun is out and begging to be adored, shining like the acid rain on the pavement is just a stain in the wash and the beat of yoongi’s chest is a metronome rather than a broken clock, ticking and ticking without reason. it’s a good day, he thinks. he managed to sleep the whole night. he woke up twenty minutes before his alarm and felt like he got extra time to sleep when he went back to bed to wait for it.
yoongi props the front door open and lets some of the sunlight in, the breeze. he sweeps the dirt from people’s shoes away from the entrance and into a dust bin. his skin feels warm, something that makes him smile genuinely, fully. this is a good thing.
he misses jungkook’s staring at him from inside the shop, cheeks dusted pink.
/
“tell me more about you.”
they’re working through today’s tasks. every shift, they work through a list of restocking or dipping various things into chocolate or checking inventory. today, they’re de-stemming and taking the stickers off of a hundred and fifty granny smith apples for the next shift to dip in caramel.
the tips of yoongi’s fingers sting. he twists the stem of the apple till it falls off and tosses it in the garbage bin and peels the sticker off, pressing it to the sleeve of jungkook’s jacket. he puts the apple on the table in line with the other ones, rows and columns, rows and columns.
yoongi mulls over jungkook’s question like it’s a heavy weight in his hands, humming distantly. jungkook presses a sticker to his shirt. there must be thirty of them littered on the fabric by now, and yoongi thinks it’s like new-age art or a constellation. who knows. maybe it's something that isn’t poetic at all, maybe just produce stickers stuck to the back of his shirt. the choice is riveting. strangely, he thinks, perception is cool.
“what do you want to know?”
humming. their movements are robotic. twist, pull, throw. scrape, peel, press. set the apple down.
“what color was your hair before you dyed it?”
yoongi chuckles. “that’s what you want to know?”
“yeah.”
somewhat self-consciously, yoongi tugs at the platinum blonde strands of his hair. he dyed it a few weeks ago, and the color is still striking and new against his fingertips. it was a split-second decision, he now realizes, spontaneity born from boredom and left to nag at him until he wound up in the hair dye section of the convenience store and said, fuck it, why not, let’s do this.
“mint green,” yoongi replies, as if it’s an answer he’s deliberated over and over.
jungkook looks up at him and grins. “really?”
“yeah, really.”
“damn,” jungkook says, quieter this time. he looks at yoongi with an expression that’s devilish: eyes open, big, undulated. “we could have made mint chocolate chip together.”
yoongi glares at the joke, but ends up laughing anyway.
so jungkook takes this as an opportunity to ask questions he must have worn on his lips for days. he asks yoongi when his birthday is (march 9th) and what his favorite chocolate in the shop is right now (the dark chocolates with lemon filling) and how old he is (twenty-four) and whether or not he’d rather be a rabbit or a sloth in his next life (sloth, with a lack of hesitation in his voice that makes jungkook burst out laughing).
twist, pull, throw. scrape, peel, press. set the apple down. jungkook has started putting the stickers on yoongi’s face and the pads of his fingers are cold. the sky becomes a deepening burgundy as the sun sets and yoongi is relaxed for the first time in a long time.
so yoongi asks jungkook what his favorite song is (literally any song by iu) and if he has any siblings (an older brother in the military) and why he picked computer science as his major (because he’s good at it). he waits for the rest of jungkook's response like a cliffhanger when it gets cut off from a customer coming in and tries to act composed when jungkook gives him a smile brighter than the sun when he asks him to continue.
when yoongi thinks about it, the only conceivable comparison to jungkook’s smile is to that of a kaleidoscope breaking longways in half or the inside of cracked geodes, crystalline and shining. crowded teeth and an overbite that’s more endearing than anything else. it makes yoongi jolt with electricity and his heart swell, helium balloon bringing him higher and higher into the atmosphere with no hesitation.
“tell me more about you?” yoongi asks, because he’s curious, he really is. it digs underneath his fingernails and settles on his tongue like an aftertaste he can’t quite get out of his mouth.
jungkook finishes another row of apples. he looks thoughtfully at them, like he’s trying to count how many they’ve done so far. yoongi notices a scar on the side of his cheek and traces it with his gaze.
“i wanna be someone important, i guess,” jungkook says offhandedly, like it’s not a big deal. “like, i want to have people look at me and think, ‘he did something. he worked really hard and got somewhere with it.’ you know? i want that.”
“so what’s stopping you?”
“i let everyone walk all over me, i guess.”
yoongi hums. “don’t let them. you’re in charge of your own life. you’re the most important person. you’re the one who’s gonna be there from start to finish.”
jungkook’s eyes glisten with wonder at yoongi’s words and he nods vigorously. yoongi feels fondness grip at the hollow of his throat and pull, swallowing him whole.
yoongi listens to the lull of jungkook’s voice, akin to the pull of the moon to the tides. he listens to him talk about his dream and never once does he laugh, never, because yoongi feels it too. he feels it when he meets jungkook’s gaze, eyes boring into his: open, inviting, yet so, so, shy.
he wants to be something, too.
/
the grin jungkook gives yoongi is absolutely wolfish as he sets his bag down in the backroom.
yoongi doesn’t really know where to start. there’s the split lip on the side of jungkook’s mouth, a gash on his jaw that’s a rusted brown seeping through a band-aid there, a bruise blooming on the side of his cheek. there’s his hair, too, mussed up and tousled in so many different directions that the knots in his hair he’ll find in the morning will be insurmountable.
“what the fuck did you do?” yoongi is already standing up, anger bubbling in his chest. he has half a mind to yell at jungkook for getting himself obviously beat up and another half to berate him for coming into work looking like this, like he’s just wrestled with a bear and nearly made it out alive, skin and teeth and bones.
jungkook doesn’t say anything except for, “finally told a guy i wouldn’t write his essays anymore and he got a little mad.”
a little mad. yoongi could scoff. his hands tighten into fists and then smooth back, limp. contract, retract, contract, retract. he doesn’t know what to say, so he gets up and starts cleaning the wounds properly, using the first aid kit in the closet in the back behind the extra boxes of graham crackers.
“you’re an idiot,” yoongi says, holding a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a cotton ball. jungkook sits on the countertop and yoongi moves so that he’s between jungkook’s legs that dangle off the edge. they exchange a few looks between each other. yoongi cocks an eyebrow at jungkook like he’s challenging him to take back the statement.
jungkook doesn’t look like he takes much offense to it: he’s euphoric right now, ten thousand feet above the ground and absolutely nothing can touch him.
nonetheless, he winces when yoongi dabs his face with the peroxide, switching cotton balls when one becomes too red. his hands are unexpectedly steady as they run over the nicks in jungkook’s face gently, the boy in question shivering underneath him. yoongi’s fingers are cold, skating across the mole underneath jungkook’s lip and the biting bruises on his cheekbone. his hands are slender and calloused, and jungkook sighs when they dance over the crease of his eyebrow just to smooth it out for him.
yoongi cares for him, focuses on how his hands become warmer, defrosting. a calm sets over him, a sort of peace and contentment despite the situation.
“are you alright?” he asks, and it somehow comes out as a whisper.
jungkook’s grin is lopsided and goofy. yoongi absolutely melts. still, his voice is just as quiet as he chuckles, says, “you should see the other guy.”
before he can stop himself, yoongi runs circles over jungkook’s cheek with the pad of his thumb. “i didn't mean it like this." you're in charge of your life. "don’t go and get yourself hurt like this again.”
it makes me worry, is the unspoken phrase laced in his tone.
he can see the widening of jungkook’s eyes, the way his cheeks flare up underneath yoongi’s touch, and that itself is enough to pull him out of his reverie.
“sorry,” yoongi says, realizing their proximity. he coughs.
“no, no,” jungkook says, eyes cast downward. he bites his lip. “it’s okay. you're right.”
yoongi can feel his heart beating erratically in his ears like he’s a teenager again.
/
in a way, yoongi thought he was a good person. he recycles, waters plants, never skips commercials when he watches tv, returns library books on time. but this?
the after-dinner rush is overwhelming. yoongi’s smile is a permanent fixture on his face, one that feels a lot like plastic and is hard to mold back into his resting expression. he helps customers pick out boxes of chocolate and hands out samples upon samples to indecisive children who act as if they’ve never tried vanilla ice cream before. he feels so close to snapping, a string wound tightly and just begging to burst, an irritation turning to anger because he’s so beyond tired.
somehow, jungkook senses this, and yoongi doesn’t know where or how it happened. his lip is still swollen but the split has scabbed over now, and it looks ugly and beautiful against the pink of the skin. he passes yoongi to get to the milkshake machine and pats his back as he moves behind him. when he helps yoongi scoop out ice cream he stands in front of the display and bumps his elbows on yoongi’s. it’s like he’s telling him to just breathe, to just hold on. he’s there, and they’ll get through it.
later that night, they pour out the contents of the tip jar and order heaping bowls of jjajangmyeon and chicken from the nearest place that delivers, closing up at nine and eating in the back room with all of the lights in the front off.
/
they’re restocking chocolate, pulling out boxes from under the cabinets and carefully making sure they don’t fuck up the displays. yoongi is stacking chocolate turtles and sneaking one every so often, lips smacking from the stick of the caramel. jungkook is wearing the same jacket with all the apple stickers on it. he hasn’t taken them off.
“hey, hyung,” jungkook says. he doesn’t meet yoongi’s gaze, shy for the first time in a while. “what’s something you really, really like?”
yoongi smiles. “there’s a lot of things i like,” he says after deliberating for a few moments.
jungkook sticks the almond clusters back into the display and counts to make sure that they’re all there once it makes its way back into the glass case. satisfied, he moves onto the truffles. he doesn’t say anything, just allows yoongi the space to think and continue.
“i like music. i like kumamon, that bear mascot from japan that’s adorable—don’t say it’s not i won’t believe you, jungkook—and i like meat. i like the fact that the days pass so easily with you. the color black. zico’s newer album.” yoongi pauses, thoughtful. “why do you ask?”
“just curious,” jungkook says. he’s smiling, like he knows something. the same smile that makes yoongi turn to mush and his insides gleam, straight sunshine injected into his veins.
yoongi thinks of jungkook writing GOOD DAY in horrible roman letters on the back of yoongi’s hand when he had been almost too tired to stay awake, a self-proclaimed good luck charm that had worked well as a placebo. he thinks of jungkook blasting jay park on the speakers while they swept and mopped the floors after closing, laughing while dancing disastrously—in yoongi’s case—and absolutely fiercely, all body rolls and sharp gazes—in jungkook’s case—to the thick bass. he thinks of jungkook swapping all the coins in his tip jar with bills from the register and looking caught when yoongi laughed at him for it.
“oh? just curious?” yoongi teases, revels in the way jungkook’s ears turn pink.
“yeah.”
“hoping you were in the list?”
it’s cocky, he knows, but the sound of jungkook shrieking “hyung!” and pushing him away in embarrassment makes it all entirely worth it. despite all of his charms, jungkook is still only twenty years old, still a kid that gets excited by new flavors of ice cream and the cotton candy machine they only ever use in the summer.
jungkook looks scandalized by yoongi’s laughing and shoves a chocolate in his mouth to shut him up. all yoongi does is cock an eyebrow and chew, swallow, before telling jungkook that’s not going to do shit to stop him.
so jungkook presses his lips against yoongi’s, mumbling something that sounds a lot like "why do you have to swear all the time ” into his mouth.
yoongi just smiles, kissing jungkook back, laughing as their lips fall against each other. yoongi is tentative on the healing spot on jungkook’s lip. he can’t help but taste chocolate.
/
this is how jungkook happens to yoongi.
a bowl of ice cream made confidently, no worries of getting caught: chocolate sauce, sprinkles, whipped cream, a maraschino cherry on top. a jacket covered in produce stickers. remembering the numbers 4487963.
this time, jungkook locks the shop when they close for the night, the keys dangling from a circular chain held loosely in his hand. he fumbles a bit with finding the right one at first.
“you sure?” yoongi asks.
the lock clicks. they head out to the parking lot, now on their way home.
“i’m sure.”