Chapter Text
The last rays of the afternoon’s sunlight bathed the inside of Seokjin’s insufferable thrift shop, tinting the rather dull clothes on each of the secondhand racks with effervescent glow. The sight always made him sigh and wonder when he would ever be able to enjoy a nice day out instead of cooped up doing his brother’s dirty work.
While frost was collecting on the tips of the dead leaves on the ground and on the bushes lining the fronts of the stores, the sun was gracious enough to bless the little town with a little bit of its warmth. And unlike the sweltering heat of the heaters running through the store, it was a perfect balance in the dead of winter. The blankets of white that were supposed to fall ever so gently a few days ago never happened, but Jin wasn’t complaining. He didn’t need one more obstacle on the way to work.
“That’s it!” He glanced to the left to see his friend clambering up the stairs to the basement, clearly exhausted from something he carried down. “I’m quitting!”
His dark hair was an utter and complete mess, the denim sleeves of his jacket rolled up to show calloused pale skin all the way up to his fingertips. He looked less like a high schooler and more like a gym trainer, faint traces of defined muscles peeking through his clothing every once in a while. However, his actions and personality fit an overdramatic, pubescent teenager despite turning nineteen this past fall.
“Uh huh,” he replied dully, continuing to flip through an old Cosmopolitan magazine his mom left behind. The overuse of red and green patterns throughout the seasonal issue almost made him vomit, with the icing on the top being a particular spread about how to get laid on the eve of Christmas (apparently giving him a treasure chest full of kinky shit “is a symbol that you’re serious about wanting to spark up your relationship”).
A pair of doe eyes with a muss of ebony entered his line of vision, hands slamming down on either side of his magazine. “I’m serious, man! I can’t deal with that stingy granny anymore!”
“She’s also our most frequent customer, JK.” Jin glanced up at the seemingly mad boy, but it was hard to take someone who looked the human replica of a bunny very seriously. “You have to deal with it if you want any kind of salary.”
“But-”
A customer slid in past Jungkook, looking nervously between the two bickering boys. “Good luck, bud. Only two more weeks until holiday season is over.” Jin patted Jungkook’s shoulder in (some) sympathy and strolled over to the register to ring up the customer’s clothes. A clear and loud ‘humph’ was sent his way before his friend marched back down, his tough demeanor slowly diminishing as the screams of an old lady echoed from the basement of the barren store.
After bagging all her goods into the worn out, secondhand bags they had, Jin’s lips curved into a brilliant smile - one that never quite reached his auburn eyes. “Have a nice day!”
The lady nodded back, shuffling towards the exit of the store. His feet led him back to where the magazine was, and he noticed that the particular page it was flipped to was a spread on Christmas romance tips with new and old soulmates alike. He scoffed, a lady tucked away in between the racks glancing at him with a confused look before minding her own business.
It wasn’t that Jin wasn’t good looking enough to wrangle himself a man – no, far from it. He was quite the looker, his freshly dyed, rosy locks framing his face rather nicely. It was more the fact that he was more than often closed off to the world, more often the listener than the speaker in most of his relationships, platonic or romantic. It was easier that way, anyways. He didn’t risk the chance of getting attached, only focusing on them. And it’s not because he doesn’t want to, but more so that he was afraid of people thinking he was oversharing, or worse, undermining their situations. So, the word ‘soulmates’ never really excited him as it did with other people, but rather scared him of whether or not he’d ever be able to just be himself.
Three kids came rushing in with a dusting of white on them, parents following after them with weary eyes, and as he greeted them, Jin noticed that the world finally decided that he needed another headache to deal with. Regardless, the large flakes of snow falling ever so slightly looked pretty – prettier than the dull skies they were having the past few days.
As he continued to watch the world get blanketed with a soft white glow, two figures, dark and hurried, came into view through his store window. He frowned as one of them nearly slipped turning into the store and tripped his way through the entrance.
Their eyes met, frenzied with fear, before focusing back on the disheveled man chasing after him into the store. To say what he was wearing was strange would be the understatement of the year, but judging from the head of the costume, it was some sort of black bear with the creepiest pair of eyes he’s ever seen on a bear costume.
“Get the fuck back here, you little shit!” He heard the bear costume bearer scream as he entered the store, black hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. He attempted to lunge at the ‘little shit’, but missed entirely and going down with a rack of clothes that Jungkook had just organized.
All hell broke loose shortly after as more racks and shelves were thrown on to the ground to Jin’s dismay, and he swore the lady from before was more upset about the cardigans she was perusing through now scattered all over the ground rather than the two fighting men in his shop. As much as he tried to figure out what was going on by telling them to stop, nothing was heard in the frenzy mess.
“Get off of me!” The man pinned down beneath the costume clad man screamed, but was only punched in the nose in response.
“Well,” Bear-Man (he honestly had no idea what else to call him until he had some sort of name) pressed his arm down on the other’s throat threateningly, color draining from the screaming man, “maybe if you gave me my wallet, I will.”
Ah. Jin looked between the two as the both of them started to choke each other when suddenly the wallet thief flipped them over. Now I know who to beat up.
As quietly as he could, he grabbed one of the broken rack poles and steadied it so he could hit the perpetrator like a baseball bat. It wasn’t his best or brightest idea, especially if the dude realized he was there and tried to fight back, but it was the least he could do to get rid of one of the two psychos in his store. Bear-Man seemed to notice and distracted his thief as much as possible by holding him in place.
“Let me go!“ After each word, the thief threw his fists down into Bear-Man’s already battered face. Bear-Man, however, caught one of his fists and slammed his own into the other man’s face, catching him off guard. “You fuck-“
Before Jin could process what he had just done (which is slam a metal rod against an actual human skull), the guy was out cold on the ground next to Bear-Man, piles of clothing surrounding them like they were fighting over laundry rather than a wallet. He blinked, dropping the rod. “Oh, no.“
“He’s fine,” Bear-Man spoke up, his face glistening with sweat and bruises. He had a smug look on his face as if he was the one to put down the culprit. “He’s still breathing, so you didn’t kill him.”
“Great, thanks,” Jin deadpanned, narrowing his eyes at the stranger. It was his fault that all of this happened, yet he was acting like he was some sort of hotshot. He heard some shuffling behind him and a small gasp, barely audible. “JK, can you call the police for me?”
The man’s (barely in the costume anymore as half of it was dangling at his waist unzipped) eyes widened, his hands in the air as if surrendering to the both of the boys looming over him. “Woah, wait, I didn’t-“
“Not you, dipshit.” Jin pointed to the unconscious thief on his store’s floor. “The one who actually committed a crime.”
All attention was back on the unconscious man, and the costumed boy took this chance as a way to find his wallet. Jin turned back to Jungkook to see that he hadn’t moved an inch and was instead focused on his hand. “What?”
“Your soulmate.” Their eyes met and Jin suddenly had an unsettling feeling at the pit of his stomach. “It’s,” he gestured vaguely at the wallet-less man, still frantically searching, “that guy.”
It was unlike Jungkook to make jokes at a time like this (but then again, the cardigan lady from before was busy eyeing the jewelry cases at the front as if there wasn’t a criminal in the store), but he still found himself to laugh at the absurdity of his claim. “Okay, kid, I know that you’ve never seen an unconscious person before but-“
“Look at your left hand.”
For a moment, he still thought that Jungkook was messing around when he saw nothing particularly different about his hand until he until he noticed the fine crimson colored thread wrapped around around the base of his little finger multiple times, its other end leading all the way to where the Bear-Man was.
“Holy shit,” He inched forward to further confirm that the other end was really tied to the smaller man’s little finger. “No, no, no. This has to be some sort of nightmare or something.” He kept balling his hands up and then stretching them out, but to no avail did the string disappear. “Things like this aren’t supposed to exist.”
“Sorry, man-“
“Fuck, found it,” Just as the joy in Bear-Man’s eyes lit him up, it immediately dimmed away when he, too, realized what situation they were in right now while studying the wallet’s contents. “What the fuck?”
Maybe he wasn't in the right state of mind. Maybe the best way to confront this new problem was to have a nice, civilized conversation over scathingly hot cups of coffee in the tucked away cafe down the street on this frosty ol' day with his new soulmate. And maybe - just maybe - he should've been a bit less aggressive about something that destiny had obviously picked out for the two of them.
But, Jin had around a total of fifty sweaters, thirty cardigans, and too many jeans on the floor at the moment because of his so-called soulmate's feud with the friendly neighborhood thief, along with many of his metal racks disassembled into hopeless pieces. So, out of every emotion he was feeling at the moment, anger seemed to reign them all. Before either of the two processed what was going on, the usually soft, pink-haired college graduate with polite manners and kind words grabbed the costumed man's collar and looked him in the eye. “How did this happen?”
Eyes wild with alarm and anger, Bear-Man seethed back. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
Jin tightened his hold around his collar, butting foreheads against each other as they both glared with such ferocity that each could feel the heat of their gazes burn into their skulls like permanent tattoos. “Don’t give me that fucking attitude when you were the one to burst into here and ruin my whole fucking store.”
“It was only a few racks-“
“A few racks?!” He scoffed in ridicule, throwing the boy on top of a pile of clothing. “Well, why don’t you fix these ‘few racks’ up for me, and I’ll forget this ever happened?” Jin gestured towards the unconscious man and the mess they made.
The man looked at him like he had lost his mind (which wouldn’t be far from the truth). “I have a fucking job to get back to.”
“Should’ve have thought of that when you turned my store inside out,” Jin smiled at him with utmost sincerity, already walking away to where Jungkook was on the phone with the authorities. “Five hours ‘til the store closes. Better pick your ass up.”
Bear-Man (he really needs to get his name) narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you.”
It was ridiculous how the first response he wanted to say to that was “gladly,” but Jin shook it off. He heard a grunt and some mumbling before the scratching of metal against the hardwood floor filled the humid air. Customers coming from the basement and into the store looked questionably at the piles of clothing and broken racks, along with the strange dressed up man grumpily cleaning it all up, but none of them seemed to be phased as they busied themselves in finding more holiday deals (Christmas over half dead people, he guessed).
Things with Jungkook, however, weren’t going as smoothly. “I-I don’t know! I just work here as a p-part time person thing and I was I think upstairs – wait, no, we don’t have an upstairs, I was downstairs-“
“Let me talk to them,” Jin suggested, cupping his hand over the shaky hands of his friend. The younger of the two nodded immediately and shoved the phone towards him without a warning. “Hi, sorry about him. He’s just shaken from this whole incident. Ah, yes, I’m the owner – or close to it at least. This is my family’s store, and unfortunately the rest of them aren’t in town at the moment.”
While he explained the whole showdown to the poor operator who was probably having a hard time trying to believe whatever was coming out of Seokjin’s mouth, he eyed the newly tied string around his finger, vibrant and alive with a peculiar kind of energy pulsating through it. His eyes followed to the other end of the string, and he found that his unfortunate soulmate was also ogling the thread with the same expression Jin had surely plastered all over his face: fear.
-
“So,” Jungkook said while they were cleaning up the store for closing, “soulmates.”
Even though it was a Friday night, the streets seemed to be unusually empty, streetlights flickering ominously outside of the store. The parking lot was emptying out faster than the clock could read nine, but he couldn’t exactly blame them. Once the police came, many of the customers seemed to automatically evacuate the store despite it being a simple process, and only a couple few waited to come back in. Neighboring store owners peered in curiously, but it wasn’t as riveting as they were probably visioning the situation to be as an unconscious man was being carried out by extremely tired looking EMTs, only a couple of bruises littering his face and neck.
However, Seokjin was wishing that they weren’t the only ones to leave as quick as they did as his flickered from Bear-Man’s (or better known as Yoongi as he figured out through their talk with the police) decorations throughout the first floor to Jungkook. “Don’t.”
“Okay, look,” Jungkook started, stopping his sweeping for a hot second to look at Jin incredulously, “As much as you hate this guy, you’re stuck with him for the rest of your life.”
The guy was luckily nowhere in their vicinity, excusing himself to go to the restrooms a few minutes earlier. “Yeah, good luck trying to get me anywhere near him. As far as I know, he’s going to stay as far away from me as possible.”
“He honestly doesn’t seem that bad, man.” Jin gave his friend a look. “Seriously! Look at what he’s done to the place without the either of us even telling him.”
He was right, in a sense. Jin had never witnessed the store be so festive during Christmas than he had that night, flashes of golden and silver tinsel lining the shelf displays and walls with a fake evergreen perched in the middle of the store’s window, tacky ornaments cluttering it with a desperate plea to get off the plastic branches and on to real ones outside of the shop (question was, where did he find all this stuff?). All of the holiday gear was pushed to the front, organized by color and size, while the rest of the racks held discounted clothing with newly tagged deals. Frost had started to build up around the edges of the window, creating the perfect image of the holidays with the store all cleaned up after the mess.
But, Jin refused to let his appreciation show. He didn’t quite enjoy the festivities of the winter holiday season, and he wasn’t going to let some guy who turned his shop upside down change that. “It could be better.”
A sound between frustration and annoyance came from his friend, complete with a pout. “You don’t even put up string lights and he put a whole freaking tree in the display! Plus, he made the store actually look festive.”
“It’s not even real.”
“Wha-“ Jungkook scoffed, patience obviously running thin. “Where in the world would he find a real evergreen in the middle of a city?”
“Please, you make it sound like we live in Manhattan,” Jin snorted, placing his head on his propped up hand on the glass counter. “I heard there were some a few miles down south.”
“And, you expect you him to drive down and actually buy a tree just for you?”
“Boy, I expect him to pay me for all the damage he caused today, but I’m being a saint and letting him go.”
Jungkook rolled his eyes in response, opening his mouth to add more fire to the fuel that was Jin’s mouth when they heard the creaking of the hardwood floor near them. Glancing to his left, he saw the supposed object of his love and affection out of the costume and in an all-black attire instead, gathering up his belongings. Eternal soulmates, my ass.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Before the oldest of them all could come back with a rebuttal, Jungkook cut in. “Nope, nothing important,” he nervously laughed when Yoongi didn’t say anything in response and rather glared at Jin. “Um, thanks for the decorations.”
His gaze softened when he returned his attention back on the part-time worker and gave a stiff smile. “Anything else I need to do?”
“Other than getting your ass out of here so we can head home?” Jin said, a smirk twisting his face unusually. His delicate features were really not made to be evilly used. “No, nothing that I can think of.”
He swore he saw Yoongi’s eye twitch, but it could’ve been the four hours of sleep messing with his vision. “Look, I’m not expecting a ‘thank you’ or some shit like that, but maybe you could at least try to be nice to me.”
“Nice? After all the havoc you caused?”
When Jin got up out of his stool and Yoongi started to inch forward, fists clenched so tightly that they were starting to turn blue, Jungkook took the initiative to gently steer the smaller of the two towards the exit of the store. “Well, won’t you look at the time! Yoongi, it was great having you here despite stepping off on the wrong foot – or whatever that saying was, but I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!”
Fate, however, had something else in mind as the string suddenly shortened, pulling Yoongi back into the store and almost stumbling into the counter. They both frowned, looking down at their fingers as the string seemed to wiggle around and glow strangely. In unison, they said the only words they could say in that moment:
“What the fuck?”