On the Corner of B and 8th

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/19704499.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Relationship: Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin, Kim Namjoon | RM/Kim Seokjin | Jin, Jung
Hoseok | J-Hope/Min Yoongi | Suga, Kim Taehyung | V/Min Yoongi |
Suga, Kim Namjoon | RM/Park Jimin, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Kim
Seokjin | Jin, Jeon Jungkook/Kim Namjoon | RM, Jeon Jungkook/Kim
Seokjin | Jin
Character: Kim Namjoon | RM, Kim Seokjin | Jin, Min Yoongi | Suga, Jung Hoseok
| J-Hope, Park Jimin (BTS), Kim Taehyung | V, Jeon Jungkook
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, University Student Park Jimin
(BTS), University Student Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, University Student
Jeon Jungkook, University Student Kim Taehyung | V, Actor Kim
Seokjin | Jin, Min Yoongi | Suga Is Whipped, Sweet Kim Namjoon | RM,
Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Slice of Life, Students
Stats: Published: 2019-07-06 Updated: 2019-08-07 Chapters: 6/? Words:
17283

On the Corner of B and 8th

by jiminalism

Summary

Seokjin is a struggling post-grad just trying to find his big break, but it's taking a toll on him
in the form of time and money. In order to survive while still searching for the perfect role to
jump start his career in acting, he starts working at the convenience store on the corner of B
and 8th, just a few blocks away from his alma mater. There, he and 6 others discover
something they didn't intend to find: each other.
 Jin's First Day
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Today was my first day working at the convenience store on B and 8th.

I had stopped by to the store one day on a whim while on my way home to ask if they were hiring
and the manager didn’t even need my resume or schedule an interview. I was hired on the spot.

“We need someone to work graveyard shifts every other night. Are you okay with that?” he asked.

“Sure!” I answered then, a little too enthusiastic. I had just gotten hired in my first long-term job
postgrad, I was willing to do anything.

I graduated from university as a business and theater double major: business to please my family, and
theater to follow my dreams. My father was actually the CEO for a international distribution
company and wanted to mentor me directly under his wing in the executive office, but I kept
insisting that I wanted to make it on my own, work my way up without a stepping stool. They just
didn’t know that I wasn’t working my way up in the industry they had wished.

Other than taking the classes and fulfilling the requirements listed on the piece of paper that
determine how to obtain my degree, I took no part in business. I never talked to other business
students unless it was for study groups, I didn’t attend networking conferences or join the clubs or
get internships (well, I did have one internship for my dad’s company, but how can I count that if it
was effortless?).

Instead, I put myself through endless auditions for everything I could possibly find, from roles in
plays at my university or student short films. I was able to find a few leading roles there, but once I
ventured further, I came only to find small roles and gigs that just weren’t enough to keep me from
being… broke.

I couldn’t sustain myself as I lived alone in a small shoebox of an apartment with minimal pay for
small roles as an extra on dramas every other week, so I needed to look for alternatives. Before
giving in and contacting my father, I noticed that the convenience store on B and 8th had just
recently put up a “Now Hiring” sign. I figured, why not?

Now here I was, checking out the store on my first day of work, a few hours before my first shift, the
night shift (or graveyard), started for a sort of orientation to familiarize myself with the store with the
manager.

He walked me around the store, through its aisles, informing me on where we store mops and
brooms in case spills happen, instructing me on how to use the machines that store hot foods and the
slushy machines. He talked me through everything about the store, from top to bottom, throwing
information at me quickly and warning me, “Now, it’s very important that you do this-”

“He makes it sound complicated when it really isn’t!” a scratchy voice yells beyond the aisles from
the register. “You’re gonna be fine. All you gotta do is press a few buttons and somehow manage to
stay awake.”

“That’s Hoseok,” the manager said smiling, leading me to the register. “He’ll be the one to teach you
everything behind the counter.” He glanced at his watch, a shining silver band with a wide face that
stuck out like a sore thumb in this honestly grimy environment. “Time for me to clock out!”
“Wait, you’re leaving us alone to manage the place?” I clutched onto my arm tightly and took a
mental sweep of the whole environment, knowing full well that I wasn’t too ready to let my new
boss leave quite so fast.

“Of course! You’ll be fine,” he assured with a finger gun and a wink, before reaching for a bag
behind the counter and heading out on his merry way.

I turned to face Hoseok, feeling my face pinch together. I was still pretty lost.

“Honestly, dude, don’t worry about it. It’s going to be fine,” Hoseok’s bright smile was big and
encouraging, however, to a point that just couldn’t satisfy my nervousness. “Seokjin right? Do you
go to the university nearby?”

“You can call me Jin,” I murmured. “And I did. I graduated last winter.”

“Oh cool!”

Hoseok didn’t look at me like other people did when I told them I was an unemployed college grad.
Maybe it’s because he knows what it’s going to be like afterwards. Or maybe he hopes this will only
be temporary for me as much as I do.

“I’m a dance major and I’m supposed to be on my way in graduating this winter. I’ve started
working on applying for choreographer positions in entertainment companies,” he explained to me,
glancing at his hands and huffing out a sigh. “I know it’s going to be hard. What are you trying to
be?”

“An actor.”

“Even cooler! One day, who knows, we may cross paths in the same company.”

I smiled with him. He was certainly the hopeful highlight to my life at the moment. He was meant to
work the daytime shifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I figured we would barely get to interact,
but I knew I was going to be very fond of him.

“The store obviously isn’t very busy right now, but when someone comes in to buy something I’ll
teach you how to use the register, is that okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He told me it was going to be a waiting game in this store. But since he wasn’t alone today, it was
significantly more enjoyable. “Since I know you’re going to suffer, I’ll come when I can to cheer
you on while you wait around behind the register!”

“That would be great.”

In our moments of silence from running out of things to talk about, I sat on the stool behind the
register and just watched the world outside the glass doors and windows.

The convenience store was placed nearby Hoseok’s and my university, just before a neighborhood
where a lot of college students lived. It was common to see them all rush past the store or wait right
in front at the bus stop. However, at the moment, it was quiet with a small number of people passing
by. I glanced at my watch, major lectures should be in session right now. That’s why.

When I looked up again, a tall and thin figure sauntered by and waited to cross the street. For some
reason I was drawn in. He had a manner that was quite elegant and when he turned his head towards
the store’s direction, it was as if I was watching him move in slow motion.

He didn’t look like the typical handsome college boy I would see around here. He was charming in a
way with a nice lip shape and long-slanted monolid eyes. His features were unique and I would stare
at him more if he didn’t turn away to cross the street. I felt myself watch him longingly until he
entered through the door to the old bookshop across the street.

I looked back to Hoseok and noticed he had tilted his head to take a peek at the guy I was so fixated
in. “That guy comes around the store pretty often as well,” he remarked. “He works at that
bookstore. He’s one of those philosophical types if you find that attractive.”

“I…”

“Found love at first sight? I find it pretty often sitting behind this counter, too.” There went his
cheerful smile again right as a customer finally entered into the store, signaled by the ringing bell
hanging over it.

This guy was dressed in the most popular hypebeast brands from head to toe. I thought he was an
idol, in all honesty. He was probably even one of the most handsome men I’ve seen ever, his jawline
chiseled like a Greek god in Korea. I didn’t feel attracted to him, but intimidated by his visuals. From
the door, he head straight to the counter, chose a pack of gum and dropped it in front of Hoseok.

Hoseok exchanged his bright greetings to the quiet god and scanned the gum. The boy pulled out a
dollar from his pocket to pay, and whispered a thank you as he nodded and turned back around to be
on his way.

“Were you watching well, Jin?” Hoseok asked.

“Not really. Does he come here often too?”

“Usually, yes. Sometimes when he runs out of gum. Other times to snag that slushy deal we have on
Sundays. I know close to nothing about him, really. He looks like an idol though, right?”

“Are there a lot of regulars that you know?” I asked, impressed by his knowledge on the last two
guys that caught my eye.

“Quite a few. Some, I know their name,” he shared. “There’s a guy that lives in an apartment
upstairs named Yoongi. He used to stop by after his shifts at his old job right before I end mine to
buy a can of beer and ramen with an egg. He always asks whether today’s the day to try it with
cheese. He never does. I’ve called dibs on that guy since day 1!”

“You talk to him much?”

“Not really. He’s the quiet type for the most part, but he does have his awkward attempts at
conversation with me when we see each other around here. I find it very attractive, clearly.” I
watched him giggle playfully to himself and did the same. “Since his new job started I try to come
back to the store later to be able to say hi to him.”

After I felt confident working with the register by myself, I made my leave to head home and get rest
before going back to work later that night.

When I came back, Hoseok greeted me just as brightly as he had before.

“Oh you’re early! You excited for your first night on the job?” He asked.
I smiled helplessly in response. “It would be even better if I was working with you,” I replied.

“True. You’ll get bored quickly without me.” He laughed with his entire body.

I joined him behind the counter as he counted the cash in his register as he finished his shift and
found my attention grabbed by a small boy crouched over textbooks while sitting at another counter
set up against the window in the corner. “People study here?”

“Not usually, but Jiminie does.”

The boy at the table lifts his head up to face us as he heard his name. His hair was disheveled from
from constantly being run through with his fingers and the bags under his eyes were especially dark
behind his round frames. He waved at the both of us then promptly returned to studying. Hoseok
leaned closer to me and whispered, “He goes to the university too. He stays here for hours late at
night to study. The old graveyard guy said it was quite pitiful to watch. He gets real stressed out.”

As Hoseok finished ending his shift and went over pointers with me, a roar of laughter gradually
grew until it made its way into the shop, overpowering the sound of the bells signalling arrival,
inviting annoyed groans to escape Jimin’s mouth right before he plugged in earbuds into his ears. A
ragtag group of about 6 excited guys entered the store, half of them running straight to the slushy
machine, and the other half meandering through aisles to head to the fridges in the back towards the
beer.

“Ah, my cue to leave,” Hoseok chuckled. He turned around to pick up his backpack, then waved me
and Jimin goodbye before promptly exiting the store.

The group of boys came quickly to the counter together, bringing all their items for purchase, led by
a bright doe-eyed boy, full of excitement and joy as he was surrounded by his friends. He had a soft
baby face with bunny teeth but he was pretty well-built.

“You’re new!” he noted. “What happened to Donghyuk? He owed me Supreme stickers!”

I shrugged. I didn’t know who he was. “Maybe he works different shifts now?” I suggested.

“Or he quit because his rap career finally took off,” he said, dreamily. “I hope it did! What’s your
name?”

“Seokjin, or Jin, and you?”

“Jungkook,” he answered as I took his and his friends’ items to scan. “My friends and I come here a
lot so I figured it would be good to let you know ahead. You’ll see me a lot. And you seem pretty
cool, so I hope we can become good friends.”

I told him the amount he needed to pay and he took care of the bill without a second thought. I was
just doing my job and reacting to his excited chatter. As Jungkook kept chatting, someone else
entered the door, a visibly exhausted man with terrible posture that head straight for the aisles, his
hands in the pocket of his all-black windbreaker.

“This is my first year in college!” Jungkook continued, even after I passed him the receipt. His
friends took the beer and their slushies and went outside to seat themselves at the tables out there.
“I’m a declared business major! What about you?”

“I just graduated last year. I was also a business major.”

“Really? That’s great! I have a senior in business that can help me out!”
 “I’m probably not the best to help-”

“You can give me pointers on internships and lead me to the right clubs!”

The other customer reappeared behind Jungkook with a can of beer, a package of ramen and an egg.
So that’s Yoongi. He didn’t look too bad.

“Hey, Jungkook, I have a customer right now that I have to tend to,” I said to him gently. He turned
around and nodded.

“I got to get back to my friends anyway. See you later!”

“Sorry about that,” I told the next customer, Yoongi.

“Nah, you’re fine. He’s just a kid that wants to enjoy himself,” he reasoned with a yawn, gently
placing his goods onto the table.

“Just these?” I confirmed with him. “Will you be using the cooking machine?”

He nodded. “Yes and yes.” I watched as he pulled out his wallet and dug through folded banknotes
to give me the exact change. He gave me a small, shy grin. “One of these days, I’ll see what the fuss
is about in putting a slice of cheese on top, but today is not that day.” I watched him then take his
food to the machine and press buttons to be able to cook his meal.

As Yoongi cooked his meal, Hoseok came back to the shop in a sweat in sweatpants and a sweater,
dancing his way in. “I forgot to grab something before I left earlier!” He made his way around the
counter to pick up a slushy cup.

“Was it a glimpse at your beloved?” I whispered as I eyed the guy mixing ramen in the machine with
chopsticks.

“Whatever do you mean?” he playfully responded. “I didn’t know he would come. I simply wanted
to get my slushy container so I can enjoy a mango slush before I go rehearse choreography all night.”

Yoongi caught sight of the two of us talking and smiled as he waved. “Hobi, hey!” He suddenly
didn’t look as drained as he did when he first entered the store. He even stood up a bit straighter.

“Hi! I’ll meet up with you in a sec while I get a slushy!” Hoseok called over. He turned to me and
asked promptly, “Is your shift going well so far?”

“Well considering this is the first hour out of eight, it’s going pretty alright,” I answered, smiling.

Chapter End Notes

Hello! I hope I can continue this story!!! It's been a while since I've written for anything,
so I am going to try to keep this going for the summer. Seokjin's the first piece that falls
into place.
 Yoongi's Finite Financials
Chapter Summary

Money's getting pretty tight for Yoongi, a former music major down on his luck hoping
to make it past the probationary period at a high-paying job in retail. He's gotten used to
being pretty independent, that is, until his bills becoming overwhelming and he
realizes... he may need some help.

“Are you taking it upstairs?” Hoseok asked, pointing to my ramen as I carefully lifted it off the
platform of the cooking machine and onto the counter. “Or eating down here?”

“I was thinking of eating it at home,” I responded, without thinking. Did he want to hang out here? I
looked up to see him filling his cup at the slush machine. “What are you up to right now?”

“I was just stopping by. I have another night rehearsal with my dance team.” He sipped a bit out of
his cup, hummed, then continued filling it up before closing the lid on the top. He reached for his
phone in his back pocket and turned it on. “And I’m late. But that’s okay.”

“Oh, sorry for keeping you...”

“Don’t be. You’re a distraction I don’t mind much at all,” he said matter-of-factly, but I felt a cough
escape my throat.

Even if the ramen was fresh off the cooker, the container it was in didn’t feel as hot as my face did. I
carried it in my hands effortlessly and turned away from him. “It-was-nice-seeing-you-have-a-good-
night-bye,” I huffed out in a single breath as I rushed out the glass doors, Hoseok’s loud giggles
making me feel even warmer.

My apartment wasn’t too far. From the front door of the convenience store, all one had to do was
turn left. There you can find a side doorway to the stairs of the apartment complex built around the
store. Climb the stairs to the second floor, and turn right. Apartment 39D. That’s it! It was a rather
spacious studio that resided exactly over the convenience store, probably right over the register and
the space around it.

Inside, one wouldn’t find a place too interesting. I did have the basics like a couch, dining table, and
bed of course. Except the bed didn’t have a frame and was instead a mattress on the ground (but a
neatly made one!), the couch slightly crooked because of a broken leg, and the dining table a plastic
folding table I found at a garage sale once, with just two chairs set up across from each other. It
wasn’t too bare. I kept my clothes hung on hangers on a rack at the end of my bed, and a keyboard
on a stand at the far wall right in front of the window. On the wall behind the couch I hung up a
tapestry that I found at a flea market once. The design on it reminded me of Epik High’s “Map of the
Human Soul” album cover. It was a nice designer touch on my part.

I set my ramen down on the table with my can of beer to let it cool as I stripped down to my boxers
and threw my work clothes into the hamper in my bathroom. As soon as I finished eating, I was set
to pass out from the long work day.

I’ve been working a few months in retail at a big wholesale warehouse store after having to leave my
last job, rather unwillingly. I was still in the probationary period for this job, like a temporary test-run
for the bosses to consider whether they like me enough to keep me, and from how hard I’m working,
I think they will. The positions at this company are infamous for being hard to obtain anyway, and to
make matters worse, they were losing money and therefore hiring less people than ever, but I was
confident I had a chance. I had to make it, without this job, which pays really well, I can barely
function financially.

I did attend the university here for a year. My family were financially comfortable and were able to
support me as long as I stayed in business-economics. When I later wanted to change into
photography and music, they withdrew any and all support they had for me. I had to try the best I
could to be able to make money to afford being able to attend. I worked on applying for as many
scholarships as I could, participated as a paid photographer for two major newspapers held by the
university, and worked at the circulation desk at the library. In the end, the money I was earning
wasn’t enough to both sustain me and keep my place in the university, so I focused instead on just
having enough to live.

After I withdrew from the university, I ended up working in food delivery for a restaurant nearby,
riding around in a moped that I was able to get for cheap with the last of my scholarship money. I
was doing pretty well. I made good money, had plenty of tips from the college students I delivered
beer to, some of them my regulars every Friday and Saturday.

I was finally beginning to live comfortably then. I was starting to make enough to probably even
consider going to a junior college for a class or two in photography, but good things last.

The one time I was careless and didn’t completely pay attention to the road, I got hit by a car and
thrown off my moped, fracturing my shoulder. The hospital bill wasn’t too kind to me. And neither
was the repair bill for the moped. I lost almost everything I had. After fixing up the moped, I ended
up selling it overpriced to a foolish (but wealthy) student to be able to afford treatment for my
shoulder, but I pocketed the money instead. I don’t think it ever healed properly from that accident. I
just wasn’t willing to lose any more money.

It was then that I was driven to apply and end up working for the wholesale warehouse. It’s been 3
full months since then, and I was bound to hear sometime soon whether I would be kept as a
permanent employee. I just had to.

“Did you get your copy of the schedules yet?” I asked my coworker the next morning while we
waited to clock in. I tried to relax myself despite refreshing the page open on my phone that usually
lists my work schedule for the next 3 weeks. The scheduling manager usually always updates the
schedule every Wednesday night. It’s Thursday now. Why wasn’t mine updating?

“I haven’t checked yet, Yoongi,” he replied just as we were able to clock in for our shifts. He
stepped forward to scan his badge. “Do you want me to check mine?”

I locked my phone and tucked it in my pocket. “Nah, it’s probably my phone,” I reasoned, only half
believing it.

“I keep telling you to buy the newer version! We have it here for cheap! And how can you live with
a screen so badly cracked?”

I stepped up to the clock-in machine and scanned my badge before clipping it to my shirt pocket. I
sighed and straightened my posture before quietly following my coworker to learn where we’re
scheduled to be for the day.

“Ah, Yoongi,” said my supervisor as she scanned her list. “We have you working carts outside for a
little bit this morning to work with the new hires.”

“There’s new hires this week?”

“Looks like it.” She shrugged and gave a small smile. “For one of them, it’s his first day on carts, so
just go over the basics with him. It’s pretty straightforward, yeah?”

I nodded and spun around to head over to the lockers where we keep carts equipment. Necessary
equipment includes a yellow safety vest to be visible to oncoming cars, a trash bag tied to your belt
loop to keep the carts and the lot nice and tidy, and a rope ratchet to wrangle the carts with. That’s
the first pointer. Going out to work with carts without one of the three can lead to just another reason
why you should get fired after the probationary period.

Part of me felt like this was going to be the end. Working in carts in the morning made it easier to
feel terrible about it. The only time I really had to keep a smile on my face or look less miserable was
when I was training the new hire.

“Just remember the system in place when we place carts up front by the entrance. You can’t block
the way, and you can’t start new lines until this area is full,” I instructed to him.

“How long have you been working here, Yoongi?” the young new hire asked. He turned out to be a
new freshman at the university. He applied to the job to be able to help pay for his tuition and lessen
the hardships on his family. I didn’t know him too long, but from what I learned, I wished the best
for him and hoped he wouldn’t lose this job as long as he did well.

“I just finished my third month here,” I answered. “My probationary period is ending.”

“Have you learned whether you’re hired yet?”

“No... not yet.”

Once I was called in for my break, I caught sight of the scheduling manager and mustered up the
courage to approach her.

“Hey, Yoongi, were you at carts just now?” she greeted me, brightly.

“Yeah. I was just about to take a break.” Smile back. Not too big. Just enough.

“Oh, don’t let me keep you!” She was about to turn away.

“No, but wait…” Don’t act shy now. Stay calm. “I was actually wondering why my schedule hasn’t
been updated yet.”

She frowned for a moment, but smiled to me again, her expression softening. “I’m sorry to tell you
this, but…”

I stayed calm for the rest of my shift that day. After work, which was thankfully at 5 PM today, I
kept my cool as I walked out and once I was far enough from the warehouse, I screamed down into
oncoming traffic from above on an overpass. I screamed until my voice gave out, and until I noticed
a police car coming by.

I ran back home. I decided to skip my usual convenience store dinner that night and just ran straight
up, even if I saw Hoseok was still hanging around to finish his own shift.

I was just so unbelievably angry.

I worked so hard. I even picked up an extra shift this week when a co-worker needed someone to
cover. I worked myself to the bone. I came home dead tired nearly every night. My day offs were
spent fast asleep. The amount of strain this job put on my body was worth it, I told myself before.
Now it wasn’t.

How could they fire me yet hire more employees at the same time? This place was ridiculous.

I wanted to just fall into bed and lay there for the rest of the night, but then I remembered I was an
adult with more responsibilities. Immediately after I entered my apartment, I stopped and turned
around to head back down to check my mail.

And no surprise, I had a few bills to pay.

Wait.

I rushed back up into my apartment, dropped all the bills I needed to pay and pulled out my notebook
to calculate. Included were all my bills for rent, water, electricity, wifi, and phone data. I was also
still paying back installments for a loan I ended up taking out for a year when I was still in school.
And of course, my Netflix account subscription…

After calculating everything, I realized that I either needed to get a job now, or find a housemate to
help me out while I was still unemployed so that I can have time to find another job (or a few) that
can help me afford to live. Without a job and without a housemate, I wouldn’t even be able to last
two months. With a housemate, I can last at least a little longer…

I ended up sitting at my dining table, calculating a strict budget every day. I scheduled my showers to
last exactly 5 minutes. I considered meal prepping. I even looked up what I can meal prep. Maybe I
can just prep jelly sandwiches every day.

After resorting to researching potential jobs in transcribing for filmmakers from home, I realized I
was a lot hungrier than I thought and ended up running down to the convenience store for my usual
ramen dinner.

Maybe I should skip the egg today. Should I get cheese? Would cheese be cheaper than the egg.
Actually… Maybe. No beer though. I’ll drink tap.

As I entered the store, an unfamiliar voice greeted me. “I thought you weren’t going to come at all
for once!”

I looked up to see a tall, wide-shouldered man with a narrow face, a face that belongs to an actor,
and tilted my head in confusion. “Are you new?” I asked him.

He reacted to me in slight shock, but quickly regained composure. “Uh… I’ve been working nights
here for a week now.”

“What happened to Donghyuk? I thought he-”

“He works every other night,” he answered as if he’s heard the same question countless times.

I opened my mouth to respond, but my stomach growled. “I’m getting ramen and cheese tonight. I’m
gonna start getting it cooking and then I’ll pay you in a sec.”

I turned immediately and made a beeline towards the ramen packs and chose the cheapest I could
find before the guy at the counter could say a word. Once I added water and watched it start
cooking, I paced to the register to hand him my payment.
“Do you know the other workers here well?” The wide-shouldered guy asked me.

“Ah, yeah. I know Hobi.. Hoseok a bit. I talk to Donghyuk about music sometimes because he plays
rap music on the speakers during his shift. There was another employee, Ami, but I haven’t seen her
in a while,” I answered, in thought.

“Well, uh, my name is Jin,” he answered shyly as he handed me my change. “Since you stop by
pretty often.”

“I’m Yoongi,” I said back.

He grinned politely. He probably already knew.

I thanked him for assisting me and just as I turned around to go back to my ramen, I spun back on
my heels to face him again.

“Hey... Jin,” I started, slowly.

“Yes… Yoongi?”

“Do you happen to be looking for a roommate in the area? To live closer to work?”

“Ah, no actually,” he answered, scratching at the back of his head. “I live pretty close by already.”

“But I am,” a voice called from behind me. I turned and ended up tilting my head up to see a man in
a long dark coat, cradling a bottle of wine. For someone that’s seemingly about to drink, he already
seemed flushed in the face.

“Wait, really?” I gasped.

He held out his hand for me to shake. “My name is Namjoon.”

“I’m Yoongi.” I took his hand and shook it with both hands, forgetting about the coins in my palms
and letting them fall to the ground from my shock. “You’re looking for a place to live?”

“Yes, actually. Funnily enough, I was just thinking about moving, today.”

The ramen cooking machine beeped in the back. “Come with me,” I told him, “Let’s talk about this
more.”
 Joon's Path
Chapter Summary

Namjoon works in the bookstore across the street from the convenience store on B and
8th, but his story starts at home. His roommate has been his best friend since they were
both in grade school and they just work so well together that he's convinced it's destiny.
But destiny works in weird ways, whether we like it or not.

I don’t know why I said I was looking for a place to stay. I wasn’t exactly. I kind of just blurted it out
thoughtlessly.

Well, not thoughtlessly. It was all I could think about up to that very moment that he asked. Maybe I
blurted out my answer because the moment just seemed so perfect. Maybe I was meant to find a new
place away from Mina.

- ONE WEEK EARLIER -

“Good morning, Joon!” my roommate called out brightly from the kitchen over the sizzle of eggs
frying on the pan. She always fries two. One sunny-side up for herself, and one over easy for me. I
always told her that she didn’t have to, but she did it anyway. With toast.

“Good morning, Mina,” I yawned while stepping out of my bedroom and crossing over to the
bathroom to get ready for the day.

The smell of coffee greeted me when I stepped back out again after a brisk shower.

“Coffee’s ready,” she mentioned without facing away from the stove. “Do you need me to put it in a
thermos again to take with you for work?”

“You don’t have to do that-”

She was pouring it into the thermos. She was going to do it anyway. A smile crept on my face before
closing the door to my room to finish getting ready. Moments later, I came back out to enjoy
breakfast with one of my best friends.

“Have I ever told you that you’re amazing?” I greeted her, seating myself down at the counter to her
spinning around to face me with her spatula and pan.

“Maybe a few times, but a few more wouldn’t hurt,” she chimed, waving her spatula and smiling so
big her eyes shut.

I placed the egg on my bread and poked at the top to let the yoke run before lifting it up to my mouth
to take a bite. “I just hope you know how much I appreciate you for keeping me alive,” I praised,
mid-chew. “You’re more than a friend to me, you’re family.”

I look back to her and I could have sworn I saw her flinch as she poured coffee into my thermos,
then miss, accidentally burning her hand with the brew. She yelped and set the coffee pot down as I
rushed around the island to help her, pulling her to the sink to douse her hands in cold water.
“Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine... I guess I got too excited from your compliments and… missed,” she sighed,
wincing from the burn on her hand. “You’ll have to pour the coffee into your thermos this morning,
Joonie.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mimi, focus on your hand!”

What I said back then, I meant it. She is like family to me. Somehow we were there for each other at
just the right time, back in high school.

We had always walked the same circles. We were in the same classes, we lived in the same building,
took the same bus to school. But there never seemed to be a reason to walk right into each other.
Until we did.

During the grade school years, I looked like any stereotypical nerd. I was a little on the chubby side,
with rectangular wire-framed glasses and the best grades in the school… Well, in 0.01% of the
student population of South Korea. The other 99% of students in my school weren’t too fond of that,
though. And they let me know almost every other day. Verbally, physically.

It was Mina that stepped up and told them that that was enough. Of course, they didn’t listen and
tormented her along with me, but she stood by me the entire time. She was the only person out there
that actually wanted to protect me. And the only one to support me when I told her I didn’t want to
go to college after high school.

“Not everyone does,” she said then. “Sometimes your path isn’t the one that seems obvious.”

It was refreshing to hear things like that from her. She was always endlessly supportive. And I was
just as supportive to her in her endeavors, how perfectly opposite from mine.

“Not even my parents believe it’s possible, so they’re insisting for me to go to work quickly so that I
can be useful. But I want to prove to them that I can make it to a good university.”

Hundreds of hours in tutoring and motivating her to go above and beyond resulted in her admittance
to one of the best universities around. And unplanned nightly therapy after nervous breakdowns over
stress pushed me to be brave enough to tell my parents that I personally found being a student useless
to me when I found myself capable of more, whatever it may be. Even right now, I still have yet to
know.

We worked together and helped one another. We fit together so perfectly. It was like destiny. I’m a
firm believer in it for some reason. It’s the most illogical part of me, but she definitely made me think
about what was meant to be. She and I were definitely so.

The searing hot coffee left a darkened patch on Mina’s writing hand. “Looks like I’m using the
laptop today for my notes.” She gently pressed onto parts of the patch out of curiosity, a slight frown
forming on her face.

“Do you want me to go out to buy you something to treat it with?”

“Ah, Joonie, it’s fine for now. Neither of us have the time. I think I’m already going to be late to my
discussion section.” She glanced at her watch on her other hand and rounded the counter to pick up
her bag, then paced to the door to slip on her shoes.

“I’ll pick up something to treat it from the convenience store after I get off work then, okay? You
can’t just leave it like that!” I insisted, following her to the door and mirroring her movements.
“That would be awesome, but you don’t have to.” She hurriedly fished for her keys from her book
bag. “Don’t forget to lock the door again!”

“Wait!” I called after her. “I’ll leave with you!”

Mina and I ride the same bus to get to where we go every day. She rides the bus to campus, but two
stops earlier, I go to work, a little indie bookshop wedged between two boutiques, directly across the
street from the convenience store on B and 8th.

As I passed by the store, the double doors to the store opened up to reveal a group of college students
laughing happily together as they exited the store. They filed out of view from the inside of the shop,
the double doors slowly falling back into place, giving me just enough time to take a good look at a
figure behind them at the counter.

I recognized Hoseok behind the counter. I see him every day and know him pretty well since we’ve
been working next door to each other for a long while now. But the guy seated beside him on a stool
caught my eye, his arms crossed and his posture hunched over as if in discomfort, that guy I don’t
really know at all. But something drew me to keep watching him out of curiosity. For a tall man with
such broad shoulders, he appeared so… soft? Is that the best way to describe him? His features were
soft, with big eyes, plump lips, filled cheeks.

Hoseok laughed as he talked to the guy. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he had asked before the glass
doors finally closed fully. I could still see him through the glare of the morning sun, but I also saw
my reflection in the glass and I quickly realized how creepy it seemed that I was peering into a store
staring at a guy I don’t know.

But I didn’t really quite stop. I peered in for a little longer through the glass walls of the establishment
before my phone beeped and I realized that I was really going to be late to work. It was just across
the street now. I spun on my feet and eagerly pressed the crosswalk button to let me go.

My boss, Ms. Oh, greeted me right at the door as she watered the indoor plants. “Ah, there you are,
Namjoon.”

She was a serene old Japanese-Korean woman whose family owned this quaint little bookstore since
the establishment of the 38th parallel, when all its books were still written in Japanese. While the age
of Japanese/American occupations have long gone and the drama caused by the interference from
international governments calmed down (maybe) since then, Ms. Oh keeps both of her heritages
alive in this store in addition to featuring books from numerous other countries that inspire sharing
knowledge from different cultures. I care a lot about this store and Ms. Oh knows that, from how
much I borrow our books to read, mainly English and Japanese considering I’ve taught myself those
languages. She said she was going to leave the store to me someday and while it’s the greatest honor,
She’s just what makes the store so lovable.

“I got a little distracted, sorry!” I carefully paced through the small room, winding around potted
indoor plants and dusty shelves to make my way to the counter to set down my things. “How’s your
morning, Ms. Oh?”

“It’s better now that you’re here.” She continued her rounds of watering her plants. Students that
attend the university always liked to walk in solely for the aesthetics Ms. Oh keeps the place in,
coming more for the potential pictures they can take instead of the books we offered. While it
annoyed me whenever someone comes in to snap a picture instead of sit down and check out the
books, Ms. Oh always found it touching that they admire her precious houseplants and her family’s
interior design.
“We got a new shipment of books from Germany today. A friend of mine there managed to even
find a handful of first editions to Hermann Hesse’s Demian,” she explained. “An eye-opening book
to the self, it is. I’ve only read the Korean version myself but I’m excited to get a hold of this copy!”

“Maybe you can lend me the Korean copy!” I loved when she gave me her book recommendations. I
never believed it when people with large book cases say they’ve read every book on them, but Ms.
Oh truly has. She lives and breathes print.

“Of course! They should be with psychoanalytical fiction,” she answered excitedly. “Before the
shipment comes, can you set up the outdoor book displays and then reorganize the German section to
make room for the shipment?”

I nodded and made my way back to the front to tug at the shelf carts through the front door and
outside. After fastening the wheels, I look up to hear the bell from the convenience store door and
see that guy again as he leaves the store, waving at Hoseok waiting behind the counter. He turns to
face me for a moment. I smiled to him and watched him grin back before his face flushes and his
body quickly turns away to fast-walk in the opposite direction. I smiled back to myself before
walking back inside to pull out the other cart.

I came home that evening feeling pretty content with my day. The new shipment was a German
literary gold mine, exciting Ms. Oh with every page. We had good business today, too, with our
usual English and Korean students and older folks stopping by to grab new copies or donate their
own. We even had a few new customers that explored out of curiosity and did not leave the store
empty handed after I talked to them a bit about the types of genres they’re into. Ms. Oh always said I
had a knack for that. I also stopped by to the convenience store on break at some point that day to be
able to get some type of over-the-counter ointment to help treat Mina’s hand. I carried it with me up
the stairs to our apartment with a satisfied smile on my face. Today was a good day.

I let myself in to the apartment and slipped off my shoes. “Mina, I’m back! I got you some-” I
stopped dead in my tracks when I saw her hunched over her hands at the kitchen counter in the dark
when I flicked the lights on. “Mina, what’s wrong?”

I rushed to her side and dropped my things to the ground to grab her by the shoulders. She shook me
off and stood up, facing away from me.

“Mina, what happened?”

“Don’t.”

“Mi..”

“Don’t say my name. Please.” She widened the distance between us and crossed her arms, her head
dropped down with her eyes to her feet. I rushed to step before her and leaned down to try to make
contact with her eyes, my hands around her arms. She was sniffling behind the wall of long dark hair
covering her face.

“Please… can you tell me what’s wrong?”

After a moment of her collecting herself, she asked me quietly, her head still drooping down, “Did
you really mean what you said this morning?”

“What?”

“Are we nothing more than family?”

“Nothing more? Mina, you being like family is everything to me, you know that.”

She raised her head to meet my eyes. Hers were glistening, brimmed with tears that ran through her
cheeks and left marks in her foundation. “Namjoonie.”

“Mina… Truly, you’re my sister. I love you so much. Are you having doubts?”

“No, Namjoonie, I’m not, I just… I’m in love with you.”

That was a hard conversation to have that night. I sat her down on the couch beside me and we
talked when the sun set and until it rose again. I didn’t suspect at all that she would ever have those
feelings for me. She told me she didn’t mean to, but that they just grew for me out of seemingly
nowhere. She fell for my kindness, and for the fact that I was just always there, since the very
beginning. I was her constant and her “everyday,” the person that she always happily came back
home to. Somewhere along the way, feelings crept onto her and she couldn’t shake them away.

I understood what she meant. Every word. They were feelings I felt for her as well, but not exactly in
the same way. Not in the way that was romantic. Not in the way that entailed holding her hand and
kissing her passionately in the rain. Not in the way that hinted that I wanted to marry her one day. I
simply couldn’t return the feelings she had for me. I wish I could because she deserves that much,
and each moment we spoke, I felt increasingly guilty. How could I completely miss that my best
friend in the whole world was like this to me?

Even after talking all night about this, we didn’t seem to get anywhere. We seemed to be talking in
circles, from Mina’s apologies for feeling the way she does, to my assurances I love her no matter
what, just not in the ways she wants from me.

We drifted further apart as days passed by. She didn’t wake me up in the morning anymore or make
me breakfast. In fact, she was already gone before I woke up each morning and was already locked
in her room listening to music once I’m home that night. I tried to wake up earlier than her to make
her breakfast instead, in which she doesn’t eat, and I knocked on her door to ask if she wanted to
watch the television show we were supposed to continue together, but she would say she’s too busy
studying to think about shows right now. I realized a little quickly that this was going to go nowhere.
I was starting to feel uncomfortable living in my own home by the time I paid a visit to the
convenience store after my shift that fateful night and overheard Yoongi talking to Seokjin at the
counter.

“Do you happen to be looking for a roommate in the area? To live closer to work?” Yoongi asked
Seokjin.

“Ah, no actually,” he answered him. “I live pretty close by already.”

“But I am,” I sort of just… blurted out. I ended up clutching the bottle of wine I was purchasing at
the store firmly against my chest for comfort out of surprise at my own words.

“Wait, really?”

Hesitantly, and as if I was in a state of shock, I held out my hand for him to shake. “My name is
Namjoon.”

He took my hand. “I’m Yoongi. You’re looking for a place to live?”

“Yes, actually. Funnily enough, I was just thinking about moving, today.”

He ended up being a little too excited he left me at the register without paying for his instant ramen
that he picked up his food and started rushing out the door. “Come up with me so I can show you the
place!”

The guy behind the register, Seokjin, or “Jin” based on his name tag, shook his head and sighed. I
approached him and shelled out a couple of dollars to pay for his food and my wine. “Sorry about
that,” I said to him before slowly following my excited potential roommate to the door.

A stressed out student with books and papers and notebooks sprawled across the counter beside the
window caught my attention before I left. He was reading a copy of Orwell’s 1984. I felt myself
smile again after a few dismal days and said to him, “That’s a good one.”

He turned to face me with tired eyes behind round frame specs. “How does anyone manage to
understand this drawl? This guy speaks so painfully plainly.”

“Read it from Winston’s point of view, not yours.” I exited the store, and saw the student’s
unimpressed reaction in the reflection of the door’s glass.
 Jimin's Green Light
Chapter Summary

Jimin only has one goal he acknowledges: to graduate with a Bachelor's in Sciences
degree in Chemical Engineering. All others, the dreams, can never compare. To him,
they were a waste of time in consideration to his future. He'd done a good job at staying
focused these past three years in university but someone walks into his life at his favorite
study spot at the convenience store on B and 8th and makes him begin to rethink
everything.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

6 AM: Wake up (Or at least try. When I sleep past the alarm, which is always, my roommate
Seungwoon throws his pillow at me to get me to shut it off. So more accurately…)

6:15 AM: Wake up. Brush teeth. Shower. Get dressed. Fill up water bottle. Fruit for breakfast.

7:30 AM: Walk to school. The bus gets way too crowded.

8:00 AM: OChem (Organic Chemistry).

10:30 AM: ChemE (Chemical Engineering) 180A.

12:15 PM: My daily chicken wrap from the Engineering department cafe.

12:30 PM: Material Sciences 101.

3:00 PM: OChem Lab.

5:00 PM: English Literature.

7:30 PM: Home for dinner.

9:00 PM: Studying at the convenience store on the corner of B and 8th.

3:00 AM: Go home to sleep once the store closes.

That’s my daily schedule nowadays. It’s a little dense, huh? Yeah, but I’m not dead yet. I can handle
it.

Seungwoon always wonders why I don’t study at the library or back home, and why I always do it
at the convenience store. He came to study with me there once, but he found the environment to be
the most distracting, but to me, it’s perfect.

I spend my entire day at school, from when the sun rises to after it sets. And to me, home is a place I
associate most with rest. It’s hard to ever work there and stay focused. And coffee shops are just
always crowded with other college students like me trying to find the best place to be productive
(and they close too early). I came to the convenience store once late at night after sitting
uncomfortably between two snot-ridden students in the midst of cold season at the library. Sitting by
myself while slurping up my slushy at the counter made me realize that maybe this was the best place
to go.
If one might not be able to tell from my daily schedule, I’m a student in chemical engineering. No, it
doesn’t mean I’m smart. It just means that I work really freaking hard in stem and want to please my
family in the STEM field.

Before college, I watched my family provide for us with everything they had in them, to their best
ability. My father owns a small cafe he converted from my grandmother’s old rice cake shop in my
hometown in Busan while my mother is a hotel concierge that helps my father out on her days off.
My family didn’t come from a place of money. They didn’t go to the best colleges. They did the best
they could when raising me and my younger brother, and they always beat themselves up about not
being able to give us everything. I would insist that I did have everything I could ever want and need
from them, and all I wanted to do was find something that could help me repay that, and repay them.

So I did what I could. I focused on school. I was invited to and attended a STEM-focused scholastic
academy in high school and became a top student and student council president for the duration of
my attendance. I was accepted into the Chemical Engineering major in a top university in Seoul of all
places. And yeah, now I was here, working my ass off 21 hours a day on school, without a single
break, faring well.

But you know what’s really stopped me in my tracks right now?

English literature. A general education class that I’m required to take to graduate.

English literature???

Nothing has ever frustrated me more than that. Damn. Class.

I’m fairly fluent in English, I can hold a conversation, I understand words and structure and slang. I
can survive in America if I had to. But comprehending all these words and foreign ideas strung
together, especially reading works from authors from centuries ago even, was so unnecessarily hard.
How could anyone ever understand this crap?

At least that was until-

“That was a good one.” He had craned his neck to check out the cover of the copy of 1984 I was
struggling to read at the convenience store one night. It was the guy from the indie bookstore across
the street. Of course he likes this book.

“How does anyone manage to understand this drawl? This guy speaks so painfully plainly.”

I watched his eyes disappear from his chuckle. “Read it from Winston’s point of view, not yours.”

Now this guy from the bookstore got stuck in my head for two reasons:

One, he’s annoyingly smart, in the effortless way.

I’ve overheard his conversations with the bookstore owner when I would visit the store to look for
the books for this class. He doesn’t even go to school right now, but he knows so much about
philosophy and psychology.

Two, he’s annoyingly smart, but in the useful way.

I realized soon after his acknowledgement of 1984 that I may be able to use this guy to my
advantage. He could help me be able to survive the horror that is English literature and navigate the
general education requirement so that I can get right back on track in focusing purely on ChemE.

I noticed he’d been coming to the convenience store more often than he did before. Maybe it’s
because he had just moved into the apartment right above the store with the guy that always talks
about trying to add a slice of cheese on top of his instant ramen sometime. Or maybe it’s because of
the new cashier that he always seems to stare at (but pretends he doesn’t stare at) from behind the
candy shelves.

Well, I certainly took it as a sign that maybe he was meant to be my English lit tutor.

“Hey.” I poked my head around the shelf he was spending a little too long hanging behind to sneak
glances at the night cashier.

He jumped in response and ended up knocking over bags of candy hung up on the shelves. This
attracted the cashier’s attention at the front, whose head lifted up from the book he was reading at the
front to search for the source of the sudden sound. He stood up from his stool and began to round the
cashier counter.

“Don’t worry, I got it!” Namjoon fumbled with the falling bags and ended up bumping into more.

“Are you sure?” the cashier responded.

I bent over to pick up a handful of candy bags. “I’m helping him, you’re all good!”

Namjoon looked to me in relief as he carried bags up in his arms to hang back on the hooks of the
shelves.

“Are you interested in that guy or something?” I whispered over the crinkle of the bags shuffling
about. We both turned in the direction of the cashier that promptly returned to his reading as if
undisturbed.

Namjoon faced me again and coughed, covering his face with a bag in his hand. He looked away for
a moment then back to me. “Ah, no, no.”

I finished hanging up the pile of bags in my arms and bent over to pick up more. “You spend a lot of
time watching him from an aisle you never buy anything from, though.”

He dropped the bags again. He bent over to pick them up. I helped place one on the pile in his arms.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to that, you know.”

“Of course I know that. No one should be ashamed,” he said to me instantly. “I just…” He picked
himself up from the ground and we placed the last of the candy bags on their hooks.

He continued, “This is not any of your concern but thank you for helping.” He was about to pick up
any random bag of candy to take the register to purchase but I stopped him before he moved out of
the way.

“Maybe we can both do each other a favor,” I suggested to him. “I can give you another reason to
hang around more other than gaze longingly from the candy aisle if you help me with my English lit
homework.”

He paused to process my pitch then started to laugh, clutching onto his chest, his eyes pinching
closed from his dimpled smile.
“What?”

“You don’t need to put a plan together to get me to help you in literature. I’m down to help!”

And so began the nightly tutoring lessons at the convenience store on B and 8th. Now I wasn’t
studying alone anymore at that same counter. I had Namjoon there with me, going over what’s going
on in the plots of the books I had to read the current week, discussing the authors behind their books,
the time periods they wrote in, and the significance of it all.

“Ever heard of the American Dream?” he asked one night when he found out I was reading The
Great Gatsby this week. I hadn’t even opened the book yet, but I knew what it was about. I mean,
I’ve seen the movie starring Leo Dicaprio. Gatsby was a hopeless romantic that couldn’t have fallen
for anyone else other than this golddigger named Daisy while Nick Carraway just stood by and
watched the wealthy people drama unfold.

I had left my copy on the table on top of my other homework assignments and he picked it right up
to flip through the pages. It’s almost like he gets entranced by books. Any kind of book. It’s like he’s
fascinated by all of them, or reconnecting with an old friend.

“No,” I replied simply. I made some instant ramen at the cooking machine and carried it over to the
counter with my chopsticks. I was more concerned with the ramen than anything tonight. Tonight
was one of those nights where I skip dinner and head straight to the store to study. I had a lab
midterm tomorrow. I tried to convince Namjoon to actually not help me out tonight but he insisted
because he has nothing better to do after he gets off work anyway.

“It’s the belief that in America, anything is possible,” he said, dreamily. “In America, you can be
anything you want. You can be rich and famous. You can follow your most ambitious dreams and
aspirations and you can accomplish anything there.”

“That sounds a little too utopian to me.”

“Yeah, F. Scott Fitzgerald thought so, too.”

Namjoon described this Dream as something no one could truly reach or accomplish. It was a
hopeless ideal that led nowhere, no matter how hard you tried to make it to that place you so
desperately want to reach. Reality was that you were limited, and you’re doomed to remain in the
lower class you came from. You can’t escape from the bottom.

His expression wasn’t as dark or dismal as I felt after hearing his explanation.

“Some people have it all since birth and others are sort of, cursed with the misfortune,” I spoke my
mind openly, feeling a little… discouraged.

“That is true,” Namjoon agreed. He set the book on his lap and gazed out the window into the night.
“There’s this idea that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.”

I turned my attention towards the same direction he looked to. Outside, I imagined that green light
Jay Gatsby mentioned, out in the distance flickering far down the street in the darkness. I didn’t
know what exactly that light was and why it was so important to him but I felt the need to suddenly
go out to search for it.

“However,” said Namjoon, his voice breaking me out of my daze, “beliefs like those only hinder the
dreamers solely due to fear.”

He gazed out still as if he was imagining the same green light, dreamily, and peacefully. “You’re
allowed to dream and pursue the subject of those dreams because it is attainable, just with varying
levels of challenges. At some point in time before their wealth, rich people weren’t so rich. No one
should be made to feel limited in a world where change is limitless.”

I found myself watching Namjoon and his peacefulness. I wished I was as intelligent as him and just
as comfortable with the knowledge possessed. I felt a wave of admiration for the guy from the
bookstore all of a sudden. I hope after I finish this class, I get to learn from him more later on.

A burst of shrieking laughter broke into the air from outside and made me jump, nearly causing me to
fall out of my chair. I turned again to look outside the window to find the source of the noise only to
see the daytime cashier out there with that equally loud freshman from my group in lab. The daytime
cashier, Hoseok, was demonstrating popping dance moves joyfully to the kid, Jungkook, who was as
excited as always, like an overactive puppy.

They danced together joyfully with both their groups of friends surrounding them. Hoseok’s mouth
gaped open from how quickly Jungkook was picking up the moves. A pit of longing ached inside
me, something that I just couldn’t quite shake off as I watched them having the time of their lives in
the dead of night just dancing. I set down everything in my hands and leaned a bit closer to the
window, watching without a care for just one moment.

“Do you dance?” Namjoon noticed.

“No.” I kept watching for a moment longer before the group broke up and Hoseok gave Jungkook a
high-five, impressed by his skills that even his friends were surprised by.

No, I don’t. At least, not anymore.

Long after Namjoon said goodnight and went back home upstairs to get to sleep, I stayed working at
the counters till the night cashier came over to wipe down counters and give me the warning that he
was closing soon. Before turning away to tend the shelves, he caught sight of the Gatsby book sitting
on top of my backpack.

“English literature?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“With Helen Park?”

“Yeah.” I raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“I took her class when I was in school. I can give you my old notes if you want?”

Yes, of course, please. “What was your name again?”

“Seokjin, but I like being called Jin.”

Turns out I was definitely going to pass this class.

But I might not pass my OChem Lab. Why?

“I’m assigning you partners within your lab groups for the final project I have for you continuing
your study on worms,” our lab professor announced one day in class.

She passed by our group and looked to me. “Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook.”

Jeon Jungkook? The overexcited party boy more focused on grabbing beers with his friends than
 remotely… anything else? I’ve seen him around his friends way too often and I’ve already gotten my
impression of him, and it wasn’t a good one.

He shot me a thumbs up and smile from across the table. I dropped my face into my hands.

Great. This is great.

“I’m excited to work with you,” he told me after standing up from his seat to sit beside me to start
planning out the pre-lab preparations for the project.

“Same here.” I couldn’t even feign a smile. I’m not excited at all for what this situation will entail.

Chapter End Notes

These books are actually high school level English literature heheheheheheheheh
 Hoseok's Goals
Chapter Summary

With time ticking away until his graduation, Hoseok is trying to get his post-grad job
prepared just in time, but the journey is never easy. His life never actually was. Despite
being discouraged by constant downs, Hoseok finds the chance for things to finally look
up.

Jungkook and I ended up having a bit of a dance session when we ran into each other while I was on
the way to the convenience store for my nightly slushy. He said he saw me and my dance team
perform together at the fall festival at our school and wanted to learn some moves. He picked up
what I showed him really quickly and rather well.

After a bit of dancing and a lot of laughing, he and I entered the store together to get slushies while
his doe-eyed friends followed behind.

For a college freshman that spends more money on beer than textbooks (which cost a great deal and
is probably wiser to avoid anyway just to save a few bucks), Jungkook is a bright and innocent soul
that radiates optimism. He’s the person I portray myself to be, the person I used to be when I was
first a fresh-faced first year. I hope he doesn’t suffer in the path that many students go through here,
including myself, only really hoping to survive and finally get the chance to just grasp onto that
degree, but for what?

Where do we go post-grad? How do we get anywhere? Countless job applications and emails and
resumes filled out for jobs with contradicting qualifications. Internships that require 5 years of
experience behind a desk but are only available for 3rd or 4th years in college, who are unable to get
those 5 years of experience beforehand because other internships and jobs only ask for the same
thing. I felt trapped inside a bubble I couldn’t pop, unable to qualify for all these things I was
applying for. How was I supposed to be able to get a job, like a real job with a salary than can help
me afford living with taxes and potentially a car and a home someday? A family even? It all seems
impossible from here while I’m making $12 an hour standing at a counter for 5 hours straight each
day.

“I hope I can be able to get the skills that you have,” said Jungkook, jabbing at his slushy with his
straw. “Do you have any auditions for your dance team any time soon?”

“We will be!” I answered him, excitedly. “The dates aren’t solid yet, but I’ll let you know when! I
think you have a great chance in being a part of the team.”

He smiled so big his eyes disappeared. At 19, he’s considered a man now, but he had such child-like
facial features, with bunny teeth poking in front to match. His excitement about living independently
surrounded by friends and having fun distracted me from the fact that every moment I have a pocket
of time where I’m free, I’m researching and applying for yet another entertainment company,
emailing and calling in to schedule appointments for interviews whether in person or over video call.
I’m re-editing my resume and writing yet another cover letter that just reiterates what’s on the resume
and then some to force all my qualifications to fit with the employers’ needs.

I’m working as hard as ever on schoolwork to keep my academic standing adequate, with all the
homework and paperwork taking up time during my shifts too, where I quietly do my homework
behind the counter on my lap to hide from the customers. When someone arrives to the counter, I
drop everything to the floor, ring them up, then pick up my things and continue where I left off.

My life became one long cycle of endless physical and mental strain. In moments of frustration,
dancing became the thing that I hated the most. Why wasn’t I interested in anything else? Would it
have been any easier then?

When Jin first mentioned that he was a business and theater double major, I thought that was just
about genius. A second major to fall back on when everything’s hard with the creative major? I
should have done that, too, if only I figured out sooner. But why isn’t he using that other degree?
Why is he focusing solely on the theater part and working part time here?

I understood how hard it must have been trying to find jobs in general, but from a few glances, I
could tell he came from wealth from his manners and even simple things like his shoes and watch.
He doesn’t act like he came from money, but I think he had the opportunity to do so much more
within his family, but he’s pursuing a dream instead of wealth.

I caught myself staring at him one day whilst deep in these thoughts of the enigma that is the new
soft-spoken night cashier, Kim Seokjin. He came earlier than usual. He had just dropped by from the
bookstore with Namjoon, who caught up with him halfway through the street and now they were
sitting at a table outside of the window in conversation.

The two of them talked for a good few hours until Park Jimin came for his nightly English literature
tutoring with Namjoon. That’s when Jin came up to the counter to talk with me before his shift
started soon.

I guess curiosity got the best of me. “What’s your family like, Jin?”

The question caught him off guard. He laughed it off. “Well, hello to you, too.”

“Oh, sorry, hey Jin how’s it going?”

“It’s going alright. Just had a really nice conversation with Namjoon for a good while.” It’s like he
was trying to hide a smile by shyly looking to the ground.

“You’ve been getting closer lately,” I noted.

“Yeah, he’s been around the store a lot more often lately because of his tutoring and we just got to
talking one day when he knocked over the shelf of candy bars with the advertisements printed on
them sponsoring the new film coming out,” he explained. “We got to talking about the whole
franchise the movie was a part of and found out we were both fans. And from there, we had a lot of
other stuff in common, too.”

He paused, before asking, “But what sparked the curiosity towards my family?”

I looked down at my shirt to adjust my name tag and avoid his eyes. “I just wanted to get to know
you more. You know a lot about my life but I don’t know too much about yours.”

“You’re just a very vocal person that shares just about everything about your life,” he chuckled. “But
if you want to know…”

“I do!” I piped up a little too quickly.

He gave a small smile. “I guess you can say I come from a family that is rather comfortable,” he said
softly, as if only for me to hear. “But I guess I don’t want to be handed comfort.”

He tried to tell me the bare minimum because I was due to clock out in a few minutes and head out to
my dance practice. I tried to insist to stay but he knew how important my practices were, even if I
was willing to miss just one.

His father was the CEO for a multinational company, his mother a former model, her maiden name
recognizable in the fashion industry and now currently as an editor in chief in one of Korea’s top
high-fashion magazines. His entire father’s side was actually involved in the company, his father
having earned the CEO position after having to battle for it against his brothers from his own father.

“When I went to college, I was the only one pursuing business. My father wanted it that way. He
wanted the path to the top to be easier for me because in this battle against his family, he lost
everyone along the way.” But Jin didn’t want it so easy. He wanted a place somewhere he can earn
for himself, and something that wasn’t in the business field. He wanted to be in theatre.

Hearing his story, I felt pangs of jealousy and … frustration? I didn’t show it to him of course. Jin’s
being honorable for the choices he’s making, even leaping back down to square 0 in this
convenience store when he was all the way up at square 612. Was it even worth it to give everything
up when you legitimately have everything? Rich people were the weirdest kind of people. Not that
he didn’t take this lifestyle for granted… but…

My sister Dawon and I were left to our aunt from a young age after our parents separated. My sister’s
older than me so she remembers more than I did, but from how little she talks about it, it wasn’t a
pretty divorce. I mean, they never are, but I guess this one was bad enough that I wasn’t even
allowed to learn about it. As I was growing up, I was obsessed with finding out the truth, but I ended
up making the decision that maybe it was better that I didn’t. I saw the way it left a weight on my
sister and every attempt I tried to be able to bare some of it for her, she refused.

My aunt, Lia, was a young, single receptionist for a veterinarian clinic. She had just graduated from
university and was set on going to med school when our parents sort of just dumped us onto her
when I was 5 and my sister had just turned 10. To raise us, she sacrificed her own career path
because she had no other choice. She had to drop everything to become the parent she didn’t sign up
for and her older sister just abandoned.

Being a receptionist actually did pay well for a single woman in her early twenties living in a small
apartment, but having children in the house on top of that made life significantly harder. She ended
up sleeping on her futon in the living room while my sister and I took her bedroom.

“When I get more money, I’ll make sure you both have your own rooms,” she promised one night,
cradling my wailing self in her arms on the floor in the hallway after Dawon threw a tantrum and
slammed our bedroom door in my face, locking me out. “That way your sister can throw a tantrum in
a room that’s entirely hers, and you can sleep peacefully in yours.”

I did end up getting my own room, by the way, by the time my sister started attending high school.
Lia started taking up a second job on top of the receptionist position once she felt Dawon was old
enough to watch over me when she was gone and was able to make enough money to rent out a
cozy two bedroom apartment. She was quite fond of her living room futon set up, so even when she
earned promotions and higher salaries, she still slept on the couch.

“I don’t want you two to have to spend your life always picking up and moving around so
unnecessarily,” she said soothingly in response to our protests of letting her have her own room. “We
have a home, this is all I need.”
Lia taught me a lot of things, growing up. The first being how important money is. Dawon and I
came to quickly understand what it meant to have money and how hard it is to come by from how
hard we watched Lia work for it. She always made sure she was home by 5:30 each evening to greet
us when we both came home from after school tutoring, even if it meant having to rush any work she
had left that day and sprinting to catch the earlier bus. We understood her efforts in the later years
when she dragged her feet across the hardwood floors late at night from her second job working after
hours in retail. We witnessed her finding value in the small things, teach herself how to seek out
bargains better, and cherish spoiling us once every so often because to her, at some point making
money didn’t feel very motivating until it was utilized in part to create a little bubble of happiness.
We were that bubble to her.

She was the only mother I had the privilege of ever getting the chance to know. She let us do the
things that made us happy, from my interest in taking hip hop classes and pursuing dance to
Dawon’s path in fashion design and business. “As long as you’re passionate and persistent and
determined,” she said to a guilty Dawon the night she told us she wanted to pursue fashion, “you’re
bound to make it. The talent is there. You just have to work really hard, okay? And don’t let
anything get in your way.”

I always thought that Dawon and I were the ones in the way of Lia’s path to success. But Lia never
saw it that way. She always said that destinies unravel in strange ways. And she was meant to take
us in and show us the right way to go.

Surprisingly, Lia ended up quitting her office job at the veterinary clinic years later and get promoted
to no end in her retail position. Her bosses discovered how good she was with people, promoted her
to supervisor, then to manager, and by 35, she became the store’s general manager. Dawon
graduated school in business a few years ago and has been shadowing in the fashion industry while
working beneath Lia. Dawon’s been designing and working real hard on one day starting her own
store with her own designs.

As for me, well, you know where I am now in my life. I’m graduating in the winter, and I still have
yet to find my post-grad job.

At least that was until one evening when Jin was approaching me to clock in and take over for me at
the counter. My phone started ringing while I was just about to greet him. I muttered a quick apology
and answered the unfamiliar number.

“Yes, this is he,” I answered the voice in my receiver. Seokjin stepped beside me quietly behind the
counter and I stepped back behind him to get out of his way. I listened to every word carefully and
felt the need to scream at every sentence. I let out each response breathlessly.

“Yes… Of course… Thank you, thank you so much… Will do… Thank you.”

I froze by the end of the conversation, questioning whether the conversation was real until I heard the
click and dial tone on my receiver.

“What happened?” Seokjin asked.

“JGP Entertainment saw my resume and dance reel.” I wanted to choke. “They want me to come in
for an audition.”

Was this the feeling of life finally beginning? I started to feel like I was picking myself up from this
slump. I had motivation for something now, to be able to land this audition and make it into the
company. I had no intention of losing out on what may be my only chance.
“When?”

“One week from now.”

From that moment on, I decided that I really needed to work even harder to prepare for this audition.
JGP Entertainment is huge, one of the most powerful entertainment companies in the country,
recognized globally for debuting world-class talent. And out of all the thousands or maybe millions
of people that vied for their attention, they saw me. I can’t waste that.

Instead of stopping by to the store again after evening dance classes, I stopped by to Lia’s store
instead and caught her and Dawon as they were working their closing routine.

“Hoseok, what are you-” Dawon began.

“I GOT AN AUDITION!”

“You what?” Lia dropped the clothes that were in her arms to the ground.

“With JGP Entertainment.”

After the inevitable screaming and suffocating group hugs, Lia sat us both down in her office in the
back to talk about it more without disturbing the late night employees.

“This is an amazing opportunity Hobi,” Dawon murmured solemnly. “It’s scary to think about that
it’s JGP. One one hand, it would be a dream come true to get in with them, but on the other…” Her
voice faltered. The older sister in her kicked in, fearing the worst could happen to me and I would
forever be discouraged and heartbroken from something that would be known as quite the loss if I
don’t make it in.

“It’s a good challenge,” Lia piped up. “This opportunity is like shooting for the moon. This is huge,
but even if you don’t make it-”

“I can’t just accept failure before even trying…” Why did this conversation make me feel worse than
it should have? Wasn’t I supposed to celebrate even getting the audition?

“You’re not,” Lia assured. “I’m not encouraging that. I’m just saying, the fact that you’re even on
this company’s radar is an opportunity that is rare for any dancer, so if you don’t make it into this
company after all, you’re destined to make it into something amazing. No matter what, the result of
this audition will not be considered a failure. It’s a stepping stone.”

Lia always found the best ways to say things so perfectly. She showed us what hope meant, and
continued to, even when I continually felt the word itself losing its definition.

I left the store that night feeling unsettled by the idea of losing out on this opportunity. Despite Lia’s
kind words, I didn’t want to let this slip out of my grasp.

I wrote out my goals for the week leading up until the audition on a piece of notebook paper and
taped it to the wall beside my bed so that I could see it every time I woke up and before I went to
sleep.

1. Cut down on the nightly slushies. Save the money and take in less sugars!
2. Higher carb intake to energize for more vigorous workouts
3. VIGOROUS WORK OUTS. TAKE YOUR SETS AND MULTIPLY THEM BY 5
4. YOU GOT THIS
5. YOU HAVE A TEST ON THURSDAY SO STUDY TOO
6. NO SLEEP GANG
7. Just kidding sleep when you can

Turns out I really took No. 7 to heart.

I woke up to a gentle knocking next to my head, dazed and confused with drool dripping out from
my lips. After a moment, I became aware of my surroundings. I fell asleep at the counter at work
while studying. My homework had fallen to the ground when I fell asleep and the person that woke
me up was… Min Yoongi.

“You okay?”

“Y-yeah, I’m doing alright. I have a test tomorrow, is all.”

“It looks like you’re overdoing it. Do you think someone could cover for you so you can rest
though?” The genuine look of concern on his face was touching. I felt my cheeks get a little warm
from both the embarrassment and the affection I had for him. He’s not the type to usually show
concern for others. He always gave off the idea that he was disinterested in everyone and everything.
But every now and then, I get to see who he really is in his small gestures. And he’s a softie.

“It’s perfectly fine!” I answered him. “Once I get this test over with, I’ll have time to have a bit more
sleep.”

“Only a bit? Spending the rest of the time rehearsing for that audition?”

“Yeah. Just a few more days,” I huffed, stretching my arms up to the sky as I lifted myself off the
counter and wiped at my drool left on the table with a rag behind the counter. “Don’t worry about
me too much. I’m going to be okay.”

He pursed his lips, not completely sold. “If you say so.”

“Speaking of sleep, you look like you don’t get very much either,” I noted, my attention stuck on the
dark bags forming beneath his eyes.

“For that, you can blame my roommate.” He sighed. “He snores like a monster.”

“Can’t be that bad.”

“I have audio recordings.”

I heard them. They were that bad. They almost didn’t sound human. Other than the snoring problem,
he recalled that Namjoon was a great roommate who was really respectful and thoughtful. Yoongi
mentioned bonding with him over listening to the same artists like Epik High and having deep talks
late at night.

“I almost thought your new job was exhausting you this badly,” I laughed.

“Jobs always do,” he replied. “This one isn’t as bad as the last one thankfully, but it doesn’t pay as
much.”

“Pizzeria, right?”

“Yep. I’m one of the guys that make the pizzas in the back. Apparently, I’m really good with the
customers.”

“I think anyone that looks like you would be great with handling customers.”
THERE I GO AGAIN.

There are just times when Min Yoongi’s speaking to me that I just accidentally drop a little sentence
that might be flirtatious and I can’t believe myself so I try to stay as stone-faced as I could in hopes
the moment can go away.

I looked away for a brief moment while he cleared his throat for a moment and covered his face with
one of his hands.

“Anyway,” he continued. “It just sucks that I get paid less at this job. I might need to get a second.
Why is it that the economy requires even full-time workers to get a second job just so that they can
afford, I don’t know… living?”

“Maybe you can apply with me for JGP!” I pitched excitedly.

“An entertainment company? You’re kidding. What would I do there?”

“You used to be a music major right? You can be one of their musicians.”

“Ah,” he groaned. “I don’t know if I’m qualified for that. Janitor maybe, but nah...”

“You should still try, as a musician,” I insisted. “They’re looking for talent, not qualifications, aren’t
they?”

It’s like I watched him curl back into his shell from my insistence. I stopped talking at the realization
that I was making him uncomfortable.

“I’m going to try looking for jobs in other areas first,” he murmured. “I… uh… have to go.”

He turned away and head straight for the door, held open by the hypebeast guy who came by
probably to buy a new pack of gum.

“Yoongi, wait, I…”

“I hope all the work you’re putting in becomes worth it,” Yoongi said, spinning back to look me in
the eye for one more moment before leaving the store. “I genuinely do.”
 Taehyung's Friends
Chapter Summary

Taehyung was an outsider. He knew that fact quite well. It was evident from where he
came from, how he looked, how he dressed. Influenced by the change in environment
and the sudden need to be able to fit within it, obsessions grew. Before his interactions
with any of our protagonists that enter in and out of the store on the corner of B and 8th,
Taehyung was finding hardships in being able to navigate through his beginnings in
university, far, far away from home.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

I was just here to attend a nice school.

How did everything come to this?

It’s hard living in an environment completely unlike the one you spent your entire life residing in. Up
until the moment I hailed a cab at the train station in Seoul, the province was the only place I had
ever known. It was my entire world. Now I was in the colorless concrete jungle, surrounded by tall
buildings wrapped in glass, totally unlike my family’s farm back home in Geochang, a never-ending
expanse of vivid green open fields. It was a place where almost no one lived, and I knew everyone
else that did.

Here… here, I knew no one. Yet this was where everyone lived.

There, we had a large, beautiful home passed down in my family for generations, tucked in the
center of our acres of flower fields and apple tree farms. Old fashioned wooden tea houses, with
rooftops curved at the ends atop paper-like screen walls, delicate in appearance but proven strong
from the years they withstood heavy downpours and fierce winds.

Here, I have a small studio apartment set up with alarms and countless locks to click closed at night
because apparently this neighborhood is prone to thefts at night. I have neighbors next to me on the
left and the right, across the hall in front, one up, and one down. And they’re all loud, in their own
very special ways.

They’re all tall, and beautiful, and fashionable, with the latest technology in the hands, on their
wrists, in their ears, as if they all stepped out of the morning dramas I watched with my grandma
back home.

They glimmered with importance here, and they all held themselves in a way that looked like models
on a catwalk. Why did everyone look so mean?

The only thing I had with me acceptable for the city was my puffer jacket that my grandmother
bought for me as a goodbye gift before I boarded the train to get here.

My parents told me that the people here were materialistic, and judged you by what you wore, what
you owned, how you presented yourself. So as an attempt to help me avoid the animosity by just a
little, they spent a great deal of unnecessary money to buy me a single North Face puffer jacket. I
cried when I pulled it out of the gift bag they so kindly stuffed it in. They told me they hope it helped
even a little bit in focusing more on what’s ahead of me for my future instead what lurked around
me.

I didn’t even wear it. I keep it tucked in my suitcase because it was worth so much.

I didn’t even want to go to school here. Frankly, well, I didn’t want to go to school if it meant having
to leave home. If only I didn’t do so well at school. I was offered a full ride and more to attend this
school and I, well, my family, didn’t think this was an opportunity to miss out on.

“The city is a good opportunity to have a good life,” said my grandmother to me one night as we sat
on the deck to fold laundry under the stars.

“I think I have a good life here already,” I retorted, refusing to look at her, folding a t-shirt on my lap.
“Who’s going to help you here?”

“Soonshim will, I presume.” She gestured to our family dog, the white cloud laid beside her. He
lifted his head in response to his name, huffed out a breath, then relaxed again. My grandmother
chuckled. “Your parents are still going to be here and they’ll be doing the same thing they’ve always
done.”

I didn’t know what else to say to her. I didn’t want to leave. After my grandfather died, I guess I
started getting a little bit more attached, a little more desperate. And when I lifted my head and
looked to her direction, she lifted the corners of her lips into a knowing grin.

“Don’t let us keep you from going.”

In Seoul, I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t think anyone would. I thought it was going to be
more terrifying. I expected more rubber necks and spit on my face, whispers and laughter, angry
glares, snarky comments. On the train, no one paid a glance to anything else other than phone
screens and laptops, earbuds tucked into their ears. No one looked at me as much as my family
warned me. No, this wasn’t as dramatic at all.

It wasn’t until after I left the train station that maybe that wasn’t the environment they were preparing
me for. Who would waste the energy there to rag on others when you’re busy trying to get from one
place to another without being late or losing everything you own?

No, they were trying to prepare me for my actual peers.

“Excuse me, can you help me find-”

“Hi, is this Choi’s class?...”

“Could you-”

Peers stepped around me as if I was a pole in their way. Some spared glances, and when they did,
they looked me up and down, unimpressed, then moved on with their day. These were the moments
that reminded me to look down too and see what I wore, see what I portrayed myself to be compared
to everyone else.

The people around me were dressed as if they weren’t going to school, the girls holding their
notebooks in designer handbags, marching down concrete catwalks with their friends beside them in
heels. Guys wore French-tucked oversized button ups with tight jeans ripped in the knees. Then
there’s the others head to toe in Off White and Champion and Supreme, skater shirts with the sleeves
slipping over their hands, baggy jeans with extra long chain belts hanging off, shoes that seem way
too big for their feet.

Everyone around encapsulated their own different kind of style, as if each walking to represent a
different well-known designer on their way to class each day. They were fascinating to just look at
for having a cool sense of style, but the way they looked at me in return wasn’t as fascinating.

I was like dirt. Something to be stepped over and on, ignored. I became self conscious, well-aware of
what I looked like to these people, well-aware of what they thought of me as.

I was just a freshman in college at this time. Without my family, I was a child sent into the wild.

And I had to survive.

Cue the part time jobs I worked day and night after school to make money to be able to afford my
first ASSC sweatshirt. Cue the nights I explored thrift shops and found vintage pairs of Air Jordans
for low prices. Cue the nights I watched videos on cutting my own hair instead of finishing
assignments.

Cue the odd looks others continued to give me on the days where I looked slightly different.

Cue how much I felt like I didn’t belong, so I worked ten times harder to be able to.

And yet, I still just wasn’t enough.

I was just here to attend a nice school, but I found myself living a life desperate to please others just
so they could make life easier for me to learn.

How did everything come to this?

After the end of my first year in school, I came back home to visit for a few weeks before I had to
return to Seoul to continue working.

“You work awfully a lot for a student, Taehyung,” my grandmother said, sorrowfully.

“If I don’t, Seoul life is awfully boring, granny. Why not take the opportunity to make money in my
free time?”

“Is that what your friends do?”

I fell silent for a moment. “Yes, that’s what they do.”

I never had the heart to tell anyone that I didn’t actually have any friends. And I didn’t have so much
work to do simply because I was bored. I didn’t tell them that I fell victim to the materialistic Seoul
life they warned me against. It was better not to burden my family with the dismal reality I faced
daily, especially my grandmother, who was beginning to look weaker every day I was back home.

“You feeling okay, granny? You can sit down for a while,” I assured her, taking her apple basket out
of her arms and setting it to the ground before assisting her through the fields. She seemed to be
getting more exhausted more easily from the last time I saw her.

“I’m just old, my love.”

I tried to use her health as a reason to stay instead of returning to school, much to my entire family
arguing that I was well on my way to success.
But every day that I was here in this godforsaken city at this godforsaken university, it didn’t really
feel like success to me. The costs seem to outweigh the benefits, if there were any to begin with.

I felt trapped within myself, like walls surrounded me every day. I was refused to be looked at,
spoken to, interacted with. I never thought of myself undesirable. But I guess here, I was, because I
didn’t look like everyone else. I wasn’t dressed to the same level as everyone else, and because of
this growing fear of not being like them, my shyness and lonesomeness drove people even further
away. They were probably thinking that something was wrong with me. I mean, I guess there was.

I had never been so insecure and afraid before I came here.

But one person stepped into my life one night and changed everything.

I was at my late night job at a bar near campus. There wasn’t really much business that night. The
place was empty except for a few regulars sipping on beers. I remember one guy was seated at the
counter with a crumpled script shoved to the side. His attention was directly down at the countertop,
his head in his hands, tie loosened around him as if life’s really got him down. I slid a cup of water
his way when he left his own beer untouched. He remained still in response.

Right as I looked up again from focusing on the guy at the counter, another one approached me. He
held himself with an air of confidence. He was dressed to the nines like every other person I’ve seen
in this area, a greatly oversized white button-up tucked partially in tight black jeans, hair tousled as if
he just got out of bed and a camera slung over his shoulder. He lifted the camera up from his side and
aimed it at me. I felt myself flush as he looked only to me.

“Do you mind if I take a photo of you?” He asked.

“Uhm… why?”

“You’re something I’d like to capture.”

His name was Michael. He was a photographer for a modeling company located just outside of our
college town. He told me he saw me right outside the door to the bar and thought I was
“breathtaking.”

“You’re kidding,” I told him, wiping down glasses with a towel, refusing to meet his eyes, which I
could just about feel were glued onto me.

“What, you don’t believe me?” he said, seating himself down at the counter and leaning forward,
nearing my face, examining every centimeter. I backed away. “You look like a god among men,
doesn’t everyone around you acknowledge that?”

I set the glass down and turned my attention to him. “No one does…”

“Now you’re the one who’s kidding.”

“No, it’s just that no one looks at me.”

His face turned from longing to disbelief. “How could… you know what, I’m not even gonna ask
that.” He shifted as he reached into his pocket for his wallet, opened it up, and pulled out a crisp
white business card. “I want to scout you to model for me. We do ads for magazines and fashion
brands.”

I took a glance at the card he held out in front of me, hesitant to even move.
“It pays a lot more than working nights at a bar.”

“Bars pay pretty well,” I huffed.

He gestured to the empty tables surrounding us, and I looked to where he pointed, to the sad guy
with his face buried in his hands at the other end of the counter, to the mere handful of people
scattered all around. “Not on nights like this. I can make sure you’re paid well every night you’re
with me.”

He continued after a long silence. “And I’ll make sure everyone looks at you the way you deserve to
be.”

I remember arriving to his studio for the first time. It was a decently sized room rented out of a large
brick building further into Seoul. He said he managed the place by himself, doing it to save money
and to make his models feel more comfortable with less eyes on them while working with him.

I felt like I was walking in without my own permission, I guess driven by curiosity, the need for
money to fund my fashion endeavors, and the desire to be looked at the way he looked at me.

He greeted me with the same gaze, handled me with care as he dressed me and positioned me in
front of his backdrops to capture me in his photos. He helped me feel comfortable by asking about
my life. When I told him about my hometown and the beautiful life I left behind, I gradually started
feeling more comfortable with him. We quickly ended up getting lost in conversation that I stopped
noticing the flashing lights and camera shutter clicks, and everything felt natural.

I guess this wasn’t so bad after all. He told me I looked beautiful that night and every night I worked
with him. And he sure did pay me at the end of every session, handing over a thick stack of cash
stuffed into a white envelope and wrapped in a rubber band. He was right, it was more than I get
paid in a night at the bar. I was actually getting paid more than I did in both my jobs. Soon enough,
once I saw one of my photos featured on an ad for an independent clothing store at a bus stop, I quit
both jobs and focused only on working with Michael.

I guess the rest was history. Michael and I worked closely together every night, and I quickly was
able to afford a lavish lifestyle that allowed for me to be seen by my peers, all because he was able to
see me first. I started becoming active on social media and started developing a following. I saw
myself on advertisements all around, sponsoring local fashion brands. When I sent copies of some of
the photos to my family back home, they were amazed by my work and told me over the phone
about how they would show everyone in the province about my model work.

I owed it all to him. He helped me make my experience in this new foreign town feel a lot more
comfortable and not so distant from who I was. He made this place feel like a second home, and
gave me a vibrant new outlook to the city I once considered a colorless cement jungle.

When I woke up in the morning and saw myself in the mirror, the newfound confidence I had in my
reflection was all because of him.

All the positive changes in my life was because of him.

Quickly, my life became all about him and less about the peers around me that walked as if they
were on runways. I became the person to walk actual runways, sporting pieces by designers for an
audience. The people around me at school didn’t matter anymore. While I started to catch their
attention, I no longer cared and learned to ignore them, focusing only on what I came to school for in
the first place, with a new added interest in streetwear culture and fashion overall with him, with
Michael.
 I guess you can say I fell for him. I would do anything for him.

Chapter End Notes

It's called "Taehyung's Friends" cus he doesn't have any. LOL

ok im sorry don't hate me

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