Chapter Text
Monday morning.
Taehyung stands on the pavement outside his new job, fixing his tie in the window reflection before he goes inside. This building houses a stationery shop at street level, with a cram school above it, then a local radio station, and then a publishing company above that. There is a floor above the publisher, but it’s blank on the buzzer, it must not be occupied. Or maybe the publisher takes two floors.
The publisher - Black Swan Periodicals - is Taehyung’s new employer.
The interview was over the phone, so Taehyung hadn't actually met any of his new bosses or colleagues. There had been two voices on the call, one sounded like a middle-aged woman and the other sounded like a man, perhaps a little younger. It was only after the phonecall was over that he realised he couldn’t remember either of their names, and slightly suspects they hadn’t actually introduced themselves.
Still, the life of a freelance wedding singer was full of stressful bills, and a quiet, boring, 9-5 office job had become a cruel but inevitable necessity. It shouldn’t be too strenuous, and it’ll leave evenings and weekends free for his real job. If his colleagues and bosses are unsociable and don’t introduce themselves, that’s fine with him. It’s not like he’s getting this job to make friends.
There’s a narrow corridor alongside the stationery shop to get to the higher floors. Taehyung calls the elevator - he would usually take the stairs, but he doesn’t want to be in any way out of breath when he introduces himself.
Between the 3rd floor and the 4th floor, the elevator slows for a moment, which is disorienting, but it’s just a brief moment. He’s tense. He takes a deep breath and shakes himself out.
The elevator doors slide open soundlessly.
He somehow expected a publishing company to be busy, loud, but the office he steps into is very quiet. The floor has a carpet that’s just a little too thick and the air feels a little muffled. Maybe because of the radio station right below? The radio station probably has a soundproof ceiling?
Taehyung doesn’t know where to go. He’d pictured a reception desk, but there isn’t one.
A young woman in a pencil skirt walks past, but doesn’t lift her head from the page she’s reading, so he can’t catch her eye.
Another woman, older, takes a step out of one of the cubicles, but then turns back.
A young man appears from around a corner and Taehyung quickly steps into his path to stop him.
“Hi,” he says, offering a smile he hopes is friendly and confident to the very handsome man he finds himself in front of. “I’m a new hire. Do you know who I should talk to?”
“Oh,” his new colleague says, gazing past him for a moment before his eyes seem to focus, like he was deep in thought. “Hello!”
The handsome man is named Kim Seokjin, Taehyung learns as they cross the quiet office towards the back corner. He’s a couple of years older than Taehyung. He says they probably hired Taehyung because it’s busy right now, coming up to the publication of Issue 613. He points out his own cubicle as they walk through the office. There’s two desks in each, and someone’s sitting at the other desk in Seokjin’s, another young man, narrow and intense, who doesn’t look up as they pass. There are plenty of people in the office, but it’s still so quiet, everyone’s head down.
“How long have you worked here?” Taehyung asks.
“How long--?” Seokjin starts, but then he interrupts himself. “Ah, here we are. Yoongi-ssi!”
At the back of the room is an office behind an actual door, with a secretary sitting outside the door at a big desk. The secretary is pale and pretty, his shoulders rolled in as he types. He glances up at his name.
“This is Taehyung,” Seokjin says. “He says he’s a new hire. Is the Director aware?”
Yoongi blinks, and something about it looks to Taehyung like a tiny flinch.
“Always,” Yoongi answers, unnecessarily cryptic. He turns his attention back to his monitor, and Taehyung glances to Seokjin, but before he can get through his politest are you serious face, Yoongi’s speaking again, his voice low. “Kim Taehyung. Sorry. You’re assigned to desk 12. Kim Namjoon is your direct manager.”
Yoongi stands up, picking up a small camera.
“I need to take a photo of you for your ID card,” he says. “Please stand there.”
Taehyung moves as Yoongi directs, so his back is to the wall. Yoongi doesn’t move an inch from the desk, just angles himself towards Taehyung.
“Are you from Daegu, Yoongi-ssi?” Taehyung asks. “Your accent...”
“I was,” Yoongi answers. The camera clicks. “All done. Someone will drop your ID to your desk when it’s ready.” He sits back down and gives every impression that the conversation is extremely over now.
Taehyung suppresses an eyeroll as he turns away. Seokjin seems to like Yoongi, for some reason, so he doesn’t want to seem rude. Unlike Yoongi.
“Your desk will be near mine,” Seokjin says.
Desk 12 and desk 13 share a cubicle, across from Seokjin’s. Desk 12 is sparse. There’s a lot of pockmarks in the cubicle wall, like the last person had a lot of stuff pinned up. The only thing on the desk is the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Not even a mouse pad.
“Jimin-ah, you have a new friend,” Seokjin says, and the resident of Desk 13 looks up.
“Jimin!” Taehyung says in surprise. “Park Jimin?”
Looking up at him is a cute face he recognises, aged a decade but unmistakable. Park Jimin, his best friend from school in Seoul, when they were both young teens. They’d lost touch after Taehyung moved back to Daegu, the year his halmeoni was sick.
“Hello...?” Jimin says uncertainly.
“It’s me, it’s Taehyung! Wuah, Jimin-ah, you look great! This is so cool!” Taehyung’s smile falters as Jimin just stares at him. “Do you... not remember me?”
“Oh, well...” Jimin says shyly, a little frown on his face. “My memory is... pretty bad.”
“Ah, that’s okay,” Taehyung says. “We can make friends again, right? I’ll bring in a photo of us tomorrow to remind you. You won’t believe this, but I have one of the two of us stuck up on my wall!”
Jimin smiles uncertainly.
Seokjin leaves them to it, and Taehyung sits at his new desk. The surface of the desk is clean, but the keyboard, somehow, is dusty.
The office is still very quiet. He turns on the computer.
“Sorry to bother you,” he says quietly to Jimin. “How do I log on?”
“Your username is your full name,” Jimin answers. “The password is your birthdate.”
Taehyung has already typed in kimtaehyung and 19951231 and the computer is already logged in before he starts to think that he didn’t actually include his birthdate on the job application. They must have looked him up. Seems like a lot of effort when they could just issue a random password.
“Jimin-ah?”
“Mmh?”
“What do I ... do?”
Jimin comes over and shows Taehyung a spreadsheet, and another spreadsheet, and a folder full of little text files with codes in them, and a company intranet page that generates invoices. Jimin teaches him how to put numbers from here into there, and then add them to this, and then mark them complete on that. Taehyung takes notes on a sheet of paper Jimin gives him, with a pen Jimin also gives him.
“And then the final list,” Jimin says, “you have to print out, and you bring it to Yoongi-hyung.”
“What’s his damage, by the way?” Taehyung can’t resist asking.
“His is the worst damage,” Jimin answers blankly. “Are you okay to do the first set by yourself now? If you have any problems, just ask me and I’ll help. I don’t want you to do badly.”
Jimin goes back to his desk when Taehyung says he’s got it. Taehyung isn’t sure what Jimin is doing on his own computer, but it isn’t the same as what Taehyung is doing. He very much hopes it’s more interesting, because what Taehyung is doing is excruciatingly boring. And is going to take hours.
A while later, a tall man comes past their cubicle and stops.
“You must be Kim Taehyung,” he says. He’s got glasses and shortish hair swept back. “I’m Namjoon, I’m the team leader.”
Taehyung stands up to give a polite little bow.
“Very nice to meet you, sir,” he says. “Were you on my interview call...?”
“No, I don’t do that,” Namjoon says firmly. “I never do that. You’re in good hands with Jimin, but if you need anything, let me know. It’s a busy time, with Issue 613 about to launch, so there’s lots to do. Your lunch break is from 1 pm to 2 pm, and you’ll clock off at 5 pm. You must be out of the building by 6 pm, okay?”
Namjoon seems a bit intense, but nice.
At 1.03 pm, when no one else has moved, he gingerly slides his chair back to Jimin.
“Hey! Do you want to get lunch together?”
“Oh,” Jimin says, and he looks sad for a moment. “I’d love to but I can’t.”
Taehyung wanders across to Seokjin’s cubicle, but both Seokjin and his cubicle-mate are intensely focused on their monitors.
Taehyung leaves the office for lunch. He’d thought he would treat himself to lunch out for his first day. Now he’s thinking he might treat himself to lunch out every day, because the office is so quiet and boring and no one even seems to want to have lunch together.
The afternoon is, if anything, even quieter and more boring.
He does find the printer. It doesn’t work. He forces it to print a test page and it spits out a sheet of printer paper covered in the most horrible janky lines.
He finds the coffee break room too. There’s a lot of coffee cups, and no two of them are the same. Everyone must bring in their own. He’ll bring his own tomorrow, and ask Jimin when the coffee break is. Taehyung doesn’t like coffee but some people must get coffee at the same time as each other, right? He could just sip water from a coffee mug and chit chat.
He’s back at his desk, inputting these boring codes into this boring spreadsheet, when someone “knocks” on the cubicle wall, and he looks up. A young man with big eyes is holding out a card.
“Oh, is this my--?” Taehyung asks, taking it.
The instant it leaves his hand, the young man is gone.
It’s an ID card with a barcode that looks kind of weird, and the photo of Taehyung that Yoongi took this morning. The photo is washed out.
At 4.59 pm, Taehyung turns off his computer. No one else seems to be making a move to leave. Namjoon walks past and gives him an encouraging smile, or a smile that Taehyung thinks is supposed to be encouraging.
“I’m gonna head home now,” he says to Jimin. “Unless you’d like to get a drink and catch up?”
“That would be so lovely, but I can’t,” Jimin says apologetically. He’s looking up politely but he’s not really meeting Taehyung’s eyes. “I have to stay.”
“I could stay a while,” Taehyung offers. “I mean, you must leave by 6 pm, right?”
Jimin shakes his head.
“You should go,” he says. “We’ll have plenty of time.”
Taehyung figures that’s true. Jimin is probably in the middle of a big project or something. Something to do with Issue 613, probably. He’s choosing not to be hurt that Jimin doesn’t remember him and can’t seem to make time for him. He’ll be hurt when he’s sure, but he’ll give Jimin the benefit of the doubt for now.
There’s a convenient bus stop just on the next corner. Taehyung gets home and makes some ramyeon, does the dishes, practises his set for a wedding this weekend.
He stops to look at the photo of him and Park Jimin. They’re 13 years old in the photo, arms around one another, grinning so big and bright. He takes the photo down carefully and slips it into his satchel. Maybe when Jimin sees it, he’ll remember. He goes to do his laundry.
Lying in bed, scrolling his phone, Taehyung thinks of Park Jimin again. They were best friends in school, for a few years. How could Jimin forget him?
Feeling only a little guilty, Taehyung searches for Jimin on social media. It’s not a particularly distinctive name, so he gets several false positives, girls and boys, before he scrolls past a familiar face in a tiny little profile picture and clicks. He just wants to see what Jimin’s been up to, check if Jimin’s still in touch with anyone else from school. He won’t be creepy and read back really far or anything.
But he doesn’t get past the topmost post.
It’s from a year ago. The account was locked after that. It’s written by Jimin’s family. It says they’ve accepted the police verdict that Jimin’s disappearance was a suicide and have held a funeral. Park Jimin died over a year ago. The person in the memorial photo is the person who taught Taehyung the spreadsheets today. He even has the same exact hairstyle.
Taehyung doesn’t get much sleep.