after jungkook goes out of his way to help a sickly-looking stranger on a rainy night, the universe chooses to reward him in the most bizarre and unexpected way possible - with a nest of overprotective vampire sugar-daddies.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Saturday nightshifts really fucking suck.
It isn't just the lingering exhaustion from working multiple consecutive shifts in a thirty-six hour period on minimal sleep, or the way the minutes seems to crawl by painfully slowly after about 2am, or the niggling headache that creeps in to pulse behind his eyes as the night wears on – undoubtedly his brain's way of telling him that he's reached a critical point of exhaustion and needs to go the fuck to sleep.
No, the worst thing about Saturday nightshifts are the kinds of god-awful customers he inevitably has to deal with.
Okay, so not all of them are bad. There's always the usual groups of university students stocking up on beer and soju for a night of partying (the lucky bastards actually have time to socialise at the weekend, not that Jungkook's jealous or anything), and to be fair they don't typically cause him too much grief; but he kinda hates seeing them all the same, because it reminds him of the sort of carefree student life that most of his financially-stable peers get to experience on a regular basis. Jungkook hasn't been to a party since Yugyeom's birthday last November, and he'd only managed that because Jaebum (bless the Alpha's kind heart) had very carefully scheduled it around Kookie's existing shifts so that he'd definitely be able to come. Hell, Jungkook had even been forced to work a double shift on his own birthday back in September because there had been too many student fees to pay off at the start of term. Socialising regularly just isn't realistically compatible with his tight budget or his crammed work schedule.
On the other hand, he does host self-pity parties at least two or three times a nightshift, but those are pretty lonely affairs so they probably don't count.
Another regular type of customer he comes across most Saturdays is the surly-looking, middle-aged businessman; someone who's clearly had a bad week and intends to drown his sorrows in cheap liquor.
They tend to show up sometime after ten, still dressed in their work uniform or business suit (and Jungkook gets it, working on Saturdays really sucks), invariably heading straight for the alcohol aisle, plus or minus a brief detour via the savoury snack section. They rarely want to interact with him beyond the occasional grunt (which is absolutely fine, because he isn't exactly keen to talk to them either), but if Jungkook's lucky he might simply get a 'hello' or a 'thank you' out of them at the till. If he's particularly unlucky, however, the customer might choose to offer him a few unwanted and unnecessary words of advice at the checkout.
Tonight happens to be one of those really unlucky ones.
"Being nice will get your nowhere in life," the sullen gentlemen informs him gruffly, as Jungkook dutifully scans and bags the bottles of soju and packaged bar snacks. "Some rich fucker will exploit you for it, and suddenly you'll find yourself stuck under his feet for the rest of your miserable career, working twice as many hours as he does for less than half the pay. Don't make the same mistakes I did, kid."
