For a guy who shows up at Raven Novikov's extremely private upper echelon card games wearing sweater vests and wire-framed, round-rimmed glasses, Jimin has never seen Kim Seungmin's poker face crack in the four months since he started attending. Not even when Vladimir Markovic lost to him for a third time in one night and completely lost his shit, screaming at him in Russian and coming very close to hopping the table just to have a go at him. The kid who usually accompanies him, Yang Jeongin, clearly started getting nervous and made a move to retrieve a hidden weapon—one he was absolutely not supposed to bring into the room—but Tigris Rousseau stepped in, saying something to Vladimir in Russian which he obviously took great offense to and turned his ire on Tigris instead. Jeongin sighed, caught somewhere between flustered and relieved, because Tigris saved his ass from getting them permanently blacklisted, but Seungmin sat through the whole ordeal with barely a blink. He just quietly gathered up the cards littered around the table to reshuffle the deck. A large part of Jimin is convinced he attends the games exclusively because he likes poker and nothing to do with gang activity at all.
That's really the only reason Jimin is there, honestly. He might be on Novikov's payroll, but he isn't a gangster. Far from it.
He just works at the hotel.
As soon as the title to the Black Rabbit was out of his hands, Jimin couldn't help feeling more than a little relieved, because the reality was that he knew nothing about running a business and there was just no feasible way the place wouldn't immediately go under if he'd stubbornly hung onto it for the sake of clearing his father's debt. Despite their tumultuous history, the place was better off in Novikov's hands. What Jimin did not expect was that Novikov would call him a month and a half later to ask if he was still looking for a job. It wasn't anything glamorous, just a front desk position, but since the Black Rabbit was now under the control of a criminal organization instead of a real estate developer, Novikov wanted to replace a percentage of the staff with people he could trust. As such, Jimin was privy to slightly more information on certain guests than some of his coworkers. He knew who to keep an eye on and who to notify if he smelled anything fishy.
New lease on life in hand, Jimin threw everything he had into being an exemplary employee. Welcoming guests with every drop of hospitality in his body, going above and beyond to solve even the most asinine of complaints, placing himself in convenient spots during his breaks in order to eavesdrop. Despite his terminally chilly demeanor, Jimin thinks Novikov has grown pretty fond of him. He gets good information and doesn't ask for anything in return. But Novikov gives him things anyway. Like a new car. But instead of the sensible Honda Jimin had been trying to save up for, it was a Mercedes. So he got to roll in and out of the hotel in a Mercedes like he was someone important instead of Jeongguk's Mustang or nothing at all on the days when he needed to take the bus.
Another one of these perks was an open invitation to Novikov's private game room. He wasn't always present himself, but Jimin got to know his revolving crew of stand-ins, from the near-silent Tigris Rousseau to the ill-tempered Vladimir Markovic to the unyieldingly terrifying Noir Deces. From what Jimin had gathered, Tigris was mate-adjacent to Novikov. For safety reasons, they hadn't exchanged bites, but all the other components were there, as much as they could be. Vladimir, however, was obsessed with Novikov, and therefore did not get along with Tigris at all. They bickered constantly. And Noir flat-out hated card games, so he did not enjoy his government sanctioned game nights and made sure everyone knew it.
Aside from the hosts, there were also regular participants Jimin became familiar with the faces and names of. Drug lords, loan sharks, hitmen—he sat at the table with all manner of scum and villainy. Pretty, unassuming little Park Jimin, who no one questions the presence of because he sits at the host's right hand despite the fact that they might have seen each other earlier in the day while checking into the hotel. And no one looks at him twice especially when Novikov is there.
