Jacob scrunches his nose at the chewed gum stuck on the back of some theatre seats. These are going to be a nightmare to clean up. God, this sucks. Adam is totally going to laugh at him. If he isn't too busy sucking face with Nick, that is.
What a great way to spend Valentine's Day.
Jacob sighs and continues sweeping the aisles, skipping the seats for now. He'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.
A sniffling sound stops him in his tracks. He scans the theatre, but it looks as empty as it did when he came in to clean. There isn't a person in sight.
He probably just heard the ventilation or something. With a shrug, he returns to his sweeping. There's tons of trash littering the carpet – popcorn kernels, candy wrappers, ticket stubs, not to mention weirder things that he doesn't want to examine too closely. He wishes that people would be neater, would throw out their garbage instead of carelessly tossing it onto the ground, but maybe he would be out of a job if they did. One man's trash is another man's treasure, indeed.
Okay, he definitely hears the sniffling again. Not just sniffling but crying: soft, muffled sobs that seem to resonate in the theatre. Either this place is haunted by a mopey ghost or there's someone else here.
Jacob frowns. Nobody is supposed to be here now. Well, nobody else. The last movie had ended over an hour ago, and he had checked to ensure the theatre was empty before starting to clean.
"Hello?" he calls out. "Who's there?"
The crying abruptly cuts off. Jacob doesn't know why his presence didn't bother the crier before, but apparently sweeping doesn't disturb crying but talking does.
"Uh, I'm part of the cinema staff and I'm cleaning the theatre. The customers were supposed to vacate the premises a while ago."
He hopes that he doesn't sound too much like an ass, which is probably the last thing the crying person needs. But he needs to do his job. He's a college student trying to pay his bills, not some kind of counsellor.
Jacob waits for a response, but nothing comes. He feels stupid for talking into the air, but he does anyway to ask another question.
"Where are you?"
Still, no reply. He cranes his neck to look around the theatre again, but he still can't see anything except empty seats and shadows. Where is the person hiding?
There's a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a sob, and this time he has his ears pricked so he can pick up that it's from the back of the theatre. Putting down his broom, Jacob makes his way toward the source of the crying, being careful not to bump into anything on the way. He's sustained his share of bruises from knocking into seats and armrests.
"Hello?" Jacob says, feeling ridiculous and determined at the same time. He feels like he's cornering a stray cat behind an alley.
A head pokes out behind a seat, and Jeongguk freezes. He clears his throat, regaining his composure. "The theatre is closed," he blurts out the first thing he thought of.
The boy – it's a boy, that's all Jacob can tell in this dim lighting – sniffs. Jacob freezes again. He doesn't...do crying. He doesn't cry, and he doesn't know how to deal with crying people.
"Are you okay?" Jacob asks awkwardly. "Are you hurt? Do you want me to get someone?"
The boy shakes his head. He straightens up – he's small – and drags his sleeve across his eyes, sniffling again. Jacob wants a hole to open up in the ground and swallow him. This wasn't in the job description.
"Uh." He should really tell the boy to leave, that's what he would do to anyone else, but it feels like kicking a puppy. "Was the movie that bad?"
That startles a laugh out of the boy. "No." Christ, his voice is deep. "It wasn't the movie."
