[title song: fxxk it - big bang]
[~4k; will edit tomorrow]

CHAPTER 6

“You can do it!” Junmyeon whisper-shouts from all the way across the street.

Yoojin stares at the Burger King doors, straight ahead of her, right across the narrow street, and she sighs loudly. They put her in heels and short skirt and Baekhyun had proclaimed her as fit to be in a girl group to which Yoojin responded with you would know, wouldn’t you? I mean, isn’t this skirt yours? which only prompted Baekhyun to throw the skirt at her face.

“Testing one-two-three, testing one-two-three. Can you hear me? HEY CAN YOU HE—”

“Jesus Christ.” Yoojin shrieks, nearly falling over in the middle of the sidewalk at the sudden sound blasting in her ear. She spins on her heels and glares at the McDonald’s window, where Chanyeol throws hearts at her with his whole body in apology.

“Sorry.” Chanyeol whispers through the Bluetooth earpiece in Yoojin’s ear. “Over.”

Yoojin presses the button at her ear, “Who the hell let Chanyeol handle the Bluetooth? He doesn’t know what inside voices are.”

“Don’t be mean to him.” Jongin mumbles, his soft voice overshadowed by Kyungsoo laughing and Chanyeol shouting I know what inside voices are somewhere off the mic at a volume level that completely proves her point.

Yoojin snorts unattractively at the exact moment the door to the Burger King opens and Sour Patch Kid steps out of the store. Yoojin blinks rapidly because right then and there, she realizes that she has been standing across the street alone for a good five minutes now and there are floor to ceiling windows at the Burger King, too, which probably means she’s been looking incredibly creepy for the last five minutes. Thanks to the makeup, she doesn’t even look like herself, either, but when Sour Patch Kid meets her eyes, she nearly falls over once again.

It doesn’t help that Chanyeol’s whispering (or at least attempting to) instructions into her Bluetooth earpiece, “Ok, here’s the plan one more time. Just go in, ask for a job application, throw some rubber snakes under a table and a mouse somewhere too, and get out. Easy-peasy. Over.”

“Did you just say easy-peasy?” Baekhyun’s voice drifts through her earpiece, unamused and incredibly judging.

“This is like that time you said ‘munch munch, time for lunch’.” Yoojin says as she starts to cross the street, ignoring the way Sour Patch Kid eyes her curiously for a moment.

“Oh, God. That was awful.” Kyungsoo mutters and Yoojin is honestly just surprised that Kyungsoo is even sitting through this terrible pseudo-James Bond mission thing. Kyungsoo isn’t supposed to participate in these things, but clearly they all like to see her suffer. Momo giggles in the background, as if to emphasize Yoojin’s last thought, and Yoojin just glares as she sidesteps the Sour Patch Kid and heads into the Burger King. Thankfully, Sour Patch Kid barely glances back at her, walking away as he haphazardly shoulders his backpack, focused more on texting than her admittedly strange behavior.

Yoojin would have been fine with this mission, if it weren’t for the fact that not only is Flopson sitting (yes, sitting, because the cashiers have chairs which Junmyeon has refused to use their budget on) behind the counter, but so is Scary Manager Jaebum and Bambam. Not to mention the fact that at the table right next to the counter, Yoojin’s (soon-to-be ex) best friend Choi Yuna and that Hani chick are practically making googly eyes at each other and giggling.

“Oh, my God.” Yoojin blinks rapidly, betrayal coursing through her blood.

“What happened? Over.” Chanyeol whisper-yells into Yoojin’s earpiece.

God must love to play games with Yoojin because Yuna looks up and away from her previous activity of gazing deeply into Hani’s eyes only to lock eyes with Yoojin. Yuna’s eyes widen in confusion, as if Yoojin looks somewhat familiar but she can’t quite place how, but Yuna doesn’t say anything to her, doubt filling her expression, which means that Momo and Baekhyun’s makeup skills must be on a whole other level.

“Hi! How can I help you?” Flopson greets her loudly and Yoojin quickly turns away from Yuna (because the prolonged eye contact is getting a little weird, especially when Hani looks like she’s about to bust a head or two as she looks between Yoojin and Yuna with an ever-growing frown—Yoojin may like telling people to fight her but she knows a lost cause when she sees one and Hani looks like she could probably claw Yoojin’s eyes out and look hot while doing it).

Yoojin puts on her best smile, grin hurting her cheeks. “Hi, I was just wondering if you all were hiring?”

Bambam leans across the counter then, grinning widely, his now blonde hair falling into his big eyes. He looks her up and down suggestively and Yoojin has to suppress the urge to remind him that he’s young enough to be her little brother or son or something.

Flopson doesn’t say anything, just eyes her the same way Yuna had, like he might recognize her, and her heart pumps in her chest at the adrenaline.

Bambam leans on his elbows and says, “Of course we are.”

He winks at her and she feels vaguely offended, like that time she was at Yuna’s little brother’s soccer game and the twelve year olds started asking her for her number. They could be her children, just like this kid—honestly, any boy younger than her is automatically son-zoned and Bambam is no exception, especially when his name is Bambam and she’s grown up on the Flintstones.

That’s when Jaebum materializes from thin air, smacking Bambam upside the head almost instantly. Yoojin jumps at his sudden appearance, but she manages to hold the scream in because that would not be professional at all. And it would be very telling. She just adjusts her tote bag on her shoulder, the rubber snakes and fake mice feeling progressively heavier now that she’s actually in the store and minutes away from carrying out the stupid plan. Yoojin is thankful that Momo seemed to have expensive setting spray and waterproof makeup because Yoojin thinks she’s about to sweat her face off, especially now that Scary Manager Jaebum is here. “Stop flirting with prospective employees.” Jaebum scolds Bambam, a fond smile playing on his lips despite his words.

(Yoojin wonders why Jaebum doesn’t remind Bambam that he’s only, like, twelve years old, in the first place, and that makes flirting with anyone extra inappropriate.)

“And to answer your question, yes we are hiring! I have an application right here.” Manager Jaebum pulls out a paper application from the depths of his pockets and Yoojin is just surprised that he keeps those things in his pockets. It’s practically fifteen pages long, for God’s sakes, and she’s momentarily offended that men’s pockets can hold so much. She can barely put a quarter in her pockets, yet here he is, pulling an entire application packet out of his pockets. She’s like ninety-nine percent sure he still has room for other things in there, too.

She’s also surprised at how fast he is at getting her an application because it took Junmyeon a full hour to find the paper applications for McDonald’s when she had asked for an application and Yoojin doesn’t like the fact that this Manager Jaebum guy seems to be so damn organized. She finds it despicable.

He hands her the application while Chanyeol whisper-shouts into her ear, “Ayyyyyyy. Over.” Yoojin tries not to physically flinch and glances sideways, out the window, and she can barely make out Baekhyun pressed up against the McDonald’s window with a pair of binoculars smashed to his face.

It’s almost too easy when Bambam redirects her to an empty table in the corner, away from prying eyes, smiling easily as he winks yet again, deliberately touching the middle of her back, and says let me know if you need any help in this ridiculously saccharine voice. All of this earns him a strained smile from Yoojin, an amused look from Flopson, and a snort from Kyungsoo through the Bluetooth.

“We’re all gonna start blowing up their phones and then you just have to plant…the stuff. You know what to do. Over.” Yoojin glares at the paper application because Chanyeol’s using his best (read: worst) James Bond voice and she kinda wants to die. Her palms are sweating because Manager Jaebum is in the building and she was banking on him not being there. She honestly wouldn’t past him to sniff out her fear. He looks like he can sniff out fear like a ing police dog. Also, Flopson keeps glancing at her and he’s been awfully quiet this whole time.

Basically, she’s nervous.

Before she can just get up and walk out, the phone starts ringing. Bambam answers it cheerfully, until the second phone rings. Jackson goes for that one, but before he can answer it, the second line on Bambam’s phone goes off, and the minute Jaebum goes over to deal with it (and the sudden line at the registers), Yoojin whips out the fake mice first, kicking it into the corner, under the soda machine. She’s surprised at how efficient she is at this stuff and she momentarily wonders if she should think about espionage as a future career choice, perhaps a side job? Dancer and cashier by day, spy by night. It has a certain ring to it. She certainly wonders how she should incorporate this into the special skills section of her résumé.

Yoojin quickly makes her way to the bathroom, passing by that one sweet kid from a while ago, the one who introduced himself as Taehyung and helped her hand out flyers, who is not a part of the small crowd of people pestering the cashiers. Yoojin wonders how they managed to send such a big group of people into the store to distract the Burger King people, though Baekhyun does know a lot more people than Yoojin’s met in her entire lifetime, so she figures it’s not that much of a stretch to assume that Baekhyun is able to organize something like this on short notice. Yoojin just casually throws a fake snake here and there, making sure to put one under the sink and in the toilet paper dispenser, before she walks out, whistling casually as she takes a seat at the table again.

“3, 2….1,” Baekhyun cackles like an evil villain just as someone screams from inside the women’s bathroom.

The entire store freezes, the talking dying down as a high school girl skids out of the women’s bathroom and waves her hands in the air, tears in her eyes, “There’s a GIANT mouse in the bathroom!”

And then all hell breaks loose.

~.~.~.~.~

There’s screaming and cups all over the floor and Yoojin has to sidestep a sad-looking smashed burger as she tries to make a break for the door. Bambam is standing on the counter with five wrapped straws in his hands while he screams along with half the store, because apparently he’s deathly afraid of mice. Manager Jaebum is slowly inching towards the women’s bathroom. Someone screams I think I saw one under the table holy ing !!!!!! Flopson is screaming and clinging to Jaebum, mostly because Jaebum has him in a deathly tight grip and is dragging him along behind him.

Apparently they’re all afraid of mice. And snakes. Because Hani screams SNAKE and both Flopson and Jaebum grab for chairs, using them as blockades as they swivel on their heels and franticly search the area for snakes.

Yoojin almost feels bad, almost. But then the crowd trying to leave the store makes it difficult for her to get the hell out of the store and that’s when she decides, nah she doesn’t feel bad. Also Jackson Wang’s screams is one of the funniest sounds she’s ever heard.

Three things happen, however, and Yoojin’s self-preservation instincts have never been on such a high drive than at that moment.

First, one of the customers screams mouse and throws a goddamn chair across the room. Manager Jaebum shouts a long, dramatic noooo, but it’s too late. The chair crashes into the soda machine and sodas of all different colors, orange and brown-black and clear and yellow, fly into the air, like a sugary, almost beautiful rainbow. It splashes against the ceiling, shoots a customer right in the gut, the gushing soda stream so strong that it makes the customer fall backwards, all flailing limbs and gurgling shrieks, it streams against the floor to ceiling windows, and then—and then it hits Yoojin smack dab in the middle of her face and gets a mouthful of five different flavors of soda.

The second horrible thing happens right after Yoojin rubs at her eyes with her sleeves, mumbling oh god the entire time, her Bluetooth surprisingly quiet the entire time. She looks up, her eyes pinned on the door. The path towards the door is clear, like Moses parting the Red Sea, and she stumbles to her feat, her eyes stinging because of the sugary liquid. That’s when Choi Yuna decides it’s time to call out her name. Yoojin freezes and Yuna grabs her arm, “Oh, my God, Yoojin?? I knew I recognized you from somewhere, but why do you have so much makeup on? Are you okay? You’ve got soda…everywhere. Wait, wait, aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

Yoojin frowns at Yuna, “I’ll explain later. Just get me the hell out of here.”

Except it’s too late because Flopson is staring at her, all open mouthed and eyes filled with recognition, still holding a chair, the legs pointed in her direction. He jabs a finger in Yoojin’s direction and Yoojin immediately turns franticly towards Yuna, who blinks rapidly, “Please tell me you’re not the reason behind the mouse.” Yuna mumbles.

“I wish I could.”

“Oh, my God.” Yuna shakes her head before she shoves Yoojin forwards, towards the door.

Flopson moves almost immediately then and Yoojin makes a run for it, dramatically shoving people out of the way. It doesn’t work, not when Flopson is suddenly standing in front of her, blocking her path with a goddamn chair pointed at her, barricading her path.

“Let me through.”

“No ing way.” Jackson Wang shouts, poking at her with the legs of the chair he has pressed to his stomach, his legs spread so that when she shoves back at the chair he doesn’t even budge an inch.

The third, horrible thing happens right then and there.

A little girl who is standing on one of the tables shouts over all the other voices, and for reasons Yoojin can’t quite figure out, her voice carries over everyone, creating a stretched out silence as everyone contemplates her words, their eyes widening in horror. “Please, don’t kill my rat. I brought him in my pockets so he could have a fry or two. Simba was so lonely at home and he wasn’t supposed to get out of my pockets, but now he’s gone now. Don’t kill him! He’s my friend!”

The little girl tugs at her empty pockets, tears pooling in her big eyes, and Yoojin’s eyes widen in horror as she meets Flopson’s accusing eyes.

Jackson Wang pokes at Yoojin with the chair legs, “You did this.”

Yoojin’s heart sinks into her stomach because she was supposed to plant fake mice and snakes. Except now, there’s a real rat on the loose and Yoojin is ing terrified of rats. “It wasn’t supposed to be real.” Yoojin snaps back. “I planted fake ones.”

There’s a new wave of screams and people jumping onto tables or streaming out the store and Yoojin catches a glimpse of something gray streaking past the cashier counter. Yoojin jumps immediately and clings at the chair Jackson’s using as a deterrent to keep her from running. She practically climbs the sideways chair, clinging on for dear life, and Flopson wobbles but he doesn’t let the chair fall, for whatever reason, to the point where one of her legs is balanced on one of the chair legs while the other one is hovering a few inches off the ground, her fingers pressing into the padded part of the chair that’s pressed against Jackson’s stomach.

“I’m going to die.” She says, horrified because now she can see the actual rat and it’s the size of her fist. Who the hell lets their child have a rat the size of an entire hand as a pet?

(Though she does understand why his name is Simba since it seems to have a dark mark on it’s forehead, which is horribly terrifying because the rat is big enough for Yoojin to make out it’s forehead from all the way over here. Yoojin didn't even know rats had foreheads.)

Jackson looks like he wants to snap at her to get a ing grip, but then his eyes drift sideways, around her head, and he immediately pales. Suddenly he’s spinning in place, still holding the chair, and he’s running out the door. She screams because he nearly rams her into the damn door in an attempt to open the door, but she quickly kicks it open with her hanging leg, clinging for dear life, her muscles burning at the strange way she’s clinging to the tiny chair. Flopson runs down the street for a long time before he finally stops while Yoojin holds on for dear life, her fingers slowly slipping from the chair, Finally, he drops the chair, making her flail before she hits the grass hard, groaning when the chair lands on her leg awkwardly.

Slowly, Flopson grabs the chair, sets it upright on the grass, and takes a seat, breathing deeply. Yoojin glares up at him from where she’s sprawled out on the grass.

“Thanks.” She mumbles accusingly, grimacing when she runs a hand through her hair and it’s sticky and hardening thanks to the soda.

She watches, incredulously, as Flopson blinks at her from his spot on the chair, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. She just leans back on her elbows, brows raised and takes a good minute until he speaks, "That was crazy."

Yoojin wonders if she's imagining the slight awe in his voice but then she sees the way his eyes light up and she figures it makes sense. Of course Jackson Wang, Enemy #1, gets a kick out of ridiculous, vaguely life threatening situations.

She stares at him, still leaning back on her elbows and sprawled out on the grass, "Why do you look so happy?"

She narrows his eyes and Jackson Wang just shrugs, smiles that ridiculous smile of his, his dark eyes still lit up like he's just had some kind of epiphany before he says, "It's the adrenaline."

Yoojin doesn't mention that he has the exact same expression Jongdae has on his face when he's flirting with a customer just before he ends up disappearing for half an hour (conveniently at the exact same time said customer is leaving the store). Jackson Wang may be Enemy #1 but Yoojin doesn't kinkshame. Unfortunately.

So Yoojin just gives him a weird look that has him grinning at her like he knows what she's thinking before she makes a show of stumbling to her feet, her knees wobbly from the loss of adrenaline, no doubt. Unlike Flopson, she just feels exhausted, like she needs to sit down for the next ten years in order to let her heart recover from the utter fear that damn rat caused. "Where are we?"

Flopson glances around, taking a moment to pull his snapback off so he can drag a hand through his dark hair as he analyzes their surroundings. "Uh..." Flopson blinks and Yoojin gives him an incredulous look. "I think we're downtown." For a moment, he looks slightly uneasy.

Yoojin's incredulous expression only gets more twisted because downtown is a good three blocks down from Main Street. Yoojin barely recognizes it, unfortunately, because downtown just so happens to be the one place all their seniors warned them about avoiding at all costs. She had never asked why, and neither had her friends, but it became a sort of thing to avoid this part of town no matter what time of the day it was. She can already tell why they had warned them about it, just from standing there in the eerily empty streets with the summer aun beating down on them from up above, the caked on and running makeup feeling heavy against her skin. The stores all have boarded up windows, despite the flickering OPEN signs hung up. There's strange graffiti tagged along some of the walls and boards and there are broken bottles littering the streets. It takes her a moment to realize that the street isn't as empty as it seems. There are a few people, thought they're far away, at a distance that makes them seem like apparitions, dark figures nesting in the shadows. A car drives by, it's windows tinted dark, and there's even a taxi pulling out from beside a shabby, boarded up bar across the street, though she never caught the face of the person getting into the cab. This area is so utteely different from the rest of their little university town that it feels like she's in an entirely different city altogether.

"How fast do you run?" She asks and she is, by no means, impressed by Flopson's apparent superhero levels of speed. She absolutely does not think about his supposesly thick thighs (according to Chanyeol) aiding him on that superhuman three block run.

He raises a single brow at her, grinning, before he says in a disgustingly suggestive tone, "You like that?"

She swears he pops out a hip in a mocking pose and she has to hold back a sputter.

"Don't test me, Flopson." She looks away to survey their surroundings with a slight grimace, ignoring the heat inexplicably rising to her cheeks. Her cheeks are warm because she's irritated of course.

He's quiet and she wonders if she's finally managed to make him shut up (she doesn't look because she doesn't care), but then he speaks a full minute and a half later, his voice quiet, "What's three times five?"

"I said-" Yoojin cuts the beginnings of her prepared rant off when she fully registers what he's just said. "What?"

"What's three times five?"

She spins on her heels then, glancing away from the unfamiliar, frankly creepy streets so she can give him the most withering glare she can muster, courtesy of Oh Sehun. "What the hell are you doing?"

He's already on his feet, chair tucked against his front casually, the legs sticking out as if he knows she'll kick him before he even speaks. He gives her a -eating grin, "Actually testing you."

"Do you want me to punch you?"

He just laughs at her, big and boistorous and annoying.

His laughter gets cut off by a rev of an engine and when she looks up all she can think is, what the actual , because there's a literal pack of bikers turning the corner and heading their way, skidding to a halt right where the asphalt ends and the grass begins, the screech of motorcycle tires echoing in the eerily empty streets.

She blinks rapidly when one of them, the apparent leader of the pack of seven, steps off the bike before dramatically yanking his helmet off his head. He shakes his purple hair out in a way that makes it seem like he's trying for shampoo commercial aesthetics but only managed to reach dog-shaking-off-water aesthetics. Barely.

She's only half surprised that it's Axe Man grinning lecherously at them as he says, "You two seem to be lost in the wrong side of town, aren't ya?"

It sounds so terribly cheesy that she's almost tempted to laugh, though she thinks that's more out of hysteria at this point. Because she's terrified about the fact that Axe Man apparently has a biker gang and could possibly literally be an axe man for all she knows. It's not much of a reach because she swears she sees a knife on one of his buddies.

Maybe this is karma for judging the dude for his ty pick up line and nicknaming him after the worst teenaged boy fragrance to ever grace this planet. Axe Man with the purple ing hair and sleazy pick up line runs a ing biker gang. What are the odds? Why in the world does she have to die in with dried soda in her hair, runny makeup, and in the company of Flopson Wang? What are the ing odds?

a/n: this is honestly the most absurd thing I’ve ever written I can’t believe there are subscribers I’m actually in love with all of you omg dkvjnkjdj this fic is me making fun of every serious plot line I’ve ever wrote (all of them) because I’m an emo pisces venus mess

thank you everyone for reading and commenting you’re all the loveliest people ever sjkzfnkjs I feel truly blessed :’)