“Alright,” Sanghyuk started as he finished writing the order on the flimsy notebook he held. “I have three pulled pork burgers with extra barbecue sauce, hot wings drenched in ranch, and a pot of baked beans. For drinks, I have a strawberry lemonade and two sweet teas. Will that be it?”

            The three girls nodded, sheepish smiles on their faces.

            “I’ll get the order to the kitchen right away!” the waiter claimed before flashing them a smile and dashing across the restaurant floor to the kitchen window.

            Sanghyuk neatly ripped out the new order and placed it on the sill. “Changsub-hyung! Three soggy pigs, Icarus wings, and pebble water!”

            “Got it!” Changsub hollered without looking over his shoulder while chopping up pieces of grilled chicken. “Hyunsik! Minhyuk! Start baking more of those beans and get more salt! The people are really demanding those today!”

            Sanghyuk left the window to walk over to the bar and get the girls’ drinks, but when he arrived, he saw that Sungjae was struggling with the tea machines. He watched the elder trying to open the top of the sweet tea while carrying an open bag of sugar under one arm, sugar spilling to the floor unbeknownst to him. The younger looked over to see if their manager, Eunkwang, had noticed. Luckily, he was too busy serving alcoholic drinks to the customers.

            “Ugh, hyung, you’re dropping the sugar!” Sanghyuk hissed in Sungjae’s ear when he came up behind him. Sungjae stopped trying to take off the lid to look down under his arm and let out a whimper, grabbing the bag to stop the pour.

            “Hyuk-ah! Help me!” whispered Sungjae, his fearful eyes locking on Sanghyuk’s. The younger nodded, but felt like he was being watched. He had to move quickly, that much he knew.

            Starting to untie his bistro apron, Sanghyuk glanced at Eunkwang to make sure the man was still busy before looking around to see if any of the bosses were around. Once he decided they weren’t, he laid the apron on top of the fallen sugar.

            He looked back at Sungjae. “I’ll go grab more sugar-just make it look like you’re wiping down the machines.” Sanghyuk turned around and was about to walk away, but turned back. “Actually, can you go tell table 14 that we’re making the tea and take a strawberry lemonade?”

            With that, he left Sungjae to grab another bag of sugar from the storage room. Sanghyuk let out a sigh of frustration, feeling a bit irritated with Sungjae’s clumsiness. Though the elder had just started working, so he couldn’t really criticize him so soon. After all, Sanghyuk been the same way when he had started working; only having a bit more sense.

            When the waiter reached the storage room at the back of the restaurant, he went in just to grab the sugar and was going to walk right back out when he saw a thin line of light on a dark wall. Not switching the lights on when he’d entered, Sanghyuk thought it was strange.

           Sanghyuk then thought about the exit door and looked over his shoulder to see that it wasn’t fully closed.

            “What the hell?” he muttered to himself, walking over to it and opened it all the way, sunlight pouring in.

            Sanghyuk didn’t see any of his coworkers standing outside and nothing was out of the normal, the dumpster against a graffitied wall and the usual cars parked a bit in the distance.

            Not thinking much about it, Sanghyuk shrugged and closed the door before finally walking out of the storage room. He’ll have to mention it to the boss after work.

            When he turned the corner to get to the busy lobby, Sanghyuk stopped in his tracks to the chaotic sight in front of him.

            Several customers at different tables were throwing up either into their bowls or onto the red carpeted floors, some standing, some sitting, and some rushing toward the restrooms. Sanghyuk stood there and unconsciously dropped the bag of sugar at this feet, the bag bursting easily.

            He saw Hakyeon walking around carefully, the restaurant owner offering sincere words of apologies as he patted the backs of some customers. Sanghyuk could not understand how his boss was able to do what he was doing, a nauseous feeling starting to form in his stomach. The sight and smell was making him dizzy.

            “Sanghyuk-ah.” a gentle voice called out from behind the waiter. He turned around to see his second boss, Taekwoon, holding out a mop towards him. “Start mopping.”

-

            It had been several hours when the restaurant was finally clean, the customers having left in an angry mob.

            All of the employees sat in the back room, weary and sick from having to deal with the illness of other people.

            Hakyeon and Taekwoon sat at the head of the table, the elder releasing a long sigh. He stared at his clamped hands with a conflicted look on his face and Sanghyuk’s leg started to shake with nerves.

            “Alright,” Hakyeon started, not looking away from his hands. “Can someone please explain why nearly all of today’s customers left with food poisoning?”

            The kitchen staff looked uncomfortably at each other and Sanghyuk could imagine why. They had obviously been the ones dealing with the food and that made them the biggest culprit, but this has also been the first time that their food had done something like this to the customers.

            Changsub cleared his throat several times before speaking. “Well, we used the same ingredients as always. I don’t understand how this could have happened.”

            “Yeah, like, nothing was expired either.” Ilhoon stated, his arms crossed.

            “Did you cook the meat long enough?” Wonsik questioned, his eyes flickering over to Donggeun.

            The latter glared at the blue-haired waiter before looking at someone else. “I always cook the meat long enough – unlike a certain someone-“

            Jaehwan stood from his chair. “You trying to say something, Donggeun?”

            “Let’s calm down, hyung.” Hongbin reached out for Jaehwan’s wrist, but the elder pulled away.

            “You could have tried to help clean up a little more, flower boy!” Hyunsik stood and pointed at Hongbin.

            Wonsik jumped up from his chair this time and was about to yell something until he caught sight of Taekwoon rising slowly.

            “All of you shut up.” The soft voice carried out through the room and everyone seemed to calm. However, they all kept sending glares at each other from across the room as they settled in their chairs.

            Taekwoon sat back down and this time, Hakyeon spoke up. “Eunkwang-sshi, what do you think did it?”

            Sanghyuk looked down the table to see Eunkwang stack up the written orders in a small and neat pile.

            “Well, it looks like most of the customers ordered the baked beans. That could have been it.” Eunkwang answered wearily, leaning back in his chair. “I noticed that all the tables that had the baked beans had the sickest customers.”

            That made sense and Sanghyuk winced when he remembered the pots of vomit he had to empty out. Then, that’s when he remembered.

            “Hakyeon-hyung! When I had gone to the storage room, the exit door had been open. Maybe someone snuck in?” Sanghyuk questioned, leaning forward in his chair. It was most unlikely, but he imagined someone could have snuck in through the exit door and messed with their ingredients. It really was a ridiculous thought.

            Hakyeon’s eye widened and Sanghyuk saw the look of realization on Taekwoon’s face. The waiter wondered what they had realized and then he looked around to see all the other employees share the same looks; as if they all remembered something. Except for himself and Sungjae.

            “Those damned s!” Hakyeon cursed as he suddenly stood from his chair, knocking it over behind him. “I can’t ing believe this! How did I let myself forget?”

            Sanghyuk and Sungjae looked at each other with clear shock on their faces. In the few months he’d been working at the barbeque place, Sanghyuk had never heard the main boss curse. Hakyeon was too affectionate and kind for such words – or so he thought.

            Eunkwang let out a pained groan. “Damned Peace-zzeria workers.”

-

            Junhong and Jongkook stood proudly before their elders as they cheered and clapped, their mission having been a complete success. To celebrate, the Peace-zzeria employees were having a small pizza party in the back room.

            “Job well done boys. That dumb barbeque place is definitely going to go down in popularity for a while.” Namjoon threw an arm around each boy, giving them both a smug grin. “Now everyone’s going to be coming to us.”

            “Yeah, and to think it wasn’t even that hard.” Junhong said, a cheery expression on his face.

            “They need a better security system, that’s for sure.” Jongkook muttered with a roll of his eyes.

            “I still think that we should have done something safer. Mixing arsenic with the salt was just plain dangerous.” Youngjae declared with a look of worry on his face. “Those people could have died.”

            Yoongi rolled his eyes. “It was just a little bit. And it wasn’t like, pure stuff anyway. We don’t want to kill anyone.”

            Daehyun hummed from a corner of the room. “Close enough to it. Ah well, as long as Yongguk-hyung doesn’t get mad…”

            This made Junhong’s smile instantly disappear and Namjoon his teeth before removing his arms from around the boys’ shoulders.

            “You guys don’t have to worry about him. He isn’t coming back until next week so he doesn’t need to know a single thing about this.” Namjoon said with a smile. “Now, Taehyung, go release the video to the news. Cha-Cha Barbeque is not going to go home with this year’s award.”

first chapter. completely winged it and i have no real knowledge of food poisoning and all that food business stuff. i just feel like this story is going to be one big mess lol. just the beginning though, i have some ideas planned out but most of it is just going to be random sabotages. thanks for reading, more to come!