A raven cawed in the distance, and Jaejin found himself staring at the bird disdainfully. He gazed at the bird intensively, to which even a vein appeared on his forehead. Sweat beaded against the line between his forehead and his hair as he focused all his attention on the black, stupid raven in the far corner from where he stood. With his mentor intently studying him, he knew he couldn’t fail this time again.

It was already his thirtieth time. He felt as if his eyes were going to fall off, yet he didn’t stop. He knew what was at stake. He would forever disgrace his entire family, and not the blood related family.

Jaejin narrowed his eyes, an image of the raven’s wings snapping in half. He played that same grotesque image over and over throughout his head, not thinking of anything else. The raven still flew around, gracefully swooping down to pick up a field mouse, that had been scampering on the forest floor. He gave more strength to his gaze, thinking even harder.

When the raven’s wings suddenly compressed and the bird fell to the floor with a short squawk, Jaejin felt all the weight on his shoulders lift. His mentor placed a hand on his shoulder, an indication that he had done well.

The moment his mentor touched him, Jaejin felt an overwhelming sense of dread wash over him. He couldn’t understand why, but the feeling and wanting to hurt himself smashed with full force into him. Jaejin let out a gasp, moving away from the touch. He saw his mentor melt into the shadows, leaving him rubbing his shoulder.

“I sure hope to hell that I never feel that again.”

-

“The princess chased the dragon around, letting out a battle roar, unable to contain her anger anymore. The dragon had done bad, and killed the prince, even though the prince was the princess’s meat. She- What the heck is this crap,” grumbled Minseok as he tossed the book he had started twenty minutes aside. He tapped his fingers against cash register, leaning against the counter.

Wednesday afternoons have always been slow for Minseok. To be quite honest, every day is slow. He still couldn’t put a finger around the fact of why his boss built this market in the first place. There never was any customers anyways, which is ironic because a store needs customers.

He let out a slight sigh, opening his mouth loudly, stretching it out from reading out loud for a while. He looked up at the clock, “Dang, still an hour left.” He pushed himself away from the counter, and brushed his knees, which had been resting on the counter the entire time, and he stretched his arms. He let out a respective sigh from the slight pleasure that had seeped into his back and arms.

Grabbing the employee board, to which he still doesn’t understand why it’s called that, and went to do a check on the items. “Apples, check. Oranges, check. Bananas, check.-”

“Min, you there?” a strained voice came from behind him. Minseok turned around, careful not to let out a laugh as he watched his boss struggle with crates filled with nutella and ramen. He quickly went up and received some from him.

Yixing laughed, “Much better.” He placed the crates down and clapped his hands, brushing them off at the same time. He pouted, much to Minseok’s dismay, and sighed. “My shoulders feel like they are going to pop out.

“Hyung, please.”

Yixing placed his hands on his hips and looked around. And as if realizing for the first time, he blinks. “Where are all the customers?”

Minseok wanted to smack him. Seriously? He knew Yixing had the attention span of a four-year-old, but this was by far the worst he had seen his boss. “We didn’t have customers for almost a year, hyung.”

“Is that so?” Yixing his non-existent beard. He tapped his finger on his chin before brightening. “Well that’s fine. Hey I think there’s more nutella in the back, I’ll go get it!” Before Minseok could get out another word his boss had left.

He stared