Hoseok leaned on the counter, fiddling with the curly scanner cord and resting his head on a propped up hand. The store was dead, his supervisor was terrorizing the cashiers in the children’s department, and there weren’t even any clothes on the floor to re-hang; if something didn’t happen, he would keel over and die right then and there.

Sighing, he straightened a crinkly stack of papers shoved next to the register and brushed lint off the counter. The air kicked on and a vent in the ceiling blasted chilled air directly into his eyeballs. Grunting, Hoseok left his register to go find something to do, or at least pretend to be doing something if his manager walked by. Only an hour left until the store closed and he could go home, eat tiny doughnuts straight from the box, and watch Netflix in his underwear.

He was absentmindedly running his hands over a rack of men’s dress slacks, hopefully exuding an aura of “working” and “focused” when he heard familiar footsteps coming up behind him. Twisting around, Hoseok self-consciously pulled on his button-up to straighten it and smiled. “Hey Namjoon, done with the children’s department?”

His manager rolled his eyes and leaned against a display of folded polo shirts. “If they got any stupider back there, they would, I don’t know…drop dead or something.”

Hoseok chuckled, silently agreeing, and clacked the pant hangers around. “Only an hour ‘til close,” he said, meaning that they only had another hour of suffering the idiots who worked there.

Namjoon straightened and glanced around the men’s department. All the displays were organized with shirts folded neatly, the floor was clear, and there wasn’t a customer in sight. “I’m gonna do a final run through of shoes, then check on children’s again. Do a sweep of the dressing rooms for me and I won’t bug you again until close. Deal?”

Hoseok grinned. Namjoon was going easy on him. “Sure thing, boss-man. Have fun in shoes!” He shot a couple of finger guns at Namjoon, who did not return them. Oh well. The shoe department was always a disaster, even if the store had been slow all day, so Hoseok would be grumpy and annoyed too if he had to deal with it. There was something about people and shoe boxes and tissue paper that never ended well. Luckily for him, the dressing rooms probably weren’t all that bad. If he walked really slowly he could probably drag it out to at least a half hour.

The dressing room was pretty barren. The return wrack was empty except for a couple of hangers. Hopefully there would be some shirts crumpled on the floor of the stalls that he could hang up and embark on a scavenger hunt to find out where the damn things went.

Moving on autopilot, he carelessly knocked on the first stall door, which wasn’t quite closed. “Excuuuuuuse me,” he drawled, pushing the door open and stepping inside. He had to knock every time, even if he knew there wasn’t anyone in there, so they wouldn’t get sued or something. “Ah!” he yelped, backing up rapidly and banging his head on the door when he caught sight of a man, shirtless, stepping into a pair of light blue, lacy with white garters pooled on the seat beside him.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Hoseok stuttered out, feeling his face flush with heat.

“What the f-” The man yelped, looking absolutely mortified. Almost immediately, his foot got caught in the lingerie and he almost toppled over.

Hoseok tried to back through the door, but it had swung shut behind him. He snapped his eyes shut, but the shockingly attractive image didn’t leave the black space of his mind. The room was silent other than his awkward fumbling for the door latch and he nearly giggled in relief when he caught the handle, yanked it open, and spun outside, pulling the door securely shut behind him. He heard some rustling as the man either pulled the on the rest of the way or took them off and oh my god, Hoseok should not be thinking that at all, he was such a terrible person.

“I’m so, so sorry about that. I was sure there wasn’t anyone in here, holy I’m sorry,” Hoseok babbled, leaning against the far wall and bracing his hands on his knees with his face on fire.

The sounds from the dressing room stall quieted into an embarrassed, pointed silence. Maybe if neither of them made a noise, it would be like nothing had happened.

Maybe that was it, Hoseok thought. Maybe the man never come to the store again. Maybe he’d complain to Namjoon and Hoseok would be out of a job by the time the night was over. But the man had been trying on blue and white and that did not go with his skin tone, not to mention Hoseok was pretty sure he had the Lady Luck brand, which Jeonghee over in the ladies’ department told him were low-quality and scratchy in places. If Hoseok’s way too many years in retail had given him anything, it was the ability to accurately guess people’s sizes.

Sneaking out of the dressing room, Hoseok took some deep breaths and argued with himself. Was he really going to do this? Hadn’t he caused enough trouble? If he wasn’t going to get fired before, this might just push it over the edge. But the image of the man, his legs (damn!) and the lingerie sliding up…

Hoseok smacked himself in the head and stalked over to the ladies’ department.

The doorway to the men’s fitting room looked dark and menacing. Or maybe those were Hoseok’s totally understandable nerves making everything much more terrifying than they had any right to be. He adjusted the…outfit in one hand and took small, measured steps toward the dressing room. Hopefully the man hadn’t left as soon as Hoseok had vacated the area, and god, wasn’t that an odd thought?

Something in his stomach swooped when he saw that the first stall door was securely closed. He ducked down as quietly as possible and saw a shadow shaped like two legs on the carpet. If it turned out that this was someone else, Hoseok was about face even more humiliation. Hell’ he’d probably just melt into the carpet.

“Um, excuse me?” He clutched the hangar in nervous hands.

Something rustled behind the closed door before going quiet again. He heard something that might have been an annoyed grunt or a quiet, “Yes?” Hoseok couldn’t hear much over the roaring in his ears. He shuffled in place.

“I’m really sorry in advance if you’re not the same person from, uh, earlier. And if you are, then I’m really, really sorry and I can’t say that enough. Please don’t be mad at me.” He grimaced and tried to muster up the courage to continue. He rushed through the next sentence. “I couldn’t help but to see that you were trying on Lady Luck and my coworker, Jeonghee, she works over in the ladies’ department, and she said they’re itchy and low-quality and you were trying on the blue ones with white garters, and those don’t go with your skin tone at all! I mean, something darker would work better and I’m good at guessing sizes, and so I brought BCBGeneration because I’ve hear that they are really comfortable and I think the color would work really well and the style would show off your legs.” He almost bit his tongue when that came out. “I’m really sorry again, but if you have any questions, I’m over at the men’s register.”

He swung the lacy, dark purple with similarly-styled black garters over the door and hooked them on the top so they hung inside.

After a second of silence, he heard slow movement from inside the stall before fingers peeped over the top of the door and the hanger disappeared inside.

Did that mean the man was going to try it on? Heoseok squeezed his eyes shut, which did nothing to stop the mental images, and fled. He only tripped once.

Fifteen minutes later, Hoseok was flopped over his registering, still caught up in wondering what the hell had just happened. Luckily, Namjoon hadn’t reappeared. Maybe someone in the children’s department had set something on fire. God, he hoped so. Seeing Namjoon and trying to act like he hadn’t just seen a super hot guy in ladies’ and then proceeded to recommend other ladies’ would be more than he could handle.

Footsteps roused him fom his semi-comatose state. Hoseok jerked upright, knowing it was much too late to pretend he’d been working, but willing to put in some effort. “Yes, can I check you out?” he blurted when he realized it wasn’t Namjoon.

A man walked up, holding a black tank top, a pair of shorts, and a couple of other things. He was about Hoseok’s height, with ashy brown hair and an awkward smile that was more a baring of teeth. The man laughed self-consciously and scratched the back of his neck. “I think you already did.”

Ah. This was the guy.

Hoseok choked on his own spit and clapped a hand to his mouth. “Did you find everything okay?” he finally croaked as the man laid down his purchases.

He watched in surprise as the man’s face turned completely red. “Yeah. I had a little…help.”

Hoseok’s hands, which had been automatically removing hangars and scanning each item, startled when they came in contact with something light, soft, and lacy. He glanced down to see the purple and black garters, which had been hidden between the athletic wear.

So. That was amazing.

“No questions?” Hoseok felt compelled to ask. He was just doing his job as an employee. Didn’t want the customer to leave unsatisfied.

The man fiddled with his credit card and didn’t answer immediately, studiously avoiding Hoseok’s eyes.

“Your total’s 78.96.”

He swiped and waited for the receipt to print, immediately snatching it out of Hoseok’s hands.

Hoseok wondered if he’d gone too far. Maybe the guy was going to demand to talk to his supervisor for ual harassment or something.

Instead, the man, Taehyung, if he was using his own credit card, stole a pen from Hoseok’s side of the counter and scribbled something on the back of his receipt before sliding it back.

“Did you want to return something…?” Hoseok asked, confused, before he saw that Taehyung had written his phone number in blocky numbers between the return policy and a 5 dollar coupon.

Taehyung looked nervous and was blushing so hard something probably popped. “I won’t need the receipt for returns,” he whispered, leaning in. “But I might need some help getting it on.”

Hoseok could only watch as Taehyung fled out the front door and into the night, lingerie in his bag and phone number left in Hoseok’s clenched fist.