Hoseok stumbled through the company building's main entrance, bag whipping around hazardously behind him. He pulled the bag out from behind him and dug deep into one of the front pockets in search of his I.D. card, occasionally glancing upward to make sure he was walking toward the security check and not into a wall. (Or worse, his manager.) A wisp of a sigh blew past his lips in relief when he felt the familiar plastic that covered his cheaply made card.
Tugging the lanyard out from whatever it had gotten itself tangled up in, Hoseok slowed his swift pace and greeted the security worker that stood beside the I.D. scanner with what he hoped was a cheerful smile and pulled the rest of his I.D. card out from the bag's pocket. The security worker merely gave him a curt nod and slight jerk of her head toward the scanner, her facial expression not once shifting from the cold, hard stare she had been putting up since her first day on the job. Hoseok sighed internally and shoved the end of his I.D. into the scanner, jerking it right back out when an affirmative beep pierced his eardrums. Pushing past the metal bar that would have stood rigidly in his way had he not have an official I.D., Hoseok gave the security worker one last wave of his hand in farewell, receiving another blank stare in return, and hustled down to where the elevators stood in a row.
Jamming his thumb into the "up" button for the elevator, Hoseok situated himself so that he didn't end up looking like he literally just got out of bed; checking his reflection on the elevator's door, Hoseok ruffled his damp mop of hair, growling when the defiant mane fell limply back against his scalp; making quick work of his unevenly buttoned shirt, Hoseok attempted to try and play it off as though his shoulders, chest, and back weren't wholly exposed thanks to the hasty drying of his body.
But then something even more interesting than his shirt's condition caught his eye: a dark mark on the side of his neck.
He would have probably stood there all day just to try and see what the hell he did to his neck within the past forty hours, but the familiar ding of the elevator graced his ears, and the doors groaned before opening with a violent shudder. Hoseok scanned the cramped space of the lift and thanked the Heavens that it was empty, seeing how he didn't want to get noticed by anyone in his current appearance. With a single stride, Hoseok entered the elevator and turned to the wall that held the buttons for the various floors.
He had been seconds away from pressing the "2nd" floor button when a sudden, "Hold the door!" echoed from out and around the lift. Hoseok tensed, cursing himself for having such bad luck; while he wanted to take the gentlemanly course of action and politely press the "keep open" button, he also wanted to smash the "close doors" button and go up to his office's floor in peace and quiet.
Of course, there wasn't any room for arguments when the earlier shout suddenly appeared into an actual person; one that was sweating profusely and bent over panting just beside Hoseok. But it wasn't so much the fact that the man was visibly physically exhausted. Oh no, it was who the man was that bothered Hoseok so: it was his shitty manager.
Fuck me, Hoseok wailed internally, gritting his teeth and swiftly pressing the button that would take him and his manager to the second floor.
Silently regretting all his life choices that had led up to that exact moment, Hoseok shuffled as far away from his manager as he could get in the cramped space and timidly stared off into the corner, admiring all the little dust bunnies that various janitors must have missed. (Or ignored.)
It wasn't until the panting had ceased and a sudden spark of light appeared in front of Hoseok when he finally tore his eyes away from the accursed corner; instead, he stared at his now upright manager who had his finger placed firmly atop the button for the fifth floor. Hoseok's eyes widened as he silently wondered why his manager wasn't going to his office floor; it was the only place he had any authority over, so he tended to do the majority of his work near the front desk just to chastise and make everyone feel miserable. Not to mention the fact that the fifth floor was where the boss' office was, and only people who held significant business with the boss was allowed to meet him. (He usually dealt with trivial matters over e-mail or video conference.)
So the question was, what the hell did his manager want to talk to the boss about?
Panic flared inside Hoseok's body at the thought that the manager was going to talk the boss into firing him. Selfish, yes. But the guy was unpredictable and sadistic, so Hoseok's guesses about him were never too far off. But he also did once think that he was going to set the blueprints of a project on fire, so nobody, not even himself, can be one hundred percent sure about what's going through the manager's mind.
"You gonna stand there all day or what?"
Hoseok snapped out of his frenzied thoughts and turned to where his manager was pointing and found that the elevator's doors had long since opened and that his manager was pressing down the "keep open" button.
"Uh, s-sorry," Hoseok muttered, adjusting his bag's straps along his shoulders and stepping off the elevator. "Have a nice day, sir."
"You too, Jung Hoseok," his manager replied.
Hoseok froze just outside the elevator's doors and whirled around, turning around just in time to watch a cruel smile that had broken out across his manager's lips disappear behind the elevator's closing doors.
Shaken up by his manager's behavior, Hoseok all but sprinted down to the end of the hallway--where his office was located.
Once in front of the glass door that separated the infamous depressing floor that was his office from the rest of the company building, Hoseok made quick work of the button that had been placed near the door to notify the front desk that someone was coming in. He knew that Seokjin, the unfortunate lad who had to deal with his panicky actions at the moment, would probably tell him to stop spamming the doorbell and play his infuriating waiting game until Hoseok complied. But, well, he was desperate to be secured in the comfort of his secluded cubicle, so Seokjin's patience be damned.
Luckily, and apparently, Seokjin wasn't in the mood to play any games that morning because not even after two seconds of spamming the doorbell, the lock on the door let loose, and an audible click informed Hoseok that he was able to enter. With a thankful sigh, he threw open the office door and swiftly stepped inside, twisting back to shut the door before facing forward once more.
But the moment Hoseok did, he was already dreading the lecture that he knew was to come, judging from the look on Seokjin's face.
"Hyung--"
"Don't," Seokjin groaned, interrupting Hoseok's feeble excuse, hand firmly covering his eyes. "Just--don't."
Hoseok gnawed on his bottom lip and downcasted his eyes toward the floor, heart clenching at the thought that Seokjin was too upset with him to even lecture him. (And he always lectured him.)
Another moment of tense silence passed between the two before Seokjin uttered, "Namjoon-ah came down because we needed someone to cover for you, but now you can go and inform him that he can go back to his own office."
He allowed his hand to fall from his face and a shiver ran down Hoseok's spine when he saw just how tired Seokjin looked. But suddenly the tired look was gone and was quickly replaced with wide eyes and parted lips.
"Holy shit, what the hell happened to you?" Seokjin queried, quickly walking out from behind his desk and approaching Hoseok, who felt as bewildered as Seokjin looked.
"Um," Hoseok spoke, flinching away from the invasive hands on his face, "I literally just woke up fifteen minutes ago but only got five hours of sleep, so..."
Seokjin scrunched his face up and shook his head, smacking Hoseok's cheek gently. "No, no. I get that you're living off of pure anxiety right now, but I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about these."
And he's suddenly tugging down the collar of Hoseok's shirt and pressing down on the very area of his neck where his pulse would be.
Gasping at the memory of the faint mark he had spotted in the elevator's doors, Hoseok pushed away from Seokjin's hold and whirled around toward the glass door, further tugging down his shirt and taking a closer look at his reflection on the glass. He squinted his eyes and searched the expanse of his neck, curious to find what Seokjin was making a fuss about.
And then he noticed a bruise.
Well, two bruises; they were both an angry, swollen red mark that stood out startlingly so against the expanse of his tanned skin, and if Hoseok squinted just hard enough he could see a faint black liquid ooze out the side of the larger one of the two.
"What the hell..." he muttered, slowly backing away from the glass door. He turned back toward Seokjin, who now held a sort of knowing look in his eye, which only served to make Hoseok even more confused. "I--hyung, I seriously have no idea how I got these. Maybe I got bit by a bug while walking down the street, or-or I got jabbed in the neck by my shitty couch while sleeping on it, or--"
"You got laid?" Seokjin offered, halting Hoseok in the middle of his frenzied explanation.
Hoseok's mouth gaped open as he stared at his coworker in mild disgust and complete disbelief. "The fuck?" A constrained snort escaped Seokjin. "No! Hyung, I--we don't have time for things like--hyung, stop laughing!"
If looks could kill, Hoseok's scathing glare would have slain Seokjin's trembling body on the spot. The asshole of a coworker was leaning against his desk and letting out that obnoxiously loud laugh of his, tears leaking out the corner of his eyes. Hoseok trembled before Seokjin, a hot blush laying heavily upon his cheeks, absolutely seething with rage for his impossibly immature coworker.
"Hyung," Hoseok muttered through clenched teeth, "just tell me where Namjoon is so I can do my work." A strained smile. "Please?"
Seokjin, gasping for air as he continued to try and restrain his laughter, lifted a trembling arm and pointed shakily toward the back of the office floor. Giving him a curt nod in thanks, Hoseok briskly walked past Seokjin and ventured on toward the part of the office that held one of the few windows on their section of the building.
"Yo, Namjoon," Hoseok called out as he rounded the corner of the cramped aisle, "you can go back to your office--"
A shout, shrill and short, escaped the flailing man in front of him, desperately attempting to stop the steady flow of ink that escaped the printer.
"--now." Hoseok punctuated his sentence with a deep sigh and covered his eyes with his hand, supporting his now significantly weak body against the concrete wall. "We've talked about this, Joonie: you're not allowed to use our printer anymore."
Namjoon whimpered at the exhausted tone of Hoseok's voice and continued fumbling about with the machine, which seemed to be broken beyond repair.
Groaning, Hoseok lifted his weight off from against the wall and approached the panicked man. He placed a firm hand on Namjoon's shoulder and gently moved him aside, shushing the quiet muttering that escaped his coworker with a grunt.
"Don't worry, Joon," Hoseok mumbled offhandedly, twisting a few knobs on the sides of the printer and repeatedly pressing the "power" button in an attempt to get the finicky machine to work again. "Just go back to your office; I can handle this."
Namjoon stuck around a few moments more, peering around Hoseok's shoulders to try and see what he was doing, before getting shooed off by him. Whispering a hasty, "sorry, Hoseokie," the man clambered around the various abandoned objects that laid scattered in the middle of the aisle and promptly exited the office.
Another sigh weaved itself out of Hoseok's throat, slightly out of relief for having a moment to himself, something he hadn't had for the past forty-eight hours (for obvious reasons), but mostly because he was really fucking tired and didn't have the actual energy to produce a full-blown yawn.
Yeah, he wasn't gonna last very long.
A/N - Oof. Something more interesting than this next chapter, I promise.