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The first thing Seungmin thinks when he turns his head and sees the flapping yellow of the banana peel flying towards his face is, “Okay, yeah. That’s fair. I deserve this.”
He does wish it could have come at a slightly less terribly inconvenient moment though—such as, for example, literally any one where he wasn’t already struggling to hold around twenty-three boxes of cotton candy stacked and balanced on top of one another in his arms.
The boxes aren’t particularly large, and—given that they’re full of cotton candy—not incredibly heavy either. Still, it’s not the highlight of his shift that, when the wet fruit skin hits his face, he then goes and drops them all on top of himself. It still kinda hurts when they come down on him.
He tries to step backwards, but steps on something slippery (another loose banana peel, coincidentally) and feels his feet fly out from under him. He falls back against the shelf behind him and then drops to the floor, tailbone hitting it sharply as Chan walks away.
Several of the boxes come down right on top of him, bopping him on the head one by one. The last to fall on him hits a little harder, clunks him a little heavier, and then it lands upright on the floor between his legs.
Not a box of cotton candy, something else.
A silly little felt flower stares at him with a smile on it’s face, mocking him as he’s sure he feels a lump forming on the top of his head where it hit him.
Nothing happens for a few long seconds, Seungmin finding himself mad about losing a staring contest with something that has no eyelids. He reaches out to snatch it up and throw it out of his way, but the quick movement apparently sets something off.
Immediately, it starts giggling hysterically, wiggling it’s silly little felt stem body in it’s fake planting pot. The entire shelf of felt flowers behind him are set off, all of them copying it. They surround him with a cacophony of high pitched laughter that echoes up to the high metal ceiling, and he sighs.
He probably still deserves this much too.
It takes him at least an hour to pick everything up and settle down the laughing flowers. Twice while he’s stomping around trying to fix it all, he moves something just a little too hard, knocking the flowerpots and setting them all off again.
Of course there’s no permanent ‘off’ switch, because that would be too easy. He ends up having to read them a bedtime story to put them back into snooze mode, and then he restacks his boxes with his breath held.
Finally, he gets the cotton candy up and to the correct shelves, and then he sets off through the aisles. The time spent calming the shelves of fake flowers has left plenty of time for Chan to escape, and unfortunately for one of them, they are in the circus equivalent of an endless Ikea, so now he could be anywhere.
Seungmin is so distracted with his search that he hears the frantically honking horn only as it gets right by his ankles, and with a yelp, he has to leap out of the way to avoid being knocked down by the swerving clown car winding its speedy way down between the rows of various colorful costumes.
Once again, he hits the shelf, his shoulders knocking against the metal. On the bright side, he doesn’t fall on his ass this time, and there are no laughing flowers. Several tent sizes clown suits do float down and threaten to swamp him though, and he yanks them off of himself just in time to see the clown car skidding sideways before spinning in the opposite direction to turn a corner.
“Sorry, Seungmin!” Changbin calls out, waving behind himself to him as if he isn’t already threatening enough lives with that thing without taking a hand off the wheel. It swerves again as he goes around the corner, taking a wiggling path through the next aisle that causes someone else out of Seungmin’s sight to have to scream and dive out of the way too. From somewhere beyond the shelves, he hears Changbin honk the horn again, calling out, “Sorry!”
Changbin is, in fact, their very best clown car driver. Fewest casualties per times driven for the eighth month in a row.
A fuzzy wig flops over the edge of a shelf and lands on Seungmin’s head. He snatches it off again and fights it for a few seconds before throwing it unceremoniously back in a random spot between boxes of face paints. This isn’t his department!
The search continues.
“Welcome to The Zone!” A loud voiced mouth calls out as he passes, the hand attached to it shoving a flier in front of his face and not stopping until it slaps him in the face with it.
It sticks to his forehead, and Seungmin goes cross eyed trying to look at it. He snatches it back down, rubbing the spot where it pulls off.
“Hyunjin, I work here too.”
“My job is to give everyone who passes me a flier. No exceptions.”
“Customers!” Seungmin corrects him. “You need to give them to every customer, not the staff.”
“I’m just following the instructions I was given,” Hyunjin tells him, wagging a finger in his face. “Take it up with the guy who gives the instructions if you don’t like them.”
Seungmin wishes he could.
“Where is he?”
“Who? Chan?” Hyunjin shrugs. He looks down and sees that his brand new staff badge is askew, and he promptly straightens it up. “He was looking for you last I saw him. Didn’t look very happy, mind.”
“Well, he found me, and then he disappeared again, so now I need to find him.”
Hyunjin only shrugs again. He jumps past Seungmin, flier outstretched in someone else’s face this time. The jump in surprise, scuttling sideways to give him a wider radius.
“Would you stop attacking innocent passers by?”
“They’re not innocent, Seungmin. They’re customers.”
Fair enough.
“Okay, well… I guess I’ll just keep looking for him then.”
“Try the off—WELCOME TO THE ZONE!” Hyunjin screams at someone who almost manages to slip by him unnoticed. “Try the office. There’s always someone in there.”
He waves Seungmin off with one hand while he uses the other to wrestle a flier into the hands of a couple who otherwise might have had the courage to actually come inside and buy something.
The Zone is big. Warehouse big. No one is actually entirely sure just exactly how big it is on the inside, but it’s at least ‘pretty fucking big’.
The sign on the wall states it to be ‘the biggest gag gift and comedy entertainer prop store in the world’ and it is. At least, on this side of the clock it is. Unaffectionately named by it’s colony of little worker ants as ‘The Clown Factory’ which causes the same argument to rise up every few weeks.
“But how is it a clown factory if we don’t sell clowns?” Jisung is busy asking once again when Seungmin walks into the office. He’s spinning too fast on Chan’s office chair while pouring potato chips directly from the bag into his mouth and sending crumbs flying as he speaks.
“Why would a clown factory sell clowns?” Jeongin asks, frowning at him from where he’s writing important numbers in a book. No one else but him knows what the important numbers are—they’re not sales or stocks or profits, or anything related to anything they do, but no one questions it because whatever he’s doing, they just know he’s doing it really really well. “Factories don’t sell things, they make things.”
“Exactly!” Jisung says, just as the office door opens.
“Yeah, exactly!” Another voice coming in behind Seungmin repeats after him, muffled from inside the fuzzy head of the mascot suit.
Seungmin frowns, moving out of the way to let the mascot in. He generally tries not to be too expressive here. If you’re caught being too expressive in the clown factory then you might easily find yourself stuffed into a wig and fake nose, and sent to work out on the floor to demonstrate the products to unwary customers.
“You don’t even know what they’re talking about,” he says.
“As if that makes a difference to who’s side he’ll take,” Jeongin sighs. He turns to look at the goofy faced animal mascot. “Minho, you’re supposed to be on aisle twelve right now.”
“I need a break,” he says, and they can all hear his grumpy expression through the giant head of the costume.
“That’s what the break room is for,” Jeongin tells him, but Minho pretends not to hear him, shutting the door behind him as he comes in.
“Anyway,” Jisung says through a mouthful of whatever he’s eating now, “Factories make things. We sell things.”
“We make clowns by selling things that make people clowns.” Jeongin turns to look at Seungmin, and asks, “Right, Seungmin?”
“Uh, right,” he says. He thinks Jisung has a point actually, but he’s not going to tell them that. Besides, it makes it even if he takes Jeongin’s side. Just on principle.
Minho slumps over, heavy furred feet stomping across the floor to the office desk to sit in a chair, dropping himself heavily to it. He hardly fits at all, having to wriggle his butt for several long and awkward minutes before he’s finally seated. Only then does he start trying to pull off the mascots head.
None of them are even certain what kind of animal it’s supposed to be, and no one seems to want to ask anyone who might know.
“We’re still selling things!”
Jeongin pinches the bridge of his nose. He takes a second, and then rubs out the words ‘still selling things’ from the book. “Factories do both. They make things, and then they sell them.”
Minho finally succeeds at pulling his head off to reveal his own red and sweating face underneath.
“Do we sell clowns?” He asks, shaking his head as if to clear mascot fur from his brain. “What aisle would you find one on?”
“…technically on aisle sixteen,” Jeongin grits out.
“Haha,” Jisung laughs through his last mouthful of snacks as he crumples the paper and tosses it. “Funny coincidence. That’s my aisle.”
The wrapper hits Seungmin. To be honest, he doesn’t think he did anything to specifically deserve that one, but okay. Might as well today.
“I just need to find Chan,” he says. “Have any of you seen him?”
Jeongin pointedly looks down at his numbers. Jisung pretends not to hear him, suddenly much more interested in brushing back Minho’s damp hair from his face and cooing at how hard he must have it in that suit. Minho at least genuinely doesn’t hear a word Seungmin had said, because he’s busy watching Jisung, stomach-turningly endeared even by the crumbs still left on the other’s face, probably.
“Did he tell you all not to tell me anything?”
Jeongin ignores him again. “Minho, you really need to get back on aisle twelve. You’re going to miss the eleven twenty-five squeaky nose rush.”
“It’s too big in here,” he groans. “It’s hard to move it around when I could literally fit a whole other person inside it with me!”
Jisung leans back a little, eyeing the suit curiously. A light above his head flickers on. “Oh, baby… I have such a good idea.”
“No,” Jeongin says, very firmly. “Jisung, please, no ideas allowed about the suit! Other people have to—oh there they go. At least take him to aisle twelve first!”
They both watch them leave, Jeongin sighing in defeat as the door swings shut behind them.
“This is really gonna mess up my numbers, “ he says sadly. He puts down his pen and looks up at Seungmin pityingly. “Have you tried the break room?”
“You already know he’s not there, don’t you.”
Jeongin shrugs. “Have you tried the stock room? The broken bathroom? The exploding custard department?”
Seungmin narrows his eyes. Those are all on the same side of the building today. He searches his brain quickly to remember what he’s seen at the other side since this morning.
“Is he at big top repairs or in the cafeteria?”
“…I can’t recommend that you check the cafeteria.”
Seungmin nods, pushing up from his seat to go right away. “Thanks.”
He tries to take a shortcut that passes through the funhouse room displays to get there. A labyrinth of possibly slightly haunted mirrors and primary colors so vivid you can taste them take him on a winding path that is practically invisible unless you actually know the way, and no one knows the way. You’ll find an exit eventually, just maybe not the one you wanted.
He crosses a rotating tunnel bridge and comes out in the wrong spot, but he’s closer to the cafeteria than he was before so it’ll do. Rather than going back in and potentially getting lost forever, he pushes through the crowd of people milling around to get a look at the newest state of the art prank water squirters (half price discount today only!) and has to weave between the juggling fools as he enters the musical court.
Every step is accompanied by a cheery musical note as the tiles light up under his feet. He gets an even cheerier wave from Changbin as he passes by where the guy is standing in midair with a belt tied full of helium balloons keeping him suspended while he builds a towering pyramid of teeny tiny pianos.
The noises under his feet start getting harsher the harder he stomps in annoyance at them, so he almost doesn’t hear the honking from behind him until it’s practically up his ass.
“Watch out!” A voice screams just as he realizes he’s in the way, and he leaps sideways, slipping on (coincidentally) another loose banana peel. Who’s job is it to clear those up anyway? Someone needs to be given a stern talking to about it.
He begins to fall in just barely slow enough motion that he has time to see that he’s about to land face first in Changbin’s piano display and think to himself, “You know, I’m really not sure I do deserve this one, actually.”
Changbin screams as he watches, unable to do anything to save his carefully constructed pyramid from Seungmin’s bad luck. Before he lands in it though, the collar at the back of Seungmin’s shirt is yanked roughly sideways. It near strangles him in the process, but honestly he’s just glad he’s not dead under a pile of pianos right now.
“You really should be more careful,” Hyunjin tells him, carefully depositing him face first back to the musical tiles in a pathetic heap of weary discontent.
“Well someone keeps leaving banana peels lying around!”
“Oh… that’s weird,” Hyunjin looks curiously down at the now slightly smushed into the floor fruit skin. “Which department is that from?”
“I don’t know,” he groans, picking himself up off the floor. He rubs at the spot where he knows there’s going to be a pink mark on his forehead while he thinks. “Gags and Giggles probably, I think.”
“Who’s department is that?”
Seungmin opens his mouth to answer, and then stops. Who’s department is it? His. It’s his department. He, Seungmin himself, is responsible for the keeping the banana peels in line.
God damn it.
“Listen, that’s not important right now,” he says. “I need to get to Chan.”
Hyunjin frowns. “Still?”
“You’re looking for Chan?” Changbin asks as he reaches the bottom of the tower, helium slowly squealing out of several of the balloons strapped to his hips. “He’s in the cafeteria.”
If only he’d nearly toppled into a stack of miniature musical instruments earlier.
“Great. Thanks. I’ll go there then.”
“You know, it’s a pretty long walk. Taking one of the cars would be faster,” Changbin points out, nodding his head towards one of the parked clown cars.
Seungmin pulls a face. “Nothing on this Earth is urgent enough to get me into one of those things. I’ll keep just take the catwalk.”
“Suit yourself.”
The way up to the catwalk is at the back of the warehouse, but it’ll be faster to backtrack so he can go up and over the top than to fight his way through the confetti cannon aisles and risk crossing the department of Things That Spring Out Of Boxes When You Least Expect It.
He passes the maintenance corridor, headed towards the sliding doors labeled ‘Uppieslevator’ but pauses when he hears a strained grunt. Hearing more of them, he checks farther down the corridor and sees something large. Something hairy and scary! For a brief moment, he thinks it’s something else, maybe something leftover from night shift—a bear, perhaps? Scary things have been known, on occasion, to get caught in these in between places in The Zone—but he snatches his spirit back out of the air to stuff it back into his body when he realizes it’s actually just Minho in his mascot costume.
He’s holding onto the railing with his felt fur paws, trembling a little, body jerking slightly at the hips like he’s having some kind of mild convulsions while strained little huffs come from within the suit. Maybe he’s about to throw up inside the mascot head.
Even Seungmin wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
He’s about to make the mistake of walking closer and asking Minho if he needs any help before he hears the second voice grunting. Also from within the suit. Another second for the penny to clink against the ground, and Seungmin takes a step back away from them.
“Oh my god… you guys are gross!” He twists his face (while there’s no one here to see it) and calls down the corridor to them. They ignore him, so he yells again. “Hey, I’m reporting you for this!”
They either don’t hear him or their employment status is simply not high enough on their priority list at this very moment in time for it to be worth stopping to save it. Not that that’s much of a concern for most of them. Seungmin is pretty sure at least a couple of staff members were just customers who got lost for too long after they wandered in then ended up being given uniforms and staff badges.
And Seungmin isn’t going to report them anyway. Those two probably know that, but they could at least do him the courtesy of pretending to feel some shame about getting caught.
He leaves them to it. He never has to wear the mascot suit, so he has more important things to worry about right now.
*
Chan is sat at a table in the cafeteria, hands flat on the surface of it, his head lay down, cheek pressed to the cold laminated plywood. He sniffles. The hand petting him gently on the head keeps moving.
“There, there,” Felix says opposite him, attached to the hand still patting his hair consolingly. “I’m sure it’s all just a big misunderstanding.”
“No, Felix!” He cries, voice cracking high enough to make a chalkboard wince. His eyes are swollen and his face red and blotchy. “You don’t understand. No one understands.”
“Why don’t you try talking to him?”
Chan lifts his head with a childish whine, feet kicking out at nothing under the table. “What’s the point? He made himself and his opinions perfectly clear!”
“Do you want me to kick his ass for y—”
Chan bursts into tears again. Big fat round droplets spill down his cheeks, already growing an impressive puddle on the table before he lets his face fall back onto it.
“I mean, you guys do know I am right here,” Seungmin says miserably from where he’s sat the edge of the table, his chair pulled up right between theirs. “Right? Like… I can hear you both.”
Chan lifts his head, lip trembling, and he looks at Felix without acknowledging Seungmin’s presence.
“I don’t know, Felix,” he sobs. “What would be the point now? What makes you think he would even care what I have to say about it? He already said what he thinks.”
Seungmin looks around in disbelief for anyone else to see what’s going on here and back him up. No one else cares enough to be listening. He supposes he lost the right to expect any backup anyway when he did what he did.
He tries about to speak up.
“But—”
That’s as far as he gets before Chan’s wailing increases in volume, and Felix turns to Seungmin with a sharp frown.
“Don’t be so insensitive! Can’t you see he’s upset? Look, you’ve hurt his feelings!” Felix points at Chan as he holds up a slip of paper with ‘Remember! You’re happy to be here!’ written on it between both hands, watching it tear down the middle as he pulls the sheet in half. “Those were company issued feelings, Seungmin!”
Seungmin knows better than to call it dramatic out loud, but he does give it a very sternly judgemental look. Chan is already sobbing into his arms on the table again, and Seungmin sighs. Right now, he wishes he could take back what he did, but he knows if he could redo the moment again, he still would have done it exactly the same. Because he’s selfish and deserves everything that’s happening to him today.
“I think this really is a clown factory,” he mutters to himself, deflating a little into his chair.
He’s not sure what he’d thought he was planning to actually do once he found Chan. Apologize? A ‘sorry’ really seems like it would just be so underwhelming now. Honestly, if it was reversed so that someone had done this to him, a ‘sorry’ would just feel insulting. He’d probably hate them.
Chan probably hates him.
Seungmin couldn’t even bring himself to eat his lunch once he’d taken his seat with them, the pathetic sandwich he’d bought as an excuse to even be there at the table just getting stuffed instead into his pocket.
Chan stands quickly, pushing his chair back out fast so that it falls backwards onto the cafeteria floor with a noisy clatter. He pretends not to notice that, and says, “I guess that kiss at the April First office party meant nothing to you!”
Seungmin deflates even further. In a small voice that goes unheard by anyone else, he mumbles, “It did mean something though.”
It’s no good. Chan walks away.
Seungmin deflates so much that he feels himself melting over the sides of the little plastic chair. He hopes the cleaners at least scoop him up into a clean and spacious container before disposing of him. Not that he deserves one.
“Aw,” Felix, now alone at the table with him, reaches over and pats him on his deflated head. “There, there.”
Seungmin thinks he would prefer it if he just kicked his ass instead.
*
Seungmin gives him some time to cool off. Maybe Chan just needs to be left to calm down and then he can try again. Maybe ‘sorry’ would be better than nothing, so he can start there. What he said was bad, yes, but at least if he explains his reason then maybe Chan will at least feel a little bit less hurt by it, even if he gets more mad at him.
He finds him again already before he means to though (entirely accidentally this time!) when he passes by the glitter and confetti pick ‘n’ mix. He doesn’t make his presence known, luckily able to duck out of sight before he’s noticed, but he does overhear his conversation.
“It’s okay,” His voice is thin, tense with sadness, but he still sounds determined. “If you have an issue then I’m here to help.”
“It’s not a huge problem, Chan, I can just deal with this on my own or get someone else to help if you’re not good right now?”
“No, no. This is my job. I can do my job! Go on, hit me with it.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then a ringing slap sound that makes Seungmin jump slightly. He frowns, peeking around the corner of the shelves again to see Changbin holding the handle of an extendable arm with a giant hand at the end of it, flopping slightly downwards after having been used.
Chan stands opposite him, blinking rapidly at Changbin as if processing the smack. His face is still red from crying but notably redder on one side now. Eventually, he comes to a decision, and nods. His lip trembles before he sucks in a brave little breath.
“Eight out of ten,” he says, sniffing. “Could be a little more slappy to be honest, but we’ll still put them up for now until we get something better in. Build the display over there next to the surprise electrocution gloves.”
Seungmin thinks the banana peel was probably better—literally knocked him off his feet—but he’s not going to bring that up again right now. Besides, probably Chan is probably just better at both slapping and taking a slap than Seungmin will ever be, that’s what makes him so good at being a manager.
“Surprise shock gloves,” Changbin corrects him. “You know, for legal purposes. Oh, also, just while you’re here I thought I’d mention, but we’re getting a little behind on—”
Chan very suddenly bursts into tears again, hands curling into little fists over his eyes, and Changbin sighs.
“Actually, you know what, never mind,” he says, waving it off with a hand. “That can probably wait.”
*
“And this one,” Jisung calls loudly the the audience as he ties the end of the neon colored balloon, “is a blue-lipped green viper.”
Standing just a little higher than everyone else there even though he’s on a small raised platform, he holds up the long balloon for them all to gawk at. The entire thing still in a completely straight and untwisted line, but he draws a simple smiley face on one end with blue sharpie, dotting the eyes and showing it off with a beaming grin.
The audience stares blankly at him, but Minho, sat on the end of the platform and looking up at Jisung like he pulled down the moon, claps wildly with an equally beaming grin. The pair have a glow about them when they look at each other that doesn’t bode well for the state of the mascot suit’s insides.
A flutter like light clapping and whisper of whooping noises above them that has nothing to do with the crowd make Seungmin look up to see a flock of white doves fly past over them. Those definitely shouldn’t be in here…
Seungmin also shouldn’t be where he is either though. He’s meant to be back down in the delivery bay chasing down a missing shipment of invisible inks, but he’s pretty sure Chan is down there right now too, and Seungmin doesn’t want to risk upsetting him more than he already has.
“What exactly is the difference,” Jeongin asks from the other side of the platform, tapping his pen on the side of his clipboard, “between the snake and the worm?”
“Oh!” Jisung gasps. “Oh you poor thing. I know you’re only young—”
“You’re literally only five months older than me.”
“—but snakes and worms are actually different animals. I know they look similar, but they’re very different. Also these,” he holds up his two identically shaped balloon animals that he had displayed creating for them all to watch, “are specifically an earthworm and a blue-lipped green viper. My balloon animal skills are very particular.”
“They’re also different colors,” Minho adds with a nod of seriousness. “One is green and the other is pink.”
“Another important difference!” Jisung points at him. “Thank you, baby, you’re so smart.”
“Okay,” Jeongin visibly compartmentalizes his thoughts on that entire thing, “but can you make anything a bit more… complex? Maybe something that doesn’t start, end, and remain in a single straight line, just, you know,” he waves a hand and gives a little shrug, “for example.”
“Uhhh…”
“Oh,” Minho’s eyes widen a little, and he points up at Jisung, telling Jeongin, “He’s been working on perfecting his mice lately.”
“Really?” Jeongin asks, looking at Jisung and smiling when the other boy nods excitedly. “That’s great! Can you show us how you make a mouse then?”
“Sure!” Jisung pulls out a little purple stringy balloon from a small pouch of them. He takes a deep breath, his eyes going wide, and then he blows hard into it. Once the end is tied off, he smiles back at Jeongin. “I learned how to make these from a YouTube video the other day while I was hiding in the bathroom instead of cleaning that ‘endless bubbles’ soap spill.”
Huh, so that’s why that bathroom is still broken then.
Quickly, almost expertly looking, he twists the balloon smaller and smaller, until a loud bang—louder than it looks like it aught to be able to make—causes people in the audience to jump back as it explodes, some of them letting out a shocked scream as they do.
Unflinchingly and with a bright smile still on his face, Jisung hands Jeongin the shredded remnants of the latex mouse that never truly was. Jeongin looks down tiredly but without surprise at the bits being dropped into his open palm.
“Don’t worry, that’s what it usually looks like,” Jisung tells him with a little pat on the shoulder. “I haven’t finished practicing them yet.”
“Right,” Jeongin says, giving Jisung a very generous smile before looking away.
Whatever he was going to do or say next is interrupted when a voice crackles at his hip and he pulls out his walkie-talkie to listen. By the time he puts it away again, there’s stress wrinkling his youthful forehead.
“Problem?” Seungmin asks, and Jeongin sighs.
“The magician hats have malfunctioned,” he says. “A plague of white rabbits and doves are taking over the aisles and spreading fast.”
“Oh man,” Jisung pulls a face as he gets down from the platform, the audience finally dispersing. “That’s going to be such a huge pain in the ass for someone to sort out. Glad it’s not my job.”
“No,” Jeongin lifts up his walkie-talkie again, ready to speak into it again. “Fortunately for all of you, this one isn’t your responsibility. I’ll have to call Chan to go check it out.”
“I’ll do it,” Seungmin offers quickly. “Handful of small animals. How hard can it be.”
“That’s a ringleader task.”
“Yeah. Well. He’s busy, so.”
Jisung turns to Minho and quietly tells him, “I don’t think he liked my mouse very much.”
“Oh…” Minho looks sad for a moment, and then looks around with wide eyes before lifting the long balloon worm. “I think he really liked this one though. I do too! I love it. You’re so good with things this shape.”
Jisung’s eyes sparkle. “Baby…”
Jeongin lets out a breath through his nose. “I need to find Hyunjin. Has anyone seen him?”
“Isn’t he supposed to be testing out the disguises right now?”
“Yes, but when I went to that aisle to find him a man in glasses with a mustache and a big nose said he hadn’t seen him there.”
Seungmin leaves to find the escaped rabbits.
It takes him approximately four and a half minutes to regret offering once he starts rounding them up. Or attempting to round them up. He thinks more rabbits are appearing in the store faster than he can shove them back into their silky top hats, and he hasn’t even begun trying to figure out what he’s going to do about the flock of doves circling the rafters.
He’s sweating, jogging back to the department of Magic Tricks and Illusions with three fluffy bunnies under each arm when Felix pounces on him. He leaps out from behind a shelf, grabbing onto Seungmin’s shoulders and almost making him drop the rabbits in surprise.
“Hey, Seungmin!” Felix says, pointing down at the floor. “You almost stepped on that!”
Another fucking banana peel. He watches as Felix kicks it out of the way—somewhere further back down the aisle for some other poor idiot to step on—before grabbing Seungmin by the shoulders again and pulling him back just in time for someone with a very Hyunjin sounding scream to zoom past at top speed in a clown car, spinning in circles at the end of the aisle and then zipping off down the next one.
“Thanks,” Seungmin sighs moodily. He really should make cleaning those up the next priority on his to-do list, or else someone is going to get injured, but he kind of has his hands full right now, and at least the banana peels don’t reproduce at the speed of light.
“No worries, but I came to tell you that you’re being summoned! Boss wants you in his office.”
Seungmin feels his face pull in a wince. “Chan?”
Maybe he’s circled back around from crying to being angry again. That’d be okay, really. Better actually. Maybe if he lets Chan yell at him for a bit he’ll find a moment when he stops for breath to try apologizing this time.
He thinks actually he’d quite like for Chan to get angry at him again instead of crying. It would, at the very least, be cathartic to them both.
Felix shakes his head. “No, I mean the real boss.”
“Oh. Uh, Jeongin?”
“Think higher.”
“The tightrope walkers?”
“The real boss. The big guy!”
Oh no. Not the CEO. No one likes that guy.
“Great,” he grits out, and then he starts handing over the bunnies, piling them into Felix’s arms. “Take these back for me.”
“Sure thing!”
He takes a bouquet of vegetables out of his pocket and hands that over with them, and then begins the trip back to the office. Fortunately from this spot now he’s not too far away. Not that he’s particularly excited to find out what the boss could possibly be calling him for, but better that he get it over with and save himself the stress of spending any more time worrying what it’s about than necessary.
Maybe Chan reported him. Seungmin wouldn’t blame him. He would probably do the same if someone pulled such a dick move of those proportions on him too. He does wish he had at least found a good time to say he’s sorry before going and getting himself fired, but maybe before he leaves he could write a message on the walls in silly string big enough to be sure Chan will find it. Preferably in someone’s section who he doesn’t like, rather than somewhere anyone in their own team would have to clean it up.
He won’t tell anyone this, but he’s grown kind of fond of them all.
The flock of doves has almost doubled in size already by the time he reaches the office door, fluffy little feathers snowing down every time they pass overhead. Seungmin hopes they’re the upgraded non-pooping kind, because none of them will escape having to deal with that mess if not.
Probably they are the non-pooping version. Chan likely wouldn’t stock the other kind after the Great Robin Disaster of three Christmases ago. Because he’s good at his job.
The office is empty when he gets there, but he sits in the chair across from the CEO’s to wait. The silence in the room feels like it presses down on him. There’s only the ticking of a wall clock that has no numbers and no hands, just a red bow tie in the middle that spins anticlockwise.
Eventually, the door opens and a man steps inside, ducking under the doorframe to get through. He takes off his hat and his glasses, and then his stilts, hanging them all on the tentacles of the one-eyed coat stand.
“Kim Seungmin,” he says in greeting, the blank hard expression on his face as stern and serious as death as he comes around his desk to sit in his bigger and much fancier chair.
He lowers himself to his chair, and a long, loud fart noise bubbles out from under his butt. It goes on… and on… continuing for several minutes while the man presses his hands together, fingers steepled, and regards Seungmin with an intimidating unblinking stare.
The noise eventually peters off into shorter, squeakier bursts, until it finally fizzles out back into silence.
“Impressive,” the CEO says, pulling the whoopee cushion out from under himself and giving it one approving nod before putting it down on the desk. He looks back at Seungmin. “Do you know why you’re here?”
Seungmin gives him one curt nod. “Because I walked in through that door over there.”
They stare at each other for another long minute.
“Do you know why I called you here, to walk through that door?”
“I’m hoping it was with the purpose of telling me that everything is fine and there’s nothing of note to report in changes to my employment.”
“No.”
Seungmin starts to deflate.
“Don’t do that. It’s good news.”
Seungmin tentatively reinflates, but he does make it a general rule in his life never to trust a rich man to know the difference between what’s good and bad.
“It’s about Bang Chan.”
Seungmin readies the pin, preparing finally to let himself just burst like one of Jisung’s balloon mice. He knew the promise of ‘good news’ was too good to be true. It’s not one of those kinds of days for him.
“I’ve decided to promote you.”
Seungmin takes a breath and lets it back out again. This is supposed to be a clown factory, not an amusement park.
“How exactly is that about Chan?” He asks, feeling the ominously blinking leer of bad luck hovering excitedly over his shoulder for the punch line. For some reason, in his head, it’s face is kind of reminiscent of Minho’s. He feels it give him a scathing glare on Minho’s behalf, and jerks it’s head for him to pay attention.
“I’m offering you the position of team ringleader,” the CEO says with a smile. The smile isn’t on his mouth or in his eyes or his voice or anywhere on his cheeks, but it is unnervingly there somewhere.
“But that’s Chan’s job,” Seungmin says, rather stupidly, like the obvious needs to be said out loud.
It does, evidently.
“Bang Chan has handed in his resignation.”
“…What.” Seungmin is too stunned to even deflate. Frozen to his seat with ice shards rapidly taking over his organs. This is his fault.
“His resignation,” the man repeats as if Seungmin is simply stupid. Seungmin doesn’t think right now that he’s probably wrong. “It’s a thing that means he told me he’s decided to quit his job.”
No! This is the opposite of what he wanted to happen!
Now Chan will be upset, and mad at him, and gone.
He shakes his head. “I can’t take a slap like him.”
“I’ve heard you can still take it well enough. Besides, he recommended you for the promotion.”
“Why would he do that!”
“You’ve been his first candidate for employee of the month every month since you started working together. Had the company cared enough to give a mere floor employee credit for their unskilled labor, he made it clear it should be you.”
“I can’t even keep the bananas wrangled!”
“Well fortunately you won’t need to wrangle the bananas anymore, just the staff. And occasional animal breakout, but I’ve noticed you jumped to handle that today anyway, so it seems like you’re ready to get right into the role.”
“No! Don’t accept his resignation,” he demands. “Tell him no! He’s not allowed.”
Not a single thing changes in the CEO’s expression. Not a single muscle shifts. Potentially it’s the Botox, but he still manages to exude an aura of mild surprise at Seungmin’s reaction.
He holds up a sheet of paper to show him, and says, “I’ve already accepted it.”
The paper is dotted with dark stains from tear drops. Chan’s handwriting tells him how regretful he is to inform management that he feels he must withdraw from his position, effective immediately.
Evidently not regretful enough to consider that the rest of his team might just simply want him to NOT DO THAT!
“Once I scan this in and send into it to the system, it’ll be official,” the man says, and this time he does really smile with his mouth. Just the tiniest most minuscule twitch, like it takes all the effort in the world. It’s unnerving.
“So…” Seungmin clears his throat. “So it’ll be official after that’s scanned in? And then he can just leave?”
The boss nods. “I had you sent for the moment he gave it to me. He’s already on his way to the exit.”
“But you have to scan that in first?”
“Correct.”
“Ah,” he sags miserably. “I see.”
“So then, shall we begin the financial barter now to decide how much your life isn’t worth to the company for your new and more demanding posit—”
Seungmin springs up from his chair, diving across the CEO’s desk with his hand stretched out and startling an actual expression of shock and a yell out of the man. He snatches the letter baring Chan’s terribly impulsive and very wrong choice from the CEO’s grasp and then he pulls back to stand up, already stuffing the whole thing as quickly as he can into his mouth with both hands.
They stare at each other for moment, both as surprised as each other by his actions while the spinning clock ticks away, and then Seungmin turns and bolts. He throws the door open with a crash and flees from the office, chewing as fast as he can the entire way.
He doesn’t know if the CEO is following him, but that’s not what he’s running for anyway.
The flock of doves has more than tripled in size now, flying low enough that there’s a loud howling from their wing beats whenever they pass overhead. Seungmin covers his face with his arms and keeps running through them when they swoop down the aisle he’s on. He only gets pelted softly by them once or twice or forty times. He hopes the birds are okay after hitting him, but he doesn’t have time to stop.
A bunny here and a bunny there turns into bunnies bunnies everywhere as he gets closer to the department of Magic Tricks and Illusions again. He has to run much more carefully so not to step on them, finding gaps and hoping from foot to foot until he passes Felix where he’s sat on his ass on the floor with bunnies all around him, delightedly feeding them leafy greens instead of stuffing them back into their hats.
He looks up when he sees Seungmin rushing past as quickly as the fluffy things will let him.
“Where are you going?”
“Mmmffmmnnghmf!!” He says without stopping, his mouth still stuffed full of resignation.
Even as he leaves the epicenter of the rabbitastrophe, he doesn’t seem to be getting there any faster. He has to weave between customers and miscellaneous staff members and the occasional actual clown who all look at him with curiosity while he leaps over things and stumbles into shelves, setting off the giggling flowers once again.
He doesn’t stop to settle them this time, their laughter following him mockingly while he busts his lungs. It doesn’t do any good though. He’s too far from the exit and he fears taking the funhouse shortcut will only backfire on him at this point. It’s getting late now and the departments are already moving around, changing in preparation for the night shift. He could go into one of those tunnels and come out anywhere! Or nowhere! Or worse; back at the office!
A silly honking sound makes him halt, skidding to a stop and turning to see Changbin scooting happily along by him in his clown car on his way to his next task.
Seungmin runs again, this time right into the car’s path, hands held out as if to stop him.
“FMMFH!!” He says while Changbin screams, hitting the fake nonfunctioning breaks and only coming to a stop after spinning wildly out of the way.
He’s dazed for a second before yelling out at Seungmin, “ARE YOU CRAZY?”
“MMF!” Seungmin says, rushing over and tugging on Changbin’s clothes until he confusedly follows along and gets out of the car.
Seungmin ignores the baffled glare and ranting that comes at him when he climbs inside in his place, feet barely fitting into the tiny pocket of space that serves as the driver’s seat. He holds on tight to the wheel and slams his toe on the tiny accelerator.
The little car immediately shoots off with an excited honk honk, zipping off down the aisle and making people scream as they leap out of his way. Turning the wheel contributes barely anything to the steering, the vehicle mostly just doing what it wants, and a little of what he wants only when it feels like it, but at least it’s fast.
He passes through the Traps and Triggers department and miraculously narrowly avoids every trap door on the way, but then catches the edge of the sticky jam pit with his wheels on one side on his way out. It makes the car spin as two of the wheels lock still, stuck in place under the frame where they’ve gotten clogged up with green goo.
The car turns sideways as he tries to turn a corner, but simply continues going in the direction it was already headed, slipping down the next aisle that is full of silly lawn ornaments like cherubs riding unicorns and little satyrs pulling each other’s horns.
He’s pretty sure he’s never actually seen anything from this aisle sell before, but the stock seems different every time he has to walk through it.
The wheels unstick suddenly, turning on their own and sending him crashing sideways right into a wall where the back of the car swings into a little pedestal holding a stone statue of a woman. He hits it hard enough to knock him dizzy for a moment, and to make the statue balanced on top wobble precariously.
The statue starts to topple, and Seungmin is just quick enough to dive from the car to catch it before it hits the ground. It’s heavy and possibly one of a kind, the woman chiselled from the rock in painstakingly great detail.
He checks it over. No chips or cracks.
Phew. That was close. He shakes himself out of stunned stillness and swallows with a gasp as he lifts it back up. He pushes it back up onto it’s pedestal.
“Sorry,” he mumbles to it. Making sure she’s properly in place, he glances down at the carved little plate saying just the word Atë, and then a little message underneath with information on the car of the statue and to ‘never leave the plate empty’.
He frowns. Weird instruction for a statue, but who is he to question it.
He searches his pockets and pulls out the squashed sandwich he probably would have eaten on the bus home after this miserable shift had ended, and he leaves it on the plate instead.
Getting back into the clown car, he speeds off again, the wheels thankfully seeming fully unstuck now. He has a nice run of mostly empty aisles before crossing from the garden section into an aisle full of masks that look just a little too eerie—just a little too unnerving, something somewhere between ‘haha’ clown and ‘yikes’ clown—and then pops right back out at the Silly Goose department, which had only that morning been very close to the entrance!
He whips around another corner and comes out right onto the musical court, the tiles under the wheels playing a perfect piano rendition of Verdi’s Dies Irae. The sun must be setting. His shift is probably already almost over.
Inexplicably, the wheels jam up again, and the clown car honks as it swerves. It narrowly misses an escaping customer, but careens in a line directly towards Changbin’s carefully built display.
He jerks the wheel to the side, and then to the other side, but it makes no difference. Honking frantically, the clown car skids sideways over the musical tiles until it hits the tower with a ground shuddering crash.
Seungmin lets out a scream as it topples over, flipping upside down so that he rolls onto his back and has to visually experience the moment when a thousand pianos come raining down on top of him. The flash of panic is dizzying, the car heavy enough on it’s own, but fortunately it also protects him from being hit directly.
He is, however, about to be buried. And that’s not the nicest realization to have, especially as the night shift is about to begin. Stacks and stacks of little pianos land on him, bouncing off the bottom of the car like musical hailstones until they build up around where he lies and just start piling up on him instead.
He’s cocooned in, listening to piano after piano clattering against the cage building around him, keys sounding tunelessly as they avalanche down the sides of the small mountain around him.
Eventually it stops. The last crash echoes as it finally hits and rolls to the floor, and Seungmin lets out a slow, shaking breath. Shaking because he starts laughing hysterically.
How ridiculous. He survived, against all odds finding everything has landed just so in a way that creates a space around him, but there’s simply no way for him to escape this. No way for him to catch up to Chan now.
He deserves this.
Maybe they’ll make him join the night shift now. He’ll deserve that too.
A sudden loud crashing startles him out of his hysterics, thinking for a second that the little bubble of safety he’s managed to land in is collapsing, and the tower is about to come down on him properly. It doesn’t, but he does hear it again.
“Hello! Is anybody in there?”
Seungmin tries to turn his head back and see through the gaps to prove to himself that he’s not hearing things. “Chan?”
A pause. “…Seungmin?”
“Chan! Oh my god?”
“Are you okay?”
“You’re still here!”
“Are you hurt? Can you move?”
Seungmin barks out another laugh before he can help it. “I’m okay! I’m stuck, I don’t think I can move, but I’m not hurt.”
Not hurt enough for it to matter now that he can hear him out there.
“I’m gonna get you out, okay? Just stay calm!”
Seungmin is so calm. Everything is so okay right now. He listens to pianos getting whacked and dragged out of the way until Chan’s strong arms can reach in and drag him out from under the toppled clown car.
He reappears out of the piano hill and gets lifted to his feet.
Chan pats him down. “Is anything broken?”
“Just what was left of my sanity,” Seungmin says happily.
“Oh good,” Chan sighs in relief, and Seungmin nods his head.
There’s a tired but contented smile on his face, he can feel it, but that’s okay, he’ll accept some time out on the floor in a wig if he gets it. He deserves that much.
“What were you doing under there?”
“I was trying to catch you before you left. What are you doing still here?”
“My team leader senses tingled,” he says. “I knew you were in trouble.”
He’s not really one for swooning, usually, but Seungmin is going to swoon. The building knows it because he can see out the corner of his eye that there’s a couch inching closer. He gives it a subtle little head shake and waves it back. He has to hurry up and finish this before things start getting difficult to escape from.
“You have to stay,” he tells Chan. “You can’t quit, we need you.”
Chan’s face falls sadly. “It’s too late. I already handed in my resignation.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. The boss has it.”
“No, he doesn’t. Because I ate it.”
Chan blinks at him. And then blinks some more.
“You ate his resignation?” Jeongin asks, apparently materializing out of thin air.
Seungmin rolls his eyes. “Well, I ate the paper that the resignation was on. But now he can’t scan it.”
“What did it taste like?” Felix asks, one hand petting a bunny held under his arm like a football.
“Like paper,” Seungmin frowns.
“But they were going to offer you the job instead,” Chan tells him. “You should take it.”
“I don’t want the job! I’m not manager material!”
“You can learn.”
“I can’t, Chan, I’ll never be able to take a slap like you can.”
Chan bites his lip, the sad frown he’s been wearing all day slowly settling back into place now that the emergency rescue is over. His lip quivers, eyes filling again. “I can teach you to take a slap.”
“That’s so romantic,” someone whispers, and Seungmin looks around to see Jisung sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating popcorn next to Minho, who nods in agreement.
“Chan,” Seungmin closes his eyes, says it like a prayer, “please. Please, don’t quit. Not because of what I said, or for any reason. I’m sorry! It was wrong—I was wrong—and I didn’t mean it. It was all a lie! I just didn’t want them to take you.”
“Who was going to take him?” Hyunjin asks. His head whips side to side, trying to look at them both at once. “Who was trying to take him?”
Changbin pops up from behind him, a white bunny on each shoulder, and he gives a little wail of misery when he spots his collapsed tower.
“The night shift!” Seungmin says, arms flailing out. “The night shift wanted to take him! Seonghwa kept praising him and saying how great he seems as a manager and how they wanted him for one of their teams instead, and Wooyoung said that they were going to request the boss offer him a transfer with higher pay to lure him in like the sneaky little succubuses they are.”
“I think that would be succubi.”
“Whatever!”
Jeongin’s eyebrows draw into a frown before he remembers to smooth it out again. “So what did you say to them?”
Seungmin’s mouth seals itself shut for a few long seconds before he can make himself unzip it and say it out loud again. He should have to do this. To face his shame and admit it publicly. He does hang his head though.
“I said that he’s actually a terrible manager and that they definitely don’t want him on their team because he’ll be bossy and annoying and a dictator who makes them do all the work and… and lots of bad things… I’m sorry!”
He sags to the floor on his knees with his face in his hands.
“Oh, Seungmin,” Changbin sighs while Hyunjin and Jeongin shakes their heads slowly at him in disappointment.
“Yes, yes,” Chan says, waving all that off. “That wasn’t very nice either I guess. But the other thing. Tell them the other thing that you said.”
Seungmin comes out from behind his hands in confusion. “The other thing? I… There was another thing? What other thing?”
God, how could it be possible that he said something so much worse than that and doesn’t even remember it. What could he have possibly said that makes the rest of it not even matter?
There’s a pained look on Chan’s face. A single tear rolls down his cheek and he turns slowly to look at the others.
“He said…” His voice wobbles. “He said that my…”
He stops to shake his head, more tears falling, and Felix rushes to pat him consolingly.
Hyunjin looks around. “Is it that bad?”
Felix gives him a solemn nod, and they all—including Seungmin—wait with baited breath for Chan to push down the emotions so that he can work up the ability to say it out loud.
“He said that my ass is actually flat.”
Everyone gasps. Hyunjin’s hand flies up to cover his mouth. Changbin’s hand flies up to cover Seungmin’s mouth. Jeongin drops his clipboard. Minho drops the popcorn in his hand. Jisung drops his jaw and popcorn falls out of it.
Seungmin pushes Changbin’s hand down and gets back to his feet. “Wait. So that’s what you’re so upset over? Not because I spoiled your opportunity for a better position?”
“A better position? On the night shift? Seungmin, I’m literally afraid of the dark. I don’t want to be on night shift. It’s scary in here at night, do you really think I’m doing that for the price of a beer a month extra on my paycheck?”
Jisung looks at Seungmin with his ‘say it ain’t so’ eyes. “Did you really say that about him?”
Seungmin recalls that, actually, now that he’s been reminded. “I said he pads it under his clothes.”
“Seungmin…” Minho whispers in horror, both hands reaching behind himself to grab his own ass as if to stop it having to hear. “How could you?”
“Well they all wouldn’t stop slavering over him at the office party! They were going to seduce him to the dark and spooky side! Do you want that?”
“Is that why you kissed me? Because you were jealous that they were looking at my ass?”
“Yes!” Seungmin wails. He thinks he would quite like that couch to scoot on over here for him to lie down on now, but he thinks it might’ve already gone and turned into something a little less comfortable. “Because I like you a lot and you’re the best manager we’ve ever had here, and I don’t want you to leave! And I may be childish and petty, but in my defense,” he throws out a hand to gesture at their group in general, “I don’t think any of us were exactly hired to our jobs at the clown factory for our emotional maturity!”
“So all this happened because you couldn’t handle a couple guys looking at him?”
“You guys didn’t see the way they were looking at him. They would’ve eaten him alive. I could see it, they were drooling and licking their fangy teeth about it.”
“Chan, I think you should forgive him.”
Seungmin looks down at Minho, surprised and actually kind of touched.
Jisung nods his agreement. “Yeah like, they might’ve actually eaten you. You never know with the night staff.”
“Plus,” Felix pipes up, pointing down one of the aisles at a thick cold fog rolling down it, autumn leaves blowing in the wind from nowhere, “If we stay here too much longer we might all be joining the night shift.”
Seungmin turns to Chan, very seriously, and asks, “What can I do to make it up to you? I’ll do anything. Literally anything.”
“I forgive you,” Chan says, too easily.
So easily that it’s actually a little bit irritating.
“Um, no,” Seungmin says, shaking his head. It earns him a stare of sad confusion. “It can’t be that easy.”
“But I’m not upset with you anymore?”
“I’m too riddled with guilt! There has to be something.”
“Oh, oh! I know! I know!” Jisung raises a hand, waving it in the air desperate to be chosen. When Chan gives him a look to go ahead, he says, “You should creampie him.”
A chorus of loudly silent thoughts are very carefully not said out loud towards him.
“Oh, yeah,” Minho agrees with him quickly, the only one not sharing an odd sideways glance with someone. He tells them, “One time when we first met we had a fight—”
“It wasn’t a fight, I was just rude,” Jisung interjects quickly. “He did nothing wrong.”
“—and that’s how we made up again.”
“I let him creampie me,” Jisung adds, just in case any of them weren’t following their meaning.
“Well, we creampied each other.”
“Yes, first was for his forgiveness, second was just for fun.”
“Ten out of ten,” Minho nods. “Very clown recommended. Definitely makes both sides feel better.”
Jeongin holds up a hand. “I really wish you would both be quite now.”
The two of them fall silent, both reaching up to zip each other’s mouths shut.
*
“Are you sure you want to do it right now?” Hyunjin asks Seungmin as he helps tighten the straps holding him down. “Like, right here in front of everyone?”
Seungmin lets out a breath, calmer than he’s felt all day, and he nods. The looming punishment and humiliation finally coming to him actually feels like something of a relief. He deserves this.
“I would let everyone in this building creampie me all night if it would make things right.”
Hyunjin pulls a face. “Fair enough, but I think just one will do. Can you move?”
Seungmin tries to tug his arms and legs. He couldn’t escape an inch even if he wanted to now. “Nope.”
“Perfect.”
He jumps down from the platform, leaving Seungmin tied to the leather restraints that had conveniently appeared as the building prepares for the night shift (morbid curiosity does make him wonder what on Earth they get up to with it, but he would never dare ask) which should be starting any minute now, so he kind of hopes they hurry it up a bit.
Hands come from behind him to rest on his hips. Chan’s strong hands, gripping him as if he could even move anyway.
“Are you sure about this?” He asks, because he’s kind like that. Always checking in on them. “It’s… like I don’t want to brag, but it’s really big. It might hurt.”
Seungmin shivers.
“That’s okay, Chan,” he tells him quietly. He’s at peace with this, actually. “I think that’s better. I think it should hurt a little bit. You have my full willing and enthusiastic consent.”
“Okay,” Chan drops a sweet little kiss on on his cheek. “Would you like to maybe hold hands in an official capacity afterwards?”
“I think so, yes. I’d really like that,” Seungmin says, suddenly feeling like the whole day was maybe worth it after all. “Now go on, hit me with it.”
Chan turns him around, turns the entire thing he’s strapped down to around to face the other way, and then Seungmin sees it. And god… Chan wasn’t lying. It’s enormous. It looks bigger than he can handle. He doesn’t say that though, just swallows down hard, and steels himself for it.
In the audience, Changbin leans in to Felix and says, “I do feel kinda bad for the night shift though.”
Felix pats him on the arm, taking a moment to (very subtly so that only everyone can tell) squeeze his biceps before saying, “Don’t worry. They’ll find someone who’s right for them.”
Chan walks away from the platform, jumping down and taking his place next to the giant catapult, and Jeongin hands him a huge flat boxlike plastic remote control with a long zig-saggy antenna and a single big red button in the middle.
All at once, Jisung and Minho hold up their hands in fists above their heads and scream, “FIRE!”
Without any more ceremony, Chan gives him an apologetic smile, and he smacks his hand down on the button, releasing the stretched elastic holding the colossal cream pie and sending it hurtling towards Seungmin.
He gets just barely a second to catch his breath and turn his head before it hits, feeling it knock him senseless for a moment as foam shaving cream engulfs him like a solid cloud.
Several of the remaining daytime customers cheer in joy or laugh at the display, and Seungmin doesn’t even blame them for it. They clap like this is all part of some act, and Seungmin just has to wait there for someone to hurry forward and wipe cream from his face so he can gasp in air again.
Hands gently hold his messy face, the thumbs carefully brushing cream from his eyes completely so that he can blink them open again and see Chan’s pretty smile right in front of him.
“I can’t believe you let me do that,” he giggles, all traces of misery gone from his face.
“Yeah, well, I mean they’re probably not going to let me on the bus like this, but it was worth it,” Seungmin wants to smile back at him, but it’s not the threat of time as an entertainer that stops him. “Are you really sure you’re not mad about the job?”
“Why would I be mad that you wanted me to stay that badly?” Chan asks, giving Seungmin’s face a little squeeze between his palms before he presses a kiss to his foamy lips. “Even if you were being a little bit silly.”
“That looked like a lot of fun,” Jisung says excitedly, climbing up onto the platform and coming to stand next to Chan. He looks up at him and smiles. “That’s not what we did.”
Chan sucks in through his teeth, and gives Jisung a patient smile.
“Yeah,” he says gently, patting Jisung on the shoulder. “We know. Why don’t you help me get him out. I can hear the funhouse creaking.”
“Those showrooms already got replaced with haunted house rooms,” Jeongin warns them. “Also there are ghosts on aisles five to eleven, the elephant in the room is nowhere to be found, and the—”
He pauses as a deep scream comes closer, rushing by them in the form of the CEO, followed swiftly by a bear.
“That’s our cue I think,” Chan mumbles as he pulls Seungmin down from the restraining board, not caring for the cream that now gets all over him too.
Hyunjin squints, trying to see them in the distance as they run away. “Was… was that bear wearing a party hat?”
Seungmin tries to see it too, squinting. “Um, no? I think it was just a normal bear?”
Hyunjin lifts the stack of party hats in his hand. “I’m supposed to—”
“Your shift ended nearly an hour ago,” Chan tells him, grabbing Minho off the floor, and he starts herding them all towards the door. “The distribution of party hats isn’t your responsibility for another fifteen hours. It’s time to leave.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed,” Jisung says, “but it starts getting kind of weird in here after dark.”
Shepherding everyone out is the only task that ever reliably goes quickly and smoothly, no one ever being keen to be left behind. The staff room conveniently places itself near the entrance for them to grab their things and escape back into the outdoors.
Seungmin sees sky again for the first time in so many hours that he actually feels himself have to suck in a sharp breath like it’s the first one he’s taken all afternoon. The sun hasn’t set yet, but it’s turning that nice orange purple and blue that it does before it goes down.
Chan takes his hand, linking their fingers together with a smile and not looking at all like he cares that shaving foam gets squashed between them, and they start across the parking lot together.
A howl echoes off the walls and up to the rafters just as the door falls closed behind the last of them to leave.
Minho slows, turning around with a little frown at the door before shrugging and turning back to catch up. The sign on the wall behind him as he turns states it to be ‘the biggest Halloween and horror entertainer prop store in the world.’