Mall AU Namjin
Camper's Paradise was a high end camping store that sold most of their items at inflated prices, with the promise of the best customer service around and a more high quality product. Kim Seokjin took the job as a cashier because it paid two dollars more than his previous job, and he was quickly regretting it. He was exceptionally good in customer service, perfected his sweet smile and caring attitude and stern understanding face whenever customers decided to converse with him, but the other staff were ridiculously unmanageable. He avoided them on principle, sitting by himself on his lunch break and going outside instead of into the break room for his fifteen minutes. On the floor he stayed behind the cash island desk, busying himself with tagging or retagging returns and new product.
But now, today, a Friday, he was forced to call his insufferable supervisor for the sixth time that afternoon for authorization on another return. His supervisors always encouraged him to discourage returns as politely as possible, but when it was unavoidable he needed final approval from the manager on duty. Fridays were always Sean's days, and Sean was a fuckhead. Sean had a beard and a sense of superiority that came with having a Master's Degree in Ancient Fuckheadedness of the Fuckhead Century that found him a lot of great fantastic fuckhead jobs but insisted the store would fall apart if he left. Seokjin despised Sean.
So, staring down at the hooded dark green super fiber IceBreaker Sweater he just sold fifteen minutes ago Seokjin picked up the phone and paged Sean to the front desk.
Seokjin lifted the sweater and folded it neatly, looking up at the customer who insisted on the return. He was young, around Seokjin's age, but his clothes were expensive and his hair was wonderful and Seokjin thought it was a shame that such an attractive guy could be such a picky inconsiderate jerk to buy at the store six times today and bring at least one thing back every time. The guy smiled sheepishly at him, and Seokjin found it difficult to stay mad-- Until Sean stepped behind the counter, sweeping Seokjin aside until he bumped up against the cash register and smiling widely down at attractive-but-indecisive customer.
While Fuckhead Sean was asking about why he was returning it, Seokjin busied himself with imagining plucking every single wiry brown beard hair from Sean's stupid square head with a tweezers.
"Green isn't my colour." The customer said, shrugging his wide shoulders. Sean sighed, tossing the sweater at Seokjin and giving his approval for the return, and no amount of customer service experience could hide the look of distaste on Seokjin's face as he watched Sean go back onto the floor. He cleared his throat, looking back at the customer with a small smile.
"That was on credit?" Seokjin asks, picking the receipt up from the counter and logging on to his till. He pulled up the customer profile, and actually paid attention to his name this time around. Kim Namjoon. Namjoon shakes his head, pulling his wallet from his jeans pocket.
"No it was debit." He replies, pulling a red debit card from his wallet. Seokjin is impressed, and he smiles to himself again as he reverses the transaction and types Sean's name into the authorizing prompt. Usually when people bought from this store, it was on credit, but having enough money in his bank account for a seven hundred dollar transaction was pretty impressive. Seokjin dreamed about having that kind of financial stability. "So everytime you have to do a return, you have to call your manager?"
Seokjin nodded, humming an affirmative as he filled out the return form.
"And you don't like him that much."
Seokjin cleared his throat, glancing at Namjoon with a loaded look. "I like him just fine."
Namjoon snorted a laugh and instead of getting annoyed like he usually would, Seokjin found himself pressing his lips together to avoid confirming Namjoon's statement.
"So I made you interact with your 'just fine' manager whenever I came back. I'm sorry." He said, a truly apologetic look on his face. Seokjin felt his stomach flutter, shaking his head.
"Its not-- okay it is your fault but it's not your fault that he's-- just fine." Seokjin responded, turning to fold the sweater neatly again and place it on the shelf behind him. "Its okay."
"I feel like I should make it up to you." Alarms started going off in Seokjin's head, alarms that went unheeded by his heart beat getting louder in his ears. But he wasn't completely sure if Namjoon was actually flirting with him or not. He looked down, pulling the debit machine out from it's cradle and punching in the numbers while feeling the tips of his ears heat. Ideally, Seokjin would smile a little flirty, leaning against the counter with confidence and ask him outright if he was insinuating what Seokjin thought he was, but realistically, he just panicked.
"You don't have to it's part of my job, not like you intentionally brought things back so I would have to deal with him." Seokjin said, a little breathless as he set the machine on the counter for Namjoon to complete the refund.
"Well..."
Seokjin looked up at Namjoon's face for the first time since Sean left to see him looking guilty and sheepish. If question marks could make a sound, that's the sound Seokjin made.
"Maybe I-- kind of did?"
All of the geniality of Seokjin's practiced customer service left his face as he thought about what kind of asshole would purposefully buy and return items to a store. What kind of time to burn did Namjoon have? Of all the things to do for entertainment this had to be the worst possible thi--
"I wanted to ask if you wanted to go for coffee but it took me six times to get the nerve to actually speak to you outside of the transaction I'm sorry." Namjoon said in a rush, interrupting Seokjin's internal angry rant. "I didn't mean for you to have to deal with a dick manager every single time. I feel really bad now."
Seokjin closed his eyes, torn between feelings. "Just insert your card into the chip reader please."
He opened his eyes again and breathed in, watching as Namjoon did as he was told and completed the transaction in silence. Seokjin ripped the receipt from the printer as it finished, filling in the rest of the return information before briskly handing the pen to Namjoon. "Sign on the line please."
Namjoon did, and Seokjin handed the customer his receipts, stuffing the other into the drawer. "Have a nice day."
As Seokjin stepped outside of the store his cellphone beeped with a new text message from an unknown number. He smiled to himself as he read it.
'You're ice cold when you want to be you know that? Kim Namjoon.'