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The first time Jungkook visits, it’s a beautiful, sunny day, no fine dust tinting the blue sky orange, birds singing, the works.
The kid looks absolutely miserable.
Hoseok’s got a pretty good sense for these things - beta-related senses aside, he knows exhaustion when he sees it, and the alpha sniffing the air among the pastel furniture and light piano tinkling from the speakers looks on the last dregs of a red bull. His shoulders in his baggy black sweatshirt are hunched up nearly to his ears, and the way he cautiously shuffles forward as if any moment someone is going to yell at him tells Hoseok that he’ll want to take this one before Minhyuk can get his excited puppy hands all over him. Hoseok smoothes his skirts and gives the scent glands at his neck a quick rub before flouncing over.
“Hey,” he chirps, after making noise to make sure he wouldn’t startle the baby alpha out of his wide-eyed reverie, “can I get a table going for you?”
The alpha’s eyes go impossibly wider. “Um. Yeah. Yes please. Um.”
"Right this way!"
Hoseok leads him to a window table, where he can look over the busy Hongdae street below and see the entrance. Alphas can get testy if they feel boxed in, and Hoseok could use a good tip today, not that the kid looks like much of a high-roller. He sits down forcefully enough to make Hoseok sympathy-wince for his tailbone and sort of shuffles himself around, half in and half out of his shell.
Hoseok slips down onto the cushion next to him - he doesn't lean in too far, doesn't want to push, but people visit the cafe for a reason - and taps the menu slipped under the plastic cover of the table. "We got these new cotton candy macarons in that are pretty popular, and we got every kind of tea you could want. I like peppermint, but the jasmine's really good too." He's close enough to pick up the alpha's scent; something floral and musky, mixed with too much laundry detergent and the metallic edge of packless.
"Um. I'll try that, then - uh, the macaron. And the peppermint tea. And maybe a green tea?" The alpha hunches further into himself, scent turning sour. "Sorry."
"Yah, none of that - hey, can I hug you?" The suddenness of the request catches the alpha off guard, and he nods. Hoseok slings his arms around him and nuzzles in, getting some of his own scent on his sweatshirt. After a moment, the alpha's arms wind around him, and with a shudder Hoseok has his nose in his neck.
"Ooh, you're strong," Hoseok giggles, pressing himself closer, and the arms around him tighten. In an alpha or omega cafe, they wouldn't touch a client, would maintain that careful distance, but Hoseok's cafe has somewhat different objectives. "Mm. That feels nice. Thank you, alpha."
The alpha coughs onto Hoseok's collarbone, which is a little gross. "Jungkook."
Hoseok smiles. "Thank you, Jungkook."
---
"Hoseok-ah, your regular is here!"
Hoseok rolls his eyes. "Be right there, Byulyi-unnie."
That gets him a swat to the back of his head, and Hoseok squawks about messing up his hair, but not like it matters with this particular customer. As long as he gives the alpha attention (and their strongest espresso), he'll be happy.
Jimin perks up when he approaches the table with his favorite monstrous concoction of espresso and simple syrup and whipped cream. "Ooh, nice kitten heels hyung!"
Hoseok ignores the compliment and shoves the drink in front of his roommate's face. "You know I could be working with actual customers now, huh?"
"Hyung, love me," Jimin whines.
"Aigoo, our Jiminie ~ " Hoseok starts to coo, then squawks again when Jimin huffs and yanks him into his lap. Hoseok slots in easy, always does, and they both know that Jimin knows that Hoseok likes being manhandled. The familiar orange-dark chocolate scent of Jimin grounds him back, and as much as he might playfully bitch about Jimin showing up to perv on him on the job, it's a nice reminder that when he leaves at the end of the day, he's still loved, and there's someone waiting for him at home with cuddles and a kitchen messy from trying.
A small, strong hand lands on his thigh not even a little subtly (Jimin likes his hyung in skirts. Nothing new there.), Jimin's ringed thumb smoothing over the soft of his inner thigh. There's no scent gland there (not that that stops anyone from smearing themselves all over it), but Hoseok can smell himself in their little bubble anyway, his own scent drawn out and emphasized by comfort and sheer familiarity. It's easy to relax, even when that's what he's supposed to be helping Jimin with. But then, Jimin thrives on taking care of others. It's one of his more alpha traits. As they cuddle, as Hoseok lets Jimin hold him, Jimin's shoulders lose a bit of their tension.
"Yah," says Hoseok softly. "You gonna drink the death potion I made for you, or what?"
That gets him a pinch to his thigh that makes him jump and nearly upends their entire arrangement, and Hoseok's swearing and flailing and Jimin is laughing and pawing and whining at him and it's definitely disturbing the calm, intimate atmosphere they cultivate, but a happy beta makes a happy home, and it's so, so easy to be happy with Jimin.
---
The evening shift is a mixed bag. It's a different mix of clients - salary workers, more nocturnal alphas and omegas, the occasional drunk. (Byulyi typically turns those away, but some are harmless. Some just need to spend time with someone.) Hoseok doesn't see them as much, given that he typically works the early shift. But there is one particular customer who straddles the line between evening and morning, and right now he's trying to draw Hoseok's attention away from pouring the perfect cup of tea.
"Hoseok-ssi. Hey, Hoseok-ssi. What does a vampire drink in the morning?"
Hoseok rolls his eyes even as he presses his lips into a thin line to keep from smiling. "And I'll be back with your matcha cake," he tells the omega he is currently trying to serve. She nods with a quick smile before returning to tap-tap-tapping away on her laptop. It's not common to use a beta maid cafe for studying, per say, but it's not unusual - the soothing atmosphere helps some focus without winding themselves up.
"I don't know, Seokjin-ssi." Hoseok taps his bottom lip, thinking. "What does a vampire drink in the morning?"
Kim Seokjin - the overnight worker that does something important enough he wears a pressed and definitely designer tie and jacket while Hoseok's snoring in his birthday suit, and secret enough that he deflects questions about his work in a way that's almost (almost) sexy - grins up at him, eyes just a little bleary and whatever the morning equivalent of 5 o'clock shadow is stubbling rather handsomely about his jaw. "Coffee," he says, putting unnecessary emphasis on the 피. Then he laughs, crows feet crinkling and teeth flashing bright, and Hoseok's never been a good enough actor to keep himself from laughing with him.
"You stole that from a popsicle stick," says Hoseok, jabbing an accusing finger at Seokjin's handsome smiling face, and Seokjin seizes the opportunity to take his hand and kiss the back of it.
"For you, my dear, I would steal the Geumgang Jeondo off the walls of the Ho-Am museum itself," he declares. Giggles bubble champagne-bright up through Hoseok's chest.
"That kinda old, fancy stuff is, like, for my dad," says Hoseok once he recovers, although he doesn't draw back his hand. "I like bright colors. If I wanted to see mountains I'd just put on my tennis visor and join the neighborhood ahjummas."
"Colors?" Seokjin's eyes brighten. "Perhaps something by Kang Kyungkoo?"
"Is that your job?" Hoseok muses. "Art theft?"
Seokjin cups his chin in his palm and flutters his eyelashes. "Would you date me if it was? Would you let me sweep you off your pretty feet into my devious anti-hero arms?"
"We have not established the context necessary to label you an anti-hero."
"You can establish my context anytime."
"Okay, pretty sure that's my signal for your hibiscus tea," says Hoseok, who has long refused to give him caffeine.
Seokjin slumps down, face to the table. "That would be appreciated."
Hoseok pats his head, surreptitiously angling his scent gland towards Seokjin, and the smile Seokjin gives him is small enough to go right through him.
---
"Is he dead?" Jungkook asks, perma-angled eyebrows furrowed up in what looks like anger but is actually concern for the client slumped across the table in one of the darker corners of the cafe.
Hoseok glances over. "Nah, that's just Yoongi-hyung. He takes naps here sometimes. Can't be comfortable, though." He knows this, but now the anxiety is planted, even though both he and his therapist know that Yoongi is fine and wouldn't just wander into Hoseok's workplace and keel over. "I'll go check on him. You mind waiting a bit, baby?"
Jungkook shakes his head, and when Hoseok darts in to press a kick to his cheek, the metallic edge to his scent has started - started - to fade. It makes something in Hoseok's chest warm a little as he pads over to the lump of dark sweatshirt and big hands flopped over the low table.
"Yah, hyung." Hoseok prods Yoongi in the belly (gently) with his foot. "You alive?
Yoongi grunts, and his face when he rotates his head to look up at Hoseok reminds him of nothing so much as a sleep-rumpled cat. "Why're you kicking me, Hoseok-ah?"
Hoseok lowers himself down, and Yoongi perks up that much more. "Makin' sure you hadn't kicked the bucket. New kid was worried."
"Coulda just taken my pulse," Yoongi grumbles.
Hoseok takes him at his word and reaches up to press gentle fingers against the pale skin of Yoongi's neck. He's rewarded with a flush, and grins.
"That's not how you take a pulse," Yoongi informs him, throat bobbing and scent spilling out sweet and sharp like the candied strawberries sold along the street below.
"Well, you're clearly alive now."
Yoongi mutters something thick enough with Gyeongsangdo satoori that Hoseok can't even make it out, then clears his throat and asks, "Did you get that new maschine I told you to yet?"
Hoseok blinks. It's been a month since they passed hours talking about production equipment. "Ah, hyung, I've been busy." And maschines cost hundreds of thousands of won. Hoseok makes good money at the cafe, good enough to keep him there full-time, but not quite good enough to drop a month's rent on hobby equipment. "How'd the collab go?
Yoongi narrows his eyes (he's not wearing his glasses today). "Still going. Finished the one, but house decided we'd be a good match for a side project they're doing, so I'm still stuck with the know-it-all."
Hoseok very kindly refrains from pointing out that Min Yoongi is somewhat of a know-it-all himself and makes the requisite sympathetic noises. "'zat why you're tired, hyung?"
"Nah." Yoongi's mouth twists up. "He's big on the whole work-life balance shit, so he's always gone by 7 on his dumb little bike. I'm just cramming to finish a track for - uh. Yeah."
And yet, Yoongi makes time to come here, even if he spends most of it catching cat naps. Hoseok lets out the fluttery feeling by cooing "our hard-working hyung~~" until Yoongi scrunches up his face and whines at him to stooooop. Hoseok laughs, and leaves him to collect his dignity as he bounces back over to Jungkook.
Later, after Jungkook has gotten his scent-fix in and agreed to check out one of the dance classes Jimin part-time teaches for, Hoseok goes back over to wipe Yoongi's table and immediately chokes. Shin Saimdang's face stares demurely up at him from the neat pile of fifty thousand won notes left next to the orchid pot. It's an obscene amount of money, Hoseok should split it, or squirrel it away, or send it to his mom, and who even carries that much around in cash -
Then Hoseok thinks about Yoongi's face if he tells him, a month from now, that he was too busy to make music again, and with a trembling hand he reaches down. Maybe, just this once, he can spend on his side hobby. Can let someone else take care of him. Just this part of him. Just this once.
---
Kim Namjoon isn't a regular, per se, but he is in often enough that when Hoseok hears him apologizing to the door he opened too forcefully, he already has a rag in hand for the inevitable.
"Oh - oh no, I'm so sorry, here, let me - "
And the inevitability after that. "It's okay, Namjoon-ah. Go sit down, I've got this."
Namjoon fumbles the glass that had formerly held an alpha client's iced coffee, but luckily it's sturdy and survives the half meter drop. "Ah - I'll pay for that."
Between Kim Namjoon's bumbling good will and Hoseok's pheromones and professional manner, any irritation the alpha might've felt at having his drink spilled and his table tripped over is soothed away, and best of all, Hoseok's tip isn't compromised. He gets Namjoon settled (Namjoon exclaims at the health of the small orchid on his table) and his order taken (jasmine tea and the week's most horrifying concoction of sugary pastry and buttercream), then gives himself an extra moment in the kitchen to freshen up, because Kim Namjoon is easy to reel in and easier to scare off.
"Sorry for - sorry," says Namjoon as soon as Hoseok reappears. He makes a heartbeat of eye contact, then looks away again, his scent coppery around the edges. "Can I get you anything to, um, make up for it? Or, wait, that would be asking you to do more labor, really just to make myself feel better - which, that seems like a bit much, you know, when I'm already here, part of this whole thing, and I have no idea how you feel in relationship to your job - "
Hoseok can't help a giggle as he sets his order down - he shouldn't laugh at Namjoon's internal (well, external now) wrestling with himself, but the way Namjoon’s brain soars ahead to worry about metaphysics that Hoseok goes his life kindly ignoring so he can sleep at night is somewhere between charming and hypnotizing. "You can buy me a drink, Namjoon-ah, it's okay." He winks, although Namjoon is staring too hard at his shoes to notice. "I could use a break."
Namjoon laughs nervously and ducks his head. "Peppermint tea?"
Hoseok blinks, and now it's his turn to look away as heat rushes to his cheeks. "Yeah, that's perfect."
When he ducks back into the kitchen for his tea, Minhyuk gives him a Look that he politely and firmly ignores. They get a lot of their teas from Boseong, but Hoseok doesn't have a refined enough palate to appreciate the differences between the artisan teas from the plantations and the supermarket bags he dunks in his hot water. But Namjoon will no doubt have something insightful to say about it, his hands flying with his enthusiasm to explain, so Hoseok asks Dongseong for a pot of the fancy loose leaf and two teacups.
Namjoon has started into the pastry, evidenced by the pile of sweet on his plate an even less understandable mess than before, and by the buttercream on his chin. Hoseok sets the teapot on the table and then himself on the cushion next to Namjoon, who starts to say something that Hoseok barely catches because the dot of buttercream is like a cute little mole and Namjoon still hasn't noticed it, and then Hoseok reaches up and swipes it away with his thumb.
Whatever Namjoon was saying stutters to a halt, and Hoseok isn't sure what just happened but now they're both red and Hoseok is suddenly very aware of how their scents mix in the air.
"So, um, tea?" Hoseok squeaks out after an unmentionable amount of time. Namjoon nods jerkily, and they sip too-hot peppermint tea in silence.
---
He's still staring.
Hoseok ducks his head again, focuses on doing his job - which, as a reminder, he's very good at; the alpha scenting his wrist doesn't notice the nervousness that had flashed through his system.
"God, I needed that," she groans when she's done, and she really did - the bitter stress that had lined her scent when she'd come in is nearly gone now, faded with a warm drink, lo-fi music, and beta pheromones. "Thank you, let me - "
Hoseok collects the generous tip after she leaves, and then he has to stop procrastinating, even though the stare hasn't left him this entire time. He takes a steadying breath, smooths out his skirt, and arms himself with professionalism. There's not an alpha or omega alive that can make Hoseok jumpy in his space and he'll prove it.
He turns and meets the alpha's gaze, and is that his resolve wobbling, or his knees? The new customer is almost comically handsome, like an archangel in the style of Soviet realism and commissioned in statue form by the church to a flagrantly homosexual sculptor. It's ridiculous. Hoseok has half a mind to march up to him and ask him what his deal is, but for now a polite greeting will have to do.
"Hi!" he chirps, going for perky until he figures out what the Fallen Lucifer-looking alpha responds to. Maybe he got lost on his way to a drama shooting, where he is no doubt the attractive antagonist, possibly a gumiho as well. "Is the coffee okay? I can get you something else?"
The alpha blinks up at him through his fringe of dark curls, puppy-sweet, then bites his lip (what the fuck?). "Actually, I don't really like coffee. I just asked for it because I panicked and wanted to look cool."
"Oh," says Hoseok stupidly.
"It's too bitter," the alpha explains, further trapping Hoseok in this barely-tilted reality.
"And the caffeine gives me a headache. Do you like coffee?" He pushes the saucer in Hoseok's direction, the coffee sloshing dangerously close to the lip of the cup.
"I like coffee," says Hoseok. He folds himself down and takes a sip, then a gulp, the alpha's eyes on him the whole time.
"Oh," says the alpha. "Oh."
Hoseok squirms. "We have other drinks, too. That's today's menu." He taps the paper under the glass of the table, and the alpha's gaze flits down for just a moment before it returns to him. "Snacks and pastries too, if you're hungry."
"I'm hungry," says the alpha. His tongue flicks out over his lips. "I'm Kim Taehyung."
"Jung Hoseok." He's wearing a nametag.
Kim Taehyung's tongue flicks out again. "Actually, I came here 'cos I heard the macarons were good," he says it like a confession, clasping his fingers and looking up at Hoseok through his fringe. "Do you have strawberry?"
And how can Hoseok not smile at that? "We have strawberry, Kim Taehyung-ssi. I'll get you some." He makes to get up, but Taehyung stops him with a hand on his wrist that he releases a moment later, his wide eyes going to his own hand (just for a moment).
"Sorry, um. Maybe in a little bit?"
Taehyung's hand was big, and warm. "Okay, Taehyung-ssi," Hoseok agrees. "In a little bit."
Taehyung smiles, and the world tilts just that much more.
---
The last of the sangria-tinted sunlight slips through the crowds and clubs of Hongdae and sets off the gleam of the wood table Hoseok just finished wiping down. They really do have a great location - the second floor keeps them distanced from the crowds below and grants them some skyline, hard to come by in this part of Seoul. Tonight it's lovely enough that Hoseok sets the rag on the table and takes an extra moment to stretch his back in the quiet. He turned off the music a few minutes ago, so the only sound is the sigh of the air conditioning and the rising tide of the evening crowd. Usually he's not on the afternoon shift, but Byulyi had concert plans and they close earlier on Saturdays anyway, so the shift trade was easy enough. He sent Hyeongseo home after she finished cleaning the kitchen, taking the quiet and the closing to-do list to himself.
He sweeps around the tables, straightening candles and flower pots as he goes, putting everything back in its place. It was a decent shift; a bit busier than he usually gets, but Seokjin had stopped by unusually late (early?) at the same time as Namjoon, and found a fresh audience for his ahjussi jokes. They pulled Namjoon out of his head well enough to snort very unattractively (attractively), and Hoseok would be lying if he said the manic gleam in Seokjin's eye didn't kind of do it for him. They ended up getting into some kind of fiery discussion of the logic of one of the puns, but the atmosphere was brighter and more energetic in the early afternoon, so Hoseok let them be.
The plants get watered in the mornings, so all Hoseok has to do is the final walk-through and making sure everything locks behind him. The leftover sunlight has faded into twilight, that lingering bluebell tint, and Hoseok takes a moment, his hand on the door, to inhale the space and the quiet and the done. Then he turns, ducks into the bathroom to change into his street clothes, and exits the building to let himself be just another dot of dark hair in the Hongdae bustle.
His preferred bus stop is further away from the campus area, and he takes his time getting there, pausing to admire a group of street performers doing a cover of the latest idol group hit here, someone juggling fire there, winces sympathetically as a singer's mic screeches. He passes a group of excited foreigners getting egg buns and his stomach rumbles, but they would be cold by the time he gets home. He gets glazed strawberries on sticks instead, the kind you have to be careful to chew all the way lest the hardened sugar glaze stick like glass in your throat. The coating gleams bright in the light of billboards and neon store signs and the ten thousand points of urban humanity in this place, the sweet scent a counterpoint to the ten thousand scents all swirling together.
The bus stop is more in a business district, and Hoseok is only the fourth passenger when he gets on. He lets himself slump into his seat, only keeping tension in his wrist to keep the strawberries from bumping into the seat in front of him as the bus rumbles along.
When he lets himself into the apartment, Jimin greets him at the door and very sweetly stands in the way as Hoseok takes of his shoes and lines them up on the shoe rack.
"Why does it smell like burnt sesame oil?" Hoseok sniffs. "Burnt everything."
"Don't worry about it hyung," Jimin says soothingly as he rubs himself all over Hoseok, trying to replace the smells of the city with his own. Hoseok always showers after work, but that never stops him. "And don't look at the kitchen, okay? Let's get delivery tonight, okay hyung? Stop trying to look!"
Hoseok pinches his armpit just to make him yell, but the scenting took the last piece of on out of him, and when he flops onto their extremely lived-in couch and Jimin flops on top of him he closes his eyes, and everything settles into place like a house into its foundations.
“How was your day? Did you take your lenses out?” Hoseok asks, after placing an order for fried chicken on Jimin’s phone shoved into his face.
Jimin wriggles up just enough to take out his daily contacts and drop them onto the table, which gets him another pinch. “Ugh. Jungkook has turned into such a brat, it’s like he flipped a switch and suddenly he’s ruffling my hair like I’m younger than him! And where does he get the nerve to be so tall, aish.”
“Dongsaengs these days,” Hoseok intones, and yelps when Jimin bites the nearest flesh available (in this case, Hoseok’s bicep). “See what I mean!”
Jimin ignores him to wiggle deeper into their cuddle. “What about you, hyung, how was your day?”
His voice vibrates down through Hoseok’s ribcage, his weight pressing Hoseok down onto the worn cushions like tofu, with no space left for latent worries or tension to hide. It’s quiet as Hoseok thinks back over the day, of getting paid good money to do what he’s good at, of tasting the quiet in Seokjin’s scent and the citrusy energy in Namjoon’s, of the cotton candy pink of the clouds as he left, of the warmth here now.
“It was good,” said Hoseok, and it was.