Chapter Text
“So what exactly is in your package?”
She’s staring at him, this woman with the most uninterested facial expression, and Jungkook is silent thinking how he never would have imagined a situation like this to happen to him in his life.
To answer her question, he’d need to return to the events that took place one week earlier, or rather just one event, singular. But what an event that was.
The thing is, a week ago Jungkook ordered a dildo from a sex shop.
One would ask, why in this day and age he would need to be standing awkwardly at a post office like he now is, embarrassed and humiliated, when all the normal, all the adequate people buy stuff online with either delivery right to their doorstep or at least an option to pick it up in a more private setting, from a pick-point or Amazon locker or something.
Jungkook however is not exactly an adequate person.
Before actually buying the thing, he’d been bracing himself for weeks. For some reason, searching for porn in a private window of his browser didn’t feel as incriminating and plain shameful as doing research for dildos of all things. Jungkook reasoned with himself, as he often does, that it’s because looking for a sex toy is so much more personal, and intimate, and just scary. Especially when it’s your very first time.
There’s still so much of that childish fear of being caught while doing something he wasn’t supposed to in him. With no parents around anymore, he still feels like such a teenager most of the time. Granted, he’s only nineteen, so technically he’s still a teen by the rules of both law and linguistics. But he’s also an adult because with the money he now earns – has been earning for himself for quite a while already, he can buy ten dildos- Not that he needed that many of course.
And yet, just thinking about it makes him shiver and blush. Jerking off to porn – yes, that’s fine, prepubescent kids do that, but buying sex toys for himself – who is he to do something this grownup?
That had basically been Jungkook’s thought process leading up to the day when he finally pressed the button.
After clicking search after an embarrassingly straight-forward ‘dildo buy seoul’ it was like his brain shut down and then restarted and accelerated to such a speed that all body couldn’t possibly keep up. Maybe that’s why he can’t even now remember where the hell he clicked, and how he registered with the help of autofill alone - because he couldn’t recall his name, let alone his phone number and credit card information, at the time. But after a five-minute speed run on a quest for purchasing the damn thing, any thing at all, he found himself staring at a page on a very familiar website with a minimalist orange-red logo that said ‘Your order has been placed!’ He also found that he was hyperventilating sitting alone at the desk in his studio apartment.
So he just closed the tab, and then the window, and then turned off his computer and tried to act like nothing happened because apparently, his brain had not recovered yet.
Jungkook lived his life as usual through the week. He streamed a lot and watched a really long fantasy drama for a couple of hours every day; he went out to buy frozen food and ramen because he couldn’t care for cooking. And yet somewhere in the back of his mind, he was also waiting, still too scared and thus reluctant to check the state of his order – or at least the content, or anything related to it at all.
He didn’t even try to masturbate. Once, on the second night, he suddenly got hard in the middle of the stream and had to end the session earlier. There was no porn needed for him to come in barely a minute after putting his hands down his jogger pants. No particular scene was playing out in his mind, no sounds and no pictures, nothing but a vague heaviness, a feeling so foreign that he couldn’t put his finger on it.
The next morning he woke up with his underwear already stained and sticky, which rarely even happened when he was in middle school and had wet dreams on occasion. That same heaviness lingered in his body and unclear but most definitely phallic geometric shapes popped up in his head throughout the day, making him especially distracted.
And he’d been somewhat distracted since then, until finally, late at night seven days after the incident, his phone lit up at the message from an unknown number. The message was short and sweet, and the name of the sender left no doubt in Jungkook’s mind as to what kind of a place it was from. It basically said that his order was awaiting him at a post office at this address, don’t forget to bring your ID.
So that brings him here, to a small and a little stuffy office, the main hall empty except for an old lady filling out some forms in the corner. She’s been at it all this time that Jungkook’s been here, and Jungkook’s been here for over half an hour now.
He doesn’t know what exactly he did in his previous life that angered whoever is in charge of it all – because of all the things that he could’ve possibly ordered and come here to pick up, it had to be a dildo that they’ve lost.
They lost his package.
And now he’s standing here and doesn’t know what to do with himself.
He figures he could’ve left and come back another time, or, even better, never. But he’s already bothered them, and running away now would make him seem extremely ungrateful and rude. Which are things Jungkook is pretty sure he’s not and things that he obviously can’t have some random strangers think about him.
Especially when the strangers are not exactly acting like strangers. Like Taehyung.
Taehyung, as in an overly eager employee who introduces himself right away because Jungkook would have never managed to read that from what’s probably supposed to be his nametag, the characters scribbled down in handwriting that’s completely illegible.
“Hey man! I’m Taehyung,” is the first thing he says to Jungkook in that really deep voice, appearing at the counter after a minute of Jungkook’s awkward waiting by the entrance. A smile on his unmasked face, that Jungkook would call ethereally beautiful if it was not as annoying, is definitely meant to relax Jungkook, make him feel welcome. What is does is stresses him out even more. Too cheerful and unbothered for the occasion.
“Um, hi. So, I have a package,” is the first thing Jungkook says, and immediately regrets saying. It seems like the whole affair is set out to be a failure from the very start.
“I mean, I’m picking it up, a package.” He’s really happy his mask is on to hide any possible consequences of his nervousness.
“Sure! Okay then-”
He’s interrupted by a loud “Tae!” from the back and has to leave Jungkook to wait some more.
Looking around a little more freely now, Jungkook finds that there really aren’t many people here at all. A lady has been walking back and forth in the behind a set of half-empty but still cluttered shelves, carrying stacks of boxes and packages around what appears to be the local storage. There’s obviously somebody else who’s summoned Taehyung just now.
And, well, there’s also this tall beefy guy in a black face mask standing at the very back of the counter sticking pieces of tape on some cardboard boxes. Jungkook realizes he didn’t see him there when he came in. The guy’s wearing a beanie that almost covers his eyebrows and a hoodie with the hood on, of course. And so all Jungkook can see of his face are his eyes, and those are glued to the boxes.
For what feels like a long time of thirty seconds to a full minute Jungkook is watching the guy work. The hoodie isn’t tight by any means, but it’s fitted enough for Jungkook to assume that the guy is muscly under all that fleece. There’s a similar tag pinned to his broad chest, with the same crooked letters that make it impossible to read the name. He has nice hands, is another thing that Jungkook catches himself thinking about. Nice and big, long fingers, a little rough-looking knuckles, but still kind of pretty-
“I’m back!” Taehyung announces as he’s appearing before Jungkook again, making him look forward, a little bit embarrassed for staring at a stranger at work like a creep. Not that the guy seemed to even notice.
“So, you’re here for a package? Man, I really wish more people would dropped by, it’s so freaking boring here. Like, I don’t mind warehouse work, but the lack of social connection, it’s hard on you.”
He plays with his eyebrows dramatically and briefly turns his head towards the taping guy before flashing a giant boxy smile to Jungkook.
“Hey, can I see your identification real quick?” he asks after Jungkook tells him his order number. Jungkook quickly retrieves his passport from his pocket.
“Jeon Jungkook,” Taehyung reads loudly, and Jungkook wants to disappear from this planet.
“Nice name! Yeah, thanks. Oh, hey, also could you lower your mask for just a sec? It’s not like I don’t believe you or something, you actually have quite trustworthy eyes, but I kinda have to, because it’s, you know,” he flops both his palms down onto the counter and leans forward a little, “the protocol,” and some more of that eyebrow wiggling.
Jungkook nods slowly before slipping his mask off his face and sticking it under his chin to the soundtrack of Taehyung rambling something about how he’s ‘looking like a baby in that pic, man, for real’.
“Aw, cute!” he exclaims when Jungkook reveals his face, and then gets back to filling out some form with a chewed pencil.
For a couple of seconds Jungkook just stands there with his hand in the air ready to return the mask to where it was. It’s not that he’s uncomfortable, more like completely petrified and weirded out by somebody being so energetic and open and friendly towards him in real life. Even if it’s a total stranger with apparent signs of ADHD all around.
He thinks then he senses some kind of movement to his left, but when he turns his head swiftly to look, the guy’s already lowered his gaze back towards the boxes he’s been taping. He’s fast but not fast enough for Jungkook not to notice.
Not knowing what to make of it though, Jungkook tugs the fabric over his mouth and nose once again and turns away.
When Taehyung leaves to search for the package, the guy also leaves after a minute taking a bunch of boxes to the warehouse. Left alone – not counting the old lady muttering whatever she seems to be writing down under her breath, - Jungkook can’t really focus his attention on anything. He checks his phone absent-mindedly, scrolls through the gaming chat where his teammates have been discussing plans for an evening session. Jungkook confirms that he’ll be there, then checks a message from his mother asking him if he had dinner yet. Reminding him that he didn’t even have breakfast. He’s replying with a “yes :)” before locking the screen. He really just wishes he can leave soon.
Before Jungkook has time to put the phone back in his pocket, the sound of some huge commotion rackets from the back almost making Jungkook jump. Somebody’s yelling, there’s the same exasperated ‘Tae!!’ that he heard earlier, and then an ‘Ow!’ and then Taehyung comes out to the front desk.
“Aiish, what a mess,” he’s rubbing his head with the back of his hand and frowning as he talks. “I don’t know how Jiyoung-noona handles that freaking warehouse every day. So, like, messy, you wouldn’t imagine.”
Jungkook stares at him dumbly, trying to express understanding and maybe a little bit of compassion with his eyes as well, but he doubts it’s working. Taehyung is smiling at him once again, though.
“Honestly, like completely honest to god, we don’t lose packages here, man.” He even puts his hand on his chest to demonstrate how honest he’s being, or at least that what Jungkook figures it’s supposed to be. “It doesn’t happen, I’ve been here for what? A whole four months? Em, the point is that we will find it and it won’t be like that one time- Noona!” he yells suddenly, and this time Jungkook literally feels the soles of his feet leave the ground for a moment.
“Noona, how long have I- Ah, nevermind. So. Where was I?”
Jungkook wants to tell him he was looking for his package, but then the hunky guy walks back in as well, a stack of new unfolded boxes in his hands. Jungkook catches the shape of his eyes briefly, but the hood is hanging even lower now, so his whole face is in shade because of it. The guy returns to the same corner and presses a button on the wire of his headphones before beginning to fold the boxes.
Jungkook slowly turns his head away and only then realizes Taehyung is talking.
-and he was, like really old, so I didn’t think much, and we were looking for this book he wanted to pick up. And there was also mess back there, so noona was stressed and she told me ‘Taehyungah, wait here with him’, and I was trying to maybe, like, initiate conversation, but he got really angry really fast, and then he just tried to hit me with his cane. Man, he really did? Can you believe? Like that Sims 3 shit, exactly, I didn’t think grandpas did this shit in real life, but I guess they do now, and then when I laughed and when I, like, dodged a little, he tried to climb over this counter! That was totally crazy, man, and then- Oh, wait-wait, that reminds me,” he trails off all of a sudden, and then jerks from where he was standing and without another word leaves.
Confused and ready to go home, Jungkook hears a quiet sort of huffing from the left, and when he looks, the box folding man’s shoulders are shaking slightly. He’s giggling, and it sounds like he’s choking in tiny, and it’s adorable for some reason. He still doesn’t lift his head though.
That’s precisely when Jungkook’s asked the question of ‘what’s in the package’ by this lady who appears in front of him way too unexpectedly.
“Was it big?” the uninterested girl asks him next, even though the reply to her first question is merely a shrug. She’s staring at him blankly.
“No, not particularly-”
Or he doesn't have a fucking clue. He falls silent and averts his eyes for a moment, but she’s still watching him when he’s back. She’s chewing gum a tad robotically with precisely half of her mouth.
“It’s, like, medium-sized? It’s just a, uhm, a gift, a gift that a friend sent me, and I’m not so sure exactly,” Jungkook mumbles in response, so very glad that he has a mask on his face at this moment.
When he looks up, she’s already on her phone, as indifferent towards whatever it says on the screen as she seemed towards Jungkook.
“Ah, but maybe I can just go, maybe later I’ll come back, so that-“ he doesn’t really know what he’s saying at this point, but he registers how his feet start carrying the rest of his body backwards, to where the door is. It’s nothing more than just phantom pull yet, but he’s really so ready to go.
He stops when she looks at him one more time before leaving with her eyes on the screen again.
“Yeah, actually, I think I’ll-”
But a new sound - this time of something falling down and then some more shouting is heard from the warehouse then, and the voice, unmistakeably Taehyung’s is yelling “Yay, JK,” and then the man himself rushes through the open door and into the main office.
“We’re victorious, at last!” he announces, and Jungkook has exactly one second to breathe before all air is punched out of his lungs. Because Taehyung, with a happy smile on his face, just as friendly and now also relieved and kind of proud of himself, plops what appears to be Jungkook’s package right down onto the counter.
And Jungkook’s package appears to be very huge and very obviously a dildo. It’s so painfully obvious that Jungkook feels like he’s in real physical pain from the sight.
The whole package is basically just thin plastic, that’s wrapped around the shape of the thing so tightly that every single detail is visible – from the overly realistic set of balls at the base, to the round bulbous head. Jungkook may be tripping but he could swear he sees thick veins running all over the shaft. And on top of everything, it’s quite obnoxiously bright pink.
He didn’t spend too much time researching all those dildos weeks before actually buying one, but Jungkook saw the words ‘discreet packaging’ mentioned enough times to assume that all goods of this sort were packaged discreetly by default. Looking at the thing in front of him though, Jungkook can only be frustrated beyond all imagination. Discreet packaging my ass.
“Yeah, it’s so cool we didn’t actually lose it or something, that’d be sad, right?” Taehyung muses with the same unbothered and relaxed expression on his beautiful face, all while Jungkook is going through an identity crisis the size of- well. “There’s really such a mess there, it’s just crazy, man. Gotta have some serious decluttering done, noona’s been telling me that all the time, but I don’t usually hang out back there, my shifts are kinda twisted because of school and I really didn’t think it was this crazy again! In summer it was especially bad. Yeah… I wonder if-
Taehyung stops speaking and seems to begin to look for something then because he’s turning his head here and there with a slight crease between his eyebrows. Assuming it might be under the – giant, Jungkook can’t shake off his bewilderment – dildo, he reaches his hand to pick it up and probably get it out of the way.
Feeling a weird kind of responsibility for this monster now, Jungkook reflexively snatches the toy before Taehyung can touch it, and presses it right into his chest.
The shame he’s obviously feeling because of this whole situation is too great for his mind to wrap itself around, so he’s actually a little numb. Still, his cheeks are on fire, and he’s pretty sure he’s sweating under his jacket. His face is uncomfortably wet under the mask as well, what from all the subtle hyperventilating he’s been doing.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he also thinks that it would maybe help if he loosened his scarf a bit – but he’s gripping the package with both hands because he’s not okay. One hand is wrapped around the thing, the other is pressed right over it. Which- he’s suddenly struck with the realization that his fingers simply won’t meet if he tries to wrap them around the shaft properly. The last shreds of sense he has in him make sure he doesn’t check then and there, so instead he just pushes the thing firmer into his own chest as if trying to squash it against himself, or just hide it from view. Not that it would be possible, but even in that case everybody’s seen it already, and Jungkook doubts they will be able to forget this experience any time soon.
Taehyung doesn’t seem affected at all though as he’s writing something down. The way his large hand twists to different sides with every new character he scribbles, Jungkook has no more doubts as to who wrote the gibberish on the nametags.
Jungkook wonders how often weird things like this happen. For a second he can even imagine himself laughing at this, asking Taehyung if he’s ever seen something as outrageous before, being sociable and self-aware and adult about it. Maybe in another life he could even engage the buff guy, who must be a friend of Taehyung’s which means he’s probably as chill at the very least.
Suddenly Jungkook is hyperaware of the fact that this other guy is actually here as well. It’s absolutely not a given that he doesn’t think Jungkook is a freak of nature, isn’t disgusted at the sight of whatever Jungkook’s clutching so awkwardly. He’s suddenly scared to look.
“Hey, Jeon Jungkook, sign here please!” Taehyung coos, sticking a pen into his shoulder to attract his attention. Jungkook has to tear one of his hands away from his chest to put his signature to the form placed on the counter and not shake too much because of his name being shouted out once again inside the walls of this cursed post office.
“Ok, I-“ he starts nodding his heavy head as soon as he drops the pen, but his voice betrays him and comes out so high that he has to shut his mouth right away. He coughs, although it’s also incredibly embarrassing, and nods some more.
“Ya, this is one cool signature, Kook,” Taehyung starts, turning the sheet of paper towards himself. Jungkook thinks that what he talks about next – and then keeps talking and talking about - is probably related to the topic of signatures or maybe even handwriting and it quite possibly would be very interesting indeed to discuss.
But Jungkook is lost, and he feels the magnetic pool of the exit again, and he just wants to run towards it, even though it’s impolite and most likely extremely weird - to just escape after everything. He knows that if he doesn’t pretend to be totally chill, there’ll be so much more reason for them to remember him longer, make fun of him maybe, and share the hilarious anecdote about this creepy kid who ordered this horse dildo and freaked everyone out-
They.
His legs have already started carrying him backwards, and he’s taken at least one step when he jerks his head to the left. Eyes a little higher.
And at this precise moment, they lock with another pair.
Just like last time, the guy barely manages to turn his gaze up and away from the giant that Jungkook has pressed into someplace above his abdomen now. A striking set of yellow eyes, the look in them a bit heavy and a lot intense, and pointed right at Jungkook. The rest of the man’s face is still hidden, but Jungkook feels like whatever’s in his eyes is more than enough – in fact, it’s pretty overwhelming as it is. He looks at Jungkook and it feels like he’s speaking to him, but it’s too complicated and too fast and just too fucking much, and Jungkook doesn’t understand, but he keeps staring back, pinned to his place by this heavy and unexpectedly meaningful gaze.
Jungkook can tell the guy is not watching him with disgust. It’s not a pitying look either. It just seems kind of- interested. Which is wild and definitely his feverish mind making him see things that aren’t there.
“Jungkookah?” Taehyung calls, and he probably asked him a question, but Jungkook didn’t hear because he didn’t listen, and now Taehyung is watching him with concern so clear on his face – such an expressive face, damn, and Jungkook thinks he’ll collapse if he doesn’t leave this place within one minute.
Something evil or just very dumb makes him actually open his mouth in his state, and he cringes instantly at what comes out.
“Yeah, I’m,” he hears himself utter out, and his voice is even higher than during his previous attempt at producing speech, high enough that it makes him wonder at the hidden possibilities and talents he may have.
That’s when he hears another voice make that already familiar sound. A low chuckle, deep despite being breathy. And the guy is of course still looking at him, now with a couple of the tiniest creases in the corners of his totally crazy eyes.
Is he mocking me? Jungkook has to ask himself to try and avoid taking the other route – that is, thinking even for a second that the new emotion that shines through the guy’s look now is fondness and that in the chuckle from before he could probably make out a word that sounded just a little like ‘cute’, and that he started feeling a tad hotter from the intense focus of the guy on him, which was simply not possible with the way he’s already been burning like a furnace for too long.
And then Jungkook turns on the spot and makes for the door, a true beacon of light in this darkness. He hears a loud and cheerful as ever ‘See you around Jungkookah!’ and even manages to feel a phantom palm hit his sweating face at the realization that his name has been said out loud too many times to be forgotten now, before the door slaps shut behind him.
For a minute he’s just standing outside reclaiming control over his breath, mask tugged down, back pressed to the door and the horrible thing that – he thinks about it only now when some oxygen gets into his brain – he could’ve pretended didn’t belong to him at all, that thing pressed into his stomach. Carefully as if not to touch it more than absolutely necessary, he swaps hands, and the one that’s been clutching the dildo in a near-death grip for ten minutes straight is suddenly so achy that Jungkook lets out an audible ‘ow’.
At home, he sticks the dildo, packaged as it is, into the depths of the lowest drawer of his wardrobe, and tucks a stack of clothes over it. His brain apparently thinks it’s best to try to forget all about this situation for now, so Jungkook distracts himself with making a double serving of spicy carbonara-flavored ramen and getting in on that group gaming session he barely makes. And it seems to be working.
But as he falls asleep that night, he’s twisting and turning in bed for too long. And the movie behind his eyelids is one that he can’t click away from – it's of those piercing yellow eyes staring into his soul.