Work Text:
Jay is the first to admit that if you're basing everything off of physical appearance, he doesn't look like someone who should be working at Build a Bear. However, that being said, he’s fantastic at his job. He loves his coworkers and his job as a whole. The kids are normally sweet and well behaved, and he's had the opportunity to meet a wide variety of people in the year he's worked at the store. He gets to spend his days surrounded by stuffed animals and brightly colored little clothing items and gets paid to make teddy bears, so he really can't complain.
Though, just as with any job, there's downsides and things that Jay has to do that he'd rather not. These things included having to hand sew the animals if the strings come out or they have holes, having to unstuff display animals to go back in the bins, and most of all, having to be a party leader.
It seems that every Saturday, he arrives at the store at 9:45 for his 10 AM shift and on the front counter is a paper with the party information and his name written on it. The most frustrating part of doing the parties is that he isn't the only one who's party trained--Yuna's better at them than he is, but she never works Saturdays--his manager just claims that he's good at them and they get the best guest comments when he does them. (Jay thinks Heeseung just has it out for him; don't tell anyone he said that, though.) Their store is one of the busier locations, so it went without fail that there'd be a party booked on a Saturday.
This meant that every Saturday, Jay had to deal with an hour to two of dealing with one group of people, often all children. Almost always, parents drop them off at the store for the party and leave to go shop around in the mall for an hour or go to lunch. He gets why, but this leaves Jay having to be the one to tell the kids that, "Oh, we're just going to do bears and shirts today!" instead of having a parent do it. (There's nothing worse than having to be the bad guy to a bunch of toddlers when it’s out of his control.)
He feels like he should be paid more than he is if they're going to have him be party leader so often, but alas, he can't complain that much. (Parties always make the store feel so much busier, and it's much more stressful working during a party than actually being the party leader. At least he only has to focus on his one group, and not what feels to be 100 other people in the store.)
When Jay is scheduled later in the afternoon one Saturday, he's sure that that means no one booked a party for the day, and he's off free for once.
All morning, Jay was more upbeat than normal. "Who are you and what did you do with Jay?" Jake asks sleepily when he walks into their shared kitchen and sees Jay humming as he makes breakfast.
"Morning!" Jay says brightly, pouring milk into his cereal, "It's a great day today!"
Jake stares at him incredulously. "Are you feeling okay?" He asks finally.
"I'm feeling great," Jay grossly replies around a mouthful of cereal.
Jake flops into the kitchen chair across from him, taking the empty bowl and spoon that Jay had set on the table and making himself some cereal too. "Why are you so happy?"
"I'm working later than normal which means that, for the first time in months, I don't have a party to do today," Jay explains. "I've never felt happier in my life."
Jake shakes his head, amused. He had heard more than he had ever cared to hear about Jay's job at Build a Bear, specifically the parties that he's had to lead. (He's heard horror stories of screaming kids and slobber on things that he doesn't want to step foot into a Build a Bear in his life.) "Good, I won't have to listen to you complain tonight, then."
Jay rolls his eyes, "You like my work stories!"
"I like some of them." Jake points out, "Not your party ones, I hear those every fucking Saturday."
"Imagine how tired I am," Jay whines, "I don't want to do another one in my life."
"Just tell Heeseung that you want to not have to do parties as much, I'm sure he'll let you take a break."
Jay rolls his eyes, "You only believe that because Heeseung is nice to you."
"He's nice to you, too!" Jake exclaims, "You wouldn't have stayed working there for so long if he wasn't nice to you."
"Okay, fine, he is pretty nice to everyone, but he's even nicer to you because he likes you." Jay points his spoon at him threateningly.
Jake tries not to choke on his cereal, face flushing, "Don't you have to go?" He asks around a cough.
Jay grins, "I don't work until noon."
----------
When Jay walks into the store, which is a little emptier on a Saturday at noon than usual, he's feeling great. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and he felt like nothing could ruin his mood. Nothing except what awaits him after he clocks on. Turning around from the computer, Jay sees a paper on the counter with his name on it. He feels his entire world crumble around him as he reads the party info written on the paper.
"Oh," Heeseung sees him reading it and smacks his forehead, "I forgot to tell you yesterday. There was no party booked for this morning, so I scheduled you a bit later than normal. We have a weekend daycare coming in at 1:00 on a field trip and they booked a party to get the better deal on the animals."
Jay tries not to show how devastated he is that he has to do a party when he had convinced himself he wouldn't. He had been totally and completely mentally prepared for a chill afternoon of stuffing bears for the weekend mall shoppers. "Oh, okay, sounds great." He says after a second, putting on his best Build A Bear face, "How many kids?"
"Only a handful," Heeseung says, and Jay breathes a sigh of relief, "They booked for 9, but left a note that said it could be as little as 5."
Jay leans against the counter and tries to prepare himself for what is sure to come. He's just glad it's a daycare and not a birthday party because at least with a daycare the workers will be there to help keep it going the way he wants it to. There’s less expectation for him to uphold the ‘parental’ figure, and there’s less pressure to make the party the “most fun ever”! He gives himself another moment to wallow in self pity before he shakes it off and starts getting things ready.
Thankfully they were only doing the smallest package so he only had to worry about the kids having a handful of bear choices and then getting a t-shirt for it. He wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of little kids trying to choose shoes, sounds, or backpacks.
Chaehyun walks up to the counter after she finishes helping the group that was in the store, and grins evilly at him, "You thought you didn't have to do a party today, huh?"
He glares at her, "Ha, ha, thanks for rubbing it in." He grumbles.
She laughs, "They're not that bad!"
He sighs as he pops another one of the box houses together, "They're not, but I do them every week, and they get tiring. Besides, you're here! Why couldn't you do it?"
Chaehyun shrugs, and grabs a birth certificate that had just been printed off, and sets it on the counter for the family walking up to check out. "I don't know, but I'm not going to question it. Heeseung will start giving me parties all the time if I do." She winks at him when he gives her an offended noise.
"Heeseung will start giving me parties all the time if I do," He mocks her in a high pitched squeaky voice when he's far enough away to know that she heard, but the family she was ringing up hadn't.
The next thirty minutes pass quickly. He gets everything set up, gets name tag stickers ready for everyone, and grabs the four bears that the kids could choose from and sets them on the front counter.
When the clock hits 12:45, Jay can hear the voices of little kids coming down the mall hallway. Here it comes , he thinks to himself and takes a deep breath. While he may be upset that he's doing the party, he wasn't about to show it in front of all the kids.
When they come in, Jay is hit by a wave of emotions. All the kids are wearing matching bright pink t-shirts and are adorable. There's five of them, toddling along in a line holding each other's hands. They can't be older than 7 or 8, and Jay is pretty sure he's going to die.
And then he glances at one of the workers, also wearing a bright pink t-shirt and knows for sure he's going to die. He was shorter than him by a few inches, black hair messy in a way that looked intentional, and had the prettiest face Jay had seen in his life. He was wearing a nametag with the daycare's logo on it and his name scribbled in cute handwriting written in black sharpie. Jungwon. Jay was ruined.
There was another boy with the daycare, too. He was a decent bit taller than Jungwon, but also very pretty. His name tag read Sunghoon, and Jay was confused as to whether this was a daycare or a modeling business.
"Hi, welcome in!" He greets as they walk in, and Sunghoon smiles at him.
"Hi, we're here for the party?" He asks.
Jay nods, "Alright!" He says brightly, facing the kids, and trying to ignore the fact that he was going to have to spend the next hour or so pretending that the boy standing in front of him wasn't his soulmate, the love of his life.
"I'm Jay, and I'm going to be guiding you through the party today! First, we need to get everyone a name tag." He grabs the stickers and a sharpie from his apron.
He goes through the group, writing their names on the tags and trying to ask them questions to get them to be a little less shy with him.
The kids' names were Sunoo, Niki, Wonyoung, Yeseo and Junghwan. Jay was absolutely enamored by them. Junghwan told him proudly that he was six and that his name was spelled J-U-N-G-H-W-A-N. Sunoo told him he was six, too, and asked if Jay could draw a sun by his name. (What was Jay supposed to do? Say no?) Yeseo wanted a car by her name, and Jay tried his best to scribble a little Volkswagon Bug looking car next to her name, and Yeseo seemed pleased enough. Wonyoung wanted a smiley face, and Jay isn't sure when he became an artist, but here he was.
Niki seemed to be the youngest and shiest of the bunch, and it took a bit of pushing for him to whisper his name to Jay. Jay feels a little bad, and asks him if he wants a drawing, to which Niki responds with "chicken leg", and Jay has to choke back a laugh. However, the daycare workers don't share the same sentiment and start laughing loudly, and Niki grins up at them, seemingly very proud of himself for making them laugh.
Jay tries to draw a chicken leg quickly but is focused on the fact that Jungwon's laugh sounds like tinkling wind chimes. He's already feeling like this and he hasn't even said a word to the other, what is wrong with him?
After all the kids have name tags and are less scared of him, he stands up. He goes through his little spiel about staying in the store, making sure they can always see him, Sunghoon, or Jungwon, and "most of all, have fun!".
While the kids are choosing which bear they want to make, Jay turns to the two daycare workers. "They're so cute." He tells them.
Jungwon grins, and Jay's heart does not skip a beat, definitely not. "They are, aren't they?" He asks fondly, "They're so sweet, too."
"How do you not give them everything they want?" He asks, "If one of them asked me for something, I don't know how I'd say no."
Jungwon laughs, "They're pretty smart kids, so they know when they have someone wrapped around their finger. They definitely use it to their advantage, especially Niki. Don't be fooled by him, he's got it all figured it out."
Jay laughs too and turns to the kids who have finally decided on which ones they want to do. He goes through the process of writing their names on the bear's tags and asking them what they want to name their bears and writing it on the tag too. (The kids come up with the usual names of Brownie and Snowball, but Sunoo says he wants to name his bear "Gertrude" and Jay can't hold back his laughter this time.)
He has the kids play a scavenger hunt while he stuffs the animals. They go and find different items through the store, and whoever finds it first gets to step on the pedal and fill their bear up next. After all of the animals were filled up, they played another few rounds as they all seemed to be having the time of their lives. Jay watches fondly as Jungwon leans down to help Yeseo find a flower headband before the others can find it. "Stop being so obvious," Chaehyun hisses from the other side of the stuffer.
He whips his head to her, "What?" He hisses back, and she shakes her head.
"You're staring at that daycare guy like he just put the stars in the sky, it's weird."
He wishes he could flip her off, but settles for sticking his tongue out at her childishly. "Stop bothering me, I'm busy." He says, turning back to Yeseo who's holding out a flower headband to him proudly.
She laughs a little too loud, and Jay wants to scream just a little. "Alright!" He says when all the kids are back around the stuffer.
"We have one more thing to do before we can sew all of our friends up and go and give them their air baths." He directs them to pick out a fabric heart from the heart bin.
He turns to Jungwon and Sunghoon, "Do you guys want to grab hearts too? Normally the kids are better at following along if someone they trust does it too." He doesn't normally do this, but he may selfishly want to see Jungwon do the heart ceremony.
They oblige easily, and Jay grins. He turns back to the group of kids who are now holding little fabric hearts expectantly. "Okay, first we have to warm up the hearts so they're warm with love." The kids follow along in rubbing their hearts between their hands, "Now... tap them to get their heartbeats started!"
He glances over at Sunghoon and Jungwon who are following along just like the kids were and smiles to himself. "Good job! Now, take your hearts and rub them on your hearts so they have lots of love! How about on your cheeks so that they always smile with you?" He looks at Jungwon again, and he can tell Jungwon's trying not to show how awkward he feels doing it.
"Alriiight," Jay says dramatically, "Now, we have to jump up and down so that your friends have a ton of energy!"
Bright giggles fill the room, and Jay grins when he realizes that some of the giggles are coming from Jungwon, too. He's bouncing next to Junghwan, who's looking like this is the best thing that's ever happened in his little six-year-old life. Jay will deny it vehemently, but he feels himself fall a little more at the boy jumping up and down in the middle of build a bear. "Now, spin a circle so they're super silly! And rub your hearts on your knees so your friend will run and play with you. Hmmm..." He pauses dramatically, "Let's rub them on our foreheads so our friends get super-smart like you guys! And on your noses for good luck! Now, this is the most important part, okay?" He leans forward, and the kids all stare at him with the utmost of attention.
"Take your heart, squeeze it suuuuper tight, and make a super big wish!" Jay waits a few moments for them to look at him expectantly again. He looks at Jungwon, who, instead of making a wish, is staring right back at him.
He quickly averts his attention, trying to force a blush down because he is not going to blush doing the heart ceremony with a bunch of six-year-olds. "Okay, finally, take your hearts and give them a kiss so your wish comes true!"
Obnoxious kissing noises fill the room, and Jay can't help but grin. The kids all looked like they were having the time of their life, and this was what Jay loved about his job. Giving kids this type of experience was priceless.
He has them put their hearts inside the bears and goes about taking the pre-laced strings and pulling them through so that the seam closes. He ties knots with the string and cuts it off so only a tiny bit of the string is showing, and hands the bears to the kids.
The rest of the party goes more than smoothly. The kids give their bears air baths, choose out t-shirts fairly quickly and easily, and they're able to put them in the bear's houses with their birth certificates without any problems.
They do the bear promise and Jay lets all of the kids ring the bell on the wall, which is usually reserved for birthdays. While Sunghoon pays with the money the parents had chipped in to use for the party, Jay takes a moment to talk to the kids who had gotten more and more comfortable with him throughout the party.
"I'm gonna go home, and--and--and tell my mom we have to come back!" Wonyoung tells him, bouncing on her heels.
Jay nods, "Your bear is going to need new clothes when winter comes, huh?"
All of the kids agree and start telling him about all of the clothes that their bear was going to need when it got cold outside. He glances up and almost falls over with how intensely fond Jungwon is staring at him. He doesn't have a chance to dwell on it as Sunghoon finishes paying and gathers the kids together. "Tell Jay thank you!"
Jay waves at them as they leave the store, but turns around and misses the way that Jungwon glances back to look at him. He spends the rest of his shift not pouting at the fact that he didn't get much chance to talk to him or get his number.
Ah, well, he thinks to himself, what's new?
That night, he was laying on his back on his bed, Jake sitting next to him, listening as he retells the story of how he met his soulmate.
"You... you fell in love with a boy who works at a daycare that came in for a party, and didn't get his phone number?" Jake asks, clearly not amused, "Or any information about him to find him?"
Jay grabs a pillow and screams melodramatically into it, "Why'd you have to repeat it?"
Jake laughs loudly, "You're so dumb, Jay! This is so sad,"
Jay reaches out in the general area he thinks Jake is sitting on his bed and tries to slap him. He hits part of Jake's knee, and Jake squawks, "Hey! Don't hit me!" He catches his breath, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but this is such a Jay thing to do."
Jay rolls over so he's on his side facing him, pouting. "Don't make fun of me, I'm dealing with heartbreak."
Jake rolls his eyes, "Poor Jay," He says, patting his head, "Whatever will you do?"
"Die alone I guess," Jay offers, shrugging.
Jake laughs even louder at that, and Jay tries to forget Jungwon and his dumb smile and laugh.
--
A few days later, Jay is at the front counter at work looking through the new floor plan set and writing a list of which animals he needed to stuff for new displays. The store had been dead all morning (it was nearing 2 PM and they had hardly broken $100 in sales.), so Jay was hyper-focused on what he was doing. He didn't realize someone had walked up to him until they had cleared their throat.
He jumps, as he looks up, and then is left speechless. Standing in front of him was no other than Jungwon. Jungwon smiles sheepishly at him, "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!"
Jay composes himself as quickly as he can, "Oh, no, it's okay! I didn't see you come in! Is there anything I can help you with today?"
Jungwon rubs the back of his neck, not making eye contact. He laughs a little breathlessly, and Jay tilts his head as the silence stretches a little too long to not feel awkward. "Sorry, I'm just--" Jungwon cuts himself off and takes a deep breath, "I just... I think you--I--"
Jay grins at him, "Are you okay?" He asks and Jungwon blushes.
"I'm fine!" He says quickly, shifting his weight on his feet, "I just. I think you're really--" He cuts himself off again.
Jay decides to take a chance here (if he was wrong, he could just quit his job and move to Alaska.), "Jungwon." He says, and Jungwon stops, and looks up, "I think you're really cute, can I have your number?"
Jungwon blushes a brighter pink but grins. "I--yeah. That's what I was going to ask."
Jay scribbles his number down on the back of some receipt paper as he wasn't supposed to have his phone on him when he was on the floor. Jungwon does the same, and he pockets it, smiling at him. "Finally!" Someone calls from the back of the store, and Jay jumps, looking over.
Heeseung's standing in the doorway with it propped open, Jungwon blushes again. "That was painful to watch, oh my God." He shakes his head, laughing.
Jay glares at him, "You're one to talk!" He calls back, "You've been crushing on Jake since the first day I brought him in!"
Jungwon is confused but doesn't say anything as Heeseung yells at him to go back to work and goes into the back room again. "Don't mind him," Jay says, "I'm off in thirty minutes, if you want to stick around we can go get coffee when I'm off?"
Jungwon puts his hands in the pocket of his jacket, rocking back and forth on his feet, and smiles, "I'd like that."
"It's a date," Jay responds and winks at him.