“You said you would be here at 10, it’s already 10:30!” June hissed as soon as he opened the door.
Yoo Jin gave him a look upon seeing him. “What are you wearing?” he asked, looking at the bunny ears and the butler leotard his friend wore.
June rolled his eyes. “You can’t tell by looking?”
“Boss is making you guys dress up?”
“Boss isn’t making us do anything. We decided on it. Since that other club opened up, we’ve been struggling.”
His brow rose in surprise. “It’s that bad?”
“Ah… don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he said, slapping him on the shoulder before stepping aside to let him in, “you’ve got enough to worry about without thinking about us.”
June led the way into the backroom and Yoo Jin’s eyes immediately honed in on the large round ball of fluff on his backside. “You even have a tail,” he said.
His friend laughed and shook his bottom, the round fluff bouncing from side to side. “Well yeah, you know how much our clients love asses. These costumes are like a frenzied dream to them. Na Bi is watching Eun Ha right now.”
Yoo Jin stopped him in his tracks. “Is it really that bad?” he asked him, his tone serious.
His friend turned to look at him. “There’s nothing you can do about it.” He then sighed upon seeing the stubborn look on Yoo Jin’s face. “The rival is an omega exclusive club and well I don’t know where the owner is getting his omegas but they certainly don’t look like us.” June scratched his head, readjusting the headband when it slipped. “They are gorgeous and you know, boss has a tendency to take in the worn. Not that we’re not hot.” He slapped his own ass, the flesh bounced back in perfect elasticity. “It’s just a whole different breed over there. And as you know, we even take in the beta women that have nowhere to go and since most of our clients only ever want to see omegas, they think it’s better worth their money over there.”
He sighed but then grinned. “What’s the deal – you don’t even work here anymore anyways. Unless you want to put on the costume?” He laughed at the expression on Yoo Jin’s face before opening the door to the back room.
A happy giggle met them and Yoo Jin turned to see the source of the sound. Na Bi, a beta whose husband had left her and their child for another woman on her 34th birthday, two years back sat upon the large couch in the middle of the room. Beside her was an unusually tall man and looking up at him, smiling broadly, was a little girl.
Yoo Jin paused. It felt as though he hadn’t seen his sister smile in a long time.
“Look who’s finally showed up,” June said loudly into the room.
All three heads turned to look at him. Yoo Jin’s eyes briefly met that of the owner’s before he stood and made his way toward them. “Tae Yoo Jin,” he said, looking down at him with sharp eyes. “It’s been a while.”
Yoo Jin winced slightly. Though the unbelievably tall man before him was an omega, the air about him seemed to suit that of an alpha more. It was imposing, deafening in a silent way, and made Yoo Jin squirm with guilt.
The owner of the strip club “Cranes”, Chae Liam had been the sole reason why Yoo Jin had not immediately deteriorated when he had left his parent’s home at the age of 16. He had taken in a battered kid who barely had ten dollars in his pockets and nowhere to go. Of course, Yoo Jin had been too young to be one of his dancers and with a boring face like his and a fairly lean but slightly too muscular body, he wasn’t what the clientele generally looked for. The boss though had refused to kick him out and had instead found other uses for him. He put Yoo Jin to work partly as a bouncer and as a busboy and when he got old enough, as a sort of manager to run the floor.
The owner had been the one to introduce him to the old landlord and even without a large deposit, he had been able to get a small but liveable studio apartment, which was unusual if not impossible since he was an omega and an omega living alone was almost completely unheard of.
He winced again, the guilt hitting him doubly when his sister ran forward and launched herself onto his legs. He had left the club with barely an explanation to the owner when his sister had been unexpectedly thrown upon him nearly eight months ago. It wasn’t as though he could have kept working at a club that opened from 10PM to 4AM with a child at home alone.
“So this is the reason why you disappeared on us,” he said softly as his long fingered hands ruffled the wavy hair atop his sister’s head. “If only you had explained it to me properly.”
Yoo Jin closed his eyes briefly. There was a reason he had avoided telling the owner. He knew that the man would have tried to help him in any way he could, may have even suggested Eun Ha stay at the club while he worked but that would have meant putting the club at risk and plus, a strip club was no place to raise a kid. It was the most admirable thing about him, his selflessness, but at the same time, it was also his weakness.
“I’m sorry,” Yoo Jin said after a moment, “the situation just became like this.”
“Did she have her examination?” Liam asked as the child ran behind Yoo Jin into the open arms of June, laughing when he removed his headband to place it on top of the child’s head.
“What does a bunny say?” Yoo Jin could hear June ask her behind him.
“Hop. Hop.”
“Ah! Gotcha! Bunnies don’t talk!” he replied as he proceeded to tickle her.
His sister squealed and Yoo Jin turned to look at them. It felt as though it had been months since he had last heard that sound. He supposed he had been a bit too busy of late. When was the last time he had even seen her awake?
June smacked Yoo Jin on the back. “I gotta go back on the floor, it’s almost my number,” he said as he set Eun Ha back onto the ground. “We bought her a burger since she said she was hungry. I’m not sure if we should have but you didn’t say anything so –. Anyways, take her home and call if you need anything.” He then knelt down beside the child and addressed her with a high, friendly voice, “Tae Eun Ha, you better come back to see me next time, okay?”
Eun Ha nodded with a smile and hugged him, a hug that June returned with full measure.
“Hold on a moment before you leave, Yoo Jin” said Liam suddenly and Yoo Jin paused in his goodbyes. Liam turned to Na Bi and asked her if she could watch Eun Ha for a moment and then led him into his office.
“June explained what little he knew to me about your situation,” Liam said as soon as the door closed behind them. He fished into his desk and pulled out an envelope, placing it atop the table before him. “Take this.”
Yoo Jin looked at him, the envelope was of fairly decent thickness. He shook his head and pushed the envelope back. “You need to stop doing this, Liam,” he said, firmly. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
“You suddenly found yourself playing the role of father, taking part time jobs that barely make you any money and now Eun Ha was diagnosed with narcolepsy. You need this money.”
“You’re no better off yourself,” Yoo Jin replied, without missing a beat. “June told me about the other club.” He pushed the envelope further back toward him, “You need this money more. There’s a whole group of people that depend on you.”
“Still I –”
Yoo Jin stopped him with a laugh. “Liam, I’m thirty years old today. I may not look much but we’re still getting by. I don’t need you to keep worrying about me. I’ll be fine. You don’t know just how grateful I am to you and this place, that’s why I want you to focus on it.”
Liam was silent for a long while but then he suddenly sighed as he sat down on the chair behind his desk. He looked tired. In all the years Yoo Jin had known him, he had never looked so worn, his face still beautiful but that ageless quality that Yoo Jin had always associated with him seemed to have given away. “It might be too late for that,” he said quietly.
He froze. “What do you mean?” He had only been gone eight months, the rival club couldn’t have been operating for very long but they were already in so much trouble?
“Na Bi’s ex-husband came back when you were gone,” he said slowly, pressing his hands against his eyes, “and threatened to take her son when he found out that he was an alpha. There were legal fees that she couldn’t cover and so–”
“You helped her… but just how much could that have been?”
“He hired an alpha lawyer,” he said simply.
Yoo Jin swore. For them to have even entertained the fact of winning the case meant that… “So you hired one too?” The fees alone could have bankrupted any normal individual but for their small club where there were too many hands, hired despite not needing the help, in the midst of the arrival of a strong competitor would only mean…
“Shit, you can’t sell the club!”
Liam sighed. “Of course, I don’t wish to but what am I supposed to do? Every day there are fewer and fewer patrons. We’re barely making enough to stay open. I’ve even had to go into our reserves.” He was quiet for a moment and met Yoo Jin’s eyes. “I didn’t wish to have to tell you this since this place is no longer your concern –”
“What the hell do you mean? This place is my home too! I may have left for a while but it was just to handle my parent’s disappearance and the fact that I now had a child I needed to take care of but I had every intention of returning.” He slammed his fists against the table and the wood beneath them shook. Shit.
“What can we do?” he said. “I’ll help wherever I can. Can we get a loan?”
Despite himself Liam smiled. “Always so passionate,” he said, his voice imbued with the fondness he had always had for Yoo Jin. “I’ve already tried; however, no bank will loan such a sum to an adult club, especially to one run by an omega.”
“Fuck!” There it was again. The stupid way the world worked. What did it even mean to be an omega? What was their point, they had asked over and over again. But how could they ever find out if they weren’t even given an opportunity to try!
“What if–” he began not sure where his word would end up but it didn’t matter because just then, June threw open the doors to the study, his eyes wide with freight. “Boss! Yoo Jin!” Na Bi was right behind him, her own eyes wide and her body trembling uncontrollably.
Yoo Jin’s eyes ran through them, searching for a familiar small figure. “Eun Ha,” he said. “Where is Eun Ha?”
June rushed forward and grabbed him by the arms, one of the ears atop his bunny headband was hanging just by a small piece of faux fur. “Yoo Jin! A bunch of fierce looking security guards came in with an alpha and they took Eun Ha to the floor! The alpha –” His eyes widened even more, adrenaline seemingly pumping through his veins as his grip tightened on his arms. “We know that alpha, we’ve seen him before - he’s the one that’s always on tv, the youngest son of the Mirae Group and he’s asking for you!”
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