Bargain (Not Met) (JungHope)

Deal with a Manager: Advanced

Taehyung's clue led them back to the library, but instead of going in blind and reading their minuscule amount of legitimate sources, they found themselves wandering the shelves of autobiographies.

"I remember him writing in a journal," Taehyung spoke as his eyes wildly scanned the author's names on the books' spines. "He said that he mostly used it to draft lyrics, but I read it once, and the first few pages actually held his life story. Like, he was writing about how he first fell in love with the piano and how his passion for music deepened as time went on.

"Anyways, he didn't get to publish it himself in the end, obviously." A flash of sorrow broke through Taehyung's forcibly calm expression, and Hoseok's breath faltered at the raw emotion of it all. He shook it off and continued to browse the shelves. "As it turns out, I published it. Like, the day right before he got...erased..."

As the words escaped his parted lips, Hoseok knew that Taehyung had already processed the implications of his past actions. He watched with sympathy in his gaze as Taehyung's step stalled and stiffened with horror, as his breathing became erratic and mortified.

Maybe it was the experience of the previous night's events that fueled his actions, but Hoseok found himself lunging forward and embracing Taehyung's crumbling form. He dragged the manager's limp body over to the cramped space between the two Romance genre shelves and slowly eased their intertwined bodies to the ground. He hugged Taehyung's back close to his chest and hooked his chin over the manager's shoulder. He watched from his peripheral as Taehyung's expression refused to crumble, as it just stayed in a state of mortified disbelief.

"It's not your fault, you know." Hoseok slowly lifted his gaze from Taehyung's face up to Jungkook's, who towered over the both of them with quiet sympathy. Hoseok nudged Taehyung until the manager finally raised his eyes to Jungkook's. "It's your friend's fault," Jungkook continued with profound conviction. "If he'd listened to the demon's deal, then he wouldn't have told you at all about the damned journal. He also wouldn't have told you to publish it, which I'm guessing from experience, he probably did."

Taehyung nodded in solemn confirmation. "But it wasn't underhanded...!" he argued feebly, like a child in denial.

Hoseok frowned at Taehyung's profile before slowly bringing his gaze back toward Jungkook. "Yeah," he said after a moment of contemplation. "Getting publicity through your own work, whether it's from your intended source of profession or not, isn't sneaky in the least. Sure, he probably felt it was and asked Taehyung-ah to do it in fear of punishment, but that couldn't have possibly been the reason for his...erasure."

Jungkook gave a look a pity, and Hoseok felt an immediate weight drop to his gut. "That's the thing... Humans create their own sins, Hoseokie." He crouched down to their level, eye-to-eye with Hoseok's dawning look of realization. "So, if they consider it wrong, then, we, the creations of humans' past sins, count it as such."

Hoseok's mouth went dry at the information.

All this time, he'd thought his feelings for Taehyung would be the cause of his inevitable downfall. But because of that mindset, that thinking process that Jungkook himself had planted into him, he was already considered a sinner. Thankfully, he hadn't technically broken the conditions of his and Jungkook's deal, so no repercussions had taken place. Taehyung's friend hadn't been so lucky, though...

"So, what?" Hoseok finally said, finding his voice after a moment's struggle. "Taehyung-ah's friend got tricked into becoming a sinner because he already thought he was?"

Jungkook answered with a grim nod.

Palpable tension filled in the cracks of silence. Hoseok clung tight to Taehyung's torso, grounding himself to the reality of him meeting the same fate as the manager's friend. Hoseok was mildly aware of Jungkook's stare still trained on him, probably expecting him to take hold of the situation and get them moving before his lunch shift ended. But his mind was just...too tired to even comprehend the thought of moving forward, of going past that single moment in time.