Chapter Text
Seokjin is freaking out.
No, not freaking out. Stressed out. Just a little bit.
Okay, look.
Seokjin is supposed to be attending a very important business event tonight and he’s had his whole outfit planned for at least sixteen hours, but the problem is, the universe must have some personal vendetta against him because they leave in thirty-five minutes and Seokjin can’t find his shoes. A perfectly good reason to be stressed, in his opinion.
He sticks his head out over the banister on the second floor of their farmhouse and yells down the stairs. “Mum! Do you know where my shoes are? The black leather ones?”
“They’re down here, Seokjin! Next to the door!” his mother yells back.
When his parents had told them they were once again going to the annual Farmer’s Night (it didn’t actually have a name and it was more like a networking event than a ‘night,’ but Seokjin had taken to calling it that a couple of years ago and so now that’s what it was), they’d been told to look extra nice because apparently, some ‘special guests’ would be attending.
Taehyung, being the true fashion design graduate he is, had immediately wanted to style all of them from head to toe. That idea, however, had only lasted as long as it took for him to pull out an elaborate design of some type of sheer lace jacket and slide it in their father’s direction right beside his morning coffee, who to his credit, had been quite diplomatic in his rejection and had promised that if Taehyung ever did create the jacket, would definitely wear it to a different event some other time.
Anyway, his shoes are downstairs next to the door. Good. Seokjin can go downstairs, put them on, then come back up here and annoy Yoongi or the kids until it’s actually time to go. Perks of being the organised one in the family.
His mother pats him on the shoulder as she passes by on her way up to the linen cupboards on the second floor. “Now remember that it’s the middle of March, so it’s going to be cold tonight. Make sure you all bring a coat or a jumper, okay?”
Seokjin nods after her. Sometimes (though mainly when he’s talking to those who perhaps aren’t from around here) people give him weird looks when he tells them he still lives at home with his parents even after graduating university, that all of them do, but it’s not like they can just up and leave whenever they choose. Well, they can, but they have to come back. Seokjin worries that their farm wouldn’t survive if they didn’t.
Even when Jimin and Taehyung had gone off to university for a couple of years and their parents had told them not to worry about anything going on back home, having two less sets of hands around to help out hadn’t really put them in an ideal situation. They hadn’t had enough money then to be able to afford hiring anyone new, which meant he and Yoongi had to pretty much double their own workloads. Yoongi even had to quit his internship at the record production company he’d been working for, and the amount of physical exertion the two of them were put under daily was enough that they barely had the energy to eat, let alone do anything else.
Seokjin knows how guilty his parents had felt for those two years, but thankfully the farm began to make a little more money a couple of months later and they were finally able to hire a few more people. Since then and up until about four months ago, the most he, Yoongi and the kids have had to do is help out with the crops or the goats if one of the workers can’t make it, which funnily enough is starting to become more common nowadays.
Anyway, Seokjin still can’t find his shoes. His mother must have been lying to him when she said they were downstairs by the door, because he’s here right now and they definitely are not. They’re meant to be leaving in just over half an hour and what is he supposed to wear if he can’t find them? Sandals? To a business event? Yeah, Seokjin doesn’t think so.
“What’ve ya lost, kiddo?”
His father must have seen him standing in the doorway looking distraught because he gives him a slap on the back as he passes by, returning inside from where he’d been out watering the garden. Seokjin doesn’t know what possessed him to do the watering now, thirty-one minutes before they have to leave and when he isn’t even dressed yet, but he’s not going to get into that at the moment. He has more important matters at hand.
“Have you seen my black shoes?”
“The ones that were just sitting here? I put them in that thing next to the dining table.”
Seokjin rushes to the dining room and their overflowing shoe cupboard (he’s assuming that’s what his father was referring to), and sure enough, when he opens the doors there they are, sitting safe and sound on the bottom shelf. And thank God, because he only had twenty-nine minutes left. He sits on the couch to put them on and then makes his way back upstairs feeling much more relaxed.
He takes a detour into his own room to pick up his things and catches himself in the mirror. Seokjin has to admit that he does look kind of monochromatic, what with his black shoes, black pants and black dress shirt. Even his hair is black, and he notices idly that it’s gotten long enough now that he’s been having to push it back behind his ears every now and then.
He checks his appearance quickly, making sure his one dangling silver earring is sitting correctly and deciding that maybe he should just wear both instead. He’s trying to go for the ‘mysteriously hot’ kind of vibe, which might be a little strange considering they’re going to a networking event and not a bar or a club, but Seokjin doesn’t care. He thinks he looks quite good actually, and the all-black will hopefully make him look respectable enough, anyway.
He takes one last glance at himself, fixes his collar and decides to leave an extra button undone, just for the drama of it all. He can hear the kids arguing about something across the landing, so he picks up his phone and his coat (which is also black, unsurprisingly), closes the door to his room, walks across, and sits himself right down in the middle of Taehyung’s bed.
Jimin and Taehyung are arguing about food apparently, Jimin sitting with his legs over the side of the one-seater sofa chair in the corner and waving his arms around like they’re in the middle of a very heated debate and not just talking loudly like they usually do.
“Hyung!” He pounces on Seokjin practically the split second his ass hits the patchwork quilt cover. “If the packet says to cook ramen for four minutes, do you—”
“His opinion doesn’t count, he only just got here,” Taehyung interrupts from where he’s sitting on the floor and putting his own black leather shoes on.
“Wow, thanks Tae,” Seokjin deadpans.
Taehyung looks up at him with a grin. “Sorry, hyung.”
Jimin, on the other hand, is eyeing Seokjin’s earrings in favour of continuing his ramen question. “Aren’t they mine?”
“No,” Seokjin replies. “I bought them last week.”
That’s a lie. Seokjin didn’t buy anything last week, he just went through Jimin’s jewellery yesterday when everyone else was downstairs watching a movie.
“Uh huh.” Jimin turns back to Taehyung instead. “Anyway, Dahyun’s coming tonight too, isn’t she?”
Taehyung doesn’t look at him, now focused on putting in his earrings in the mirror. “Why, you have a crush on her or something?”
Jimin looks appalled at the mere suggestion. “We’re both gay, Taehyung, in case you forgot.” He sniffs. “She’s pretty much our sister anyway, so that would be like… like incest.”
Cha Dahyun had gone to the same arts university as Taehyung and they’d been grouped together in the same design class in their second year. In their first week she’d accidentally spilt fabric paint all over one of Taehyung’s pieces, and so naturally, she's now one of his very best friends.
Seokjin can clearly remember the first time Taehyung had invited her to visit the farm a few years ago, and how their mother had somehow gotten the impression that they were together, much too excited at the prospect of one of her sons having a real-life love interest. He remembers even more clearly the look on her face when she’d asked if the two of them had a ‘fun little first date story’ to share and Dahyun had simply replied, “I’m a lesbian, so… no, sorry.”
Coincidently, it had only been a couple of months later that Taehyung had come out to them, too. They’d been chatting during dinner one day about one of Yoongi’s high school friends who had eloped with his girlfriend, when Taehyung had casually slipped into the conversation that he didn’t think he ever saw himself marrying a woman. When their mother had asked why, he’d said, “Because I want to marry a man.”
Anyhow, Seokjin supposes that Dahyun had been a little hard to get to know at first, a little quiet and brash. He thinks that it maybe had to do with the fact that she was staying in a house with five men and only one other woman, which he can’t blame her for, even as accommodating as they’d tried to be. But she’d gotten on surprisingly well with Yoongi, and Seokjin had found the two of them sitting out on the old couch on the veranda one night, chatting away as if they were old friends reuniting after years apart.
He’d asked him about it the next morning but Yoongi had just nodded slowly and said, “I like her, she has a lot of thoughts,” and that was that. Taehyung had invited her to stay with them for the rest of their uni holidays and it hadn’t taken long before she felt like a part of the family.
Now, Taehyung moves from the mirror to his cupboards, pulling them open and sifting through the assortment of jackets and dress shirts impatiently. “Of course she’s coming, Jimin.”
“Good,” Jimin replies. “I have to tell her about… wait, no, nevermind, I already told her.”
Seokjin never finds out what Jimin did or did not tell Dahyun, because it’s then that he decides their conversation is boring and gets up off the bed to go and talk to Yoongi instead.
“Yo, Yoongi!” He walks across the landing and opens the door to Yoongi’s room without waiting for a reply, but finds it empty. Out of the six bedrooms in the house, it’s only their parents and Yoongi’s that have their own bathroom, the door to which Seokjin notices is closed. He crosses the room and knocks on it with his fist.
“Yoongi!”
The door opens and the top of Yoongi’s freshly dyed black hair appears, focused on fastening the buttons on his cuffs. “What?”
He looks up and raises his eyebrows and Seokjin shrugs, sitting down at the piano in the corner of the room. “Nothing.”
Yoongi sighs but doesn’t reply, just begins to rummage through his drawers in search of socks, probably. While he waits Seokjin attempts to play Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, and considering that he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to tell an A from an F, he thinks he’s actually doing quite well thank you very much. That is, until Yoongi kicks him out so he can change from his black dress pants into his slightly shorter black dress pants.
Twenty excruciatingly slow minutes later, all six of them pile into the old family truck and finally begin the thirty-minute drive into town. And not even ten minutes into the trip, Seokjin’s mother turns in her seat and looks back at the four of them, brow slightly furrowed.
“Alright, boys, no misbehaving tonight, okay? No excessive drinking, no arguing and no deciding you’ve had enough and taking a taxi home in the middle of the evening, got it?”
Jimin makes a face at her from the back seat. “Mum, we’re not little kids. We’re not going to embarrass you.”
Their mother reaches past Seokjin to pat Jimin’s hand. “I know, dear, I’m just making sure. You know how important this event is for the farm, yes?”
Ah. The farm. The farm that their parents had managed to build from almost nothing and run for over thirty years, and the farm that is now on the verge of going bankrupt. Seokjin hasn’t actually been explicitly told as such, but it was more than obvious from the worried looks his parents had begun to exchange any time someone used the words ‘farm,’ ‘money’ or ‘finances’ in the same sentence.
It was also obvious that they didn’t want the kids to find out, so Seokjin’s been pretending he doesn’t know a thing about the situation if either of them ever mention it to him. He thinks Yoongi might have caught on, though, if the look he sends him when their mother turns back to the front of the car means anything.
When they arrive at the venue Seokjin realises that this isn’t just going to be the average annual networking event that they’d gotten used to attending over the years. He’d thought it would be held at the town hall, same as the others always had been, but instead they pull into the Golden Magnolia Hotel, right next to the town’s small botanic gardens.
The oldest and the largest running hotel in the surrounding provinces, the Golden Magnolia is the most prestigious and expensive of all the venues in the area, and only the extremely wealthy visiting businessmen and women or celebrities can afford to stay there, let alone rent it out for an event.
Seokjin never thought he’d set foot in it even once in his entire lifetime, so for the event to be held here he has a feeling that tonight might be a little different than usual. He supposes that was what his mother meant by there being ‘special guests.’
“Wow,” Taehyung murmurs from the backseat, and Seokjin has to admit it does look fairly beautiful. The circular driveway is lined with miniature trees and flowers and there are strings of lanterns hung up in every nook and cranny around the gardens. In the middle of it all there’s a statue of a flower garland-strewn woman standing with her feet in the glittering water of a fountain, and it looks like something out of a movie, more like they’re entering a wedding than a business event.
Seokjin would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a little awkward, what with their rusting, beaten old truck and lack of designer clothing, even when the valet is considerably more friendly than Seokjin expects and compliments them on their ‘beautiful evening wear.’ It makes Seokjin grin inwardly knowing that he was probably told to say the same thing to every guest, and besides, his mother always told them to never be ashamed of their family or their status, and he’s not going to let one night with a bunch of probably snobby rich people suddenly turn him into an insecure asshole.
Inside and along with a group of chattering women already holding flutes of champagne, they’re directed across the lobby floor, through a series of very intricately detailed wooden doors, across a bridge over some type of much too extravagant indoor pond, and towards the back wing of the hotel. The further they get from the lobby, the louder the sounds of music and people become.
And when they finally pass through the last set of doors it’s definitely safe to say that Seokjin is more than just a little intimidated. They’ve arrived in some type of enormous open-plan room that looks like it could really be a whole house in itself. The ceiling is high and the main space is surrounded by at least twenty different sets of expensive-looking glass doors, all wide open and leading off into their own connected rooms. And if Seokjin thought the view when they were driving in was good, it’s nothing compared to how it looks inside.
Where the rest of the hotel they’d seen had been perfectly gold-trimmed white marble, this particular area is all polished mahogany floors and fancy woodwork, with impossibly tall potted ferns framing the many doors. There’s a bar set up in one corner of the room and the glass doors along one side are flung wide open out into the gardens, letting the slight but cold breeze drift in and curl in an embrace around their shoulders.
A few little white garden tables are standing on the grass, groups of people both gathered around them and just standing out in the open, chatting with drinks in hand. Surrounding the garden, the trees are decorated much the same as those they’d seen lining the driveway, lights twinkling against the darkness of the sky.
Inside, however, the ornate chandeliers above their heads cast golden light over everyone, which brings Seokjin to the most intimidating part; the room is completely packed with people, for lack of a better word.
At the same event last year there’d been maybe a hundred attendees, possibly even less. That is definitely not the case tonight. Far from it, as everywhere Seokjin turns he sees middle-aged men in pristine suits and women in heels and coats and cocktail dresses. He sees some people he recognises here and there, but for the most part, Seokjin has absolutely no idea who anyone is.
He gives Yoongi a nudge to his left. “We should’ve just stayed home this year.”
Yoongi huffs a laugh, looking just as overwhelmed as Seokjin feels. “I know, what the fuck.”
“Excuse me, young man.” Their mother whips around to face the two of them, expression murderous. “You will use no such language, thank you.” She plucks a flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s board, painted nails clinking against the glass. “You boys should be making good impressions tonight, and that won’t happen if you’re acting like you’ve never even learned basic etiquette.”
Giving them one last pointed look which obviously means ‘behave,’ she turns on her heel and follows after her husband, who’d made a beeline for someone over on the far side of the room.
“I need a drink,” Yoongi mutters as soon as they’re out of earshot, looking around for another alcohol-wielding waiter.
Seokjin hums and turns to his right. “What do you two want—” Pauses. Turns back to Yoongi. “Where are Jimin and Taehyung?”
Yoongi tips his head sideways. “Over there. Outside.” He pokes Seokjin in the stomach. “I’m not gonna go get them, it’s too cold.”
“Fine, but you have to pay for all my drinks tonight.”
Yoongi grimaces and Seokjin raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Deal.”
“Thanks!” He gives Yoongi a pat on the head and starts towards the kids, who have somehow managed to secure one of the garden tables all to themselves and are talking to someone on Taehyung’s phone held up between their ears.
Politely squeezing himself through the crowd inside, Seokjin finally reaches the doors leading out onto the stone patio and in turn, the garden. For a second, he just stops in the doorway and admires the array of plants and vines strung up in the beams overhead, which are of course draped in even more tiny lights. There’s even some hanging flower baskets too, overflowing with cascading waterfalls of reds and yellows and purples and pinks and blues, and which make it all look much prettier in Seokjin’s opinion.
“Hyung!” His inner decorative critique is interrupted by Taehyung, waving him over to himself and Jimin with a grin on his face. “Here,” he says when Seokjin reaches their table, and holds out a full glass of champagne. “I don’t want it.”
Seokjin takes a sip, nodding. “Thanks. Who was that on the phone?”
“Dahyun. She said she’s running late,” Taehyung replies. “Should be here soon, though.”
“Good. Remind her she owes me when she gets here.”
A couple of days ago, he and Dahyun had been extremely bored and downloaded Tinder, switched their settings to America, and made a bet on who could match with the most people within an hour, and Seokjin had won (by exactly nine people, if he might add). The punishment was whoever lost had to pay for the other’s drinks tonight, which Seokjin supposes is kind of useless now considering he’s already made Yoongi do the same thing.
“You know,” Jimin says, “I thought she was going to win. She got like, ten within the first fifteen minutes.”
Seokjin grins. “Ah, Jiminie, but mine’s on men and women remember? Dahyun’s is just women.”
Jimin still looks sceptical. “I guess.”
A sudden gust of wind sweeps past them then, and Seokjin shivers. Fuck, it really is freezing. He sticks his hands deep into his pockets and berates himself for leaving his coat in the truck. He’s just about to inform them they should go back inside when Taehyung speaks up.
“Isn’t that the guy Mum was talking about?”
Seokjin turns around at his question, confused. “What? Who was she talking about?”
“Remember how she said that Jeon Jungkook guy might be here tonight? The super rich one?”
Seokjin stares, blankly. Taehyung stares back.
“She was really obvious about wanting one of us to ‘get to know him,’” he continues. “You don’t remember?”
“Nope. Must’ve been talking about that without me.”
“Oh!” Taehyung grins. “That’s right, you were in the shower. Mum said to fill you in but I guess no one did.”
Seokjin frees one hand from his pocket to slap him on the shoulder lightly in mock outrage. Taehyung isn’t fazed. “So, who is this Jungwoo, then?”
“His name’s Jungkook, not Jungwoo,” Jimin interrupts, pointing to a group of people who have seemingly just arrived and are standing in one of the doorways leading out to the garden. “And that’s him over there.”
Following his finger more closely, Seokjin’s eyes look past the fairy-light-filled vines and flower baskets hanging from the ceiling beams and land on a very young man in a very expensive looking outfit. “The one in the dark green shirt?”
“Emerald green, silk,” Taehyung provides, nodding.
Even from half a garden away, anyone can tell that Jeon Jungkook is probably one of the most attractive people there, with his emerald green, silk dress shirt (thank you, Taehyung) that perfectly complements his jet black, flawlessly wavy hair and assortment of glinting silver earrings.
As the three of them watch, he raises a hand to brush his hair behind his ear awkwardly, big eyes wide like he’s not completely sure what he’s meant to do next. Seokjin’s eyes, however, stay on his hand. “Does he have tattoos?”
“A few,” Jimin replies. “Only on his right arm, though.”
Seokjin laughs. “How do you know that? Did you stalk him or something?”
“No, look.” Jimin holds up his phone, where he’s searched ‘jeon jungkook’ and obviously clicked on images, because the screen is filled with pictures and pictures of the guy, from fully suited up to completely shirtless. And sure enough, there on his right arm is almost a full sleeve of tattoos.
“Cool,” Seokjin says, turning back to where Jeon Jungkook is. He looks a bit more at ease now, laughing with another guy with black hair who’s wearing thin, silver-framed glasses and a black shirt with what looks like a pattern of tiny stitched bees. Seokjin thinks it’s a bit of an odd choice for a networking event, but who is he to judge?
“Who’s that he’s talking to?” he asks of no one in particular.
Jimin looks up from his phone, squinting. “Umm, I think that’s Jung Hoseok? He’s apparently a part-time lawyer, but he also funds dance classes for little kids during the year?” He waves his phone around. “That’s what this says, at least.”
“They’re friends,” Taehyung supplies, looking down at his own phone. “Oh, they actually live in Alaska.”
“Alaska?” Seokjin repeats. “Like in America? What are they doing over here then? Also, hang on, why is all this information just on the internet? Are they that famous?”
Across the grass, Jeon Jungkook and Jung Hoseok put their heads together and giggle like little kids. It’s strangely endearing, which Seokjin thinks is weird considering he knows barely anything about either of them. Technically, he’s never even met them.
“Okay so,” Jimin interrupts, finally finished with his impromptu research. “They’re both apparently really well off in the U.S., like really well off. Jeon Jungkook’s family owns one of the biggest hotel companies in the world, so I guess it was them who rented out this place? And Jung Hoseok’s pretty much the same, except his family are barristers, they don’t own hotels.”
Seokjin hums in contemplation, reaching up to fix his hair absentmindedly. “Wonder what they’re doing here.”
“Maybe they want to buy this one? Dunno, it doesn’t say.”
“Uh huh.” He looks back at Jung Hoseok. “So, that means he…”
Taehyung taps his bicep. “So that means he what?”
And Seokjin would reply and he would finish his question, but the problem is, he’s completely forgotten what it even was. You see, Seokjin’s just laid eyes on the most attractive man he’s ever seen in his entire twenty-seven years on this earth, which he thinks is a much more important issue right now.
The guy is tall and blonde and gorgeous, wearing a fitted black turtleneck that’s rolled up to just below his elbows and a single silver chain around his neck. His legs are so long that Seokjin wants to just evaporate right there on the spot, and his hair, which is dyed somewhere in between golden and platinum blonde, is styled in such a way that half of it’s pushed back and the rest hangs forward to show off just the right amount of forehead.
He’s really fucking hot, and he’s apparently also friends with Jeon Jungkook, as he’s joined them under the hanging flowers and comfortably slipped himself into the conversation. Seokjin watches him, and then the guy smiles, and fuck, because he has the best smile Seokjin’s ever seen and he has fucking dimples too. Seokjin almost falls over into the bushes behind him.
“Hey, Jimin,” he says as nonchalantly as possible. “Who’s that who just started talking to them?”
“Hm, let me see,” Jimin replies, tapping away on his phone. “Oh! He’s probably—”
“Jimin! Taehyung!”
The three of them snap their heads towards the voice in tandem, finding the silhouette of their mother standing in the doorway to their right, a new wine glass in hand. She makes her way towards them, heels clicking on the stone before silencing themselves when she steps out onto the grass.
“I trust you boys have been introducing yourselves, mm? Don’t just stand around looking unapproachable,” she says when she reaches them. “There’s some big design names here tonight, Taehyung.”
Taehyung’s eyes light up. “There are? Where are they?”
“Inside. Jimin, go with him. I have to talk to your brother.”
Seokjin grimaces inwardly as he watches the two of them make their way back into the hotel. Whatever his mother wants to say to him, it must not be good if she doesn’t want them to hear.
“Seokjin.” She places her wine glass on the table beside them and looks up at him, eyes kind. “I think you know the situation with the farm right now, don’t you?”
Seokjin blinks. That is definitely not what he expected her to say.
“Uh, yes?” He coughs. “You mean the, um, the finances and stuff?”
His mother sighs, nodding. “I thought you might. Too smart for your own good sometimes.” She looks at the ground for a second, staring at where the light from inside is spilling out onto the grass. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but being the eldest you know you have more responsibility, yes?”
Seokjin nods. He has absolutely no idea where this could possibly be going.
“And I’m going to assume you also know that most people around your age are either married or engaged?”
Ah, fuck.
Seokjin had been wondering when this would come up. His mother had started making random, what she thinks are subtle comments here and there for the last few months, about a girl they’d known from high school whose wedding she’d seen in the paper, or the neighbour’s grandson getting engaged on the weekend, that kind of thing.
To be honest, she’d been unsurprisingly insistent about it, even moving on to Yoongi if Seokjin avoided her questions of ‘did you text back that nice girl?’ and ‘how about that young man from your cousin’s wedding? He seemed lovely.’ Yoongi, however, had just turned red and left the room whenever the subject was brought up.
So yes, while he wasn’t exactly expecting this conversation to happen here of all places, he can’t really say he’s surprised, either.
“Mum, there’s no one I want to marry.” He lets out a breath, watching it dissipate in the cold air. “I’m not even dating anyone.”
His mother pats his arm. “No, I know, dear. I’m just saying maybe you should give yourself some options, that’s all. Be a bit social tonight?” She reaches up to fix the collar of his shirt. “You’re a handsome young man, I’m sure they’d at least give you a chance.”
Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Thank you, Mum. Such kind words.”
“Attitude, Seokjin.”
“Sorry. But what does that have to do with the farm, though? Do you want to marry me off into a rich family or something?”
The smile his mother gives him is a little strained around the edges, as if she had actually considered doing just that. Seokjin gapes at her.
“You can’t be serious…”
“Of course not! Gosh, Seokjin, what do you think of us, honestly…. Anyone would think we’re terrible parents if you keep spouting nonsense like that.” But then she sighs and pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “But I will admit, it would make things easier if that were the case.”
Right. The farm.
For a few minutes neither of them say anything more, Seokjin studying the grooves of the table and his mother sipping thoughtfully on her wine.
“You wouldn’t actually make me do that, though, would you?”
His mother looks to him in surprise. “No, Seokjin, we’re not going to force any of you into a marriage you don’t want, don’t worry. It was just a mere suggestion.” She finishes the last of her wine and nods her head. “Now, it is lovely out here, but it’s also very cold, dear, don’t you think?”
Seokjin nods absentmindedly. His parents had never been the type to cheat or even take shortcuts when it came to their work, and both were very strongminded in that sense. But still, it was nice to have some reassurance, even if he had the feeling that his mother’s ‘mere suggestion’ was more like a ‘strong push.’
“Oh!” Seokjin looks up from where he was staring at his own glass of champagne, or Taehyung’s really, to see his mother pointing over towards the patio. “See, Seokjin, just like that young man there. He looks quite nice, doesn’t he?”
A few of the people in the garden glance over at them and Seokjin feels his face turn red. For all her talk on public etiquette, his mother can be quite loud sometimes.
He follows her finger. “Who are you…”
Oh. She’s pointing straight towards Jeon Jungkook’s hot friend. The three of them are still exactly where they were the last time Seokjin had looked (which was ten minutes ago when his mother had arrived, definitely not thirty seconds when he’d snuck a glance while pretending to take a sip of his champagne), and seem just as engrossed in whatever conversation they’d been having.
Despite himself, Seokjin feels a little pleased that his mother apparently approves of the guy, which is stupid because he doesn’t even know his name, for god’s sake.
“Oh, he’s lovely, Seokjin,” she continues, smiling over at them like they’re her own children. “Do make sure to introduce yourself, won’t you?”
“Mum, stop staring.” He takes her by the shoulders and gently pushes her back towards the hotel. “If I see him again tonight I’ll say hello, okay?”
But when he looks over in his direction again the three of them are nowhere to be seen, even though it had been only thirty seconds at most. Seokjin drains the rest of his champagne and follows his mother back inside.
--
He spends the next hour making small talk with people he doesn’t know and definitely not thinking about what it would be like to be pushed up against a wall by Jeon Jungkook’s tall, blonde and unfairly hot friend.
His mother had abandoned him not even two seconds after stepping back into the hotel, having been pulled away by a group of giggly, probably slightly drunk middle-aged women, and so Seokjin had been left to fend for himself. Having no idea where Yoongi or the kids were, he had resorted to becoming friends with whoever thought he looked interesting enough to come up and talk to.
And some of them were quite nice, asking him questions about the farm, and what the town was like, and whether he was planning on moving to Seoul and signing a modelling contract (he thinks the girl behind that question might have been hitting on him, but then her friend had run up and whisked her away and he hadn’t seen her for the rest of the night).
A kind, older lady he knew from around town had actually asked him about his own interests at one point, and the two of them had spent at least twenty minutes debating the merit of the screen versus the theatre. She told him she preferred the nostalgia of black and white cinema, while Seokjin liked being able to gauge the audience’s reaction right away, to tell if you were giving them a little slice of emotion to take home with them, if only just for those three hours. She’d also informed him she was just bored of having to make small talk with people she would never see again, but Seokjin had been grateful for the company nonetheless.
It’s only when she bids him goodnight and leaves to collect her husband that Seokjin finally finds a familiar face in the crowd.
“Dahyun!”
Dahyun looks up from where she’d been fiddling with her purse in front of one of the many doors and a grin lights up her face. She gives him a wave and makes her way over, winding through the people milling about in the room.
“You look nice.”
She’s wearing a slim, cream-coloured dress that reaches just below her mid-thigh, and her shoulder length black hair is tied into an elegant bun at the base of her neck, a few loose strands falling forward and framing her face.
“Thanks, so do you. Very monochrome.” She smiles and gives him a thumbs up. “I like it.”
“Thank you.” He waves a hand around the room. “Bit different, hey?”
Dahyun shrugs a shoulder. “Eh, it’s just rich people. Probably be back to normal next year.”
“Apparently there’s some big fashion designers here tonight, though. You gonna go and ‘make connections,’ or whatever?”
“Maybe,” she hums, digging through her purse for something. “How about you, any directors here?”
Seokjin shakes his head. “Nope, no one like that.” She finally finds what she was searching for (her phone), and he gives her shoulder a nudge. “Who knows,” he teases. “Maybe if we pretend that we’re some famous married couple, they’ll hire us both.”
Dahyun scoffs. “If I wanted to work for their company, I already would be.”
Seokjin laughs and runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. By the way, have you seen Tae around? I haven’t seen any of them for ages.”
“No, I only just arrived so—”
“Dahyun!”
Taehyung must have some type of telepathic sixth sense, because it’s right then that he comes running up to them, excusing himself as he nearly bowls over someone at the bar on his way past. He gives Dahyun a hug when he reaches them, which she returns warmly.
“Why didn’t you text me you were here? It’s been ages, why’d you take so long anyway?”
She holds her phone up. “I was just about to. And I couldn’t find my earrings.”
“It took you an hour just to do that?” He smiles at her quizzically but then shrugs. “Okay, well come and talk to this guy I just met, he said he has…”
He pulls her away, throwing a wave and a ‘bye, hyung’ back over his shoulder. Seokjin doesn’t mind, it’s not like they were having a particularly riveting conversation. But the problem is, now he has no one to talk to. Again.
A little bored, he makes his way to the bar. Refilling his drink seems like a good way to go for now. He wishes Yoongi was around, then he’d be able to buy it for him.
He takes one of the stools at the far end. There’s a pile of papers there that he has to push to the side, but otherwise it’s the perfect place to sit and watch everything that’s happening without having to actually get involved in it himself. Despite his complaining, Seokjin supposes it is kind of nice to just relax for a couple of minutes. And the best part is, he’s sitting right next to one of the abnormally large ferns, just hidden away enough that no one can come up and bother him.
Naturally, his mind wanders back to Jeon Jungkook and his hot friend, who Seokjin has taken to calling the Very Fucking Hot Extremely Handsome Man in his head for the past hour and a half. He knows it’s a little stupid, but it’s late and that’s all he can come up with right now.
Seokjin vaguely wonders if he’s left already, because he hasn’t seen him around for a while. He has seen Jung Hoseok a few times, though, flitting around between people like he’s best friends with everyone. Seokjin’s also noticed he has a group he goes back to every now and then, a bunch of men in their twenties who are just as loud and bubbly as he seems to be.
He thinks back to Jeon Jungkook, and how unsure he’d looked when they’d first seen them arrive. He hopes Jung Hoseok hasn’t left him out by himself or something. Not that he wouldn’t be fine on his own, but Seokjin thinks he seems like the type to be more comfortable around people he knows. He’s the same, after all.
Glancing out towards the garden, Seokjin catches a glimpse of a red coat. Jimin. And beside him in an emerald green, silk shirt is… Jeon Jungkook?
Seokjin squints in their direction. Why is Jimin talking to Jeon Jungkook? And more importantly, why does Jeon Jungkook look like he’s just fallen head over heels in love?
Interesting.
Well, Seokjin supposes, if there’s going to be anyone who’ll try and help a complete stranger feel comfortable, it’ll be Jimin.
And Jimin must say something funny then, because Seokjin sees Jeon Jungkook clap his hands together in laughter, looking at Jimin like he literally hung the stars in the sky. It’s a little bit cute, actually.
Seokjin almost wants to go outside and join their conversation, but he figures he’ll leave them to it. It is getting a bit dull sitting here, though, maybe he’ll—
“Didn’t you say you were forcing me to buy those for you?”
Seokjin had been so caught up in watching Jimin and Jeon Jungkook that he hadn’t even noticed Yoongi before he was right in front of him.
“Yoongi!” he exclaims, surprised. “Thank god, I was so bored here, you have no idea.” He gestures to the empty bar stool beside him. “What’s up, kiddo?”
“Kiddo?” Yoongi looks thoroughly disgusted but sits down anyway. “We’re practically the same age.”
Seokjin taps him on the forehead. “But I’m still older.”
“Uh huh. Anyway, have you talked to those people Mum was going on about? The Jung Hoseok and Jeon Jungsik ones?”
“Jungkook,” Seokjin corrects. “And nope, but I have seen their friend who I think I’m in love with.”
Yoongi side-eyes him.
“He’s really hot,” Seokjin explains.
“Really,” Yoongi deadpans, very obviously unimpressed.
“You haven’t seen them around? Not even once?”
Yoongi shakes his head. “Only one I’ve seen is the youngest with the big eyes. Let me look them up, hang on—”
“Oh, the kids already did that, don’t worry.”
To Seokjin’s complete lack of surprise Yoongi ignores him and pulls out his phone anyway, typing ‘jeon jungkook friends’ into the search bar.
Seokjin steps down from his stool and stretches his neck, rolling his shoulders back as he does so. Who knew a bar stool would be so uncomfortable.
“I think we should stop looking them up on the internet,” he says, looking at Yoongi with his head to the side. “Bit of a breach of privacy, don’t you think?”
Yoongi hums. “Yeah, probably.” He slides his phone back into his pocket and takes a sip of his drink. “I don’t even know what the rest of them look like, though,” he says, pouting.
Seokjin sighs. “I’ll point them out to you, come on.” He grabs Yoongi by the arm and pulls him up from the bar. “Besides, I’m getting sick of sitting around doing nothing.”
The two of them slip through the crowd, which seems to be getting thicker somehow, in search of either Jung Hoseok, Very Fucking Hot Extremely Handsome Man, or any of the rest of their group. Seokjin figures that if they find at least one of them, the rest probably won’t be too far away.
They make it all the way to the other side of the room with no sightings at all, and Seokjin feels vaguely childish, like they’re ten years old and pretending to be birdwatchers or something. The fact that he and Yoongi used to actually do that at these events when they were ten probably doesn’t help.
Suddenly, he remembers the game the four of them always used to play when their parents would drag them along to these things, when Jimin and Taehyung were old enough that he and Yoongi were finally free from having to babysit them instead. It probably had a real name but he just remembers it as ‘tuna’ or ‘sardines’ or something, kind of like a gang-up version of hide-and-seek, and they’d always somehow rope the other kids into playing with them as well. It was—
“Jin!”
Seokjin blinks. “Sorry, what?”
“I said,” Yoongi’s looking at him like he’s repeated himself enough times that he’s about to just leave him right there and go off on his own. “Is that guy over there one of them?”
He nods his head to the right and sure enough, Jeon Jungkook’s hot friend is chatting with some old man over near a doorway to the garden, sleeves now pulled down to his wrists and blond hair falling over one side of his forehead and looking like a literal fucking painting of what a perfect human should be.
Well, Seokjin doesn’t know if that’s who Yoongi is actually referring to, but that’s just too bad—he is now.
“Yep, that’s the one I’m in love with,” he says, deciding that maybe Yoongi doesn’t need to know the extent of his, um, appreciation.
“Huh,” Yoongi nods. “Why does she want us to get to know them, anyway? Is it because they’re rich or—”
“Wait.”
Yoongi turns to him, taken aback. But Seokjin isn’t really paying attention, and he’ll apologise to Yoongi later because right now…
Right now, Seokjin is maybe kind of a little bit panicking. Just a tiny, tiny bit.
Because Jeon Jungkook’s hot friend, the Very Fucking Hot Extremely Handsome Man, is walking straight towards them.
He grabs Yoongi’s sleeve. “Shit, is he coming over here? Oh my god, he’s coming over here, isn’t he? Yoongi, oh my god, what do I do?”
Yoongi pries his arm from Seokjin’s grip, looking equal parts both extremely amused and mildly disgusted. “You’re so pathetic. Just say hi to him, honestly.”
He wants to tell him just how wildly unhelpful that advice is, but Seokjin has other, more important problems at the moment. Namely, Very Fucking Hot Extremely Handsome Man, who is less than half the room away. Then a third of the room, and then—
“Ah, Seokjin!”
It’s his father.
Yoongi snorts and Seokjin whirls around just before the man reaches them. “Dad! What brings you here?”
His father looks at him as if he’s grown two heads. “We travelled here together, son. Surely you remember, it was barely two hours ago.” He narrows his eyes slightly. “You boys haven’t gotten drunk, have you? You know what the kids are like if they drink too much.”
Behind them, Seokjin is very vaguely (enormously) aware of the fact that apparently, Yoongi is now best friends with Very Fucking Hot Extremely Handsome Man, because he can hear them laughing together about something. About how embarrassing Seokjin is, probably.
“No, Dad, we’re not drunk,” he replies.
His father nods. “Right. I was just coming to ask if either of you two have seen the kids, actually. Taehyung’s friend, Hyungmin? Hyungjin?”
“Hyungsuk,” Seokjin supplies.
“Yes, that’s the one. Well, he’s been looking for him, so if you see him…” His father raises his eyebrows expectantly.
“Yes, yes, I’ll let him know.”
“Very good. Tell Yoongi, too,” he says, and then someone calls his name over the music and he’s gone in the blink of an eye.
Seokjin takes a breath. Fuck, now he has to somehow make a good enough impression that Very Fucking Hot Extremely Handsome Man will just magically forget that Seokjin essentially just dodged him right in front of his face.
“Hyung.”
For the second time in two minutes, Seokjin does a full body spin. Yoongi’s standing there with his eyebrows raised and with a distinct lack of hot men in sight.
Seokjin frowns. “Where’d he go?”
“Who?” Yoongi laughs. “You mean that guy who you just completely ignored? Who you were so, so nervous to talk to? Him?”
Seokjin makes a face at him. “Shut up. Where’d he go?”
His question is ignored, of course. “Do you even know his name?”
“No,” Seokjin pouts. “What is it?”
Yoongi smirks. “Kim Namjoon.”
Kim Namjoon. Huh. It’s kind of nice, if Seokjin does say so himself. Has a nice ring to it.
“He seems cool,” Yoongi continues. “Bit awkward, but nice. Anyway, I’m going to go find Jimin. He said he found some hot guy he wanted our opinion on, or something?”
Seokjin hums in response. He’s distracted, you see, because he’s just caught a glimpse of a tall, blonde haired person in the crowd by the bar and he’s currently weighing up his options on whether going over there and confessing his love would be a good idea or not.
“Um, right,” he says. And then when he actually processes what Yoongi said, “If you see Tae, tell him Dad said Hyungsuk was looking for him.”
“You’re not coming?”
Seokjin shakes his head. “Nope. I’m gonna talk to Kim Namjoon.”
Yoongi pats his shoulder and nods. “You do that. Text me when he proposes to you in an hour.”
“Fuck you,” Seokjin whines, but Yoongi just laughs and dodges the kick he aims at him easily, before sticking his tongue out at him and turning to make his way out into the throngs of people in the cool air of the garden outside.
Seokjin glances back to the bar. Fuck. Kim Namjoon’s not there anymore. How this guy moves from place to place so quickly is beyond him. He runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back out of his face for what feels like the hundredth time that night. If Seokjin’s completely honest, he probably wouldn’t have been able to talk to the guy anyway. Bit of a pipe dream, really, since there’s about a three percent chance someone like that would actually be interested in him.
“Excuse me?” A hand taps him on the elbow lightly and Seokjin turns to face them, expecting it to be one of the waiters asking him to move out of their way.
“Ye—”
It’s not a waiter.
It’s Kim Namjoon.
Kim Namjoon. Standing right in front of him. And Seokjin just stands there like an idiot because the only thing his stupid brain can think is fuck and tall and oh my god.
Kim Namjoon smiles at him, looking a little embarrassed. “Um, I’m sorry, did I interrupt you? Are you busy?” He awkwardly runs a hand through his (perfect, blonde, looks soft) hair. “I’m so sorry, that was rude of me, I’ll leave you alone.”
Seokjin finally snaps out of whatever trance he’d been in. “No, no, that’s okay! I wasn’t busy. I’m not doing anything.”
He cringes at himself. God, why does he have to make himself sound so pathetic? Not that he isn’t pathetic, practically salivating over this guy all night, but Kim Namjoon doesn’t need to know that.
Kim Namjoon holds out a hand, one that isn’t holding a half-full wine glass. “I’m Kim Namjoon.”
Seokjin takes it. “Kim Seokjin.”
“Wow,” Namjoon laughs. “Two Kims.”
“Must be fate,” Seokjin replies.
Oh, god. Why the fuck did he say that? What possible reason did he have for thinking that was a good thing to say? Half the people here probably have the surname Kim, god.
But Namjoon, to his credit, just laughs again, louder this time.
“So, Kim Seokjin,” he smiles, “I have a question.”
Seokjin raises his eyebrows, firmly ignoring his embarrassment. “Ask away.”
“So, I know I’m a complete stranger, but I don’t know, did you want to go outside and chat, maybe?” He must misinterpret the complete look of shock on Seokjin’s face, because then he adds, “We don’t have to, it’s fine, my mum’s just been questioning me nonstop for like, a whole hour and I need a break, but if you don’t want to then that’s fine, don’t worry about it… yeah.”
Seokjin cannot possibly process everything that was just said to him, so he takes the last statement and latches on, hoping he comes across as polite and interested instead of rude and dismissive. He is a little worried about Namjoon, though. The guy looks like he’s about to throw up.
“Oh, are your parents here tonight?”
“No, I meant via phone call, actually. Mum’s back in Alaska and my dad, um,” he shrugs, prior nerves having seemingly been forgotten. “He hasn’t been around for a while. Not since I was seven.”
Seokjin nods. Kim Namjoon likes to overshare, apparently.
“Right. So, if you don’t mind me asking—” Namjoon gestures for him to go ahead. “Why are you here tonight?” He smiles. “It’s a little far from Alaska.”
Namjoon laughs. “Yeah, I guess so. Well, my family’s in the hotel business, and they wanted us to fly over here and kind of scout out some future prospects.”
Huh. So Jimin had been right.
“This place isn’t the only one, actually,” Namjoon continues. “We have to go to Seoul as well.” He takes a sip from his wine and screws up his nose at the taste. “This isn’t very nice, is it?”
Seokjin smiles. “Doesn’t that mean you should be out networking and all that, since, you know, that’s what this whole event is for?”
“This is more of a farmer’s thing though, isn’t it? I mean, they told me you have this every year.”
“Well, yeah, I guess,” Seokjin replies. “But it’s never been this big before. It’s usually pretty small.”
“Oh, right,” Namjoon says, looking thoughtful. “They said there’d be some special guests this time, or something like that.”
He looks out into the crowd, where it seems that as the night goes on, people are starting to drink a little more and talk a little more. Loudly, apparently. Seokjin can even see a couple of older women who’ve kicked off their heels and are dancing happily to the music in a corner.
“Anyway, I would do that, but I don’t really know anyone here.” Namjoon says, and gestures with his glass to where Jimin and Taehyung have found themselves draped over each other and lounging around with Dahyun at the back of the room, taking turns drinking out of a shot glass on the table. “Like those guys over there. Are they together or something?”
“Those two?” Seokjin throws up a little in his mouth. “No! Oh my god, no, no, no, no, no. They’re my little brothers.”
“Oh!” Namjoon laughs kind of self-consciously. Seokjin thinks it’s kind of endearing. “Your little brothers?”
“Yeah.” He points across to Yoongi who’s now talking with their parents on the other side of the room. “Him too. Adopted.”
“He’s adopted?”
Seokjin nods. “All three of them. Not me, though.”
Namjoon’s eyes widen comically. He looks a bit like a cute little cartoon character, albeit a very tall and good looking one. “Your parents adopted three kids?”
“Either that or they stole them,” Seokjin jokes lamely. Embarrassing.
Thankfully, Namjoon doesn’t seem to actually register what he’d said. “Oh, shit,” he exclaims quietly. “How could they possibly afford it?”
“Um…” Seokjin can’t quite hide the face he makes. Weird question to ask someone you just met. “Because our farm was doing really well so they had enough money to be able to?”
Namjoon nods, apparently none the wiser to the slight shift in Seokjin’s tone. God, please don’t tell him this guy is going to turn out to be just another rich asshole with no concept on how the rest of the world works outside his own little money bubble.
“Why do you say that?” Seokjin asks, cautiously. No harm in giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“I don’t know,” Namjoon replies, shrugging. “I just didn’t get the impression that anyone here really had money, you know?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“No, I don’t know.” Seokjin narrows his eyes. “What’s wrong with the people here? Why wouldn’t they have money?”
It comes out rougher than Seokjin meant it to, but it works because finally, Namjoon seems to realise that the conversation isn’t all sunshine and daisies anymore. He blinks and laughs nervously.
“I just mean that—”
“What else could you possibly mean by that?” Seokjin interrupts. “You know that’s probably one of the rudest things someone’s ever said to me, right?”
Forgive him for being a little impatient. See, this isn’t the first time someone’s belittled Seokjin’s family’s wealth, or lack thereof. He had enough of that when he went away for university, he doesn’t need it here, too.
Namjoon’s mouth falls open and his eyes widen. Seokjin doesn’t think he looks like a cartoon character this time.
“Look, where I live—”
Seokjin can’t believe what he’s hearing. “So, what? You live in America for a few years and suddenly you’re worth more than the rest of us?”
“No, I’m just saying—”
Seokjin shakes his head, scoffing. “Don’t bother. You obviously think you’re above us.”
He thinks Namjoon’s about to argue with him again, but the two of them are suddenly joined by three more young men in expensive suits, brandishing one of their phones in front of them. Seokjin vaguely recognises them as part of the group Jeon Jungkook had arrived with.
“Namjoon, Namjoon, Namjoooon! You have to look at this place Youngsoo booked for us, it’s fucking gigantic.”
Seokjin rolls his eyes and moves to push past them. He doesn’t particularly want to be around Kim Namjoon anymore, no matter how ‘attractive’ he may be. He tunes out their conversation and focuses instead on whether it would be considered rude to accidentally spill the rest of his champagne down the back of someone’s shirt.
And he’s about to just forget about the whole conversation, he’s ready to just let it wash out of his memory and into the wooden floor and be gone forever, but the next thing he hears Namjoon say stops him right in his tracks.
“I don’t know, but I heard their farm is going bankrupt. They were probably only invited tonight out of pity.”
Yoongi was wrong. Kim Namjoon is definitely not a nice person.
Seokjin laughs humourlessly and turns back around. “You’re kidding me, right? Tell me you didn’t actually just say that.”
Namjoon’s head whips towards him so fast that if Seokjin actually cared, he might be worried he strained his neck.
“I’m sorry, what?” Namjoon’s eyes are confused but narrowed, as if he’s mad at Seokjin for eavesdropping on his conversation.
“You just said my family doesn’t deserve to be here.”
Namjoon’s mouth drops open for the second time that night but he doesn’t even bother trying to explain himself.
Oh, great. So, on top of everything else, he’s also the type to say some bullshit and then act surprised when it has actual consequences for him, is he? Seokjin rolls his eyes.
“You’re a horrible person, Kim Namjoon. If I was your father, I wouldn’t want to be around you either.” He looks him right in the face. “I’d probably leave too.”
No one says anything. Namjoon looks like he’s been slapped. For a split second, Seokjin wonders if maybe he went too far. But he’s angry, he’s so, so angry. His parents didn’t work themselves almost to death for thirty-five years just for some rich, narcissistic asshole who doesn’t even know them and who just fucking got here to come in and completely undermine everything they’ve achieved in two seconds.
So, he downs the last of his champagne, spins on his heel and walks away.
--
“What the fuck was that?”
Yoongi’s found him where he’d stridden off and parked himself as far away from Kim Namjoon as possible, all the way behind one of the many gigantic ferns framing one set of doors across the room.
“Why were you talking to Mum and Dad? I thought you were going to find Jimin,” Seokjin says bitterly. The whole interaction had left a bad taste in his mouth and he doesn’t particularly want to relive it at the moment.
“Uh, I was before they grabbed me, yeah, but then I turned back around and you were practically yelling at that guy. Jin, what the fuck happened?”
A couple of people around them give Yoongi unimpressed looks, and Seokjin shushes him. “He’s just a bad person, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”
He glances back to Kim Namjoon, who’s still standing where Seokjin left him with his disruptive group of friends, and who still has a look of mild confusion and surprise on his face. Seokjin thinks it makes him look like an idiot.
Yoongi snaps his fingers in front of his face. “Jin! Did he do something to you?”
Seokjin sighs. “No, he didn’t do anything, he’s just a bad person, like I said.”
“He was nice to me, though.”
“You only talked to him for two seconds, of course he was nice to you.”
Yoongi squints at him but doesn’t reply, and Seokjin crosses his arms over his chest. “Yoongi,” he draws out his name as long as he can. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like, I dunno, what did Mum and Dad want to talk to you about?”
“They just told me to tell you guys we’re leaving soon,” he shrugs.
Seokjin raises an eyebrow expectantly.
Yoongi does the same back to him. “We’re leaving soon.”
Seokjin bows his head. “Thank you for letting me know, Yoongi sir.”
“Fuck off,” Yoongi laughs.
Before Seokjin can reply, he feels that familiar uncomfortable pang of hunger in his stomach. No wonder, considering he’s had nothing but champagne for the last nearly three hours.
“Yoooongi,” he whines. “I’m so hungry.”
“Have something when we get home, then.”
“Have something when we get home, then,” Seokjin mocks petulantly. To their left, he can still see Kim Namjoon over on the other side of the room, laughing away without a care in the world. Before, he would have found it charming. Now, however, it’s just irritating.
“Who even is he, anyway? All he said is that he lives in America. What’s he even doing here?”
He ignores the fact that Namjoon had explicitly told him the reason for his being here in favour of being purposefully obtuse.
“When I looked up Jeon Jungkook before, it said he had an older brother,” Yoongi replies after turning back to see who Seokjin’s talking about. “Pretty sure he was the guy in the photo.”
“Jeon Jungkook is his little brother?” He eyes Namjoon suspiciously. “They don’t have the same surname, though.”
“Step-brother,” Yoongi clarifies. “I think. Anyway, why is that so surprising to you? Me, you, Jimin and Taehyung literally all have different last names.”
Seokjin huffs. “Well, yeah, but that’s different.”
He doesn’t hear a reply and assumes Yoongi must’ve deemed that particular statement unworthy of a response, but when he glances over at him, he sees that that’s not exactly the case.
Because Yoongi has gone completely still beside him, mouth hanging open like he’s trying to catch flies. And the reason for this apparent mental glitch? None other than the lover of tiny stitched bees himself, Jung Hoseok, who’s appeared about ten feet away from them with his group of friends.
Seokjin thinks that’s what was on his shirt, anyway. He was too distracted by Kim Namjoon and his stupid handsome face, the asshole.
“Why are you staring at Jung Hoseok?” Seokjin asks.
“That’s Jung Hoseok?” Yoongi says, sounding a bit breathless. Seokjin tries his hardest not to laugh. “But he’s, like… hot.”
Seokjin scoffs. “What, did you expect him to be ugly or something?”
He’s ignored yet again, of course, Yoongi apparently thinking that staring at Jung Hoseok and his friends, none of whom are either Jeon Jungkook or Kim Namjoon, is much more interesting than any conversation they might’ve been having. Seokjin pretends he’s not vaguely offended.
“Well, it’s not like we’re going to see him again after tonight,” he says, clapping Yoongi on the shoulder. “Just forget about him. He’s probably not even that good-looking anyway, probably just the angle or something.”
Yoongi turns towards him at that, expression one of obvious disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding.”
Seokjin laughs. “Go talk to him then.”
Yoongi huffs. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Liar.”
“Shut up.”
Seokjin takes a sip of champagne, smirking. Yoongi turns back to Jung Hoseok, who at that moment laughs, hitting the arm of his friend beside him. The noise makes its way over to them easily, so loud and happy that it would’ve been obnoxious if it weren’t so infectious. The corners of Yoongi’s lips dart upwards for a split second and Seokjin snorts, even though his own do the same.
He pokes Yoongi on the side of the face. “Bet you regret making fun of me about Kim Namjoon now, hey?”
Yoongi doesn’t even spare him a glance. “Fuck off.” He breathes in. “I’m gonna go talk to him.” Tries to breathe out. Has to cough into his drink awkwardly while Seokjin hits him on the back half-heartedly. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
And without further ado, he clears his throat and sets off straight towards Jung Hoseok. Seokjin watches him go, grinning, and moves slightly to the left to get a better view around the group of businessmen who were chatting in between them.
Taehyung sidles up next to him then, resting his head on Seokjin’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s up?”
Seokjin gestures with his flute of champagne to where Yoongi’s now hovering awkwardly behind Jung Hoseok and Jung Hoseok’s very loud friends. “Yoongi’s embarrassing himself in front of hot men.”
“Perfect,” Taehyung replies, and pulls out his phone to record it.
They watch as one of the guys finally notices Yoongi and whispers something to Jung Hoseok himself, who then whips his head around and shouts “Hi!” extremely enthusiastically. Yoongi takes half a step back in surprise and then replies with just, “Hey.”
Behind the two of them, Jung Hoseok’s friends are snickering into their hands, unsubtly trying to hide their laughter, and Seokjin’s eyes narrow. He didn’t think this guy was an asshole, but maybe he was wrong. He is best friends with Kim Namjoon, after all.
He’s just about to go over there and tell Yoongi an aunt’s looking for him or something, when one of the guys speaks up.
“This is so weird, we were just talking about you! Hobi literally just said he thinks you’re hot as fuck.”
Taehyung snorts, Yoongi’s mouth drops wide open, and Jung Hoseok’s face goes as red as a tomato.
“Hyunbin! Shut up! I’m so sorry, oh my god, he’s just kidding—" His eyes widen. “No, I mean—he wasn’t kidding, I do think you’re really hot, but— fuck!”
His friends are snickering even louder now and Jung Hoseok runs his hand across his face in obvious embarrassment.
“Uh… right.” Yoongi’s staring at the floor, apparently refusing to make eye contact with anything that isn’t wooden.
“Holy fuck, I can’t believe I’m actually recording this,” Taehyung says, and it’s at that moment that Yoongi raises his head, nods, and walks straight back over to the two of them without even a glance at Jung Hoseok and his still-snickering group of friends. Seokjin almost feels a little bad for the guy, as he watches him watch Yoongi’s retreating back, mouth downturned in a confused little frown.
Yoongi’s face, on the other hand, is practically expressionless when he reaches them, and he completely ignores Taehyung’s questions of, “Did you have fun over there, hyung? Meet anyone interesting?” before grabbing them both by the arm and dragging them with him to the unused sofas at the back of the room, far away from anyone else.
He unceremoniously pushes the two of them towards two chairs and looks around nervously before slumping into the third himself. Seokjin watches him, waiting with his eyebrows raised. Three, two, one…
“Did you fucking see that?”
Seokjin grins innocently and Taehyung smirks. “See what?”
Yoongi splutters and waves his hand in the direction they came from. “That.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, looking like he can barely believe what just happened. “Jung Hoseok thinks I’m hot.”
Taehyung claps delightedly. “That was so fucking cute, hyung, he definitely has a crush on you.”
Yoongi huffs out a breath, obviously trying hard not to start grinning. “I’ve barely even talked to him, Tae. He doesn’t have a crush on me.”
Shrugging, Taehyung turns to Seokjin. “What do you think?”
“I agree with Yoongi, Jung Hoseok definitely doesn’t have a crush on him.” Out of the corner of his eye he sees Yoongi’s smile falter for a second. “I do think he’s already in love and planning their honeymoon, though.”
Taehyung laughs and Yoongi kicks Seokjin in the shin.
Suddenly, Taehyung yells out “Jiminie!” without any warning at all and throws his arm up to wave above his head.
Why is it that no one in this family is capable of keeping their voice down, Seokjin laments silently.
Jimin, who had just walked inside talking to a woman Seokjin doesn’t recognise, waves back before turning to her and politely bowing his head in goodbye. They exchange a few more words before she leaves and Jimin makes his way over to them.
“You guys are so antisocial, honestly,” is the first thing he says when he reaches them, and shoves Yoongi’s foot over where he’d put it up on the little table to sit down beside him. “Hyung,” he reprimands, “You’ll get the furniture dirty if you do that.”
“My shoes are as clean as your—”
“Yoongi! You do not want to finish that sentence, young man.”
Seokjin spins around in his chair to see their mother standing right behind them, looking between Jimin and Yoongi with her eyebrows raised. She’s carrying her shawl slung over one arm and looks the slightest bit tired out, as if she’s also sick of ‘making connections.’
“Are you boys ready to leave?” she asks, and is met with a round of nods from all of them, albeit slightly hesitant in Yoongi’s case. “Good, I’ll grab your father and then we’ll get out of here, shall we?”
Seokjin stands up from the sofa and stretches his arms out behind him. He takes one last look around the hotel, assuming that there’s no reason he’ll ever be coming back here, and his eyes accidentally catch on the now familiar silhouette of Kim Namjoon out in the garden.
For some reason, Namjoon turns around right at that second and his eyes meet Seokjin’s through the crowd. And not in the dramatic, romantic movie type of way, either. More in the I-don’t-want-to-see-you-why-are-you-looking-at-me type of way. If Seokjin’s not mistaken he even thinks he sees Namjoon glare at him, which almost makes him laugh because out of the two of them, the one glaring should really be him.
He looks annoyingly comfortable out there considering how cold it is right now, and Seokjin’s just glad that after tonight, he’ll never have to look at his face ever again. Ideally, he won’t even have to think about him.
So he blinks, and he looks away.
--
When they arrive back at the house and their parents have washed up and gone to bed, the four of them lounge in front of the TV with cups of hot chocolate in hand and a movie (a romcom, Jimin’s choice), playing on the screen.
They don’t even make it fifteen minutes in before Jimin starts talking about the people he’d met tonight, going through the complete list (which includes at least three people Seokjin is pretty sure hadn’t actually been there), and eventually making it to one very familiar Jeon Jungkook.
“…And then he told me that him and his brother and their friend—that Hoseok guy—are gonna be staying here for another six months or so, until—”
Seokjin whips his neck towards him. “They’re here for another six months? Six whole months? Are you serious?”
Jimin drops his cup in surprise and curses when the rest of his drink spills out over the wooden floorboards. Yoongi immediately gets up and goes into the kitchen to grab a damp towel, chucking it quickly over the couch to Jimin.
Seokjin cringes. “Shit, sorry. Didn’t mean to be so loud.”
“It’s fine.”
That’s Yoongi, and he sounds just the tiniest bit disappointed, like he was expecting Seokjin to react this way but was really, really hoping that he wouldn’t. Seokjin takes a breath and runs a hand across his face. “Sorry Yoongs. I was just talking about that Namjoon guy, you know, not the others.”
“I know,” Yoongi replies.
“Why’d you yell at us, though, it’s not our fault,” Jimin mutters from the floor. “And why’s that so bad, anyway?”
“Uh…” Seokjin looks to Yoongi, who thankfully seems to understand that this isn’t something he particularly wants to share with the rest of them, even though he himself doesn’t know what it is.
“He just means because they’re strangers,” Yoongi supplies, which doesn’t really make that much sense, but thankfully Jimin doesn’t seem to care.
Taehyung, who hadn’t said a word throughout the whole exchange and is just sitting in the corner with his hot chocolate watching them, holds his hand up like he’s in a classroom waiting to speak.
“Yes, Taehyung?” Seokjin indulges him.
“If you’re too loud you’ll wake up Mum and Dad,” Taehyung says.
They sit in silence after that, all but for the movie, of course. Seokjin doesn’t really know why it’s still playing, Jimin and Yoongi are now both on their phones and Taehyung’s sketching some new design idea in his journal. And Seokjin (who’s staying true to his promise of never thinking about a certain someone ever again) isn’t really doing anything at all, to be honest. He’s just kind of staring at the exceptionally terrible painting of one of their old sheep above the TV. Jimin had gifted it to their mother on her birthday when he was six.
“Oh!” Seokjin says, suddenly remembering something he’d seen earlier. “Jimin, you talked to Jeon Jungkook tonight, right?”
Jimin shrugs, not looking up from his phone. “Yeah, I just told you about it. Why?”
“Yeah, but…” Seokjin gauges his reaction, thinking back to how enamoured the kid had looked. “What did you think of him, though?”
“I dunno, he talked, but he didn’t really talk that much, you know? It was cute, though. Seemed nervous or something.”
“Wasn’t he the hot guy you wanted our opinion on?”
Jimin looks up at him then, eyebrows together. “No? That guy left before any of you even answered my text. Also, Jungkook told me they were invited to Myungsoo and Heejung’s wedding next weekend, which is weird because I didn’t even see them there tonight, so I dunno who invited them.”
Seokjin groans inwardly. Great. So much for not having to ever set eyes on Namjoon again. Lee Myungsoo and Song Heejung are two of their father’s close friends from university, so of course their family was invited to the wedding. As far as Seokjin knows, they don’t even know the name Kim Namjoon.
Yoongi, on the other hand, physically sits up at the news. “They’re coming to the wedding?” he asks, much more animated than he’d been two minutes ago. Then he clears his throat and grabs his empty mug off the table, settling back into the couch and trying much too hard to be nonchalant. “All three of them?”
But Jimin barely even gets out his “Yeah” before Yoongi cuts him off in favour of turning to Taehyung instead.
“Wait, Tae, you recorded that whole thing tonight, right? Can I see it?”
Taehyung nods and pulls out his phone, tapping away for a second before sliding it across the table towards them. Beside him, Jimin’s eyes narrow.
“What whole thing? What happened tonight?” he asks, confused.
Seokjin gestures to his left. “Little Yoongles over here fell in love.”
Jimin gasps in delight, face lighting up. “Really? Oh my god!” He grabs Yoongi’s free arm. “Is it that Hoseok guy? That hot lawyer slash dancer one? Shit, hyung, you really have a type.”
Shaking his hand off, Yoongi blushes. “I’m not in love with him,” he mumbles. “I barely even talked to him.”
Seokjin scoffs. Leave it to Yoongi to leave out the most important details. “Hoseok thinks he’s ‘hot as fuck,’ apparently,” he informs Jimin using air quotes.
Jimin gasps even louder. “And you recorded it? We have to watch it, then.”
Yoongi shrinks up against the back of the couch and throws his head to the side, grimacing. “No, we don’t. It’s embarrassing. I’ve changed my mind.”
“It was cute, hyung,” Taehyung interrupts. “And besides, I’ll just show him later anyway so we might as well watch it now.”
“Exactly,” Jimin whines. “I’m the only one who didn’t see you talk to him, please?”
Seokjin watches them argue with Yoongi in amusement, who is very clearly on the verge of giving in. Unsurprisingly, the kids have always been good at getting what they want from pretty much everyone. Taehyung insists it’s because they’re so cute, while Yoongi argues it’s because they’ve obviously been studying mind games since the age of four.
And his theory is only strengthened two seconds later when he says, “Fine,” and pushes the phone back towards Jimin, who snatches it up greedily.
“Wait, wait,” Seokjin intervenes. “I want to watch it too.”
Passing up the opportunity to relive Yoongi embarrassing himself in front of rich, attractive men? Yeah, Seokjin doesn’t think so.
Taehyung takes his phone and places it neatly in between all four of them on the coffee table, before reaching back to mute the movie they’d all forgotten was still playing on the TV. They watch Little Yoongi in the video as he stands mutedly in front of Jung Hoseok, who Seokjin hadn’t noticed at the time was nervously fiddling with the stem of his glass the whole time he was speaking. They can’t actually hear anything he says in the video because the crowd was too loud and they were too far away, but Taehyung does a fairly good re-enactment.
The video ends with a close up of Yoongi’s expressionless face as he comes up to drag the two of them away, and Jimin turns to look at him with a smirk.
“Yoongles,” he says. Yoongi shoots him a look. “You’re such a loser.”
“Park Jimin, I will kill you,” Yoongi replies, but with none of his usual conviction. Then he leans back against the couch again and closes his eyes. “I know I should’ve said something else to him.”
“No, no, hyung, Tae was right, it was cute,” Jimin rushes, like he didn’t expect Yoongi to actually believe him.
Yoongi blinks over at him without raising his head off the backrest. “Okay.”
They can all tell he doesn’t believe it even a bit. Seokjin sighs. “They’re coming to the wedding on Saturday, aren’t they? Just talk to him then.”
Even if he has to spend the whole night finding ways to avoid Kim Namjoon, at least one of them should have the chance to talk to some hot people, Seokjin supposes. He should think of it as a kind of noble sacrifice, really.
But Yoongi just purses his lips. “Hm,” he murmurs. “Maybe.”
Seokjin nods once. “Great! Well, now that Jimin’s watched the video and we’ve all agreed that Yoongi can’t flirt for shit, who wants some ramen?”
--
Three days later, it’s a Tuesday. Exciting, Seokjin knows.
Jimin and their mother have gone into town to get the truck serviced, Taehyung’s off at some type of design workshop with Dahyun, and Yoongi’s upstairs working on some deadline he refuses to tell them anything about. And then there’s Seokjin who has absolutely nothing planned and is looking forward to lounging around on his phone to his heart’s content.
At least that’s what he was going to do, until two of the workers didn’t show up and he was roped into doing a bunch of random, boring tasks on the farm all day. Meaning that right now instead of actually doing something fun, he’s out in the shed milking their three passive aggressive goats with his father even though it’s dark and gloomy and feels like it’s negative degrees outside. A very character-building activity, apparently.
And he calls the goats passive aggressive for a reason. Usually you’d probably refer to a goat as either one or the other, right? Well, not these ones. They’ve never given them names and Seokjin thinks that’s probably why all three of them seem to hate them so much.
No, not hate, he thinks it’s more like a very intense disinterest on their end. When Jimin was nineteen he’d tried to feed one of them some grass and she’d almost bitten his hand straight off purely because she refused to actually look in his direction to eat it.
He supposes that maybe that doesn’t fit under the category of passive aggression, but he likes to believe that they’re smart enough to be passive aggressive in the future if they ever feel like it. Which as he thinks about it now, sitting down in front of them and watching them nose around in the thawing grass idly, doesn’t actually make that much sense, but—
“Seokjin, pass me that bucket, will you?”
He pauses his cold and boredom induced inner rambling to get up off the ground and do as such. They’d gotten a tinge of frost overnight, so it wasn’t exactly comfortable sitting there anyway, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t glad for the excuse to actually move around. Get the blood flowing and all that.
A couple of minutes later, the goats are successfully milked and fed and Seokjin moves on to his second last point of call—checking the chicken coop for eggs—while his father stays behind to fix up a part of the fence that had blown over in the wind yesterday. It’s almost completely dark already, but thankfully this is the last thing he has to do out here before he goes back inside.
When that’s done and he has eleven eggs tucked snugly into his elbow, Seokjin trudges back through the grass, around the edge of the garden and to the backdoor, where he toes off his muddy boots and finally enters the warmth of the house.
Jimin’s lying on one of the couches in the lounge room with his phone, but he looks up when Seokjin closes the door behind him.
“Can you come here and grab some of these?” Seokjin nods down at the eggs in his arms. “I think they’re gonna fall.”
Jimin chucks his phone on the couch and stands up. “What were you helping Dad with?” he asks as he walks towards him and takes a few of the eggs.
“Usual stuff,” Seokjin replies, moving to the kitchen and beginning to line the eggs up in the door of the fridge. “How was town?”
Jimin shrugs. “Same as always. Saw that guy from the other night, actually. Namjung or something?”
“Namjoon,” Seokjin corrects shortly. For god’s sake, when will he finally be rid of this man?
“Right, Namjoon,” Jimin continues. “He was—”
But Seokjin doesn’t particularly care what Kim Namjoon was doing in town, so he turns around from the fridge and claps his hands together and says, “Sorry, Jiminie, I still have something I need to do before dinner. Tell me later?” knowing full well that Jimin will probably forget in the next twenty minutes.
“Oh, okay,” Jimin accepts, and slumps over the island bench with a yawn. Seokjin slides by behind him, ruffling his hair and giving his head a tap as he passes.
Okay. One last thing and then Seokjin can finally relax for the day. He walks through the dining room and to the back end of the house where the laundry room is, checking his phone on the way. Shit, it’s nearly seven-thirty already.
Opening the door to the laundry room, he eyes the now familiar brooder box in the corner and listens for the sounds of the three tiny chicks that should hopefully still be safe and warm inside it. For a few seconds Seokjin can’t hear anything at all other than the wind outside, and he panics.
Fuck, what if they got out somehow? Did he forget to turn the heat lamp on for them this morning? What if they died? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—
Then he hears them, pip-pip-pip-ing away like normal. Seokjin puts a hand to his chest and lets out a breath, then he rolls his eyes at himself and walks over to the brooder, sitting down on the floor and scooping a cup of feed out of the bag beside it.
“Hi Sam, hi Harry, hi Bill,” Seokjin whispers as he pulls open the lid. Blame Yoongi for the names. He had an obsession with Mamma Mia! for about two weeks before the chicks hatched and insisted on naming them after the three dad characters, even though their mother explained multiple times that the chicks were predicted to be female. Yoongi hadn’t budged of course, and so here they are with three female baby chickens called Sam, Bill and Harry.
They have about twenty-five more fully-grown ones back outside in the chicken coop, but these three are Seokjin’s favourites. They’re only tiny, still small enough to fit all together in the palm of his hand, and he and Yoongi are in charge of raising them up until they’re big enough to leave the brooder they’ve lived in since they hatched about a week ago.
They were actually a present from their cousins for Yoongi’s birthday, which Seokjin thinks is funny because at first Yoongi had been very averse to the idea of hatching and looking after three tiny chicks, but now he practically treats them like they’re his own children or something. He’s pretty sure he caught him looking up whether knitted wool would irritate them at one point, and Seokjin didn’t even know he could knit.
Anyway, Seokjin peers into the open box and sees (to his relief) all three of the chicks noisily pecking away at their food. Sam, the biggest of the three and the only one with black feathers, is crowding out Harry between herself and Bill, so he reaches down and gently picks up Harry, who he recognises purely because she has a little spot of brown amid the yellow on top of her head. She chirps angrily up at him.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, and places her back down on the other side of the feeder away from Sam and Bill, who he admittedly only recognises because she’s neither Sam nor Harry.
He watches them peck away happily for a few seconds. “I’m sorry you have such stupid names,” he tells them. He tells them this at least every couple of days, and he likes to think that they’ve bonded over it now.
The door opens behind him then and Yoongi comes in, wearing a very long, very thick patterned sweater thing and eyeing Seokjin suspiciously. “What are you doing?”
“We’re bitching behind your back about the dumb names you gave them,” Seokjin replies, turning back to the chicks.
Yoongi flicks him on the back of the head lightly. “Don’t swear in front of them.”
“They’re baby chickens, Yoongi. They don’t know what words mean.”
“So?” Yoongi sits down on the tile next to him, hooking a finger through the cage. “They’re still babies.”
Seokjin laughs. “Whatever you say. Anyway, it’s your turn to look after them tomorrow because I have to go into town.”
“You have an audition?”
“No,” Seokjin sighs. “But Jaegeun—you know, my friend from the theatre—said that there’s a guy coming down from Seoul and he’s looking to direct a play here this year, so…”
“So, you want to meet him and see if there’s something you’d be suited for,” Yoongi finishes, still watching the chicks fondly.
Seokjin nods. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Okay,” Yoongi replies. “Good luck, then.”
The man Seokjin’s meeting with tomorrow, Lee Hanyong, is extremely well-known and respected in the thespian community for his dark, complicated, and psychologically unnerving scripts. Seokjin has only ever done light-hearted romance and comedy before, plus one short dabble in sci-fi just after graduating university, and getting the chance to act in one of Lee Hanyong’s plays would be monumental for him (and his career).
But Seokjin hasn’t landed a lead role in over a year and he has to admit it’s been knocking his confidence a little bit. In his last year of university he’d gotten almost every lead because the casting girl had a crush on him, and he’d felt terrible about it, but it was his last year and his most important one, and it was the lead.
And Seokjin’s not saying it made him doubt whether he had the talent to secure a role by himself, but when he graduated and suddenly he wasn’t the only ‘model-type’ in the audition room anymore, and there were people who were older and funnier and who had more experience than he did? Yeah, maybe he wasn’t exactly overly optimistic.
That’s not to say he was never cast, because he was, quite often in fact, just not in the role he auditioned for. More often than not he was pushed into the type-casted ‘handsome ex-boyfriend who the main protagonist is still kind of in love with’ character, and it was fun and he made some really good friends, but now he wants to act in something actually good.
Which is where Lee Hanyong comes in. If Seokjin can make a good enough impression tomorrow, he should be fine. And if not? Then he’ll just quit acting and live on the farm forever. Seokjin thinks it’s a pretty good plan and so he tells Yoongi as such.
“That’s the worst plan you’ve ever had,” Yoongi says. He’s taken one of the chicks out of the brooder and she’s now sleeping happily nestled in his hands. “You’ll be fine, just tell him your favourite piece of writing is whatever he does.”
Seokjin snorts. “That would probably work against me. This guy’s like, a really famous playwright as well as a director.”
“Wouldn’t that make it more believable then?”
“Yoongi!” Seokjin pretends to be aghast. “I can’t believe you’re telling me to lie!”
“I’m not telling you to lie, exactly,” Yoongi grins. “Just pretend.” He looks down at the tiny sleeping chick in his hands. It’s not Sam or Harry, so Seokjin presumes it must be Bill.
Behind the two of them, Seokjin hears a tap on the wall which sounds suspiciously like their mother’s old wooden spoon and he turns around to find her standing in the doorway with her hand on her hip.
“Dinner will be ready in a minute. Make sure you both wash your hands beforehand,” she tells them. Seokjin’s a little offended she thinks they wouldn’t wash their hands, to be honest.
She turns to leave but then looks back just before she does so and points the spoon towards them. “And your brother cooked most of it, so be nice.”
“Why wouldn’t we be nice?” Yoongi asks innocently. Their mother just gives him a look.
--
“Seokjin dear, did you talk to that lovely young man on Saturday night?”
Seokjin nearly chokes on his own saliva.
After dinner (which had been Jimin who’d cooked and Jimin who had then received absolutely no negative or teasing comments, no, none at all) Seokjin had decided to make himself a cup of coffee, as one does, and so he had definitely not expected to be bombarded by his mother with her ceaseless questions on his still-non-existent love life.
“Um…” He grabs his favourite flowery blue mug down from the cabinet and glances over at her where she’s smiling at him expectantly in front of the sink. It’s a little unnerving. “Yes?”
“Oh, good!” She raises her eyebrows. “So, what was his name? What was he like?”
Seokjin turns back to his pot of coffee. “His name’s Kim Namjoon. And he was really rude, actually.”
His mother doesn’t say anything for a while, and when Seokjin finishes pouring his coffee and glances back at her she looks much too confused for someone who never actually met Namjoon.
“Are you sure?” is what she says next, eyeing him suspiciously as if she thinks he’s lying to her.
“Yes Mum, I’m completely sure,” Seokjin replies. “He’s kind of classist.”
“Classist?” His mother’s eyebrows fly up to her hairline and she shakes her head, tutting. “Now that just won’t do.” She gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Oh well, there’ll be more, don’t you worry. It’s always the pretty ones, dear, never trust them.”
Seokjin just nods and smiles. He’d decided on Sunday morning that no, he never was interested in Kim Namjoon, and yes, it was extremely embarrassing to recall how he’d acted that whole night considering how shitty the guy had turned out to be. He’s almost looking forward to the wedding on Saturday purely because it means that afterwards, he finally never has to worry about Kim Namjoon again. And if he sees him in town over the next six months? Well, it’ll be just like they never even met in the first place.
“I’ll ask around at my weaving club next week, alright? One of the ladies there might have a nice son or daughter you could go out to dinner with if—”
“What?” Seokjin spins to face her properly. “Mum, no. Please don’t do that.”
“But why, Seokjin? You’ve barely spoken to anyone who lives outside this house in months—”
“That’s not true,” Seokjin interrupts petulantly. He texted Jaegeun yesterday.
His mother gives him a look. “You know what I mean. You should put yourself out there some more.” She reaches around him for the pot of coffee and pours herself a cup. “How are your auditions going? You haven’t had one in a while.”
Seokjin blinks at her sudden change of subject. “They’re fine.” She taps the side of her mug, waiting for him to continue. “I have to meet with this director tomorrow,” he offers.
“Ah, see! You’ll be up and about in no time,” she nods, and Seokjin doesn’t bother asking her what she means by that. He’s pretty tired after working on the farm all day, actually, and he just wants to drink his coffee, go upstairs and go to sleep. He has to get up early tomorrow, anyway.
“Thanks,” Seokjin says, although he’s not too sure if that’s the right response. “I think I’m gonna go to bed now, so...”
His mother gives him another pat on the shoulder. “Alright, dear. Off you go, then.”
He rinses his mug in the sink and places it on the bench, then makes his way back through the house to the stairs, picking up his discarded phone off the sofa as he passes.
“Seokjin?”
He turns around with one foot on the bottom stair to find his mother looking over at him from the kitchen. “Yeah?”
“Don’t forget what I told you about the farm the other night. About our finances.”
Seokjin nods. “I won’t,” he replies. “Night, Mum.”
“Goodnight, Seokjin.”
--
The next morning, Seokjin is rudely awoken by his alarm just before seven a.m. He flings one arm out from under the too-warm blankets and shuts it off before it makes him go crazy, rolling over in bed and groaning.
He only stops himself from falling back to sleep with the reminder that if he doesn’t get out of bed right now, he’s not going to have a career anymore. Bit of a sombre thought for seven in the morning, really.
So, he shrugs the covers off, swings his legs down and runs a hand across his still tired face.
After a quick shower he wastes about five minutes deciding what oversized cardigan he thinks will make him look the most respectable, finally concluding that the patterned maroon and cream will have to do, before going downstairs to make himself a hot chocolate before he leaves in twenty minutes.
Outside, it’s cold, it’s grey, and it’s raining, and it’s one of Seokjin’s favourite types of days. He stops in front of the windows when he steps downstairs and just watches the droplets run down the glass for a minute. It’s foggy too, and the loud pattering of the rain on the roof is kind of comforting to him, strangely enough. Maybe it has to do with the hour, Seokjin muses. The early morning has always had some type of special ambience that he’s never really known how to describe. Kind of a lonely serenity, maybe? He doesn’t know.
Anyhow, it’s almost completely dark in the house as well, apart from the back porch light which tells Seokjin his father must be awake and outside somewhere. He thinks the sun has probably risen by now, but the rain clouds make it a bit hard to tell and he hopes vaguely that it’ll subside a little before he actually has to get in the truck. Seokjin’s never been a fan of driving when he can’t see the road completely, no matter how much he likes the rain otherwise.
Flicking the kitchen light on, he makes his hot chocolate and when it’s done and he’s sitting at the kitchen table to drink it, pulls out his phone and texts Jaegeun.
JIN: hey, are we still good to meet with lee hanyong today?
Jaegeun replies not even a minute later.
JAEGEUN: Yea I’m with him now at the theatre
JAEGEUN: Should be around for at least another two hours so let me know when you’re getting here
Seokjin tells him he’ll be there in about forty minutes and stands up to stretch his muscles, yawning. Meeting Lee Hanyong anywhere out of the theatre would have been almost impossible considering neither of them are exactly famous actors, so they’d gotten permission to sit in on a morning rehearsal today for a play he’d written that’s being taken back to Seoul later in the year.
Seokjin doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s nervous. Nauseatingly nervous, actually. If this meeting doesn’t go well, he’ll be stuck in the background as an extra for the rest of his life. He rinses his cup in the sink, brushes his teeth in the downstairs bathroom and grabs the keys from their hook in the front hallway, trying in vain to pretend that no, he’s not nervous, he’s just excited. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work.
The drive into town takes a little longer than usual because the rain decides it doesn’t want to get any lighter (Seokjin tries not to think of it as a bad omen), and when he finally pulls into the theatre and runs inside, he’s drenched from head to toe and frankly hopes that Jaegeun was lying and that Lee Hanyong isn’t here to see him looking this disgusting on their first meeting.
But Seokjin has no such luck, because the first thing he sees after greeting the old ladies at the tea and coffee station is Lee Hanyong himself, walking straight towards him with a look of mild surprise on his face.
Shit. He must think Seokjin looks gross, like an ugly drowned rat, and he must be about to yell at him, and say how dare he set foot in his presence looking so utterly unpresentable.
Lee Hanyong, of course, actually says none of these things, and instead pulls Seokjin into the warmest hug he’s ever felt from a complete stranger. Bewildered, Seokjin barely even has the sense to hug him back before he’s being released and there’s a hand clamping down on his shoulder.
“Kim Seokjin! You must be Kim Seokjin!” Lee Hanyong grins down at him like a proud father, now with both hands on his shoulders. Seokjin hadn’t realised he was so tall. “No one else could look this good soaking wet! Your friend showed me your pictures, but my god, son, you really are a handsome creature.”
Seokjin doesn’t know whether he should thank him, shake him off, or say something equally flattering back. So, he just stares up at him in awe like an idiot.
“Uh—”
Lee Hanyong doesn’t give him the chance to continue. “Come sit down at the front with us. I’ll ask one of the assistant directors to bring you a towel, alright?”
Seokjin nods blearily and follows after him as he leads the way through the theatre and to the front of the audience, nearly empty but for a couple of people on their left whisper-arguing about either costume changes or custom curtains, Seokjin can’t tell.
They approach Jaegeun’s familiar shock of red hair in the front row of similarly coloured velvet chairs, and Lee Hanyong sits down right beside him.
Jaegeun greets him with a knowing smile. “Hey, Jin.”
Seokjin returns his greeting before taking the seat on Lee Hanyong’s other side. He can still distantly hear the rain pouring down outside, and in front of them, a man and a woman are rehearsing up on the stage with scripts in hand, pausing sporadically to give each other what he assumes are tips and criticisms.
Watching them, Seokjin can’t help the little spark of excitement he feels. He doesn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket, but he thinks that Lee Hanyong might actually like him so far, even though they’ve barely met. He just hopes he doesn’t fuck it up in the next hour or so.
Lee Hanyong swivels in his chair to face him then, nodding with a pleased smile on his face. “Yes,” he begins. “You would make the perfect Junpyo.” He glances up to examine Seokjin’s wet hair. “Are you planning on growing your hair out any longer?”
Seokjin tries not to sound too hopeful when he answers. “I don’t think so.” At the risk of sounding too presumptuous, he continues, “Do you think I should?”
He doesn’t want to assume purely based on one single conversation that he’s going to be cast in the play. He still has to audition first, and what if Lee Hanyong decides he doesn’t like him? Or decides that he thinks Seokjin can’t even act?
“Hm,” Lee Hanyong ponders him for a moment. “Maybe another half an inch. If you’re cast then you’d have to wear a wig for Act One anyway, but we have a little time jump in Act Two and I think it’d be just about perfect if you did.”
Seokjin nods with a polite smile, trying his hardest not to let his growing hope get the better of him.
A mildly stressed looking woman appears then to hand him a towel, and Seokjin spends the next forty-five minutes or so discussing Lee Hanyong’s upcoming production with him and Jaegeun.
Neither of them had been given any sort of information about the play other than that it’s described as a ‘psychological thriller,’ and that it’s run here will begin in late October and end in February with a six-week hiatus through December and January, with rehearsals starting about two months beforehand.
Lee Hanyong explains that the block of performances after the hiatus will be in the neighbouring city another half hour’s drive away, but Seokjin isn’t deterred in the slightest. He’d drive for twenty hours if it meant he actually got to act in this production.
The more he learns about it, the better it sounds and the more his prior excitement grows from a spark into a burning flame. The plot is dark and intense and wonderful, and Lee Hanyong is one of the most welcoming people Seokjin’s ever met. He makes him feel at ease surprisingly quickly, and it’s not long before Seokjin finds himself asking questions and joking around with him as they talk.
He learns that Junpyo is the leading role—
(“Like in the drama?” Seokjin asks.
Lee Hanyong smiles warmly. “Exactly like in the drama.”)
—and that he’s in love with a woman who he’s not sure actually exists. The play only has a cast of eight people in total, and follows his descent into solitude and madness as he begins to doubt the realities of his life and the people in it.
It’s full of subtleties while also being stripped of all frivolity, and is absolutely nothing like any of Seokjin’s previous roles, and honestly? He’s completely and utterly enamoured by it.
When they finish talking, Jaegeun leaves to pick his little twin sisters up from their morning soccer practice and Lee Hanyong walks Seokjin out with a satisfied look on his face.
“Alright Seokjin,” he starts when they reach the doors. “We have quite a lot of technicalities that need to be sorted out, and to be completely honest with you, I have to finish writing the damn thing, but we’ll be all up and running by either June or July.” He claps him on the shoulder. “So, there’s no need to worry about any of that, and I hope I’ll be seeing you at auditions in two weeks.”
Seokjin bows in goodbye. “Of course. I’ll see you then, sir.”
He leaves the theatre with a skip in his step and fervour burning in his heart, and doesn’t even mind when he gets drenched by the rain for the second time on his way home.
--
Two days later is Myungsoo and Heejung’s wedding, and while Seokjin’s still coming down from his post Lee-Hanyong-likes-me-and-thinks-I’d-make-a-perfect-Junpyo glow, he can’t exactly say he’s looking forward to it.
Well, he is, because two of his dad’s friends are getting married and he’s happy for them, but he’s not, because Kim Namjoon was invited for no good reason and now he has to actively avoid him for at least five hours.
They have to drive forty minutes to get there and barely make it to the venue on time, much to his mother’s distress, because Yoongi decides halfway down the driveway that he wants to wear a white button up instead of a black one.
The venue in question is a gigantic modern house on the riverfront (which he learns later actually belongs to one of Myungsoo’s aunts), complete with stone archways, a boathouse, and an entire wooden dance floor set up in the back garden. The lights strewn about in the trees remind Seokjin of the Golden Magnolia, but he decides that the backdrop of the river gives this place just a little bit of extra leverage.
Anyhow, after arriving half an hour before sunset and just in time for the ceremony to begin, they rush to find their seats and Seokjin pretends not to notice Taehyung shed a tear when Heejung appears in her wedding dress. He does make a note to tease him about it later, though.
After the ceremony, Seokjin manages to congratulate the bride and groom for a total of two seconds before Jimin’s throwing his arms around their shoulders in a hug and immediately pulling them away with him somewhere with their parents. Seokjin doesn’t particularly mind, he’s just glad he hasn’t actually seen Namjoon yet. Maybe they decided not to come, after all.
That happy thought is crushed a minute later, however, when Yoongi’s eyes widen at something over Seokjin’s shoulder and he immediately reaches up to smooth down his hair and slide his hand to the back of his neck, a habit Seokjin’s noticed he has whenever he’s nervous.
And if Yoongi’s nervous at a wedding where they practically already know everyone, that can only mean one of two things. Either someone complimented him too much and he got shy, which is highly unlikely because literally no one is talking to them, or he just caught sight of Jung Hoseok.
Seokjin’s willing to bet it’s option number two.
And he’s proven right five seconds later when Jeon Jungkook, Jung Hoseok and Kim Namjoon walk right past where he and Yoongi are standing with Taehyung at the edge of the garden.
The sun’s gone down enough now that it’s dark and Seokjin can’t see their faces all that well from his angle, but Taehyung fixes that particular issue for him when he gasps and reaches forward to grab a hold of Jungkook’s arm. The poor kid spins around looking like he thinks he’s about to be kidnapped, but thankfully his expression calms when he sees who’s in front of him.
“Holy fu— Oh, Taehyung!”
The other two both turn at his exclamation to see Taehyung pull him into a welcoming hug, and Seokjin resolutely ignores Namjoon in favour of watching Hoseok and Yoongi in amusement.
As soon as Hoseok had seemingly recognised who had pulled Jungkook forward, his eyes had immediately snapped first to Seokjin’s face and then to Yoongi’s, where they’ve now been since. Both their faces are tinged red, but Hoseok is the first to apparently get over his shock because he smiles and says, “Hey. You’re Min Yoongi, right?”
Yoongi doesn’t smile back, but he does nod. “Yes. Uh…” He glances quickly at Seokjin, who raises his eyebrows, before meeting Hoseok’s gaze again. “Jung Hoseok?”
Seokjin thinks Hoseok looks much too happy at that one simple question, but then again, from what he remembers of the guy he seems like the type who would be.
“Yeah!” Hoseok grins and turns to Seokjin, unasked question obvious on the tip of his tongue.
“Kim Seokjin,” he answers and reaches forward to shake Hoseok’s hand.
“Oh,” Hoseok quirks his mouth up at his name. “So that’s you, huh?”
“Hoseok!”
Seokjin’s gaze flickers to the left to see Namjoon practically burning a hole through the back of Hoseok’s head.
Huh. So Namjoon had mentioned their conversation, then? Seokjin hopes he didn’t leave out the part where he insulted his entire family.
He almost makes some type of comment he knows he’ll probably regret, but he’s interrupted by Taehyung who announces that he and Jungkook are going to find Jimin and that they’ll be back later, much to the kid’s apparent delight.
Jungkook sends a wink in Hoseok’s direction as he leaves, and then Yoongi blurts out, “I like your shirt,” and gestures lamely at the oversized patterned t-shirt Hoseok’s wearing over a white turtleneck.
Seokjin thinks it might be Snoopy patterned, on closer inspection, and thinks that where Hoseok manages to find these things, and actually make them look good for that matter, is beyond him.
Hoseok, to his credit, just beams like the sun and laughs almost shyly. “Thanks,” he says, and tips his head over towards the tables of food under the patio. “Want to come get some food? I haven’t eaten in like, three hours so I’m starving.”
“Shit,” Yoongi replies with a grin, and follows Hoseok over to the house after throwing a nervously excited look in Seokjin’s direction.
Seokjin, on the other hand, doesn’t even bother trying to make conversation with Namjoon. He just walks away without a word and joins his father chatting to a family friend at the edge of the dance floor, effectively putting Namjoon out of sight, and out of mind.
--
The next few hours go by quickly; he dances with people he hasn’t seen since university, plays with two of the auntie’s six-year-old kids until they get too tired and fall asleep on a mattress under the table inside, and may or may not make out with one of the bridesmaids in the dark for a bit before they mutually decide they’re not that into it and she leaves to find someone who is.
He also spots Yoongi and Hoseok around a few times; for example, when he sees them sitting on a couch on the patio and laughing together before Hoseok gets up and tries to teach Yoongi some type of complicated dance move, but then gives up and accidentally falls backwards onto him.
The whole thing is very flirty and very gay, in Seokjin’s humble opinion.
He’s chatting with Dahyun and a few of their other friends when unexpectedly, Namjoon appears out of nowhere and asks if he can pull him aside, looking for all the world like talking to Seokjin is the last thing he wants to do.
Seokjin really wants to say no but he also doesn’t want to cause a scene, so he begrudgingly agrees and lets Namjoon lead him away. He also tries not to let it bother him too much when he glances back and sees his friends staring after Namjoon in what he can only describe as borderline reverence. It’s not their fault they don’t know what he’s actually like beneath his… outward appearance.
Anyway, Namjoon doesn’t say a single other word to him until they’ve reached the little pebbled path at the bottom of the garden, leading down to the river and the boathouse and away from everyone else. Seokjin wonders in the back of his mind whether maybe Namjoon’s going to murder him and chuck his body into the water. The fairy lights aren’t as bright down here so he reckons it’s dark enough that he’d be able to do it without anyone noticing.
But then he shakes his head and rolls his eyes at himself. Jesus Christ, Seokjin. He might hate you and you might hate him but the guy isn’t a fucking murderer. He’s just a dick.
“So,” Namjoon says, and turns to face him beneath the overhanging branch of the tree they’d stopped under.
“Yes?” Seokjin asks shortly, trying to sound as uninterested as he possibly can.
And it’s annoying that even as much as Seokjin hates him, apparently some little part of his brain refuses to forget how attractive he had found Namjoon initially.
Because he looks even better now than he did at the networking event, top buttons open to reveal his chest beneath his white dress shirt (it’s fucking freezing so Seokjin doesn’t know what possessed him to do that) and blonde hair perfectly parted across his forehead. He’s even wearing little silver hoop earrings tonight, and that small and soon to be overrun part of Seokjin’s brain is adamant on letting him know that yeah, maybe Namjoon looks kind of hot.
Objectively, of course.
Like he said, it’s annoying.
Namjoon, none the wiser to Seokjin’s inner argument with himself, takes a frustratingly slow sip of his wine before speaking.
“I wanted to talk to you about last Saturday.”
Oh, fucking hell.
He probably wants to beg for Seokjin’s forgiveness, or something equally pathetic. And Seokjin’s really, really not in the mood.
They’re at a wedding, for god’s sake. Where you get drunk and hook up with a bridesmaid or a groomsman, not get in an argument with a near-stranger about that one time he insulted your family’s honour.
Namjoon clears his throat awkwardly when Seokjin doesn’t say anything. “I know I came across, um, kind of unpleasant, but—”
Seokjin rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they might pop out of his skull and roll away. ‘Kind of unpleasant,’ his ass.
“Look, Namjoon,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you weren’t just ‘kind of unpleasant.’ You actually acted like a total fucking asshole last weekend. And I don’t regret what I said,” he adds as an afterthought. “You were conceited and rude, and you needed someone to humble you before you went off and said something even worse to someone else.”
That shuts Namjoon up, and Seokjin feels probably too satisfied at the look of complete shock on his face.
Namjoon’s expression doesn’t change for a few seconds, but then his eyebrows raise and he scoffs. “I can’t believe you. You think you’re so perfect, don’t you? You think you’re so… so right.”
Seokjin barely manages to not let out a laugh. “I don’t think I’m right,” he mocks. “I—”
But apparently, Namjoon isn’t finished yet. He flings his hand out to the side like an overly dramatic actor in their final scene, and wine paints the grass dark red.
“You call me rude, but do you have any idea how you sound?”
Seokjin can’t help the look of disbelief he knows must be on his face. How he sounds?
“Do you even hear yourself?” Namjoon continues. “You know, I was actually excited to talk to you when we met, but now—” He pauses and looks down at Seokjin with hard eyes. “You’re ignorant, you’re rude and you’re arrogant,” he spits. “And I don’t want anything to do with you.”
This time, it’s Namjoon who storms off and Namjoon who leaves Seokjin speechless behind him.
--
He stands there on the pathway alone for a minute and just listens to the music and the sounds of the wedding above him as he replays their conversation in his head. Their argument, actually. Seokjin doesn’t really think you could call whatever that was ‘conversing.’
Why had Namjoon called him ignorant, though? It’s not like Seokjin had actually badly insulted him last Saturday. Nothing worse than what Namjoon himself had said, at least.
Was it some kind of dig at the fact Seokjin isn’t involved in business? He doesn’t really think that constitutes as an insult, but whatever. Namjoon can do what he wants.
He supposes he should probably return to the wedding, and so he decides to put it behind him for now. Like he said, a wedding isn’t the place to argue with a near-stranger.
Seokjin just has to make it through the next couple of hours, and that’s it. No more Kim Namjoon.
So, he walks back up the pathway and back into all the people, and makes sure that he has the absolute best time for the rest of the night.
And he does, too, until Jimin stops dancing with Myungsoo and Heejung at one point and tries to convince Seokjin to dance with Namjoon, because of course he does.
“But you’ve barely even talked to him, how do you know—"
“Jimin. I’m not dancing with him.” Jimin grimaces at him in annoyance, but Seokjin twists out of his grip before he can argue some more.
He looks around for someone else to talk to and his eyes land on the familiar sight of his mother in her ankle-length skirt and elegant red and pink cardigan. He starts towards her with the foolish hope that maybe she’ll have just missed him so much in the past few hours that she won’t even say anything embarrassing about him in front of everyone.
She’s on the patio laughing with a couple of her friends, and when she notices Seokjin approach she pulls him into the conversation easily.
“Seokjin, tell Miran and Jiyoung about that theatre man you met the other day, Lee Han something?”
“Lee Hanyong,” Seokjin nods with a smile at the two women.
Jiyoung pushes her round rimmed glasses further up on her nose and purses her lips. “Is he really as attractive as they say he is?”
“And tall, too,” Miran adds with a wink.
Seokjin laughs and says that yes, Lee Hanyong really is that tall and attractive in real life, and then spends the next five minutes answering their polite questions on both him and the play. They have to shout to hear each other over the music a few times, but Seokjin doesn’t mind.
They depart with a ‘good luck on your audition!’ thrown his way, taking a swig of their wine and leaving him and his mother alone by the dwindling tables of food, and she turns to him with a smile.
“How has your night been, dear? Having fun?”
Seokjin sees the unwelcome image of Namjoon yelling at him in his mind’s eye and nods. “Yep, lots of fun,” he lies, and she nods back in satisfaction. He puts Namjoon out of mind for the third time that night and smiles at his mother. “You look nice by the way, Mum.”
“Thank you, love.” She taps her wine glass against his shoulder. “You did congratulate Myungsoo and Heejung, didn’t you?”
Seokjin blinks at her sudden change of subject. “Yeah, hours ago. I also kissed a bridesmaid,” he adds.
It’s embarrassing, but maybe it’ll get her off his case about not having any type of romance in his life.
He’s actually surprised she hasn’t tried to set him up with anyone here yet. She’s been suspiciously quiet on the subject ever since their conversation the other night, and Seokjin’s a little worried to be honest.
“You did? Oh, that’s lovely, Seokjin.” She pats him on the arm lightly. “It’s nice to see you making some friends.”
He pulls his arm away with a groan and resists the urge to argue that he does in fact have friends, but only because his mother has apparently caught the eye of someone out on the grass and is now being beckoned over.
She leaves before he has the chance to question why her response was so not what he thought it would be, and grabs a single stick of carrot off the table, chewing on it as he stands and looks into the night.
It’s when he catches sight of a tall, blonde head out of the corner of his eye that Seokjin decides he’s been standing here long enough, and spins around and walks the other way before he accidentally makes eye contact and stupidly gets himself into yet another argument with Kim Namjoon.
He finds Taehyung and Jungkook inside the house, lounging around on the expensive-looking beanbags in the living room and watching TV while someone’s two-year-old sleeps surrounded in pillows on the couch behind their heads.
Seokjin plops himself down beside them. “Whatcha watching?”
“Football,” Jungkook replies. “It’s boring, though.”
Seokjin nods in pitying understanding and Taehyung shifts closer to lay his head on his knee.
“Are we gonna leave soon, do you think?”
“Dunno,” Seokjin shrugs. “I was just talking to Mum but I didn’t ask. Have you seen Dad or Yoongi around?”
Taehyung shakes his head. “No.” He sits up and slaps Seokjin’s calf. “Let’s go find them. I’m tired.”
They leave Jungkook to his football and venture out into the cold air of the garden once more. Seokjin wonders offhandedly why they chose to have an outdoor, night-time wedding in the middle of March, and not some hot month like July or August.
It takes them about ten minutes of searching (and trying desperately to avoid any possible hint of Namjoon in Seokjin’s case), before they give up and slump onto an unoccupied garden bench. There’s so many people out here and the music’s so loud that it feels like it’s going to be near impossible to locate either Yoongi or their father. He doesn’t even know where his mother is, and he only saw her not that long ago.
“Oh my god,” Taehyung smirks suddenly, and points with a sleeve-clad hand to the corner of the garden with the least amount of fairy lights. “Look over there.”
‘Over there’ Seokjin can just make out Yoongi and Hoseok between the branches of a low-hanging oak tree, standing very close together in the dark and laughing as they exchange shy little glances whenever they think the other isn’t looking.
“Jesus,” Seokjin jokes. “That’s disgusting. They’re like, already in love.”
Taehyung nods in agreement, and after an intense round of rock, paper, scissors, they decide to leave the two of them where they are.
It’s not for another half an hour that they actually find themselves outside under one of the stone archways up near the front of the house and ready to leave, Jimin and Yoongi included.
The other three talk amongst themselves casually and Seokjin amuses himself by counting how many cars of each colour there are in the parking lot. He can’t actually see most of them because it’s dark, but he’s not going to let that stop him from plain, old-fashioned guessing.
(He might actually just be desperately searching for something to distract him from the constant loop of Namjoon’s voice saying ignorant, rude, arrogant, ignorant, ignorant, ignorant that’s been violating his head for the past twenty minutes, but whatever).
Yoongi notices him counting after about five minutes and decides to join in, and it’s when they start putting cars in categories like ‘red and purple with blue highlights,’ that Yoongi pauses and points to a black range rover about twenty metres from them.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Namjoon’s car,” he says simply.
“That’s their car?” Seokjin has to bite back a snicker. “It looks like something the fucking secret service would use.”
Yoongi punches him on the arm. “Don’t be rude.”
“Sorry, Yoongs.” He wiggles his eyebrows playfully. “But hey, how was it getting to know Hoseok tonight, huh? You guys looked like you were having fun.”
Yoongi gives a barely-there shrug. “He’s cool.” He squints at them when Seokjin gestures for him to continue. “We just hung out, that’s all. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
Seokjin shakes his head. “Hm, nope.” He turns to Taehyung. “Tae, why couldn’t we find Yoongi?”
Taehyung grins. “Because he was busy.”
“And why was he busy?”
Between them, Jimin listens with wide eyes and Yoongi stares at the phone in his hand, now badly pretending that he’s ignoring them.
Taehyung’s grin widens impossibly further. “Because he was making out with Jung Hoseok.”
Jimin’s mouth drops open comically and he slaps Yoongi’s shoulder. “Oh my god, hyung!”
“No, I wasn’t!” Yoongi recoils away from him and back against the stone pillar of the archway. “We were just talking, that’s it. It’s not that interesting,” he mutters, but the smile on his face says otherwise. “Besides,” he pouts. “Why would I want to do that anyway, it’s not like—”
“Yoongi?”
Hoseok pops out from another of the archways to their left and Seokjin almost laughs at the sheer look of panic on Yoongi’s face, even while Jimin and Taehyung don’t seem to be bothered to hold back their own snickering. But thankfully, Hoseok doesn’t seem to have heard what they were talking about and gives the four of them a borderline nervous smile when he reaches them.
He stands next to Yoongi and gives him a little nudge with his elbow, grinning at him shyly. “You’re not even gonna say hello to me?”
Yoongi opens and closes his mouth like a fish for a second, but then he smiles and faces Hoseok, looking up at him and tilting his head coyly to the side with a little scoff of disbelief.
“I just said goodbye to you, though.”
Jimin snorts into his hand and Seokjin steps on his foot. He may have to bite the inside of his cheek to hide his own grin at the same time, but no one needs to know that.
In front of him, Yoongi isn’t looking much better off. That single sentence seemed to be the accumulation of all his courage because now he’s staring at the ground in embarrassment with pink cheeks and round eyes. Seokjin would feel bad for him if it weren’t so amusing.
But Hoseok had just taken it in stride, laughed and moved on apparently, because now he’s started talking about the trip he’s going on in a couple of days. Seokjin can’t figure out if he’s ignoring Yoongi’s pathetic attempt at flirting on purpose or if he’s just that naturally dense. Lovely, but dense.
“So, we’re leaving on Monday and—oh, hi guys—and then we’re going to…”
Seokjin turns around to see none other than Jungkook and Namjoon walking out from the same archway Hoseok had come from. He turns back, sighs and shuts his eyes for a second. Just half an hour. Half an hour, and then no more Kim Namjoon.
He gives Jungkook a smile which the kid returns warmly, and resolutely does not acknowledge his brother. It seems the feeling is mutual at least, because Namjoon doesn’t even look at him.
“Jungkookie! Come and look at this.” Jimin grabs Jungkook’s arm and he and Taehyung pull him off to the other end of the garden. Seokjin isn’t even going to bother wondering what it is they could be showing him, because now that it’s only the four of them left, it’s significantly more obvious that he and Namjoon aren’t exactly on the best of terms.
Hoseok pauses whatever he’d been saying and glances between the two of them. He doesn’t say anything but Seokjin doesn’t fail to notice the split second look he aims at Namjoon, which funnily enough, actually reminds him quite of lot of his mother.
“Anyway, um, I wanted to ask you…” Hoseok continues like nothing had happened. He looks nervously at Yoongi, who Seokjin’s pretty sure hasn’t actually taken his eyes off Hoseok since he’d started talking. “Do you want to—” He visibly panics and coughs into his elbow awkwardly. “It’s freezing out here, are you cold?”
“Uh…” Yoongi eyes him, looking confused. “That was what you wanted to ask?”
Namjoon makes some type of weird snickering cross laughing noise beside Seokjin and he turns to face him with narrowed eyes. He’s just about to make sure Namjoon isn’t about to add one more person in Seokjin’s family to his list of people he’s personally insulted when they’re (probably fortunately) interrupted.
By Seokjin’s mother, who strides up to them right in the middle of Hoseok forcibly shrugging his coat off and wrapping it around a bewildered, wide-eyed and yet again pink cheeked Yoongi. She barely even spares them a second glance.
“Looks like we’re getting friendly over here, boys,” she remarks, which Seokjin thinks is entirely untrue considering that two of them are now refusing to look each other in the eye and the other two haven’t even spoken a word to each other in over an hour.
Seokjin clears his throat. The air of awkwardness is starting to get to him. “We’re leaving in a minute, Mum, aren’t we?”
His mother gives him a tired smile. “Yes, dear. It’s getting quite late.” She furrows her brow and looks around them. “Where are your brothers?”
“I think…” Seokjin pauses, doing a little memory recall in his head and pointing in the direction of the carpark. “I think they went that way?”
“They’re right out by the plum trees, ma’am,” Namjoon says, and gestures to the right, where sure enough, Seokjin can see three familiar silhouettes in the lights from the house. The only reason he doesn’t roll his eyes at Namjoon’s blatant showing off is because he’s tired and that would take too much energy.
“We’re coming!” Jimin yells, running back over to them with Taehyung and Jungkook following close behind him.
Their mother smiles warmly in Namjoon’s direction. “Thank you, dear.” Seokjin assumes she must’ve just forgotten who he is. “Well, I’ll be back in a second, I just need to grab your father and then we’ll go, alright?”
She walks back into the wedding, where the music is still just as loud and the people are even louder, just as the kids finally reach them.
“Are we going now?” Taehyung asks while Jimin and Jungkook giggle over something on his phone.
Seokjin nods. “Just waiting for Mum and Dad.”
In front of them, Hoseok reaches up and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “So, you’re leaving now, huh?”
Seokjin notes that while the question isn’t exactly directed at anyone in particular, Hoseok doesn’t take his eyes off Yoongi while he says it.
“Yeah,” Yoongi replies. He doesn’t say anything else, just stands there wrapped in Hoseok’s coat while Hoseok switches between looking at the ground and his face like he’s deciding whether or not he should voice whatever it is he’s very obviously thinking about.
Seokjin rolls his eyes. He may not be the smartest person alive, but he thinks he has a pretty good idea of what’s going on here. And he very much doubts that the reason Hoseok followed Yoongi around all night was because he wanted to learn some extra information on how to milk goats. So Seokjin figures it’ll be fine to give them a little push.
“Hoseok,” he nods across to him. “Didn’t you have something you wanted to ask Yoongi before?”
Hoseok’s eyes snap up to his immediately, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “Uh,” he laughs uncertainly. “Yeah, I did, actually.”
Yoongi gives his arm a nudge. “Well, what is it then?”
Seokjin observes idly that the three kids have paused whatever they were talking about and are listening curiously to their conversation, and Namjoon, who hasn’t said a word apart from to Seokjin’s mother, just stands there buried in his own big padded coat watching Hoseok and Yoongi with a little smile on his face. Seokjin resists the urge to ask him what’s so funny.
“So, you know how I said we’re going to Jeju Island for a week,” Hoseok begins, and Yoongi nods. “I just wanted to ask if you wanted to come with us?”
He waits one single second for Yoongi’s answer, who just kind of stares at him blankly, before he shakes his head and continues, “I know it might be a little weird, and you don’t have to come of course, but I mean, I had fun tonight and I hoped you did too, and I just thought it would be fun? But yeah, you don’t have to. I completely understand if you don’t want to.”
Seokjin hides his grin behind his hand. He wonders if all Koreans develop a rambling habit if they move to America. He has to admit, Hoseok’s endearing, but he doubts Yoongi will go. He’d thought Hoseok was just trying to ask for Yoongi’s number or something, not invite him on a whole getaway trip for the week. Not to mention that they don’t even—
“Okay,” Yoongi nods, as if someone had simply just asked him to hold their drink.
Hoseok’s eyes widen at the same time as Seokjin’s.
“You want to come?” Hoseok asks. Yoongi just nods up at him with a shy little smile.
Seokjin frowns slightly and pulls out his phone as discreetly as he can, stepping sideways behind Jimin so as not to be rude and opening his chat with Yoongi.
JIN: r u sure?? we barely even know them
He sees the notification light up the screen on Yoongi’s phone and watches him check it. Yoongi glances up at him and raises his eyebrows, then looks back down and types something before sliding his phone back into his pocket.
YOONGI: He’s a rlly good person. Don’t worry
And Seokjin would like to trust him on that, believe him he would, but Hoseok is best friends with Namjoon, and Seokjin thinks it’s fairly obvious why he’d be a little apprehensive.
But to be fair, Hoseok does actually seem like a good person, no matter who he surrounds himself with. He’s only known him for a week but he can’t think of a single instance that implores him to think otherwise.
And Seokjin can say the same for Jungkook as well, so maybe they just keep Namjoon around because he’s Jungkook’s brother? He guesses that’s probably the most plausible conclusion.
Their parents approach them then, finally ready to leave it seems, and Yoongi turns to their mother as soon as she’s within hearing distance. “Mum, Hoseok’s invited me to Jeju Island next week and it’s alright if I go, isn’t it? You don’t need me on the farm?”
“Jeju Island?” she repeats with raised eyebrows. “What would you be doing there?”
She directs this question at Hoseok, who steps up to answer with all the confidence of a future barrister. “A friend of my parents is looking to acquire a hotel in the area for their Korean branch, and they’d like us to check it out first.” He smiles and nods towards Yoongi. “It’s more of a week-long holiday for us really, and we’d love for Yoongi to come along.”
Their mother nods at him in understanding with a little ‘ah’ face, but when she looks back at Yoongi Seokjin doesn’t think her expression bodes too well.
“Yoongi…” She tilts her head at him sympathetically. “I don’t know… You know what happened last time you went on a holiday with your friends.”
Yoongi gapes at her. “Mum, that was when I was sixteen.”
“Is that when he got drunk and was almost arrested?” Taehyung mutters into Seokjin’s ear. Seokjin nods back at him.
The memory’s probably a little fuzzy for Taehyung considering that he was barely a teenager at the time, but Seokjin remembers it pretty clearly. Yoongi had gone to Seoul with a group of friends from school and one of them had stolen his dad’s credit card to buy alcohol and whatever else while they were there. Long story short, Yoongi was peer-pressured, his friends got him into trouble, and Seokjin had to drive to Seoul with his father at four in the morning to pick him up from the police station.
It seems their mother had never really gotten over the whole ideal, stressful as it had been for her, because she just keeps looking at him like there’s some type of debate going on in her head, before reaching up and giving Hoseok’s shoulder a little pat. “I’m just not sure, dear, I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Hoseok says, looking slightly surprised at her sudden tactility. “That’s okay, I understand…”
Seokjin feels kind of bad for him, actually. His eyes are downcast and he does genuinely look disappointed.
Seokjin’s father, who had been standing slightly to the left of the rest of them and just watching on silently, suddenly speaks up. “Let the boy go, Yeojeong. That was a long time ago, he’ll be fine.”
Yoongi spins to him so fast that Hoseok’s coat almost falls right off his shoulders. “Really?” He turns back to their mother. “See, Dad says it’s fine.”
Even Hoseok perks up at that, which Seokjin admits gets him a single point in his tally of whether or not he can be trusted. “I promise, ma’am, we wouldn’t do anything stupid. You wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Well…” She eyes the two of them and purses her lips. “I suppose it’d be fine as long as he doesn’t go alone.”
“Mum! I’m not twelve years old, oh my god,” Yoongi mutters under his breath.
Hoseok just looks between Yoongi, who’s now looking up at the dark sky in embarrassment, and their mother. “Oh! I mean, yeah of course, if you think that’d be better…”
Their mother smiles at him not unkindly. “Yes, I think so.”
“Mum, I’ll go to Jeju Island with him,” Jimin offers. Across from him, Seokjin sees Jungkook’s face light up hopefully.
“No, Jimin, you’re too young.”
“I’m only two years younger than him!”
Their mother ignores him and turns to Seokjin instead. “Seokjin, you can go with him.”
“What? Why me?”
He tries not to be too offended when he notices the smile on Jungkook’s face drop out of the corner of his eye. Namjoon’s expression beside him, however, stays just as diplomatically polite, even though it seems slightly strained. Seokjin almost wants one of them to start complaining because then at least he’d have an excuse not to go.
His mother just frowns at him. “Seokjin,” she warns.
“But don’t you need me to help out at home?” He’s aware he’s probably embarrassing himself grasping at straws like this. “Since Yoongi won’t be here?”
“It’s only one week, Seokjin. Go and have fun with your brother.”
Seokjin sighs. Fuck. Why does his Namjoon timer have to keep adding on extra minutes? Can’t it just ring and he can be done with it? Maybe this is the universe punishing him for something he did when he was a kid. Maybe that time he accidently left the main gate open and half their cattle escaped? Seokjin doesn’t know, but whatever it was surely can’t have been bad enough to constitute this.
And he’s just about to make up some other reason why he can’t possibly go, but then his gaze shifts to Yoongi who’s staring imploringly at him, so much that it almost looks like he’s pleading, and Seokjin doesn’t want to ruin this for him.
“Fine, I’ll go.”
He doesn’t miss how as soon as he says it, the polite smile drops off Namjoon’s face and he turns around, and he just walks away.