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“Hyung,” Namjoon says. His laptop’s propped open on Seokjin and Yoongi’s minuscule dinner table, and he’s giving Seokjin The Look, the specific one he uses when he’s trying to explain a concept Seokjin isn’t quite grasping. “You need to listen to this.”
And later, much later, Seokjin will cast his mind back to this very moment and see it for what it really is: the beginning, or the end, or maybe even the beginning of the end. But for now, he returns Namjoon’s look and moves so he can peek at the laptop, catching sight of a project called angry.mp3 (which is just the quintessential Yoongi way of naming files) already loaded and queued up on Namjoon’s music software.
Seokjin waits for Namjoon to say something else, to give a little bit of context as to what he’s about to hear, but Namjoon keeps silent, maintaining The Look like it encapsulates all the information that Seokjin needs to know.
Then Namjoon reaches down and presses play.
Seokjin likes to think he’s perfected the art of living.
Sure, he’s not very smart, nor is he one of those type-A achievers, the ones who’d set their mind to some lofty goal and do everything in their power to achieve it. He’d always been a middling, tending-towards-the-back-of-the-class student—bright, but unwilling to work hard at school, as his old teachers would always describe him. He wasn’t gifted with strong resolve, or fierce determination, or whatever traits those change-the-world people have.
But if there’s one thing he truly knows how to do, it’s live.
It’s a little hard for people to understand, at first. His mother’s friends, for example, used to brag about their sons’ achievements all the time: my Seungho got into med school, or my Daeseong got a job offer from the UN. Which was very impressive, sure. Until the reality of life hit and their overachieving sons turned into crippling balls of anxiety.
Seokjin, on the other hand, isn't like that. He isn’t built to worry, preferring not to dwell on what happened in the past and move forward. Terrible mistakes? Nah. Embarrassing situations? Already forgotten. Childhood dreams? Too difficult. He just lives each day as it comes, cultivating an existence that is happy and bland and boring and perfect. Hakuna Matata, as they said in the Lion King. There’s really just no reason to worry. What’s important isn’t what you manage to achieve but how you live your life.
He’s happy. And over time, people come to realize how great that is, fawning over him like they used to fawn over their now-anxious sons. Seokjin’s lost track of the amount of times he’s run into his mothers’ friends in the supermarket and had them fawn over him, delighted by how delightfully nuclear and perfect his life is.
I wish my son was more like you, they’d always say before they parted ways.
And it all just underscores what he already knows, which is that he’s perfected the art of living. One cannot be blessed with the sort of people he has surrounded himself with and be too lacking.
Case in point: Yoongi.
Technically, he and Yoongi were never really supposed to be roommates. Never really supposed to get along either, when they were just so different from the get-go. Yoongi was all fire and passion and hard work and big dreams. Seokjin was…decidedly not that. From the offset, it seemed like a doomed friendship.
Seokjin’s original roommate had been a guy named Doyun. Common name, with not-so-common aspirations—he wanted to be the first man in the world to open a fruit pizza restaurant. He was nice, though, and they had a mutual respect for each other, enough that they occasionally ordered takeout together and made small talk at their tiny kitchen table.
But then Doyun had fallen in with some friends who liked to go out, and soon he was spending more and more nights passed out on his buddy’s floor. Seokjin was happy to have the space all to himself, but then Doyun approached him with a proposition.
“Hey,” he’d said. “So I’m over at Hajoon’s place all the time, and his roommate’s starting to get a little annoyed by the lack of space, so I was wondering if it’s okay with you if I just moved to his room and his roommate moved here?”
“Uh, sure,” Seokjin had said eloquently, and the next week, Yoongi had been scowling on his doorstep, his things packed haphazardly into duffel bags.
Seokjin would be lying if he said his first impression of Yoongi had been favorable. Yoongi had that quiet, terrifying and sort of manic energy to him—he kept to himself, he barely ate, he barely slept. All his focus was directed to his laptop, which Seokjin learned two weeks later was because he was a music major with a concentration in production.
But then one day, Yoongi had come home early from class, and Seokjin was idly watching a film on his laptop. Yoongi had walked past him, paused, and then doubled back. “Is that Fight Club?” he asked, tone hesitant and maybe even a little shy.
“It is,” Seokjin confirmed. A pause where neither of them said anything, Yoongi hovering around in his periphery, trying and failing not to look interested in the film.
And something in Seokjin caved, impulsivity rearing its head. “Do you want to watch it with me?”
It took him a moment, but then Yoongi nodded slowly. Seokjin scooted over in his tiny twin bed, offering Yoongi the remaining space. Yoongi had sat down tentatively, like he was afraid he might break something.
Then they watched the movie.
That night, Seokjin learned that Yoongi wasn’t standoffish, he was simply lethargic—a trait exacerbated by his refusal to eat or sleep properly. He learned that Yoongi made music because he didn’t think he could do anything else, because that’s how he taught himself to pass the time back in Daegu. He also learned that Yoongi had a penchant for puns and dad jokes, huffing out a laugh despite his protests and complaints.
And when he fell asleep on Seokjin’s bed halfway through the film, Seokjin wasn’t even mad; he just set his laptop aside and turned off the light. Shifted on his side and adjusted to this new person in his bed, the same way the hollows of his heart adjusted to this new person in his life.
The point is, Seokjin isn’t built to worry. That’s just not something he does. But when the last note of Yoongi’s song rings out, the muscles of Seokjin’s face hurt from how wide his eyes have gotten.
“What the fuck,” he says, floored. “What the actual fuck.”
“Exactly,” Namjoon emphasizes. “Exactly.”
Yoongi’s always been a good songwriter. Even Seokjin, with his limited music knowledge and prodigious ability to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder, knows this. Yoongi does the same thing to music as spring does to the cherry trees or however that saying goes. He breathes new life into it. He creates beautiful things. He blooms notes into phrases, phrases into melodies. And he does it so skillfully that by the end of it you’re often left stunned, in awe of his talent and his skill.
But right now, Seokjin isn’t gasping in awe at the sheer beauty of Yoongi’s song. He’s used to Yoongi being talented and amazing. It’s nothing new.
Right now, he’s gasping in horror at the sheer emotion.
“What the fuck,” he says again, rubbing a hand down his face. “Oh, my god.”
“I know it’s a bit of a shock,” says Namjoon, and something in his tone sounds sympathetic. “But I just really thought you should know, hyung. Yoongi-hyung’s been feeling this way for a while, actually.”
“A while?!” Seokjin sits up, a little alarmed at the thought. “How long is a while?”
Namjoon shrugs. “I don’t know,” he replies. “He won’t tell me.”
“I can’t believe this,” Seokjin says. “I—there’s no way.”
There’s no reason for Yoongi to even feel this way. Yoongi’s not an unattractive man. Far from it, actually; Seokjin thinks that Yoongi’s probably one of the most attractive people he knows. With a magnetic charisma he’s grown into and an air of I-don’t-give-a-fuck about him, Seokjin’s certain that Yoongi should be able to snag anybody he wants.
Instead he’s singing quietly into the microphone, lyrics about how I wish I were her, so you would’ve wanted me instead spilling from his lips like he couldn’t hold them back anymore.
“So, yeah, I just thought I should let you know,” Namjoon says again. “It’s been a while, but he’s never had the courage to tell you.”
Seokjin frowns. “But why?” he asks. “I’m his best friend.”
Namjoon shrugs again. “I think maybe that was the problem,” he says. “Telling your best friend something like this and risk ruining your friendship…I imagine it can be a little daunting.”
“But Yoongi could never ruin our friendship,” Seokjin replies. “At least, not over something this trivial.” He sighs again, slumping down on his seat. “God. Thank you, Namjoon, for letting me know. Jesus Christ. Yoongi doesn’t deserve this.”
“He really doesn’t.”
“Yoongi shouldn’t ever be sad. Ever. And he shouldn’t have kept this from me, I…” A thought occurs to him, one that makes a sudden surge of anger flare up in his chest. “Once I find out who did this to him, it’s on sight.”
There’s a sudden pause. “…Did what?” Namjoon asks, confused.
Seokjin blinks at him. “Broke his heart?” he says, his tone lilting up in a question. “Left him feeling this way? You did listen to the lyrics of the song, right?”
There’s another pause, one that rings out a lot longer. “I…did,” Namjoon replies slowly. “That’s—um, yeah. So you think someone else did it.”
“Of course they did?” Seokjin replies. “What, do you think Yoongi wrote this song about the samgyupsal he ate for dinner the other week?”
“I—no, I just thought…” Namjoon trails off, then falls silent. His eyes flicker from Seokjin, to the laptop, and he almost looks like he’s about to smack his forehead in frustration.
Seokjin frowns at him. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks suspiciously. “Wait, no, nevermind. I don’t have the brain space for that. My priority right now is Yoongi.”
“Of course he is,” Namjoon mutters.
“I can’t believe he’s pining this bad, Namjoon,” Seokjin continues, heated. “To the point that he’s writing creepy songs about wanting to be someone’s girlfriend. That’s like. Levels of terrible I can’t even comprehend.”
“Right.”
“Like who wouldn’t even love Yoongi, anyway?” Seokjin asks rhetorically. “He’s like the best person ever. He should be cherished and loved and hugged and kissed like he deserves.” He pauses. “Whichever asshole it’s about, they’re a fucking idiot.”
“True,” Namjoon says. His tone is a little dry.
The worst part about this whole thing, Seokjin thinks, is the fact that it came completely out of left field. Seokjin’s always prided himself in being the perfect best friend to Yoongi, so much so that their relationship is basically a thing of dreams. They’ve been living together since their first year of uni and they’re now in their first year of graduate school; they always laugh together, eat together, play video games together. Whenever Yoongi wants to go to the cinema or go on a road trip, Seokjin’s always the first person he tells, and they sit together planning vacations and creating itineraries that they never really follow. They may not be as touchy-feely as Jimin and Taehyung, but that doesn’t mean their bond isn’t strong.
But apparently, he’s just been oblivious to Yoongi’s suffering and heartbreak.
Seokjin casts his mind back, trying to see if he’s maybe missed something somewhere. To Seokjin, he and Yoongi have been fine. Incredibly normal, even. They went out for gukbap and soju yesterday, and stayed up way too late drunkenly playing Mario Kart. Yoongi had even joined him for breakfast this morning, his eyes half-lidded as he chewed on the eggs Seokjin made. And when Seokjin wished him a see you later! as he was leaving for class, Yoongi had grunted in response, which meant that he was in a good mood. A good-mood-Yoongi is responsive. A bad-mood-Yoongi is terrifyingly quiet.
Seokjin looks at the laptop again, and his fingers move on their own accord to view the information about the file. Created July 28, 2023, it reads, which means that Yoongi wrote this song just last Friday. But Seokjin remembers seeing him last Friday, and he seemed fine. But then again, what does Seokjin know? Maybe Yoongi’s mad at him, and he’s just a much better actor than Seokjin thought he was.
“Do you think I did something wrong?” he asks Namjoon, who’s still sitting at their kitchen, now surreptitiously texting someone.
Namjoon looks up at him startled, and the way he locks his phone and slips it into his pocket makes it look like he’s up to no good. “I—why do you ask?”
Seokjin sighs. “It’s just…he didn’t tell me this,” he says. “He didn’t tell me what he was going through. And usually he tells me everything.” His shoulders curve inward, and he reaches out towards Namjoon’s laptop, dragging the playhead back and forth just for something to do. “I don’t know. Maybe he felt like he couldn’t trust me. Maybe I’ve been a bad best friend.”
Namjoon’s silent for a good few moments. “It’s not that,” he says. “Yoongi-hyung just has a lot on his mind. You know how he is.”
“Yeah, but…he still usually tells me everything,” Seokjin replies sullenly. It hurts more than he cares to admit, that there’s just this one, big aspect of Yoongi’s life—of Yoongi’s feelings—that Seokjin isn’t privy to. Even if they don’t really speak about their emotions that much, Yoongi tells Seokjin a lot. Tells him about his anxiety and his fears and his worries, tells him whenever the depression he’s constantly battling starts to rear its head. “I wonder…maybe I hurt him somehow?”
Namjoon just keeps looking at him. “Maybe,” he eventually says. He reaches forward; Seokjin lets him take the laptop back and watches him haphazardly pack it into his bag. “I don’t really know. But I think you should talk to Yoongi-hyung about it.”
“Will he tell me, though?”
“No idea,” Namjoon says. “Maybe. Possibly. He should, if he knows what’s good for him.”
Namjoon stands, hoisting the strap of his bag onto his shoulder. Seokjin walks him to the front door, his mind still running in circles, and he’s only snapped out of it when Namjoon accidentally trips over a pair of Yoongi’s slippers and sends the shoe rack toppling.
“What,” Seokjin begins, but he’s rendered speechless by the way Namjoon is suddenly looking at him, wide-eyed and slightly panicked.
“Oh, yeah, hyung,” he says. “If you do talk to Yoongi-hyung, would it be possible that you don’t actually mention to him I showed you his song?”
Seokjin blinks. “I won’t.”
Namjoon studies his expression for two heartbeats. Then, “Fuck,” he says, slinking out the front door, looking chagrined. “Yoongi-hyung’s going to kill me.”
Because Seokjin is a good friend (in general, not just to Yoongi), he does his best not to let slip that Namjoon showed him Yoongi’s devastating, albeit unhinged song. But because Yoongi is his best friend, and he knows Seokjin like the back of his hand, Seokjin only manages to last two minutes.
“Hello, Yoongi,” Seokjin says from the couch when Yoongi returns to their apartment after his classes. He’s doing his best to look casual, but even he knows he’s failing—he’s blinking a lot, and his spine, despite his best efforts, is ramrod straight, a trait his mother instilled that turned into a nervous tic. “Are you well?”
Yoongi pauses where he’s slipping off his shoes, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at Seokjin. “The fuck?” is his very eloquent reply. “What’s up with you?”
“I’ve been well, thank you very much for asking.” Yoongi’s still looking at him like he’s just grown a second head, so Seokjin clears his throat awkwardly, patting the cushion beside him in an invitation. “I just thought I would schedule some roommate time so we can talk about what’s been on our minds. You know, pressing concerns, all-encompassing thoughts, deep heartbreaks—whatever’s ailing your pretty little head.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes, but he dutifully makes his way to sit next to Seokjin. “I have one,” he begins, and Seokjin can’t stop himself from perking up. “I ate the mulhwe you brought home for your dinner last week.”
Seokjin deflates. “I already knew that,” he complains. “I didn’t eat it, and you’re my only roommate. Where else would it have gone?”
“Jungkook,” replies Yoongi, which is a fair point. “But, yeah, it was me. Sorry.”
Seokjin rolls his eyes. “You’re buying me another one.” He waits, but Yoongi doesn’t add to that. “Anything else?”
That makes Yoongi blink. “Uh, no…?” he hedges, tone lilting up at the end like a question. “What’s gotten into you? Why would you think my pretty little head’s ailing?”
Seokjin shrugs. “Heads do that sometimes, don’t they? They ail?
“I guess…?”
“Which is why I just wanted to check if everything’s good with you,” Seokjin continues. “You know, because maybe you’ve had some sad and unhinged thoughts lately, and maybe you’ve been taking it out on your songs, and—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Yoongi interrupts. He’s still blinking at Seokjin like absolute nonsense is coming out of his mouth. “I’ve been fine, hyung. Why would you think I’d be—” A thought seems to occur to him because Yoongi stops abruptly. His eyes narrow, assessing, and they dart from Seokjin, to the kitchen, to the entrance hallway, where the shoe rack sits a little lopsided because Seokjin had been unable to get it back to its original state.
“Was Kim Namjoon here?” he asks Seokjin. His tone is pissed.
Seokjin deflects. “Well, he’s always here,” he replies. “So is Hobi. So are Jungkook and Taehyung and Jimin. I hate to inform you, Yoongi, but our friends have this weird notion that our apartment is a public space they’re allowed to barge in and out of.”
Yoongi pins him with a sharp glare. Seokjin shrinks back at how menacing it is, Yoongi’s normally sharp face made even sharper with anger. He looks unforgiving. Less kitten, and more feral cat.
“Did he show you something when he came over?”
“I mean, he didn’t really show it to me, you know?” Seokjin replies weakly. “He came over and upended his bag and his laptop just kinda fell out and landed on our kitchen table, and then before I knew it, this really devastating and slightly unhinged song started playing.”
“That fucking snitch,” Yoongi hisses. “I sent him that song so he could give me feedback.”
“You know, maybe it wasn’t even the same song,” Seokjin rambles on. “I heard AI can do that now, where they replicate voices in songs. Maybe Namjoon wrote that unhinged song and was just experimenting with AI. Taking his intelligence and making it artificial, or something. Because I don’t believe for a second you’d sing about wanting to kiss some guy’s girlfriend so you could taste that guy’s lips.”
This time, Yoongi’s expression falls minutely. “Fuck,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I’ll kill him, this time. I really will.”
He looks resigned and a little bit sad at the thought of Namjoon having to die. Seokjin’s heart sympathizes with him, but he finds he can’t really focus on that right now. “Kinda sounds like you’re admitting to it, Yoongi,” he says, his voice getting higher.
Seokjin doesn’t know why his voice is getting higher.
Yoongi gives him a sidelong glance, one that feels a touch loaded. “Yeah,” he replies. “Whatever.”
And Seokjin’s heart does a little flip, then settles uneasily back into his body. “So…you really did sing about wanting to kiss some guy’s girlfriend?”
“I guess.” Yoongi already looks done with this conversation. “Don’t make it weird, hyung.”
“I’m not,” Seokjin says, even though privately, he thinks that things are already a little bit weird. “I guess I’m just wondering…why?”
Yoongi shrugs. “It’s about the yearning,” he answers. Seokjin opens his mouth to press some more, but Yoongi cuts him off. “Look, hyung, it’s nothing. I guess I watched a movie and was a little inspired by it and I wanted to try something new.”
“Something new?”
“Yeah, like—” Yoongi blows out a breath. “I don’t know, it was just this headspace I’d gotten into and I wanted to see where it led. What I could make of it.” Yoongi does this a lot, talks about his creative process like it’s something he can’t help but succumb to. It’s fascinating to Seokjin because he’s never felt that way about anything except maybe video games, but sometimes it does worry him, because unlike video games, Yoongi’s mind has the tendency to take him down to very deep, very dark places—places where everything is meaningless and the outcome is bleak.
“And what you made of it was…you want to be someone’s girlfriend so that someone would love you instead.”
Yoongi cracks a half-smile, but for some reason, Seokjin feels like it isn’t sincere. “It’s about the yearning,” he repeats. “Don’t read too much into it, hyung. It’s fine. I’m fine. And we’re fine, because I know for a fact that you got it into your head that there was something wrong between us because I didn't tell you about my unhinged song.”
Seokjin feels caught. “Well,” he scrambles, “I’m your eternal roommate, Yoongi. You know that I should be present for whenever you do anything unhinged. That’s like, the first tenet of roommatism.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Yoongi replies dryly. There’s a beat where it kind of seems like Yoongi’s about to say more, a look in his eyes that Seokjin wants to dissect like some kind of mad scientist. But he evidently thinks better of it, deflating slightly and pushing himself to his feet. “But yeah, it’s all good,” he says.
Then he claps Seokjin on the shoulder and picks up his bag, heading off to his bedroom and shutting the door firmly behind him.
Despite that, the whole thing still doesn’t sit right with Seokjin.
One thing that Seokjin’s learned after knowing Yoongi for so long is that if he doesn’t want to talk about it, he really doesn’t want to talk about it, and he’ll do anything and everything to dodge the conversation. It’s why it’s so frustrating to deal with him sometimes; he never wants to talk about things, and if Seokjin’s being honest, he too doesn’t want to talk about things, which means that it’s highly possible for the both of them to just exist beautifully in Not-Talking-About-Things harmony. Hoseok and Namjoon have told them repeatedly that it isn’t healthy or mature for them to be acting like this, which is why Seokjin, being the older one, is out here trying his best.
But Yoongi is stubborn on good days and a downright pain in the ass on bad ones, and after three more times shooting down Seokjin’s attempts to talk about it, Seokjin decides to do what any self-respecting man would:
He talks to his girlfriend about it.
“He doesn’t seem to be sad,” Jieun says, after Seokjin unloads all of this onto her. “I mean, I saw him at class earlier and he seemed just as happy as he always is.”
“By which you mean he zoned out while the professor was lecturing and only grunted in reply when you talked to him.”
“Exactly.”
Jieun was Yoongi’s friend before she became Seokjin’s girlfriend. She and Yoongi had met during music theory class in their last year because they’d ended up sitting next to each other in the lecture hall. Seokjin still vividly remembers Yoongi coming home and telling him about her—she’s hilarious, hyung, and when she sings, she sounds like an actual angel—so giddy and excited that Seokjin felt something uncomfortable lodge in his chest.
I hope you’re not replacing me with her, he’d teased back then, if just to offset the sudden weirdness he’d felt.
Haha, hyung, Yoongi had replied, eyes glimmering. I would never.
Seokjin got the chance to meet her the next week, when Yoongi invited him to join them for lunch after class. She’d been sitting at the table waiting for them to arrive, her nose buried in a paperback, and the first thing that Seokjin thought was, oh, of course she’s pretty.
She was exactly as Yoongi described; polite, but with a wit and a sense of humor that made it so easy for her to keep up with them. Seokjin had enjoyed their lunch together, enjoyed talking to her, and he’d still been thinking about it after he and Yoongi went home that evening, the early fall air cool on their faces.
He hadn’t expected it to develop into something more, but then the next week she’d randomly turned up at his usual coffee shop, and Seokjin invited her to share a table with him. The conversation had flowed easily, they’d exchanged numbers, and Seokjin had the weird feeling that maybe, just maybe, this might be perfect.
“I mean, that doesn’t really tell us anything, does it?” Seokjin asks. “On any other person, that would be noted as signs of someone having a bad day.”
“But he’s not any other person, is he?” Jieun asks. “He’s Yoongi. He’s never really been very expressive.”
“True.” A thought occurs to him. “Unless, he is normally very expressive but then something happened in his past that made him all sad and moody and we met him when he was already sad and moody which is why we think this is his normal state of being but really he’s sad and has been crying out for help for the past five years?”
Jieun blinks at him. And then blinks again. “I don’t think so,” she eventually replies.
“God.” Seokjin slinks down further on Jieun’s couch, doing his best not to pout. “Min Yoongi, why are you such a hard man to read?”
Jieun pats his leg. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she tells him, reassuringly. “Worst case scenario is that he had an unrequited crush that just didn’t work out. Have you noticed if he’s been going out more lately?”
“Going out?”
“Like, on dates and stuff,” she elaborates. “I mean, the movie he watched probably just inspired him to scale up the emotions he already had. So maybe he was sort of seeing someone, but then it fizzled out, then he watched the movie and took what feelings he had and amplified it by a hundred.”
“Maybe,” Seokjin replies sullenly. The idea of Yoongi liking someone and going out on dates makes him feel weird. Kind of like his stomach’s being pumped full of air until it’s five times the size of his torso and pushing all his other organs to the side. “But I don’t think so. He would’ve told me, I think.”
“You think so?”
Seokjin swallows. “Yeah,” he says, even though he isn’t sure anymore. If you’d asked him this a few days ago, he would’ve puffed out his chest and answered, of course! all confidently, certain of the dynamics of their friendship and where they stood in relation to each other. But then Yoongi had gone and written a song filled with all this yearning, and he didn’t tell Seokjin about it, and Seokjin’s just—
He’s just been feeling ill-at-ease about this whole thing.
Once again, he thinks back, trying to see if he’s somehow missed something that could have possibly caused all this. Yoongi wrote the song last Friday. The 28th of July. Last Friday, he and Seokjin had breakfast together at a little cafe down the street, then studied together until a little after lunch, which was when Seokjin had to run to a meeting with his dissertation advisor. They met up again back at home and got ready, then took the subway together to the Korean barbecue restaurant they were supposed to meet their friends and Jieun at. They had a great time eating and laughing and drinking, then when the night was over, Seokjin took Jieun back to her dorm while Yoongi headed back home. Or so he’d thought; Seokjin was supposed to stay over at Jieun’s that night but he’d changed his mind last minute, and when he’d keyed open the door to their apartment later that night, Yoongi was nowhere to be found.
But he’d been there the next morning, standing soft and groggy in the middle of the kitchen, pouting slightly as he coaxed their old espresso machine to life. Seokjin had watched him for a few, quiet moments before he’d made his presence known. Yoongi had turned to him with a small half-smile. And though Seokjin wasn’t worried about his whereabouts, he’d still felt something in his chest unclench, like a tight knot loosening at the sight of him.
Jieun must see something on his face because she scoots closer, flicks him gently in the forehead. Seokjin wants to act affronted, but her expression is so genuinely sweet that Seokjin's anger immediately dissipates.
“Hey,” Jieun says. “Look. I’m sure it’s nothing. Don’t overthink it.”
Seokjin sighs. “You think so?”
“I know so,” replies Jieun. “He’s just being Yoongi about things. As always.”
There’s a certain way she’s looking at him, kind of like she wants him to reach out and touch her, or maybe put his arms around her. So Seokjin does, pulling her close to him and toppling over so that she’s sprawled on his chest. The action makes her giggle, her laugh sounding like little bells tinkling.
Seokjin smiles up at her, reaching up to push her hair back from her face. “You’re so beautiful,” he tells her.
A slight pink dusts against her cheeks. “Thank you,” she replies.
Her body is small and lithe against him, and when she smiles at him, it’s tinged with a little shyness. It’s only been six months since they started dating, and most days, they’re still so tentative with each other—fragile, like any small thing could shatter what they have. But it’s good, Seokjin tells himself firmly as she leans down to kiss him. What they have between them is a good thing.
Jieun pulls away, then kisses him again softly. “Hey,” she murmurs. “Really. He’s fine. Did you try asking any of your friends if he mentioned anything?”
Seokjin pulls away. “No,” he says. “Should I?”
“You could,” Jieun answers. “Maybe they know something.”
For a moment, Seokjin’s struck with the overwhelming impulse to pout again, upset at the notion of their other friends knowing more about Yoongi than he does. He forces himself to ignore it, does his best to turn his attention onto other things—to Jieun, lying on top of him, her skin warm in all the places they’re touching, to the way he’s already reacting to her proximity.
“Yeah,” Seokjin says. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Of course I am.” She grins at him, equal parts lovely and mischievous, then leans down to kiss him once more, slipping her tongue into his mouth. Seokjin tightens his grip on her waist, closes his eyes, and loses himself in the smell of her perfume.
“So,” Seokjin begins a few days later, when he drops into the seat across Hoseok. “What’s up with Yoongi?”
Hoseok takes his sweet, sweet time replying, letting his eyes drift shut as he takes what is probably the Guinness World Record for Longest Sip of Iced Coffee Ever. “The polite question to ask,” he says when he finishes, “is not ‘What’s up with Yoongi?’ but rather, ‘What’s up with you?’ He takes another long sip. “If anything, I should be asking you what’s up with Yoongi, since you’re the one who lives with him.”
“Yeah, but he’s being weird lately,” Seokjin complains, slinking further down into his seat.
Hoseok raises an eyebrow. “How so?”
That’s a great question. “I don’t know, just…weird,” Seokjin replies vaguely. “It’s not so much an action as it is a sensation. An innate roommate feeling-sharing. A connection that Yoongi and I have.”
There’s a pause. “O…kay,” Hoseok replies, confused. “So you think Yoongi’s being weird based on…vibes?”
“It’s more than just vibes,” Seokjin insists. “It’s…he wrote a song, Hobi.”
“Yeah, like he normally does.”
“And it was sad.”
“Yeah, like they normally are,” Hoseok replies. “Seriously, I’m not getting the point.”
Seokjin glares at him. “You didn’t hear it,” he says. “He sang about wanting to grow his hair so it’s the same style as some random guy’s girlfriend’s and walk around in front of him so that he could feel the warmth of this guy’s gaze on him.”
Hoseok’s eyebrows climb higher on his forehead. “Okay, now you’re over-exaggerating,” he says.
Seokjin lets out an irritated sigh. “The point is that he’s pining,” he says. “He’s in unrequited love with somebody with a girlfriend and it’s tearing his heart into pieces.”
Hoseok doesn’t smile, but there’s something about the way his lips suddenly twitch that makes him look like a cat that got the canary. “Right,” he replies. He gives Seokjin a pointed look. “And is this somebody with a girlfriend in the room with us right now?”
“I feel like you’re making fun of me,” Seokjin tells him, “and you know I don’t like being made fun of.”
“I’m not,” Hoseok says. “What?”
“I just don’t understand,” Seokjin continues, folding his arms on the table and resting his head against them. “I’m his best friend. I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell me.”
“Simple,” Hoseok volunteers. “It’s because he didn’t want you to know.”
Seokjin musters up his best stink eye. “I’m unfriending you on Instagram.”
“It’s unfollowing, not unfriending. This isn’t Facebook.”
“God.” Seokjin wallows for a few more moments, mind running in circles as he stays dramatically hunched over the table. Hoseok ignores him until he’s unable to; when he lets out a quiet sigh, Seokjin can hear the acquiescence in it.
“Fine,” Hoseok says. “Fine. I’ll help.”
Seokjin perks up immediately.
Hoseok shakes his head and taps on his chin thoughtfully. “Let’s start at the beginning,” he says. “Assuming he hasn’t been weird forever, when did you first notice that he was acting strange?”
“July 28, 2023,” Seokjin promptly replies.
Hoseok stares at him like he’s just sprouted two more heads. “What?” Seokjin asks self-consciously, feeling his ears heat up. “I saw it on the—on the thing. On the song file. It was called angry.mp3 and he wrote it on July 28, 2023. Last Friday.”
“Right,” Hoseok says, sounding off. “And did something happen last Friday?”
“Nothing,” Seokjin replies. “We hung out. We went to class. We had a barbecue dinner with you and Namjoon and the maknaes and Jieunie. Yoongi laughed a lot.”
It’s one of his more vivid memories of the evening—Yoongi, flushed pink with alcohol, laughing so hard his eyes had turned into slits. It had been a striking sight even despite the dimness of the restaurant, and Seokjin couldn’t help but watch him, feeling his own smile creep up his face.
“And then he went home and wrote an unhinged song,” Hoseok finishes.
Seokjin scrunches up his face at that. “Well, he went somewhere,” he corrects. “When I came home that night, he wasn’t there.”
There’s a flash of realization on Hoseok’s face. “Oh.”
Seokjin narrows his eyes. “Oh, what?”
“Oh…biwan Kenobi, you’re my only hope,” Hoseok finishes. Terribly, if Seokjin may add. “I just saw Star Trek with Taehyung the other day and I thought that line was cool.”
It’s Star Wars, but Seokjin has more important things to focus on than Hoseok and his (lack of) sci-fi knowledge.
“You know something,” he says as menacingly as he can. Hoseok has always been a shit liar. “You know something and you’re not telling me.”
“I don’t know anything,” Hoseok lies. “Really.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I don’t.”
“Hobi,” Seokjin says. “Please. Just tell me.”
Hoseok shakes his head. “It’s not for me to tell,” he says. “I’m no snitch, hyung. Either Yoongi tells you himself or you figure it out on your own.”
Fuck Hoseok. Truly. See if Seokjin ever helps him again.
“Besides,” continues Hoseok, “why are you so fixated about this anyway?”
“Because…because it’s Yoongi,” Seokjin replies. “My best friend.”
Hoseok blinks expectantly.“Yeah, and?”
“I don’t…I don’t like it when my best friend is hurting,” Seokjin manages to sputter out. “And I especially don’t like that he was hurting and didn’t tell me about it. Mine and Yoongi’s relationship is perfect, Hobi. Or well, it should be perfect.”
Hoseok stares at him unnervingly for a few moments. “You know,” he says, “sometimes I’m not sure if you’re really dumb or you’re just pretending.”
“You’re making fun of me again,” Seokjin says. “I won’t just unfollow you on Instagram—I’ll block you.”
“Do it,” Hoseok says challengingly. “I’ll have ten thousand four hundred and eighty-one followers left. I wouldn’t even feel the loss.”
Damn it. Seokjin sighs, slumping down in his chair in defeat. Hoseok leans over to pat him on the back of his hand.
“If it helps, I believe in you,” he says, sweetly encouraging. Seokjin would feel touched if he wasn’t on the verge of going around the table and strangling him to death. “You’re smart. You can figure all this out.”
“Thanks,” Seokjin mutters, and pulls himself to his feet and heads to the counter to order a coffee.
Whenever the maknaes drop by his and Yoongi’s apartment, it’s always a hurricane of unrestrained chaos. First of all, they don’t even call, or knock—keying in the code like they own the place. Second of all, they head straight to the kitchen, rummaging through the snacks and side dishes he and Yoongi keep so painstakingly neat. And third of all, they all want his attention for a variety of things: Jimin wants to cuddle, Taehyung wants food made, and Jungkook wants to play-fight.
Normally, he and Yoongi are able to corral them into some sense of order—a domestic tag team they’d manage to get down to a science: Yoongi cooks, while Seokjin entertains. But Yoongi isn’t here today, off doing God-knows-what (writing more unhinged songs, a small part of his brain supplies), so Seokjin is left to deal with three hyperactive, rambunctious college kids by himself.
“Seokjin-hyung,” Taehyung whines, shoving Jimin’s arm off Seokjin’s shoulder and doing his best to hoist Seokjin to his feet and pull him away from his gaming. “Hyung, please. I haven’t eaten in days and I’m starving.”
“That’s a lie, he’s lying,” Jungkook pipes up. “He ate half of my bibimbap earlier.” He reaches over and tickles Taehyung’s side.
Taehyung rolls his eyes, squirming away. “Do you want food made or not?” he asks Jungkook pointedly.
Jungkook raises both his hands like he’s been caught. “I’m just saying,” he says, and then randomly reaches over to deliver a neck chop to Seokjin.
Seokjin sighs, already so done with everything. He hasn’t even managed to make any meaningful progress on his video game since they arrived, his Mario running around in circles for the last ten minutes. “I’m not in the mood for this,” he mutters out loud, and tries to scoot away and dislodge himself from Jimin.
It’s the wrong thing to say—there’s a gasp, and immediately, he’s descended upon by three concerned puppy children. Jimin squeezes him tighter, Taehyung attaches himself to Seokjin’s other side, and Jungkook, ever the brat, decides to flop down on top of all of them.
So much for that.
“Ow—hey, hey,” Seokjin complains, freeing the arm holding his controller from the pile. Jungkook unceremoniously takes it and sets it on the coffee table. “I was using that—fuck, Jimin, your elbow is injuring my kidney.”
“Sorry,” Jimin replies, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all.
It takes a bit of shuffling and wriggling, but eventually Seokjin ends up in a puppy pile that’s somewhat manageably comfortable. He leans his head back against the armrest of the couch, stares despondently at the ceiling.
“I should never have adopted you three.”
He gets ignored. “So,” Jimin begins, always the proactive one, “what’s got our most favoritest, handsomest hyung all sad?”
Despite it all, Seokjin feels himself crack a smile. “That’s a lie, I know Hobi is your favorite hyung.”
“You’re all our favorite hyungs,” Jungkook replies, eyes going big and round in that earnest way of his. “You and Yoongi-hyung and Hobi-hyung and Namjoon-hyung.”
“Then that defeats the point of having a favorite,” Seokjin replies. “A favorite implies someone that’s preferred above all others.”
Taehyung pinches him lightly on the side. “You’re deflecting,” he says. “Don’t deflect.”
Seokjin lets out an irritated sigh. “I’m not deflecting,” he says. “I’m just…trying to talk about other things. How are your classes going, Taehyung?”
“Terribly,” Taehyung replies. “You know I hate school.” Which is clearly a lie, because Taehyung actually does pretty well in school, with his natural smarts and good study habits he learned from Namjoon and Jimin. “But seriously, don’t change the subject. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Seokjin replies. At Jimin’s skeptical look, he doubles down. “Nothing! In fact, you should be asking Yoongi why he’s sad.”
Jimin’s skeptical look turns quizzical. “Why would I do that?”
Seokjin blinks. “Because he’s sad?”
Jimin blinks back. “Is he?”
“Yes?”
“Huh,” Taehyung speaks up, his brow furrowing in thought. “He doesn’t seem sad?”
“When’s the last time you even saw him?” Seokjin counters.
“Yesterday,” Taehyung replies easily. “He and Jimin were drinking and trying to do that TikTok challenge. Really badly, I might add.” He wriggles around so he can dig his hand into his pocket. “I think I have a video, actually.”
Seokjin cranes his head, curious. “Ooh, can I see?” he asks, a little too gleeful.
“Later.” It’s Jimin who speaks, and he manages to maneuver himself so he’s able to pull Taehyung’s phone out of his hand before he can hand it to Seokjin. “Don’t distract him, Taehyung. But yeah, he seemed pretty normal when we saw him yesterday. Same old Yoongi-hyung.”
Seokjin raises both eyebrows. “Then maybe you just don’t know him as well as I do,” he replies. “I know for a fact he’s been sad. Since July 28, 2023, even.”
Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook look at him with matching weird expressions. Seokjin feels himself flush at the combined attention. “What?”
“How do you even know that?” Jimin asks. “Like, just off the top of your head like that?”
“Yoongi and I share a telepathic roommate connection that transcends time and space—ow, Jungkook,” Seokjin whines when Jungkook somehow manages to dig his elbow into the soft part of Seokjin’s stomach. “Fine. Fine. Namjoon showed me a song he wrote on that day, okay? That’s how I know.”
“And the song was…?”
“Sad, very sad,” Seokjin quips. “Incredibly sad, even, to the point that he sounded unhinged. His lyrics were about wanting to crawl into some guy’s girlfriend and wear her skin like a coat so that he could feel just a flicker of the want he has for her.”
There’s a long pause, one that rings out in the quiet of the living room. And then Taehyung has the audacity to giggle.
Fucking giggle.
“You don’t,” he begins, his words broken up by quiet huffs of laughter. “You don’t actually mean that, do you?”
Seokjin does his absolute best to pinch him. “You’re laughing,” he says dourly. “Yoongi, my best friend in the whole wide world, is pining over some straight guy with a girlfriend and you’re laughing.”
“Of course he is,” Taehyung says, still giggling. Somehow, something in his tone makes Jimin laugh too, tucking his head into Seokjin’s shoulder to stifle his laughter.
Jungkook is the only one who actually looks worried. “Oh no,” he says, his eyes getting that glassy quality to them.
See, this is exactly why despite his brattiness, Jungkook is decidedly Seokijn’s favorite. “I’m glad someone understands my plight,” Seokjin says, freeing a hand so he can pet Jungkook on the head. Jimin and Taehyung pay him no mind; they just keep giggling to themselves, letting their laughter taper down, catching each other’s eye, and then sending each other into renewed fits of laughter.
“I really don’t know what’s so funny,” Seokjin says.
“Nothing, it’s nothing, I swear.” Jimin bites his lower lip, clearly doing his best to stop. “It’s just…you’re both so dramatic.”
“I’ll have you know,” Seokjin begins ranting, “that if anyone is dramatic here, it’s Yoongi. As his roommate and best friend, I am simply worried for his well-being.”
“Sure you are,” Taehyung says, and then he and Jimin burst into another fit of laughter.
“Ignore them,” Jungkook says. “They’re just being silly.” He cocks his head in thought. “July 28, 2023…that was last Friday, wasn’t it? What do you think happened?”
Seokjin shrugs—or tries to, with three fully grown men lying on top of him. “Beats me,” he says. “That was the day we all went for dinner with Jieunie.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jungkook replies. He frowns. “Yoongi-hyung seemed fine that day.”
Seokjin sighs. “I know. It’s why this whole thing is so weird. It just doesn’t seem like anything even happened.”
“Huh.” Jungkook looks to be thinking, like really thinking—his brow furrowed and his eyes getting that distant quality to them.
“I mean, why are you taking this to heart, hyung?” Jimin asks. “I mean, you’ve presumably asked Yoongi-hyung about it, right?” When Seokjin nods, he continues. “So if he says he’s fine, then he should be fine. Case closed.”
Seokjin sighs. “You just don’t get it.”
Jimin raises an eyebrow that’s almost challenging. “Do I not?” he asks.
He’s looking at Seokjin a certain way—his expression reminiscent of Namjoon’s Look, like he’s waiting for Seokjin to catch up to a foregone conclusion. Seokjin feels lost, feels disoriented; feels like someone put his brain in a box and just shook it around.
Seokjin looks away first, because he’s never really been good with eye contact. “Get off me,” he says, rather than answer that. “I’m starting to not feel my legs anymore, and I don’t want them amputated any time soon.”
Jimin and Taehyung scramble up immediately, grabbing Seokjin’s controller from the coffee table and unceremoniously quitting his game. Truly demons, the both of them. Jungkook, the good boy that he is, gets up but stays close, pulling out his phone from his pocket.
“Do you want me to ask Yoongi-hyung?” he asks, holding out his phone in offering. “Maybe he’ll tell me.”
Seokjin feels his heart soften. “No, it’s okay, Jungkook,” he says. “It’s not that important.”
Jungkook hums in response, leaning his head against Seokjin’s shoulder. Seokjin reaches up to pat his hair.
Jungkook opens TikTok while Seokjin watches Jimin and Taehyung start a round of Mario Kart, playfully bickering with each other as they ready up. The bickering only increases in volume when the light turns green and they’re off, battling the CPUs and each other in their attempt to get first place. In that time, Jungkook finds a trending TikTok song, and watches all the dance challenges associated with it. It’s loud, but Seokjin welcomes the chaos, metaphorically crawls into that subliminal space, tucked between all the sound waves and the still air.
Yoongi had been happy that evening. Truly happy—his eyes had glimmered under the harsh fluorescents, and he’d kept making jokes, well-placed dry comments that sent the entire table laughing. Not for the first time, Seokjin turns that moment around in his mind, scrutinizes each second under a microscope, trying to pinpoint a sign of the darkness he just knows hides behind it.
The truth is, Seokjin also isn’t quite sure why he’s so fixated on this. It just…feels like the right thing to be. Fixated, that is—like he needs to understand the inner workings of Yoongi’s mind or die trying.
Taehyung takes first place on the first lap, much to Jimin’s numerous complaints. Jungkook seems to get bored with TikTok and opens Instagram instead, mindlessly clicking through stories like he’s in a personal competition as to how many stories he can watch in one minute. Seokjin catches sight of three different paintings at the museum, a cute photo of Yeontan, a video of Hoseok freestyling, and a photo of a dark studio, familiar enough that it gives Seokjin pause.
Pay attention, a small voice in his subconscious urges.
Sure enough, it takes three more clicks before Seokjin realizes why. The photo Jungkook settles on is one taken in a brightly lit room, pastel yellow and blue cat-themed accents lining the walls. It’s a photo of a table—two iced drinks on the surface, condensation beading the side of the cups. There’s a small kitten in between the drinks, staring blankly at the camera like it doesn’t understand what’s happening. But the thing that catches Seokjin’s attention are the hands holding it—large, with wide palms and long fingers, the gentleness of them evident even through the still of the photo.
Yoongi’s hands.
Yoongi’s always had quite nice hands, Seokjin thinks absently. It had been one of the first things he noticed when they’d first started living together; the breadth of Yoongi’s palm, the veins slightly jutting out the back of his hand. The ridges, the callouses on them, symbols of hard work and skill. He’d always handled everything with such grace and such certainty, whether he was putting together parts for a new coffee table, sautéing vegetables for dinner, or when he’d had them wrapped around—
Jungkook gasps all of a sudden, loud and startling. “Look, hyung,” he says, thrusting his phone in front of Seokjin’s face. “It’s Yoongi-hyung.”
Seokjin blinks at the screen, blinks all of his thoughts away. “How do you know?” he asks, trying to pretend that he hadn’t come to that conclusion five seconds ago. “How can you identify him from just his hands? That’s like, a weird thing for you to know, Jungkook. Haha.”
Jungkook pays no heed to his words. “Oh, he’s at a cat cafe,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. “Oh! He’s with Yijeong-hyung!”
“Yijeong-hyung?” The name rings a bell, but Seokjin can’t seem to place it. “Who’s that?”
“Jang Yijeong.” Surprisingly, it’s Jimin who responds, even though his eyes are still glued to Seokjin’s TV. “He’s from Yoongi-hyung’s music production classes. They hang out a lot.”
“They do?” The discomfort he’d felt earlier returns with a vengeance, visceral and biting. “Why have I never heard of him?”
Jimin shrugs. “Dunno,” he says, noncommittal. “Either you forgot or Yoongi-hyung just never told you. He always talks about Yijeong-hyung. They write lots of music together.”
Some misplaced part of Seokjin blusters, urges him to yell but I always listen to Yoongi! He refrains, because he doesn’t think it would mean much to Jimin, who’s clearly oscillating between dry responses and cracking jokes at his expense.
“I see,” he says instead, curling a little into himself. What about all this, he thinks, makes him feel this way?
Jungkook, however, scrambles upright so quickly and stares at Seokjin with wide eyes. “That’s it!” he says. “Hyung, you said that Yoongi-hyung wrote a song last Friday?”
“Yeah.”
“Then he most probably wrote it with Yijeong-hyung,” Jungkook concludes. “Which means that Yijeong-hyung probably knows what’s going on with Yoongi.”
“Oh.” It does make sense, but that doesn’t mean Seokjin likes it. In fact, quite the opposite; he’d rather it didn’t make sense, enough that he can laugh and shoot down the idea and stay rooted in his belief that there’s no one else who knows more about Yoongi than he does.
It’s just—Yoongi tells him everything. Everything. Even when he isn’t talking, he’s still telling Seokjin things; Seokjin’s learned to read him from the slightest of microexpressions, from his quiet little hums and grunts.
But then there’s this Jang Yijeong, who knows something that Seokjin doesn’t. Who has insight to the one Yoongi event that Seokjin’s been unceremoniously locked out of. His only lead.
Seokjin doesn’t like it, but if he wants to get to the bottom of this, he needs to talk to Yijeong.
Seokjin lets out a sigh. “Alright then,” he says a little sullenly. Three heads turn to look at him. “Which one of you can introduce me to Jang Yijeong?”
It turns out, Jang Yijeong is a mystery. A veritable enigma. Jimin and Taehyung don’t know him, Jieun’s never met him, and Namjoon and Hoseok either don’t know him, or don’t want Seokjin to know him.
The only person who’s met him is Jungkook, who looks terrified at the prospect of introducing Seokjin to him.
“I—I mean, Yijeong-hyung isn’t really my friend, you know?” he says, eyes darting around. “He’s really just Yoongi-hyung’s friend. I just meet him whenever Yoongi-hyung asks me to drop by the studio and record a demo for him.”
“But you have him on Instagram.”
Jungkook wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, but I followed him first and maybe he just followed me back to be polite? I don’t know.”
The point is, none of his friends or girlfriend are helpful. So Seokjin turns to the only person left: Min Yoongi himself.
“So,” Seokjin begins, slipping into the seat across from Yoongi. He rests his chin on his palm, while his other hand drums patterns on the kitchen table. “Any cool music friends you want to introduce me to?”
Yoongi looks up from where he’d been focused working on his laptop, his hand pausing as he squints at Seokjin. “That’s…a weird question to ask,” he replies. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?”
“Can’t a man be very emotionally invested in the people his best friend hangs out with?”
“No,” Yoongi says. “A man may not.” And he picks up his noise-canceling headphones from where they’d been hanging around his neck and slips them over his ears.
“But Yoongi,” Seokjin whines, folding his arms on the table and resting his face on them. He blinks up at Yoongi with his best puppy eyes, and Yoongi either doesn’t notice, or pretends not to. “We’re eternal roommates! We forged a pact in blood! Tu casa, mi casa. Tu friends, mi friends. Comprendo?”
Yoongi just stares at him. “Is that Spanish?” he asks. “Your Spanish is shit.”
“It’s the point of the thing,” Seokjin defends. “And the point is that you’re gatekeeping your super cool music friends from me. What happened to hyung, you know I love you, right? You know I’ll do anything for you, right?”
Seokjin sees the flush violently spread on Yoongi’s cheeks. “Stop,” he hisses, pulling his headphones off. “Will you ever let that go?”
“No, because drunk Yoongi-chi is just so cute. You were all red and squishable; I was about ready to eat you up.”
Yoongi gives him a look. “Sometimes, I’m not sure if you’re fucking with me or not,” he says.
“Why would I be doing that?”
“No idea,” Yoongi replies, even though the expression on his face tells Seokjin he knows exactly why. He lets out a loud sigh, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Just—why are you suddenly so interested in meeting my music friends?”
Because I need to meet the man who knows more about you than I do, Seokjin pointedly does not say. Instead, he pitches his voice louder, makes himself as obnoxious as possible. “Because!” he declares. “What if I give up on acting and decide to go into music? I need to have connections in the music industry for that!”
The expression on Yoongi’s face tells Seokjin that he either doesn’t know what Seokjin is blabbing about, or that he does and is plotting his demise for it. “Well, you already know Jieun.”
“Jieun is only one person,” Seokjin says. “I need plenty more connections in order to thrive.”
“Right,” Yoongi says dryly. “And pray tell, when did this sudden passion for music start?”
“Bold of you to assume I haven’t always been passionate about music,” Seokjin says. “You don’t know me, Yoongi. I’m mysterious and unpredictable.”
“Hyung, last week you listened to a Harry Styles song and thought it was Ed Sheeran.”
“Is it my fault they make the same type of music?” Seokjin argues.
“Oh, of course,” Yoongi says sarcastically. “My apologies. Harry Styles’ Watermelon Sugar definitely sounds like Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud. I hear it now.”
Seokjin rolls his eyes and reaches over to slap Yoongi on the hand. Yoongi slaps him right back, just as he’d expected.
For a moment they just stare at each other expectantly, waiting. And then Yoongi deflates and sighs, shaking his head. “It’s still a no,” he says.
“But what if I said please?”
“Then I say no to your please. Like, what would even be the reason for me to introduce you to them?”
“I’m funny, handsome, and in the market for a talented producer to produce my future number one K-pop album.”
That clearly startles a laugh out of Yoongi, although he very nearly manages to pass it off as a sigh of irritation. “Still a no,” he says. “And that’s final.”
And because Seokjin can recognize when he’s lost, he replies, “You’re final,” like the mature person he is, and escapes to his room to plan out his next move.
Clearly, asking outright doesn’t work. Which is why Seokjin decides the next best thing to do is to make his presence in Yoongi’s life so unavoidable that it’s inevitable that he’ll run into some of Yoongi’s music friends and, eventually, Jang Yijeong.
“I’m walking you to class,” Seokjin tells Yoongi, emerging from his bedroom the next morning at eight-fifty am.
“No, the fuck, you’re not,” Yoongi throws back from where he’s standing by their front door, precariously balanced on one leg as he tries to slip on his shoes.
“Yes, the fuck, I am,” Seokjin counters. He grabs his jacket from the hook, checks that he has his wallet and his phone in his pocket. “It’s a free country. I can do whatever I want.”
Yoongi groans, running an irritated hand through his hair. The action causes his hair to fluff up, and Seokjin instinctively reaches out to pat it down.
“No, you’re not,” Yoongi repeats, batting his hands away. He grabs his snapback and slips it onto his head. “Go back to sleep, hyung. You don’t have class until after lunch.”
“Too late, I’m wide awake.” Seokjin resolutely doesn’t mention the fact that he’d set his alarm to seven in the morning, and spent about two hours sitting by his bedroom door, timing his emergence so that Yoongi would be unable to refuse. “The only way I’m going back to sleep is if you sing to me, Yoongi. Nothing else.”
Yoongi crosses his arms, stares at him with an expression that can only be described as So Fucking Done. “I don’t have time for this,” he says.
“Then don’t argue,” Seokjin replies. “You’ll be late to class if you do.”
Yoongi gives him a glare, before pulling his own jacket off the hook and yanking the front door open. “If you walk slow I’m leaving you behind,” he says.
Success. Seokjin tries to stop the smug grin from spreading across his face, but judging from the look Yoongi gives him, he’s sure he fails. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m a fast walker.”
Yoongi immediately sets an unforgiving pace, as if he’s trying to leave Seokjin behind. But Seokjin’s able to catch up, easily finding his rhythm and falling into step next to Yoongi.
The five-minute walk to campus is quiet, broken only by the early morning chirping of the birds and the sound of their footsteps. Yoongi, Seokjin notes, still looks a little sleepy—yawning and snuffling a few times throughout the journey. By the time they make it to his classroom, he looks more awake, but only marginally—eyes blinking a few times as he stares at Seokjin. Seokjin makes a mental note to buy him a coffee for after class.
Yoongi hesitates for a few moments, as if he’s trying to find his words. Seokjin waits patiently, his most unassuming smile in place.
“Thanks,” Yoongi eventually says, his voice gruff. He clears his throat, looking away. “It was actually kind of…nice, having company.”
“You’re welcome,” Seokjin replies amiably. He cranes his neck, trying to see past the door and into the classroom. “Now, which of your music friends can I meet before class starts?”
Yoongi rolls his eyes, but it’s belied by the small curve of his lips. “Don’t push it,” he says.
And then he goes, leaving Seokjin alone, standing by the door. Seokjin waits for a few moments, just long enough to see Yoongi settle onto his seat and pull out his notebook, before he turns on his heels and walks back to their apartment alone.
Seokjin peeks through the window for the third time, checking to confirm once more that that is indeed Yoongi’s very round head that’s bent over the coffee shop table and not someone else’s. Then, once he’s absolutely certain, he heads inside.
The cafe is packed—filled with sleep-deprived students trying to get their daily caffeine fix. It’s great, because that means he can easily blend in with them in the queue, observe Yoongi from a distance, and try to figure out who it is he’s sharing a table with.
Because he is sharing a table with someone. Someone bald—or well, wearing a buzz cut at least—tall, and handsome. Very clearly a music friend too, what with the way they’re sharing Airpods and passing an iPad back and forth.
He plays it cool—first he orders an iced americano, then hangs around at the pick-up counter as he waits for it to get made. Then, drink in hand, he looks down, pretends he’s messing around with his phone as he heads to the door, only to conveniently look up when he’s right next to Yoongi’s table and do a double take.
“Yoongi-chi?” he calls, evident delight in his tone. “Is that you?”
Yoongi startles in shock, then his expression goes flat in three seconds.
“What,” he says, turning to Seokjin.
Seokjin amps it up. “Fancy seeing you here!” he enthuses. “It’s been so long since we saw each other!”
“Hyung, it’s literally been two hours.”
Seokjin ignores him. “I was just in the area, you know, getting coffee, when I saw your pretty little head studying here.” It’s a lie—this coffee shop is closest to the music department, but is one of the farther ones from the film department where Seokjin has most of his classes. “I love coffee. I could drink it every day if I could.”
“You do drink it every day,” Yoongi points out. “Also you can get coffee anywhere else, this place is literally a ten-minute walk from all of your classes.”
“Nonsense,” Seokjin says. “Everyone knows the coffee here is the best on campus. Like, wow, what do they put in these coffee beans? Pure magic, that’s what!”
Yoongi’s expression somehow turns flatter. “Alright,” he says. “You can leave now.”
“No, no!” Seokjin protests. “Now that I’m here I’d love to see what you’re working on. I’d also love to meet…” He trails off, intending to introduce himself to Yoongi’s bald, tall and handsome music friend, only to find someone incredibly familiar staring back at him.
“Hi, hyung,” says Namjoon.
Seokjin deflates. “Oh. It’s just Namjoon.”
Namjoon, who is for some reason bald now, bristles. “Hey! What do you mean ‘just’?”
Yoongi pays him no mind. “Hyung,” he says. “Please stop stalking me.”
“Nope,” replies Seokjin, “not until you finally introduce me to that friend who’ll give me that number one album. Congratulations, Yoongi! Your first sasaeng! You’ve finally made it!”
“What?” Namjoon asks. “What is he talking about?”
Yoongi heaves a heavy, world-weary sigh. “Why are you so stubborn?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is determined.”
“No, definitely stubborn. Annoyingly so, even.”
“You’re calling me annoying now? I’m hurt, Yoongi-chi.”
“Oh, I’ve been calling you annoying.” Yoongi looks miffed, but only slightly—a very resignedly amused part of him is clearly winning out. “Don’t you have class? Go to class, hyung. The walk’s far. I’ll see you at home.”
“With an alphabetical list of all your music friends who could be my potential collaborators for my future number one album?” Seokjin asks hopefully.
“No.”
Seokjin shakes his head, places his iced americano on the table, right next to Yoongi’s left hand. “For you,” he says, then reaches over to the other side to grab Yoongi’s empty iced americano cup. “Noticed you needed a refill.”
That, at least, makes Yoongi’s expression soften. “Thanks,” he mumbles.
“So it’s like I’m not here at all,” Namjoon says. “I see how it is.”
“Your head is less round than I thought it would be,” Seokjin tells him, since Namjoon seems to really want to be a part of the conversation. When Namjoon bristles again, he shoots Yoongi a small wave. “See you at home, Yoongi-chi.”
Then he heads out of the coffee shop, power-walking to his next class in the film department.
“I mean, my classmates seemed to like it,” says Jieun, pushing pieces of her tteokbokki around the plate. “But my professor didn’t really react, he just had this neutral expression on his face, like—” She flattens her mouth, gives Seokjin a look that can only be described as unimpressed. “So I’m not sure if I did well.”
“I’m sure you did fine,” Seokjin says. “You let me listen to it and I liked it! So that means it’s good.”
Jieun cracks a smile. “Oppa, I’m sorry to tell you this, but I have no faith in your music opinions whatsoever,” she says. “You think all J-pop is anime music.”
Seokjin pouts at her, causing her to giggle. “First Yoongi, then you,” he laments. “What’s next, my own mother? Betrayed by the people closest to me.”
Jieun lets out another giggle, reaching over the table to slip her hand in his. “That’s okay, oppa,” she says, lovely in the way she always is. “You have other redeeming qualities.”
“I sure hope so,” he mutters, but he’s smiling at her still. He squeezes her hand lightly, then turns back to the eomuk he was eating.
“Speaking of Yoongi,” Jieun says. “How is he? Did you figure out the whole song thing?”
Seokjin lets out a sigh. “No,” he admits. “I asked the others, and they all said the same as you. That he’s just been the same as he’s always been. Jungkook told me that Jang Yijeong may know, since most likely he helped Yoongi write the song, but it seems nobody but Yoongi knows him.” He takes a bite of his food. “And of course Yoongi, being the brat that he is, refuses to introduce me to any of his music friends.”
“Hm,” Jieun hums sympathetically. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. But, you know, I’m not giving up. Yoongi’s my best friend, and I refuse to live in a world where he’s keeping life-changing secrets from me.”
Jieun blinks in surprise. “Okay, but he’s not keeping life-changing secrets from you,” she says. “At least, I don’t think so? It’s not that deep, I don’t think.”
“We’ll never know until I actually find out,” says Seokjin. “Which is why I’m just inserting myself in situations where he’ll be forced to introduce me to his music friends and potentially cross paths with Jang Yijeong.”
“What kinds of situations are those?”
“I’ve been walking him to class,” Seokjin boasts. “And I pick him up after it.”
Jieun looks a little bewildered. “Oh,” she says. “But I don’t understand how walking Yoongi to class would lead to you running into Jang Yijeong.”
“Simple,” replies Seokjin. “If I show up and Yijeong is there, he’ll have no choice but to introduce me.”
A pause. “I see,” Jieun replies, her tone lilting up at the end.
Seokjin looks down at his watch and nearly gasps at the time. “Which reminds me, I should go. Yoongi’s class is letting out soon, and I need to be there to pick him up so he doesn’t try to escape from me.”
“Okay,” she says, but her expression changes into an easy smile when Seokjin looks at her. “Say hi to Yoongi from me. Tell him I’ll send back the demo tonight.”
“Will do.” Seokjin stuffs the rest of his eomuk into his mouth and stands, quickly collecting his things from the table. He leans over, gives Jieun a kiss, and pulls away smiling. “I’ll see you later. I’ll text you.”
“Sure.”
He heads to the counter, paying for his and Jieun’s food. Then he exits the cafe with barely even a glance back.
Yoongi gives him the stink eye as soon as he spots Seokjin waiting outside his classroom. “Not again,” he complains.
Seokjin tries to make it worse by jumping up and down and waving his hands in the air like a lunatic.
“Yoongi!” he calls brightly, even though Yoongi is just less than a meter away. “Yoongi, over here!”
“I will kill you in your sleep,” Yoongi mutters, but his face is doing that pinched up thing—the expression he gets when he’s trying to stop himself from smiling.
“As long as you tell my mother what happened to her favorite son,” Seokjin replies easily. Yoongi looks put upon at the idea, simply because he and Seokjin’s mother have developed a harmonious relationship that involves sharing recipes and gossiping about Seokjin. Yoongi probably doesn’t want to break Seokjin’s mother’s heart like that. “So, how was class?”
“Normal,” replies Yoongi. He starts walking, and Seokjin immediately follows. “And before you ask, no, none of my music friends are here. This is a literature elective.”
“Aw,” Seokjin says, pouting. “But who’s going to produce my number one K-pop album if you won’t let me meet any of your friends?”
Yoongi doesn’t turn to look at him. “Jieunie.”
“Do you think she would actually?”
“What, you’ve never asked her?”
“No,” replies Seokjin. He cocks his head thoughtfully. “I guess it never occurred to me.”
“She’s a good songwriter.”
“I guess. She says hi, by the way.”
“Jieun?”
“Yeah,” Seokjin replies. “I was just with her. We were having lunch, but I had to leave to come here.”
“Oh.” Yoongi stops walking abruptly, turning to give him a questioning look. “You were having lunch with Jieun and you left her to come pick me up from class?”
“Yeah…?” Seokjin doesn’t know what expression he’s making, but Yoongi’s expression only gets more disbelieving. “Why? What’s wrong? Why are you making that face? Did you want to have lunch with Jieun and me too?”
A pause that rings out for a beat too long. “Nevermind,” Yoongi says. He starts walking again. “It’s nothing.”
“Hey, hey. Don’t do that.” Seokjin reaches out to grab Yoongi’s shoulder, bodily turning him around. Yoongi goes easily, but he doesn’t meet Seokjin’s gaze—averting his eyes so he’s looking at something just past Seokjin’s shoulder.
“Do what?” Yoongi asks plainly.
“That…that whole thing where you feel like you can’t talk to me about how you feel,” Seokjin says. “The thing where you try to brush things off.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you being so cryptic?”
“I’m not,” Yoongi says again. “I was just going to say something, and then I decided it wasn’t worth it.”
“You should still say it,” Seokjin shoots back. “I’m your best friend, you know I’d never judge you.”
“It’s really nothing,” Yoongi insists. “Why are you being so pushy about this?”
“Because!” Seokjin almost yells. “When your best friend writes a song about wanting to turn himself into a pancake and let himself be ingested by some random girl just so when the guy kisses her he will still taste his remnants—”
“I didn’t even say that, Jesus, you’re dramatic—”
“—you get worried, okay?” Seokjin finishes. “I’m worried.”
The words come out more emotional than he’d intended them to, ringing out in the sudden silence between them. Around them, people turn to look, confused and slightly judging; Seokjin can feel himself start to flush, but he refuses to back down.
Refuses to look away from Yoongi, who’s now staring directly at him, stunned and a little taken aback.
“Look,” Seokjin says, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m just…I really just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Something flickers on Yoongi’s face, but it’s gone in a split second. “I am,” he says evenly. “I appreciate your concern, but the song was exactly that—a song. I’m fine, Seokjin-hyung.”
“But you know you can always tell me, right?” Seokjin says. His tongue feels too large in his mouth, the words coming out clumsy. “If…if you’re not.”
“I know,” Yoongi replies. “Trust me, I know.”
An awkward silence rings out between them. It’s weird—Seokjin has no idea why all this is making him lose his composure like this. It’s such a simple, surface-level thing: Yoongi’s sad and Seokjin, as the perfect best friend, wants to know why. But this feels a lot more than just simple worry, feels like something that’s way over his head. The size of it is overwhelming and all-encompassing.
Seokjin tries not to think too deeply in that direction.
“Okay,” he says instead. He claps Yoongi on the shoulder. “Good talk.”
Yoongi sighs. “Let’s just go home,” he says wearily, spinning on his heels in an obvious dismissal, and Seokjin has no choice but to follow where he leads.
The next few days after that are kind of strange. They don’t talk about Seokjin’s outburst, because they’re just that good at Not Talking About Things—instead they dance around each other, similar to the way they did when they first started living together. Seokjin feels off-center, like he’s a flower vase that’s just been placed a little too much to the left. Almost right, but not quite.
But the bubble shatters on Wednesday, when Yoongi comes out of his room after locking himself up in it. Seokjin’s on the couch, mindlessly watching a film while wrapped up in a blanket. He fully expects Yoongi to head to the kitchen to grab a snack or a coffee, but instead Yoongi plops himself on the seat beside Seokjin, barely an inch away, and flicks him on the thigh.
Seokjin yelps, mostly in surprise rather than in pain. “That was uncalled for,” he tells Yoongi primly. He cocoons himself even more in the blanket, making sure no part of his body is exposed to Yoongi and his terrible, mean fingers. “I’m hurt.”
Yoongi just grins at him, childlike and mischievous. “Would you be less hurt if I told you that some of my music friends and I are having dinner tomorrow, and that if you want to come with me, you can?”
And, well.
Seokjin decides to get over it.
Friday, 18 August 2023
Kim Seokjin:
raincheck on date night tonight?
yoongi finally invited me to go out with his music friends
hopefully i can get to the bottom of this
i’ll make it up to you i promise!
Lee Jieun:
sure
have fun 🙂
Seokjin’s not very good at meeting new people, and the realization that he’s meeting new people only hits him when they’re already on the way to the restaurant, walking through the dimly lit streets. He almost backs out, or calls Jieun to come over—he should’ve just invited her to come.
But, he tells himself, he wanted this. Almost got himself murdered in his sleep by his sometimes-scary roommate for this. So Seokjin sucks it up, gets dressed as nicely as he can, and heads to the restaurant with Yoongi, trying not to look like he’s about to either pass out, or pass away.
He tries to focus on the positives of all this. Seokjin’s finally going to meet Yoongi’s music friends, and maybe, Jang Yijeong. He’ll get insight into the type of person Yoongi is whenever he isn’t with Seokjin.
The restaurant is dimly lit and crowded, packed with uni students looking to shake off the stress of the last week. Yoongi gives a name to the hostess and then they’re being led to the back of the restaurant.
Yoongi walks with a sense of purpose, like he’s singularly the most important person in the room and everyone should know it. He doesn’t even have to try; Seokjin’s had to sit through hours and hours of body language acting classes just to figure out what to do with his limbs, just to figure out how to embody the same confidence Yoongi so naturally exudes. His eyes are trained forward at a destination—a few dark wooden doors in the back, sectioning rooms off for privacy—and he barely glances around as he side steps crowded tables and passing servers. He’s graceful about it; Seokjin has to struggle to keep up with him.
When he gets there, he doesn’t even hesitate; just pulls open the door and slips in. Seokjin follows a few seconds later, and the raucous laughter he's greeted with is enough to give him pause.
“Finally!” someone yells over the noise. “Min Yoongi, you’re late!”
Seokjin looks over at Yoongi and finds him grinning, his eyes crinkled up in the corners. “Sorry,” he drawls. “The traffic was shit.”
“Don’t lie, you just walked here!”
There’s a bit of a commotion as Yoongi walks around the room, exchanging greetings and doling out hugs. Seokjin hangs back, suddenly feeling ridiculously like he doesn’t belong—kind of like he’s turned into a giant overnight and is still trying to mingle with the normal folk.
Yoongi must sense his hesitation because he doubles back and grabs Seokjin firmly by the wrist. “This is my roommate,” he says, tugging him forward. “Seokjin-hyung, this is Soonyoung, Jihoon, Soohyun, Soyeon, and Yijeong.”
Yijeong. Alarm bells start ringing in Seokjin’s head, but he keeps his face perfectly blank and neutral. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says, bowing at each one of them in turn. When he straightens up, he keeps his gaze trained on Yijeong. “Yoongi’s told me so many things about you all.”
Yijeong raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything to that. One of the girls, Soyeon, says, “Whatever he told you, it isn’t true,” and beckons for them to sit at the table.
There aren’t any adjacent seats left at the table, so Yoongi ends up sitting next to Yijeong and Seokjin ends up sitting directly across, in perfect view of them both. As soon as Yoongi sits down, Yijeong leans towards him, cupping his mouth to whisper something into Yoongi’s ear.
Something sharp and biting flickers low in his stomach. Seokjin does his best to ignore it.
As the evening progresses, it becomes increasingly clear to Seokjin that he is woefully out of place. Yoongi’s music friends are nice, but they’re clearly more familiar with each other than with him, and they end up falling into conversation about topics Seokjin has no idea about. At one point, they start talking about a song Seokjin’s never heard, debating about which key it would sound better in if they were to transpose it—E♭ or E♭ minor. Soohyun insists E♭, Yoongi is passionate about the wonders of E♭ minor. Seokjin wants to contribute and back Yoongi up, but he’s always thought of Es as kind of sharp, what with their pointy tips and all.
Aside from that, it also becomes increasingly clear to Seokjin that Yoongi and Yijeong are close. Like, close-close. The kind of close that involves lingering shoulder touches and secret smiles, inside jokes that only the two of them share. The kind of close that’s notable, cut above the rest; the kind of close that even Seokjin’s aging grandmother would look at them and think, they seem to be very good friends. Whenever Yijeong speaks, Yoongi listens; whenever Yoongi tells a joke, Yijeong laughs and pats him on the knee. Their relationship is different from what Yoongi has with the rest of his music friends, from what Yoongi has with Seokjin, even, and Seokjin just feels—
Hollow. Empty. Like he’s watching this all unfold through a looking glass—unable to reach out, unable to be heard.
Oh, Seokjin thinks. It’s Yijeong.
Seokjin’s never seen Yoongi in love before—the man’s stayed resolutely single for the five years Seokjin’s known him—but he knows what Yoongi looks like when he’s mildly interested in someone. This, Seokjin realizes, is that but amplified tenfold. Yoongi looks at Yijeong with an outpouring of fondness and awe, the smile playing on his lips never once dimming. He looks like he’s hanging onto Yijeong’s every word. He looks like he could spend hours talking with Yijeong and never get bored.
It’s Yijeong that Yoongi’s painfully, unrequitedly in love with. The guy whose girlfriend Yoongi wants to embody.
Seokjin systematically files that away in his brain.
But what’s next? Now that he knows it’s Yijeong, what does he do now? Does he talk to him? Does he confront him? Yell at him? Tell him that he’s a dick for breaking Yoongi’s heart like that, for making Yoongi sad like that, because Yoongi should never be sad? Because Yoongi’s been through enough shit in his life that he deserves to find his peace?
Seokjin doesn’t know, and he doesn’t manage to figure it out by the time the dinner winds down. Yoongi’s music friends bid him goodbye and tell him that he’s always welcome to join them; Seokjin channels his most charming self and makes them laugh before they leave.
When he turns around, he finds Yoongi and Yijeong bidding each other goodbye, their voices too low for Seokjin to hear. Yijeong says something to Yoongi, an eyebrow raised expectantly, waiting for a reaction, and whatever he says makes Yoongi cringe, shoulders shaking with laughter as he shoves Yijeong away.
And then soon Yijeong is gone, and then it’s just him and Yoongi left, standing outside the facade of the restaurant. Seokjin meets Yoongi’s eye, inclines his head to the direction of their apartment, it’s a few moments until Yoongi falls into step beside him.
Another few moments still before Yoongi speaks. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” Seokjin replies.
Seokjin isn’t sure, but Yoongi seems to be a little embarrassed, one hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “Sorry about that,” he says. “We tend to get a little too into it when we talk about music. I know it can be a bit…much.”
He says the word much like it’s a replacement for something more negative, something that rings a little closer to annoying or irritating. Seokjin doesn’t know why he would think that at all; he’s never once complained whenever Yoongi would get into music, often amusedly nodding his head as Yoongi rambles on and on. Maybe it’s a learned reaction from dealing with one of his friends from back home in Daegu, or even from Yoongi’s astringent family—not unloving by any means, but unable to wrap their head around the fact that their son not only got his bachelor’s in music, but did so well that he went on to do a post-grad on a scholarship.
Whatever it is, it makes the hollow ache in Seokjin’s stomach disappear in one fell swoop.
“Don’t be,” he replies. “I liked listening to you guys talk.”
Yoongi smiles, his eyes turning into crescent moons. “Yeah?” he says. “They’re great people, truly, it’s just—yeah.” He waves a hand around, referring to his statement. “I hope you had fun anyway. I mean, you were the one who wanted to meet them.”
“Of course I did.” Seokjin feels himself smiling back at Yoongi, an unconscious action. “Nothing compares to the feeling of finally meeting the people who’ll give me my number one album.”
Yoongi laughs, more air than sound. “You really are determined.”
“I’ve been told 'stubborn’ is the more appropriate word.”
Yoongi laughs again, then falls silent. He looks different in the moonlight, Seokjin thinks—a lot more unreal, the play of light and shadow softening his normally sharp features. Not for the first time, Seokjin wonders how anyone could not want him; how someone could look at him but not see him or love him the way he yearns to be loved. Yoongi’s one of the most beautiful people he knows, filled with fire and determination yet still so painstakingly gentle, and it’s upsetting to think that there are people out there who just don’t see that.
That Yijeong doesn’t see that.
“You and that guy…” The words slip out of his mouth before Seokjin can think twice about them, and Yoongi turns to him with an inquisitive look. “Yijeong? You guys seemed to be very close.”
A pause then a nod, Yoongi’s expression turning thoughtful. “We spend a lot of time with each other,” he says. “We work really well together.”
It’s a bit of a cop-out answer, but Seokjin thinks he understands the implications in it. Proximity begets closeness, doesn’t it? And closeness begets love, or something of the sort. Even if it’s one-sided.
“He seems cool,” Seokjin says. “Like a nice guy.”
Yoongi hums noncommittally.
“You should invite him to our apartment one day,” Seokjin continues, the words just tumbling from his lips.
Yoongi blinks. “You want me to invite Yijeong over?” he asks. He sounds bewildered.
“Yeah!” If Seokjin’s being honest, he has no idea what he’s even saying—just trusting his lizard brain to spew out words that sound non-suspicious and passably human. “I think it’ll be fun to watch you two work together. And maybe I can even learn a few things, you know. Get some insight into the top-secret producer process. That album isn’t going to write itself, you know.”
There’s another few moments of silence as Yoongi absorbs in his words. Then, “You know, you don’t have to pretend,” he says. “You don’t have to…to encourage me to invite Yijeong over and pretend you’d be interested in watching us write a song. Just because you’re my best friend, doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be interested in this stuff because I am.”
They’re almost at their apartment building, so Seokjin stops walking abruptly. It takes about three steps for Yoongi to realize that he’s fallen behind, and he turns around questioning.
“I told you to stop doing that,” Seokjin says.
“Doing what?”
“That thing where you try to brush things off,” Seokjin says. He shakes his head, feeling a fond, exasperated smile curve on his face. “Silly Yoongi-chi, why wouldn’t I be interested?”
Yoongi shrugs, his gaze averted. “I mean, I never really thought you liked it whenever I talked to you about this stuff,” he mumbles.
“What? Of course I do,” Seokjin replies, dumbfounded. “I like listening to you talk about your music and your thought process and your creativity. I like when you get all into the minutiae of music just because you get so passionate about it. True, I admit, I don’t know much about it, but I like it. I like how it makes you feel, and I like the way you look when you get so excited about a project. I like what music does to you.”
The words spill out of him on instinct, like he just couldn’t help himself. For a few, long heartbeats they just stare at each other, Seokjin’s words ringing in the air around them.
Yoongi’s gaze is steady and unflinching, something familiar playing at its edges, and it makes Seokjin’s heart do a funny little turn in his chest. He’s painfully, suddenly reminded of an evening where Yoongi looked at him just like this—with this same intensity, with this same resolution. A memory he keeps tucked under his breast bone, hidden away under lock and key, buried so deep he doesn’t dare unearth it.
Eventually, Yoongi lets out a quiet sigh. “Let’s just go home,” he says, turning on his heel. Seokjin watches his retreating back for a few moments, wonders why the thump of his heart feels different than normal, then shakes his head and follows.
A few days later, Seokjin slips into his seat at the coffee shop. “It’s Jang Yijeong,” he says, propping his elbows up on the table and steepling his fingers in thought.
Jieun, who’s got her nose buried in a book, looks up and blinks at him. “What?”
“The person Yoongi’s in unrequited love with,” Seokjin clarifies. “Jang Yijeong.”
Recognition dawns on Jieun’s face. “Oh,” she says. She shuts her book. “Really? How’d you know?”
“They were kinda…close during the dinner last weekend,” Seokjin replies. He shifts to prop his chin up with a hand, drums his fingers on the table. “Giggling and exchanging inside jokes and whatnot. Yijeong even touched his knee at one point.”
“His knee?”
“His whole knee,” Seokjin says. “Even rubbed it a little. And Yoongi just let his hand stay there.”
It’s an image he can’t seem to get out of his head, no matter how hard he tries. After the whole evening, after the dinner and the debate and the walk home, somehow that seems to have stuck itself on the forefront of his mind, playing over and over again beneath his eyelids every time he tries to go to sleep.
Just Jang Yijeong and his hand on Yoongi’s knee underneath the table. Holding on to him like he’s property. It ignites a burning anger in Seokjin’s stomach, because Yoongi isn’t property. Yoongi’s his own person.
At that, Jieun’s expression turns confused. “That doesn’t sound unrequited,” she says. “In fact, that kind of sounds like they’re dating.”
“But then why would Yoongi write all those lyrics in his song?” Seokjin asks. “He very clearly was channeling some sad, deep, unhinged emotion. If he and Yijeong were dating, then he’d have none of those feelings whatsoever.”
“Well, maybe he really did just get inspired by the movie,” Jieun replies evenly. “Besides, Yijeong and Yoongi work together a lot. If anyone would’ve helped Yoongi write the song, it would’ve been him. You’re telling me he listened to Yoongi pour his heart out like that and just…didn’t know it was about him?”
“It’s possible,” Seokjin defends. “Maybe Yijeong’s a dumbass.”
Distantly, Seokjin wonders how it happened—how Yoongi realized, so to speak. Was it all the late nights, all the hours spent together? Was it the quiet of the studio, both of them sitting in silence as they listened to their deepest worries, their deepest fears, gently laid over chords and percussions? Maybe Yijeong had looked at Yoongi once, the weight of their lyrics hanging in the air between them; looked at Yoongi like he understood every nuance of his emotion, and Yoongi thought, oh.
But Yoongi shouldn’t fall in love with someone who just gets him. He should fall in love with someone who loves him, fully and wholeheartedly, someone who’ll do anything to make him smile.
Seokjin dismisses his thoughts. “Well, whatever it is, now that I’ve met Jang Yijeong, I can move onto the third step of the plan.
“There’s a third step of the plan?”
“It’s a five-step plan,” Seokjin answers. “Of course there’s a third step.”
There’s a pause. “Huh,” Jieun says. “What’s the third step, then?”
“Now I have to talk to him,” Seokjin tells her. “Confront him. Ask him why he doesn’t love Yoongi back and threaten him a little so he doesn’t hurt Yoongi ever again.”
“I feel like you’re jumping into a lot of conclusions there.”
Seokjin pays her no mind. “Hm,” he hums, cocking his head in thought. “Maybe I can infiltrate the music department and pretend to be a poor, lost vulnerable first year looking for my talented and estranged older brother Yijeong and make puppy eyes at all the passing students until someone inevitably takes pity on me and points me to his studio, then I can lure him out with promises of discovering my mysterious identity, and then when he finally comes out, I can lock him in the closet.” He pauses, taking a breath. “Or is that too simple?”
There’s a strange look on Jieun’s face. “That sounds…doable?” she says, her tone lilting up in the end like a question. “Yeah, extremely doable.”
Seokjin claps his hands once, startling her. “Great,” he says, jumping to his feet. “Fantastic.” He gives Jieun his best smile, before leaning over the table to press a quick kiss on her cheek. “I gotta run and make all the preparations, but I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow!”
“Okay,” Jieun says, bemused. There’s a strange tinge to the way she’s smiling at him, almost like she’s trying to figure something out. “See you.”
Seokjin gives her one last smile, his head already running with a thousand different scenarios, before scurrying out of the coffee shop.
Turns out, Seokjin shouldn’t have had to plan. Like, at all. Because two days later, Seokjin comes home to find Yijeong laughing in his living room.
“Oh, hyung!” It’s Yoongi who speaks, sounding surprised to see him. “I thought you had class.”
“The professor canceled,” Seokjin replies. “I think she had to go to the hospital.”
Yoongi does this thing with his face sometimes, when he gets worried, a little furrow appearing between his brow and a small pout forming on his lips. It makes him look somewhat like a newborn kitten, and it’s the exact expression he makes right now. “Oh,” he says.
Seokjin resists the overwhelming urge to coo over him, partly because there’s no real reason to, and partly because he’s very aware of Yijeong, watching him from like a hawk. “I’m sure it wasn’t that serious,” he replies airily. He raises an eyebrow, silently asking Yoongi about their surprise guest. “So.”
Yoongi understands immediately, because on most days they operate on the same wavelength (even though he refuses to admit it). He gives Seokjin a look, one that Seokjin interprets as I have no idea what you’re planning, but I’m wary all the same.
“Well,” he says evenly. “You know Yijeong. And Yijeong, you know Seokjin-hyung.”
“Hello,” Seokjin says politely. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Likewise,” replies Yijeong.
There’s a beat.
“Um, he’s here because we’re kinda working on a song together,” Yoongi says.
“Oh! Of course,” Seokjin replies as graciously as he can. “I’ll leave you guys to it. MapleStory is calling my name, anyway.” He directs the next part of his statement to Yoongi. “But you know, if you need anything, just let me know.”
And then he slips into his room, his mind already working a mile a minute trying to figure out when he can take his chance.
Seokjin games for exactly two minutes before he decides that his time is better spent sitting by his door and listening out for any emergencies. He wants to be there in case anything happens, things like Yoongi confessing his feelings, or Yijeong rejecting him brutally, or—God forbid—Yoongi crying. When Yoongi cries, it’s a devastating thing to witness; he does his best to keep silent, but he sobs with his whole body, chest heaving with breaths as he struggles to pull himself together. Years ago, when they still lived in student housing and Yoongi was in a not-so-good place in his life, Yoongi cried more often—mostly at night, when he thought Seokjin had already fallen asleep. And sometimes, Seokjin already had; but more often than not, he would slip out of his bed, cross the short distance between them, and slip into the space next to Yoongi. On those nights, Yoongi welcomed Seokjin’s presence, curling into him like a lifeline; on those nights, Seokjin squeezed Yoongi as hard as he could, trying his best to put him back together.
It’s all in the past now, and Yoongi’s been doing so much better these past few years (barring his unhinged song). But still, if on the off chance Yoongi starts crying today because of one Jang Yijeong, Seokjin will be there immediately. That’s what he’s always done.
Fortunately, that’s not what happens. Yoongi and Yijeong work in relative harmony, their track interspersed with quiet murmurs of discussion. Seokjin doesn’t overhear much, and what he does overhear he doesn’t understand, but to him, they just sound very focused. Very professional. Less jokes and laughter, more we-need-to-get-this-shit-done-asap.
Seokjin has no idea how long he spends sitting at his door, only that he eventually grows kind of bored and starts messing around on his phone. He’s in the middle of a very intense virtual game of beer pong with Taehyung when there’s a sharp knock on his door.
Seokjin doesn’t startle. He doesn’t.
Yoongi pokes his head into Seokjin’s room, his eyes immediately narrowing when he spots Seokjin. “Why are you sitting on the floor?” he asks.
Seokjin’s mind spins wildly. “I find that sitting on the floor for thirty minutes each day keeps me grounded,” he says sagely. “This, my dear Yoongi-chi, is how I stay down-to-earth.”
Yoongi looks unimpressed. “Whatever,” he says. “I shouldn’t have asked, I realized while you were speaking that I wasn’t that interested.”
“Rude.”
“Anyway, we’re getting food,” Yoongi says, jerking his head to the living room so Seokjin knows he’s also referring to their surprise houseguest Jang Yijeong. “Probably just take out from that Korean restaurant next to our place, ‘cause we really need to get this done by today. I’m gonna head out to pick it up. He pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “Want anything?”
Seokjin brightens. “You already know what I want.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes, but Seokjin can spot a small smile playing on his lips. “Mulhwe. Of course. You’re so predictable.”
“It’s the best from that spot!”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
He shuts the door after that, the hint of a smile still playing on his lips. Seokjin waits until he hears the sound of the front door clicking shut after him to venture out of the room, finding Yijeong still on the couch, hunched over his laptop. He seems to be intently listening to something, Seokjin observes him quietly as he nods to the music, making notes on his notebook here and there.
Finally, Yijeong seems to notice him hovering, his eyes flicking from the screen to Seokjin. “Do you…need something?” he asks, perplexed.
Well, that’s incredibly rude. Seokjin deducts ten points from his mental tally of Yijeong’s Potential Boyfriend Score, even though Yijeong’s already sitting at a whopping zero points with the whole unrequited love thing.
But because he (unlike Yijeong) wasn’t raised in a barn, he says, “No,” as brightly as he can, keeping his expression open and happy. “Just curious as to what you guys were working on.”
“Oh. Just a partner project for a class.” Yijeong speaks the same way Jimin does—a slight South Gyeongsang satoori that bleeds out despite his efforts at a neutral Seoul accent. “Professor wanted us to write a song that was fugue-like in nature. In true Yoongi fashion, he crammed it.” He rolls his eyes, but Seokjin can spot a fondly-exasperated smile tugging at his lips. “And now we’re here.”
“Oh.” Seokjin peeks at the laptop when Yijeong turns to show it to him, but he can’t really make sense of all the tracks and the waveforms he’s shown. “You guys…do this often, don’t you?”
“What? Cram? I try not to, because I know it’s bad. But sometimes it can’t be helped.”
“No, I mean…” Seokjin cocks his head, assessing Yijeong. “Write songs together.”
“Oh!” Yijeong blinks. “Yeah, we do. Yoongi has, like, a bank of ideas, and I’m the only one he really trusts to help him execute it.”
Something deep and dark and ugly lodges itself into Seokjin’s stomach, the metaphorical impact of it making him want to hunch over. If he knew more about music, Seokjin tells himself, if he was more knowledgeable about chord progressions and instrumentals and softwares, then he would be Yoongi’s confidante. He would be the one making music with Yoongi. He would be the one Yoongi would bare all his feelings to, and not some pretty boy from South Gyeongsang.
“I see,” Seokjin says. There’s an acerbic bite to his tone. “Then you guys are quite close, aren’t you?”
Yijeong scrunches up his nose, clearly confused at the sudden turn of the conversation. “I guess,” he answers.
“So tell me.” The thing in his stomach twists, something dark and ugly leaking out, poisoning his entire body. “Why are you hurting him then?”
Yijeong blinks. “What?”
“I mean, you seem to like him well enough,” Seokjin continues. “You guys are close. And Yoongi is good-looking. So why are you breaking his heart then?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Seokjin snaps. “You know for a fact Yoongi wants something more than just friendship. But you keep leading him on even though you have a fucking girlfriend.”
Yijeong looks incredibly confused now. “What the fuck?” he says. “First of all, I’m fucking gay, and second of all, no, Yoongi doesn’t like me. I have no fucking clue what you’re on.”
“Yes, he does,” Seokjin insists, getting heated. “He even wrote a whole song about it!”
“What?! Which fucking song is about me?”
“You know! The one about sneaking into some girl’s house and chugging her perfume so that at night, when her boyfriend feels sleepy, he’ll smell the perfume on him and think it’s her and will want to cuddle?”
There’s a sudden look of terror on Yijeong’s face. “I—I don’t think he ever wrote something like that,” he stammers, his face turning white as a sheet. “That’s like—that sounds like a crime.”
“He did!” Seokjin insists. “I heard it myself! He wants to be someone’s girlfriend!”
There’s a pause where Seokjin’s words ring out, settling heavily in the air between them. Yijeong’s expression stills, and then changes in the blink of an eye—from terror to confusion to, finally, realization.
“Oh,” he says, his voice coming out barely louder than a whisper. “That song.”
“Yeah.” Seokjin rolls his eyes. “That song.”
“But that song wasn’t about me, it was about—” Yijeong cuts himself off at the last minute. He cusses under his breath, running a hand through his hair as his eyes flicker to the doorway, like he’s checking if Yoongi’s returned.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “Why the fuck am I here right now?”
Seokjin raises an eyebrow. “Well?” he prompts, tone mocking. “The song was about what?”
Yijeong’s eyes dart back to him, calmly assessing. Then after a moment, a small smirk slowly spreads across his face, and his eyes get that lazy, calculating look to them—kind of like he’s a hyena watching helpless prey fall into his trap.
It’s incredibly unsettling. “What?” Seokjin asks, and resists the urge to shy away when Yijeong’s smirk only grows.
“I do remember that song,” Yijeong says, thoughtfully tapping his finger against his chin. “I definitely remember writing it. It was a few weeks ago, wasn’t it?” He doesn’t wait for confirmation, just plunges on. “He showed up to my apartment kind of late. He was a little drunk, and so sad.” A pause, one that feels slightly evil. “You really did a number on him.”
That catches Seokjin by surprise. “Me?” he stutters out. “I didn’t—I didn’t do anything.”
Yijeong arcs a brow. “Didn’t you?”
There’s nothing Seokjin did that day that could’ve hurt Yoongi. He’s replayed it over and over again in his head, turning over even the most inconsequential details in the hopes of finding some sort of epiphany. But over and over again, it’s the same thing: they’d had breakfast in the morning, studied all the way until after lunch. Met back up at home during the late afternoon, took the subway together to head to the restaurant. They’d drank a bit, eaten a lot; Yoongi had spent the entire evening laughing. When it was over, they’d put their jackets on and headed out, and Yoongi hovered close by as Seokjin said goodbye to everyone else.
Oh, Yoongi, you go on ahead, Seokjin remembers telling him. He remembers pulling Jieun closer, letting his hand rest on her waist. I’ll take Jieunie home.
Okay, Yoongi had replied. And really, that was it.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seokjin says. He feels spread out, like he’s made of dandelion fluff and someone came and just blew all his insides away. “I’d never do anything to hurt Yoongi. It’s you who hurt him.”
Somehow, Yijeong’s eyebrow climbs higher on his forehead. “Right,” he says sarcastically. “By not wanting him back. Believe me, Seokjin-ssi—” Here, his smile gets a little lewd, and Seokjin immediately feels a shudder of disgust run down his back, “—if Yoongi wanted to…well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be opposed.”
There aren’t many times in Seokjin’s life where he’s struck dumb during a conversation. It used to happen a lot more often, back when he was shy and awkward and unable to deal with the attention. He’s still shy and awkward and terrible with attention, but with the numerous acting classes under his belt he’s more or less figured out what to do in the moments he’s caught off-guard, and Stanislavski-ed himself to be able to deal with them in a charming manner.
But right now, the only thing he can do is blurt out, “What?”
“Like you said earlier, Yoongi is good-looking.” Yijeong’s tone is dripping with filth, incredibly overt in their implications. “He’s got a good ass, you know? First thing I noticed when I met him. You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of biting it.”
The ugly thing in Seokjin’s stomach quivers, and then shatters, replaced by a sudden wave of red-hot anger. “You stay away from his ass,” he says as steadily as he can.
“Yeah? And why should I?” Yijeong’s smile grows. “I mean, he’s a perfectly healthy man, and so am I. He’s pretty, unattached, and incredibly hot. Like the amount of times I felt myself getting hard from just watching him work…” He trails off, blowing out a breath.
Seokjin curls his hands into fists, his fingernails into his palms. “You keep your impulses to yourself.”
“I bet he’d give a good blowjob.” Yijeong’s very clearly toying with him, riling him up on purpose, and unfortunately for Seokjin, it’s working. “He raps about his tongue technology a lot, and maybe he’s just bragging but there’s a part of me that thinks he can back it up. He’d draw it out too. He seems like the type to enjoy teasing.”
Seokjin feels like he’s shaking minutely. “Don’t think about Yoongi like that,” Seokjin hisses. “In fact, don’t think about him at all.”
“Why?” Yijeong teases. “I thought you wanted me to want Yoongi the way he wants me?” He leans back, and Seokjin wants to punch that self-satisfied smirk off his face. “All those late nights, all those hours spent together…you’re right. Why haven’t we taken it to the next level? Maybe during our next studio session, I’ll ask if he wants to take a tumble in the hay. Cause if he says yes…” He leans forward, triumph glimmering in his eyes. “Well—let’s just say a lot of our studio time would be spent horizontal.”
And that’s.
The anger in Seokjin’s stomach boils over.
“You keep his name out of your mouth!” he roars, unable to help himself. “You’re a fucking depraved loser with no real talent except for looking pretty and objectifying people!”
The volume of his voice makes Yijeong shy back a little, but it does nothing to wipe the smirk off his face.
“You don’t even fucking care about him! You have no respect for the type of person he is!” Seokjin continues, heated. “All you think about is how pretty he is and how sexy he is and how he would be good in bed!”
For some reason, that makes Yijeong double over in laughter.
“You fucking—why are you laughing?” Seokjin asks incredulously, anger creeping up his voice. “You’re such a stupid, conceited, selfish piece of shit who only thinks about Yoongi in carnal ways! Well, newsflash, asshole—Yoongi is more than a pretty face! Yoongi is a talented, brilliant, amazing man and you’re just—you’re just a worm who needs to find Jesus!”
Distantly, Seokjin can hear the sound of hurried footsteps, the beeping of their automatic lock.
And then their front door slams open with a loud bang, Yoongi standing in the doorway with two take out bags of food in his hand. “What the fuck,” he wheezes.
“Hi,” Yijeong says in between his laughter, lifting a hand to wave at him. “We’re just…we’re just bonding.”
“Don’t talk to him!” Seokjin yells. “Don’t even look at him! Gauge your eyes right now and ask for forgiveness for your sins!”
Yoongi’s eyes are wide as they dart from Seokjin to Yijeong. “Why the fuck is hyung preaching?”
Yijeong visibly composes himself. Or tries to, at least. “Cause I’m—” He bites his lower lip, shoulders shaking, “—I’m a worm who needs to find Jesus.”
And then he breaks and starts laughing again.
Seokjin opens his mouth to yell at him some more, but Yoongi gives him a look so withering that his mouth clamps shut. “Our neighbors will sue you,” he says.
“They should sue him,” Seokjin protests, gesturing to Yijeong. “In fact, you should sue him. He’s a fucking dick who doesn’t respect you.”
“Oh, believe me, I can respect him in many different ways,” Yijeong heckles.
Seokjin sees red. “You fucking—”
“Enough!” Yoongi interrupts before Seokjin can continue. “Just fucking stop. No more yelling. Jesus.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “What fuck is wrong with you two?”
“It’s not my fault he’s an asshole!” Seokjin protests.
“It’s not my fault he’s a dumbass,” Yijeong shoots back. “Like, incredibly dumb, Yoongi. It’s truly amazing. You sure know how to pick them.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes at Yijeong, settling the takeout bags onto the coffee table. Then he and Yijeong proceed to have what seems to be a telepathic argument, complete with pointed eyebrow raises and irritated sighs. Seokjin has no idea what they’re arguing about, but he knows whatever it is, he’s on Yoongi’s side—they’ve always been on the same wavelength about things, and that sure as hell isn’t going to change now.
Eventually, Yoongi lets out a loud sigh. “Okay,” he says tiredly. He starts unpacking the food on the coffee table, then grabs one of the containers and pushes it toward Yijeong. “You know what? Just go home.”
Score. Seokjin tries not to be too smug about the fact that Yijeong is getting kicked out.
Yijeong doesn’t look bothered. “Okayyy,” he says, taking the food container and drawing out the last syllable. “If you say so.”
“I’ll text you about the project.”
“And only about the project,” Seokjin chimes in, unable to help himself.
Yoongi and Yijeong give him twin looks of exasperation.
“Whatever.” Yijeong steals a plastic bag from the table, tucking his food container into it. After a moment, he swipes a container of rice and a few containers of banchan, and then starts packing up the rest of his stuff. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Yoongi. Seokjin-ssi…” The twinkle in his eyes is mischievous. “It was really nice chatting with you.”
“And don’t come back!” Seokjin calls after him. Yijeong lets out a loud chuckle, clearly still finding this whole thing amusing, and then slips on his shoes and heads out.
After the front door slams shut behind Yijeong, there’s a prolonged moment of silence.
“So,” Yoongi says casually. “You want to tell me what that whole thing was about?”
He’s not looking at Seokjin, but Seokjin gets the feeling that he’s being observed anyway, all of Yoongi’s attention narrowed down to him. He resists the urge to fidget where he’s standing; all of a sudden he feels foolish, like a child sitting in the principal’s office, waiting to be scolded.
“He just…he was just…” Seokjin wets his lips. “He was disrespecting you.”
Yoongi’s head cocks in curiosity. “Disrespecting how?”
“He kept…he kept calling you pretty, and hot, and—and he said you have a good ass,” Seokjin finishes. Hearing it said out loud, he realizes he sounds kind of stupid. “And he said you’d be great in bed, and that he’s very attracted to you.”
“That doesn’t sound disrespectful.”
“It’s objectifying,” Seokjin points out, “and objectifying someone is wrong.”
“Hm,” Yoongi acknowledges, but he doesn’t say anything else. He unpacks the rest of the food containers from the bag, organizing them on the coffee table. It’s such a non-reaction about what should be a horrifying thing to hear.
“I defended your honor, Yoongi-chi,” he says, even though Yoongi didn’t ask him to elaborate. “He was thinking about you in ways you didn’t consent to be thought about. Treating you like an object for his pleasure.”
Yoongi straightens up, goes to grab plates and glasses from the kitchen. His silence only triggers a compulsion, wrapping around his neck like a too-tight collar.
“You’re worth more than that, you know,” Seokjin calls after him. “You’re more than a hot guy—you’re funny, and amazing, and talented, and one of the best people I know. You shouldn’t put up with someone who only wants to fuck you. In fact, it should be more than just sex.”
Yoongi returns with the dinnerware, setting them down on the coffee table. He’s methodical about the way he works. Seokjin feels like he’s slowly going insane.
“It should be more than just sex,” he repeats, and there’s a part of him that feels like this iteration of the same words mean more than what they are at face value, that they’re heavy with the weight of some things they just don’t talk about. “Yoongi, you…you deserve someone who’ll love you so much that they wouldn’t even know what to do with themselves.”
Finally, Yoongi straightens up, and turns around to face Seokjin. His expression is impassive, and Seokjin braces himself for whatever Yoongi’s about to say.
“I don’t get,” Yoongi begins deliberately, “why you’re so bothered about it.”
“I…” Seokjin fish-mouths for a second, his mind racing. “I just…I just—”
Yoongi cocks his head. “Just what, hyung?”
But is there even a real, discernible reason? Seokjin finds that he just kind of is, like someone else had taken over and made this decision for him. Like he’s been brainwashed by aliens but they let him keep his autonomy, save for one little thing they’ve implanted in his brain: You are going to worry about Yoongi for the rest of your goddamn life.
Seokjin swallows. “You’re my best friend,” he says. “Of course I’m bothered.”
Something like hurt flashes through Yoongi’s eyes, but it’s gone in a split second, replaced by a carefully-curated neutral expression. Yoongi nods once, the action sharp, and then plops himself down on the couch. Seokjin watches the way he tucks himself into one end, as if wanting to put as much distance between them as possible.
“Let’s just eat, hyung,” he says. His tone sounds resigned. He reaches out for the containers.
And Seokjin knows Yoongi well enough to understand his silence, to recognize when he’s not wanted in Yoongi’s space. So Seokjin sits himself down on the opposite edge of the couch, reaches out for the container, and tries to wash down his hurt with spoonfuls of rice and soup.
Even the mulhwe doesn’t taste good today.
So maybe Seokjin’s fucked up. Just a little bit, just enough that things are strangely awkward around Yoongi. There’s this weird, thick tension in the air that could be cut with a knife (or maybe a saw), and they both tiptoe around each other, like they’re unsure of what to do or how to act. They’re not fighting—because he and Yoongi are two, mature human beings that never fight—but it’s evident to everyone who sees them that something is just…Not Right.
“The energy in this room is wack,” says Taehyung when he comes over to steal some food a few days later, waving his hand in front of his face like he’s just smelled something bad. “Truly wack.”
Seokjin sighs. “Just take the food and go.”
Taehyung stills at that, his lower lip jutting out in a pout as he stares at Seokjin, sitting in the living room, before turning to Yoongi, who’s working at the kitchen table. “I’m not even being scolded for stealing?” he asks dramatically. “My parents truly are divorced.”
The worst part about it though, is that even though Seokjin knows he’s fucked up, he just can’t stop thinking about it. But that song wasn’t about me, Yijeong, the objectifying asshole had said before he’d started objectifying, and he sounded so bewildered that Seokjin’s inclined to believe him. He very clearly knows who it’s about, too, but Seokjin would rather walk barefoot on entirely-Lego ground than go and beg Yijeong to tell him who it’s about.
So Seokjin’s back at square one, with absolutely no leads and no idea what to do next. A better man would probably recognize his faults, acknowledge his mistakes, and take a step back from the situation in an attempt to get things back to the way they were.
But Seokjin is not a better man, so he does absolutely none of those things. Instead, he feels even more crazed—hyper aware of everything Yoongi is doing, meticulously dwelling on every interaction to see if there’s something that’ll give it all away.
“You’re insane,” Hoseok says to him, somehow sounding both horrified and mildly awed after Seokjin tells him everything that happened. “Seriously. You need to stop. You’re going to give yourself a mental breakdown.”
Seokjin sighs. “You think I don’t know that?” he asks, as Taehyung plops down on the couch cushion beside him and sticks a hastily rolled joint in between his mouth. “You don’t think that if I could stop, I would’ve? What is this? Am I supposed to eat this?”
Taehyung digs into his pockets and pulls out a lighter. “Inhale,” he orders as he flicks the lighter, cupping his other hand around the flame. Seokjin does as he’s told.
The smoke settles heavily in his mouth, then fills up his lungs. Seokjin tries to inhale as much of it as he can, but it leaves a harsh taste on the back of his tongue, one that reminds him distinctively of dirt. “What the fuck is this?” he coughs out, letting the smoke escape from his lips. He pulls the joint from his mouth, inspecting it closer. “Is this weed? It tastes terrible.”
“It’s hash,” Taehyung replies. At Hoseok’s skeptical look, he shrugs. “It’s the only thing I could get on such short notice.”
“Fuck,” Seokjin coughs again, but takes another hit. The smoke makes his head spin.
“But yeah, as I was saying, you need to chill,” Hoseok says. “So what if Yoongi’s in unrequited love with someone? It’s absolutely none of your business.”
“It is absolutely my business, though,” Seokjin argues. “He can’t be in unrequited love with someone.”
“Why not?” Taehyung queries.
“Because he’s Yoongi.” For some reason his tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “He’s just—why would he painstakingly choose to love someone who doesn’t love him back when there are so many people out there who would love him right now, right at this second?”
Hoseok and Taehyung exchange a look. “Because he’s loyal?” Hoseok replies.
“A martyr, more like,” Taehyung mutters, reaching for his joint. Hoseok smacks him in the arm.
“I want him to be happy,” Seokjin muses, taking one more hit as he bats Taehyung’s hands away. “There’s really nothing I want more than for him to be happy.”
It’s not even a lie, is the thing. Seokjin’s always held this ever-present conviction that Yoongi should be happy, simply because he deserves to be happy. And he doesn’t mean that in that shallow, surface-level way other people do—where they’d wave a hand and say: chase your dreams and do what makes you happy. No, it’s something he truly believes, has believed ever since they were two awkward introverts packed into a cramped dorm room together and Yoongi constantly walked around like he’d had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d thought it when Yoongi was pulling all-nighter after all-nighter and subsisting only on passion and ungodly amounts of coffee; he’d thought it when Yoongi would hide his face in Seokjin’s chest as he cried, embarrassed about the emotion but needing the comfort anyway.
It’s not a lie, but it feels closer to a half-truth, like there’s still something tucked in secret on the other side.
“Still doesn’t mean it’s any of your business,” Hoseok says, matter-of-fact.
“I know,” Seokjin says. He takes one more inhale before he passes the joint to Taehyung. “And yet somehow, I can’t not make it my business.” He leans his head back and closes his eyes, watches multicolored shapes and blobs form behind his eyelids. “I wish I could stop thinking about it.”
“You wanna know what I think?” Taehyung asks.
“Not really.”
“I think you should really dig deep and think about why you’re so fixated on it,” Taehyung continues, ignoring him. “Like, why does it bother you so much? Why do you care if Yoongi-hyung is in love with someone else?”
The back of Seokjin’s mouth tastes weirdly metallic. Possibly because of the hash, but also quite possibly because of Taehyung’s words, prodding at some deep, sensitive part in his heart. Reaching for a memory he’s long buried.
“Because it’s Yoongi,” he answers.
There’s a pregnant pause. “What about Yoongi-hyung?” Hoseok asks, so very delicately.
Right now, the world around him feels like one giant carnival ride, spinning faster and faster, taking him higher and higher. The lights flash brightly, the wind whizzes past his ears and his insides flop around, displaced and unsettled.
“Yoongi makes me feel…” Seokjin trails off, letting out a breath. He thinks of Yoongi in the thousands of situations they’ve shared, thinks of him at the barbecue restaurant the day he wrote that dumb song, cheeks rosy, smile wide and eyes gleaming. Thinks about how just a few hours later, someone had broken his heart enough for him to write a song about it.
Abruptly, the carnival ride stops. His stomach lurches uncomfortably, and his lunch from earlier threatens to make an appearance.
Seokjin swallows. “Yoongi makes me feel stupid,” he says, and refuses to respond to any more of Hoseok and Taehyung’s prodding.
There’s a notebook on the kitchen table. Yoongi’s songwriting notebook, to be exact, innocuously set at the corner of the table like it had been meant to be grabbed at the last minute and then forgotten. Seokjin ignores it, physically turning himself around so he won’t be tempted to peek at it, and he actually does a good job until he actually has to use the kitchen table to eat.
In theory, it should be a non-event. All Seokjin needs to do is pick up the notebook and move it to the living room table, just so it’s out of the way. But when he moves it, a pressed napkin slips out from between the pages and floats under the fridge, and it takes him about five minutes to retrieve it.
Which means that it’s impossible for him not to read what’s on the napkin once he’s picked it up, the words hastily scribbled in Yoongi’s familiar slant.
I’d bleed myself dry if it means that you kiss me for just one more fleeting moment.
Seokjin hastily slams the napkin face down on the table, his heart hammering and his eyes wide. He shouldn’t have read that. He really shouldn’t have read that. And yet, he did and the nature of it is exactly the same as the song Yoongi wrote—unhinged and pining. Immediately, this weird, all-encompassing urge to just know who it’s about takes over him again, and Seokjin feels manic. He has half a mind to sprint the five minutes to campus and confront Yoongi about it right then and there. But Yoongi’s still a bit angry at him, and he probably won’t appreciate it if Seokjin showed up outside his classroom demanding answers. In fact, he’d probably get even more pissed off. Especially once he finds out that Seokjin’s read his little napkin note.
But once is a coincidence. Twice, Seokjin thinks, is a girl group. There’s a reason why this is a recurring theme in Yoongi’s songs, why he keeps writing lyrics about this same topic—about his love being unrequited.
Which brings them back to the same question: who is making Yoongi this sad?
Seokjin’s saved from further spiraling by the ding of his phone, loud in the silence of his apartment. It takes him a moment to locate it, thumbing open the text he’d received.
Friday, 1 September 2023
Lee Jieun:
see you in a bit? ❤️
Seokjin can’t help the small smile that forms on his face. can’t wait, he replies, and hopes that she’ll be a sufficient enough distraction from the turmoil of his emotions.
He and Jieun end up having dinner and some wine, and it’s just enough that it’s easier for Seokjin to pull her onto his lap on the couch and kiss her, his hands wandering. But it’s clear after a while that Seokjin doesn’t have the capacity for much more than that, so they end up tangled together on the couch, Jieun’s head resting on his chest while the TV entertains itself with some romance drama that neither of them are really watching.
Yoongi likes dramas, Seokjin thinks absently as one of his hands comes up to card through Jieun’s hair. He’d never admit it, but Seokjin’s found him curled up on their couch binge-watching a newly released drama so many times that he knows it to be true. He’s even roped Seokjin into watching a few with him, and some of Seokjin’s fondest memories consists of him and Yoongi sitting in relative silence, their shoulders pressed together as they watch whatever’s on TV.
But it’s not something they’ve done recently—at least, not since Seokjin heard Yoongi’s song and his life went all topsy-turvy because of it. He realizes right now that he misses it, misses the specific brand of comfort only Yoongi can give him, something whole and warm and solid that Seokjin only lets himself crave on the nights he feels particularly lonely.
Above him, Jieun shifts, leaning into his touch. Her eyes are trained on the TV, but it’s clear her mind is elsewhere.
“Are you…” she begins, and then lets out a sigh like she’s just come to terms with something inevitable. “Are you thinking about Yoongi again?”
“Hm?” Seokjin replies like the question had caught him off-guard, but he doesn’t deny it. He keeps running his fingers through her hair, enjoying the way the soft, silky strands fall through his hands.
Jieun turns to look at him, pillowing her chin on his hands. There’s something like sadness in the slant of her eyes, in the round curve of her smile. “Out with it,” she says. “What are you worried about now?”
Seokjin shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he says. “I just don’t like it when Yoongi’s mad at me.”
“Is he mad at you?”
“Sort of,” Seokjin admits. “I kind of—well, I kind of yelled at Jang Yijeong.”
There’s a pause. “Why?”
“He was saying all these things about Yoongi,” Seokjin says. “About like, wanting to fuck him and stuff. I know he was just teasing but I flipped out about it.”
“Yoongi’s a grown man,” Jieun says. “I think he can decide with whom he wants to have those kinds of relations with.”
“I know that,” Seokjin replies. “But it just messed with me. It made me feel like Yoongi and I are getting further and further away from each other. Our relationship used to be perfect. He used to tell me everything, and now I don’t even know who he’s fucking. Who he wants to fuck him.” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “I don’t even know who it is that he’s sad about.”
Seokjin’s life is supposed to be perfect. He goes to a good school, taking his post grad in a major he enjoys; he has a good family, a pretty girlfriend, and a solid, dependable best friend-slash-roommate. Except that the aforementioned best friend seems to be distancing himself from Seokjin, and it’s affecting Seokjin in more ways than he’d thought, sending him spiraling down until he’s a hair’s breadth away from insane and unable to stop thinking about it. Already he knows this whole saga is starting to affect him physically, too: the bags under his eyes are heavier, his face is a little sallower, and most days, he just feels like shit.
He just doesn’t know what else to do.
“It doesn’t even make sense to me,” he continues, the words falling easily from his lips, “why whoever he’s sad about isn’t all over him. Yoongi’s a goddamn catch. He’s practically the best boyfriend anyone could have. Kind, sensitive, adoring, and attentive. Tender-hearted too; gentle to everyone even though the world hasn’t exactly been very kind to him. He shouldn’t be pining, simply because anyone would be lucky to have him in their lives. Anyone would be lucky to have Yoongi love them back.”
Jieun’s silent for a moment, seemingly processing Seokjin’s words. The strange sadness in her eyes only grows, and she’s looking at Seokjin like she’s seeing through him, cutting past his exterior and arriving straight at the heart of the matter.
“Yeah,” she says. She clambers off him in one swift movement, seating herself on the other end of the couch. Seokjin blinks, momentarily surprised at the sudden loss of her body, but he follows suit, pushing himself into a seat and scooting closer to her.
“Are you okay?” he asks, hesitant.
Jieun shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she says. There’s a small curve to her lips, but Seokjin is hesitant to call that a smile. “I have to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?”
“I think we should break up.”
It’s absolutely nothing he expected her to say. “What?”
“Yeah,” Jieun shrugs a shoulder. She’s wearing a brown knitted cardigan that’s just a touch too big for her, and when it slips off her shoulder, she rights it in one quick movement. “There’s a part of me that’s, like, telling me this isn’t really working anymore.”
“But I—what?” Seokjin manages to get out, bewildered. It would’ve been easier to fathom if she’d led with that, if she’d sat him down as soon as he’d arrived and said, hey, we need to talk. But they were literally cuddling thirty seconds ago. He had his mouth on hers only minutes prior, kissing her in between heated, gasping breaths.
He doesn’t understand where this suddenly came from.
“Was it…was it something I said?” he asks, still confused. “Something I did?”
“No.”
“Then why…?” Seokjin asks. “I thought we were good together.”
“We are,” Jieun replies, reaching out to place a hand atop Seokjin’s. “We’re very good together.” She takes a moment to think. “It’s just that there’s still a difference between things being good and things being right.”
“So you’re saying you and I…are wrong?”
Jieun hesitates. “The wrong idea, maybe,” she replies. “Or the wrong execution. You know when you’re making a puzzle and you find a piece that could be it, except you try to fit it into the blank space and it doesn’t quite line up perfectly? Yeah.”
Seokjin’s first instinct is to be contrary, to tell her that no, he doesn’t quite understand what she’s saying. But he’d be lying if he said that—in fact, he’d be lying if he said that her words didn’t make any sense. He gets it, he thinks; sometimes the idea is good, but it falls apart in execution, sometimes good things are only meant to be good things for one, fleeting moment. Sometimes it’s better to let good things go before you go further and try to twist them into shapes they were never really meant to be in.
“Anyway,” continues Jieun, “I think we’re better off as friends.”
Seokjin waits and tries to muster up something, anything—sadness, or disappointment or maybe even anger. But his chest is one dark, empty vacuum, devoid of any real emotion pertinent to the sudden end of this relationship.
“Okay,” he relents. “Yeah, I get it.”
Jieun’s expression brightens at that, the curve on her lips transforming into something closer to a smile. The grip she has on Seokjin’s hand tightens by just a fraction.
“Then as a friend, can I tell you something?” she asks.
Seokjin’s wary this time. “What?”
A pause, one that rings out a little longer than the others. When Jieun speaks, her words are careful. “I think that you’re in love with Yoongi.”
And this time, something in the empty vacuum of Seokjin’s chest comes to life, his heart stumbling in its pattern. “Wh–what?” he stutters out. “No. No, I’m not. Of course I’m not. Yoongi’s just…”
A friend, he wants to say, but his tongue fails him at the last moment.
He clears his throat and regroups. “What do you—what even makes you say that?” he asks her over the sudden thudding of his heart. “I’ve never—like, if you’re insinuating I cheated on you—”
“No, of course not,” Jieun says firmly. “I know you’d never do that. It’s kind of just the way you talk about him, you know?” She shrugs. “I noticed that you talk about him like he’s your whole world.”
Rattled. That’s the only word Seokjin can think of to describe his mental state right now. Kind of like he’s a snow globe and he’s been picked up and shaken and upended roughly until the flurries inside his body whizz around and around like a never-ending tornado.
“Okay, but that doesn’t mean I’m in love with him,” Seokjin shoots back, even though the words feel hollow on his tongue. “Yoongi’s probably the most important person in my life. Of course he’s a big part of my world.”
“I guess,” Jieun replies. “But it does feel like it’s a little more than that.” When Seokjin doesn’t reply after a minute, she huffs out a sigh, shaking his head. “Look, if you really are or aren’t—that’s entirely up to you. I’m just calling it like I see it. I think you feel something for him and either you don’t recognize that you do, or you’re just outright ignoring it.”
“I–I don’t—” The storm in his body only seems to grow stronger and stronger. Seokjin squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head—unable to think, unable to make sense of everything.
I think that you’re in love with Yoongi.
(In the midst of the storm, there’s a memory that resurfaces, knocked askew from where he’d hidden it by the sudden tumult of his emotions.)
“Fuck,” Seokjin finishes weakly. He’s pale and clammy, heart thudding loudly in his chest. “You couldn’t have just told me you were pregnant and we would have to co-parent the child instead?”
That makes Jieun laugh, the sound like a gentle tinkling of bells. “Your jokes are terrible,” she says. She shakes her head, leans against his shoulder, and Seokjin closes his eyes and draws comfort from her warmth as he waits for everything inside him to settle.
When Seokjin arrives home later, Yoongi’s there, sitting on the couch. He’s got the same romance drama Seokjin and Jieun were watching playing on the TV, and he seems heavily invested, occasionally letting out quiet huffs of laughter. Seokjin stands by the doorway with his shoes still on, staring at Yoongi like he’s never seen him before, and finds that he doesn’t really know what to do next.
After a few moments, Yoongi seems to realize Seokjin hasn’t moved, and his eyes flicker from the TV to Seokjin, by the doorway. It’s evident that he’s just meaning to ignore Seokjin (after all, things are still weird between them), but whatever he sees on Seokjin’s face gives him pause.
“Hyung,” he says, after a beat. “Is everything okay?”
Seokjin kickstarts his brain. “Fine!” he squeaks out. Stiffly, he bends down to untie his shoes, haphazardly kicking them to the corner. He’ll fix them later. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just came from Jieun’s.”
“Oh. How is she? I don’t think I’ve seen her in a while.” Yoongi shifts on the couch so that he’s fully facing Seokjin, and when Seokjin doesn’t respond, he gently prods, “Hyung?”
“Oh, she’s fine,” Seokjin says. He forces himself to take one step, then the next, then the next, up until he’s in the living room. “Yeah, she’s…she’s doing good.”
Yoongi studies his expression. “Judging from your face, it does not look like she’s doing good,” he says. A thought occurs to him. “Fuck, did she tell you she was pregnant or something?”
Seokjin barks out a laugh, but it sounds fake, even to his ears. “Not even,” he tells Yoongi. “She just broke up with me.”
Yoongi’s eyes widen, and in a flash, he’s standing in front of Seokjin. “Oh,” he says. “Holy shit, hyung. Are you okay?”
“I think so,” Seokjin tries to reply brightly, even though he doesn’t feel quite as bright. He drops his bag on the floor and doesn’t care to move it out of the way. “She was quite nice about it. And she…” She told me I was in love with you, he thinks, then actively stops himself from blurting it out. He doesn’t want to dwell on that—not just yet. “Well, it was a weird conversation.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yoongi takes a step forward, his expression pinched in concern. Seokjin’s facing him head on, which is the closest they’ve gotten to each other in the last few days. He finds himself tracing the curve of Yoongi’s eyebrows, the tired slant of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the curve of his mouth—often pressed in a straight line, but so quick to curve upwards at the slightest joke. Concerned Yoongi is so lovely, the loveliest thing in the world. And so are Happy Yoongi, and Excited Yoongi, and Sleepy Yoongi, and Tired Yoongi. All the iterations of Yoongi Seokjin’s been privy to in their long friendship.
Sometimes—many times—he dreams of Yoongi. He’s dreamt of Yoongi in so many forms, in many different places: uncharacteristically frolicking in a sunflower field, or dressed like a cherub and tucked away napping on some fluffy clouds. He’s dreamt of Yoongi as an emperor in old palaces, as an executive with an office at the top floor of Seoul’s highest skyscraper, as a world-renowned pianist performing his sold-out concert at the Schönbrunn in Vienna. But his favorite dream by far is Yoongi just as he is, standing before portraits in the museum as the sunlight outlines him in gold. He’s the brightest thing there, even between Monets and Van Goghs and Da Vincis, brighter still when he turns to Seokjin, his eyes soft and laughter already playing in the corner of his lips. Always, he reaches out a hand—large and calloused and steady—and asks him, voice teasing, what do you think hyung, what’s the loveliest thing out there? Always, Seokjin wants to answer, You, just you.
No argument, no comparison. Yoongi’s just the loveliest thing in the world, full stop.
Seokjin swallows, suddenly overwhelmed with all these feelings. “Thanks,” he replies slowly. He opens his mouth a few times, trying to say a few words, but whatever he tries to muster up dies a painful death at the back of his throat. He can’t look at Yoongi, not right now.
“I think maybe I’ll just take a nap,” he says, and then escapes to his room before Yoongi can say anything else.
*
[interlude: one year ago]
Over the sound of the shower running, Seokjin hears the bathroom door click open. A few seconds later the shower curtain gets yanked aside roughly, and Yoongi pokes his head in.
“So,” he begins in a tone so nonchalant that they might as well just be talking about their grocery list, “you getting out of there soon?”
Seokjin takes stock of himself. His hair is matted to his forehead, and his nice outfit (that comprises his best button up and best pair of jeans) is waterlogged and sticking uncomfortably to his skin. His vision is starting to spin slightly because of all the alcohol he’s consumed this evening, and the remaining logical part of his brain knows he has to get out, but it’s drowned out by the part of his brain that’s just screaming why bother .
Heh. Drown. That’s what he wants to do.
“Why should I?” he asks Yoongi.
“Because I was kind of thinking of taking a shower,” Yoongi replies without missing a beat. “Also because our water bill is going to be wack for the month.”
“Just take a shower at Jimin’s,” says Seokjin. He feels himself pouting, and he kicks his feet out, stretching so he encompasses the entire width of the shower. “And why should I even care about the water bill when I’m going to die eventually?”
Yoongi raises his eyebrows, surprised. “Wow,” he says. “That’s kind of dark.”
“It’s true.” Seokjin’s not as drunk as he wants to be, which he thinks is a goddamn shame because there’s probably no better time to get shitfaced than after a break-up. Instead he’s just here, pathetic and wet, unable to stop himself from feeling this heartbreak, this all-encompassing ache.
Yoongi’s still staring at him from the other side of the shower curtain, so Seokjin just sighs irritatedly, tilting his head back to rest against the shower tiles. The movement makes the spray of the shower fall directly on his face, which is annoying, but it helps distract him from the mess of emotions he’s currently experiencing.
“I’m trying to drown right now,” he tells Yoongi,” so either help or leave me alone.”
Yoongi does neither. “Don’t think the shower is the right place for drowning,” he says.
“You never know.” Seokjin gets a mouthful of water as he speaks. “I’m determined. Maybe I’ll be the first person to drown via a shower.”
He squeezes his eyes shut after that, trying his best to focus on the deluge of water in his face, sliding down his skin. Hopefully in his next life, he’ll be reborn as something that feels no emotion. Or love. A fish, maybe. Fish don’t have emotions, right?
He’s so focused on trying to imagine how much better his life would be as a fish that he doesn’t pay much attention to the sound of Yoongi sighing loudly, kind of like he’s annoyed. He does, however, notice when Yoongi pulls the shower curtain the rest of the way, clambers into the booth with him, and plops himself into the empty space next to Seokjin, clothes and all.
“Jesus,” he says, wincing. “This water’s hot. You shower like this?”
Seokjin finds his words. “What are you doing?”
“Joining you.” When Yoongi smiles, he does it with his whole face—his eyes crinkling in the corners and his nose scrunching. It makes him look five years younger, and it always, always tugs at the soft, squishy part of Seokjin’s heart, makes him want to squish Yoongi’s cheeks together and coo at him like a doting mother. “You look like you could use the company.”
“I don’t like company,” Seokjin replies, just to be contrary. “I’m a lone wolf. I operate alone.”
Yoongi—because he knows Seokjin well enough to know when he’s deflecting—just ignores him. He knocks their shoulders together, and that small, minuscule action makes the ache in Seokjin’s chest ease just a little.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Yoongi asks.
“Not really,” Seokjin replies, even though he knows he should probably recount the whole shit evening for Yoongi’s benefit. “It’s pretty straightforward, Yuna broke up with me. And now I’m drowning myself in our shower.”
“Trying to drown,” Yoongi corrects.
“Drowning,” Seokjin repeats. “Like I said, I’m determined.”
It’s an absolute shame, because he’d actually really liked Yuna, too. She was cute and funny, and she’d looked at everything with a childlike wonder, one that he felt really complemented his own personality.
Yoongi huffs, the sound something between a laugh and a sigh. “Please don’t actually drown,” he says. “I wouldn’t know what to do with your body.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
They sit like that in silence for a few moments—Seokjin trying his absolute best to inhale some water, Yoongi close by and just keeping him company. Eventually, Seokjin feels all the fight in his body seep out from him, and he wilts, pulling his knees closer to his chest and resting his chin on them.
“Do you think,” he begins, “that I’m unlovable?”
Judging by the way Yoongi turns and blinks at him, it’s certainly not something he’d expected Seokjin to say.
“What?” he asks. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know.” Seokjin shrugs, keeping his face averted. “I just feel like I can’t get romance right.” He takes a deep breath, holds it in his lungs for a few moments, then blows it out in one fell swoop. “Maybe I’m just not meant to be loved.”
“That’s not true,” Yoongi replies immediately.
“It feels like it is, though, because I do my best, but I’m always just…” He gestures to himself, sopping wet and pathetic, sitting drunk in their shower. “I’m always just left behind.”
I don’t think we’re right for each other, Yuna had said when she was breaking up with him. It wouldn’t be so devastating if Seokjin hadn’t been told the exact same thing the last time he got broken up with.
“I must’ve done something terrible in a past life,” Seokjin continues, mostly to his knees. “Stole some grand treasure, or kidnapped a royal, or, or—God, I don’t even know. Maybe I’m just meant to die alone.”
And then Yoongi does the most incredulous thing—
He smacks Seokjin on the arm. Hard.
“Ow!” Seokjin jerks away from him in surprise. “What the fuck, Yoongi? I bare my heart and soul to you and you hit me?”
Yoongi isn’t even apologetic. “Are you even hearing yourself?” he blurts, some sort of offended fire in his eyes. “Do you realize how incredibly dumb you sound?”
Seokjin feels himself deflate even further. “Wow, thanks for being so supportive about this.”
“I’m saying this because I’m your best friend,” says Yoongi, rolling his eyes. “Hyung, listen to me. I think it’s stupid of you to think that you’re not worthy of love just because some girl broke up with you.”
“I really liked her though, so—”
“So what?” There’s a strange sort of fire in Yoongi’s eyes, one that urges something in Seokjin to sit up, listen. “So what if Yuna didn’t want to be with you? She’s literally only one person out of billions. I know for a fact that there would be so many people in the world who would cut off their right foot just for a chance to be with you.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re smart, you’re handsome,” Yoongi lists off. “You’re kind. You’re funny. You’re—fuck, hyung. You’re the best person I know, and that’s saying something because we’re both friends with Jung Hoseok.”
Seokjin blinks at Yoongi, strangely touched. “You’d rank me above Jung Hoseok?”
“Every day, hyung,” Yoongi replies immediately. “Every damn day. Even on the days you wake up and decide to be a pain in my ass.”
Seokjin wants to open his mouth and push back on that, but his brain can’t seem to focus well enough to form the words. His heart has started doing this weird thing where it thuds loudly and swoops like seagulls diving for fish, and he can only stare dumbly at Yoongi.
“You’re a fucking catch,” Yoongi continues, his voice quieter but no less fervent. His eyes are bright. “You’ll find someone, for sure. In fact, I promise you—there’ll be someone out there who’ll love you so fucking much they wouldn’t even know what to do with themselves.”
Yoongi’s words ring out in the sudden quiet of the bathroom, audible over the splash of water against the bathroom tiles. They’re weighty, and they settle heavily in the space between Seokjin and Yoongi, in the places where they’re touching—pressed together from thigh to shoulder.
It would be the easiest thing in the world for Seokjin to dismiss those words. To shoot Yoongi a smile and say, thanks, that means a lot to hear, and take them as simple platitudes uttered only for comfort. But Yoongi’s staring at him like he’s the most important thing in the universe, like he’s urging him to understand, and Seokjin thinks there’s a part of his brain that’s starting to.
“Hyung?” Yoongi prompts. There’s water dripping down his face and onto his sweater—a threadbare gray one he stole from Seokjin years ago and never returned. His hair is matted to his forehead and his cheeks are pink from the steam, the color already blooming down his neck. He looks like a sopping wet cat, ridiculous and slightly disgruntled, but he’s still so, so lovely, that something terrible and tender splits open in Seokjin’s chest, roses bursting through the cracks.
This moment feels pivotal. It feels like Seokjin’s reached the point of no return, like he’s at a save checkpoint in a video game that’ll rewrite everything. It feels like he’s about to make a massive decision that’ll change the course of his entire world. And yet simultaneously, it feels logical. It feels right.
Because this is Yoongi. This is the most important relationship of his life; this is the person he’ll tell his grandchildren about when he’s ninety years old sitting in a nursing home somewhere. This, he knows, is something he can never really come back from.
He moves on instinct. He slips his hand into the tangled wet strands of Yoongi’s hair, cupping the curve of his skull. Exhales a quiet breath that bounces against the corner of Yoongi’s lips. Yoongi’s face is as large as the moon. Seokjin doesn’t dare to look away.
One last breath, and Seokjin leans the rest of the way in. Yoongi doesn’t pull away.
The kiss is waterlogged, the spray from the shower slipping into their mouths. It’s only incentive for Seokjin to kiss him more firmly, pressing even closer. Every part of him quivers with anticipation, with desire—like he’s a string pulled taut and plucked gently.
Beneath his lips, he feels Yoongi take a shaky inhale, and then he pushes closer, his mouth more certain. Then it's like they’re two opposing tides crashing into each other, their rogue waves intermingling. Yoongi shifts to clamber onto Seokjin’s lap; Seokjin pulls him closer with an arm around his waist. It’s wet and a little uncomfortable and messy with need, with inevitability. Yoongi’s pull is stronger than gravity. Yoongi was always Seokjin’s foregone conclusion.
A sharp press of teeth on Seokjin’s bottom lip, immediately soothed by Yoongi’s tongue. Seokjin feels something inside him yield, all his cells offering themselves up to Yoongi. His first moan falls from his lips and bounces against the bathroom tiles, but Yoongi swallows the next one and responds in kind. Yoongi kisses like a man starving, like a supernova on its last breath; he kisses like he’s never wanted anything more.
On his next breath, Seokjin shifts so he can pull Yoongi closer, but the sudden movement brings to light the ache in his ass from sitting for too long. He winces, and Yoongi laughs and pulls away, their mouths separating with an audible sound.
Yoongi’s eyes crinkle in the corners as they regard him. “Let’s get out of the shower,” he suggests, laughter tucked into the lilt of his words. He reaches over to turn the faucet lever off, and immediately, the bathroom is bathed in silence, broken only by the hollow sound of water splashing onto the tiles.
For a moment they just stare at each other, unsure of what to do next. Yoongi’s hair drips onto Seokjin’s collarbones. His expression is soft and open. Seokjin categorizes the curl of his hair, the roundness of his cheeks. His surprise roommate, his unlikely best friend. The biggest piece of his heart.
They push themselves into a standing position, their joints creaking in protest. There’s a joke to be made somewhere, something about growing too old to be making out in shower booths, and how we’re senior citizens now, Yoongi, but Seokjin doesn’t make it.
Instead he just takes Yoongi’s hand, intertwines their fingers, and pulls him all the way into his bedroom.
*
Back in his room, Seokjin forgoes changing out of his outside clothes and just climbs into his bed, tucking himself firmly under the duvet. He takes a few deep breaths and closes his eyes, intending to fall asleep, or to at least, clear his mind. But Jieun’s words echo in his brain—I think that you’re in love with Yoongi—and with it comes a torrential downpour of memories, disjointed like it’s been played on a broken DVD player.
Yoongi the first time they met, bony and skinny with a perpetual downturn to his mouth. Yoongi laughing at the barbecue restaurant that evening. Yoongi the first time he fell asleep in Seokjin’s bed while they were watching a movie. Yoongi red-faced and crying, curled up against Seokjin—the perfect size to burrow into Seokjin’s chest. Yoongi’s sad, unhinged song and the napkin that had slipped out of his notebook. Yoongi in his dreams, brought to life by his subconscious. Yoongi sopping wet in the shower, matted hair curling at the ends. Yoongi against him, beneath him—pale skin flushed red, kiss-swollen lips in a perfect o shape as Seokjin pressed into him. Yoongi the next day, shirtless in their kitchen, his back tense as he scrambled some eggs.
Maybe this wasn’t the wisest decision, hyung, he‘d said then. You’re rebounding, I know.
He turns to his side, curling further into himself. It’s not love, he tells himself. What he feels for Yoongi isn’t love. Love is trite and shallow and almost meaningless in this day and age, when everyone and their mother can claim they love something but never really do anything about it. What he feels for Yoongi is something much deeper—something that spans decades, maybe even centuries. It's the same instinct that makes birds build nests, that makes a newborn baby cry and curl up against his mother, skin-to-skin. It’s borne from old bones, from an old soul. Taken from the root of the oldest tree.
Love isn’t something he lets himself think about when it comes to Yoongi.
Outside, Yoongi’s still watching TV; Seokjin can hear snippets of the dialogue from the drama he’s watching. He’s so close and simultaneously so far—two warring problems that Seokjin doesn’t know how to remedy. He wants Yoongi closer. He wants Yoongi farther. He wants to go back to when he was ten years old and his biggest problem was how he was going to level up in MapleStory when he had to share computer time with his hyung.
Because—
Do you want to know a secret?
One that can’t even be called a secret anymore, fossilized from how deeply he’s buried it? It’s part of him now, as much bone as his ribcage is, lodged tight and immovable.
The truth is there’s never been anyone else Seokjin wanted to kiss more than Yoongi.
Not before that night, and not since then.
The next days after that are a little weird. Seokjin does his best not to think about it, which means he throws himself into all his activities with a vigor he hasn’t had since he was twelve. He goes to all his lectures and participates actively; he spends his free time in the library studying. He plays tennis and goes boxing and signs up for cooking classes. He joins his friends for dinners and drinking sessions and sleeps over at his friend Sangyeob’s place, then at his other friend Namgil’s place. He even journeys to the countryside to learn how to make traditional Korean alcohol.
The point is that he keeps busy, and by doing so, he ensures that he has no time or mental energy left to dwell on all the brand-new developments in his life.
And, as an added bonus: keeping busy means he doesn’t have to see Yoongi. And it does wonders for his mental state.
Mentally, it’s kind of great not seeing Yoongi. He doesn’t have to think about the veracity of Jieun’s words, nor does he have to confront the feelings they elicit in him, because his feelings are huge and looming and terrifying and he’s always been a little bit of a coward. Not seeing Yoongi means that he can pretend that his life is still perfect and not shattering to pieces one hairline fracture at a time. Not seeing Yoongi means that everything stays the same. That they are as they always are.
It’s not as great for his heart, however. Because some days (most days), all of Seokjin just aches to be near Yoongi. To just kind of…be there, whether it’s in stillness or in chaos. Whether Yoongi feels chatty or not. It’s really just nice to be close to him.
To add to that, Yoongi seems to think that Seokjin’s been taking the break-up hard, because he starts texting him now. Yoongi never texts Seokjin. He has, like, a personal vendetta against replying to Seokjin’s texts. But now Seokjin’s got a conversation thread with Yoongi filled with things like how are you? or are you coming home tonight? or even there’s mulhwe in the fridge that Seokjin leaves unanswered. They do almost break his resolve (the mulhwe one especially) but Seokjin is nothing but determined. It’s mind over heart. Focus over desires. Seokjin is going to bury his head in the sand until there’s more sand on this earth left to cover him.
So all of it—from the tedious process of alcohol-making to the lingering soreness of engaging in sports while slightly hungover from the night before—is preferable to actually going home and talking to Yoongi.
“Go home,” Namjoon begs, and he sounds exhausted. “Please, just go home.”
“No!” Seokjin yells, clutching one of Namjoon’s couch pillows. He violently kicks his feet out when Namjoon grabs him by the ankles, managing to dislodge his grip. “You can’t make me!”
“Yes, I can!” Namjoon yells back. “This is my apartment!”
“And I’m your friend!” Namjoon tries to grab his ankles again, and this time Seokjin is able to escape his grip with a well-timed roll. “Are friends not supposed to help each other in their times of need? Are friends supposed to abandon their friends on the street and leave them to die?”
“You’re not going to be abandoned on the street! You have a house!”
“My house is currently inhabited!”
“Yeah, by your roommate!” Namjoon looks pissed now. If he were a cartoon character, Seokjin’s certain he would see one of those pulsing cross-popping veins on his temple. “That’s where he’s supposed to be!”
Seokjin clutches Namjoon’s pillow tighter to him. “But I don’t want him to be there.”
“Tough luck, you asked him to live with you. Now you have to live with that decision.
Seokjin sniffs haughtily. "Wow,” he says. “I'm going through a lot right now and this is how you treat me? Thanks, Namjoon. You’re such a good, bald friend.”
“I’ve been hosting you for three days,” Namjoon deadpans, but to his credit, he doesn’t try to grab Seokjin’s legs again. Instead, he just plops down onto the seat beside Seokjin and sighs like a wearied old man ready to impart some wisdom. “I don’t get it. What even happened between Yoongi-hyung and you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why don’t you want to go home and see him? Because I distinctly remember you telling us once that you’d much rather spend five hours with Yoongi doing nothing than going to catch crabs with me at the beach, so I don’t understand why his presence is a problem now.”
“I think he gives me health issues,” says Seokjin. “I’m pretty sure one day we’ll be in the same room and then I’ll look at him and die.”
“Okay.” Namjoon looks skeptical. “Ignoring the fact that you’ve been in the same room many times before…why would that even happen?”
Seokjin wrinkles his nose. “He makes my chest feel weird,” he answers. “Like, it swoops and stuff. Heart attack symptoms.”
“Are you talking about emotions?”
“I don’t like them,” complains Seokjin. “Take them out. I don’t want to feel anything ever again.”
“Jesus.” Namjoon’s expression turns bewildered. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re actually really older than me, because you speak like a five-year-old.”
Seokjin puts on his best smile. “Five-year-olds deserve to sleep on your couch for one more night.”
“No.”
“Fuck.”
There’s a moment where Namjoon just stares at him and Seokjin deliberately avoids his gaze and focuses his attention on the couch cushion he’s claimed—a fuzzy, baby pink heart-shaped thing that’s just criminally soft.
“I still don’t get it,” Namjoon eventually says. “You’re telling me that Yoongi-hyung’s presence is making you feel swoopy things in your chest? Are you in love with him?”
There it is, there’s that L-word again. “Well, that’s kind of what Jieun said,” Seokjin says, keeping his tone light. “And then she broke up with me. Or wait, no—she broke up with me before she said that.”
Namjoon’s eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. “Shit, you and Jieun-noona broke up?”
“I told you, I’m going through a lot right now.”
“I’m starting to get that.” Namjoon’s gaze has turned a little pitying and empathetic, and Seokjin thinks that if he keeps this up, he might be able to score another night on Namjoon’s couch. “Shit, hyung. How are you feeling?”
Seokjin takes stock of himself. “Weird,” he decides eventually. “Just…weird.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” Seokjin squeezes his pillow tighter, trying to draw comfort from its fuzzy soft exterior as he tries to figure out his next words.
“You know what’s funny?” he asks rhetorically. “When Jieunie broke up with me, she said that it was because although we were good, we weren’t right for each other. Which, logically, shouldn’t have really made sense. Because how are good things not the right things? How can you enjoy your time with someone and just still not be right for each other?”
“But then you realized it makes sense?” asks Namjoon, because he’s the type to try and jump ahead to the crux of the matter.
Seokjin shrugs. “Yeah. With her it was fun and all, and I genuinely liked spending time with her, but it was…” He trails off, wetting his lips. “Well, let’s just say I came home and saw Yoongi and everything just clicked.”
“And then you freaked out?”
Seokjin blows out a breath. “And then I freaked out,” he confirms. “With Yoongi, everything just feels right. Like, I see him in the morning pouting at the coffee machine and everything is right with the world. Like I’m here where I should be, and he’s here where he should be, and it’s the most natural thing for us to be here. For us to be sharing space like this. And it’s…it’s terrifying.”
Namjoon’s gaze is steady. “Why is it terrifying?”
“Because it’s like—everything I feel when it comes to Yoongi is either too big, or too much.” He picks on the cushion’s fuzz, just to have something to do with his hands. “I can’t rein it in, especially after what Jieun said. I don’t think I can be normal about him anymore.” He pauses. “Which is why I may have to move in here and sleep on your couch for the foreseeable future.”
“You are not moving in here,” Namjoon says, but there’s less resolve in his voice than there was earlier. “Why don’t you just…accept that you can’t be normal about him?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you kind of have to?” Namjoon asks, although it doesn’t sound like a question. “He’s your best friend, hyung.”
“He is,” agrees Seokjin sadly. He wants to crack a joke, but he can’t find it in him to, all the urge to deflect leaving him in one fell swoop. “He’s my best friend, and he deserves nothing more than to be happy. And if I were—hypothetically, of course—in love with him, I just…I think it would make things worse for him. He already likes someone else.”
“Wait, what?” Namjoon dramatically startles back in shock. “He told you he likes someone else?”
“No, but I mean…the song,” Seokjin says. At Namjoon’s blank look, he elaborates, “The song you showed me? The sad one about wanting to turn into some guy’s girlfriend? It’s pretty obvious he wrote that with someone in mind.”
There’s a long pause. “He did,” Namjoon confirms slowly.
“So it’d just be stupid,” Seokjin concludes. “He’d be in love with someone else while I’m hypothetically in love with him. It’d be ridiculous. We’d just be two, pining idiots in unrequited love.”
Namjoon’s expression doesn’t change, but Seokjin thinks he can see a tinge of pain in his eyes. “Pining idiots, definitely,” he replies. “Unrequited love, probably not.”
“What?”
“Hyung,” Namjoon says, sighing. “There’s a reason I made you listen to that song.”
“I know,” replies Seokjin. “It was to tell me that Yoongi’s sad.”
“That’s not the reason.”
“Then what is it?”
Namjoon visibly hesitates. “It’s really not my secret to tell,” he says. “But I’ll just—look, I’ll play the song for you again.” He reaches over the couch arm to grab his backpack from where he’s abandoned it, and he almost topples over in his haste. Seokjin has to reach out and grab him by the ankle to steady him. “Whoops, sorry. But, yeah. Listen to it again. Really listen to it. And maybe, as you’re listening, think about the people Yoongi-hyung’s closest to.”
“The ones with girlfriends?” Seokjin cocks his head as he thinks. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone Yoongi’s friends with has a girlfriend, actually. Unless they’re a lesbian. Yoongi’s like, president of the gay armada.”
Namjoon takes the time to look up from where he’s clicking through his files to give Seokjin a flat look. “Ex-girlfriends count,” he says.
It takes a moment, but Namjoon eventually locates the file, loading it up onto his music player. He puts his computer on max volume and even gives the little volume button a few extra clicks, to make sure that Seokjin will hear something.
“Listen,” he stresses again once it’s all set up, and then he clicks play.
The song, when it plays, isn’t exactly as Seokjin remembers it to be, but he isn’t surprised. That’s how Yoongi’s music always is—full of subtleties and poetic backdrops that make it impossible to get the full extent of his talent on a first listen. But Seokjin forces himself to listen past Yoongi’s talent and musicality.
He’s marginally more prepared this time. He isn’t blindsided by the lyrics; the sheer emotion in Yoongi’s voice no longer hits him with the force of a speeding truck. Instead, he follows the cadence of Yoongi’s voice, absorbing the sadness tucked between its lilts. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine how Yoongi must’ve looked when he wrote that. What, he wonders, was he thinking about?
Seokjin replays the evening again out of habit: July 28th. They hung out, they went to class, they had dinner. Yoongi went to Yijeong’s while Seokjin took Jieun home.
At the dinner, Yoongi laughed a lot. He’d been laughing the whole time, up until he wasn’t anymore—quiet and tired as they’d gotten ready to go home. He was feeling particularly clingy that evening, Seokjin remembers—he’d hovered by Seokjin’s side while Seokjin slipped into his jacket. Stayed close even as Seokjin bid their friends goodbye.
After that they went their separate ways—Seokjin to Jieun’s and Yoongi to Yijeong’s.
Except—
A small memory sparks in his brain like a match struck in a dark room, a moment he’d half-thought he imagined. When they’d been leaving, Seokjin had pulled Jieun closer by the waist, and Yoongi had regarded them silently, his face impassive. But for a split second, Seokjin saw sadness flicker across his face. It had been a familiar expression, one that Seokjin’s already seen on his face from one evening months ago, back when they were on the couch, watching a film together.
Hey, Seokjin said then. It had been a few weeks after his and Jieun’s first meeting at the coffee shop, and they’d been texting more and more, meeting up more and more intentionally. If I—I don’t know, I thought I should ask you first—but if I asked Jieun out on a date, would you be okay with that?
At first, Yoongi had been so silent that Seokjin had thought he’d fallen asleep. But then he’d sighed, shifted away from Seokjin, enough that their knees were no longer touching. That same sadness flickered across his face for a split second, then disappeared.
Do whatever you want.
Seokjin wants to say that the reason Yoongi had reacted this way was because he didn’t like the idea of Seokjin and Jieun dating. But there’s a part of him that knows better, knows that it’s much deeper than that; knows that it’s something beyond being put in an awkward situation because your two close friends started dating.
And that one split-second moment flips everything on its head, reorients all of Seokjin’s hypotheses towards one, almost glaringly damning conclusion.
Seokjin’s heart drums out a loud pattern in his chest and he turns to Namjoon with wide eyes.
“Is he,” he begins, but doesn’t finish his sentence.
Namjoon looks triumphant. “I’m not saying anything,” he says. “You should ask him.” He bites his lip, hesitating a little. “You should go home. He’s been asking everyone every day if they’ve seen you around recently, and honestly, I’m not sure how much longer I can keep lying to him.”
“You’ve only been hosting me for three days,” Seokjin points out even though his heart is still pounding in his chest—a back-and-forth rhythm of exhilarated-terrified that makes him feel like he’s about to collapse on the ground and die. “Three days is nothing. Once I lied to Yoongi for two months straight by telling him I was allergic to pineapple.”
“He knew you were lying, though.”
“Yeah, but still.”
Namjoon shakes his head. “Go home,” he says. There’s a bemused curve to his lip. “Seriously.” A pause. “He’s really worried about you.”
And there’s a part of Seokjin that still wants to argue, to be bullheaded and stubborn and purposefully obtuse about this, but logically, he knows he has no arguments left. He’s backed himself into a dead end and the only way out is through. He needs to face the feelings swirling in his chest, accept that they’re a part of him he can no longer reason with or ignore, and just…talk to Yoongi. Ask him one last time about the song. And if it all goes to shit, then at least he tried.
Besides, it’s really been kind of shit not getting to see Yoongi. Seokjin can distract and argue and elucidate and wax poetic, but the simple fact of it is: he misses Yoongi when he’s not around.
So Seokjin packs his things and goes home.
When Seokjin keys in the code to their front door and lets himself in, it’s clear that Yoongi’s been waiting for him.
He emerges from his bedroom as soon as the door clicks shut, his expression curious and just the slightest bit tense. When he spots Seokjin, he visibly relaxes, all the tension leaving his body in one breath.
“Hyung,” he says. “Hi.”
Seokjin is suddenly very aware of all the muscles of his face. “Hi,” he says stiffly. “I’m, uh. Back.”
“I can see that.” There’s a warmth in the way he regards Seokjin, his eyes flickering to different points of his face, kind of like he’s trying to see if there’s something that’s changed. “Honestly, I was afraid you might have died somewhere. You were radio silent for two weeks. You didn’t even reply to my text about mulhwe.”
Seokjin scoffs. “I like to think it’d take more than raw fish to bait me.”
Yoongi raises an eyebrow. “Would it, though?”
It probably wouldn’t, but Seokjin likes to think he’s a lot less shallow than that. A lot more mysterious too, with differing, wide-spanning interests that nobody can really pin down. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he replies.
That makes Yoongi crack a half-smile, his face lighting up. There are laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and for a moment Seokjin’s just struck breathless at how beautiful he is. He’s a delicacy kept secret, the quiet muse of a thousand poets. He’s the one person Seokjin wants to be around even when he’s had a bad day. The one person he’ll never get tired of.
“Hyung?” Yoongi asks. Seokjin’s expression must’ve been dazed, because his brow creases, worried. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Seokjin replies immediately. He clears his throat, shaking his head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re, uh, coping well with the break-up?”
“I feel like it never happened,” replies Seokjin. The good (terrible?) thing is, it isn’t even a lie.
Yoongi looks relieved. “Okay,” he says. “I’m glad.” Then he moves to sit on the couch and turn on the TV.
There are many things Seokjin has to do. He’s been couch-hopping for almost two weeks, only stopping by his apartment during the times Yoongi has class, and only for the length of time it takes for him to grab a fresh set of clothes. The magnitude of the time he’s spent away from home sets in now: he wants to take his time in the shower; he wants to lie down on his own bed. He wants to curl up with his favorite pillow and blanket and read the book he’d left on his night table. He wants to do his laundry—his laundry basket’s full, and so’s the duffel bag hooked on his shoulder.
Instead, he drops his bag onto the floor and forces himself to take one, two, three steps, then sinks stiffly onto the other side of the couch.
He feels ridiculous, kind of like he’s an alien trying to figure out how to act as a human. But logically, he knows this is par for the course—this is how they are, this is how they always act. He’s glad that despite the mess of his emotions, his body still knows how to act around Yoongi.
They sit in silence for a few moments, nothing but the sound of the TV between them. Yoongi flicks through the channels; Seokjin sees a drama, a music show, a news segment, and a shopping ad pass him by. He tells himself he’ll talk to Yoongi after this next one—after this next one—after this next one. Each time, he chickens out at the last minute.
Finally, the universe seems to take pity on him. “Hyung,” Yoongi begins, breaking their silence. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Seokjin swallows. It’s now or never, he thinks as he turns to look at Yoongi. There’s concern etched on every line of Yoongi’s face—the gentle sweetness of his eyes, the downturn of the little pink curve of his mouth. He’s truly the loveliest thing in the world.
If Seokjin’s wrong about this, then plain and simple, he’s wrong. But who can blame him for trying when this could be what’s waiting for him on the other side?
“Actually,” he answers, “I was just thinking about your song. I was with Namjoon earlier, and he actually played it again for me.” He doesn’t give Yoongi the space to complain about that, just pushes forward. “And I had a funny thought.”
He takes a deep breath, his heart pounding in his chest. His hands are clammy, and he curls them into fists around his pants. Beside him, Yoongi’s watching him evenly, clearly unsure what to expect.
It’s now or never. “Was that—” The words tumble from his lips gracelessly, stilted in their syllables. “Was that song about me?
If Seokjin were to describe what happens next, it would be this:
The TV freezes on an unflattering shot of a popular actress. The air in the room stills. The sky darkens, and the earth stops turning, freezing both its rotations and revolutions with a comical record-scratch sound. There’s no movement except for the drumbeat of Seokjin’s heart, so loud that it drowns everything out. Yoongi’s expression stills, and then shifts; his eyes widen in surprise as his mouth slowly forms an apologetic grimace.
Oh, God. Abort, abort, abort. The part of Seokjin that’s been set free (the part of Seokjin that’s terribly, wholeheartedly in love with Yoongi) shrivels up like a raisin and burrows back beneath his breast bone.
“Wait,” Seokjin blurts before Yoongi can say something. “Wait, that sounds stupid, actually.”
Yoongi’s expression goes from apologetic to confused.
“There’s no way it would’ve been about me,” Seokjin continues, his words rushing out from him. “Like, haha, why would it even be? Just because you mentioned a girlfriend and I have a girlfriend—or had I guess, rest in peace Jieun, even though she’s not dead, she’s just, I don’t know, sleeping somewhere. There are millions of guys in the world with girlfriends. Girls too. It could literally be any one of them. I don’t know why I thought it was about me.”
Yoongi blinks.
“Actually, you did say it wasn’t about a specific person, right?” Seokjin’s rambling now, spewing out words as soon as they cross his mind, but he finds he can’t stop himself. “It was about the yearning, or whatever. Right? I’ll admit, I didn’t understand what you meant back then, but I definitely get it now. You’re right—does it have to have a deeper meaning other than just emotion? Can’t a homie just feel sad and write an emo song every once in a while? Which, uh, I think is a concept you understand perfectly, so like. You didn’t need me to tell you that. But you know. Write whatever sad song your heart desires! Yearn for the most unattainable people ever! Be as beautifully sad and unhinged as you want!”
Yoongi doesn’t say anything to that. His face has turned impassive, eyes carefully watching Seokjin as he waits for him to finish.
“It was just…it was just a funny thought,” Seokjin says, losing steam. “Incredibly stupid, actually. Just…ignore it. Pretend I didn’t say anything. Pretend we’re, like, talking about the weather or something. Hey, Yoongi, isn’t it such a great day out today?”
A pause. “The weather’s shit, hyung,” Yoongi drawls. He inches forward a little.
Seokjin gulps; does his absolute best to try and swallow his tongue so that he’ll be rendered mute for the rest of his life. When that doesn’t work, he opens his mouth again. “I think it’s fine? Sure, there’s a little bit of a drizzle but nothing that an umbrella can’t fix—”
Yoongi cuts him off. “Do you want it to be?” he asks.
“What? Like, do I want the weather to be fine? Yeah, of course, who doesn’t like good weather—”
“The song,” Yoongi interrupts again. There’s an intensity to his eyes, boring into Seokjin’s own. “Do you want the song to be about you?”
Seokjin feels something akin to fear rise in the back of his throat. “I don’t think that’s something I can want,” he replies carefully. “Either it is or it isn’t. It’s not Schrödinger’s cat. Or song. I can’t magically change what you were thinking about when you wrote that song.”
Seokjin sees Yoongi physically resist the urge to roll his eyes at Seokjin.
“Answer the question.”
He inches forward again, up until their knees are pressed together; like this, Yoongi is close, so close. Seokjin’s heart is going haywire in his chest. He’s pretty sure that today’s the day his Yoongi-induced heart attack happens.
Yoongi is unrelenting, however. “Do you want it to be about you?”
Seokjin takes one breath in, then another. His eyes dart from Yoongi’s face to the floor, and he squeezes his eyes shut. The only way out is through. The only thing left to tell him is the truth.
The whole, unadulterated truth.
“Yes,” he whispers.
And then Yoongi’s lips are on his.
For a moment, Seokjin freezes, confused. He can’t really pinpoint what’s happening, his mind still disoriented from his conversation with Yoongi. But then he opens his eyes and catches sight of Yoongi’s face, closer than ever; catches sight of the slope of his nose and the length of his eyelashes, fanning down his face, and everything just clicks into place.
He melts into Yoongi’s touch, kissing him back with intent, pressing one hand to his lower back and another to the back of his head. Yoongi lets out a quiet noise in response, and presses into Seokjin further. There’s a careful consideration to the way Yoongi kisses him—like he’s only got one chance to do this and he’s going to make damn well sure that he does it right.
When they pull apart, Yoongi presses his forehead against Seokjin’s. “So,” he begins breathlessly, “I lied the first time you asked me.”
“Uh—”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Yoongi blurts, pulling away. “Not when you were dating Jieun. You seemed to really like her, and I didn’t—I wouldn’t come between you like that.” There’s nothing but unabashed sincerity in his eyes. “But that night we went out—I saw the way you held her. Your arm around her waist as you walked her home, and all I could think was, God, I wish that were me.”
“You, uh.” A part of Seokjin’s brain follows nicely, but the bigger, dumber part of Seokjin’s brain is short-circuiting—sparks flying everywhere, all engines shutting down. “You wanted. You wanted to be Jieun?”
“It was such a terrible thought, I know,” replies Yoongi, his tone affecting guilt. “But I was a little drunk, and it was too late—I couldn’t un-think it. So I just went to Yijeong and wrote the most depressing song about it. Yijeong knows, by the way. I was not in a good state when I showed up at his place, I think I talked about you for an hour before I actually got any writing done.”
“You should’ve told me you felt this way,” Seokjin says weakly. “How…how long have you wanted to be Jieun?”
Yoongi’s earnest expression turns flat in a split second. “Not what you should be taking away from this, hyung.”
“Right. Sorry.” Seokjin squeezes Yoongi’s hand back, if only to ground himself. “What I meant was how long have you—I mean, how long since you…”
He’s unable to finish the sentence, his voice trembling. But he knows they’re both on the same page, knows that Yoongi understands what he’s really asking: how long have you loved me for?
This time, Yoongi takes his time answering. “Months, maybe?” His tone is evasive.
Oh. That’s not so bad. Yoongi hasn’t been sad for that long, then. “How many months?”
Yoongi shrugs, doesn’t say anything.
A strange unease settles in Seokjin’s stomach. “Yoongi,” he says steadily. “How many months?”
Yoongi wrinkles his nose, as if he’s displeased to be thinking about it. “Six–” he eventually answers. A pause. “–ty.”
Seokjin feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “Sixty mo—Yoongi, that’s five years.”
“Is it?” Yoongi asks innocently. “I don’t know, I wasn’t really keeping count.”
“You’re so—Jesus,” Seokjin says weakly. He feels a little lightheaded “Jesus Christ. Five fucking years.” He tries to cast his mind back five years ago, to see if he remembers anything. “Did I even know you five years ago? Were we even friends back then?”
“I should hope so,” Yoongi replies, “because the first time I wanted to kiss you was eight months after we first became roommates and you were so adamant in arguing that Poker Face and Gangnam Style were both written by Psy.” He lets out a huff of laughter, shaking his head. “It was so stupid, too. So, so stupid. I wanted to shut you up. Preferably with my mouth.”
Seokjin doesn’t even remember that moment. He thinks it’s probably accurate, though, because Yoongi’s got a knack for remembering things like this and Seokjin has horse memory. “Wow,” he says. “That’s the worst confession of love I’ve ever received, actually.”
“That’s how you know it’s heartfelt.” Yoongi’s smiling at him now, mischievous little quirk to his mouth, and Seokjin can’t say he doesn’t understand the urge because a very large part of him wants to lean back in and kiss Yoongi, if only so he shuts up.
But first. “Okay,” Seokjin says. “Skipping over the fact that you’ve felt this way for five years—”
“Sixty months.”
“Five years,” Seokjin reiterates with emphasis. “You know you don’t have to correct everything, Yoongi.”
“Sorry,” replies Yoongi, not at all sorry.
“Anyway. If you’d felt this way for a long time, why did you—after that night, in the shower,” Seokjin finishes, clumsily. He has to know, if only for his own sanity, where everything went wrong. He can still remember the scene vividly: Seokjin, sated and happy, emerging from the bedroom and feeling his heart suddenly drop at Yoongi’s words. Maybe this wasn’t the wisest decision, hyung. You’re rebounding, I know. “You said it wasn’t a wise decision.”
At this, Yoongi looks chagrined. “I don’t know,” he replies. “Honestly, I don’t know what came over me. It was—God, hyung. It was everything I’d ever wanted, but I just…I don’t know. I got scared, maybe. I woke up and you were sleeping right there and I had the terrifying thought that I wouldn’t know what I’d do if you’d told me it was a…a mistake, or something.”
“I would never,” Seokjin replies on instinct. “You weren’t a mistake. You could never be a mistake to me.” He carts in a breath, holding it in his lungs. “You’re Yoongi. You’re—you’re the thing that feels most right in my life.”
At that, Yoongi ducks his head, a shy, pleased smile crossing his features. He looks down to play with Seokjin’s fingers, tugging gently at each of them. “It’s funny, though, we ended up here again a year later,” he says. “You just broke up with your girlfriend again. And I’m, well, here. As always.” He huffs out a laugh. “It’s kind of like they gave us a do-over.”
“We’re not in the shower, though,” Seokjin points out. “Should we get in?”
Yoongi’s smile widens. “I’d kinda prefer to stay dry this time around.”
This, Seokjin thinks, is probably the best outcome of every single thing he’s been agonizing over in the last few weeks. Which is great and all, except if he’s being honest, he didn’t really think about what happens next.
“So…what now?” he asks. “What do I—what should we do?”
Yoongi tilts his head, regarding him carefully. “I want to do this right with you,” he says. “We can—let’s go out. On a proper date. We can get all dressed up and stuff, go to that really good sashimi restaurant by the river.”
Seokjin’s heart flutters. “And then we’ll…maybe we’ll take it from there,” he says carefully, even though he wants to say, then we’ll love each other for the rest of our boring lives.
But Yoongi, because he has a knack for reading Seokjin’s mind, seems to immediately picks up what he isn’t saying—his eyes turning into crescent moons, his gaze turning unabashedly fond. “Yeah,” he says. “We will.”
“Okay,” Seokjin says. “Okay. Nice, uh, nice talk.”
“Fantastic.”
They stare at each other for a few heartbeats, unsure of what to say next. Seokjin’s heart is looming, grown too big for the confines of his chest. It threatens to swallow him whole. To drown him in this feeling, fill him with light and sun and supernovas until he’s spilling over and blinding. He feels like he’s been filled with enough confidence to stand on stage and give an hour-long inspirational talk somewhere. Or pose on the front cover of a magazine somewhere with a headline like Man Tried, Somehow Scored The Greatest Love of His Life.
Because Yoongi is. The Greatest Love of His Life, that is. Angels would fall just to find what he’s found.
Yoongi’s smile turns knowing. “I think this is the part where you kiss me,” he says.
Seokjin’s throat feels tight, but in a good way. “I thought we were trying to do it right.”
“We are,” replies Yoongi. “But doing it right means that you have to kiss me whenever I want you to.”
He’s so silly and mischievous; he’s so, so beautiful. Seokjin huffs out a laugh and reaches out to fit a hand against Yoongi’s cheek, thumb brushing his cheekbone. Yoongi melts beneath his touch, eyes fluttering shut.
Seokjin kisses him then. Kisses him slow, kisses him deep; kisses him like he’s got eternities to map out Yoongi’s mouth. And Yoongi opens up sweetly, tilting his head to better slot their mouths together. He kisses back just as firmly, just as deeply, and it’s different—different than it was with Jieun and Yuna, different from anyone else Seokjin’s ever kissed before.
It’s good. It’s right. And Seokjin’s never felt happier.
Sometime later, they make it onto Seokjin’s bed. Yoongi presses up against him, skin against skin, an arm lazily thrown over Seokjin’s stomach. He kisses every part of Seokjin he can reach—the hollow of his throat, the sharp edge of his collarbone, the curve of his shoulder, right over his thrumming heart. He moves so gently, so tenderly, his mouth in secluded places, and Seokjin burns up like the sun.
“You’re like a particularly clingy barnacle,” he tells Yoongi.
That gives Yoongi pause, and he pulls away to look at Seokjin. “What, and you’re a whale?” he asks skeptically.
“Don’t give me that look,” Seokjin chides. He shifts to face Yoongi, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him so he’s fully on top of Seokjin. “I’d be a great whale and you know it.”
“If anything, you'd be a piece of seaweed floating on the ocean.”
Seokjin pouts at him. It makes Yoongi laugh and lean down to kiss him, biting gently at his lower lip in apology. Yoongi’s still so warm—a remnant from when their earlier kissing had turned into more, turned into Seokjin drawing the sweetest sounds from Yoongi as he’d pushed into him. This whole thing still feels surreal, like he’d wake up and this would all just be a quickly fading dream. It’s hard to believe he gets to have this with his best friend.
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry,” Yoongi mumbles into his lips. “You’re a whale. You’re the biggest whale there is. You’re the only whale I want to cling onto.”
“Damn right.” Seokjin pinches Yoongi gently in the ass, and is rewarded by a half-hearted slap on his shoulder. “You know, now that we’re dating, you should be a lot sweeter to me.”
“I’m already sweet, what are you talking about?”
“Texting me there’s mulhwe in the fridge isn’t exactly peak romance.”
“It’s straightforward,” Yoongi points out. “To the point. You’re perpetually hungry and I bought you your favorite food. Isn’t that sweet enough?”
“But where’s the endearment?” insists Seokjin. “The wooing? I deserve to be wooed, Yoongi-chi.”
“I wrote a song about you. Is that not romantic enough?”
“Correction: you wrote a song about wanting to consume my ex-girlfriend whole and embody her remains.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Same thing.”
“No, it’s not,” Seokjin whines. “I want poetry and praise! I want flowers and chocolates and ardent declarations of love in the rain! Come on, Yoongi, use your tongue technology and tell me something good!”
Yoongi pulls away so he can regard Seokjin, his eyes cat-like and lazy. Then he smirks, leaning forward so that his lips brush the shell of Seokjin’s ear.
“I love you,” he murmurs.
Seokjin nearly throws Yoongi off him.
“What the fuck,” he squeaks out, blood rushing to his face.
Yoongi just smiles like the cat that got the canary, or the cream, or the cat that got the canary dipped in cream. “What?” he asks, pitching his voice to sound innocent. “You don’t like that?”
“I do, but I—but you—” Seokjin gapes at him. His heart has gone haywire in his chest, skipping beats and hammering at his ribs and generally just making a mess of Seokjin’s internal organs. “You can’t just…you can’t just say that.”
“Why not?” Yoongi’s clearly enjoying this far too much.
“Because you…because I wasn’t prepared,” stutters Seokjin. “You should warn a guy next time.” He takes a breath, trying to calm himself down. “I swear, I’m going to get a heart attack and die and it’ll be all your fault.”
“You won’t die,” Yoongi says, and Seokjin already knows, just from the slight uptick of his lips, that he’s about to say it again. “I love you too much to try and kill you.”
But knowing something doesn’t actually mean you’re prepared for it, and Seokjin’s heart still reacts like it’s the first time, like Seokjin’s jumping off cliff edges and waterfalls.
“Fuck,” he says weakly.
Yoongi’s eyes suddenly get a shiny, puppy quality to them—a trick Seokjin’s ninety-percent sure he learned from Taehyung and Jungkook. “That’s all you have to say?”
A menace, Yoongi is. Still, Seokjin tightens his grip around Yoongi’s waist, and lets out a breath, letting his eyes fall shut as he kisses the delicate soft skin of Yoongi’s shoulder, working his way up the hollow of his throat.
“I love you too,” he murmurs, and feels Yoongi shiver in his arms. “I really, really do.”
[epilogue]
“Nope,” Seokjin says, digging his heels in. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to go.”
He tries to tug his hand out of Yoongi’s grip, but Yoongi’s eighth best talent is hand-holding and he’s got Seokjin’s hand locked down. Really, there’s no escaping Yoongi’s clutches when he wants to hold hands. Amputation is the only solution.
Seokjin mentally says goodbye to his hand.
“You’re being dramatic,” Yoongi replies, as if he can read Seokjin’s mind. “You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Yes, you will,” he insists. “We’ll literally be there for fifteen to thirty minutes, tops. It’ll be quick.”
“But that’s still fifteen to thirty minutes,” Seokjin protests. “What if I just met you at home? Then I can like, put rose petals on the bed and wait—”
“Hyung,” Yoongi interrupts. His eyes grow wide, and his lips purse into a small, but definitive pout. “Just thirty minutes. Please. I promise, if it takes any longer than that, we’ll head home.”
If Yoongi’s eighth best talent is hand-holding, his ninth best talent is pouting. Seokjin feels himself giving in before he even makes the active decision to, and it seems that Yoongi knows that he’s given in because he just tugs Seokjin behind him, pulling him into the music building and leading him all the way to the studios.
For all intents and purposes, it’s a mini emergency. A non-emergency, Seokjin had called it when he’d heard what happened, only for Yoongi to raise a judgmental eyebrow at him as if to say, Really hyung? Really? Basically, what had happened was that he, Namjoon and Yijeong were working on a song. They’d been planning to shop it around to a few big Seoul agencies, to see if anyone would be interested. It’s a great song. A well-produced song. A song they worked very hard on.
And then Namjoon had gone and lost the vocal track. Not for the whole song—just for the bridge section towards the end. How he told the story was that he’d been working on adding some of the finishing touches, the power had shorted out, and when it came back, the vocal file was gone.
How Yoongi retold it on the way here was, “Fucking Namjoon lost my fucking vocal file again.”
Apparently, it happens so often enough that Yoongi, Yijeong and Jungkook apparently already have protocols in place. Yijeong has back-ups, Yoongi is an expert in Finding Things Namjoon Has Lost. Jungkook is there to spin around in an office chair and to be present in case they need to re-record.
Such is life.
When they get to the studio Namjoon had been working in, Yijeong and Jungkook are already there. Yijeong’s crouched over the computer, furiously clicking as Namjoon peeks over his shoulder, while Jungkook, as predicted, is spinning himself around in an office chair. “Hey, hyungs!” he greets, grinning happily at them.
“Hey, Jungkook,” Yoongi replies, his tone all business. He shucks off his jacket and tosses it onto the couch, leaving him in only his beige button-up. He then heads to where Yijeong is sitting.
“Did you find it?” he asks, his voice hushed.
Yijeong shakes his head. “It’s not in any of the usual places,” he replies, clicking furiously. “I’m scared he might’ve lost it for real this time.”
“I don’t know what I did,” Namjoon says, panic in his tone. “I swear, hyungs. It just disappeared.”
Yoongi’s sigh is tired. “Budge over,” he says.
This isn’t Seokjin’s territory. He’s only ever been to the studios three times: once to drop something off for Yoongi, once to wrangle him home, and right now. And it’s not like he’s opposed to the studios—in fact, he thinks he might actually enjoy hanging around and watching Yoongi work—it’s just.
What—or rather, who—he’s opposed to is currently here, relinquishing his spinny office chair for Yoongi to sit on.
As if sensing his gaze, Yijeong looks up from the computer, his gaze falling directly on Seokjin. His expression changes; his face goes from serious to cocky in a blink of an eye, a smirk starting to form on his lips.
“You here to yell again?”
“No more yelling,” Yoongi immediately says tiredly. “Please. I need to concentrate.”
Yijeong shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t think that’s a decision I can make.”
This is exactly why Seokjin didn’t want to see Yijeong. He’s still embarrassed by his previous emotionally constipated yelling, and he definitely does not want to hear more about the things Yijeong would do to Yoongi, if he could. He musters up every ounce of his strength to smile at Yijeong. “I’m just waiting for him,” he says, inclining his head towards Yoongi.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. We’re heading home after this.”
“To do what?”
“Each other.”
It’s a terrible pun. Namjoon winces, Jungkook looks like he’s about to puke, and Yoongi, even though his eyes are trained on the computer, starts to flush, color traveling up his neck.
But Yijeong raises both eyebrows at him, his lips pursed, as if begrudgingly impressed. “Oh, shit,” he says. “Yoongi, you’re dating now? He figured it out?”
There’s a moment. “Yeah,” Yoongi replies eventually. “We’re…yeah.”
Seokjin’s half-expecting for this to escalate—maybe for Yijeong to posture some more, to amp up the cockiness and arrogance like a jilted ex-lover—but to his surprise, Yijeong just says, “Oh, wow. Finally. Happy for you both,” sincerity in his tone of voice.
“Oh,” Seokjin says, feeling a little caught off-guard. “Um, thanks.”
At that exact moment, Yoongi sighs, his shoulders slumping. “It’s not here,” he says, mournfully. “Fuck. Jungkook?”
“I got it, hyung.” Jungkook flashes Yoongi a thumbs-up and jumps to his feet, scurrying over to the recording booth. Immediately, Yoongi and Yijeong start discussing the logistics of the re-recording—where to start, how to do it. Most of their words fly over Seokjin’s head, so he tunes them out and sits himself down on the couch. After a moment, Namjoon joins him, twiddling his thumbs in shame.
Seokjin shakes his head. “You’re never allowed to work in the studio without supervision again,” he tells Namjoon.
Namjoon’s sigh is resigned. “I know,” he says.
Luckily, despite having to re-record, it still ends up being a rather painless process. They’re done in about an hour, thanks to Jungkook’s prodigious vocal skills and his ability to remember what the previous one sounded like. Yoongi makes three copies of the music file and gives Namjoon none of them. It’s clear that Namjoon’s a little upset, but he knows he has no right to complain about it.
They file out of the music department and out into the cool night air. The moon is high in the sky, implying an expanse of time Seokjin’s fully intending to utilize. Their first date dinner may have had to be cut short, but the night is still young. Yoongi’s still wearing clothes. There’s definitely still a lot for them to do.
“I’ll see you soon, hyung,” Jungkook says, giving him a hug. “Maybe I’ll drop by for dinner one of these days.” A thought seems to occur to him because he pauses for a few moments, then makes a face. “Wait. Now that you and Yoongi-hyung are dating, I just realized that I have to plan it.”
“Well,” Seokjin says, “technically you don’t have to.”
Jungkook gives him a look. “And risk walking in and seeing you both having sex on the couch? No thanks. I’d rather have both my eyeballs intact, thanks.” Something seems to occur to him because his eyes widen, before he deflates like a beach ball having lost all its air. “First I have to pay Jimin-hyung and Taehyung-hyung 150,000 won, next I lose my only food source. Life is not looking up for me right now.”
Seokjin is alarmed. “Why do you owe Jimin and Taehyung 150,000 won?”
Jungkook gives him a look. “Because we had a bet, and I said there was no way you and Yoongi-hyung would ever date,” he replies.
Well. Serves him right for taking a bet against Jimin and Taehyung. Everyone knows those two are swindlers.
Yijeong is next to say his goodbyes, pulling Yoongi into a hug. After a moment of quickly sizing Seokjin up, he decides to hug him too; Seokjin’s caught off-guard again, but decides to return the hug anyway.
Yijeong pulls away and his gaze turns hard. “If you ever hurt him again, though, I’ll kill you,” he says.
It’s menacing enought that Seokjin actually feels sufficiently threatened. He swallows, trying not to look too intimidated. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he replies
When he leaves, Seokjin takes a moment to breathe in, filling his lungs with the crisp night air. Yoongi, Seokjin finds, is hovering close by—watching him, a half-smile on his face.
When he catches Seokjin looking back, Yoongi shakes his head. “I told you Yijeong doesn’t like me like that,” he jokes.
“Well, that’s stupid of him,” Seokjin replies. “Everyone should like you like that.” He realizes what he’s just said. “But, uh, you should only like me like that. Nope. No one else. I refuse to share you.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes, but the curve of his lips is fond. He holds out a hand to Seokjin.
“Walk me home?” he asks. It really isn’t a question.
Under the street lamps, he looks the way stars fall—bright, brilliant, blazing. Seokjin feels himself smile and he takes the proffered hand; uses it to pull him close and fits his hand into the dip of his waist. The night is cool, but Yoongi is warm tucked into his side, crescent moon eyes glittering. Seokjin leans in to press his mouth to Yoongi’s temple.
“Always,” he promises.