Work Text:
The hallway isn’t the best place for a songwriting session, but right now it’s all they’ve got—neither Yoongi nor Namjoon have time to make it to either of their studios before their next meeting, so they’d agreed to meet here, leaning against opposite walls of one of their building’s uncountable hallways. Employees keep hurrying past them, barely offering them a second glance—spotting the members of BTS in weird little corners has become common enough over the years, after all.
“The modulation won’t work live if you’re planning to put it to lyrics this intricate.” Yoongi points out the offending lyric, leaning his weight against Namjoon’s arm to do so. “Well, unless you’re planning for us to perform just this song?”
Namjoon snorts and nudges his thigh against Yoongi’s, a familiar presence even from before they’d started dating. Dating one of his best friends—dating Namjoon—is surprisingly easy in moments like these, when the world around them is quiet and they can just spend time writing music.
The alarm on Yoongi’s phone goes off, piercing through their shared quiet; their next meeting’s about to start.
“We should get moving, or we’ll be late again,” Yoongi says, standing up and stretching out his back—perhaps there is something to be said for having songwriting sessions while sitting in ergonomic chairs. “Want to carry on tonight?”
Namjoon nods. “I’ll come by your studio.”
“You sure?” At Namjoon’s second nod, Yoongi crouches down to take his notepad and pen from him and scrawls down a series of numbers. “Let yourself in, I don’t want to leave you outside because I’ve got my headphones in or something.” He hands the notepad back and, because he’s close enough, kisses the top of Namjoon’s head before standing back up.
Grinning shyly, Namjoon glances down at the page.
Then, he looks again, eyes widening.
“Is this… is this the code to your studio?” He asks, looking up at Yoongi with big eyes.
“Yeah?” Yoongi says—he doesn’t mean it to be a question, but it comes out as one in the wake of Namjoon’s response. “Honestly, I should’ve given it to you sooner.”
“You should’ve?” Namjoon says quietly.
Yoongi shrugs. “I mean, Jungkook’s had the code to my studio for a while—it just makes it easier when we need to work on something, you know? Means I don’t need to keep an ear out for someone knocking on the door.”
“Oh!” Namjoon shuffles to stand up. “Right, yeah, of course, makes sense.”
“Really, there’s no reason for you not to have it at this point,” Yoongi says.
“Yeah!” Namjoon laughs. “We’d gotten this far into our relationship without knowing each other’s studio codes, I almost thought it was gonna be like, you know, our final step or something!”
“What do you mean?” Midway through asking the question, it’s starting to dawn on Yoongi that maybe the walk to the meeting room isn’t the best place to be having this conversation, but he’s already finished asking by the time the thought has fully processed in his head.
“Well, we’ve lived together for over a decade now,” Namjoon says. Yoongi opens his mouth to give a more exact length of time, and then closes it. “So it’s not like we can move in together, you know?” He smiles at Yoongi as he brushes their fingertips together. “It’s silly, but our studios are pretty much the only places we have separate from one another at this point.” His smile widens into a full laugh. “That’s not to say I want to move into a studio with you, I cannot think of anything worse than sharing that sort of space with you full-time.”
Yoongi laughs too, even as his brain starts whirring ahead. “Can you imagine? We’d infuriate each other within fifteen minutes.”
“Speaking of which,” Namjoon says, pushing open the door to the empty meeting room. “I saw that photo you posted the other day, you do not need that many drinks at any one time.”
“Oh, but I do,” Yoongi replies, sitting down at the table to wait for the rest of the members to arrive. “Something hot, something refreshing, something a little sweet, something for energy, and water,” he adds, counting them all off on his fingers as Namjoon sits opposite him.
“Water fills most of those needs,” Namjoon says.
“Do you drink hot water, huh?” Yoongi says, trying not to laugh when Namjoon sighs exasperatedly. “Do you drink sweet water?”
“See, this is exactly why I said most ,” Namjoon says. “Because I knew you—” he points at Yoongi “—would do this.”
“You’re both here early,” Hoseok says as he opens the glass door. “Wait, why’re you pointing at hyung?”
“Namjoon likes to drink hot sugar water in his studio and he’s feeling defensive about it,” Yoongi says, smiling pleasantly when Namjoon huffs at him.
“That is not what I said—”
Yoongi’s studio, while it’s the biggest he’s ever had to himself, isn’t quite big enough for pacing in.
He’s giving it a good go, though, shuffling back and forth as he nibbles at his thumbnail distractedly. Instead of getting a head start on the lyrics he’s supposed to be working on, or any of the countless other projects he should be chipping away at, he’s thinking about his earlier conversation with Namjoon.
His relationship with Namjoon is unconventional, and not just because they’re two out of seven of the members of the biggest band in the world. Moving in together isn’t the only milestone that they’d already done before they’d started dating—they’ve been abroad together, they’ve met each other's parents, they’ve even said ‘I love you’ to one another.
And Yoongi can’t stop thinking about how happy Namjoon had looked to get the code to his studio. He knows he hasn’t done anything wrong, and Namjoon would be the first to tell him that he’s overthinking this, but he’d still like to make it up to Namjoon, offer him some sort of relationship milestone, even if they’ve had to miss out on so many others.
He gets the idea just as he hears someone begin keying in his door code; he hurries back to his desk and is hastily scribbling it down as Namjoon lets himself in.
“Ah!” Yoongi hides the piece of paper behind his back, turning to look at Namjoon, who’s scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “Sorry for just barging in, I didn’t realise you’d be able to hear me knock.”
“I gave you the code so you could let yourself in,” Yoongi reminds him. He waits until Namjoon shuts the door before walking over to him, standing up on his tiptoes to kiss his forehead, and then handing him the piece of paper, averting his eyes as Namjoon looks at it. “That’s for you.”
“Um, thank you?” Namjoon says. “I appreciate it, but why are you giving me a picture of a giraffe?”
Yoongi turns back to look at Namjoon so that he can appreciate the frown on his face. “What? No, it’s a key.”
“Oh! Well, you can see why I was confused, right?” Namjoon moves to stand at Yoongi’s side so he can point to the drawing. “This is its neck here, see? It kind of looks like it’s bowing. And here’re its legs, although I don’t know why you’ve only drawn two, hyung.”
“Why would I give you a drawing of a giraffe? What giraffes have circular heads?” Yoongi outlines the drawing with his finger. “Look, it’s clearly a key.”
“Why would you give me a drawing of a key?” Namjoon replies.
“Think of it as a promise, I guess,” Yoongi says, moving away from Namjoon to lean against his desk, hands gripping the edge of the table. “You said earlier that you thought us sharing studio codes would end up being the final step of our relationship.”
“Hyung, that was just—I wasn’t trying to hint at anything,” Namjoon explains, the drawing of the key fluttering as he waves his hands around emphatically.
“No, I know, but it got me thinking,” Yoongi says, tightening his hold on the desk edge. “We’ve missed out on a lot of the conventional relationship milestones, and while I don’t think a relationship should just be a set number of activities you cross off a checklist, I still wanted to offer you this as a future milestone of our own.”
“Okay,” Namjoon says softly. “And what is it you’re offering?”
Yoongi inhales deeply, then exhales just as deeply through his nose. “So, we can’t move in together for the first time, we’ve already done that.” Namjoon nods. “But we can have the milestone of choosing to live together, and continuing to choose to live together, and this…” He lets go of the desk with one hand to wave at the picture that Namjoon’s still holding. “... terrible drawing of a key is a promise that I’ll choose you, choose us , for as long as you want.”
“If I… of course I want that,” Namjoon says incredulously. As he approaches Yoongi, he sets the drawing down on the desk with perhaps more reverence than Yoongi himself would give it. He stands in front of Yoongi and puts his hand on his shoulder with just as much care. “I’d choose us over almost everything.”
This is one of the (many) things Yoongi loves about being in a relationship with Namjoon — he never makes hyperbolic promises when he’s telling Yoongi how much he loves him, which is how Yoongi knows it’s real.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t still tease Namjoon about it.
“ Almost everything, huh? What do we come second to?”
“Well, BTS, obviously.” Yoongi nods - that’s a given. “I mean, if some all-powerful creature offered me world peace in exchange for me breaking up with you, it’d only be right to choose world peace.”
“I have so many questions about this wish-granting creature you’ve imagined,” Yoongi says. “What sort of bartering system is ‘world peace in exchange for your boyfriend’?”
“You asked me what our relationship comes second to, and I’m telling you it’d probably come second to world peace,” Namjoon laughs. “I didn’t ask for your input into supernatural economics.”
Yoongi sniffs and tilts his nose up imperiously. “I’m just saying it seems like an unsustainable method of trade.”
“You’re so annoying,” Namjoon says with so much fondness and love that Yoongi can’t help but grin back at him, a grin that only gets wider as Namjoon leans in to kiss him. “Stop smiling when I’m trying to kiss you,” Namjoon murmurs an inch from Yoongi’s mouth, his breath warm.
“I can’t help it,” Yoongi says, trying to school his expression into something more serious and, apparently, appropriate for kissing.
And if he can’t stop the smile blooming back onto his face as Namjoon kisses him, well, that’s between him and Namjoon.