Work Text:
Flow along the way the water flows
Maybe there’s something at the end
A special life, an ordinary life, each of them on their own
It’s all good
It’s all good
- People, D-2
_ _
It’s Monday, but Seokjin has managed to wrest a rare day off from his tyrannical employers so he can spend the morning luxuriating in bed with his boyfriend. Normally, his alarm would be blaring and Yoongi, the actual early riser of the two of them, would hit him with a pillow until he forced himself up and staggered into the kitchen for coffee and breakfast like a half-dead man. Yoongi is a self-proclaimed disliker of most breakfast food but he’s also a lovely partner who keeps cereal and some pastries on hand for Seokjin to stuff his face with at their tiny kitchen table.
(Seokjin thinks it’s mostly because Yoongi enjoys judging him over his coffee and newspaper, wrinkling his nose when crumbs get everywhere and Seokjin manages to fit nearly a whole muffin in his mouth in one go. But Seokjin loves Yoongi’s disgruntled faces, so really who’s winning here?)
Their hectic morning routine usually ends with Seokjin tripping his way out the door, nearly forgetting his bag and having to come in again—welcomed by Yoongi’s amused snort—then running down five flights of stairs and through six city blocks like he’s in an action game to reach his bus stop on time. Then, he makes himself presentable in the company elevator and spends an entire day wrangling excitable trainees until he has a migraine and wants to invest in either earplugs, a giant bottle of alcohol, a farm he can live in peace on, or all three.
(He loves the brats, he does. Just how do they have so much energy? Think of all the things he could have accomplished if he had that much energy at sixteen.)
But today, today, he has an entire day off. He turned off his alarm with gleeful enthusiasm last night and even convinced Yoongi to do the same. Which is why it’s after nine and he’s still in bed and getting to indulge in one of his favorite pastimes: taking Yoongi apart.
He just loves this. He loves the press of Yoongi’s pale thighs on either side of his head, loves the sharp taste of Yoongi on his tongue, loves the noises Yoongi makes when he licks in just the right spots, when he trails down to spread Yoongi’s folds and dip his tongue inside. Yoongi gets so sensitive and squirmy and fucking wet from being eaten out and Seokjin revels in it.
He’s panting now, chest heaving beneath his white t-shirt, and his legs are twitching as Seokjin steadily works him to a second orgasm with practiced flicks of his tongue over Yoongi’s swollen dick.
“Oh my god,” Yoongi squeaks when Seokjin closes his lips and sucks. Seokjin knows if he looked up, he’d see Yoongi’s flushed face pressed into the pillows—shy even after so long together, shy even though he’s grinding up to meet Seokjin’s mouth, chasing more of the sensation.
Seokjin pulls off to let Yoongi catch his breath, peppering kisses over Yoongi’s stomach and neatly trimmed pubic hair. He brushes his fingers along Yoongi’s slit, feeling how wet he is. It’s smeared down the insides of his thighs and dripped down to stain the sheets—which Yoongi is definitely going to grumble about once the post-orgasm haze wears off.
“You want anything inside?” he asks gently, because penetration is hit or miss for Yoongi.
(Seokjin, in return, enjoys it a lot and has lovingly helped Yoongi cultivate a truly impressive collection of toys and dildos, but isn’t the biggest fan of someone’s mouth on his dick, even if that mouth is attached to Min Yoongi, his favorite person in the world.)
“No,” Yoongi mumbles, still mostly muffled by the pillow. “No … just…”
His hips buck again and Seokjin steadies him. “I’ve got you, Yoongichi.”
They’ve been at this for years, after all, and he knows Yoongi’s body almost better than his own—every precious, intimate part of it that Yoongi has trusted him with.
“Then stop making me wait, asshole,” Yoongi huffs, reaching down to tug playfully on his hair, and Seokjin laughs, loud and squeaky.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says and dutifully goes back to the task at hand, sucking Yoongi’s cock back into his mouth and shifting his fingers to rub around Yoongi’s entrance, just a little pressure for Yoongi to grind into, without slipping inside.
Yoongi moans, trailing off into a whimper when Seokjin circles the head with his tongue, flicks over the length of it and back again. He’s close again, so needy for it, and Seokjin doesn’t deny him, working him swiftly to the peak until he can feel Yoongi seize up with a gasp, hole clenching, and a fresh gush of come spill over his chin and fingers. He laps it up, loving the taste and the way he can feel Yoongi’s body shuddering through the aftershocks, slowly coming down.
“Fuck,” Yoongi hiccups as he sags back onto the bed.
Seokjin hums and traces his fingers over Yoongi’s still-twitching cock, stroking it between his thumb and forefinger until Yoongi pushes him away with a huff and another instinctive jerk of his hips.
“No more,” Yoongi insists, whiny. “I can’t do three.”
“You did three when I ate you out in that club bathroom in Itaewon,” Seokjin points out helpfully. “What was that place called?”
“HIM,” Yoongi mumbles, flushing again. “And please stop talking about our wild youth.”
“Yoongi-yah, that was six months ago,” Seokjin laughs.
He pauses to wipe his wet mouth and chin on the back of his hand, then moves away from Yoongi’s cock to rub softly between his folds, just touching for the sake of it, enjoying the warm feel of him, the messy aftermath of his orgasms. Yoongi throws an arm over his eyes, cheeks red, but he shifts into Seokjin’s hand, grinding a little against his palm as Seokjin cups him.
“That was the alcohol’s fault. And Jimin’s.”
“How was it Jimin’s fault?”
“We were only in that club for his birthday. And he kept talking about hookups. And dancing provocatively.”
“And that made you horny?”
“That and the cocktails. And you. In that tight shirt. You made everyone horny.”
Seokjin laughs again, delighted. He likes how lethal his shoulders are for Yoongi, likes that Yoongi’s mouth twitches up in a square, cute little smile now, even though he can’t really see the rest of Yoongi’s face. Likes that he no longer feels embarrassed about his squeaky laugh like he did when he first got into bed with Yoongi—always trying to stifle it until Yoongi told him, in that sometimes blunt way of his, that he thought it was adorable and had been trying to hear it more.
“Alright, no third orgasm,” he says and leans up to kiss Yoongi’s arm where it’s still covering his eyes.
Yoongi finally moves it away, revealing his red face. His black bangs cling to his forehead with sweat and Seokjin uses his clean hand to brush them to the side, pressing his lips to Yoongi’s heated temple after.
“What about you?” Yoongi asks, some of the daze starting to clear from his eyes. He moves a hand to grip Seokjin’s hip, thumb pulling down the waistband of his boxers to stroke over bare skin. “Want me to fuck you?”
“Mmm, later,” Seokjin decides. “Too much work right now. I’m good.”
He’s only half-hard and he doesn’t want to bother seeing if his dick will cooperate fully. Neither him nor Yoongi have very high sex drives and sometimes they just don’t line up, which is fine. They make it work, even when reciprocation is off the table. Getting to watch Yoongi come undone is reward enough.
“Okay,” Yoongi agrees easily, sagging back against the mattress with a sigh.
Seokjin settles beside him, hiking Yoongi’s shirt up further to pet his soft stomach, admiring the splay of his body. His pretty, pretty boy.
The calm lasts ten more minutes before Yoongi predictably wiggles and scrunches up his nose in distaste. “Ugh, we should have put a towel down, the sheets are soaked.”
“You got so wet,” Seokjin says without opening his eyes. “It was hot.”
Yoongi smacks him on the thigh. “I just washed these! And now I’m sticky everywhere.”
“Is this also my fault?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“I guess I should run a bath, then,” Seokjin says, sitting up.
“It’s ten a.m.,” Yoongi protests. “I can just shower.”
“It’s our day off, Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin pokes his stomach. “Live a little. Indulge. ”
“It’s not my day off,” Yoongi huffs but Seokjin can see the first signs of surrender in the relaxing slump of Yoongi’s shoulders and smoothing of his furrowed brow. “But fine.”
Seokjin lovingly pats his knobby, pink-flushed knee (he’s so pink everywhere, Seokjin never gets enough of it), and extracts himself from their tangled sheets.
“Be right back, jagiya,” he says with a dramatic, flying kiss and Yoongi’s face twists at the endearment, cheeks reddening again.
It’s amazing, how Yoongi can fuck Seokjin into the mattress without batting an eye but curls up like a tiny, shy turtle whenever compliments or too much sentiment gets fired his way. They have it in common, though. Yoongi once got plastered and composed a rambling, heartfelt soliloquy to Seokjin’s face and shoulders and cooking abilities and general, apparent awesomeness to a room of their friends, and Seokjin’s ears stayed bright red for hours afterwards.
But beneath all that embarrassment, Seokjin thinks they’re both romantics. The silver ring he can feel resting against his chest—strung on a chain and tucked under his shirt—is evidence enough of that. Yoongi has a matching one, both engraved with a date on the inside of the band. It was on a whim, during a holiday in Europe, and even though it’s not legally binding in Korea, he still got to see Min Yoongi in a suit, at an altar, with stars in his eyes. He’ll cherish that for the rest of his life.
He hums to himself as he starts the bath—pieces of a new song Yoongi’s been working on that have floated frequently through their apartment—and selects a bright purple bath bomb from the little basket Yoongi keeps tucked out of the way of the wall-mounted shower. It fizzes loudly when he drops it in the water, spreading purple dye everywhere. In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the best idea if clean is the end goal but whatever. Yoongi likes them.
He cracks a window on his way back to the bed, since a breeze is blowing for the first time in days and he’s not a fan of the smell of sex when he’s not actively engaged in it.
Yoongi’s sitting up against the headboard now, tapping away on his phone, but hasn’t bothered to put his underwear back on. Seokjin takes in the splay of his legs, the pinkness of his cunt between them, and feels a renewed rush of heat. He wants to ask if Yoongi’s sure he wouldn’t be up for a third orgasm, but mostly he’s happy that Yoongi’s so comfortable in their space, in front of him. He’d covered up a lot, in the early stages of their relationship, when he was still figuring them and himself out. But he’s confident in his skin, these days. Seokjin swears (privately, in the depths of his own mind and away from potential teasing) that he glows.
“You’re staring,” Yoongi accuses without looking up from his phone.
“You’re pretty,” Seokjin fires back.
Yoongi makes a protesting “ah” sound but still opens his legs a little wider, the menace.
“Anyway,” Seokjin continues with gallant self-restraint. “Your bath is ready, my liege.”
He bows at the waist. Yoongi throws a pillow at his head.
_ _
He lingers in the bathroom with Yoongi while he soaks, brushing his teeth and washing his face, and then sitting on the floor next to the tub and playing with Yoongi’s wrinkly fingers as Yoongi dozes, fading in and out of awareness. It’s one of his favorite things about Yoongi: how easy it is to just be with him. There’s no pressure to talk, to entertain each other. They’ve spent whole days in their apartment cocooned in blissful silence, communicating only through well-established gestures or looks and moving in a complicated dance as they go about their routines, like bees performing a mating ritual
So Seokjin watches Yoongi sleep. Watches the flutter of his lashes against his cheeks and the way he occasionally jolts fully awake and smiles affectionately up at Seokjin, all of his normal barriers down.
“Want me to wash your hair?” Seokjin asks eventually, when he knows the water is turning lukewarm.
“Hmm … okay,” Yoongi mumbles, rousing himself. “Just don’t use the bathwater. S’ gross.”
“I won’t,” Seokjin promises, feeling his own fond smile stretching his cheeks.
He retrieves a cup from the kitchen and returns to his previous position, going up on his knees so he can rub shampoo in Yoongi’s hair—taking a few minutes to style it into a mohawk while Yoongi sighs at him—and then carefully rinsing it out.
“All done,” he declares, scritching at the short hair at the back of Yoongi’s neck.
Yoongi rumbles his thanks and makes grabby hands for a towel. Seokjin procures a large, fluffy one for him and offers his shoulder and arm as leverage to help Yoongi out of the bath.
“I’m getting old,” Yoongi groans once he’s all wrapped up. “I can hear my body creaking.”
“Every day brings us closer to death, Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin agrees.
“You’re getting there faster than me, though,” Yoongi says as he waddles past Seokjin and out of the bathroom.
“Don’t worry,” Seokjin says, trailing after him. “I have plans to push you in front of a bus when we’re in our eighties.”
“Not if I poison you first.” Yoongi drops the towel and shuffles over to the dresser to pull out clothes for the day.
"We’ll see who emerges the victor, then.” Seokjin strips the dirty sheets from the bed as Yoongi dresses, dumping them in the laundry basket to be dealt with later. There’s a clean set stored beneath the bed but that’s also a task for Afternoon Seokjin to deal with.
He notices Yoongi’s dressing up a little, putting on a nice, low-cut black shirt and a green jacket that just does things for Seokjin. Even the good earrings are going in, replacing the simple hoop sets Yoongi normally wears, and that’s when Seokjin remembers that he agreed to film something with Yoongi today.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” Yoongi asks, meeting his eyes in the mirror hanging above the dresser. There’s only gentle teasing in his voice, no accusation.
“I forgot,” Seokjin admits.
“Still up for it?”
“Of course.” He is a good, supportive partner, and besides it’s not a hardship to tag along when Yoongi’s making a video. He’s always so cute when he puts himself in front of a camera.
His Youtube channel’s been growing steadily over the last year, to the point where he now has several million subscribers and Seokjin can’t think about it too hard or the number will overwhelm him. He posts a wide-ranging variety of content: music reviews, his own songs and compositions, LGBT and trans life advice and stories, occasional cooking videos. Sometimes he does more extensive vlogs and sometimes he just sits and eats and rambles about a random topic. Seokjin isn’t surprised that all of it has been a hit. Yoongi is wise and gentle and gorgeous, of course he’s going to have a fanbase. Seokjin would be offended at the world and general public taste if he didn’t.
His audience is mostly Korean, but he’s been gaining international followers since Namjoon offered to subtitle his videos for him, stating it was good practice for his linguistics studies. Namjoon’s a ridiculous polyglot so now Yoongi’s videos come with English, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and French subtitles.
(Why French? Seokjin remembers asking.
I’ve been working on more European languages recently and French is the one I started with, Namjoon replied casually, like that was a normal thing for anyone to say with five languages already under their belt.)
“What are we filming today?” Seokjin asks as he changes, discarding his original plan of sweatpants and the baggiest, most comfy shirt he owns. It has some holes along the collar and a suspicious stain on the front that he thinks is from a gochujang-related accident two years ago so tragically it needs to stay tucked in the drawer. In the end, he settles on jeans and a bright pink shirt because he knows it will amuse Yoongi, who will probably also give him some ridiculous sunglasses to go with it—eyebrow arched in a silent challenge for Seokjin to up his game.
“Just a vlog,” Yoongi says, adjusting his necklaces. The ring sits amongst them, like always. “People have been asking for kind of a ‘day in the life’ so I said I’d do that. We can just do normal things. Go grocery shopping, cook, maybe stop by a market or somewhere nice.”
“And you didn’t record me giving you mind-blowing orgasms?” Seokjin claps a hand over his chest in outrage.
“That’s for my paid subscribers,” Yoongi deadpans.
Seokjin cackles.
_ _
They decide they’ll eat an early lunch before embarking out into Seoul for the afternoon, so Seokjin pulls ingredients from the fridge while Yoongi gets the camera set up.
“Is jjapaguri okay?” Seokjin asks over his shoulder.
Yoongi makes a sound of agreement. “But I’m cooking.”
Seokjin doesn’t argue. It’s a system they have, since neither of them are great at allowing themselves to be taken care of. But they try to keep an equal balance, gesture by gesture. Seokjin made Yoongi come and ran him a bath, so Yoongi will cook Seokjin lunch.
Equivalent exchange.
He still sets water boiling for the noodles before he’s shooed completely away from the stove. He wanders over to the camera and leans in close, making a silly face as a nice surprise for Yoongi to find when he’s editing later. Then he plants himself at the table and opens a game on his phone, stubbornly ignoring the KaTalk message alerts from his work group chat and the new emails in his inbox. He doesn’t want to hear about another fight at the dorm needing mediating or that the pinkeye outbreak they’ve been trying to contain for the last month has spread again. It’s his day off. Hoseok can manage on his own for twenty-four hours—he’s much scarier than Seokjin anyway and he has Jungkook to back him up.
So he plays this dumb little mobile game that requires him to match bright tiles with each other while cute animals say cute things to him and listens to the soft rumble of Yoongi’s voice as he explains for his viewers what he’s making and what’s on the agenda for today.
He hears his name at one point and looks up with a wave and a slightly awkward smile. He’s appeared in a few of Yoongi’s videos before but he’s still not used to being on camera. He normally prefers to be far, far behind it. And, yes, he did get a college degree in theatre but that’s not relevant. He’s only embraced his introvertedness more as he’s gotten older and being on a stage is different anyway. On stage, you can see in real time if you’re wowing your audience or boring them or upsetting them. With Youtube channels, you talk to a cold, unfeeling lens like an idiot and then have to upload that video and wait to see the verdict.
He hates it, but Yoongi doesn’t give much of a fuck about future judgment and Seokjin supports him in that.
“Lunch is ready,” Yoongi declares, going up on socked tiptoes to grab bowls from the cupboard and distributing noodles and steak.
“You’re an angel,” Seokjin says, only a little for show, and swoops in to kiss Yoongi on the cheek.
“It’s not hard,” Yoongi mumbles, but he’s blushing.
So easy for praise, his boy. Seokjin’s always loved that about him.
Yoongi films a little bit of them eating and then turns the camera off.
“How’s work?” he asks. Maybe he sensed Seokjin’s distaste earlier.
“Chaotic,” Seokjin supplies through a mouthful of noodles. “Rookie group’s got pinkeye and we’re gearing up for a girl group debut in the fall. There’s an ongoing feud between a couple other trainees that I can’t bribe them into resolving and they all have too much damn energy. But the vocal lessons are going well.”
Yoongi laughs in soft amusement. “Well I’m glad they can sing.”
“Some of them can sing. Others are … getting there.”
But they’re all trying so hard, so painfully earnest, and Seokjin wants to tuck each of them under his arms and protect them like a mama bird with her chicks. Constantly, he’s grateful he turned down every single offer of an idol career, even when they started presenting increasingly lucrative contracts. Yes, he knows he has A Face, but he’s happy as a vocal coach, trainee wrangler, giant tissue, and whatever else he needs to be for the kids.
Besides, becoming an idol would have meant giving up Yoongi and that was never going to happen.
“So what’s the plan?” he asks, changing the subject. “We could go to a market? Foreigners might like seeing Namdaemun or Dongmyo.”
“Eh, it’ll be crowded there and it’s so fucking hot,” Yoongi says. “What about going out to Ttukseom? We could walk along the river and film the J-Bug and then head into Seongsu to look at murals and get food from one of those trendy cafes Taehyung keeps telling us about. Then stop for groceries on our way home.”
Seokjin nods in easy agreement. He likes the river, especially in the summer, and he’s on a years-long mission to get Yoongi into a paddle boat. He probably won’t succeed today, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.
_ _
Yoongi narrates their journey out of their apartment and to the metro, then records a little of the ride and their ascent back up to street level at Ttukseom Resort Station. They wander around the cavernous space of the J-Bug and Yoongi films Seokjin posed dramatically in front of one of the huge latticed windows like he’s in a drama, but vetoes his idea to reenact the scene from The Liar and His Lover where Joy falls for Lee Hyunwoo.
“Honestly, Yoongi-yah, you’re turning down so much good content,” he says as they exit back out into the park.
Yoongi adjusts his baseball cap and shoots Seokjin a long-suffering look. “You would have been too embarrassed to actually go through with it.”
“No I wouldn’t.”
(He definitely would have.)
They wander through the park, soaking up the cooling breeze and dodging joggers, bikers, and picnicers along the way. Seokjin points to the paddle boats when they reach them and Yoongi immediately shakes his head.
“I’ll pay for lunch,” Seokjin wheedles.
“No.”
“And cook dinner.”
“No.”
“I could give you a massage.”
“Still no, hyung.”
“More orgasms? We could try for four. Or what’s our record so far? Five? Six? Or wait, did I get you to seven on that anniversary trip when we—”
“Yah, I’m still filming!”
“Spoilsport,” Seokjin complains, though he’s grinning beneath his mask and he knows Yoongi is smiling back at him from the way his visible face is scrunched up.
"Actually,” Yoongi says as they reach the flower gardens and pause in front of a giant wall of trumpet vines. Seokjin’s shirt clashes brilliantly with the orange flowers. “I asked viewers for questions to ask you.”
“An interview?” Seokjin asks dubiously. “You mean I’m not here to just look pretty? I thought that was my function in your videos, Yoongichi.”
“It is,” Yoongi says, “but the people are curious and I thought a little interview could be fun.”
“How many questions is it?”
“How many are you willing to answer?”
Seokjin thinks for a moment. “Five.”
“Only five?”
“Take it or leave it, my time is precious, Yoongi-ssi.”
“Okay, Seokjin-nim,” Yoongi grumbles, but his eyes are twinkling. “Five questions.”
Seokjin waves his hand magnanimously. “You may begin.”
Yoongi giggles, the hiccupy, creaking one he does that shakes his shoulders. He’s so cute, Seokjin thinks helplessly.
“Okay, first question,” Yoongi says. They’re on their way to the metro again, bound for Seongsu. “What’s your job?”
“Professional babysitter,” Seokjin fires back, because he doesn’t want several million people to know he works in the entertainment industry. He’s had too many acquaintances get weird about it, asking him for connections or “insider gossip” and refusing to believe that he spends half his time scheduling and compiling other spreadsheets and paperwork and the other half surrounded by excitable teeangers and no, he’s hardly even met anyone famous.
Yoongi giggles again at the vague answer, eyes crinkling above his face mask, but doesn’t push him on it. Just moves on to the next question.
“Okay, a lot of people seemed to care about this. Did you know I was trans when we first started dating?”
“Yes.” Yoongi had told him almost right away, radiating a mixture of nerves and defiance. “You were—wait do I talk about you or to you?”
“Whatever makes you feel comfortable,” Yoongi answers, not being helpful at all.
Seokjin sighs. “Fine. He was upfront about it,” he says into the camera.
“Had to make sure you weren’t gonna be a dick,” Yoongi says.
“I wasn’t a dick.” He’d been nervous, at first, about fucking up. Hurting Yoongi. He did a lot of research, until Yoongi told him not to worry so much. There were things Yoongi needed to work on seperate of Seokjin and things they’d figure out together.
“You weren’t a dick,” Yoongi agrees fondly.
“I sucked your dick, though,” Seokjin blurts before he can stop himself and then bursts into laughter that’s half mortification, half amusement, but still loud enough that a nearby ajumma shoots him a withering look.
“Yah,” Yoongi huffs, though it’s clear he’s trying not to laugh. “This is a serious interview, Seokjin-nim. No sexual innuendo, please.”
“Sorry,” Seokjin wheezes. He’s pretty sure his ears are burning. “But yes I knew. And,” he leans into the camera, conspiratorial, “you should have seen him after top surgery. He may seem aloof and cool to all of you but I was forced to wait on him hand and foot.”
Yoongi smacks his arm. “You mean you fussed incessantly over me.”
Okay, he had fussed a little. A moderate amount. But mostly because Min Yoongi is stubborn and never likes to admit when he might need help or when he's in pain. It had been a victory to get Yoongi to start whining at him, trusting Seokjin enough to let himself be taken care of.
“I fussed because you whined,” he says now, unwilling to admit defeat.
“I whined because you fussed,” Yoongi fires back immediately.
“Truce?” Seokjin asks, holding out a hand.
Yoongi rolls his eyes but shakes his hand before they pause the interview to get on the metro to Seongsu. They get distracted for a while, wandering the streets and pausing in front of various murals that have transformed once drab brick walls into colorful, beautiful art pieces. Seokjin finds the one of Jane Austen that he remembers from Goblin and squints at the English quote against the white backdrop. “Can you read that, Yoongi-yah?”
Yoongi clears his throat and translates for him. “‘The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced I shall never see a man whom I can really love.”
“Huh.” He glances at Yoongi and decides it’s easier to be sappy on camera. “I can’t relate.”
Yoongi makes a choked sound. “Stop it.”
“I’m just expressing my feelings, Yoongi-yah.” He glances back at the mural. “What do you think it means, though?”
“She was gay,” Yoongi replies immediately.
Seokjin hums. “Makes sense. Also men are pretty terrible.”
“They are,” Yoongi agrees and pulls him along to the next mural.
Eventually, they decide they’re hungry and Yoongi looks up the address of a cafe Taehyung recommended. “Cafe Onion,” he informs Seokjin. “It’s in an old factory. Pastries and coffee and some sandwiches.”
“You know I’ll eat anything,” Seokjin says, hooking his arm through Yoongi’s.
“Untrue,” Yoongi argues, but leads him in the direction of the cafe, anyway.
Once they reach it, Seokjin can immediately picture Taehyung here. It’s clear it caters to a trendy, hip, Instagram crowd that he will never be cool enough to fit in with. Half the time, he thinks Taehyung only keeps him around because Seokjin’s funny and dispenses great life advice on occasion. It definitely can’t be his fashion sense (or lack thereof) or his social media prowess (he hasn’t checked Instagram in years, the last picture is of him at his college graduation) or any other factor.
Taehyung is also nice, though, and doesn’t care about maintaining any sort of pretenses. That might actually make it worse: the fact that he’s just effortlessly cool.
“It looks pretty crowded,” Yoongi says, squinting at the line and the full tables. “Want to just get something to go and head back to the river?”
“Sure.”
Yoongi orders an Americano and a ham cheese sandwich, because he’s predictable and safe. Seokjin, on the other hand, chooses the fanciest latte he can find on the menu and a giant strawberry tart.
While they wait for their food, Yoongi turns the camera on him again. “Next question.”
“Fine,” he says with put-upon resignation.
“What’s your favorite thing about me?”
Seokjin groans. “You just picked all the embarrassing questions, didn’t you?”
“I crave validation,” Yoongi says flatly, but there is a grain of truth to that statement, Seokjin knows.
A hunger has always yawned inside Yoongi that Seokjin doesn’t understand and though it’s become more sated in recent years, echoes of it remain. Yoongi is so fucking hard on himself and sometimes he needs someone outside of the storm of his own head to take him by the shoulders and assure him that he’s good, he’s doing okay, he’s got this.
Fortunately, all their friends are excellent at that. And Seokjin is happy to provide.
Yoongi is probably expecting a joking answer about his small teeth or his height or his fluffy hair or the little noises he makes to himself when he’s working on things—all of which are wonderful and Seokjin adores very much, but…
“I love your heart,” Seokjn says, and watches Yoongi freeze. “You’ve got such a big heart, Yoongichi.” He leans over and taps Yoongi’s breastbone, close to the ring necklace. “I’m always amazed by how much you can fit in there.”
Yoongi coughs, flushing. “Thank you,” he mumbles awkwardly. “You’ve got a big heart, too.”
“I learned from you,” Seokjin insists and goes to collect their food before Yoongi can protest that declaration.
(It’s true, after all.)
_ _
The fourth question comes once they’ve found a spot of grass in the park and Seokjin’s trying to eat a messy strawberry tart with as much dignity as possible, considering Yoongi is still filming.
(It doesn’t matter, Yoongi told him when he noticed Seokjin’s delicate bites.
I’m not a seasoned pro at this like you, Seokjin replied and immediately managed to smear strawberry juice all over his chin.)
“How did we meet?” Yoongi asks
Seokjin shoots him a wounded look. “You didn’t tell them this story already, Yoongi-yah? How could you?”
“You tell it better,” Yoongi says.
Okay, yes, he has perhaps, when slightly drunk, told this story in very dramatic fashion at several parties. But it’s different out here in the daylight. It’s different sober, in the middle of a park with children screaming nearby and a camera pointed at his face.
“Um.” He fidgets. Blinks. “Well we were in university—but not at the same university, so it might not be relevant—wait, we had a mutual friend so—” He buries his face in his hands. “Aish, can I start over?”
“Sure,” Yoongi says. His foot taps gently against Seokjin’s. “And, hey, it’s just me here. Don’t think about the camera.”
“That’s hard,” Seokjin grumbles but draws himself up. He can do this. He’s not going to let that tiny, stupid lens intimidate him. “Okay. We were in university—attending different universities, but both in Seoul. We have a mutual friend, Hoseok, and he took me along to this nightclub where Yoongi was performing. And I watched him and thought that man is the sexiest person I’ve ever seen. If you’ve seen any of his old videos, you’ll understand.”
Yoongi makes a little noise of protest but Seokjin ignores him, picking up steam. “I wanted to buy him a drink and learn everything about him, but I was horrifically shy back then and he looked like that and was a cool underground rapper while I was an awkward nerd just coming to terms with his sexuality, so I didn’t have the courage. I decided to wallow in self-pity and drown myself at the bar instead, but Hoseok came up to me and said that Yoongi had asked who I was and if he could get my number.”
“You were in the front row,” Yoongi says. “And you were … a lot.”
“My hair was terrible back then. I cut it myself and my bangs were crooked.”
“Trust me, I did not notice.”
Seokjin hiccups out a laugh. “Anyway, I suffered at least two heart attacks but told Hoseok to go ahead and give Yoongi my number. And the next day he actually texted me, which gave me a third heart attack. But I managed to text back and then we kept texting and then that turned into a couple dates and there was definitely a Spark.”
He wiggles his fingers dramatically and Yoongi giggles at him.
“But I had already decided to take a break from my studies and get my enlistment out of the way. We kind of drifted apart from each other during that time. Didn’t keep in touch for the next eighteen months. I figured he had to have moved on by the time I got out because have you seen him? So I didn’t reach out. Just went back to finish up my last year of university, feeling breathtakingly old amidst all these first years. And then, one day, guess who I saw on my way to class? The stars themselves aligned and—sorry, have you talked about any of this? I don’t want to overstep.”
He looks over at Yoongi and knows Yoongi will understand what he means. This: the mental health crisis, suicide attempt, and recovery that stalled Yoongi’s studies for two years. Yoongi shared it all with him in one long spiel over fried chicken and soju, eventually crying into his food as he talked about how flayed open he still felt, how he was scared that he’d never fully be able to knit himself together into something resembling a whole. And Seokjin ached, terrified at Yoongi’s tears and Yoongi’s pain—unsure of what to do with what Yoongi was placing in his hands and trusting him to hold. But loving him so much by then that all he could do was scoot closer and wrap Yoongi up tight, tight, tight and say, I’m not sure if it means much, but I’m so glad you’re here, Yoongi-yah.
It means something, Yoongi gasped into his skin, clutching onto him so hard Seokjin would have bruises along his sides the following morning. It does.
Yoongi looks at him steadily now and nods. “I have. I’m pretty open about it. About, um, most things.”
Seokjin reaches over and squeezes Yoongi’s hand—a silent I’m so proud of you because Yoongi’s fought so fiercely, worked so hard, to get where he is today and Seokjin will always be a little in awe of him. Yoongi kisses the back of Seokjin’s hand in wordless acknowledgement. In the last couple years, he’s held Seokjin’s own tears and worries and pain as tenderly as Seokjin’s tried to care for his.
“The stars themselves aligned,” Seokjin continues, picking up where he left off and sinking back into his dramatic, storytelling voice, “and there was Min Yoongi crossing the street. He’d transferred to my university and he was finishing up his studies too. We were painfully awkward with each other, at first, since so much had happened in the last two years. Turns out we were both looking for someone to share an apartment off-campus with but just said ‘good luck’ to each other and went about our days.”
“Hoseok found out,” Yoongi recalls. “And put us in a KaTalk group chat together just to call us idiots and send us an apartment listing.”
“He’s terrifying,” Seokjin says with great affection and Yoongi hums in agreement. “But effective. We moved in together and it was still awkward for a while but then we slowly started to hang out more and more and realized how much we liked each other’s company and how similar we were in a lot of ways and believe it or not, the Spark came back.”
He looks back fondly on those days: their tiny apartment and cheap food and Yoongi watching him game and following Bob Ross tutorials together, getting paint everywhere. All the times Yoongi fell asleep on his shoulder during a movie. All the times he pressed his face to Yoongi’s skin at the end of a long day. It’s not so different from their current lives, really, but the bond between them was a delicate and precious thing back then, slowly growing as they nurtured it into a flame. Seokjin loves those two boys—scared and determined and stumbling into a relationship together while also trying to figure out their place in the world.
“Yoongi eventually asked me out,” he says to the camera. “Because he’s always been braver than me. He took me to a PC cafe and failed miserably at Dungeon Fighter for an entire afternoon and that’s when I knew I loved him. That was what, four years ago now, Yoongichi?”
Yoongi nods. “Almost five.”
“God, we’re old.”
“Decrepit.”
“Anyway, that is the scintillating tale of how we met.” He gives a little bow from his seated position.
“Thank you for sharing it,” Yoongi says sincerely. “Last question.”
“Fuck.”
“You agreed to five.”
“I did,” Seokjin sighs.
“So last question: have you ever considered being an idol or a model.”
Seokjin wrinkles his face up and opens his mouth, ready to brush it off with a joke. But something stops him—maybe how serious him and Yoongi have gotten about other topics during this little interview. Maybe the fact that he knows a lot of Yoongi’s viewers are younger and this could be something they need to hear, something he wants to tell so many of the trainees that join his company.
“People have asked,” he says quietly and sees Yoongi pick up on his change in tone. “A lot. I’ve turned them all down. And I’ve been told, you know, that I’m throwing so many good opportunities away. That I’m wasting my chance. ‘You could have an extraordinary life,’ people say. But I don’t want a stage or my face plastered on the sides of buses or in subway tunnels or on people’s TVs. I want to come home to my partner at the end of every day. I want to go out with my friends without worrying about attention. I want to go home during the holidays and annoy my family. Someday, I want to get old and retire to the countryside and fish and grow my own food. And most people would say that’s boring. But so what?”
He shrugs and looks directly at the camera Yoongi is pointing his way. “You need to do what makes you happy. You need to define things for yourself. Don’t let people tell you that you’re being wasteful. I love my boring, ordinary little life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything and I’d be miserable as an idol. Who’s to say what’s extraordinary, anyway? Shouldn’t the end goal just be to live? Live fully, live happily, just live.”
He coughs, suddenly embarrassed by the passion and emotion in his own voice. By the wet sheen he can see glimmering in Yoongi’s eyes. He clambers to his feet before he suddenly starts crying too.
“Anyway,” he croaks, “that’s enough of that. I’m going to illegally feed those ducks.” He stalks off in the direction of the raft of ducks floating nearby.
“Don’t give them bread, it’s bad for them!” Yoongi calls after him.
He waves in acknowledgment. This was mostly just to compose himself, anyway.
He’s too caught up in the sky and the ducks and the water that he doesn’t notice Yoongi wiping his eyes back at their picnic spot and turning the camera on himself. Doesn’t hear Yoongi say, with soft love, “he’s amazing, isn’t he?”
“Don’t tell him I said that,” Yoongi continues, watching Seokjin’s back as Seokjin leans over the railing to talk to the ducks. He pauses and laughs, low and fond. “Actually, it doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure he already knows, even if he’ll never admit it to me.”
“Yoongi-yah,” Seokjin calls. “Come here, the ducks want to say hi!”
Yoongi turns off the camera, setting it in the grass, and goes to join his partner, winding an arm around Seokjin’s waist when he reaches his side.
“Hi, ducks,” he says dutifully.
The closest one quacks back at him what could be either a greeting or a reproach and Seokjin laughs in delight. Leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, warm and lingering and perfect. On the horizon, the sun is setting over the city and Yoongi watches it bounce off the skyscrapers and the water, turning everything around them soft and gold.