Chapter Text
Google had always been Park Jimin’s best friend (aside from Taehyung of course).
So he was kind of hung up over the fact that he hadn’t thought of looking up Min Yoongi earlier. He was a super young heir to a bank, anyway, surely there must’ve been something written about him.
What an understatement that was.
Apparently being attractive and in the corporate industry spurred a lot of attention. And by a lot of attention, Jimin meant a lot. Aside from the abundance of articles talking about the company itself, Jimin counted at least three fan-sites and two Etsy shops selling Min Yoongi t-shirts and mugs. The fan-sites had legitimate paparazzi trying to catch pictures of him from behind bushes and coffee shops.
Jimin snorted and kept scrolling, browsing through low-quality pictures of Yoongi holding a cup of coffee, Yoongi shaking hands with a woman in vibrant red lipstick, Yoongi carrying his groceries.
Min Yoongi, it seemed, was somewhat of a celebrity. Jimin had never seen anyone care so much about a businessman.
Even articles about the projected stock growth of the company noted his “dashing looks” and “composed, handsome appearance”. He almost bit his tongue trying not to laugh at the Min Yoongi fan club he came across, which charged 2,000 won monthly for membership.
Isn’t this… kind of invasive? he thought to himself, closing out of the window. Imagine going out to buy milk or whatever and a random person just jumped out of the bushes with a camera. Jimin frowned and shut his laptop, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip.
--
Monday rolled around quickly, and he’d barreled into the apartment, already a half an hour behind schedule. His boss had decided to keep him thirty minutes late, which was decidedly illegal, cleaning up and restocking after Seokjin had called in sick. Added onto that, the address Yoongi texted him was nearer to the center of Seoul, while he lived in an apartment was stowed away in an obscure nook of the city, close to the suburbs.
Breathing heavily, Jimin flung his work-required shirt across his room after a quick shower (and by quick, he meant around two minutes under a lukewarm faucet). He threw on whatever clothes he’d found in his closet. He pulled on socks with one hand while inhaling a TV dinner with the other.
He then speed-walked (very aggressively, might he add) to the bus stop, his notes on the choreography clutched to his chest.
Ironically, the bus ride to the café was quicker than expected, and he ended up being two minutes early.
The café that Yoongi directed him to screamed money. It had the gold-gilded awning with some fancy French name that Jimin couldn’t dream of pronouncing, the windows that stretched in arches. Even approaching it made him nervous, considering he was currently wearing a comfortably sized sweater and jeans. Especially since he was clutching a yellow legal pad and a pen with a chewed end, filled with his ugly 2 a.m. scrawl and tan coffee stains.
He’d caught a glimpse of himself in the polished windows and he pretended like he didn’t look like some frazzled college student (his prominent baby face didn’t help).
As soon as he entered, there was a rush of pitchy violin and the chill of air-conditioning.
What kind of café plays classical music?
Rich ones, I guess.
And rich it was. The counters gleamed under golden light, the pastry display case polished and modern. The space was huge and dotted with small circular tables surrounded by tall stools. It was something straight out of an anime or some drama – gold and embellished and shiny.
The air smelled like coffee and cinnamon and the slightest bit of vanilla.
Cafés in the evening, Jimin decided, were kind of surreal. Which was kind of ironic, considering that Jimin worked in a café (but in his defense, he only worked afternoon and morning shifts). Cafés on Monday evenings, he then elaborated, were even more surreal. The work rush was over, and the sun was hovering right below the skyline, spreading bright blues and oranges through the clouds. The café itself glowed a warm yellow from the inside. But everything was empty, soft and slightly tinny strains of violin drifting through the air.
There was a single barista behind the counter, a towel over his shoulder and sipping on a half-empty water bottle. He seemed tired, and his eyes narrowed almost resentfully at Jimin when he entered.
That, Jimin could understand (the rage that rushed through him once a customer slipped through the doors right before the end of his shift was unexplainable).
There were a couple of people milling around tables, dainty iced cakes in delicate lace doilies in their hands. But for the most part, it was empty. Even the barista had pulled out his phone and was tapping away at a game of what Jimin suspected was Angry Birds.
“Jimin,” Yoongi called, and he jumped. He was sitting, headphones in, on a stool, legs crossed. The top button of his collared shirt was undone, and his hair was tousled in rolling black waves. Jimin found this very overwhelming and holy shit, Min Yoongi was attractive and it was intimidating. “We can work over here. If that’s okay with you, of course. Order anything you’d like.”
“Okay,” Jimin called. He made his way towards the glass pastry case, studying the cream-colored menu board above it. “Can I have an iced vanilla macchiato, please? Small.”
The barista, ever so stealthily, closed his game of Angry Birds and pocketed his phone in his tan apron. “This late?” he commented, ringing up Jimin’s order. “That’ll be 3,100 won, by the way.”
“Thank you,” Jimin said absently as he pulled out his wallet and handed the bills over. The barista disappeared beneath the counter and returned with a silver measuring cup filled with dark coffee grinds. He watched silently as the grinds went into a fancy-looking French press. Despite the café’s frilly and shiny exterior, Jimin noticed, the recipes for the drinks were exactly the same. Double shot of espresso. Two pumps of nondescript-looking vanilla syrup. Half cup of steamed milk. Poured over ice. Jimin could recite the steps to make it without even thinking.
The apron-clad barista slid the drink across the counter and bid him to have a good night, returning to Angry Birds as soon as Jimin turned in the direction of Yoongi’s table.
“Hi, hyung,” Jimin said, taking a seat on the stool next to him. He sipped slowly on the drink, the vanilla sweet and light on his tongue. “Thanks for making this time work with your busy schedule, I really appreciate it.”
Yoongi looked up at him with his lips parted slightly and head cocked to the side. “No need to apologize. You’re doing me a favor anyway. So. Thank you. Anyway, for choreography…” he trailed off. There was a coffee stirrer between his teeth, and he was chewing on it subconsciously as he thought. “‘Tony Montana’ is what I plan to end the show on, going after ‘So Far Away’. So, the choreo doesn’t need to be super complicated, it just needs to be memorable.”
“Are you planning to do the dancing with the backup?” Jimin asked. His eyes were trained on the drink in front of him, watching the milk and coffee swirl slowly in the clear plastic cup. He tried not to notice that Yoongi smelled like lavender soap.
Yoongi shifted on his seat. “I think it would go best with the song if I didn’t,” he started and then paused. “That’s not what I mean. It’s not supposed to be offensive to you or your choreo. It’s just that the song’s message is the, you know, ‘I’m all this and look at all I can do’ kind of thing.”
Nodding, Jimin took another measured sip from his macchiato and put his legal pad carefully on the table. “Yeah, I get it, hyung,” he said, running his eyes over the notes scattered across the yellow pages. “And I’m guessing… around five dancers?” He looked up at Yoongi, whose eyes were glued to the notebook.
“Y- yeah, that’s about right. I feel like with too many it would get crowded and kind of disorganized,” Yoongi said finally.
“We can do a pyramid formation,” he drew six small circles in a triangle shape, marking the one in front with a “Y”, “or maybe a rectangle kind of thing? With three in the back and you between two in the front.” He sketched that out too, ignoring the fact that he’d drawn the same thing near the top of the paper days before their meeting.
Dancing! You know how to dance! No need to get nervous. You have a coffee and you’re planning out choreography and you definitely don’t have Min Yoongi sitting next to you. It’s… well, whatever it is, it’s not Min Yoongi. That’s all you need to know! Right?
“Hm… I think the pyramid would work well,” Yoongi mused, hand on chin and lips scrunched. His delicate profile was illuminated by soft yellowy sunlight.
Jimin nodded and drew a neat little box around the triangle of circles, ducking his head so he didn’t have to see Yoongi running his long fingers through his dark hair (it would’ve made his heart beat a little too fast for his liking). “There’s another rapper coming in? For a feature-type thing?” he asked (though he already knew the answer, he just didn’t want to come off as that kind of person).
“Yeah,” Yoongi said. “I’ll contact him after we secure the choreography and who’s dancing it. He’s not huge on dancing and everything, not a lot of people except Hoseok in the rap community are, but as long as it’s nothing too complex, it should be fine. If he doesn’t want to do it, then I can find someone else.” He shrugged indifferently, and Jimin’s head snapped back to the legal pad. The coldness in Yoongi’s voice kind of shocked him.
“Sounds good, hyung. So I was thinking,” he said carefully, trying not to stutter. “For the entrance, there could be two on one side and three on the other, and then you could walk in between. During the opening part, before you start rapping. I think it goes with the song,” he was rambling at this point, but he couldn’t decide if it would be more embarrassing to keep going or to stop, “y’know because it’s about dominance—”
He should’ve stopped. He definitely should’ve stopped.
“But not that kind of dominance, hyung,” Jimin choked out finally and stuck the straw of his drink in his mouth, refusing to look at the person sitting next to him.
A small laugh escaped Yoongi’s lips, eyes crinkling into small crescents. “Yeah, Jimin,” he said lightly. “Sure.”
--
The orange glow from the streetlights had started to spill through into the café, tinting the tables a pastel shade of tangerine. There were a couple white stars dotting the navy sky, the moon hanging low by the clouds. The notebook by now was full with little sketches and curved arrows, moving little dots around the page.
Jimin noticed that Yoongi’s handwriting was much neater than his, small and pointed and daresay, cute.
After the sun sunk below the horizon, Jimin began to wonder firstly, how late this café opened, and secondly, how much caffeine he could consume before it became an actual problem. He’d started out drinking a small macchiato, but he’d upgraded to a large iced latte after downing a medium coffee (two sugars, no cream). His fingers were drumming restlessly on the table as the two focused on the last part of the choreo, his leg shaking incessantly under the table.
“Alright kids, time to clean up,” the Angry Birds-playing barista (who, in all honestly, looked to be the same age as Jimin) called. He was holding a tall black broom and was sweeping straw wrappers and crumpled napkins into a dustpan. “We’re closing in five.”
Jimin snorted under his breath and gathered his notepad and pen, taking his latte with him. “We were almost done too, hyung,” he said, biting his lip and looking down at their almost-finalized choreography. “I don’t know if we can make something work for the rest of the week, since I have to work and so do you, along with everything else—”
“There’s a park next to the café, if that’s okay with you,” Yoongi said. “Or… my apartment’s a couple blocks away, if—”
“The park sounds great, hyung!” Jimin said hurriedly. The ice in his drink burned against his palms. “I wouldn’t want to disturb anything by coming over, and plus, the park’s closer.” He flashed a smile and straightened himself, blinking the spots out of his eyes.
The two made their way out of the café and into the cool night air, Jimin happy to escape the pitchy classical music and Yoongi staying rather expressionless. The park was small, a little expanse of grass covering about half a block. It was dotted with trees and neatly trimmed bushes, cut by winding stone paths.
The paths were lined sparingly with streetlights, and every now and then there was a quaint bench with curving metal armrests.
“Is here okay?” Yoongi asked. One of the benches was resting right below a streetlight, illuminated and casting a square shadow on the ground.
Jimin nodded and took a seat, laying out his notepad. “So for the conclusion—” he started, pointing the end of his pen at where they’d left off.
“Oh wait, let me just— sorry, I can’t see very well in this light,” Yoongi said, scooting the slightest bit closer to him. However, it was close enough that Jimin could feel the heat radiating from his milky skin, and he tensed, oddly on edge. “Yeah, you were saying?”
“Yeah, hyung, so for the conclusion, I was thinking to go back to the pyramid formation,” Jimin said shakily, trying to ignore the fact that Min Yoongi was less than a foot away from him and they were in a secluded park at night. “Uh, with you coming up from the back from the bridge.” He drew another six circles into a triangle, slashing the paper with a long arrow, leading the circle at the back to the apex.
“That sounds good,” Yoongi said. He traced a single finger over the arrows, following the path of the little circles. “Yeah, would it just cut off there?”
Jimin nodded. “It’ll need some tweaking to be able to work well with the song, but Hoseok-hyung and Jungkook can help with that.”
Yoongi pushed himself up from the bench, a soft smile on his face. “That sounds great,” he said. “Thanks for helpi—”
Click.
A blinding flash lit up the small park and white light reflected off the trees.
“Shit.” Yoongi grabbed Jimin’s hand. Jimin flinched at the feeling of Yoongi’s nails digging slightly into his skin. “Pull up your hood. Now. It’s another fucking— it’s a— just… go. Go that way.” Yoongi pointed back in the direction of the café almost frantically. “Take the subway home. There should be a station nearby. I’ll text you about the rest of the choreography later. Sorry about this. Fuck. How did they—”
“What? What’re you talking about?” Jimin asked. His heart pounded in his chest, accelerated by Yoongi’s urgent tone alone. “Hyung, what’s happening?”
“The subway station. Go. Now.” Yoongi swore under his breath and ran in the opposite direction. (Incredibly quickly, Jimin noted, for someone in expertly ironed dress pants and shiny leather shoes.)
He pulled his hood over his orange hair and ducked his head. He could hear the rustling of bushes behind him, but he turned away, trying to cover his face with the legal pad. Another flash tore through the park as he practically sprinted through the park, not sparing a moment.
What. Is. Happening.
He felt for his wallet in the pocket of his hoodie, and a wave of relief crashed over him once he found it. The bright lights of the subway station shone like a beacon two blocks away, and Jimin slowed his pace, keeping his eyes glued to the ground. He felt himself get swept up in floods of people coming home from the late work rush, jostled around by people whose faces he’d never see again.
What kind of insane people track a fucking businessman because they’re attractive? That’s awful, holy shit.
With an annoyed sigh, Jimin swiped his metro card and made his way down two flights of stairs. He waited patiently for the train to squeal into the platform, surrounded by vibrantly colored ads showcasing a new drama or a miraculous skin treatment.
He rode his way home in silence.
--
“Hey Jiminie,” Taehyung prodded him awake, already dressed for work. “This guy was apparently caught with Yoongi at night at some park. Like, scary businessman Yoongi. Crazy. It’s all over those weird fan sites. Scandalous,” he sang. Before Jimin could ask why exactly his best friend was monitoring Min Yoongi fan sites, Taehyung was already pulling out his phone to show him pictures.
“Funny thing though,” Taehyung added, completely sincerely. “You and this mystery man own the exact same sweater. What are the chances, right?”