Chapter Text
So maybe Seokjin isn't exactly the luckiest person in the world. But is that his fault? No, not at all. Is it the world's fault? Yes.
You see, he's used to it. His days are mostly fine, but there's always this one thing that ruins it. It could be a small pinprick type of thing, but sometimes... sometimes it's a bit of a disaster. And that's what it is now.
Seokjin is walking home from university peacefully, texting his roommate Hoseok. They have an apartment that's very near the campus, and it's always convenient — he just needs to cross the overpass to get to the other side, and then, it's a ten-minute walk from there, maximum.
He's already at the overpass, holding his phone and texting his roommate. It's pretty late, just a few minutes before it's 8 in the evening.
“Give me your phone,” an unknown voice says to him suddenly, but he's too focused on reading Hoseok's text to respond. He stops walking.
hyung get dinner
there is Nothing in the fridge
plz the children (me) r starving
“I said,” the voice says again, in a rougher manner, “give me your phone.”
How inconvenient, Seokjin thinks, still focused on his phone. “Hold on, I'm still texting Hoseok.”
sure. i'll stop by @ marvel’s pizza. i'll get 3 boxes so u can invite namjoon over if u want
also can you charge my laptop?? it's just on my bed with th
“—this is a hold up. Give me your phone.”
At that, Seokjin looks up at the person.
He's... gorgeous, in Seokjin's opinion. Small eyes, a cute button nose, really pale skin (like really pale) and really really really nice hands.
And one of those beautiful hands is holding a gun to his face.
See, Kim Seokjin has had multiple objects (some of them, all at once) held to his face.
But never a gun.
So, as he stares at the stranger, he absentmindedly turns his phone over.
“Huh, too easy,” the guy mumbles, putting down the gun and observing the latest iPhone model he just got.
That is when Seokjin is awakened from his little distraction. “Too easy?" How dare this guy call him easy? “For your information, mister, I won't pick a fight for a phone that I can buy 60 times over. If you don't want it, then I'll take it back. I want none of your shit. Now move along, because I'm buying pizza for me and my children! Starve.”
He forcefully takes his phone from the guy's hands and makes long, quick strides. Seokjin doesn't look back, and the guy doesn't follow him (thankfully, because Seokjin at least remembers that the guy’s got a gun).
He definitely needs another box of pizza now.
But when he takes the first bite of his four cheese in the living room with his two children (read: Hoseok and Namjoon), he suddenly bursts into tears.
Hoseok gets visibly alarmed (also confused), but he starts pouring water into a glass for the older. “Hyung, I don't think this pizza is delicious enough to cry about,” he quips, handing him the glass.
“Jin-hyung, what the fuck happened?” Namjoon asks, putting down his pizza slice and rubbing his back gently.
Seokjin is full-on sobbing. He gives the glass back to Hoseok because his hands are shaking. He probably looks and sounds embarrassing, which is a big deal. He is the Kim Seokjin, after all; the only 10 in a room full of 8s, but he just can't stop. “Th-that guy, that guy!”
“Which guy?” Namjoon inquires. “Seok-ah, do you know who hyung’s talking about?”
Hoseok shakes his head.
“He tried to rob me!” Seokjin cries. He’s worried that his pizza is getting soaked in his tears, so he flings it, hoping that it flies back into its box. It doesn’t. It hits Hoseok. “At gunpoint!”
Hoseok almost does a spit-take when the slice slides from his stomach and falls into his lap, but he relents. His shirt is old anyway. Plus, the excise tax on soda is high, and Seokjin treated them to it. He can’t waste it. “What the fuck, hyung?”
“Some guy tried to get my phone from me at the overpass,” the older adds, “but Namjoonie, Hoseokie, listen to me—”
Namjoon is already dialing the emergency number when he hears Seokjin say, “listen, he was so pretty and it’s unfair because he’s my type but he pointed a gun to my face! My face, Hoseok. My beautiful face!”
“But your phone’s still with you!” Hoseok says, putting down his bottle of Mountain Dew and taking the phone from the table. The lockscreen is Eomuk the sugar glider with wings and a halo. “This is definitely your phone!”
Seokjin grabs it from his hand. “I took it back from him!”
“Jin-hyung, he had a gun. How did you take it without fucking dying?”
“He said I was too easy, Nams,” Seokjin slaps the younger’s bicep. (Very firm, he thinks, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a thought for another day.) “And I needed to show him that I’m not! I’m not an easy guy! I’m a guy with high fuckin’ standards and he needs to know that! I’m Kim fucking Seokjin and I am not easy at all!”
“I think you gotta calm down, hyung, it’s 9 o’clock—”
“I was so mesmerized by his face that I just handed my phone over to him. I needed to prove that I’m not easy, Namjoon, there’s no point in calming down!”
“Hyung,” Namjoon says in a stern voice. “Listen, hyung. You’re probably just shaken. Let’s eat dinner and watch something, okay?”
It turns out watching Waiting For Godot was a mistake.
“Thanks, Namjoon.” Hoseok seethes.
The pizza boxes are stacked on the floor next to the couch, and the last one (with one remaining slice) sits on the table.
Hoseok’s words do nothing to the other, though, as he’s too engrossed in his own thoughts to care about the world around him. Meanwhile, Seokjin is just staring blankly at the black screen of the TV.
And who wouldn’t, if they just had to digest a huge amount of existentialist and nihilist media? I don’t deserve this, Hoseok thinks as he gets up and picks the empty boxes up from the floor. He goes outside to toss the boxes into a trash bag he’s taken out earlier.
“Maybe Godot was inside of us all along,” Namjoon says when he goes back. “And maybe the pretty robber was inside of Jin-hyung all alo—”
“Shh,” Hoseok puts a finger up to the other’s lips. “Stop right there. Just help me carry hyung to his room, won’t you?”
“M’kay,” Namjoon replies, voice a little husky from almost 2 hours of not talking in favor of watching the play. He takes Hoseok’s hand and caresses it gently with his thumb. “I’m always ready to help you, Seok-ah.”
Hoseok recoils from the touch, blood rushing to his cheeks. “Well, prove it. Hyung’s heavy as hell.”
(When Seokjin wakes up in his bed the next day, he thinks of thanking Namjoon and Hoseok. But then he suddenly remembers how disgusting Namjoon was, and how red Hoseok looked. Nope. There is no way he’s thanking either of them.)
“You okay now, hyung?” Hoseok says when Seokjin stumbles into the kitchen area. “You were... pretty shaken last night.”
He nods, making his way towards the fridge. The wall clock says it’s only 9AM, so he’s got time for breakfast before he goes to class. “Yep,” he says, then sighs when he sees that there’s nothing in it except bottles of water and two milk cartons. For a second, he has hope, but he looks up at the cabinets and sees that their cereals are gone. He sighs again. “Do we have—”
Hoseok interrupts him, “leftover pizza? In the microwave. I heated them up for you because I haven’t gotten groceries yet.”
“You’re an actual angel, Jung Hoseok. I’ve already forgotten how disgusting you and Namjoon were last night. Thanks.”
“Shut up, hyung, or I won’t get groceries.”
“And break the roommate vow to always get groceries when it’s your turn? That’s low of you, man.”
“Well, you crying about a handsome robber who pointed a gun at your face is lower.”
Seokjin turns back to look at him, closing the microwave door violently. “Below the belt, Hoseok.”
“I have no classes today so I’m just gonna go shopping and try to fill our fridge.” The younger says, ignoring Seokjin’s comment. “Anything you want in particular? I know I’m gonna get a few extra bags of those kimchi-flavored potato chips Namjoon brought last week.”
“Just cucumbers,” the older says, taking a small bite of his newly-microwaved pizza slice. “Lord knows my eyes need to be cured of their puffiness.”
“Okay. I’m off. Bye, hyung, and be careful of robbers.”
Seokjin waves at him as he descends out of the door.
Being a Theater Arts student is hard enough as it is, but if your university’s foundation celebration is coming up, most especially. And Seokjin is tired. He’s got a play to perform next month as the lead (no one is surprised), and with the amount of other school tasks he needs to accomplish, the script has already turned from a beautiful composition straight from the mind of Park Jimin into a long piece of memorization horror.
He’s walking home again, this time holding the 37-page long script of a theater play entitled Awake.
For the past week he’s been avoiding the overpass for reasons he doesn’t need to mention. This time, however, since it’s almost 9, the other way to the apartment is dark and dangerous.
So he’s back on the overpass. The abandoned overpass.
Fuck.
Seokjin is aware that he experienced an attempted robbery here a few weeks ago, but frankly? He doesn’t even care anymore. It’s gotten old. What he has to do is memorize the goddamn script.
He’s focusing on the it. It’s important. It’s more important than his life at the moment. Why? Because the university president, which just so happens to be one of his rich grandmother’s amigas, is going to watch. And Seokjin does not need to hear negative comments from his grandma. Seokjin’s already heard enough about how disappointing he is compared to the other woman’s grandchild. Those were the only negative comments that actually affected his self-esteem when he was younger, and it surely would affect his self-esteem now.
They’ve already had multiple readings, so he’s gotten some of the lines engraved in his mind already, but then again, it is 37 pages long.
He’s flipping to page 6 when someone touches his back with something hard. And heavy. And metal.
Seokjin sighs.
“Give me your wallet or I’ll shoot you.”
“This again?” Seokjin replies, turning around boldly.
It’s the same guy. From that night. And it feels weird. Like you met someone at the club and you had one amazing night together, then you think you’ll never see that person again, but the next week you see them and they’re actually the CEO of the company you’ve been trying to get into since graduation.
Except Seokjin didn’t meet this guy and a club, the two of them definitely did not have a one night stand, and that the guy obviously isn’t a CEO.
“Listen, mister robber,” he starts, “I’m tired. And since you don’t know, I’ll tell you this: my major is cursed. I’m not even allowed to say the name of The Scottish Play out loud. You know why? Because it’s bad luck. Someone will die.”
The robber raises his eyebrows.
“And,” Seokjin pauses, narrowing his eyes, “it’s not me.”
He slaps the gun out of the guy’s hands. It clatters on the ground, and the robber looks at it before looking back up at him. His eyes are so bright and Seokjin absolutely hates it. Why did he need to be a robber? He could be a model if he tried. And that just infuriates him even more. This guy needs to be cursed.
“Macbeth.” He says through gritted teeth, before walking away.
The last time it happens, Seokjin realizes how easy he’s been getting away from the robber guy. It’s probably unusual, considering that a lot of people... uh, get shot before they can even walk one step ahead of the suspects.
He should have reported the guy to the police already, but then he remembers that he’s got no proof and maybe the police won’t believe him if he tells them the story of how he got away from a person with a fucking gun by saying Macbeth.
Okay. Maybe the robber just hasn’t faced a person like Seokjin. Perhaps he’s used to victims who are easy to deal with (which explains why he said Seokjin was a little too easy during their first encounter), and Seokjin feels a little bad for the guy. He seems delicate for some reason, too, so...
Wait, that’s not right. The guy’s an actual criminal.
Scratch everything. He is a strong independent man, and the Gwangsan Kims don’t need one of their clan losing to a weak-ass robber who just so happens to be fucking beautiful.
Seokjin’s momma didn’t raise no bitch, and she sure as hell ain’t burying one.
“You know, this is getting repetitive. You should already know that you aren’t getting anything from me. Be thankful I haven’t reported you to the police yet! If I tell them that a weak-ass robber is always waiting in an overpass near Seoul Institute of the Arts, they’re going to arrest you so easily, and I’ll be the one calling you ‘easy’.”
“A weak-ass robber?”
“You’re never going to get anywhere as a robber if you have no courage to threaten your victims! You don’t even try. I can play as a robber in theater and it would be more convincing. This is obviously not the profession for you.”
The guy sighs in a defeated way. “You got me.”
Seokjin frowns. “What?”
“I’m not a robber.” The guy replies, speaking more clearly. “This gun doesn’t even have bullets.”
“What?”
“Congratulations. I’m a fucking phony.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you done telling me who I am yet? Are you done being just like my grandma?!”
Holy shit. What the hell is going on. Is this guy confessing his character’s tragic background story?
“What are you trying to say to me?” Seokjin says. “Do you have issues with your grandmother?”
The ‘phony robber’ throws the gun at the ground. “I’m not a robber. I’m actually a student at Seoul Institute as well. The president is my grandma and my parents are both vice presidents. Mom for finance, dad for academic affairs.”
“Are you saying you’re Min fucking Yoongi?”
“Yes. And I hate that you know my name.”
“Your grandma always talked about you whenever she was at our house to have tea with my grandma! How could I not know your name?”
His eyes widen. “What does she say?”
“Uh, that you were likely the same age as me, and that you’re a musical genius? That you were constantly compared to Beethoven when you were 8 years old?”
“Shit,” Yoongi replies. “None of that is true. Why is my grandma like this? When I was 8, I wanted to quit the piano which at the time was the only instrument I knew how to play. I continuously skipped practice that time and I was far from a musical genius.”
Seokjin sees his life flashing before his eyes.
So all those years of his grandma comparing him to the shady figure of some woman’s grandkid... were built on lies?
“Okay.” He says. “Well, I am done. Just so you know, I do find you annoyingly gorgeous,” oh shit, probably shouldn’t have said that, “but I have grown to hate you. And it didn’t just start when you kept attempting to rob me. It started during the founding years of my life. Stop trying to rob people, and never speak to me again.”
“Fine. Just don’t let either of our grandmas to know about this.” Yoongi says quietly. “‘You shouldn’t have taken music so seriously, Yoongi, it’s supposed to be just a hobby.’” He adds, mocking his grandma.
Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever,” he responds before taking off.
When he tells Namjoon and Hoseok, they find it more than hilarious.
“You guys are not helping. Min Yoongi, the president’s grandson, is going through a rebellious phase 7 years later than everyone else, and he chose to target me. And his idea of being a rebel is pretending to be a robber using an empty gun. Laugh at that, not me!”
The three of them are in the apartment again, sitting on the carpet with Brooklyn Nine Nine playing on Seokjin’s Netflix account.
Hoseok brought shawarma and Namjoon brought cheap vodka, which is probably a weird combination, but Seokjin decides that he’s had a weird night anyway. And he’s also willing to get absolutely tabled.
“It’s just really ironic. The guy whom you thought was ‘weak-ass’ is actually the same guy who made you feel actually weak-ass during childhood. I mean,” Namjoon looks at Hoseok, “what are the odds?
Hoseok laughs even harder and slaps Namjoon’s arm. “Hey, hey, hyung,” he says when he calms down, “I dare you to talk to your grandma about this.”
Seokjin takes his first shot of vodka. “Jung Hoseok. My lovely, lovely roommate and one of my best friends,” he says, patting said friend on the head. “I don’t talk to my grandma."
“You don’t have any other friends,” Namjoon butts in quietly.
Seokjin ignores him. “I don’t talk to my grandma. Not about anything. Not about myself, not about our family, not about the past I had as the neighborhood rich kid who had self-esteem issues because his grandma kept comparing him to some other rich kid on the other side of the country.”
“Whoa, hyung, calm down,” Hoseok says. He pours Namjoon a shot. “We were joking. But really, your grandma should know what you felt about the unnecessary pressure she kept putting on you as a child.”
Namjoon tastes the alcohol, making a face. “Even now, she’s still putting pressure on you without her even knowing. You can’t really do a whole lot of stuff without thinking that you need to impress her. She left a lasting mark on you, hyung, and that’s not a good thing.”
Seokjin thinks of all the times he’d overworked himself because he feared that he would disappoint his grandma, even if she isn’t even aware of the project.
He sighs.
“And if it helps, I’m actually friends with Min Yoongi.” Namjoon adds, then downs the shot. He makes a face again. “Seok, are we sure this isn’t expired?”
“You were the one who brought it, Joon.”
“You’re friends with Min Yoongi and you never told me?!” Seokjin says, kicking the younger’s legs. “How are you even friends with him? He seems unbearable!”
“But he’s hot,” Hoseok interrupts.
“Can’t argue with that,” Seokjin responds. “But he’s still an asshole, and he tried to fucking rob me. At gunpoint, Namjoon. He had a gun.”
“Didn’t you just tell us that he was a fake robber?”
“That’s not the point!”
“Hyung, you’re taking this a little too personally. Yoongi-hyung is a decent person, and I’m sure if you guys hadn’t gotten off on the wrong foot, you’ll be good friends. It’s his and your grandmothers’ fault.”
“You know what?” Hoseok chimes in, uncapping the vodka bottle again and lifting it to pour them all shots, “let’s just get fucking wasted on Namjoon’s expired vodka and chew on the shawarma while watching Jake Peralta kick a homophobe’s ass. Cheers?”
Seokjin sighs for what is probably the nth time that night, but smiles once he sees his friends’ faces. He picks up his glass. “Cheers.”
So maybe Seokjin isn’t the luckiest person in the world.
This morning, he came to school with no phone and no wallet. Thankfully, the change scattered everywhere in his backpack was just enough to get him through the day, and now he was going home.
Seokjin had been minding his own business again, walking home later than usual and carrying textbooks in his hands. He’s got a lot of readings for Theater History and Dramatic Literature, plus he is still memorizing that script and trying to study for a test in Math at the same time.
This time, because he knows that a certain ‘robber’ isn’t going to point a gun at him at the overpass, he decides to fuck it and just pass there again.
But, because Seokjin is still not the luckiest person in the world, shit happens.
“I swear, Min, this is getting old—”
“Give me your fucking money.”
Oh shit, he thinks, realizing too late that the person behind him isn’t Min Yoongi. This isn’t some phony robber who’s actually really rich. This guy’s the real deal. And Seokjin isn’t exactly glad about that.
He hears the man cock a gun. He is fucked. Grandma I’m so sorry I quit karate lessons when I was 14 I didn’t mean to disappoint you it’s just that Jisoo kept making fun of me and now I regret quitting because I could’ve learnt self-defense and now I’m gonna die because if this asshole with a gun finds out that I forgot my phone and my wallet at the apartment then he’ll shoot me—
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Seokjin gasps quietly. He recognizes that voice.
“Ha, who’s this?” The robber says, sounding amused.
Seokjin decides to turn around and witness whatever is going down. The robber guy is taller than him, which by default means that he’s taller than Min Yoongi.
“Can you get out of here? My friend and I are...” Min Yoongi trails off, making eye contact with Seokjin suddenly. Seokjin feels like a deer in the headlights. “Going to be busy tonight.”
“Interesting. Why don’t you two hand over your wallets then, and I’ll go on ahead.”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself?” Yoongi says in the most deadpan voice Seokjin’s ever heard in his life.
“The fuck did you just say to me?” The robber snarls, pointing his gun at Yoongi this time. “I’ll have you bleeding, you arrogant son of a bitch.”
Seokjin is scared. Jesus fucking Christ, he is scared. Never before in his life has he felt this amount of fright.
“We’ll see about that.” Min Yoongi says before kicking the gun away from the man’s hands in one swift motion. When it drops to the ground, he kicks it again, hard enough to make it fly towards the other side of the overpass. Then, he kicks the guy’s crotch hard.
The guy drops to the ground like a vegetable, clutching his balls and yelling out profanities at Yoongi.
Seokjin is even more terrified. He doesn’t know what of— Min Yoongi or the robber.
“The police will be here any moment now,” he hears Min Yoongi say moments later, while he was busy staring at the robber in complete shock. Then, sirens from down below. And footsteps fast on the stairs. “Yep, they’re here. Thankfully I called them right when I saw that guy following you.”
Min Yoongi saved Seokjin from an actual robber in 3 kicks.
What the actual fuck.
(Maybe it’s because Min Yoongi didn’t quit karate like you did, Seokjin hears his grandma in his head. Shut up, grandma.)
Min Yoongi is talking to the police officers, giving details with quick words and sharp hand gestures. Seokjin is still busy processing all of this. He just had a very hard day, he’s walking home at almost 9PM, and some guy tried to rob him for real. And then Min Yoongi came barreling in to save him.
As the officers wave him off, Yoongi approaches Seokjin slowly. “So. Let’s just get this over with,” he mumbles, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I’m taking you out to dinner.”
“Excuse me, what?”
“I’m taking you out to dinner, Kim. It’s a fucking Thursday.”
“Wha-” Seokjin stutters, “what are you saying?”
Min Yoongi sighs exasperatedly. “Listen. What I did to you was annoying. I was running on seven hours of sleep a week and I was so mad at my family that I was just doing stuff without even thinking. And I wanna... I wanna say sorry for that. I’m not usually a fucking robber. So I’m taking you to dinner.”
“O... kay?” Is all Seokjin can say, mostly still overwhelmed by the man being apprehended behind them, and because Min fucking Yoongi basically just asked him out.
Min Yoongi takes Seokjin’s backpack carefully and grabs the textbooks he’s been holding for a while. Like a gentleman. What the fuck.
Kim Seokjin is just about ready to swoon.
“Hey, hurry up or I’m leaving with your stuff!” He hears him call out, already walking down the stairs.
Okay, maybe not.
“Yeah, gosh, I’m so sorry for being in a state of shock, Mr. Min,” he calls back, jogging to catch up. “Where are you taking me anyway? And how did you know I would be in this wretched bridge?”
“We’re driving somewhere. I knew you were here because you’re always here. Literally. This is your way home.”
They reach Yoongi’s car, and he just dumps Seokjin’s stuff in the backseat. It’s a black Hyundai Genesis, and strangely Seokjin feels like he’s seen it before. “My grandma uses this car sometimes,” Yoongi says like he just read his mind.
“Figured.”
“Get in, then. Jungsik closes at 10:30, and it’s already 9.”
Seokjin doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.