Chapter Text
Yoongi’s lips are red,
Red candy,
perhaps pomegranate,
or maybe blood, red blood.
Seokjin peers down at them, something around 9:04 AM. The time shouldn’t matter, but Seokjin thinks there is something to be said about being enraptured by someone else’s lips during office hours. The boy who carries them so prettily is nibbling on the end of a long-gone lollipop. Red stains a white stick, the same shade dancing coyly on the inner of Yoongi’s plush lips.
It’s three little days after numbers are exchanged and secret, flirty grins that Seokjin can see skin under an oversized knit-sweater. Yoongi doesn’t do Facebook or Snapchat or any of those things boys his age do. He’s a total sweetheart under people’s posts on twitter, posts cat videos and cries on his TL about this or that until someone virtually hugs him enough for him to go back to his usual activities. Seokjin’s kind of a creep for going so far into someone’s social media, but it’s Yoongi, and he thinks he’s allowed to be a creep.
(A snarky, razor-sharp voice in the back of his head tells him that it doesn’t allow him to cheat on his boyfriend. And Jin—
Jin isn’t cheating. Hasn’t kissed or embraced or pushed Yoongi against a wall to ravish him the way he’s been dreaming to do for a year now. Jin hasn’t done any of that. He’s not a cheater—)
Yoongi’s head tilts like a bobbing doll when he looks up at Seokjin, standing above him, a silent shadow in the early rays of the morning. His smile is a petite, darling thing. “Hello, hyung,” he whispers, he’s cute, and he shines quietly.
Jin takes the dainty hand offered to him, without a word. He doesn’t shake it, but lifts it up and brings himself down for the faintest kiss to plant upon it. Yoongi blooms a willowy pink, early morning dew, and Jin’s heart shakes with fondness. “Good morning to you, darling,” he presses gently on a delicate hand, and only lets himself fall in the chair across Yoongi when the man-boy starts squirming.
It is quite funny, seeing as this same fae-like being had been all but flirting with him just the night before, but now couldn’t bear having his hand kissed too long for fear of suddenly combusting. It was intriguing, lovely; lit the beginning of a fire in crevices of Jin’s heart he had forgotten existed. The soothing melody particular to morning coffee shops crept back in Seokjin’s ears, and he propped his hand on his cheek, absorbing it all.
Yoongi’s a man of few words, it’s in his nature. His face, his eyes and little quirks speak louder than he’ll ever need to. He doesn’t often waste time on small-talk, and Jin’s grateful for that. It’s one of the many things he adores about this little man.
So when they get to work it’s with the music that was other people going on about their life around them. It’s relaxing. Tastes like peace. Something Jin’s been struggling with since he realized his heart wasn’t with his boyfriend anymore. When he opens his computer and spreads a paper-copy of the novel they had to edit, it’s not Namjoon’s voice that lulls him toward comfort. It’s Yoongi’s pencil stuck behind his ear. It’s Yoongi’s barely audible humming yet mountain-sized balm in a bottle.
It’s quite the scary thought, but Jin settles easily anyway. For there were noises in this little coffee shop that did great in muffling the worrying things that come to his mind. For those noises were particularly pleasing, when his eyes could feast on the boy whose bluebell locks fell gently in his cat-like eyes. Those eyes were on him, then. It was an hour later, and there were biscuits, and tea, and Jin’s thoughts growing growing. “Y’dont mind this, right?”
tap, tap,
A soft, nearly silent tip-tap from bitten fingers on white tablecloth. Jin reaches for them without a second thought, and stills. But Yoongi’s fingers immediately curl around him, and he breathes better. Clears his throat, and asks “Mind what?”
Thinks about the intricate mechanism that is Yoongi’s mind, Yoongi’s persona; Sleepy eyes gazing at this and that, seemingly passing over them but still seeing it all. In the year Jin’s known him, Yoongi’s paid attention to all the little details people forgot, or simply ignored. In a conversation in which a person’s voice would be drowned, he’d be the one to catch into it. Airy little man that seemed to not be here, would catch into a voice that’d trail uncertainty as they noticed they weren’t listened to; he’d observe shoulders imperceptibly hunching, a frown, a retreat.
And he’d say things like—“I don’t think I’ve caught that, Yeon-hyung, would you care to repeat?” Sincere interest, slight-body leaning in, attention clear on every aspect of his candid face. And his smile, oh his smile, when the person that seconds ago was talked over sprung back out of the shadow in a new light and a lighter heart.
Yoongi was the boy-man that noticed, paid attention, to little things but more importantly to people. Like he believed and acted on the belief everyone was important and nobody deserved to be ignored. You couldn’t be in a circle of conversation with Min Yoongi and fear to be disregarded. He didn’t do that. Couldn’t do that. It was a fascinating trait of personality Jin wasn’t sure he ever saw in someone else. Something so precious so important—
“Working here,” Yoongi says, a meek shrug settling on his petite shoulders, “getting out of your way to come to this place, changing your routine to suit this project. To suit...me. I’m, I just—please tell me if I’m ever a bother.”
His voice trails off quietly at the end of his hushed tirade. Uncertain, like even getting those words out hurt him in some kind of way. Perhaps they did. Yoongi’s the boy that notices, after all. He notices, and he thinks, perhaps too much, to the point of second-guessing and looking like he regretted the moment he entertained his idea.
On a December night, when by a blessed coincidence it was just Yoongi and Seokjin in the emptiness of the office with work trailing in the late hours for two different reasons; Jin had been all kind of cold with no hope of warming up anytime soon. He’d been nursing the beginnings of a silly crush on a then pink-haired boy, who waddled when he walked and did just that when he came to stand beside Seokjin’s chair. Flushed cheeks, and a shy, “wanna share this blanket?” delicate attention, of the ones that put heat in any heart, and Seokjin was weak, so weak. Could see Yoongi’s hesitance and worrying with every second he didn’t obtain an answer, and hurried, and whispered—
“I’d love to.”
And Yoongi’s answering smile, it was warm, warmer than blankets and hot chocolate.
It’s some months later, and in the same fashion, with a crush that exploded all levels and a situation so much more complicated, Jin reassures. Squeezes the snow-white hand in his and says, “I’m happy to be here.”
He says that, and he thinks, adds, with you.
Yoongi doesn’t hear the end of this sentence, but the shy little tug on the corner of his pomegranate-stained lips is more than enough.
“Great, because I’m so happy,” he says, practically beams in a fashion that would have put the sun to shame. He doesn’t take his hand away from Seokjin’s grasp. On the small table, the stretch to join their hands isn’t one that would pull their arms taunt. So Seokjin keeps holding his hand, and watches Yoongi gesticulate wildly with the other one, a candid grin illuminating his pretty face. “Hwang-nim’s books are so wild I’ve always dreamed of editing one! The honor, oh dear.”
He sighs, not quite coming down from his awe, and Jin looks on fondly. Remembers indeed that there were always one or two books from said man crammed on Yoongi’s overflowing desk. But Jin’s memory doesn’t end there. He lifts a brow, can’t stop himself from mischievously pointing out that—“You didn’t seem too thrilled when he requested the two of us though.”
“That’s so? I don’t remember,” Yoongi‘s shrug is a delicate thing, lifting his little shoulders in a movement that should have projected nonchalance but comes out painfully cute. It always does. Jin can’t fathom how their coworkers could ever call this adorable creature cold. He was the embodiment of adorableness. And at Jin’s pointed stare and silent sip of his tea, he relents, folding his arms across his chest. “okay, okay, it was more along the lines that I—you—I mean, ah...You’re perfect for this. And I’m, well...me. Just me.”
His shrug is defeated, then. And Jin’s suddenly athrob with fondness, and the deep-seated desire to hold the little man across the table. He does none of that, though. Just squeezes a bit tighter the hand still clutched in his; Yoongi hadn’t let go even if it meant switching on nibbling his biscuits and typing on his computer with just one hand. “I like this Yoongi just fine.”
Red blooms like roses in spring on Yoongi's face. Jin watches, fascinated, as the color runs everywhere down to the tip of very little ears. He’s so terribly endeared he could throw it all away to kiss this man, right here, right then. Yoongi’s free hand drops the biscuit he had been holding, and he clenches it and flexes it nervously, like a reflex, just like he does when he’s writing and gets lost in his own story. “Ah—saying things like that…” he pouts down at his fallen biscuit, blush still high but voice tinier than a grain of sand. “you’re a flirt, hyung.”
Jin shakes his head, because a year of noticing little things that have him smiling down at nothing in the memory of Yoongi doing them isn’t fake. Those feelings are real and valid and so terribly scary. “I really am not,” he mutters, voice low yet high enough for Yoongi to look up. Watching him, holding his hand tight and fisting the other on the table. “but I was sincere. You’re more than qualified enough for this particular task. See, I’ve read Isle of flightless bird,” he motions for the papers sprawled on the table. “it’s special. Full of wonder, it’s a different kind of scary. A silent purpose as clear as the one you carry in your eyes. And...it has hope underneath it all. Just like you.”
Yoongi’s face burns bright red, the same shade as the pomegranate color tainting his lips. He shifts on his chair, it doesn’t creak, but his white knit-sweater pools down over one shoulder and exposes a milky shoulder. Jin’s a gentleman enough to lean forward and arrange it, slowly, before he does something silly like kiss this expense of skin. He’s ravaged by so many desires it leaves him dizzy for a fraction of time. The little man still doesn’t say anything. Only tips his head, slow and darling, to thank Seokjin.
They do get back to work at one point. The clock shows that three hours have passed and the papers are taking life before Seokjin’s eyes with the many annotations and the adorable stickers Yoongi’s strewn all over. Deep in thought Yoongi, bringing his cup of tea to his lips without actually drinking it; puts it down, types, and does it all over again. Seokjin’s getting used to the wild beating of his heart every time he looks up and sees the delightful picture in front of him.
It’s a bit like a pressure that is more pleasure than it is pain. He breathes fine and works harder, it doesn’t stop but it isn’t a tragedy. Yoongi does that. Distracting Jin in the middle of his work with a little quirk that goes straight to Jin’s bottle of happiness. He’d be chatting with someone, easily and nonplussed; yet catching a glimpse of bluebell locks and pomegranate lips would fill his heart to the brim and fix an exalted smile on his lips.
Truly, the world underestimated the power an infatuation could hold over someone.
The typing stops.
Jin looks up. Directly into eyes locked on him over the brim of a cup of tea. There ought to be a shadow over the liquid, with how thick and long the eyelashes shading those eyes were. Yoongi puts the cup down again, but doesn’t go back to writing. To playing with his hands, nibbling on a biscuit, or typing furiously on his phone with a blank face. He’s looking at Seokjin, and the gaze is a thoughtful one. “You really seem to know me well, hyung.”
Something cold drops in Jin’s stomach and sits there, heavy and unmovable. Of course. He should have thought before speaking. Jin doesn’t—doesn’t think he’d be all that happy if someone he wasn’t that close to suddenly talked about him like...like they knew knew each other. “I didn’t—I’m sorry, I’m being presumptuous aren’t I?” he tries to laugh it off quietly, but it comes out weak, and he’s pretty sure embarrassment isn’t a good look on him.
“No!” Yoongi lets out a sound. Distressed little thing that has Jin looking up from his pool of embarrassment; stopping and restarting his heartbeat like some kind of Russian roulette. Yoongi’s lips wobbled between his teeth, and he was looking at Jin with such quiet anguish Jin just—took his hand. Swore because he knew how clammy they must have felt, which was so damn embarrassing because Kim Seokjin did not have clammy hands and, and—Yoongi gripped it, and didn’t let go. “Sorry. No. Not at all, I didn’t mean for it to seem offensive. I’m. Flattered? It means that you...that maybe you’ve been paying attention to me.”
And, as he says this, he ends up looking down at their entwined hands with something like doubt in his features. Because Jin’s the guy that jokes around too often for his own good. And Yoongi laughs at these, because he’s so easily amused and Jin always makes sure to make him laugh the most.
But he can be serious, too.
Had Yoongi underline it one day as he joined him to babysit the kids of their coworkers. Soft-spoken, he was, eyes full of wonder, a small child in his arms. Jin loves children. He loves them like he loves the sky and the plants growing bigger and bigger in his veranda. Jin talks to them, and doesn’t let people know that, until Yoongi catches him having a conversation with little miss sunshine, the pretty sunflower planted safely in the break room.
Yoongi doesn’t laugh. Yoongi talks with her too, with Jin, and says he loves plants like he loves the sky and little children.
That is to say—
Jin—
Jin jokes around, but he can be serious, too.
“...I did,” he says, firm and unbending; unyielding in the déclaration he’s pretty sure glides sneakily toward a misplaced affection. Cheaterwhataboutnamjoon—“can’t help myself, you’re fascinating.”
And he was, and he was.
“Oh. Oh,” the pretty man says, rushed little gasp of air that has Jin feeling things he really isn’t used to anymore, when Yoongi’s not around. Their laptops are all but forgotten, and so are the papers, but does Jin care? Does he really care when Yoongi’s blushing the prettiest shade of roses and looking at Jin—really looking at him? Seeing the man and not the joking coworker who talked to flowers and adored children? Seeing the man; the one that flirted with terribly bad pickup lines even though Yoongi was so painfully oblivious to it. “my face’s red, this—this is embarrassing, are you trying to embarrass me? You can’t say things like that, God.”
“But I mean it. I’ve been keeping a lot of things to myself, it just keeps spilling out.” Like a faucet running, and running, drowning the bathroom and everything in it with him. It’s a year of discoveries and not enough talking, longing and not acting on it and regretting. Jin was done.
The following silence isn’t an awkward one. Jin stares, doesn’t let up the quiescence because it is one Yoongi adores. At least, Jin thinks so, deduced it. His belief isn’t lost, because Yoongi scoots closer to the table. To him. Not blank-faced the way he is at work, or lost in his own little world no one bothers to take him out of. It’s a sight Jin hasn’t seen before;
Yoongi’s smiling. It’s enchanting in its appearance, and Jin’s so glad to be alive. “Then talk to me more often,” Yoongi says, pretty dolly lips still stretched in that gummy smile Jin wants to drown in forever. The clock rings, loud, louder than in the previous hours. The man in front of him closes his laptop, and starts packing up, sunshine in the crinkle of his eyes. Jin follows suit, dynamite going off in his chest. “maybe. If you want to.”
It is shy. It is devastating.
Jin’s surprisingly an explosive one. Expressive in a way people expect from his best friend Hoseok, but not him; always leaves them floundering. He changes tones like he changes shirts, lets puns fly everywhere and suddenly projects an animated image that breaks off the stereotypes born from looking at his figure. His face. Appearances.
Jin’s an explosive one. But the sight of Yoongi and the words tricking from his lips leave him quiet with an adoration he doesn’t expect. When his bag’s done, the sounds of Namjoon’s and his friends’ messages ignored once again, he comes to a decision.
Hushedly, he says, “Would you like that?” And if his voice’s rougher, athrob with a hunger that should scare him off and doesn’t—who would know, anyway?
A foot connects with him. Jin jolts, and blinks down at the darling little thing that reclined back to his chair, shoulders relaxed enough for his oversized shirt to fall down his right shoulder again. Jin itched to take it off fully. “I would. Please. But. Stop, like, not that I don’t like it—it’s making things to my heart, it’s pleasing, but. Hyung, you have a boyfriend right? It feels like flirting and I—”
“I don’t.” Jin whispers. Lies through his teeth. It’s so easy it leaves part of him horrified. “Have a boyfriend, that is. I don’t.”
Yoongi stops flailing around gradually. One hand goes back to his satchel, and the other one to his face. Thoughtful, he is. The skittish, hesitant boy from earlier disappearing in a flash to transform into some kind of faerie that seemed to know too much and yet spoke none of that. He’s silent for a while, and the moment seems eternal to Jin. Was he breathing at all?
At once, and yet, so slowly, one of the fingers cradling this porcelain-face pushes easily through the plush flesh of Yoongi’s lips, and it has Jin in some kind of trance. “Is that so?” The boy-man whispers, airy and eerie, the hand at his mouth falling back on the strap of his bag; then he’s taking a silent step, just around the table, and Seokjin doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until Yoongi presses a quick, petal-flower kiss on his cheek. It leaves a hot trail on his skin as the boy retreats.
And what a boy—gentle as rain, settling sun in his gaze as he smiled softly at Seokjin. Promises shining on the freckles dusting his face like tiny starts. “I’ve read about the climax that gave demons and angels purpose, hyung. Next time, talk to me about yours, yes?”
Then, he’s gone. Bluebell locks bloom in Seokjin’s vision, again and again, as Yoongi’s petite figure disappears a gentle step at a time from his vision. Then there is no boy with bluebell locks and pomegranate lips and the sweetest laugh. And, and he breathes fine, he breathes—
Oh my oh my, he tries and fails to still his heartbeats; so he’s left foolish and blushing and so fond he felt like crying.
His papers and laptop stay empty of any further words for the hours that came and went by. Jin’s tea was cold, but his eyes alight with a happiness that had nothing to do with his boyfriend’s regular messages.
Nothing to do with Namjoon, and everything to do with the random, cute cat pictures Yoongi sent out of the blue.
Infatuation was a bitch.
All they were indeed was,
an isle of flightless birds.
Yoongi looks down at the ink bleeding on paper. All around, everywhere; words that should mean nothing yet meant everything, insistent whether they were typed or written, sang aloud or read quietly. It was a truth that couldn’t be denied. Taken to move forward and change, surely, but not to be ignored or rejected. The quite deranged writer that dissed out novels like rappers dissed tracks had such an articulate understanding of human emotions, that the more one read his works, the more unsettled they became.
For his part, Yoongi was simply charmed.
“It’s sad,” Jin mutters from his spot on the comfy carpet, the sedate melody of his voice so close Yoongi forgot to breathe right.
He looks up, feels, just so, a warm breath on his cheek. Jin’s not somewhere on Yoongi’s favorite carpet that had the ability to swallow people whole. He’s not in this position of just-a-bit far away he had taken since he got there; towering over Yoongi in an absolutely non-threatening way. Corner-pocketed grin. Terribly gentle and brilliant and frankly tears-worthy. As always, one would tell Yoongi, and he’d hurry to agree because how couldn’t he? If Kim Seokjin wasn’t busy inputting terrible dad-jokes in random moments at work, he was smiling. Grinning, more like. Not a full stretch of lips, you see. But just an expanse of the corner of his mouth. Petite thing, soul-warming, dripping in tenderness and something—firm, powerful, there.
Jin’s not knocking at Yoongi’s door at nine in the morning with cakes and coffee. Jin’s not standing there, unable to be awkward because he was so good; but nonetheless uncertain. He’s done with his cake and feeding the plants on the living room window. Spent a lot of time there, so wonderfully caring, before the call of work had rung—and Yoongi’s heavy pout, too. He’s not standing there, too far away, on Yoongi’s probably animated carpet. He’s behind Yoongi, he’s huge, gives off warmth that manages to attain Yoongi even though they aren’t quite touching. He’s behind Yoongi, and he’s close, so close, Yoongi wonders how it feels to have a brain.
“Um,” he says instead, and promptly wishes for death to come and take him. Or to get on his knees and suck Seokjin off. Because—yeah, that was a thing. Jin would be standing there and grin sideways and all Yoongi could think about was something along the lines of—can I suck your cock can I please suck your cock—“What...is?”
Seokjin’s close, acutely close. He seems to be leaning on the right, arm straightened just inches away from Yoongi’s ass on the rug. “This, right here,” he says, after a peculiar pause. Waves the papers he was reading with his other arm. Tenth day on the road and dozens of re-reading. It’s all about understanding and giving the best version of a work with the tools of language they’ve amassed with time. Yoong hates the technical parts, but Jin excels at it. And where he’s reluctant on the new version, art-side of the job, that’s exactly where Yoongi blooms at his best. “are we really just...tools? Cold and purposeless, weak to the whims of the angels and demons that fly invisible among us?”
There’s an undercurrent of quiet anguish Yoongi’s never heard dancing in Seokjin’s waves-of-the-sea voice. He, steadily, slow, turns around and lets the paper scatter around him. He comes nose to nose with a man that is admired by all of those he meets. A man who has honey in his voice, his eyes, and the peculiar strands of his hair. It’s a man that is so kind it bleeds everyday in his every gesture, his words and every sound. He’s big, everywhere, but his heart’s bigger and it’s so good it’s actually scary. So Yoongi had refused to come close, times and times again.
It all sounded like a trap, everything about this man. No voice could be so dancing, no personality so enticing, and eyes so inviting. Yoongi had refused to believe that an all-around popular guy like Seokjin, with barely a person or two that had a bad word to say about him, existed. Such big hands taking care of plants and talking sweetly to them shouldn’t be possible. No imposing aura sweeping people off their feet were supposed to be paired with that warm tide. It was criminal, it was sweet—it had Yoongi making himself violence to not drop on his knees and worship Seokjin’s cock with his tongue every time the man gave him the time of the day.
Which. Was a lot, in a year. Had been coming even more often, in the last ten days. There was so much airy flirting Yoongi’s virgin heart and ass could take before he melted in a pool of goo. Or begged Jin for his cockwhich must be so big. Jin was both awfully good and terrible at Just Dance, but he waltzed Yoongi around his vast living room in a manner that put every prince in the world to shame. Large hand taking up a bing chunk of Yoongi’s slight waist. Warm like the first rays of sunshine at six in the morning, toned muscles flush to his body and hidden under crisp clothes. Twirling and twirling around, never letting go of Yoongi’s gaze—if not to look at his lips, his neck, or close when he brought Yoongi tight to him and breathed shameless compliments in his ear.
A package of meaningful words and gestures all over the year exploding in the most delicious ways on those last ten days. Yoongi hadn’t set foot in the office or had a coffee outside since the first time they got this assignment. He was either here with Seokjin from morning to evening, from morning to morning, or repeating this same schema in the man’s home. Respecting a certain distance at night—if not for some lingering touches, heated gaze and Jin’s infernal habit of kissing Yoongi’s hand when they saw each other, or bid goodbye. A gentleman’s gesture that absolutely clashed with the dangerous position of Jin’s hand near his ass with time. It got lower and lower. This morning, when preparing breakfast together, Yoongi had nearly stopped breathing. Went red like the tomatoes he was cutting, because surely, Jin’s hand on the edges of his ass wasn’t a necessity when he wanted to go around him.
Jin’s all about confidence and embarrassed laughter. Gentleman from another period kissing the back of his hand and being incredibly polite—dropping a few feverish touches that bellied a vivid need to have Yoongi in some kind of way. Perhaps on his knees sucking Seokjin’s probably massive cock. God, it would sit so heavy on Yoongi’s tiny tongue. Would impossibly stretch his petite lips and have him choking mid-way.
Seokjin projected big dick energy while at the same time going incredibly slow in showing his interest to Yoongi. Because as much as he had denied the signs in the last year, he couldn’t keep being oblivious anymore. Yoongi wasn’t much. Rookie of rookies, stumbling in a cut-throat industry with people that seemed to be waiting for him to fall. Stuck in a world where writing and editing and composing stumbled so hard over each other in his head, he couldn’t focus on the moment present and went on his days without being totally here.
Yoongi wasn’t much. But what little of him there was to notice, was a hot mess. He didn’t know what kind of parallel universe he had stumbled across when resident Prince Charming with a hint of steel started showing interest in him—but Yoongi was tired of turning a blind eye to the gestures. The words, the interest, the flirting. Yoongi didn’t want to run away from sideways grins and crinkled eyes when smiling. Didn’t want to hide the flower blooming painfully in his chest when Jin tended to flowers with him, or sat silent on the other side of the bureau watching him write; oblivious to the fact Yoongi had seen him.Yoongi wasn’t much. What little of him there was, he’d readily give to Seokjin. If the man just wanted him for a night or a couple of, that was fine, Yoongi would moon over him for years but that was okay. As long as he could still bask in Jin’s unique brand of moonlight, then that was okay.
If he could keep hearing the melancholy and astray lulls of Jin’s voice, when talking about a project that had humanity’s problem at his heart; he’d readily give it all.
“We’re cold, sometimes,” he says, timid, when the silence stretches. Jin’s eyes immediately find his, and they stop there. Maintain the eye contact, still somewhere in a blue place where doubt reigns. “hot blood in our veins but ice in our hearts. We do not forgive even when we’ve been forgiven multiple times. We do not love even though there is a person that loves us more than life somewhere in the world. We’re not thankful when a storm arises in our life, completely forgetful of all the sunny days that sprinkled precious days. We’re cold, priorities inverted and compass wrecked. Cold and lost, malleable to all that is invisible.”
He sucks in a breath, his tears do not fall on carpet but on tanned hands. Jin wipes them purposely with the hand that was holding papers before. They fall like angel’s feathers around them. Birds ones too, maybe. Acute representation of the distant isle of flightless birds they’ve been editing. Jin clears his tears away. The movement’s precious; his hand’s big, warm, and when he’s done, he doesn’t let go of Yoongi’s cheek. Cups it, tender, and the pads of his fingers stroke the sharp edges of Yoongi’s cheekbone and glass-cutting jawline.
“I can hear that,” he whispers, a shadowy secret, his voice’s old whiskey precious in its discretion and gut-wrenching deliciousness. “will we fly forever, Yoongi? Fly with no hope except...plummeting?”
Will they?
It’s all he can think about, for two or three handful of seconds. It happens all the time. This—moment freezing, time passing; a mind going overload with existential thoughts and a vivid, terrifying wonder of whether all of that was worth it. This pain, fear, tiredness of getting up in the morning and doing it all over again with no hope of escaping an intricate cage. An intricate cage called life. For what else could be called this series of moments with obligatory scenes and a purpose so fleeting it slipped through their fingers like sand?
Flying with no hope except plummeting. Will they?
But then, the heat of Jin’s fingers on his cheeks register once more. The warmth, tenderness etched in this simple gesture is so much, Yoongi doesn’t entertain the thought of being anywhere else in the world.
And it goes something like oh, oh. Is this moment meaningless? Where is the pain, the dreadfulness of a routine, the cage? Nowhere to be seen, he thinks, releases a quiet breath in the bubble of euphoria that is Seokjin being so close. Being such a wonder, a bright reminder. “We will fly forever,” Yoongi affirms, savours the words and doesn't have the aftertaste of ash in his mouth. “but hope...hope, we have that. We can get that. Isn’t life so much brighter with it? Hyung,” he says, urgent, lets his hands fall on Jin’s chest to fist the crisp, black shirt underneath his fingertips. “Life has a hopeful undertone.”
It’s freeing. Saying it aloud. Freeing.
Seokjin’s eyes crinkle with his smile. It’s a sunny one, this smile. Melted cheer in it and sunshine oozing from its form. Jin has a beautiful smile. He’s beautiful, and it should stop there, but it does not and his beauty has Yoongi in tears sometimes. When he’s exposed to it too long and comes back home with its memory printed in his brain. Looks at his collection of teddy bears in a clear corner of his house and thinks—“another day, another opportunity of sucking his cock going to the drain.”
But. But. Seokjin’s smile is of the kind that makes Narcisse weep in jealousy. And in this instant, it is positively brilliant. Makes those nearly invisible crinkles appear on the corner of his eyes. Blinding. But not enough to have Yoongi miss the large hand falling easily on his thigh, and staying there. It is a firm thing, that hand. A kind of pressure that applies resolutely but does not hurt. Keeps Yoongi grounded in this present moment, in the seconds and minutes that are going by, not wasted, lived.
He is. Alive.
He’s Min Yoongi, twenty years old, mere survivor of college and dreamer often getting lost in the books with words flowing so greatly he forgets he has a world to go back to. “But when you do get back, Yoongi-yah, you’re such an angel. You help, you give, even if it means having nothing at the end of the day. You’re so pretty from the inside out, little bird,” Jin whispers, not-so sudden, yet his voice ringing out like coming out of a dream. He’s far and he’s not, at one point. He’s really close and he’s big and his handisonyoongi’sthigh. He might be smiling, he sounds like he is, smiling a gentle yet intoxicating, soaked in darkness-kind of voice. Jin’s close and he’s speaking words that ring true, like only another person in Yoongi’s life ever has, a man Yoongi’s known for years.
Kim Seokjin’s a faraway real-life prince Yoongi had the pleasure of exchanging words with for a year now. But he talks about Yoongi like he’s been living all this time in a niche of his heart, knowing all the lines that define him and looking like he’s craving for more.
Touching him, like he’s craving for more.
But Yoongi’s kind of lame and scared and so terribly inexperienced. His heart beats furiously and he can’t get it to calm down, breathing in air that seems too thin and hiding the volcano of heat that inhabits his cheeks with his hand as much as he can. Yoongi knows all about the angels and demons that come and go in people’s lives. Those that come from heaven and those from the depth of hell; those that are humans but still mold people’s emotions and actions to fit their hidden agenda. Yoongi knows those, has read about them, is editing a book that screams about those flightless birds and angels and demons above around within them. He lives inside a book and comes out to make other people’s life better if he can, to enjoy a book, sweets and the few people that appreciate his silly little being.
In all other things, Yoongi’s a blank page. So his palms may or may not be sweating oh so terribly, when Jin gets close and doesn’t stop. When the hand on his thigh doesn’t go away but grips tighter, nearly all around it, because he’s so little. When Jin’s suddenly sitting so much closer, his legs on every side of Yoongi’s body, and his breath like the licks of a winter’s fireplace just there on his cheek.
Yoongi’s everything “an isle of flightless bird” talks about, and more. He doesn’t know a thing about dating but has most certainly fantasized a thousand times about being pressed down on the ground and sucking Kim Seokjin’s cock. He has thoughts of being pressed on a desk and forgetting his name because Seokjin would fuck him so good, so hard, Yoongi would cry and beg for it to stop yet drool on the papers they were editing, for Jin would have his way with him so bad, his body could only crave him.
It would be an understatement to say that Yoongi’s mind was lost with no hope of ever being found. Yet—his body and experiences were as pristine as snow and chalk and anything clearer than clear out there.
So it does take his breath away—
When Jin kisses him.
Jin kisses him. He tilts his head down and nudges at Yoongi’s cheek with his perfect little nose, before he breathes the slightest wave of heat in Yoongi’s bubble of privacy; before the heat is on his lips. It is firm and not-shy in a way that has Yoongi surrendering with no fuss. A press of soft, unbroken lips, like petal roses. Except hotter, dominating like a flower would never be. The hand on his thigh never leaves, and, oh, it is an extension of that kiss isn’t it? Jin kisses him, grips his thigh like Yoongi’s his and had always been, coaxes him into blooming open and letting a hot tongue engage Yoongi’s in something so spirited Yoongi sees stars for an indefinite amount of time.
It is tender like a Disney-movie kiss until it isn’t. Until Jin seems to be possessed and kisses him like he’s making Yoongi his, putty and whimpering under his hands. He kisses and takes, and Yoongi can only breathe a little, cry a bit too, hear quiet cooing, “Am I hurting you?” among butterfly kisses on his cheek, his nose, his neck. Yoongi shakes his head no, says it aloud when Jin bites the neck he’s been nosing at—and he gets kissed as a reward, again. The kind of kiss that has his toes curling on the carpet, his back arching under the hand Jin sneaked on his lower back. Breath stolen, or was it freely given?
When they part, Yoongi’s freely crying now, and he can’t get his hands to stop shaking as they fist the man’s shirt. He’s been drooling on and off about being pounded to the ground by this man’s cock and he can’t even get his head to function after some kisses. What—“hyung,” he says, hiccups, breathes so much better when the man envelops him in a hug. Tucks him safely in the nest of his large shoulders.
“I’ve always been so cold,” he hears the whisper over cotton-thoughts. Sliding on waves of contentment, gentle, but delicate, close to not having been spoken out loud but seconds away from breaking apart. Yoongi grips Jin’s shirt tighter. Silent and soundless, but asking, begging, I’m listening. So Seokjin keeps whispering, cradles Yoongi closer to him as if trying to merge their body together. “Could you hear it? See it? If anyone could it’ll be you, Yoongi, you’re so—”
The hurried ballad of words has Yoongi’s breath knocked out of his little chest. He remembers hours spent mooning over a prince-like man among working, hiding this oversized crush within his mess of books and imagination; no defined goal, just the will to help, to discover, to dream, and the rush of heady-affection that came with crushing on someone and putting them up there with the clouds. But Jin’s hair’s a bit of a mess, his shirt is rumpled from where Yoongi’s gripped in panic, and, and his eyes. He’s no faraway, fairytale prince. He’s a man, frazzled and hands all over Yoongi’s tiny being, seemingly drunk on him. It’s scarily delicious. But. “I’m not—I could, I think, no, I did, but...it’s because I pay attention to you...I’m not really—”
Jin’s mouth is close to Yoongi’s ear. Close but not touching, breath barely warm in a way that shouldn’t be human in its lack of humidity. He whispers just-so above silence for Yoongi only to hear. And this close, this close, every word seeps down under Yoongi’s skin and in his heated blood. Suddenly, the thought comes from nowhere—he feels lucky to be alive. “But you are. You really are,” he says, spoken with the tilt of fatality Jin is known for. He says so, and that is so. “Can I kiss you again?”
Yoongi clenches his fists in white fabric and presses his eyes so hard he sees tiny stars on a black landscape. It is the middle of the book all golden with the finishing touches, a year of expectations hitting the reality of three weeks in close quarters, and Kim Seokjin is asking—begging for a kiss. Holding Yoongi so hard bluebell bruises will bloom on his skin, and it’ll be beautiful, oh, it’ll be glorious. Yoongi could see it, taste it, sucks on imaginative sour candy and denies the man by lightly turning his head away. “You didn’t ask the first time.”
He should have. Yoongi’s not that much of an easy boy. Even though he blushes like a young maiden when Kim Seokjin smiles at him just a tad brighter than he does for other people. He does that now, tints of embarrassment on his cheeks and the sudden gentleness of his hands. Yoongi misses the lollipop-colored violence already. “And that was my mistake,” the man breathes, soothes, flowers’ petals for caresses, gaze dancing from Yoongi’s lips to his eyes, “I’m sorry...for not asking your consent. Can I kiss you again? Please?”
Yoongi says yes.
He falls asleep but doesn’t really. The moments that come and go by faster than water between fingers are like a dream, and he doesn’t quite realize they did happen, until it’s dark outside and Jin’s gorgeous figure is sorely illuminated by the moonlight shining from the loft’s numerous windows. His cheeks hurt from too much laughing, no matter how many time he promised himself to not succumb to Jin’s terrible sense of humour. He didn’t resist, couldn’t, really. He had laughed, so Jin had kept going, and they barely worked for two hours or so. Yoongi was too busy trying not to swoon at Jin‘s every little slip of delicious mischief; too busy having his breath taken and pinching himself when the man kissed him.
His arm was red and throbbing, vivid reminder of his incredulity; the shock that didn’t want to disappear. The no way escaping him, each time he dared interpreting the gazes Jin bestowed upon him when he thought he wasn’t looking.
It was jarring. It was midnight, and Yoongi’s cheek hurt from laughing, his lips burned from too many kisses.
And that was—wow, okay.
Kim Seokjin had kissed him more than a hundred times.
(Oh. OhmyGod—)
“What’s your pretty little head worrying about, sweetheart?” Jin asks, soft, teasing, eyes glistening and muscles tensing behind his shirt as he put on his coat. It’s a long, black one. A trench, Yoongi remembers distantly, the kind of clothes that seemed to have been made for Jin and Jin only. Jin with his long legs, long arms, lean body that stretches easily and towers over Yoongi in the most delicious way.
Yoongi releases the softest sigh under the dim lights singling them out. Hesitates only one second before he caves in and goes to arrange lightly the collars of Jin’s coat. He pretends not seeing the man’s delighted grin, ducking his head downward. Hiding. “Nothing,” he mutters, clinging desperately to memories of silence that said it all. Of odd companionship from men that didn’t exchange that many words, but were used to the other’s presence—the way one would with their oldest friend. With their lover, also, most certainly. Is it so? Are they—“what are we?” the words roll from Yoongi’s mouth without him intending them to. They tumble from his lips like forgotten berries, and,
and Jin catches them with the pads of his fingers. Caresses Yoongi’s chin and ducks down to press an immediate answer on Yoongi’s mouth with his own. It’s silent and smooth, just like dawn falling suddenly while you were lost to the world. He eats up the little space there is between them, works Yoongi’s mouth open and kisses him like it is the only thing he has ever known. Hand cradling the back of his neck, the other one nestled where skin stretches easily over Yoongi’s hip, warm like the gentle furnace; he kisses him, he kisses him, and Yoongi certainly cries a little bit.
It’s a flurry of kisses he’s read all about in the dreamiest books. A little phenomenon he could have sworn would never happen to him; words of an enchanting sentiment. Of being held and caressed and kissed like nothing else mattered in the world.
Yoongi’s athrob with something like pleasure and pain. Refuses to look up when Jin wipes his tears away with careful fingers and adoring kisses. He might have bit him, too, just a little bit, when the man became a bit too eager. Pushing him against his own door and trapping him there; too generous with his kisses, freely given alongside the throbbing heat of his hands where Yoongi’s clothes didn’t hide skin.
Jin only huffs out the quietest laugh.
He’s a bit ruffled when he goes. Work nearly finished tucked carefully in his bag, arm possessive on the small of Yoongi’s back and refusing to let go. He must take an hour to go, because he doesn’t stop kissing Yoongi, and Yoongi—
Yoongi doesn’t have the heart nor the desire to tell him no. So he kisses Jin back, pushes him away afterwards and knows the man is still burning with hunger. But, see, it’s certainly for the best.
When the door closes, Yoongi knows Jin’s still behind. And when he drops on the ground, lips red, puffed, and skin littered with marks of possession, he doesn’t let out the scream he so badly wants to.
For Jin never answered.
And Yoongi knows why.
Knows why and did this, still, anyway. Selfish.
(There is a man called Namjoon and no soul in their circle is ignorant as to his relationship with Seokjin.)
(Yoongi’s a fucking homewrecker.)