Chapter Text
Later, when Yoongi is sitting in an actual chair and not on the curb of the hot sidewalk, he’ll think about how he got himself into this mess in the first place.
For now, he needs the next bus to come in the next 20 seconds before he starts melting into the pavement. It’s an unusually hot day for October, the sun beating down mercilessly like it’s the middle of July in Seoul. But then again, who knows what normal weather is like on this island. Yoongi has half a thought about the worsening state of the planet before he remembers his own pitiful state of having no idea what the fuck is going on.
The only person working at the counter in the tiny airport had told him to wait for the bus into town at the sign outside and Yoongi had been dutifully waiting for the past hour. His phone is running on 3% battery but it's not like he can just call up Seijin and have him come and give him a ride.
No, he can’t do that because his manager is back in Seoul, and probably—no definitely—somewhere with air conditioning and a working public transportation system and not on this random island in the middle of the ocean. They didn’t even have the decency to send him to Jeju or something. Instead, they picked somewhere he couldn’t even point out on a map.
Grunting and pocketing his phone, Yoongi closes his eyes against the bright sunlight and laments his doom.
He must’ve dozed off for a few minutes because he is startled awake by what sounds like a tractor engine rumbling in the distance. Not that he knows what a tractor sounds like; he’s never been outside of Seoul in his entire life.
Squinting towards the source of the noise, he sees a vehicle of some sort approaching him slowly. It ends up being a tractor after all, and there are two young men sitting on it. The one driving notices Yoongi first and pulls the tractor to a stop. The other one, who is sitting in the trailer in the back, quite literally bounces up to greet him.
“Hey!” He waves at Yoongi, beaming, a piece of hay dangling from his mouth that’s curiously shaped like a heart.
Yoongi immediately feels genuine admiration towards this guy. How does he still have this much energy in this boiling heat?
“Are you waiting for the bus?” The other guy asks, his deep voice doesn’t seem to match his youthful face.
Yoongi nods. “Yeah. Do you know when the next one is coming?”
“Good thing we’re here, Joonie!” The radiant one in the back leans over and claps his hand on the other guy’s shoulder. “Or else this poor man would’ve been stuck here all day.”
The one called “Joonie” nods in sympathy. He looks at Yoongi. “You’re lucky we passed by here on our way home. The only bus of the day left three hours ago.”
“Wait—three hours ago?!” Yoongi blanches.
“Yeah, it’s a Tuesday.”
Yoongi doesn’t know what that has to do with anything. There are always multiple buses on Tuesdays back in the city. “But the guy in the airport told me to wait out here for one,” he sighs. “Why didn’t he say anything?” He doesn’t even have the energy to be angry at this point, the heat has drained everything from him. He is merely a puddle of skin.
“Joonie” shrugs. “Not a lot of folks take the bus around here so on some days there’s only one.”
Yoongi still doesn’t think that’s a very good arrangement especially for an airport route but the trailer guy is waving him over.
“Get in! We’re headed back to town. We’ll give you a ride part way.”
Usually, Yoongi would be very wary of getting into a moving vehicle with strangers, but he’s more than a little desperate and these two don’t seem like they’d hurt him. If he’s wrong then well, at least he wouldn’t have died from sitting out in the sun. That’d be so embarrassing.
After hoisting his suitcase up to the trailer with much difficulty, Yoongi settles on the haystack next to the guy with the heart-shaped mouth. “You don’t look like you’re from around here,” the guy yells over the sound of the engine. “My name is Hoseok. And up there is my husband Namjoon.” He points behind him with his thumb. “What’s your name?”
Yoongi has to yell back even though he’s sitting right next to the guy. “It’s Yoongi.”
“Nice to meet you, Yoongi-ssi,” Hoseok is still smiling. “So, what brings you here?”
“Uh,” Yoongi thinks back to the Incident. What does he even say? Oh, I punched some respected art critic who also happened to be the director of the gallery where my show was in the face because he insulted me and I got sent here to reflect and work on myself? Probably wouldn’t give the best first impression.
So he settles with, “Just here for an… extended break.”
“A break from what?” Hoseok tilts his head, curious.
Yoongi squirms. “From work. I’m an artist.”
Hoseok lights up immediately. “Oh wow! That’s so cool!” He turns to tap Namjoon’s shoulder several times and yells when his husband turns around, “Joon-ah! Our friend here is an artist! Isn’t that amazing?”
Yoongi almost feels bad for withholding vital information that would undoubtedly change Hoseok’s freshly formed opinion of him. He has never really cared about what random people thought of him, much less the ones he’s never met. But for some reason, he doesn’t want to disappoint Hoseok and Namjoon.
Namjoon seems equally impressed by Yoongi’s profession. He yells something back but it’s lost to the noise of the engine.
“Joonie said he’s honored to meet an artist. Me too! We don’t have a lot of those on this island.”
There’s not much of anything on this island, Yoongi thinks. They’re on a road next to the ocean and the vastness of it stretches before him. Hoseok seems to read his mind because he asks, “Have you ever been to the sea?”
“I’ve never left Seoul before.”
“Oh, really? Then you’re in luck! Our island is pretty small, so you can get to the beach from town in ten minutes.”
Yoongi hums. He has never really had the urge to go to the beach. He can appreciate the beauty where the sea meets the sky but he doesn’t particularly want to spend his day turning into a fried egg under the sun. Not that he would’ve had time anyway. His parents kept his schedule full with art related activities ever since he was little. It’s a family thing, art. His father is a renowned Dansaekhwa artist and has won numerous prestigious awards domestically and abroad and his mother is the head curator at The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Yoongi had grown up surrounded by art, but unfortunately not much of anything else.
“So what do you think?”
Yoongi blinks. “Sorry, what?”
“What do you think about the sea?” Hoseok asks, his face glowing with excitement.
“Um.” Yoongi doesn’t care about the sea. He cares about getting inside and lying down for the foreseeable future. “It looks like any other sea.” Am I so disillusioned that I can’t see the beauty anymore?
“It’s the clouds.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the afternoon clouds,” Hoseok explains. Yoongi has no clue what he’s talking about. “What the sea looks like has nothing to do with how you feel.”
Yoongi doesn’t even realize he’d said that out loud.
“We’ll take you to the beach again when it’s sunny,” Hoseok smiles at him. “The sea looks best when the clouds are gone!”
The tractor pulls to a stop and Namjoon turns around. “This is the farthest we can take you. Just follow this road down and you’ll be in town in fifteen minutes.” He points over to where a dirt road cuts through a field of rice. “And you gotta come to the beach with us. We’ll take you on a tour of the island after,” he smiles at Yoongi, his dimples flashing.
“Um, you don’t have to.” Yoongi doubts there’s much else to see and he’s definitely not interested in spending any more time in the sun if not strictly necessary.
“No way!” Hoseok shakes his head. “We gotta properly welcome our new neighbor. And you have to come to our farm! Our chickens and ducks are the cutest in the country!”
Hoseok looks so excited that Yoongi doesn’t have the heart to tell him the only chicken and duck he’s seen are the ones in packages sold at the supermarket.
So very, very reluctantly he nods and says, “Sure.”
~~~
After following the dirt road that literally ends in some grandma’s backyard, apologizing profusely for accidentally trespassing, being coerced by said grandma into staying for some citron tea and sweets, and being given a whole container of kimchi he now has to lug along with his suitcase, Yoongi finally makes it to the address that he will be calling home for the next few months. Sweaty and exhausted, he rounds the corner of the courtyard wall and finds the mover waiting at the door.
“Yoongi-ssi!” The mover waves at him. “I’m from Seomun Shipping. We just unloaded all of your belongings.”
“Ah thank you.” Yoongi looks at the mountain of boxes behind the guy. “Um, could you help me move these inside?”
The guy smiles good-naturedly. “Sorry, but we don’t do that. See you around!” He jogs away.
Yoongi stares at the boxes and mourns the subpar service. Guess that’s what he gets when there’s no competition. Downside of capitalism.
“Yoongi-ssi.”
Yoongi jumps at the sound of his name being called a second time. He turns around and finds another man standing by the boxes. At this rate, he’s going to meet everyone on this island before he’s set foot inside.
“Um, hi?”
“I’m Kim Yeongsu, the village chief. I’ve been waiting for you. I’m glad you made it!” The man chuckles. He’s tall and looks about fifty years old, with a jovial air around him.
“Ah, nice to meet you, Village Chief.”
“It must’ve been a long journey from Seoul,” Village Chief Kim says, holding out a keychain to Yoongi. “Here are your keys.”
“Ah, thanks.” Yoongi takes it and slides one of the keys into the lock. “Are there any buses or taxis from here?” After his treacherous journey this morning from the airport, he’d like to be 5000% sure before potentially getting stranded somewhere again.
“There’s a bus that comes once a day, and you can reserve taxis if you’d like but it must be done a day in advance. I’m happy to give you a ride whenever you need to go somewhere.”
“I see. Thank you.”
After struggling with the lock for a full minute—until Village Chief Kim takes pity on him and steps in to open it with a twist of his wrist and an amused smile—Yoongi pushes open the front gates to find a small courtyard littered with random knick knacks and a few bicycles. The small garden in the corner looks like it’s seen better days; plants that lived there now long dried up and weeds have taken over the terrain. A clothesline pole stands next to it with a few t-shirts clipped on. Confused and slightly concerned, he opens the door to the house only to find the ground covered in comic books and empty chip bags. He sidesteps the trail of garbage that leads into the living room and kitchen area and braces himself for the damage. The table is a mess of playing cards and soda cans. There’s a bag of trash by the TV and a stack of CDs on top of the music player. The pot on the stove is still steaming.
“Um,” Yoongi turns to Village Chief Kim. “There’s no one living here, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Feeling the acute need to check every nook and cranny of the house, Yoongi sets off to inspect the rooms with the Village Chief trailing behind him. He marches into the bedroom and goes through the closet and finds nothing but some dusty bedding and blankets. The bathroom is a traditional squat toilet next to a shower area and sink. Yoongi has never seen a squat toilet in his life. He goes back to the kitchen to investigate the pot. He’s just making a face at the soggy ramyun noodles inside when he hears rattling from the door next to it.
“That’s the backdoor,” the Village Chief supplies.
Expecting a mouse or some other rodent creature, Yoongi slides open the door, only to be greeted by three guys squatting there, huddled to the side.
“Wha—?”
The one closest to Yoongi jumps up and dashes away.
“Jeon Jungkook!” The one next to the door stands to yell after the guy sprinting away. He’s about Yoongi’s height and looks very displeased. “Get your ass back here!”
“Forget it, Jimin-ah,” the one still squatting says, reaching up to tug on the other’s shirt. “Jungkookie has left us for the wolves. He’s probably halfway home already.”
“I can’t believe he abandoned us.” The one standing shakes his head. “Is there no loyalty in this brotherhood?”
“His fight or flight instinct is better than ours,” the one on the ground says wisely.
“He was the one who knocked over that stack of bricks!” The other guy retorts. “If he had been quiet like we told him to, we wouldn’t have been discovered!”
“Um, who are you guys and what are you doing here?” Yoongi cuts in, looking between the two guys. They both look no older than college kids; the one standing has delicate features and the poutiest lips he’s ever seen; the one still squatting peers up at him curiously, his long eyelashes fanning his tanned cheeks when he blinks. He looks like one of those hot side characters of an anime, the one who is way more interesting than the protagonist but never gets enough screen time.
“Who are you?” Pretty anime boy asks, rising to his full height. He has several centimeters over his friend.
“Tae,” the Village Chief chides, “is this any way to behave in front of our guest?”
Yoongi whips back to look at the Village Chief. He’d forgotten the man was still there.
“Sorry, Dad,” the boy smiles sheepishly, scratching his head. “We were just playing.” He looks at Yoongi. “My name is Kim Taehyung. That’s my father, the village chief. But I’m sure you knew that already.” His mouth stretches into a boxy grin. “This here is Jiminie. We’re best friends.”
“And the one that ran away just now is our ex-friend, Jeon Jungkook,” the other guy adds, crossing his arms. “My name is Park Jimin, I run the convenience store down the street from here. And you are?”
“This is Min Yoongi,” Village Chief Kim answers for him when Yoongi is still busy processing the whole scene. “He’s a painter who’s come to stay on the island for a bit. I hope you’ll give him a warm welcome and help him out during his time here.”
“A painter!” Taehyung exclaims, looking positively delighted. “That’s so cool. What do you paint?”
“Can you do a portrait of me and Tae?” Jimin interjects, “but not with Jungkookie because our friendship has ended.”
“Jungkookie’s gonna cry if he hears you say that.”
“Whatever. Then he shouldn’t have run off in the first place.” Jimin huffs. “This is our hideout. What’s he so scared of?”
“Wait, hideout?” Yoongi interrupts, his brain finally back online. He has zero interest in hearing the great debate on the friendship value of this “Jungkookie” person. He’s had an extremely long day and would like to be horizontal as soon as possible, and definitely without anyone else present in the house.
“Yeah, this is our hideout,” Jimin declares proudly. “We’ve been here since high school.”
“Boys,” the Village Chief sighs, “didn’t I tell you to go somewhere else? Yoongi-ssi is going to be staying here for the time being.”
“Yoongi-ssi,” Taehyung turns to Yoongi, batting his lashes in an effort to look bashful but it just ends up looking like he’s got something stuck in his eyes. “You won’t turn us out, right? This is our only sanctuary from the harsh outside world! We will be quiet from now on, and you won’t even hear us when you’re sleeping.”
Yoongi is beginning to think he’s hallucinated this whole trip. Maybe he’s still back in his apartment in Seoul, minutes from waking up from this nightmare.
He pinches himself to make sure.
Unfortunately, he’s still standing amidst piles of garbage and the two pairs of pleading eyes are starting to get on his nerves.
“Yoongi-ssi,” Jimin joins in on the eyelash fluttering. “What do you say?”
“Absolutely not,” Yoongi moves to herd the two into the courtyard and out of the front gate. “I’m living here now and you all need to go find someone else to bother. Get out, get out.”
“Hey—!”
He turns to Village Chief Kim, who has followed the three of them outside. “Sir, can you also leave too? I need to sleep.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply before crossing the threshold and locking the gate.
Back inside the house and too tired to even begin to clean up the mess the three rascals are undoubtedly responsible for, Yoongi plops down on the floor and lies down.
He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this. Making good art has been the only thing he’d ever wanted to do in life; it’s the only thing he knows how to do. But apparently not since Director Choi had called his piece “boring” and “predictable” as if he didn’t pour months of his life into it—
And now, he’s exiled like a dissenter to this bumfuck nowhere island with nothing but rice fields and his house has been taken over by some college kids for their own amusement. If he could enter himself into a year long hibernation he would, so he wouldn’t have to deal with these weird people on this island or his manager or his father or anyone else he had involuntarily signed up to suck up to when he decided to become an artist.
Closing his eyes, Yoongi imagines himself back in the comfort of his Seoul apartment, lying on his memory foam mattress and 1000-thread count sheets, enjoying the central AC, and drifts off to sleep.
~~~
Yoongi wanders around the gallery, trying his best not to make eye contact with anyone. The constant buzzing of conversation is starting to give him a headache, so he searches for the catering staff to grab another flute of champagne. This is his least favorite part of a gallery show—the opening night, where he has to be there to talk to critics, dealers, press, and fans alike. The show features several promising young Dansaekhwa artists, and Yoongi, like everyone else, has to show face for at least several hours. It’s not like Yoongi dislikes talking about his art, he simply prefers that people digest it themselves, without him having to spoon feed every detail. And because he’s an up-and-coming young artist, despite having several prestigious awards adorning his own walls, he still hasn’t quite stepped out of his father’s very long shadow.
The art world is ravenous, cynical, and pretty damn elitist, so Yoongi is nonetheless expected to make his rounds and offer the same bullshit pleasantries—all for the sake of ingratiating himself into more exclusive social circles and, you guessed it, networking. It’s the money and the fame and it’s all fake and Yoongi really would like to just go home and lie down. Isn’t being an artist supposed to be the ideal job for the true introverts and borderline misanthropes? Yoongi never thought he’d have to navigate so many annoyingly complex relationships with so many just plain annoying people. The level where he is currently at is full of ass-kissers and bootlickers, groveling for attention at every exhibition. Or they’re stuck-up wannabes who think they’re the shit after getting one gallery show.
His parents’ reputation gave him a boost within the industry the moment he committed to this career, and it’s not like he’s entirely ungrateful for this head-start. He knows his privilege. It’s just that there are certain expectations that come with being the son of two very prolific figures in the art world, and Yoongi is ultimately forced to meet them if he hopes to make a name for himself in the future.
So he tries. He would like to think that he’s getting a little better, and these conversations tend to feel like scripts after the 50th time. It’s still annoying as hell though, dealing with the press especially. They always ask him too many questions and they’re never about his work, but rather some pointless and mildly invasive personal questions. Are you dating someone? What do you think about so-and-so’s work? Dogs or cats? You’d think these people were trying to build a dating profile for him instead of conducting insightful interviews for whatever big name publication they’re working for.
Yoongi checks the clock on the wall. He’s wandered back to his own work again after abandoning his position for the past half an hour. Ten more minutes before it’s socially acceptable for him to bounce, he just needs to go to a corner somewhere and hold out for a little longer—
“Yoongi.”
Well. So much for that plan.
He turns around slowly, plastering a semi-convincing smile on his face. “Director Choi. Hello.”
“I have to say,” Director Choi begins in that haughty way that Yoongi’s always found particularly annoying, “I didn’t recognize your work until I saw your name on the sign next to it. It’s quite disappointing, to be sure.”
Yoongi bristles immediately. The old man’s got some nerve alright. It’s one thing to be the director of the gallery and a renowned critic, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to be a pretentious dick. Yoongi takes a deep breath to calm himself. “Director, to what do I owe this displeasure?”
To his credit, Director Choi only shakes his head instead of calling out on Yoongi’s remark. “This is rather dull and contrived. What happened to the eerie serenity from your previous work? The raw energy?”
Yoongi is regretting every second he’s spending in this miserable gallery since he arrived. He didn’t come here to get insulted to his face like this. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he says slowly against the anger rising in his chest. “But an artist is supposed to evolve and grow. I’m trying out another style this time around. I can’t be held responsible if it doesn’t appeal to your taste.”
“A style catered only to winning awards perhaps?”
“What?” Yoongi bites out, patience wearing out fast. “That’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think? Who gave you the right—”
“Yoongi, you’re only 28 years old but you’re already losing inspiration?”
The next thing he knows, his fist is connecting with Director Choi’s jaw and Yoongi watches in satisfaction as the patronizing look drops from the older man’s face the same time his body follows suit to the floor.
The gallery falls silent around them.
Yoongi only registers the faint throbbing of his knuckles as he stares down at Director Choi’s shocked and livid expression, half-hidden by his hands cradling his cheek.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
Yoongi sneers, “Now who’s looking down at who?”
He could hear the frantic whispers growing around him, people gasping and murmuring, but in that moment, he feels invincible and free. For once in his life he listened to his gut instead of his head, played by his own rules instead of ones set by someone else. His brain hasn’t caught up with the consequences of his actions yet and he’s running pure adrenaline and the remainder of a low-simmering rage.
Without sparing a second look at anyone else in the gallery, he marches out of the doors, ignoring his manager’s furious calls behind him.
Yoongi wakes up with a start. Head spinning and body sticky with sweat, it takes him a good minute before he recognizes the trash heaps he fell asleep next to and remembers where he is. The house is like a steamer basket; it’s stifling with the stagnant hot air due to the lack of ventilation and Yoongi feels like a particularly overcooked dumpling. He’d forgotten to turn the fan on—if there even is one—before passing out earlier and the afternoon sun has leveled itself at Yoongi’s spot on the floor through the windows and unleashed its rays of death directly at Yoongi’s eyeballs. Wincing at the light, he peels himself off of the floor to get away from the heat.
He shakes off bits of potato chips from his hair and grimaces when he realizes he had napped in a puddle of gochujang. A tube had exploded under his weight when he lied down earlier but he had been too tired to notice. Now it’s caked onto his arm and the back of his shirt and Yoongi supposes this is karma or some sort of divine retribution for kicking the boys out so unceremoniously earlier.
Resigned, he rummages through the house for a towel so he can take a shower and stop smelling like sweaty stale sauce.
He’s halfway through chucking his boxers on the tiled floor of the bathroom when someone rings the doorbell. Ignoring the sound, Yoongi goes to turn the rust covered handle of the shower. Whoever it is can come back later.
The icy water hisses out in spurts and Yoongi jumps back. Belatedly, he hears loud pounding and someone yelling his name through the sound of the water. Before he can figure out if he is being broken into, Kim Taehyung throws open the bathroom door and barges in.
“There you are, Yoongi-ssi! I was wondering why you didn’t open the door.”
“What the f—” Yoongi jumps back and abruptly slips on the wet tiles and falls on his ass.
There’s a beat of silence, and then Taehyung is on the ground too, crouched over with his palms on the floor to support himself, his rambunctious laughter echoing in the small room.
Finally realizing he’s lying on the floor like a drowned cat with his bare ass hanging out for the world to see, Yoongi scrambles for the towel to cover himself.
“What are you doing here?!” He hisses at the younger, feeling like his heart is about to catapult out of his chest. “Get out!”
Meanwhile, Taehyung is still doubled over and laughing so hard he’s having trouble breathing.
“Oh my god,” he wheezes, clutching his stomach. “Are you okay?”
Yoongi can feel his entire body heat up at what is undoubtedly the most humiliating day of his life. He only wishes he could’ve hit his head on the tile instead so he would’ve been unconscious throughout this whole ordeal.
“What,” Yoongi repeats, biting out each word, “are you doing here.” He glares from his spot on the floor.
Taking one last breath to calm himself, Taehyung straightens and tries to school his expression into something more respectful. As if he hasn’t been laughing for the past minute at Yoongi’s lowest point in life thus far.
“I came to deliver you dinner.” He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “You also left your suitcase outside. And all of your boxes. That tub of kimchi would’ve gone bad if it’d sat out under the sun any longer.”
Lifting himself up to lean on the wall behind him, Yoongi shuts off the shower and nods towards the door. “Okay thanks, you may go now.”
“C’mon, don’t you think you should thank me properly for saving your belongings?”
“No, you don’t get shit for trespassing. Go away.”
“Trespassing? We were here first! This is our hideout.”
“Not anymore.” With the last shred of his dignity intact and the towel now securely around his waist, Yoongi shoves Taehyung out of the bathroom and marches him towards the door.
Being a good head shorter than Taehyung and also having done zero strenuous activities in his life, it’s not long before Yoongi is huffing and puffing in his efforts to physically expel his intruder. He makes it to the front door with his pushing when Taehyung digs in his heels and turns around.
“Yoongi-ssi,” Taehyung looks up at him through his absurdly long lashes, giving his best sad puppy eyes. “Can we talk this through, pretty please?”
Yoongi closes his eyes so he can stop staring at Taehyung’s face. “There’s nothing to talk about. This is my house now and you guys are not allowed here anymore.” He takes Taehyung’s wrists instead to drag him out into the courtyard so he can continue to avoid those imploring, beautiful—no, ridiculous eyes.
“If you wanted to hold my hand,” Taehyung pipes up from behind him, “all you needed to do was ask.”
Yoongi ignores him.
They reach the front gates after what seems like a century later, with Taehyung giggling the entire way there. Yoongi is not about to have the neighborhood aunties gossip about him kicking out a man from his home wearing only a towel so he steps aside to let Taehyung show himself out.
Except, of course Taehyung doesn’t just leave like a regular person who’s not determined to make Yoongi’s life difficult. No, he’s apparently a little shit who enjoys pestering Yoongi any chance he gets because he turns around and leans close.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily, Yoongi-ssi,” he murmurs.
Suddenly, Yoongi is acutely aware of their height difference because Taehyung is towering over him. He smells like the sea and he’s so, so close Yoongi can count his long eyelashes and the number of sun freckles dotting his cheeks.
“Dude, are you okay?”
Yoongi jerks back. His face feels like it’s on fire but he knows it’s not from the sun.
“You’re really red,” Taehyung tilts his head, looking a little concerned. “Make sure to turn the AC on or you’ll get a heat stroke. I’d hate to have to take your pretty ass to the hospital.”
“My what—”
“I saw you naked earlier, remember?” He winks at Yoongi.
Before Yoongi can form a reply, Taehyung turns around and opens the front gate. “I’ll be back tomorrow with your lunch and dinner!” He waves as he steps over the threshold and strolls away.
Yoongi can only stare at his retreating figure, frozen to the spot. His towel, which gave a valiant effort to stay up during this entire struggle, falls to the ground.
An auntie walking by promptly screeches and hurries away.
Figuring his island reputation has been ruined forever, Yoongi picks up the towel and closes the gate to head back inside. Belatedly, he thinks about what Taehyung had said.
“There’s an AC?!”
~~~
The next morning announces itself bright and early through the ear-splitting croaks of the neighborhood rooster chorus at the crack of dawn. It’s too damn early for any living creature to be conscious right now; the sun’s barely over the horizon, casting its first rays of the day onto the floor of the tiny bedroom Yoongi slept in last night. Holding the pillow over his ears, Yoongi vows to look for some earplugs when he goes to the store later.
Last night was rather uneventful. Then again, how could anything possibly compare to the Taehyung fiasco earlier? If the universe has more bad news for him, Yoongi doesn’t want to know. He’d come back into the house and found a bunch of containers on the kitchen counter, each with a different dish inside. There were several kinds of banchan and a whole tupperware of bossam next to a thermos of doenjang jjigae. The rice was still warm in its box and the lettuce wraps stacked neatly on top of each other. The giant kimchi container the grandma gave him—and Taehyung rescued—sat next to the rest, a reminder of Yoongi’s humiliation.
As much as Yoongi would like to never see Taehyung again—so he wouldn’t embarrass himself so thoroughly another time—he was not about to say no to free food. And good food too. In fact, it’s so good that Yoongi had wolfed everything down in minutes. He’d never been a big eater, but this was the closest thing to some of the only homemade food he’d ever had—his grandma’s cooking when he went over for Chuseok every year—since his parents had always been too busy to cook. They had housekeepers who made meals every day but once Yoongi had his own place, he’d been getting delivery pretty much every meal. Yoongi could deal with minimal engagement with Taehyung if it meant more food like this during his stay here.
Eying the mountain of containers he had to wash later, he thought about how Taehyung must’ve had to carry all of it all the way to his house in the heat and how he must be in pretty good shape because he didn’t seem tired at all and immediately wanted to brain himself with the kimchi container.
Later, after hauling the dusty beddings out of the closet and spending the next hour locating the AC remote—inside an empty Honey Butter Chips bag, predictably—Yoongi had plopped down, shut his eyes, and woken up to the fowl screeches.
Which brings us to the present.
Figuring sleep is a lost cause, Yoongi drags himself to the kitchen to find something to eat. He’s not optimistic though, since he ate everything last night. He spots the half eaten pot of ramyun still sitting atop the stove, now looking a lot like alien brain matter having sat out all afternoon and overnight, and figures that there must be more stashed somewhere. A quick search through the kitchen yields a cabinet full of different kinds of packaged ramyun—the staple of college kids’ food pyramids, after all.
But Yoongi is an adult, so he makes a mental note to pick up some eggs so he can add it to his noodles the next time he runs out of real food.
It takes him a very long time to pick up the rest of the trash the kids left and wash the food containers and sweep the floor and bring the boxes in one by one and holy shit, this has been the most chores he’s ever done in his entire life. How did the housekeeper aunties do this every day, he wonders. His own apartment is bigger than this place and his parents’ house is at least five times the size. One thing’s for sure, he won’t ever take those services for granted ever again.
Sometime in the late morning, when Yoongi has recovered from his chores enough to pick himself up from being a boneless heap on the floor, he decides to check out the convenience store down the street for some essentials. He’s got a list: beer, eggs, and earplugs. Especially the last one, he really doesn’t want to wake up at the asscrack of dawn every morning.
It’s hot, but not as bad as yesterday, and Yoongi hopes this is a sign that whatever unseasonal weather pattern this island adheres to is at least now growing closer to what it is back in Seoul. He’d like to not sweat every time he has to take a step outside, what with the lack of cabs and buses and every other mode of transportation.
A cursory glance at his phone before leaving tells him that there’s a general store a few minutes away, and Yoongi breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the various products line the window of the shop.
A calico cat is lounging in the sun by the AC unit and Yoongi squats down to look at its watercolor-like patches. It bats an eye at Yoongi but pays him no mind, like all cats seem to do in that lazy but self-possessed way. It sleeps on without a care and Yoongi silently wishes for the same freedom.
“I didn’t know you like cats,” a familiar voice pipes up suddenly, causing Yoongi to jump.
Above him, Park Jimin stands with an arm-full of cardboard boxes, looking amused.
“I don’t.”
“How can you not like Curry?” Jimin coos, putting down the boxes and joining Yoongi on the ground. He pets the cat’s head in gentle, slow strokes. “She’s the cutest. Everyone on the island loves her.”
“I like dogs better,” Yoongi shrugs. He doesn’t know why they’re having this conversation, squatting in the dirt in front of the store. So he asks, “What are you doing here?”
Jimin laughs. “I should be the one asking you that. This is my store.”
Yoongi’s eyes widen. “Your what?”
“My store,” Jimin repeats. “I run this convenience store.” He gestures to the fading signs on the storefront behind him. “I told you yesterday.”
Ah, yesterday. Snippets of his super embarrassing encounter with Taehyung pop up like those plastic toy moles at the arcade and Yoongi can’t find the hammer in his mind to whack them down fast enough.
He cringes.
“So, what brings you here, Mr. Painter?”
“I wanted to grab some beer. And some other stuff.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” Jimin rises from his squat and stretches his arms above his head, looking a bit like a cat himself. “Because this here, Park General, carries the best products on the island. Only the highest quality for my customers!”
“Right…”
From what Yoongi’s seen from the display window, it just looks like your regular daily necessities that you’d find at any GS25 or CU, but from ten years ago.
“C’mon,” Jimin calls from the entrance of the store when he sees Yoongi still unmoving at his spot in the dirt. “You won’t find any beer on the ground, Yoongi-ssi.”
Yoongi only follows him because he doesn’t want to be lost looking for another store again.
“The beers are in the fridge with the sodas, so help yourself.” Jimin nods towards the back of the room from the cashier counter when Yoongi finally drags himself away from the cat and into the store. It’s small but cozy somehow; the rows of shelves filled with products separated by types and stacked high, with enough space in between for just one person to pass by at a time. Various sized onggi pots filled with kimchi and other pickles and pastes line the entrance next to small boxes of fruits and vegetables on display.
“What else did you say you needed?”
Pausing his browsing of the dried seafood snack selection—squid or pollack?—Yoongi calls out to what he can tell is the general direction of the front counter, “Earplugs and eggs.”
“Okay!”
By the time Yoongi comes back to pay, Jimin has already started putting various items in an eco shopping bag that bears the store logo.
“Um, I didn’t ask for toilet paper,” Yoongi frowns.
“I know.” Jimin doesn’t even look up, just continues to put things into the bag. “But you’ll need them anyway. There are only two rolls left in the closet. And Jungkook accidentally threw away the mosquito coils the other day so here’s a new box. I heard Taehyungie’s bringing you food right? So here’s more dish soap for washing the containers since there’s no dishwasher. The laundry detergent is already in here.”
He rings up the beer and dried squid Yoongi put on the counter separately, along with the eggs and earplugs. The price displayed on the cash register is definitely way too cheap for how full the bag is, unless this island has somehow managed to escape inflation for the past twenty years.
“Um.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s just,” Yoongi doesn’t really know what’s going on here. “Is your cash register broken?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“That’s not what all that costs, right?” Yoongi nods to the bag.
“Oh!” Jimin seems to finally understand Yoongi’s confusion. He laughs. “No, that’s the price of the things you wanted. The rest is free.”
“Oh, you don’t have to, I can pay for it.”
“I know you can,” Jimin says with a smile, it’s not malicious or condescending, just amiable. “But you’re our guest, and we look out for each other here. Besides, take this as our apology for yesterday. I’m sure you were a bit shocked.”
“Ah, that’s… well,” Yoongi coughs, suddenly feeling torn between gratitude and embarrassment. He settles with, “Thank you, this is really nice of you.”
“Don’t mention it.” Jimin pushes the bag towards Yoongi. “And don’t be a stranger okay? I know you’re probably busy with your art but come hang out with us sometime, yeah? A lot of folks want to meet you!”
Yoongi really doesn’t want to meet anyone else. It’s not like he’s staying here for more than a few months so what’s the point of getting to know everyone when he won’t ever see them again after he leaves?
So he hums instead, and busies himself with taking out his wallet to pay for his things.
While Jimin punches the amount into his ancient cash register, Yoongi glances at the display cabinet of over-the-counter medicine and ointments. His eyes fall on the staircase next to it.
Jimin seems to read his mind. “I live upstairs,” he explains while handing Yoongi the receipt, which is just a tiny slip of paper with a bunch of numbers on it. “This shop has been in my family for generations. I took it over from my grandma a few years ago after I graduated from college. It was getting hard for her to manage everything around here.”
“Wait, you graduated from college already? I thought you were like, 18 or something.”
“I’m flattered to hear that,” Jimin laughs. “But no, I’m turning 26 in a week. Me and Taehyungie are the same year.”
“Oh.”
So Taehyung is only two years younger than him. Yoongi files that fact away to process for another time.
“Yoongi-ssi?” Jimin peers at him with an amused expression.
“Ah, sorry,” Yoongi takes the bag off of the counter and points to the door. “Thanks again, um. I’ll be going now.”
“See you later!”
When he comes back with his goods in the very heavy shopping bag—“We island folks are a lot more environmentally conscious than you think!”—he sees that the empty containers he washed earlier are gone and in their place are ones filled with food. They’re stacked even higher than last time and for a second, Yoongi panics because someone broke in—! But then he realizes that Taehyung must’ve come by while he was out to drop off food for him again.
There’s a note attached to the bag of tangerines next to the containers.
Hi Yoongi-ssi~
Here is your lunch and dinner for today! Dad made his special danmuji last month and it’s finally ready, so we thought you’d like to try some. The radishes are from our farm! I also love my mom’s fruit sandwiches the most so she made some for you too. Please eat well and don’t forget to turn on the AC!
Taehyung
And Yoongi feels a little weird in his chest, standing there staring at Taehyung’s loopy handwriting and the containers covering the kitchen counter. He fears that he’s gotten heartburn from eating spicy ramyun so early in the morning.