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glancing at the mirror one last time, seokjin sighs and runs a hand around his – once again – unfamiliarly short fringe. yoongi watches him quietly from his corner of the hotel room as the hair stylist noona finishes gathering her materials and leaves, smiling brightly at seokjin before reassuring him one last time that he looks great; he nods and smiles back at her, not as widely nor as joyful, just enough to convince her he agrees (he doesn’t). as soon as she leaves their room, he closes his eyes and slumps down on the couch, a quiet sigh leaving his lips.
yoongi silently stands, making his way towards the elder in a deliberately slow pace, taking in his handsome features, softened by his new short bangs. he smiles to himself, thinking back to january, to seokjin’s endless whining about his new visual and to how he himself couldn’t stop staring from the moment seokjin stepped out of the improvised stylist chair, both astonished at the sudden change and awed at how inhumanly good his hyung managed to look in any type of haircut.
seokjin, of course, strongly disagreed with him (and with the other five, who also expressed their exaggeratedly positive thoughts on seokjin’s new hair very vocally the moment he opened his mouth to complain in a barely concealed attempt to cheer him up). i’ve gained too much weight, he muttered, tugging at his own cheeks frustratedly, my face is too chubby for this haircut.
(bullshit, yoongi wanted to retort, watching worriedly the elder being nearly swallowed by the oversized yellow hoodie he was to wear for a scene in their new mv, you’re getting as light as me these days)
seokjin still has his eyes closed when yoongi sits down beside him, snaking an arm around his shoulders, his other hand reaching out to brush his choppy fringe in a light caress; the elder immediately leans into his form, hiding his face on yoongi’s shoulder, hands lying limp on his lap.
“it’s not as bad as last time, right?”, he asks, and yoongi fights the urge to frown. “i look less puffy. less like a pig. it suits me better now.”
yoongi fights the guilt pooling at the pit of his stomach; there’s no use in not acknowledging the direct jab at him, as much as there’s no use in dwelling on it. he knows what he’s said before, knows what the other members said, knows that no matter how light the tone of their joking might have sounded, words are still words and can hurt, and as much as seokjin likes to think he’s good at pretending to be unaffected, it’s in these short, vulnerable moments that only yoongi gets to see that it’s made clear that he isn’t.
“you never looked like a pig, hyung”, he whispers against seokjin’s hair, inhaling the sweet vanilla scent from his shampoo, fully aware that telling him this now won’t undo the damage; seokjin scoffs against his shoulder, but doesn’t pull away, allowing the younger to pull him further towards himself until their legs nearly overlap each other, impossibly close. “i know saying this now won’t change much, but. i always thought you looked fine just the way you were, even when the managers disagreed.”
especially when the managers disagreed, he wants to add, thinking back to when seokjin spent an entire year on chicken alone in order to lose weight and yoongi was positively sure he would shrink into oblivion if he kept that up.
he does feel the ghost of a smile against the junction of his shoulder and neck, a reaction to his nice but empty words he catalogues as a small victory, and seokjin’s hands finally move on their own accord, snaking up yoongi’s waist until they’re fully tangled in a snug side hug.
“i know you did”, comes his reply, low and muffled against the soft fabric of yoongi’s sweater; seokjin’s own sweater looks too large for his broad but skinny frame, creased even around his shoulders. yoongi worries, sometimes a little too much, when seokjin decides to lose weight on a whim, but he never speaks up against it. he wonders if he should; seokjin’s happiness after accomplishing his ideal weight goal is always evident but fleeting, and soon he seems more upset about the whole ordeal than satisfied. yoongi never thought someone so self-aware of his good looks would feel insecure to the point of forcing himself into feeling confident through questionably dubious methods, yet here he was, in a steady relationship with someone who seemed to hate himself almost as much as he loved himself.
in the years of knowing seokjin more intimately than any other member, yoongi had yet to catch a glimpse of every intricate facet that was seokjin, had yet to fully learn the man he loved the most. on some days, seokjin seemed as endless as the possible combinations of a spinning kaleidoscope, one never quite like the other, each one unique and immediately lost forever in the myriad of mirrored images every slight movement formed.
he plants a kiss on the top of seokjin’s head, tilting his chin up with his free hand to look at him in the eyes; seokjin looks tired as much as yoongi feels tired, the pleasant soreness from performing and the endless press hours of the previous day evident in their slow, deliberate movements so as to save energy for their next concert. seokjin looks unhappy whereas yoongi does not feel sad at all, a shift in their usual dynamic that yoongi does not want to get used to. it’s in the slight downturn of his mouth, in his slightly more evident eye bags, in the way his body language, once boisterous and radiant, seems to always signal slight discomfort, shoulders slumped and head slightly bowed down. it’s been coming for a long time now, yoongi thinks, but it hadn’t hit neither of them so hard until seokjin announced his impulse decision of getting a haircut to boost his self-confidence.
(but hyung, yoongi called his attention, you hated it last time.
exactly, came seokjin’s reply, an edge to his voice that yoongi knew all too well meant hesitation, and that’s why i need to learn to like it.)
their smiles still come naturally, still feel sincere when they face each other; yoongi smiles at seokjin because he’s in love and seokjin smiles back at yoongi because yoongi makes him feel loved. their noses brush against each other before yoongi tilts his head up and his lips touch seokjin’s forehead, trailing down slowly but surely across the elder’s face, planting soft kisses on his temples, both his eyelids, the tip of his nose, his prominent cheekbones; he uses both his hands to frame seokjin’s face before pulling away just short of kissing his full lips. the elder whines, eyes hooded in expectation, lips puckered up just slightly as he waits for the peck that never comes, and all yoongi can do is stare at him, thumbs idly caressing the smooth skin of his cheeks.
“i have to go live soon”, seokjin whispers, breaking their too comfortable silence. “show off the results.”
yoongi does not let the frown forming on his brow take over his face; instead, he complies to seokjin’s silent request, not worded but instead coating his voice with something akin to need. he doesn’t dare say he knows what exactly seokjin needs, whether it’s him or the affection and reassurance he can provide, the solid wall to lean on, the steady ground to set his feet; it used to be a mutual kind of need, a codependence that made them individually stronger until yoongi finally broke out of it during the previous year. yoongi had thought they’d reached the top of the world together, the seven of them, but seokjin had seemed to linger behind, never fully soaking in their collective glory. while their achievements represented a huge fuck you to yoongi’s insecurities, seokjin’s own arose stronger than ever; he’s reminded of them on a nearly daily basis, and yoongi knows they’ve hit him hard from the moment seokjin started skipping meals thinking no one would notice.
yoongi thinks seokjin deserves the world, and he would give it to him if he could; as it is, he will give what he can offer, what he knows seokjin will gladly accept and take what he can from.
their lips meet, seokjin’s face still framed by yoongi’s fingers, soft and warm and maybe not everything seokjin needs, but enough to put him at ease for a while, enough to make him feel like he belongs again, enough to pull him back into their orbit. seokjin’s fingers tighten a fraction on his sweater and he slowly drags their tips upwards, settling both hands on top of yoongi’s shoulder in their side hug.
it’s enough, but yoongi almost wishes it was too much, almost wishes it felt overwhelming to the point where seokjin forgets himself for a moment.
he waits until seokjin decides to pull away, intent on giving the elder everything he’s willing to take, then pecks once, twice, at his lips once seokjin does so. his face feels warm underneath his hands, beautifully flushed down to his neck and collarbones, and yoongi stares in wonder until he feels seokjin squirm under his gaze, a giggle spilling out of his lips.
“with the way you look at me”, seokjin mutters under his breath, a small smile gracing his features, “i almost believe i deserve this. you. everything.”
but you do, yoongi bites his tongue once again; there’s no point in telling seokjin what he already knows but refuses to accept, so he shows him wordlessly just how deserving he is by connecting their lips one more time in the same slow, relaxed pace from before. seokjin sighs into the kiss, contented, the well-concealed chaos inside him placated for now.
it’s enough, and yoongi wouldn’t be lying if he said he fears the day it won’t be anymore.