Chapter Text
Jimin wasn’t really sure what Taehyung’s job entailed.
He only knew that it involved one of the largest banking firms in South Korea, and that it made him enough money to pay his half of the rent.
Taehyung had once left a copy of his paycheck on the rickety, old table in their living room, and Jimin swore that he didn’t mean to look at it, but God, the number of zeroes on the paper was terrifying. With that salary, Taehyung could pay four times the cost of rent and still have money left over. Taehyung could buy the coffee shop that Jimin worked at and the bookstore next to it.
In short, Kim Taehyung was fucking loaded. And Jimin had no idea why he decided to live in some tiny apartment tucked away in the corner of Seoul, surrounded by neon yellow signs advertising dive bars and the constant smell of wet newspaper. Especially when he could be in one of the massive flats in the center of the city, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a toilet that didn’t screech every time it was flushed.
He’d asked once, after apologizing profusely for the whole “invasion of privacy” thing, but Taehyung had just laughed, saying that he didn’t need anything more. “This place is fine,” he’d said, sipping on instant coffee out of a mug with a chipped handle. “Why should I spend more money than I need to?”
Taehyung could be hard to figure out sometimes.
Still, the two of them kept splitting the rent, and every morning, Taehyung would get up and comb his hair into a perfect wave and leave in a crisp dress shirt, and then come back at 6:30 p.m. sharp while Jimin was hunched over the sink, trying to work coffee grinds out from under his nails.
Their lives were routine, not lavish but not destitute. Jimin pretended that Taehyung wasn’t some high-ranking businessman (who’d somehow gotten a job with a higher income than most people ever achieved straight out of college. Jimin had been meaning to ask about that too, but it never really came up) who owned shoes that cost more than Jimin’s monthly salary (Taehyung complained about them quite often, lamenting about the office’s strictly-enforced dress code while sporting his well-worn bunny slippers). He sometimes went on business calls that lasted for hours on end, arguing with yet another stiff-backed accountant, spouting statistics that Jimin could never even hope to understand. But those times were rare, and Jimin mostly only knew the carefree Taehyung that could down a large cherry slushie in less than ninety seconds.
And he appreciated it.
He appreciated the simplicity of their relationship, appreciated that Taehyung always paid rent on time and that he was always available on the weekends to watch bad movies with him. Taehyung was never one to flaunt his wealth, and Jimin was never one to ask him to, so it worked.
Taehyung came back to the apartment quite late one night, late enough that Jimin had already gotten the bitter smell of java out of his orange hair. Instead, he was in the kitchen, leaning over a pot of boiling water and watching his pasta bubble away.
Jimin almost dropped the jar full of tomato sauce he happened to be holding when Tae flung the (creaky) door to the apartment open with his bag slung haphazardly over his shoulder. There was sweat glistening on his forehead, and his hair was standing up in chestnut-colored tufts. He kicked off his (overly expensive, real leather) shoes, leaving them in a pile at the door.
It was at this time that Jimin noticed that Taehyung was wearing mismatched ankle socks, one striped with all of the colors in existence, the other patterned with pretty purple flowers.
“Look at this!” Taehyung cried, sinking dramatically onto their couch. In his hand, he clutched a wrinkled flyer, covered in sprawling gold designs and words in a curly black font. His hair was spread around his head in a symmetrical fan shape across the cream colored cushion. “Why do rich people like having galas? Of all ways to have fun, a gala? Really? They don’t even have good food there. It’s just tiny little breadcrumbs on even tinier plates!” He stretched out on the sofa, crossing his feet, putting his hands on the back of his neck and letting the paper fall to the floor.
Jimin abandoned his pasta, leaving the jar of tomato sauce teetering dangerously close to the edge of the fake granite countertop. He scooped the flyer off of the tiled ground, scanning over its contents. “Hey, don’t sweat it,” he said, leaving the paper on their old, stain-covered coffee table. “Is it mandatory?”
With another groan, Taehyung buried himself deeper into the couch cushions, being swallowed in off-white fabric. “Basically! The boss was all ‘there’s going to be representatives from all over the world there’ and ‘it’s not becoming to turn down a chance at meeting the CEO of,’” he sighed in despair, “I don’t even know. And a masquerade gala? What did he call it? Masquerade ball? Where am I even supposed to get a mask?”
He busied himself with folding the flyer into a paper airplane, running his nails repeatedly over each crease.
“Don’t do that,” Jimin chided. “There’s gotta be important stuff on there.”
Taehyung, with his bottom lip stuck out in a pout, unfolded the paper silently. There were now crisp pale lines running over the letters, evidence of his hard work. “Hey!” he almost shouted excitedly, rocketing up from his place on the sofa. “I get a plus one.” His mouth curved into a wicked grin, dark eyes crinkling up at the corners.
“Taehyung.”
“Please—”
“I’m a barista, Tae, I wouldn’t fit in with everyone—”
“And I’m wearing rainbow socks, Jimin.” Taehyung shot him a smile, holding up the foot that was undeniably rainbow, wiggling his toes with his eyebrows quirked. “What are you trying to say?”
Since when was Tae so good at arguing?
“Exactly,” Taehyung sang, looking up at him with eyes wide. “Thanks for agreeing to come! Now, I think I need to fill out some form to RSVP and everything, and register you—”
“You know what,” Jimin said as he made his way back to the kitchen. “I’m making pasta. You want some?”
“I’ll take that as you accepting the invitation to the gala then,” Taehyung called from behind him, struggling to hold back laughter. “It’s in three months. You’ll have plenty of time to get ready!”
--
The three months passed fairly quickly. Taehyung had set aside two weekends for them to go shopping (Jimin didn’t really understand why they needed two weekends, but Taehyung insisted, and who was Jimin to refuse? He’d already proven that he was shit at saying no), and they took a bus into the center of Seoul to some fancy, sleek boutique, one of those places that didn’t even list prices on the clothing, as if the owners were scared that it would scare its customers away.
The whole experience was foreign and kind of frivolous, but Jimin would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy being fussed over by a sweet old woman with a measuring tape. He later found out that the whole shop was devoted to the premise of masquerade balls, which seemed like an extremely situational niche to Jimin, but then again, he was new to the world of the top one percent.
Jimin had also wondered if Taehyung would be willing to tutor him in the ways of the upper-upper class, and he was promptly turned down, told that “you just need to sit up straight and talk about how much you love classical music” and also that “if you’re ever in trouble, just ask them a question about themselves”.
Jimin decided against writing this advice on his hand the night before the ball.
The morning of the gala was pretty and fair, a cool breeze whistling through the trees and a few feathery clouds drifting through the fluorescent sky. There was sunlight reflecting off blue-tinted skyscrapers, and it was the perfect day to walk through the small park five minutes away from their apartment building or to sit at some café and drink coffee loaded with stevia and heavy cream.
It was even Jimin’s day off (which was another reason, according to Taehyung, that he was “destined” to go), and he was awoken bright and early by Taehyung, who thought the best way to get Jimin (who was admittedly one of the crankiest people before 1 a.m.) out of bed was to blast “Fantastic Baby” by BIGBANG into his ear. And by into his ear, Jimin meant directly into his ear.
“What a way to start the day,” Jimin mumbled as he struggled to untangle himself from his nest of blankets. “Thank you, Tae.”
“Of course! Anything for you,” Taehyung said cheekily, already making his way out of room. “It starts at five, so hurry up! Being ‘fashionably late’, as I learned from my first day at the office, is frowned upon by my boss. Did you know that? Because I sure didn’t.”
Jimin gave up on trying to wriggle his way out of his covers and flopped back onto his mattress, looking over at the small analog clock that rested on his bedside table. The red numbers were nearing 12 p.m.
Okay, so maybe not so bright and early.
He finally escaped from the navy blue duvet that was wrapped around his ankles, almost tumbling onto the floor as the covers landed in a heap at the base of the bedframe.
I can’t even get out of bed properly. How am I going to converse with high-ranking businesspeople that own cars that probably cost more than I’ve ever made in my life?
He pushed this thought out of his head and instead stumbled out of his bedroom, running his fingers through his tangerine-colored hair, working out all of the tangles that had built up during his slumber.
The two of them lounged around the apartment, flipping through channels on the small TV surrounded by a mess of black, red, and blue wires because neither of them had bothered to mount it properly on the wall. They argued lightheartedly on whether to watch a thriller that was decades old or some infomercial advertising a pillowcase that came with a cup-holder, snacking on potato chips that Jimin had found at the back of their pantry.
That afternoon, Jimin realized that firstly, daytime TV was absolutely and undeniably awful, and secondly, spending time with Taehyung was something that he should stop taking for granted.
“Let’s get you ready!” Taehyung announced brightly as the credits for the thriller (that was not the least bit thrilling, even to Jimin) rolled. “I’m ready for a rom-com transformation, Park Jimin.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Jimin called over his shoulder, already walking into his room to change. The last time he’d worn a suit was quite a long time ago, and all he remembered was that he loathed it with a burning passion.
The suit that the woman at the shop (Jimin couldn’t claim to have had any say in the decision about whatever he was about to put on— he’d just nodded and smiled and pretended like he knew he was talking about) had chosen was crisp and traditional, sharp black against blinding white. It was something that Jimin expected to see in a generic American movie, something that the dashing protagonist would wear after saving the pretty girl and blowing up a couple buildings.
Maybe that’s what South Korean businessmen are into?
Explains why Taehyung always wants to watch James Bond movies on the weekends.
Without another thought, Jimin slipped into the stiff, dark pants, appreciative of the fact that the yellow tape measure that had been stretched all over (and by all over, Jimin meant all over) his body had been completely accurate. The pants (Jimin wondered if that was the right word. It seemed too informal for something that just felt so expensive) fell just at his ankles, the jacket ending at his wrists.
The thing that came last was the golden mask. It was polished, to the point where it seemed to glow with an amber light, with intricate designs bridging out from the nose. It complimented his orange hair, striking against his pale skin, resting on his face almost too perfectly, curving delicately around the soft angles of his cheeks.
“If this is what upper-class lifestyle is,” Jimin said aloud, looking at his reflection in their scratched mirror. “I could get used to it.”
--
Jimin half-expected for there to be a sleek limousine waiting for them when they stepped outside, but he ended up being grateful of the yellow taxi that was pretending not to idle at the door of their apartment building. It, to him, was like the last grip of his comfort zone that he would get for the whole night.
“You…” Taehyung peered at him from behind the eyeholes of his deep indigo mask. “You need to stop wearing those oversized sweaters all the time. Tuxedos fit you.”
Jimin laughed, glancing out of the window of the taxi. “I wish,” he said. “Sad that I’m only renting this, though. Also, my sweaters are comfortable and I know you agree.”
Taehyung raised his hands, the delicate silver rings on his fingers flashing with his motion. “You caught me.” He grinned. “Also, one last thing.”
Raising an eyebrow, Jimin looked over at Tae quizzically. “What’s wrong?”
“I may have put you next to Min Yoongi when we were arranging the seating for the gala.”
Still confused, Jimin waited patiently for elaboration, leaning against the leather of the car seat.
“Because I didn’t want to sit next to him.”
“And?”
“Do you not know Yoongi?” Taehyung’s jaw was essentially on the floor, his eyes wide as plates.
“No?”
Tae flashed a blinding smile. “Okay! Then I’m sure you guys’ll hit it off,” he said brightly. He lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. “Make sure he doesn’t eat you.”
“Sorry, what?”
Taehyung just laughed, which just made Jimin’s heart sink farther into the pits of fucking hell because rich people terrified him anyway, and oh my God, if this Min Yoongi person didn’t even like Taehyung what was he going to do?
After about twenty minutes, they arrived at the venue (a half an hour early, because apparently being ‘fashionably early’ was what South Korean businessmen were into these days). The building was tall and formidable, made of marble and surrounded by a sprawling garden. It was strange, a jarring shock of green against the grays and blues of the rest of Seoul.
But still, it was bigger than anything that Jimin had ever seen, and he felt just out of place, out of place among the crystal chandeliers and the bottles of champagne that he felt like he would knock over at some point in the evening.
“Hey Jimin, do you think we were—” Taehyung’s rich voice reverberated through the empty hall. “—too fashionably early?”
“Tae… I think so.” Jimin took a glance around the ballroom, the high, arching ceilings and the long, rectangular tables that stretched across the polished hardwood floors. There were dainty vases, filled with pale carnations, placed in carefully measured intervals along every table.
Everything seemed planned out, sparkling and glittering like it came out of a fairytale.
Then again, masquerade balls basically came out of fairytales too, didn’t they?
“I think,” Taehyung said, eyes edging to the doorway. “I’m gonna go and find where we have to sign in.”
It took Jimin (who was currently slightly overwhelmed by the amount of silver tinsel strung over the pure white piano in the corner) a few seconds to register this piece of information, and by the time he whipped around, Taehyung and his infuriating blue mask were already disappearing to walk to God knows where.
Did he just.
Taehyung. What the hell.
Jimin slowly slunk to the corner, almost pressing himself against the (immaculately painted) wall of the venue.
Kim. Taehyung.
Why would you think this was a good ide—
His train of thought was cut off by a twinkling melody coming from what Jimin thought were the most beautiful pair of hands that he’d ever seen. They were pale and slender, made for making instruments sing.
Jimin was almost scared to move his eyes up from the hands dancing across the ivory keys.
Key word: almost.
The man at the piano was delicate and lithe, with pale pink lips reminiscent of rose petals, eyes closed behind his mask, skin a pale cream color and bathed in silver. Jimin, suddenly thankful that his face was covered, felt heat rising to his cheeks. Seeing someone this beautiful, swaying ever so slightly along with the rhythm that flowed so effortlessly from his fingertips was nothing less than breathtaking.
The mask added to his allure, crowning him in starlight and emphasizing the rounded curves of his jaw. With each chord, each rest, Jimin became more and more convinced that the piano was alive, breathing and moving with the man (who was quite possibly an angel) perched on the bench.
Jimin might have audibly said “oh my God”, but he didn’t know and he really, really didn’t want to. Especially since the (magical, literally ethereal) Piano Man was now walking towards him, his lips stuck in a small frown.
“Who are you?” he asked in a voice that basically had Jimin wanting to melt into the ground. It was rough, but just enough to be pleasant, a tone that made Jimin’s heart beat faster, thundering against his ribcage. “I haven’t seen you in the office.”
“I—” Jimin could only get one word out before Piano Man Who Also Might Be an Angel (?) leaned closer, close enough that Jimin could smell the spearmint on his breath, close enough that Jimin could see the deep brown of his irises and the long dark lashes framing them.
He took a breath.
“I’m Park Jimin. I’m. Uh, Tae—”
Piano Man flashed a smile, a surprisingly bright one showing blinding white teeth, one that made Jimin’s words catch in his throat. “I’d advise you, Park Jimin, to not mention this to anyone.”
“If you didn’t want anyone to hear you playing piano, then I’d advise you to not do it in a venue where everyone can hear you?” He and Piano Man were about the same height, but Piano Man, in all of his masked glory, managed to tower over him, eyes cast downwards. The response (which had sounded much wittier in Jimin’s head) hung like a storm cloud in the air.
Then, Piano Man laughed.
Piano Man laughed.
Piano Man laughed.
It made Jimin feel like he was flying.