Work Text:
jungkook’s monday starts with an alarm.
an alarm that goes off at seven in the freaking morning, having stayed up late the night before, working on an essay of 2,000 words that, after a sad, feeble attempt of making it sound logical with two cups of coffee and one ‘healthy’ dose of stress in his system, he finally sent in at 3:30am.
his head pounds and he doesn’t feel quite ready to human, yet.
he gets up from his bed with a groan and looks blindly for his goddamn phone, which is still blaring with an insistent tune somewhere. it might have fallen off his nightstand, who knows. the one thing he’s sure about right now is that he deeply regrets having agreed to meet jimin at the gym two days ago, and that he needs more sleep.
his cellphone is under the bed, and he crawls to get it. he hits his head with the top of his mattress in the process, eliciting a string of slurred curses out of him.
after finally making it shut up, he lies there, on the floor, feeling a terrible sense of foreboding that this day is going to be one hell of a ride.
he hates mondays.
he takes a glance at his phone. 7:08am. the gym is twenty minutes away.
fuck .
he grabs a few clothes from his closet, gets a clean towel, and rushes to the bathroom. the reflection on his mirror is nothing short of terrifying, he looks like he came back from the dead and his hair’s a mess of dark strands sticking up in every direction. charming , he thinks to himself with a bit of snark, before throwing his crumpled t-shirt and underwear to the side and getting under the showerhead. thankfully, the water’s not as cold as he expected, but it’s enough to make a shock of awareness course through him.
as he goes to get his bottle of body wash, a tiny, tiny script of neat handwriting appears on his wrist, and he stops.
fuck fucking mondays , it reads in faded gray, and jungkook suppresses a smile.
so his soulmate’s also awake.
same here , he thinks, amused by the unabashed cursing. same here .
he hopes the feeling is strong enough to get etched onto his soulmate’s skin, too, wherever they are. that’s not exactly how it works, however, so jungkook can only wish.
he remembers the talk he had with his parents when words first started appearing on his arms, when he was about six years old. ‘ these come from your soulmate ’, they told him. ‘ what they think about the most gets written on your skin. the clearer the words and the darker the handwriting, the closer you are to them ’.
seeing that jungkook could only read ‘piano’ from time to time, and nothing more, he and his soulmate were not exactly in the same neighborhood.
it was not until much later, when he moved to seoul to study, that he sentences started getting longer, more detailed. sometimes, when he’s around campus or strolling by the city center, he can even be witness of how the letters scribble themselves and then fade away, giving space for other thoughts to surface. he likes to sit and watch them come and go, because, turns out, his soulmate’s head is an interesting place. most of the gibberish he reads during the day is full of musical terms and symbols, flashes of new ideas and concepts, constant pleads for more sleep or coffee, stray thoughts about this one new track he listened to or the annoying kid sitting in front of him in the subway. other times, though, his arms are home to something that could very well be qualified as poetry. wordplays, metaphors, beautiful and delicate verses combined with harsh curses and vocatives. he can only guess they’re lyrics.
the train of thought his soulmate follows is chaotic, but enrapturing to watch when it’s clear enough. during the past year, he’s seen the same verses being repeated over and over again, corrected, moved around, eliminated for a second and then repositioned, perfected to detail.
jungkook wonders what his soulmate does, whether he produces his own music or not. he hopes he can not only read, but also hear those lyrics in the future.
just wishful thinking, though.
jungkook steps out of the shower, dries himself off with his towel and throws on the clothes he got from his closet while he was still half asleep. it’s not like he could go wrong with the incredibly varied assortment of white t-shirts and black sweatpants, though, so it’s fine. he quickly puts on his sneakers, grabs his gym bag and snatches his beanie from the perch near the entrance door.
plugging his earphones in, he checks the time on his mobile phone as he goes down the stairs - with all the rush, he could manage to get a very much needed coffee and a sandwich on the way.
he hums, contented.
the next thing he does, walking through the street, is click on his soundcloud app and scroll until he spots a certain artist. he’d found suga about a year ago, and he’d been surprised by how much he liked his music despite being so different from his usual tastes. he doesn’t update often, if at all, judging by the lack of new content since he started following him, but his playlist is already pretty extensive and jungkook loves it all.
he taps on one of the tracks and relaxes as the familiar beats of nevermind start playing.
halfway to the gym, he spots his usual café at the other side of the road. he smiles, pauses his playlist, crosses the street when no cars are around, and pushes the door of the coffee shop open.
it’s 7:50 am and there’s barely anyone around, apart from the stray, sleep-deprived student with a large cup in their hands and a couple people dressed smartly, who get their drinks and exit the place in a flash. jungkook looks towards the counter and is surprised to see someone he doesn’t recognize.
usually, the one tending to the morning shift is hoseok. he should know, because he’s been a regular for who knows how long, and he’s gotten used to the sight of the elder’s sunshine smile even in the darkest of mondays.
this new guy definitely isn’t smiling. rather, he looks more than ready to murder someone.
still , jungkook faintly thinks as he approaches him, he’s kind of very attractive . his silver hair falls over his dark, narrow eyes, and he has this cute button nose and pink lips. he spots a few silver hoop earrings on his ears, glinting under the lights of the shop, and the dark shirt contrasts nicely against his skin and the light gray of his apron.
huh.
he stops in front of him. the name tag on his uniform reads min yoongi .
“welcome, how may i help you?” he asks, polite enough but sounding unbelievably done. jungkook would be amused, but- his voice, deep and raspy, seems to make something in his brain click. it sounds familiar, very familiar. he’s certain he’s heard it before.
he realizes he’s staring. yoongi, the barista, arches an eyebrow. “ah… sorry” he flushes, embarrassed. “an americano to go? and a ham and cheese sandwich, please.”
“coming right up” the other nods.
he turns to the coffee machines and starts moving around surprisingly fast, operating it with efficiency. jungkook’s impressed, he’s seen hoseok and taehyung fumble around for the first few days in the job.
that reminds him.
“excuse me, but- where is hoseok hyung?”
if yoongi’s surprised that he knows him, he doesn’t show. “hobi? that snake guilted me into taking his morning shifts for two weeks, said he’d be busy with dance workshops. don’t ask me how, i have no idea.”
“oh, wow” he laughs, amused. seeing how utterly annoyed he seems to be, he feels sorry for him. “well, hyung can be pretty convincing sometimes.”
“hell if i know” yoongi drawls, and- there it is again, the familiarity, the weird sensation that he’s heard him speak somewhere. he sets his cup of coffee and the plastic wrapped sandwich in front of him, and catches jungkook staring again. he smirks. “if you’re going to ask if i’m on the menu, the answer’s no.”
“what- no!” jungkook almost chokes, and blushes furiously. “i- i was just wondering if i’ve seen you before? wait, that sounds like a pick up line- i- ugh, nevermind. you sound familiar, is all.”
he wants the earth to swallow him.
he fumbles with the phone in his hands, almost accidentally dropping it, and pushing the button to it turn on in the process. the album cover of suga’s tracklist is displayed brightly on the glowing screen, and yoongi’s eyes latch on it for a long second. a spark of amusement appears in his eyes.
“oh, i’m sure i do, kid” his tone drops an octave lower, doing weird things to jungkook. he can barely feel offended by the nickname. “so, suga?” he asks, nodding towards the album cover on his phone.
jungkook perks up. “you know him?”
“yeah” yoongi props his chin on his palm. he has a strange twinkle in his eye. “kind of. are you a fan?”
“i- hell yeah i am” jungkook stammers out, caught off guard. he has never put it so plainly, but it’s true nonetheless. “i’m surprised he doesn’t have that many followers, his music’s amazing.”
“hm. i thought you were more like the type to listen to pop songs and ballads.”
“are you questioning my tastes?” jungkook feels offended, but it quickly melts away when he hears yoongi chuckle. he has a nice laugh, a bit throaty, but cute. there’s a tiny spark of recognition in the back of his head, but it is shut down in an instant again.
“nah, it’s alright, kid. just an observation.”
“oh” jungkook exhales. “i mean, don’t worry, you weren’t wrong. i am into pop songs. it’s just that, i don’t know, there’s something raw and passionate about his music. it makes you feel it .”
shut up, jungkook, you’re rambling , he tells himself. he promptly seals his lips, feeling his face burst into flames.
“good to know that” the other flashes him a gummy smile, and he feels his heart being sent into overdrive. he stares, again, and yoongi’s grin grows larger. “and, back on track- that’ll be 8,200 won.”
“right” jungkook is shoved back into reality. he tears his eyes away from him, hurriedly takes out his wallet and snatches his breakfast from the counter. “nice meeting you!”
“likewise” is his reply, “though i didn’t quite catch your name?”
he pauses. “jungkook. jeon jungkook.”
“i hope to see you around then, jungkook” he tells him. his stomach flips.
“okay, sure, mee too” he squeaks out, before getting out of the coffee shop in a flash. he can feel the eyes of the barista following him until he disappears around the corner.
oh my god, that was fucking embarrassing. it had to be monday. god damn it.
he proceeds to overthink all the way to the gym.
in his distress, he misses the pitch black handwriting on his wrist, spelling out a short ‘ bunny boy ’. the two words stick around until well past 11am, but when jungkook finally spots them, they’re already a light gray.
he gets back to his own apartment at five in the afternoon, tired after the morning workout, then classes, then lunch out, then a casual hangout with friends. he makes way to his tiny, cramped bedroom, craving some sweet sleep.
he’s about to let morpheus take him when his mobile phone vibrates inside his pocket.
he groans in annoyance. must be taehyung, messaging him about who knows what. or maybe jimin, sending him pictures of him being disgustingly cute with his soulmate, in which case he definitely doesn’t want to open the chat.
he still reaches out to take out his phone from his jeans.
the notification that greets him on the screen is one he wasn’t expecting.
[today 5:13 pm]
soundcloud: suga posted a new album.
jungkook sits up in a hurry and blinks, reading and rereading the push message. he taps on it and is immediately directed to his page, where, indeed, there is a new album cover reading ‘agust d’, all in greys, whites and blacks.
10 new fucking tracks . jungkook’s about to lose it.
he rushes to his backpack, where he has his trusted and high-quality headphones, takes them out and plugs them into his phone. he scrolls down the tracklist, drinking in the titles. there’s something familiar about all of them, like he’s read them before, but he pushes it away. probably just a silly thought.
he takes a deep breath before clicking play.
the beats are strong, the instrumental harsh and loud, but well pieced together. and jungkook’s fine and enjoying it until-
suga starts rapping. he knows those words, those verses.
he tries to play it off as some really weird coincidence, but then the chorus hits and-
he panics. he completely and absolutely panics.
he goes through the first track in a cold, cold sweat, rigid on his bed. then the second, then the third, the fourth, the fifth.
his head’s spinning.
in all his 20 years of life, jungkook thinks he’s had his fair share of out-of-body experiences, especially considering the fact that kim taehyung is his best friend. which, no offense, can be a pretty scarring thing sometimes.
but this, this might take the cake.
he knows the lyrics of every track, every single one of them. reason why? he’s seen them on his skin, being written, and thought of, and rewritten, and modified again and again and again until they were- this.
he feels faint.
“holy shit”, he whispers.
suga is his fucking soulmate.
the tracklist ends and, for a minute, he just lays there, shell-shocked. then he goes to his home screen and searches his contact list. he taps on a number and starts dialing.
pick it up, pick it up, come on, pick it up , he prays.
finally, familiar voice greets him, and he sighs in relief.
“ hey, jungkook, how- ”
“tae” he cuts him off, breathless. “tae, i think i found my soulmate.”
there’s a moment of silence.
then, screaming.
“ wait, what? ” taehyung sounds incredibly excited and shocked at the same time. “ when? how? you just left us! weren’t you walking home? oh my god, can you send me a picture? what’s their name? ”
the bombardment of questions does nothing to make jungkook’s heart rate calm down.
“i don’t know” he answers. his friend immediately quiets down, confused.
“ what do you mean by, ‘you don’t know’? i need more context here, dude. ”
“i mean” he swallows, “that i don’t have their name, not really, because i haven’t met him.”
“... you’re losing me. ”
“okay, this is really weird” he starts. “but i follow this one artist on soundcloud, and he just dropped a new tracklist, and the lyrics are the exact same ones i’ve been seeing on my skin for the past year. and, i mean- that can’t be a coincidence. right?” he rolls on the bed, distressed. “god, did i make any sense.”
“ i think so ” he can feel taehyung nod, on the other side of the line. “ what’s his username? ”
“suga” jungkook’s started by the sudden static, the screaming, and the loud thump of something hitting the floor. “tae? did you die?”
“ no, no, i’m fine. you said his username was suga? ” as soon as he confirms it, there’s more rustling. “ holy shit, jungkookie, i gotta tell hoseokkie hyung about this. he’s going to flip, let me just go to his room. i’ll put you on speaker. ”
“hyung, what-”
“ babe ” he hears taehyung say, in the distance. “ babe, come here for a sec, you have to hear this. ”
“ hm? what’s wrong? ”
“ jungkookie found his soulmate ” he rushes out.
“ woah, that’s great, jungkook-ah! who are they? ”
before he can open his mouth to answer, taehyung’s already speaking for him. “ that’s the thing, he doesn’t know. or he thinks he doesn’t. ”
“what do you even mean by that?” jungkook whines, confusion rising by the second. “literally the only thing i have on him is that his artist name is suga! enlighten me.”
quiet. then, loud laughing.
“what the fuck is so funny, hyung” he growls, “because i feel like i’m the only one missing out on something really important, and i’m kind of panicking, so please explain.”
“ no it’s just- ” hoseok tries to catch his breath, without succeeding. “ you went to the coffee shop this morning, right? ”
“yeah. what does that have to do with anything?”
more fits of laughter. “ oh god, i never thought i’d have to do this, but jungkook, i’m pretty sure you’ve met him already. ”
“what.”
“ i’ll let you figure it out on your own ” hoseok says, sounding amused beyond imagination, but also soft. “ i’ve given you plenty of information. just… go back to the coffee shop some other morning, yeah? ”
the line goes dead, and jungkook stares into the screen long and hard, as if it contained all the secrets of the universe. fuck him, fuck this, fuck literally everything.
he rewinds, replays the conversation one, two, and three times; trying to make sense of what his hyungs said. then he goes back and, begrudgingly, remembers the short while in which he stayed in the café that morning.
realisation hits him like a truck.
he almost drops his phone.
“oh, no, don’t tell me” he groans into his hands, absolutely mortified. “ don’t fucking tell me .”
he swears he can hear taehyung’s laughter in the distance.
fuck him.
he never asked for any of this.
it’s friday morning and he’s finally gotten his head around the fact that, apparently, his soulmate’s both the ridiculously attractive and cute barista at the café, and the amazing musician he’s been into for a good year.
so it’s time he goes and talks to him. figures out all this soulmate shit. yeah.
he swears he’s fine. a bit too high on nervousness, but fine.
taehyung, sitting on his bedside and watching him stress over what white shirt to wear , clearly thinks otherwise.
“are you sure he’s there today?” jungkook asks, for the upteenth time.
“yes, kookie, i am” the other sighs. “i asked hoseok, yoongi hyung will be there.”
“okay, okay, just making sure.”
he stands in front of the mirror, looks at himself and decides he’ll go with different clothing items altogether. he takes off his white shirt and puts on a black one, instead. grabs yet another pair of distressed jeans with rips on the knees, which hug nicely his thighs.
he doesn’t work out for nothing.
“do i look okay?”
“jungkook, you always look okay” taehyung huffs. “now, are you gonna have the balls to get out there or are we going to stay in your apartment, deciding what outfit to wear until the morning shift ends?”
jungkook winces. “harsh.”
“sorry, kookie, but i have to” he shrugs. “you’re overthinking too much.”
“how could i not?” he questions, incredulous.
“dude, my kookiebun, my bunnyman” he starts. “i assure you that you have nothing to worry about. you showed up at 8 am in a state of sleep deprivation and he still found you hot; now that you’re well rested and dressed in something that isn’t sweatpants you’ll make the same impression no problem.”
“but my soulmate ” he stresses, as if trying to prove a point. then he frowns. “wait, how do you know he found me hot? tae?”
“yoongi hyung might or might not have spoken to hoseok about this one customer the other day” he shrugs. “i might or might not have been around while they talked.”
“ oh my god .”
“come on now, let’s get out of here.”
taehyung drags him to the door. jungkook barely has any time at all to get a hold of his beanie and put on his red wing shoes before he’s shoved into the hallway.
“ hey ” he protests, eliciting only a nonchalant, i’m-not-sorry-at-all shrug from the elder.
the walk to the coffee shop is quiet. he checks his arms every now and then, just to make sure, and to his horror?, delight?, the words that pop up keep getting more defined, clearer and darker as they approach the place.
in just five minutes they’re in front of the café. jungkook’s stomach is a bundle of nerves.
he knows it’s too late to back down when yoongi, from the counter, spots him through the glass doors.
“oops, look at that, someone’s calling me” taehyung cheerfully says, from beside him. jungkook looks at him in alarm, but his one and only moral support is already slipping away. “sorry, kookie, i gotta go. urgent matters.”
“fucking traitor” he mutters through gritted teeth.
with taehyung gone and one foot into the shop, he just sighs, steels himself and pushes the door. the scent of coffee and freshly baked pastries welcomes him, and he vaguely thinks that at least, at least , he’ll get a nicely brewed latte and perhaps a croissant out of this, in case that everything goes to shit.
“hello again, jungkook” yoongi greets him, knowing grin set on his lips. the sound of his name on the elder’s lips makes him feel warm.
“hey, hyung” he says back, giving him a small smile. he plays with his earrings out of habit, a tendency he has when he’s nervous. “um- a latte, please?”
“sure thing.”
the elder gets to it quickly, hands moving automatically through the process. jungkook looks at him, kind of drinking in the sight. absentmindedly, he admits that he has really nice hands. big, with slender fingers and neat fingernails. he can see his veins, going up his forearms and disappearing under his shirt.
yoongi sets his cup of coffee in front of him. when he sees jungkook reach out for his wallet, he shakes his head. “it’s on the house.”
“oh” he breathes out. “thanks?”
there’s an awkward silence of a few seconds, in which they just stare at each other.
say something, come on, say something .
“i listened to suga’s new album the other day” he blurts out. yoongi arches an eyebrow, smirk playing on his lips.
“oh, did you now?” there’s a hint of playfulness in his tone. “why don’t you tell me all about it? wait, give me a second.”
jungkook watches him as he walks to the back door and shouts for seokjin, telling him that he’s taking a small break and that he’s leaving the counter for a while. jin complains, but takes his position in a flash when he sees jungkook standing there.
“hey, jungkook-ah” he greets, winking at him. “coming back to enjoy our coffee, or is there another special reason?”
“shut up, hyung” yoongi mumbles. amazed, jungkook sees the tips of his ears turn red. then his fingers circle his wrist, softly, lightly, and tug him away. “come on, jungkook, let’s move somewhere else.”
he lets himself be guided to a secluded table in the far corner. he watches both of their wrists, so close to one another, now full of inscriptions in pitch black that come and go in a flurry. the plain evidence that they are pretty much soulmates and that, no, he hasn’t imagined it, is kind of jarring to see.
he bites back a small smile.
they both sit down. jungkook adds sugar to his coffee and takes a sip, it tastes great.
“so. you listened to the new album?”
“i did” he nods. then he decides that, hell, he might as well play the game too, and adds: “suga is really an amazing artist. his lyrics are something else.”
yoongi’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. a small blush scatters over the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, which, now that he looks at them from up close, are scattered with tiny, very tiny and light freckles. jungkook immediately loves them.
“yeah? why do you say that?”
“well, for one, it’s amazing to see how they evolve from the starting point to the finishing line” he shrugs. yoongi’s eyes glint, amused. “one would think i’d get bored from reading the same things over and over again on my skin for the past year. they’d be wrong.”
yoongi chuckles. “so you saw it all?”
“kind of, yeah” he admits. “your thoughts are very nice to read, in case you were wondering.”
“that’s good to know” the elder softly says. his hand moves until it’s on top of his, then he turns it around, showing both of their wrists under the lights of the shop. both have the same inscriptions, as if etched in dark, dark ink into their skin. jungkook’s reads ‘yoongi’, yoongi’s reads ‘jungkook’.
“already thinking about me, hm? soulmate ?” he smiles.
“like you can talk” jungkook snorts. then, quietly and with his cheeks bright pink, he retaliates. “ soulmate .”
saying it out loud is so electrifying, so different from just thinking it. it’s a good feeling.
“that we are, aren’t we” the elder muses, distractedly tracing the black letters on his wrist, as if entranced. then, his eyes snap back into his, dark. “can’t say i don’t like it. more like the contrary.”
“ oh my god. too soon to be cheesy, hyung. too soon.”
“should i take you out on a date then?” yoongi smiles, cheeky. “will that make it acceptable?”
“only if lamb skewers are included in the plan” he replies, following along. his heart feels unbelievably light, beating loudly inside his chest.
“okay” yoongi breathes out, watching him with a newfound fondness in his gaze. “okay. i can totally do that.”
they don’t let go of each other’s hands until yoongi is called back to work by a very, very entertained seokjin, who watches them with endlessly amused eyes as they exchange phone numbers.
“so, tomorrow at five is alright?” jungkook asks, almost one foot out of the coffee shop.
“yeah. tomorrow at five is alright.”
they look at each other for long seconds before they snap out of it, both blushing.
the smile that yoongi gives him as he exits makes him feel warm, warm all over. it’s soft, gummy and so, so very sweet.
almost, if not just as sweet as sugar.