Chapter Text
Seokjin loved flowers.
He knew that different people had different preferences. He knew how people his age chased after high-powered careers, how people enjoyed amassing material possessions. All those were well and good. Seokjin himself didn’t mind a corner office with the title ‘CEO’ under his name. A Rolex and a penthouse with a view of the sea would be nice too. However, if there was one thing he loved, he loved flowers.
It was something about the way flowers themselves were temporary, blooming in their appointed seasons and then fading away when their time came to an end, but the memories attached to the flowers – those lasted way longer.
Seokjin found himself admiring the flowers wherever he went. Along the sidewalk. Fallen on the ground (but it always made him a bit upset when the flowers have been stepped on, so he tries not to look at them). Wrapped in paper in people’s hands. Encased in resin. Embroidered on your sweater.
He waved when he saw you.
“There you are,” you said, coming over and taking a seat. “Did you wait long?”
“Not at all. I just got here.”
The two of you had the usual Friday night spread, purposely ordering different sides to make the most of the diner’s unlimited sides on Friday nights. The server came to take your orders. Seokjin smiled when you ordered mozzarella sticks again.
“When we met, you said you were dying because of mozzarella sticks. Yet you have those every Friday.”
“I love them to death, but you know what they say. All wings and no mozzarella sticks makes Kim Seokjin a dull boy.”
Seokjin laughed so much he snorted.
“Hey!”
He tried to come up with a clever reply but he was too busy enjoying the moment with you. You, who was so beautiful wearing that sweater with red gerberas embroidered on the sleeves.
Seokjin remembered when you first approached him in the diner on a Friday night a long time ago, asking to trade sides with him. His friends had wolf-whistled when you let your gaze linger in his direction. They had egged him on, saying that he should be a man and get up to talk to you. Jungkook had even shoved him hard enough to knock him partially off his seat. You had watched the whole exchange over your shoulder, your smile reaching your eyes. And then you walked over, causing his friends to erupt in laughter, cheers and slaps on his back.
They laughed even louder when you came over not for him but for his wings.
Of course, Seokjin had gladly exchanged sides with you. The wide smile on your lips and the glimmer in your eyes as you left holding a tray of wings stuck with him even when you sat with your back facing him the entire time you were there with your friends. He couldn’t resist going to your table at the end of the night to ask for your number.
That’s how this started. Friday nights with you. Mozzarella sticks for you, wings for him and beer for two. Even now that the two of you had graduated from college and were busy with your respective careers, you still continued meeting at this little diner along the side street behind your alma mater.
“Jinnie, can I ask you for a big, big favour?”
“Sure, what is it?”
You started with an “uh” before shutting your mouth as if to consider your words. You chewed on your bottom lip in thought, a frown forming on your face, before you tried again.
“Will you be my plus one to my friend’s wedding?”
Seokjin almost dropped his food in surprise.
“Uh, yeah. You know how I just broke up with my boyfriend, right? Well, that was already two months ago so it’s not super recent. I’ve been going on a few dates and stuff, but I don’t like any of the other guys enough to take him with me to my friend’s wedding. That only leaves me with you. I hope you understand. You’re the only one I can ask.”
He put his half-eaten mozzarella stick down, letting you ramble on until you finished.
“I’d love to go with you, Y/N. Wh–“
Seokjin felt himself being thrown backwards by the sheer force of your embrace. He silently thanked whoever was watching over him at that moment that he didn’t fall off his seat and take you with him. He didn’t want you getting hurt.
“Jinnie, you’re a lifesaver! Thank you so much!”
“As thanks, you should stop trying to squeeze me to death.”
You pulled away abruptly and sat back down in your seat, scratching the back of your neck with an awkward smile. “Sorry, are you okay?” you asked when you noticed him rubbing his side.
“I’m fine. So when’s the wedding?”
“About six months from now. They’ve not finalised a venue, but it’ll probably be in Jeju. Ah, I can cover your transport and accommodation, if you want.”
“There’s no need for that. I was planning to take a trip sometime anyway.”
Seokjin had driven you home and walked you up to your apartment, the one that you used to share with your boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, he corrected. He wanted to ask if you were coping well suddenly living alone, but the only time you spoke of your ex was when you were justifying why Seokjin was the only one you could turn to. You didn’t have to go the trouble to explain anything to him. He would’ve happily tagged along, even if the wedding was tomorrow and it was halfway across the world.
He also would’ve happily listened to you rant about your ex, lend you his shoulder to cry on and let you use his shirt to wipe your tears away. Like it always happened in the rom-coms you liked to watch.
Since it was clear you didn’t want to talk about your ex, he let it be. He simply made sure to let you know he was there for you, if you wanted him.
“Thanks for tonight, Jinnie,” you said, before you pulled him in for a goodbye hug. Seokjin always wondered if it was only him who thought that your Friday nights ended like dates. He never found the right moment to ask you.
“It was my pleasure as always,” he said softly, his voice muffled by your hair.
You checked your watch when you turned away to close the door. You opened the door wide once more.
“Since it’s still early, do you wanna come in for a drink?”
“Didn’t we already have enough beer at the diner?” was what he said, but he already over the threshold and slipping his shoes off.
You took his jacket from him and hung it up on a hook by the door. He thanked you and moved to sit on your couch. You asked him what he wanted from the kitchen.
“Coffee, please.”
You started up your coffee machine and said, “Coming right up.”
While you were busy preparing drinks, he took in what he could see of your apartment from where he sat. It looked a bit different from before. When he remembered that you had broken up with your boyfriend and that the guy had moved out, it made sense. Seokjin was used to seeing the other guy’s clothes lying around. He knew you hated that, hated tripping over your ex’s dirty jeans from yesterday, hated that your apartment always smelled like the boy’s locker room when you came back from a weekend trip with your friends.
Your apartment was cleaner now that your ex was gone, smelled better. And you were happier too. Seokjin couldn’t remember the last time you were smiling when you arrived at the diner, always arriving exactly five minutes before the promotion started at 8 pm. You fought with the guy often. He understood that it was because of him, that you were having a drink alone with him on a prime date night. You always told him he was worrying for nothing, that it wasn’t his fault you showed up with puffy eyes.
If it wasn’t him and your Friday nights with him that was the problem, then what was it?
The couch dipped a little at your weight. You held out a mug to him. He took it, breathing in the scent of freshly brewed coffee.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“We use won here in Korea, Y/N.”
You punched his shoulder lightly, laughing. Setting your mug down on the coffee table, you leaned back into the couch into a more comfortable sitting position.
“You just looked a little sad just now, when you were thinking,” you said.
Did he?
“You were frowning,” you said, as if you read his thoughts.
Seokjin took a sip. The coffee had exactly one cube of sugar, enough to tame the sharpness of the coffee but not enough to make it sweet. You made the coffee just the way he liked it. And he doesn’t even come over often. Only once in a while, when your ex happened to be away.
“I was just thinking that your apartment suddenly looks cleaner than I remembered,” he said after a moment of comfortable silence. His eyes were on you the whole time, gauging your expression. When you didn’t appear to be upset or offended by what he was implying, he let out a sigh of relief and took another sip of coffee.
“I know, right,” you said, too quietly. Seokjin instantly regretted what he just said. He was about to apologise for being insensitive, but your words cut into the start of his.
“I– You were right about him. Sorry I didn’t listen to you sooner.”
“You don’t have to say it like that, Y/N. I wasn’t scolding you,” he said. He didn’t continue on to say that he merely wanted the best for you and the guy you just dumped didn’t cut it.
You downed the rest of your coffee. “I know,” you said. Seokjin followed your gaze. The picture frames. There were exactly five picture frames sitting on the storage unit directly underneath your television. All of them were empty now, pushed to one side rather than spread out to display the pictures in them.
Oh.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It had to be done. I would’ve shown up one Friday with him hanging off me and I can’t have that, can I?”
Seokjin laughed at the mental image it conjured up in his mind. It would’ve been amusing to see your well-muscled boyfriend clinging to your arm like a small child who was afraid to be separated from his mother.
“I wouldn’t have been jealous. I don’t mind you bringing a boyfriend.”
“You, jealous? No way. I was more concerned about the poor guy. Have you seen yourself, Jinnie? You’re gorgeous. If he stops working out, he can’t compete with you even if he tried his darnedest.”
“It’s like you’re saying big muscles are as good as a handsome face.”
“That’s what I meant. But not really. I mean, you were born with that pretty face but he has to work for his muscles. That’s not fair.”
“Then you were wise to leave him at home. Wherever that is now that you live alone.”
You laughed, head thrown back on the backrest of the couch. Seokjin wanted to laugh along with you, but there was an unusual pinprick in his chest. He acted natural, forcing a laugh. You didn’t seem to notice. If you had noticed, you had acted as if you hadn’t. It was moments like these that Seokjin was grateful to be an actor; he could fake something or the other so no one would have to get hurt.
Seokjin left your apartment soon after you had washed the mugs, even when he had insisted on washing them for you. He patted at his chest as he drove home, willing the dull ache away. Even when he was in his bed and it was close to dawn, Seokjin lay awake with his chest hurting.
He got out of bed. As he washed down some painkillers with water, he felt something lodged in his throat. He cleared his throat and took a big gulp of water to make that one pill slide down to his stomach. The lump in his throat was still there even after he had downed his third glass. He repeatedly cleared his throat as he rinsed the glass and put it back.
Seokjin lurched forward as the thing in his throat decided to make its way out. He stepped closer to the wet mass of something he just coughed out.
Flower petals.