Work Text:
“Okay, hyung—now smile!”
Jeongguk centres his camera’s viewfinder to Namjoon’s face. He takes several photos of his bust, his head in the centre of the three-by-three grid, and then a few with his nose on the top left corner of the centre square. He calls out a few okays! to signal Namjoon to pose differently. Once he’s collected enough pictures, Jeongguk sees him shiver through the viewfinder.
He doesn’t take his eye off the viewfinder. He calls out: “Are you finished for now?”
“I think I’m finished for good—unless you want pictures, too,” Namjoon says, jutting his chin out in the direction of the camera. Jeongguk grimaces; ever since he started posting his films and photos for Golden Closet, he’s wanted to be the one behind the camera, not in front of it.
When he looks up, Namjoon’s eyebrows are raised, there’s a little smile on his lips, and maybe Jeongguk’s inner self-consciousness caves. He places the strap around Namjoon’s neck and shows him what to click and adjust before standing in front of the same railing. Namjoon counts down from three but Jeongguk sees his finger press down on the shoot button before that. He makes use of one of the only times he’d be in front of the camera—he smiles, he strikes a normal pose and a few funny ones, he starts laughing at one point because Namjoon is laughing—and then takes his camera back in earnest.
“Promise me you won’t look at the photos I took of you until we’re on our way back,” Namjoon says, one palm over the digital viewfinder.
Jeongguk pouts. “But I want to see if any of them are worth keeping.”
“Just until we get back on the Greyhound,” Namjoon reasons. “Our Niagara day is almost over. I think you can last that long without looking at a few photos of your own face.”
“Okay, fine.” Jeongguk exits out of the photo preview with the sliver of screen he can see through Namjoon’s fingers and switches it back to camera mode. “I won’t look, but I want to take more photos while we walk around. And we need to try Beavertails. I’ve never had it before.”
“So eager for someone that didn’t even want to visit Niagara in the first place.”
“This is only meant to be a four-day trip,” Jeongguk reasons, “and Toronto’s a big place, so maybe I wanted to see a little more of it in our limited time.”
“We can come back anytime we want, Guk-ah.” They start walking away from the small lookout point. Namjoon throws his arm over Jeongguk’s shoulders, and the small act alone is enough to make Jeongguk stumble over his fingers (nearly dropping his camera) and his feet (nearly dropping everything else and his camera). “Just say the word and it can be our little getaway.”
It goes something like this: when Jeongguk first joined BigHit, it was because of Namjoon. It started off as simple admiration, but over time he began to realize it was a little more than that, and then a lot more than that. Then Hoseok joked about Jeongguk having a crush on Namjoon, and Jeongguk said it wasn’t there anymore, and even when it was there it wasn’t anything more than platonic. All of that was a lie, but no one ever pressed it further, although it still came up as a joke here and there.
And here, during Jeongguk and Namjoon’s little expedition to Canada, the exact same teasing tone has returned. (He likes hearing it come out of Namjoon’s mouth, though.)
The trip was also very impromptu—it was the result of Jeongguk surfing through too many suggested itineraries on travel websites, and the one that caught his attention was the very weekend event in Canada: Toronto’s Nuit Blanche.
“What are you looking at? Namjoon had asked, appearing behind Jeongguk and looking over his shoulder. At first Jeongguk had panicked and shut his laptop, but Namjoon opened it again and entered the password like it was second nature. He scanned the open article, describing Nuit Blanche in its entirety, and Jeongguk was nervous about the response he’d get, but when he had looked up at Namjoon there was a curious glint in his eye.
Needless to say, Namjoon said he would accompany Jeongguk on the trip and buy their tickets. And he did. And they were now in Niagara, taking a day trip from Toronto.
Jeongguk is nothing short of ecstatic about this arrangement. It’s almost five whole days of him and Namjoon. His only worry is how to ease his beating heart around the person he’s been in love with for five years.
It’s close to sunset when they get on the Greyhound heading back from the Falls. They settle comfortably into seats near the back of the bus with their bags at their feet, and the moment the bus kicks into gear Namjoon slinks down a little in his seat. He lifts the armrest between them and adjusts himself so that his head rests in the crook of Jeongguk’s shoulder. (No wonder Namjoon offered him the window seat.)
When Jeongguk is certain that Namjoon’s fast asleep, he turns on his camera, sets the display for the lowest brightness possible, and angles it towards the window. He sifts through all the photos, taking mental notes of his favourites, and when he lands on the first photo of himself his breath catches in his throat.
He’s been used to hearing Namjoon undermine himself and his own skills until recently; he finally started thanking people after being complimented rather than deny them. Jeongguk doesn’t know why he thought of the way Namjoon sees himself from looking at a picture he took of Jeongguk, but the confidence seems to shine through a little more than it used to. The lighting on the photo is near perfect and he likes the way his eyes scrunch with his big smile. It’s a photo Jeongguk likes of himself, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the other ones Namjoon took.
“How’d I do?” Namjoon says, and Jeongguk jolts. Again. He turns to look at his shoulder and sees Namjoon’s eyelashes fluttering. Jeongguk guesses that his eyes are looking at the camera display. It’s zoomed in on Jeongguk’s face.
Instead of responding, Jeongguk says, “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“The lowest brightness on that thing is still pretty bright, Gukkie.” Namjoon tilts his head up to look at him. “But what do you think? How’d I do?”
Jeongguk zooms out from his own face. “You did a really good job, hyung. Better than I expected. I didn’t know how you’d be with my camera.”
“Thank you. It’s easy to take shots of a subject I like.” Namjoon hums and nuzzles back into Jeongguk’s shoulder. He holds out a hand for the camera and Jeongguk gives it to him; he flips through to the photos Jeongguk took of him.
When he’s done, he turns off the camera and places it in Jeongguk’s lap and pulls his hoodie back over his eyes. “By the looks of your photos, I’d say you like your subject, too.”
Jeongguk’s ears warm up. He flips the digital display into the camera. “My subject.”
“Yes—I meant me.”
“I-I knew that,” Jeongguk says, but nothing more and nothing less. He vows to look through the rest of the pictures and short videos once they’ve uploaded to his laptop.
§
The Royal Ontario Museum is smaller than Jeongguk expected. The museums and art galleries in other cities have been huge, but for once that isn’t the case. In order to get into the Van Herpen special exhibit, they had to also buy a ticket for the regular museum, but the only exhibits they decided to take a look at were the Indigenous and European history instalments. (Jeongguk only found the latter interesting because of all the gold- and silver-laden tableware.) They had decided to save the special exhibit for last, so when they finally arrived at the fashion designer’s temporary exhibit, Namjoon tells Jeongguk that placing the best last left a mild excitement for the rest of the tour. He isn’t wrong.
Almost every piece of runway clothing is a dress—Jeongguk recalls one or two items being a one-piece of some sort, but nothing more than that. There were articles made from 3D printing, acrylic sheets, something called “metal satin,” laser-cut metals and leathers, and this thing called stereolithography resin, among other things. When Jeongguk looks at Namjoon after trying to pronounce the last material in order to practice his English pronunciation, the older boy just smiles at him. Jeongguk can’t help but smile back, preening. “That was almost perfect. Well done.”
When they enter the more recent works—the exhibit only has two sections to it: pre-2015 and post-2015—Namjoon audibly gasps at the feathered dress with bird heads and see-through laser-cut acrylic and Jeongguk can’t help but join him at the one from a collection (of one dress, he thinks) called Aeriform: laser-cut metal spirals that hug the body but also float, suspended, around the head and shoulders and down to the legs.
Jeongguk won’t admit this to anyone: he appreciates the art, but he stares at Namjoon more. He takes a few short videos either while walking behind Namjoon or staying stationary while Namjoon looks around; it’s punctuated with the shutter clicking every so often.
Behind the Aeriform outfit, little plumes of mixed media hang from the ceiling. Some of them click and chatter and light up, and a few stark white, vine-like creations hung closer to the floor.
“Joon-hyung,” Jeongguk calls. Namjoon turns around with raised eyebrows; Jeongguk stops one bout of film content. Instead of saying anything, he just raises his camera up with his left hand and draws an invisible circle in the air with his right index finger. Turn around, it says, and Namjoon does. He crosses his arms over his chest and stands straight and tall, his gaze facing the surreal canopy above him. Jeongguk fixes his camera, adjusts it and himself for the sake of good angles.
“Gukkie.” Namjoon smiles and holds out his hands. “It’s my turn to take photos of you.”
Jeongguk presses his lips together. “But you did that yesterday.”
“And I can’t do it again?”
“I… don’t see why you would.”
“Because I want to, if you’ll let me.” Namjoon takes a few steps closer to Jeongguk and eases the camera out from his iron grip; every shift in touch between their fingers sends a coursing warmth through Jeongguk’s nervous system. With his hands free of his camera, Namjoon beckons Jeongguk to stand in the same place as he just did, treating him the same way in terms of angles and telling him where to put his hand or foot. (Jeongguk would have to edit out the blush in his cheeks at a later date—he knew he was too warm to be considered normal.) The little photo shoot ends in an area walled off from the chittering canopy, giving a pulsing light to a large dome-like object that reminded him of the ending in their DNA music video.
When Namjoon turns the camera off, Jeongguk reaches out for it, but he pulls it away from his grasp. “What if I took pictures of you for the rest of today?” When there’s no response, he adds, “I won’t delete anything.”
“You’re holding my pride and joy in your hands,” Jeongguk says in warning, but his tone is light. “All of my love is in that device.”
“All of it? Including your love for me?”
Jeongguk blinks. It doesn’t register right away, but once it does the warmth from his nervous system had turned into a high-pitched vibrato in his bloodstream. “That one died before I got this camera.”
Namjoon sucks in a breath and grimaces. “Aish, that hurt. I’ll remember that for the next time someone asks me how I feel about you.”
(Maybe every suggestive comment coming out of Namjoon’s mouth is sending Jeongguk reeling in a way he didn’t think was possible. Maybe.)
“Hyung,” he whines. “Why are you making this so difficult?”
“Because there’s art,” Namjoon starts, directing a hand to the DNA-like sculpture, “and then there’s art.” He holds up the camera—which had been turned on sometime between Jeongguk’s begging and Namjoon’s explanation—and takes a single flash photo of candid Jeongguk. He lowers it with a grin on his face. “That means you.”
Jeongguk doesn’t know how to do anything but stare at the man that was once a boy that had been the only reason for him joining BigHit. Namjoon beams at him with his perfect teeth and squinting eyes and all Jeongguk can find himself doing in response is walk closer, hand him the camera’s carrying case, and say: “I want it back for Nuit Blanche tonight.”
§
Five hours later and Jeongguk bounces with excitement at the prospect of the different art forms lighting up Toronto’s downtown core. “We still have so many more pieces we need to check out, hyung. We have to do them all.”
He’s holding a map of the art installations across Toronto. Namjoon stands right behind him, his warm breath forcing Jeongguk’s hair to raise on end, and flips the paper around. “But look at this part. We have to take a shuttle bus and it’s an hour away.”
“Not that stuff. There’s still a lot to do here, and we’ve only seen four of them so far.” The AirBNB they booked was located about five minutes east of Yonge Street by foot, so they thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to begin their night around 9PM. He hands Namjoon the map. “Actually, here. You make the decisions. We’ll take the route you think is best—just don’t start yet.”
“Why—Ah.” Jeongguk uncaps his camera lens. Namjoon dimples. “That’s why.”
“I have to!” He decides to use the digital viewfinder rather than the small screenless one. For the sake of night recording, it makes sense. His finger hovers over the record button. “And…go!”
Jeongguk watches—both through the viewfinder and directly in front of him—as Namjoon points out the exhibits they’ve done, marking them with a pen, and further explains the installations it would be the easiest to visit. They’re currently standing in the middle of Nathan Phillips Square, near the bright white Toronto sign, and so far they had visited four items located around the square: used burlap sacks hung in front of city hall to bring to light trading routes and poor working conditions; backlit cardboard cutouts were strategically placed inside a section of an underground parking garage; large photographs of eight men, waist up but naked and carrying bundles of animal skeletons, were only accessible via one hidden staircase led to the upper centre of city hall; and an underground loading dock was transformed into the ‘Twilight Underground’ where drag queens and confident sensual dancers were themselves on a stage.
There was a fifth art piece, too, near the loading dock. It seemed to be Namjoon’s favourite so far, what with him slowly twirling this way and that with the hanging butterfly-esque wings, all of them a vibrant blue, affected by the soft winds of the night life. Jeongguk got the whole thing on camera. Whether in a video or not, he’s never going to get rid of that footage.
Blue lights make Namjoon look ethereal, but Jeongguk isn’t going to tell him that.
In the end, Namjoon suggests they walk west to Spadina. The lineup for the one they want snakes around the iron gates protecting the property, but from the looks of the exhibit itself, it seems like it would be a worthwhile interactive experience. It takes them over an hour to reach the front of the line, but once they do Jeongguk hears Namjoon let out a low whistle. Long Distance Relationship is a white screen with pastel-neons projected onto it—yet another attraction reminding Jeongguk of their DNA music video—and they’re ushered through as next in line by the worker at the gate. Near the screen, Jeongguk hands one of the other workers his camera. “Please press record,” he says to the guy.
Jeongguk looks at Namjoon. “Who’s going first?”
“I think you should,” Namjoon says, nodding to the screen. And Jeongguk does. (Because Jeongguk would probably go cliff diving if Namjoon asked him to, and Jeongguk doesn’t like cliff diving.)
Once he steps in front of it, a high-pitched sound he didn’t catch the first time around begins to vibrate at a higher frequency with Jeongguk’s body. He moves his arms up and down, lifts one leg, jumps on the spot; when he beckons for Namjoon to join, the frequency changes again. They play around with it for the remainder of the time they have—standing further away from each other, stepping closer, Jeongguk crossing his left foot over Namjoon’s right—
“Fifteen more seconds,” a third guy calls.
Namjoon looks at Jeongguk. “Give me your hand.”
Jeongguk holds it out. The frequency increases. When Namjoon takes his hand and weaves their fingers together, the frequency dies down, and Jeongguk thinks it’s called Long Distance Relationship because the best frequency comes from a single body on screen rather than separate ones. His gaze switches between their hands and Namjoon’s face.
Jeongguk would be damned to the first circle of Hell if the frequency with their held hands wasn’t the most comforting thing he had heard all night. He would be damned to the seventh circle if he didn’t believe that something in Namjoon’s expression tells him the same thing.
Not that he says anything.
The third guy calls time and the second guy hands Jeongguk’s camera back to him. He thanks him before they exit the grounds and catch two more exhibits on their way back to Nathan Phillips. One is a line of police cars with a small, empty dance stage in the middle, and with its message directed at brutality faced by the LGBT, Jeongguk felt an internal swell of pride at the immensity of it. (Next to the burlap sacks, it was one of the largest pieces they had seen all night.)
The second was located in the Cloud Gardens. Although he had been filming everything since they left their AirBNB, he made special care to catch Namjoon walking through the gardens, where small LED lights were placed around the soil in order to cast different glows in various colours on the greenery. Jeongguk knows this raw footage is something he’ll want to show Namjoon when he gets the chance, not only because Namjoon tripped over his own two feet and hit his forehead on one of the trees, but also because Jeongguk snuck in photos of Namjoon in the same smiley position but with different lighting environments.
“I want to go back to an exhibit we already visited, if that’s okay,” Namjoon says, and Jeongguk knows which one he wants to go to, but he just says take me there and pretends it’s a surprise anyways. They return to the Do Angels Exist piece. It’s 2:30 in the morning and the wind is less frequent but when it shows up it’s stronger than earlier. The blue butterfly wings spin and flap aimlessly.
Namjoon takes a seat on the edge of a cement flowerbed and looks up at the wings; Jeongguk stands beside him to catch a better nighttime recording of it all.
“Jeongguk,” Namjoon starts, “do you think angels exist?”
Jeongguk stops his camera from panning the installation. “It’s possible,” he answers after some thought, “but I don’t know what I believe.”
“You look like you have more to say.”
“Not that much more. I believe in fate, though. If fate is woven by angels, then I guess you could say I believe in them, and I can say that they exist somewhere out there.” He looks at Namjoon. “What about you?”
Music pulses from the Twilight Zone exhibit. Jeongguk wonders if the performers take turns twisting out the same stories or if there’s a 12-hour lineup of different people.
“I think they exist,” Namjoon says with a surefire nod. He opens his mouth to speak again but Jeongguk turns the camera towards him and adjusts the lighting before he’s allowed to continue. He lets out a laugh. “Yeah. I was saying I think angels exist and the concept of fate is real and that they go hand in hand. I’m sure that’s what brought us together, right? Here, in this moment. Here, the seven of us, preparing for everything the world has in store. Now we’re here and we have experiences that wouldn’t seem sight if one of us wasn’t with the rest.” He looks directly at Jeongguk’s camera. Jeongguk looks at the Namjoon he sees on the digital viewfinder. “I love that, Guk.”
“I love you, too.” To be fair, it wasn’t supposed to come out like that—in fact, it was never supposed to resurface in Jeongguk’s mouth. But he was looking at the viewfinder, at a Namjoon he was trying to immortalize, and not the living, breathing fellow member that’s been by him since before debut. All he can do is stand there, staring at Namjoon’s now-raised eyebrows through the viewfinder, and smile. Smiling fixes everything in the end, and Jeongguk gives it a push in the right directions. “Dumplings.”
“What?” Viewfinder Namjoon says.
“I love you, Dumplings. I’m speaking to the food. Isn’t there a work that’s several dumpling stalls? I can smell it from here.”
“Ah,” Namjoon stands up. Jeongguk puts his camera on standby mode. “It has to be the food you’re in love with, after all. I can’t smell it, but that just proved that your love for me is just as weak as it was in the past.”
“You got it,” Jeongguk says, following Namjoon as he walks away from the blue wings and into the Dumpling Festival. There are seven white booths with people working and making food under them, and over the booths there are strings of hanging lights that reach from the top of them to the windows of Eaton Centre. It’s only under the lights that it gets so packed that Jeongguk has a difficult time keeping up with Namjoon and filming—but he doesn’t want to stop doing the latter either.
He’s only using one hand to hold up the camera. The other he had shoved into the pocket of his yellow jacket, but suddenly he feels a hand on his arm, tugging him forward, and when he takes his hand out of his pocket he feels Namjoons fingers lock with his. The camera lowers to crowd level, but Jeongguk does his best not to drop the thing—Namjoon leans in close to Jeongguk, lips grazing his ear, when he tells him, “You’re going to get lost if all you do is film. Don’t let go of me, okay?”
“Okay,” Jeongguk says, dazed. He does his best to keep the camera above the crowd again, but the thought of holding Namjoon’s hand in public, for more than ten seconds, eleven seconds, twelve seconds—
They get to the front. Namjoon orders for both of them—Jeongguk wants to melt with the knowledge that Namjoon knows exactly what he likes—and the women behind the stand give them takeout boxes and chopsticks. Namjoon thanks them, but before they leave the stand he asks, “Were there any other dumplings you wanted to try?”
Jeongguk looks around. When he reads the signs, he notices that they’re not all the dumplings he would expect—there’s a stand for “Shanghai wontons” and “Jamaican patties”—but he understands the meaning of the installation. He smiles. “No, the dumplings are enough. But I want to walk through to the opposite end.”
“Make sure you hold your camera high, then.”
“I will.”
Namjoon doesn’t let go of his hand. They walk close to each other and at one point it feels like they drift too much because of the crowd so Namjoon squeezes and tugs him forward again. Jeongguk almost falls into Namjoon’s back. (Not that he would mind.)
They decide to walk past Eatons again and follow side streets on Namjoon’s phone to reach another art piece. There’s a cathedral nearby, and the road is narrow and covered in potholes.
“We’re here.” Jeongguk looks up at the house on their side of the street. It’s small—and allegedly haunted, the sign reads beside it. Photographs faded in and out of the first floor windows. They leaned over the white picket fence and watched as they changed.
Jeongguk doesn’t know how long they stood there for, but it felt like nothing and an eternity at the same time. It’s only when his fingers twitch that he realizes Namjoon was still holding his hand, but the last thing he wanted was for that to stop.
No one is near them; it’s secluded and it’s a small piece of art. Jeongguk tugs at their hands. “Can we sit and eat the food? My stomach was growling on the way here.”
Their hands separate and a chill washes over Jeongguk’s hand. They sit on the edge of the sidewalk, wedged between two parked cars. Jeongguk tucks his camera back into its cover, finally turned off and receiving its well-deserved rest. Namjoon hands him the take out container. “Ah, it’s so warm… it feels good on a night like this.”
“I can imagine. Here—chopsticks.”
“Thanks.” He digs the wooden utensils into the steam and has to hold back a moan at how delicious the dumpling tastes. It melts in his mouth. He exhales with steam. “It’s a good thing we’re still sort of running on Korean time. I would have passed out on the street a while back.”
“I know. The dumplings are good, but the time zones are making me crave a whole meal. It’s”—he checks his phone—“4AM now. What would be open at this time?”
Jeongguk shrugs. “Fast food, if anything. We can grab it on the way back from the art.”
“Maybe we will. But you have to get something, too.”
“Deal.” Jeongguk juts his chin at the dumplings. “Savour this food until we go there.”
They eat the rest of their food in blissful silence. He’s poking at the last dumpling—if he eats this, they’ll be gone—when Namjoon’s voice has him freeze up. “Were you serious back there?”
He stops poking. Steam escapes the dough. He doesn’t want to say anything, but he should have known this would happen. “Yeah, I was,” he finally says. He doesn’t look up. “It never really went away, hyung. And I’m sorry.”
Namjoon doesn’t reply for what feels like too long, and that’s how he knows there’s a chance their dynamic will change. He picks up the last dumpling and pops it into his mouth. No steam was left.
“Guk.” Jeongguk swallows his dumpling and continues to stare at the empty container. “Look at me for a second.”
He holds back a sigh and turns his head. “What—”
There’s a pressure on his lips that wasn’t there just seconds before, and Jeongguk, eyes still wide in surprise, registers a few seconds too late that Namjoon is kissing him. They’re kissing. This is in response to his confession from earlier, but it’s okay . His eyes flutter closed and he presses back against Namjoon. He hears long-distance-relationship-frequency echo through his head, and nothing feels more comfortable to Jeongguk than that.
Namjoon pulls back and a small whine escapes Jeongguk’s lips (which, to be fair, neither of them saw coming, and Jeongguk’s face has never warmed up as fast as in that moment). He opens his eyes again to see Namjoon, his face still close by, his smile still present and warm. “I’ve wanted to do that this entire trip.”
§
“Ah—these are ours.” Jeongguk slips into the window seat, as per custom. Namjoon takes the aisle seat and unclips his neck pillow from his back. Once comfortable, Jeongguk slips off his shoes, crosses his legs, and turns on his music. Once they’re in the air and the seatbelt sign blinks off, he pulls his laptop out. Jeongguk uploaded the files from the weekend trip to it before they left their AirBNB; when they land in Seoul again, he plans to finalize the details and post it on their Youtube.
Jeongguk knows he tends to have difficulty sleeping until the plane is in the air, so it’s no surprise when he rests his head on Jeongguk’s shoulder and peer at the screen. “What are you working on?”
He shuts his laptop, but this time not out of embarrassment from looking at plane tickets for Toronto—there’s excitement, a mild nervousness, and a blooming happiness that must have been there before the weekend but it never registered with Jeongguk until then. “Nothing of importance.”
“You closed your laptop so it must be of importance.” Namjoon runs his thumb over the edge of the laptop.
“I’m editing,” Jeongguk admits, watching the thumb with a smile, “but I don’t want you to see it yet.”
“I want to sleep on your shoulder. I’ll take out my eye mask?”
“Okay.” Jeongguk waits until the mask is out and settled on Namjoon’s eyes. When he opens his laptop again, the first enlarged photo in his gallery is of Namjoon, wide-eyed, with a burger from their fast food trip at 5 in the morning.
They had talked about the kiss for a little while after it happened—consisting mostly of Jeongguk asking questions of when and how and even why —but they haven’t kissed since, and they haven’t talked about what they’re going to say to the other members yet. Maybe the kiss was left behind with the old photographs switching themselves in and out of the Mackenzie House windows.
Jeongguk decided that even if nothing happens, he’ll know of reciprocity, at the very least. He only edits for another forty-five minutes before saving the file as G.C.F in Toronto . As gently as possible, he lifts Namjoon’s head and tucks his laptop into its sleeve, and adjusting himself in order to take Namjoon’s lead and sleep. (The only difference is that he rests his head on top of Namjoon’s. Flyaway hairs are soft and tickle his cheek.)
Editing can wait. Tomorrow, tomorrow.