Work Text:
Namjoon has that expression of pure concentration on his face, the one that sits heavy on his features, eyes a bit wider, brows a bit furrowed. The furrow deepens as he presses on play again, hears the beat flow from the headphones right into his ears and then echo in his skull. His eyes look on the screen, the drop on the notebook on the desk, his handwriting talking to him.
Once the beat stops, Namjoon leans back against his chair and sighs while closing his eyes. It's not working. The beat is good and he knows the lyrics are good too but the two don’t get along, clashing swords on a battlefield. He can feel the weight of the battle on his shoulders, the way each note and each word lies on him like a cloak. It should irritate him, maybe even frustrate him, but somehow he can only feel tired, the hours fallen on the ground all around him piling up in the ruins of columns. He feels a bit like this, like he’s wandering among ruins, searching for missing pieces in the desolation of it all.
Namjoon sighs again, opens his eyes and gets back to work, to arranging and rearranging things until they sound nothing like themselves, until it feels like he’s created fifteen different beats in the fraction of second. But it’s been hours and wrong beats all day. He's so absorbed into it that he doesn’t notice another presence. Soft mellow edges of a guest slipping into his studio, glaring at his crushing shoulders and cursing the weight of the world sitting on them. Namjoon doesn't notice, keeps on working, eyes and all the corners of his mind focused on all these cacophonous and paltry ill notes.
Until the music suddenly gets fainter, fades from his mind and comes to a stop, a couple of hands taking his headphones off and–
“Hyung?”
“Namjoonie.” Yoongi’s voice is careful on his skin, comes at him one letter at a time like a caress. It sounds like a good song, his voice. Namjoon forces himself to tear his eyes away from the screen and to look at Yoongi. And Yoongi looks like– Yoongi. Tired features but memories of softness engraved everywhere, a bit of affection in the space between his brows, a grain of fondness in the crook of his neck, a snip of longing at the corners of his lips. Namjoon bites down the blush creeping on his cheeks, uninvited spring blooming out of season.
“What are you doing here, hyung?”
“How’s work going?” Namjoon glances at the screen again, glares at it until he feels the back of his eyes burn. When he looks again at Yoongi he’s still burning, little wild fires blossoming inside of his chest. Different reasons, good reasons. Yoongi is always a good reason. He sighs though, closes the notebook and sighs again. He's been doing that a lot today.
“Not going. I feel like I’m here trying to grab notes from a different atmosphere. It's impossible and when I manage to touch them, they’re all crumpled and sick looking.” His words have a tired cadence to them, as if laying them down for Yoongi to hear is draining. He doesn’t need to look at Yoongi into his eyes to know that the other is looking at him in that way of his, with a couple too many stars falling from them and staining his fingertips with stardust. Yoongi looks at him like that sometimes. Namjoon doesn’t dwell on what it means. He'd like to, considers doing it sometimes, but it’s easier to not think, because that way the daggers in throat don’t threaten to hurt him.
Yoongi puts his hands on the chair, spins it until Namjoon is completely facing him and not his desk. He then shoves a cup of coffee in his face, waits for Namjoon to take it.
“Did you take a break today?”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” And it’s true, Namjoon didn’t take his mind off of that for the whole day. He glances at the clock, notices it’s been more hours than he initially thought.
“Thank you, hyung.” Yoongi looks away, pretends to ignore the sincere gratefulness in Namjoon’s voice just so that he can take it when the other’s not looking and conserve it. Yoongi prefers to do things this way, with his quiet affection that spills from everywhere, from his fingers and his lips, so loud in its careful lull. Namjoon prefers to pretend he doesn’t notice, even though he bites with his teeth on everything Yoongi says, does, touches, breathes, and lets it sleep under his tongue.
Namjoon sips his coffee, lets the warmth of it flow and settle comforting in his stomach, while Yoongi plops on the couch and then drags his legs up. He looks– soft. Soft and so adorable it makes Namjoon want to giggle or, worse, coo at him. He brings the cup to his lips in an attempt to hide the sheepish smile that breaks his lips, then takes another sip.
“Jungkookie is working on his mixtape. He asked me for some help with a track and let me listen to a couple of others too. He's doing a great job.”
“He let you listen? When I asked him if I could he almost fainted on me. He has such a soft spot for you.” Namjoon knows that there’s no need to point it out, they all know Jungkook feels the less vulnerable when he’s with Yoongi, but he says that anyway entirely selfish purposes. So that now he can look at Yoongi scoffing and trying to bite down a smile. It's endearing and Namjoon loves it, loves collecting images of Yoongi and putting them to rest in the spaces between his ribs. That way he’s closer to his heart.
“Anyway,” Yoongi says, tries to change the topic to something that isn’t him, “I was reading one of the books you suggested me but there’s something bugging me.”
Namjoon gets interested immediately, so when Yoongi poses his doubts Namjoon takes them on his palms, studies them with all the care in the world and straightens their edges, explains. It's a double win for Yoongi, this way Namjoon can take a break from the burdensome chaos of work, and Yoongi can listen to Namjoon talk. Listen to the way he puts down every single word with meticulously calculated care, all of them for Yoongi to grab and press against his own lips, to suck on like they were hard candies. He watches the way Namjoon’s hands follow the motion of the words, help them to get out and reach Yoongi, and in all honesty it’s a pretty sight, like the rest of Namjoon is, with his honey-like features and summer sunset warmth on display on his lips and flushing cheeks.
Once Yoongi can’t find it in himself to drag the topic any longer, every recess of it explored and twisted in any sort of way, he decides it’s enough. He gets up and stretches. Namjoon blushes. Deep cherry pink blossoming on his cheeks in quick motions like wanting waves. It still doesn’t make sense to him how Yoongi can have such a power, to turn even the most trivial and mundane gesture into a heart-stealing art gallery. Not that he minds, hiding pieces of his heart into the pockets of Yoongi’s clothes. They're all his anyway.
“If you work again for seven hours straight, next time I'll come with no coffee and a kick ready for you. Prepare your shins.” Namjoon laughs, deciphers the silences in between each letter and takes to heart the fond care Yoongi seems to reserve for him. It makes him feel special, like there’s a small room in one of Yoongi’s ventricles just for him to come rest in. It's so hard to fight the loudly betraying blush that lingers on his skin whenever Yoongi is around. Sometimes he wishes he’d stop visiting him so that he could recover and extinguish the fires of his skin. Sometimes he wishes Yoongi would live here– whether by here he means the studio or his soul, Namjoon doesn’t know. He could probably die of overheat if Yoongi stayed near him for longer than he already does, he could probably grow cherries from his veins if Yoongi stepped a little closer and let his heart be touched.
Yoongi walks over, ready to leave Namjoon to his work again. He grabs the empty cup from the desk, seems to weight it on his hands like he’s searching for remains of Namjoon on it. He looks at Namjoon, prepares the little see you later on his lips. Leans in.
Kisses his cheek.
Yoongi kisses Namjoon’s cheek. No big deal, it has happened before anyway.
Not like this, Namjoon thinks. Not this– easy . Easy like it’s the only thing to do, natural gesture breaking nothing, easy gesture sitting where it should, where it belongs. Never this intimate .
Namjoon proceeds to give up and blush the deepest he can. And Yoongi would like to point it out and laugh, make him laugh, but he’s sort of too busy stalling, marble statue that has lost its way to the museum. Namjoon would like to keep him here. But he’s too preoccupied about setting fire to his own skin, cheeks and neck and even ears blushing with the prettiest hue of winterish sunset. He brings his hands to his face like he always does when he’s embarrassed, hides behind tingling fingers, fights the fluster with his whole face.
It stings. The press of Yoongi’s lips on his skin. Not it a bad way, more like the way a blueberry could sting your tongue with its delicate sweetness. And he’s oh so embarrassed and oh so flustered and yet smiling oh so widely, all the saving of his happiness spent on Yoongi. And oh. Oh. Oh, so in love.
Namjoon can’t see the way Yoongi smiles, counts all the different ways in which Namjoon’s heartbeat dances, all the loud thoughts that write themselves on the back of his hands for Yoongi to read.
“Don’t overwork or else,” Yoongi says. Leaves the studio. Physically only.
Once Yoongi is out of his studio Namjoon finds it in himself to lower his hands and peak into the room, sort of expecting for Yoongi’s shadow to be still there, lingering around. Namjoon finally picks up his heartbeat from where it has fallen on the floor at his feet, urges his bloodstream to unfreeze from where it has fallen asleep on his face and rush to the rest of his body too.
At a certain point he manages to construct his thoughts into things that make sense and have more coherence than fuck do I love him wild berries lips want to taste miss him already miss him always .
When Namjoon puts his headphones on again, the beat falls and rises up like a phoenix when he touches it, flows the good way. All the notes are the right ones now, embrace the words with the same easiness Yoongi left an evergreen sign of his lips on Namjoon’s skin.
–
Yoongi shows up the next day too.
This time Namjoon is prepared. He felt the mix of anticipation and nervousness tingle in all his muscles as soon as the clock signed that he was indeed working for way too long. It's not like he can help it, as much as he knows it’s unhealthy and tiring and stressful, the urging rush of excitement that plays drums with his vertebras just makes him want to work more, write more, create more. It's addictive, the endorphins that poison his bloodstream each time he writes a good line, when he finds the right combination for a beat. As good as his creative drug can be, it makes him lose track of time sometimes, his mind and body sinking into the ink of the night, sleeping hours replaced by notes and words and silences.
And Yoongi knows. Cares. So, he comes to visit, drags him out of his awake slumber with his bony and butter sweet fingers. He brings another cup of coffee today and a piece of cake with it. He sees the way Namjoon’s eyes lit up, fails to decipher whether it’s because of him or the sweet. But Yoongi takes what he can, smiles at Namjoon and shoves the cup in his face again.
He takes the plate with the cake with himself though. He moves out of Namjoon’s reach when he extends his hands, sits down on the couch. This, Namjoon wasn’t prepared for. Yoongi cocks his eyebrow and looks at Namjoon. He waits for him but he stubbornly will not ask for him to get his ass up from the chair and come sit with him. Maybe he doesn’t need to though. Maybe Namjoon knows Yoongi better than himself, better than anything really, and knows how to read all the gentle curves and delicate edges of his features. Namjoon reads Yoongi. Yoongi exists, like a poem.
Thus, Namjoon stands up too, pretends to be able to make his wobbly noodles of limbs work just fine, and manages to sit down on the couch too. Except that he sits way too far from Yoongi, it’s inches but it feels like heavy miles. Who would have guessed, that distance can feel so suffocating?
Namjoon elegantly proceeds to have a life crisis. It's a very serious matter and all so condensed in his bones that no traces show on his face. Serious matter. Should he move closer? They’re best friends, it’s weird to keep distance between them anyway. But what if Yoongi is okay like this and would find it weird if Namjoon suddenly scooted closer? And if Yoongi is bothered by the distance? If he thinks Namjoon doesn’t feel comfortable?
“Joonie?” Lullaby of a word, it dances on Yoongi’s tongue like the ballerina of a carillon.
“Yeah?”
“I was reading this book about philosophy and there’s this one philosopher, Gorgias, I don’t seem to understand what he says. Would you help me?” Yoongi asks like he needs to, like Namjoon wouldn’t exile himself in zero atmosphere if Yoongi asked him to, wouldn’t give up on his heartbeat if Yoongi asked him to write a song just for him.
It all happens gradually and painfully naturally. The way they end up leaning close close close , so close Namjoon fears Yoongi will hear his storm loud heartbeat and read it the wrong right way, will see the flush hiding right behind his left ear waiting to creep out and betray his sort of poorly contained adoration for Yoongi. It's borderline ridiculous this deep adoration Namjoon has built for Yoongi, for the soft curve of his lips, the deep drag of his voice, the tender inflections of the syllables that fall from his lips, the soothing ink of his pupils, the comforting warmth of his hands. The way they end up sharing the cake, hands brushing accidentally on purpose. The way it tastes like home, Yoongi voice falling onto his lips and past them.
Eventually, the cake finishes, Yoongi can’t pretend anymore to not understand what went on in the heads of ancient Greeks, and Namjoon really needs to finish the track. He glances at Yoongi, tries to impress into his memory the honey of his hair under the lights of the studio, the gentle flush of his cheeks, the so damn kissable pout of his lips. His brain suggests him to kiss the pout away. Namjoon tells his brain to kindly shut the fuck up.
“You didn’t kick my shins. Thought you’d keep a promise, hyung,” he says instead. Yoongi hits him lightly on the shoulder and laughs.
“Next time.” It’s a promise. Namjoon’s not sure what Yoongi’s promising, but his heart yearns to find out. Maybe this time he will allow himself to think, to read deeper into the way the words are lied down so carefully he can feel their heat against his skin, the way Yoongi’s gaze plays chasing games, jumps from his eyes to the bridge of his nose, from his brows to his hands, from his eyelashes to his lips. Lingers for too long, lingers everywhere, eats all of him.
Yoongi takes the empty plate and cup in his hands, looks around to check if he’s missing something. He moves, about to stand up and leave studio. Yoongi leans in.
Kisses Namjoon on the space between his brows.
This, Namjoon wasn’t prepared for. The spring warm blush that was waiting for something like this jumps out from its hiding spot and carefully paints Namjoon’s entire face, runs down his neck all the way down his chest. Yoongi’s eyes fall on his exposed collarbones, he studies the shade of pink of them, seems to be considering something. Licks his lips.
Namjoon dies. Sort of. He considers it a nice way to go, with the saccharine memory of Yoongi’s lips on his skin.
Yoongi smiles timidly, Namjoon blushes more, furiously. Maybe he should consider surrendering and allowing the embarrassment to change his skin tone, turn him into a little cherry. He does feel like one, little red thing, vulnerable and soft like a spring morning. His features break and rearrange themselves into a masterpiece of adoration and happiness and embarrassment, it lasts only a couple of seconds before he hides behind his hands. Namjoon prays that his heart will eventually stop playing magic tricks in his chest, it gets sort of worrisome when it stops beating all together like that.
He's so busy having the second life crisis in the span of, like, an hour that he doesn’t notice Yoongi standing up. Until the other calls him from the door, hand already on the doorknob and nostalgia already swimming in the white of his eyes.
“Namjoonie?”
“Yeah?” Yoongi chuckles. Namjoon realizes it’s because of the way his voice sounds strained and ridiculously high pitched. The prettiest sound.
“Next time.” Namjoon doesn’t understand. Loves he sound of it anyway.
“Okay, Yoonie hyung.”
–
They fall into a sort of routine after that. Namjoon works and waits. Yoongi visits and lingers, brings something along. It's a coffee and conversation at most times, at others it’s a carefully wrapped fragment of his heart that Namjoon never seems to unwrap, too scared to tore something into irreparable pieces. They talk, about whatever topic Yoongi chooses as an excuse for the day. They hide, secrete all the things they aren’t brave enough yet to say in the silences between each letter, sparkles of fond adoration entangled in each syllable, gentle hues of love in the too saying lingering touches, lingering gazes.
And then, before leaving, Yoongi rigorously and without missing a single day, kisses Namjoon. Cheek, the space between his brows, forehead, eyelids, the one inch too far from the corner of his lips, cheekbone, nose. Namjoon rigorously and without missing a single day, blushes so deep he starts worrying whether he’s going to consume all of his blood like this, gentle spring painting itself on his face, neck, all the day down to his toes even.
Yoongi wonders how would it be, to see. To touch. Sometimes, when he feels braver, to taste. He wants to know Namjoon, to study the blush of his skin with his fingertips in delicate motions, barely there touches, with his lips, gentle and butterfly fragile. And each day he leaves Namjoon’s studio with the promise of next time . Namjoon doesn’t know what it means, Yoongi knows he says it mostly to himself, pretending courage where there’s none.
And each day when he leaves Namjoon’s studio and Namjoon feels more enamoured than the day before. It should be impossible, to store so much blazing love in all the spaces within him, the ones between his ribs, the ones between his fingers, the ones between his heartbeats, the ones between his breaths. It should be impossible to witness it grow each day more, feel his veins give up on blood to let Yoongi’s honey voice flow instead, warm him all so much that winter curls on itself and goes die in a corner.
Namjoon waits for Yoongi every day. He hangs onto their shared conversations, shared space and shared breaths. Onto the image of Yoongi curled up onto his couch, hair a bit messy – it makes him wonder if it would look the same if they woke up next to each other – lips raspberry pink – they make him wonder if they taste of berries too, or maybe something entirely different, something along the lines of stardust and love – always talking hands – they make him wonder how would it feel to let them rest on his chest, to feel them against his skin hot hot hot . Namjoon reads Yoongi and then he reads himself, finds out the loudest yet quietest thing his soul has to say is I love you.
He waits for the kisses. Too. Especially. If he doesn’t allow himself to dwell onto them for too long then they feel like a guessing game, which spot is next, where will Namjoon have to start from to collect his tousled heartbeat, where will Yoongi mark him next. And when Yoongi leaves Namjoon searches for the signs of his lips, because it feels so achingly real, the sweet sweet memory of them. If he allows himself to think, he thinks he’s done for. Now that Yoongi has kissed all these little parts of him Namjoon will never be the same, he will carry around the sign of his lips onto his skin, a cemetery of evergrowing flowers. He feels in love, each time more, each time anew.
–
“Why did Taehyung call me to tell me about a table? He kept mentioning your name but I didn’t understand half of what he was saying.” Namjoon is taking his daily break. Yoongi forcefully coerced him into taking one, what a cruel punishment. Namjoon really can’t stand this. He shows so, with his ridiculous blush and his uncontainable smiles and that warmth that spreads all over his body and all the way down to his bones, to his soul. It feels like home. Yoongi does.
“I might have assembled a table for him.” Namjoon already knew about Yoongi’s hobby for handcraft, but it really is fascinating anyway as if it’s his first time hearing about it. He thinks about Yoongi’s hand, wonders how would they work with his skin instead of wood. A shiver runs down his spine. “I might also have bought it for him. Maybe. Can’t recall.”
Namjoon would like to kiss him. It hits him. He sort of subtly thinks about it all day every day, a little thought lurking in a corner of his mind. He thinks about it even when he’s not, the same way one breathes without reminding themselves to. But every time Yoongi does this , this loving deeply in his endless quiet loud ways, it hits him like a momentous revelation. Shit, I'm in love with him. Fuck if I want to kiss him, want him to kiss me. Want him.
But their break seems to be over, because Yoongi stirs, stretches on the couch trying to rearrange his limbs into something functioning again. Namjoon feels his heart dropping low in his stomach, he wonders for a second if it’s humanly possible to accidentally eat one own’s heart. It probably is not. He worries anyway. Namjoon doesn’t want Yoongi to leave, even if he knows he’ll come back tomorrow, even if they technically live together. Namjoon doesn’t want to breathe if he can’t inhale the vanilla and summery sunset scent of Yoongi’s presence. Thus, when Yoongi moves to taint Namjoon’s face with the daily kiss, Namjoon acts without thinking, which seems to be quite possibly the best idea he’s ever had in his entire life till this moment, and grabs Yoongi by his waist. Hold him in place, grounds him to his studio. Holds him.
It obviously takes Yoongi by surprise and for an entire fraction of a second Yoongi looks absolutely starstruck. That‘s probably the most fitting word, because his eyes meet Namjoon’s and Namjoon thinks he can count a handful of stars in them, engraved in everything that is purely Yoongi. Then, Yoongi smiles. Namjoon feels suddenly groundless, he thinks if he lets go of Yoongi he’ll find out all the gravity from his studio has been taken away and he’ll start floating around.
Yoongi leans in.
Yoongi kisses Namjoon. He kisses his cheek, like the first time. Namjoon trembles.
He kisses the space between his brows, like the second time. Namjoon hears his heart stopping, readjusting and matching Yoongi’s.
Yoongi kisses his cheekbones, one at a time. He keeps his eyes closed like he knows Namjoon by memory, every inch of him engraved into his aortas. Namjoon feels feverish.
He kisses his eyelids. Namjoon can feel his blood warming so much his whole body is on fire. He worries he’s going to set his own studio on fire.
Yoongi’s hands follow his lips, fingers touching every kiss left as if engraving it on Namjoon’s skin, tattoos of little bits of love.
Yoongi kisses the corner of his lips. Namjoon dies. Or comes alive. It's one of the two and both, really.
“Yoongi– Hyung–” He feels Yoongi smile against his lips, so close they’re breathing the same air. Holding the same breath, actually.
“Joonie. I really want to kiss you right now. Always. But now in particular.” Each word falls right onto Namjoon’s lips, so close he can taste them, feel their sweetness melt on his tongue like cotton candy. He keeps his eyes closed, mentally counts his breaths, gets slightly worried when he can’t hear them. He counts Yoongi’s then, quickening but steady like Yoongi is in his insecure confidence, his quiet loud love. Namjoon tightens his hands on Yoongi’s waist, feels the skin underneath the clothes ignite him while Yoongi’s hands are now resting shaking calmly on Namjoon’s shoulders.
“Please,” Namjoon finally whispers. Yoongi smiles again against his lips, Namjoon’s whole body shivers, seems to finally have come home. “Now. Always.” They’re so close now their lips touch when he speaks.
Yoongi kisses Namjoon. Namjoon reads Yoongi, reads into the soft press of his lips, the gentle firmness of the kiss, the sweet of his tongue. They kiss and kiss and kiss, both kind of terrified the world is going to crumble on top of them as soon as they part, hence they can’t. Can't let go of each other, can’t give in to the painful screaming of their lungs when there’s no air left to breathe.
Eventually Yoongi does, parts, both too breathe and too see Namjoon’s reaction. But Namjoon follows, lets the world break and fall at their feet, stain his studio. He searches for Yoongi’s lips again, feels goosebumps dance to articulated waltzes on his skin when Yoongi smiles into the kiss, then kisses back eagerly, hardly, wanting. Namjoon feels like he stops wandering aimlessly around devastated ruins and finally comes back home.
They kiss. Then kiss again. Then again, for good measure.
Yoongi doesn’t leave this time. He stays in Namjoon’s studio. With Namjoon, where he belongs.
Namjoon reads Yoongi, Yoongi exists like love.