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it'd taken him seven months.
it'd taken him seven months -- over half a year spent dangling on a fraying string, wondering if he should leave.
it'd taken him seven months, to cut the string himself, to wring and pull back on it when it tried to drag him back -- it'd taken him seven months to leave and it's seven months later, when namjoon stands before him, and asks -- "hyung, will you go on a date with me?"
he blinks. hands slowly moving to rest the stack of freshly-marked worksheets back down, down on the surface of his tidied desk.
namjoon is looking at him, still -- the man stood before his desk, seokjin's lunch hooked around his arm in a plastic bag. there's a slight flush to his face, a pink tint to his cheeks -- his smile sweet, hesitant, handsome.
"you don't have to give an answer right now," the younger teacher says, a little softer than before. his eyes have dropped down now, pretending to do something with the bag in his hands. he moves to set it down on his desk, too -- the styrofoam pack still warm, clothed in red. "or at all, i mean --" he glances back up, quick enough to be considered a peek, up at seokjin. "ah, jeongguk told me i should just give it a try, the bastard --" he laughs a little, maybe to himself. quiet, a hand moving up to scratch at his ear. "i think you're -- wonderful," he flushes again. an embarrassed dip of his head. "and, if you'd give me a chance, i'd like to get to know you better." he staples it on to the back of his sentence -- "but you can say no, of course. i just -- think about it, yeah?"
seokjin blinks, once more. lowers the pile of papers to lay it flat down, on his table.
"i will," he says finally. soft, softer, when he goes -- "thank you, namjoon-ah."
"okay," namjoon breathes out. dimples, embarrassed, coming out of hiding to press fingers into reddened cheeks. letting go of the plastic bag, finally -- both hands finding each other, linking over his front, before changing course to fiddle with his hair. "yeah -- yeah, i'll go, then," a hesitant, hopeful pause. "i'll -- see you around?"
"yeah," seokjin says again, soft. smiles back, small, but real. "you will."
(namjoon goes, but it echoes in his head for the rest of the day -- for the rest of the week, a steady, persistent murmur in the back of his head, bouncing off every wall.)
("i think you're -- wonderful," it repeats. seokjin blinks, and then shakes his head a little, like a dog trying to stop itself from dripping water all over the floor.)
it doesn't take much, he wants to tell him. seokjin has always had the bad habit of laying his heart out, bare, and it doesn't take much at all. but, it's been seven -- and then seven more, long months, spent fighting a war his enemy knew nothing about -- his heart sits, now, stuffed into the back shelf.
(he doesn't know if he quite remembers how to bring it back down, how to hold it in his palm like he was so used to doing before.)
"i think you should do it," jimin tells him, through a mouthful of rice, later.
the air is warm -- the kind of humid, late-summer sun dwindling in the sky. their having their lunch late, as usual -- sat an an outdoor, sheltered picnic bench, two teachers admist groups of students rushing between classes.
he moves to rest his elbows on the edge of the table -- lashes fluttering soft, brushing auburn onto raised cheekbones. jimin continues.
"i mean -- you don't have to commit to anything at all," he points out, voice muffled by his chewing. if seokjin were anyone else, he'd tell the younger off for speaking with his mouth full -- but he isn't, so he only blinks at him, letting his head loll until his cheek rests in the enclave of his right palm. "if it doesn't work out, or doesn't make you feel good, you could always just leave it at that," he pauses. "anyway, namjoon-hyung's.....a nice guy. from what i know, he's liked you for a long time, hyung." he pauses again, this time looking up to search seokjin's face for something. "it's been a while since..." he trails off, glancing back down at his food. "i'm just saying, you don't have to if you don't want to, but giving a shot might bring some good, y'know?"
seokjin knows.
he knows, that it's been a while. (seven months, seven months.) he knows, that he can't keep himself hidden away forever -- he knows, that it's absolutely unreasonable, to think that everyone else were the same as he had been.
he knows, that jimin's right. namjoon -- namjoon is lovely -- but also, so -- much.
they'd first met a year ago. seokjin, a food sciences professor in the university a few years long. namjoon, crashing into the staffroom on his very first day -- hair slicked back with his dress shirt, smile embarrassed and dimpled and handsome and everything, everything -- he'd brought his things in, not quite knowing where to put them all down. (seokjin had been there, too-early like always, tired and bruised but showing him where his desk was anyway. laughing, soft, when the new literature teacher had thanked him but then fumbled with his boxes.)
they were an alright kind of close. seokjin was only beginning to learn open up, to more than just one person -- he was learning how to move by himself, learning how to run and jump and leap and fly without the constraint of ropes tied tight around his wrists -- and namjoon, namjoon was kind. he doesn't think the younger quite knows the full story, but it doesn't seem to matter to him. namjoon buys him lunch when he's cooped in the office marking papers, eats with him when jimin's occupied with class and fills the hesitant silence between them with ramblings about what his students wrote in a paper the other day that was absolutely brilliant, they can be so clever, sometimes -- and little, little things, like how excited he was to be teaching his favourite book the next week, like asking, quiet but not intrusively, whether he'd slept well last night, if he'd been taking time for himself, because it's important not to overwork yourself, hyung --
yeah. a lot has changed, since the first time they'd met -- he remembers how namjoon'd looked, that day, dressed smartly enough to give light to the nervousness that was seeping from the cracks in his bones, new and awkward and sweet and hardworking.
he'd reminded him a bit of a student, actually. young, freshly-thrown into work. a little gangly and embarrassing and bright, so bright.
(now he's, well --)
seokjin clears his throat. swallows, once, before picking his half-eaten burger back up again.
"i'll think about it," he repeats. (soft, drowned out beneath the sound of rushing air.)
--
the doors swing open a minute early.
students begin pooling out -- stuffing laptop bags beneath their arms, some in pairs, groups, some alone -- a couple of his own students greet him, a little surprised but laughing, waving, far too informal. (seokjin waves back.)
he peeks in through the doors again, once the gush has slowed to a trickle -- a hand steady on the bag slung over his shoulder, eyes not having to flicker far before they find a head of tan hair and glasses. namjoon's stood behind the desk, where the downward slopes of folding seats meet -- saying something to a student, laughing as they turn to leave, notes in hand.
cautious, seokjin makes his way towards him, quiet on every step down. the room grows quiet as the last student steps out, door creaking behind them -- namjoon doesn't quite notice him, caught up in stacking papers together, until seokjin comes to a stop before him and coughs, soft.
the younger professor startles.
"hyung," he says -- a warm, clear croak, almond eyes blinking wide. "hey."
"i just wanted to ask," seokjin blurts out, before he can back out of it. barreling on, he goes, a hand curled around the sling of his tote like it helped anchor him down in some way, "if your...offer, still stands."
"ah," namjoon says. blinking, face seeming to redden underneath the warm, bright lights of the auditorium. "i --" his voice cracks. he clears his throat, pinkening again. (hesitant, hopeful.) "of course it does."
(this is unbelievable. seokjin still can't quite wrap his head around it. kim namjoon -- kim namjoon, sweet and handsome and smart and silly, in the best ways possible -- likes him?)
he swallows.
"okay," he says, softer now. clutches the stack of books in his left hand. "when were you -- when is alright for you?"
a beat. "wednesday," namjoon rushes out. sounding a little choked and oh-so-surprised, like he can't quite believe this is happening. (seokjin wants to yell at him, wants to shake him hard by the shoulders and tell him, i should be the dumbstruck one, you --) "is 2 in the afternoon okay?"
he shouldn't have to ask. seokjin knows he knows, knows his schedule like the back of his hand. (but namjoon asks, so he answers.)
"yeah," he replies. shifts on his feet and exhales. "yeah, i'm free. you -- where --"
"i was thinking, a cafe?" namjoon says -- careful, tentative. "there's a new one that just opened nearby, it's -- i mean, we could always go somewhere else, if it's too --"
"of course," seokjin interrupts. "i -- that sounds great," he pauses. presses his lips together, soft and a little hesitant, before continuing, "i'd like going to a cafe with you, namjoon-ah."
"oh," the taller answers. blinks at him, before flushing all shades of red. "that's -- good. yeah. we'll do that, then," he stutters.
(seokjin's head feels a little too light.)
he sets an alarm for wednesday-- not that he needs one, but he does anyway. seokjin tells him, over text -- an upfront, uncertain warning, that it might take some time -- that he might take some time, that he hasn't done this in a while.
("that's okay, hyung," he'd messaged him minutes later."this isn't a race. take all the time you need." -- with a smiley face, stapled to the end of it, a :-) that'd made seokjin smile, soft, to himself.)
he takes the bus over, after finishing up his last lecture -- cradling a book in hand, stuffed into a corner of the public bus, checking the number of stops left every few minutes. he has flour dusted into his hair and meringue stained into the hem of his shirt sleeve -- for a student had had trouble at her table during class, and helping it hadn't gone quite well.
(his ex-boyfriend had never liked him wearing this shirt, he belatedly remembers.) trying to brush white off the ends of his fringe, he exhales (and decides that he does).
the bus turns onto an unfamiliar street and he gets off, trailing the route on his google maps until he spots the storefront, a soft pink scrawled in gold.
seokjin doesn't really know what he'd been expecting.
he hadn't been expecting namjoon to be any earlier than he was -- he'd left work with little time to spare, anyway -- but namjoon gets there early. he stands there, leant against the wall next to the glass doors of the cafe, waiting -- hunched over a little as he fiddles with his phone, looking up every once in a while to scan passing crowds.
he looks -- good. handsome. a professor off work, a muted green-grey coat thrown over layers and blue jeans. seokjin swallows.
namjoon spots him when he makes his way over. soft, sharp features brightening with a dimpled, little smile. "hi," he says. almond eyes never quite leaving his face, when he says, "you look nice, hyung."
"you're one to speak," seokjin shoots back, soft. he's smiling too, he realizes -- just a little, growing when namjoon pockets his phone and pushes himself off the wall. "thank you. though, i just came from class, so i don't know how true that is."
"but it is," namjoon says. a soft kind of insistence. "you always look nice."
he huffs, perhaps pinkens a bit -- but doesn't say more.
they make their way in -- the taller holds the door for him and seokjin bites back something soft, instead averting his eyes to trail around the little cafe. it's bustling, but not quite enough to be overwhelming -- the decor simple, the walls painted in gentle pinks and whites.
it's ridiculous. seokjin loves it. (namjoon must've known he would, too.)
"did you wait for long?" he asks, as they slide into a booth in the corner, far from the window, next to a wall lined with old photographs in frames. "i was going to get here earlier, but a student -- y'know, it's complicated. sorry for making you wait."
"no, no, it's okay," namjoon rushes. waves it off with a hand, settling into the seat across from him. their feet brush beneath the table -- namjoon looks at him, searches his face for something, but doesn't move away.
(seokjin doesn't, either.)
"i've got time," the younger says, soft. a little, hopeful, handsome smile on his cheeks, propping his head up with a hand to his temple. "tell me about it."
so seokjin tells him. tells him about how the meringue had been under-beaten, even though he'd specifically said stiff, white peaks, nothing more, nothing less -- how it'd gone flying, the moment the frazzled student'd turned the mixer on, egg white cascading on everyone and everything in a one-meter radius.
namjoon laughs. namjoon laughs, and it's anything but patronizing -- it's loud and it's soft and it's dimpled and it's eye-crinkling. the young professor throws his head back, laughing like a little kid, and something in seokjin's chest seems to stir. (since when had namjoon become this...soft? handsome?)
watching him laugh like that, makes him feel funny, in all senses of the word -- it's a little odd, the feeling of basking in the aftermath of a well-appreciated joke.
(his ex, his ex had never quite found him funny.)
"do you want something to drink, hyung?" namjoon asks, voice cutting through the forming haze of seokjin's thoughts. he blinks, to see the brunet looking at him. "or something to eat, perhaps?" the corner of his lips lift, a teasing glint in his eye. "i heard they make good meringue here."
"oh, please no --" seokjin starts, a laugh bubbling, gentle, out of his chest. he misses the look namjoon gives him, soft and a little bit wondrous, when he buries his face in his hands and groans. "i think i've had enough of that today."
namjoon gets them cake and coffee. seokjin tries to pay for his share but namjoon only waves it off with a sweet, embarrassed laugh.
"it's okay, hyung -- really. i want to treat you, so let me, just this time."
the strawberries are sweet on his tongue, the cream sweeter.
they share stories over the coffee, steam sending soothing wafts from the warm drink into his face. namjoon tells him about what he'd been doing before becoming Professor Kim, teaching young adults literature. (he'd worked in a library for a few years, fiddling with music mixing apps and threading little bits of his day into words, and then paragraphs and then pages that could very well amount to books.) tells him about his family, his sister -- shows him pictures of his dog, complains to him about the syllabus changes this year that were confusing, it was perfectly fine before, why --
seokjin tells him the story of how he'd fallen in love with food,and cooking. tells him about peeking over his mother's shoulder as she prepared dinner every evening, before one day she'd pushed a ladle into his hand and told him to watch the soup. he tells him about his friends, and jimin, and when namjoon raises an eyebrow and starts to tell him about min yoongi, you know, the one who teaches music production in 3B? seokjin only leans in and laughs, nods in agreement that they should really get their shit together and stop pretending they weren't absolutely smitten with the other.
talking to namjoon is -- it's easy.
it wasn't usually easy like that. not when the other person was so -- so smart, so perceptive. but namjoon makes it easy. the taller is sweet and kind and funny, he groans at seokjin's jokes but ends up laughing anyway, forehead lolling onto the surface of the table with a soft thump. he asks about his day and listens, really listens, even as seokjin's telling him the most boring, mundane things -- it feels, it feels like he's talking to a friend.
with a mind like that -- heck, with a face like that, it wouldn't've been very difficult at all, to make the people around you feel inferior -- but namjoon, namjoon is sweet and kind and funny and embarrassing, in the softest of ways. he looks down at his hands and laughs at himself, a little, withering huff, whenever he thinks he's done something weird -- seokjin's fingers twitch and he has to hold himself back from doing something stupid, like taking his beautiful goddamn face in his hands and brushing the self-deprecation out of the hair that falls into his face.
(namjoon, namjoon is sweet and kind and funny and handsome and so, so distracting.)
when he arrives at work the next day, pushing the glass door of the staffroom open with his shoulder, the other occupied with the bag in his hands -- namjoon's already at his table.
the younger jumps from where he sits -- red pen in hand, presumably marking papers before class.
"hyung," namjoon blurts out. tan-brown hair falling into his face from his hunched position, face seeming to redden under the staffroom lights. "hey."
"hey," seokjin echoes. lets himself smile, just a little, eyes flickering to the floor as he shuffles over to his desk.
"did you -- did you get home safe?" namjoon asks. pen held still over students' worksheets, ink rushing to stain the metal tip with red. "last evening."
"i did," seokjin answers. soft, looking up to glance at him for a moment. "i had fun. thank you, namjoon."
the air stills. the taller flushes pink.
"i-i'm glad," he blurts out. "i did, too."
the silence falls again -- like a trapeze artist hanging mid-air, arms outstretched between the two.
"rushing papers?" seokjin asks. quirks a pointed eyebrow at the small stack of papers pressed under namjoon's arm -- which seems to remind namjoon that he really, really needs to get back to marking -- the professor huffs, and starts scribbling again, the tip of his pen staining white with a large blot of red.
"yeah," he exhales, still looking down, in some sort of embarrassed way that made it feel like he were hiding from seokjin's gaze. "i couldn't -- couldn't really focus, yesterday."
they leave it like that, as the other teachers begin to trickle in clutching tote bags and coffee tumblers, (seokjin's cheeks pink, namjoon's pinker.)
namjoon doesn't ask him out again.
seokjin is the one who does, when they're eating lunch on the rooftop again, hidden from the sticky, humid sunshine beneath the awning of the staircase landing. namjoon with a ham-and-cheese sandwich, seokjin with a takeaway box of kimchi fried rice that he insists on sharing.
he brings it up quietly, out of cerulean -- a casual, carefully-worded offer to watch the latest sci-fi movie that was showing. the first thing namjoon does is choke, and quite terribly -- hacking up a violent cough as seokjin's face takes on a partly-shy, partly-worried flush, hesitating for a second before he reaches out to pat at the other professor's back.
"are you okay?" he asks. "yes," namjoon replies, (--to the former question, instead of the latter--) his reddened face scrunched up in pain, voice cutting out halfway. "i'd love to, hyung."
so, they go on their second date. it's a saturday evening and namjoon beams when he sees him, nervous but soft and bright. they split their money over popcorn and soda and seokjin's wearing mario socks that make namjoon laugh, genuine and grinning, (like it was ridiculous and he adored it).
he remembers what movies used to feel like. lonely, it usually felt lonely -- sitting in the dark with tickets meant for two -- his ex had never been awake to watch any of them with him. it felt -- it made seokjin feel stupid, sitting across him later during dinner and trying to bring up parts of the movie he was itching to gush about, receiving a few perfunctory nods in return and then a change of topic.
namjoon leans over to whisper in his ear, now. something stupid, something about the protagonist's overdone hair that makes seokjin snicker until the lady sitting in front of him has to shush the both of them. later they catch pizza for dinner and get into an argument about which movie in the series had been the worst so far and seokjin wins, solely because namjoon couldn't stop laughing and had gone so red that they'd decided it was probably in their best interests to stop the debate while they still could.
their third date is at the mall. it hadn't been planned at all, but seokjin'd needed a new sweater and they'd just so happened to be texting just as he prepared to leave the house -- namjoon rushes to meet him, flushed and panting slightly, hair in a mess because he'd barely had time to gather himself and seokjin thinks he looks beautiful. it's 9pm and they're wandering the shops -- making any purchase at all is hard, because with every new piece of clothing he pulls on namjoon pinkens, and then says something about you look good in everything, hyung -- but they manage, and as they're walking out of the mall and cutting through the carpark seokjin realizes he hasn't felt this -- this happy, this contented, in a long time.
he doesn't think, before he's letting his left hand drift far out just enough with the next sleepy swing and he's taking the professor's hand in his, quiet. the night air chills but namjoon's hand is warm and soft and the taller looks so -- so bewildered, and a little bit wondrous -- his sharp eyes are wide and there's a quickly-forming smile on his face, wide and soft and stupid, which he tries to hide with his head down and his eyes to his shoes.
it isn't very effective. seokjin watches namjoon in the dim streetlight-lit darkness of 10pm and decides, decides that he deserves to give himself a second chance.
it takes him seven months.
but it's okay, because namjoon has never been quite good at keeping track of dates. it's been seven months and seokjin is laughing when he gets into the car, recycled textbooks in hand. he waves to his students, sticking his head out of the window, and misses the way his boyfriend looks at him, bright and soft and fond. namjoon drives them home from work and sits in seokjin's living room, spread out over his side of the sofa. jimin and yoongi are on the floor, bickering over what to watch -- jimin's arm thrown around the elder's waist, even as he argues that no, Law and Order is obviously the better one --
the sun drags itself over and behind the hills while they split kimchi fried rice between their little group of four -- they end up with old re-runs of 2000s shows and it's stupid, it's ridiculous, but seokjin hasn't quite stopped smiling for some time now and namjoon is grinning back at him, soft and bright and dimpled and beautiful.
when namjoon puts his plate down and reaches for a tissue it's just to lean over and press a kiss to his forehead, and then another to his lips -- yoongi makes a face, up to the part where jimin giggles and prods at him, cooing, "are you jealous, hyung? we can do that too, y'know --"
there is only laughter, at the sight of yoongi's face. seokjin throws an arm around his boyfriend's shoulder and leans into him -- softly, tenderly, amidst it all. the night is cold and seokjin almost wants to bring the past up, but then namjoon is saying something again, is teasing the couple on the floor and nudging seokjin with a soft look on his face like he wants him to join in on it --
-- so seokjin does. he leans forward like it's a challenge and namjoon is grinning, wide and fond and brilliant, and a little bit like he loves him.
(he exhales, and lets it all go.)