Work Text:
Simply put, everything is turning out to be a disaster.
For one thing, the weather forecast last night said that the skies would be a clear and bright baby blue all over Seoul with a 0% chance of precipitation. But the moment they stepped onto the venue, it turned a complete 180, thunder theatrically crackling in the distance and a seemingly endless fleet of gray clouds rushing in to pour cold, wet rain on their outdoor set-up like an omen he shouldn't ignore. Thankfully, the hotel allowed them to use one of their indoor halls instead since it hadn’t been reserved that day and was completely free for them to use, no extra charge.
Seokjin remembers saying “thank you very much” a lot and bowing like a million times because in his eight years as an event planner, something this big of a complication rarely gets resolved so quickly and easily. But then again, maybe he had been too complacent about the entire thing cause after that, things just went downhill faster than he can say “I do.”
Left and right, his staff has been reporting to him all the things that are falling apart and are about to fall apart. From a significant number of guests (including his and Yoongi’s respective families) getting lost and mistakenly going to the other branch of the hotel on the other side of the city, to the throng of journalists that somehow snuck into the hotel for whatever reason he still can’t comprehend because they literally announced to the entire country on national television that their wedding will be a private event reserved only for a select group of family, friends, and colleagues.
(“Nosy people will continue to stay nosy, I guess,” Yoongi comments nonchalantly as he scrolls through his phone with one hand while his hair is being styled.)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t even get him started on the mix-up with the catering and the open bar. He’s honestly beginning to second guess his abilities as a planner now because of all the events he can majorly fuck up in, it’s his own goddamn wedding .
Jimin gently dabs a tissue paper onto his forehead, urging him to stay seated in front of the vanity because his makeup is yet to be finished and they’ve literally only got an hour and a half before the ceremony starts.
“Just relax, hyung,” the younger attempts to soothe him, rubbing circles into his shoulders. “The stress will be imprinted onto your face and even makeup noona can’t cover that up to the best of her abilities. Remember we’re going for a natural look. So think serene and happy thoughts, yeah?”
He is about to tell Jimin that event planning is about 85% stress and 15% trying not to look stressed so your client will feel at ease when Taehyung suddenly waltzes into the room, a frantic energy to him, and head kept down like he’s looking for something on the floor. Then as if he feels all the eyes in the room watching him, the younger slowly looks up, locks eyes with him, blinks twice, and turns abruptly on his heel, walking briskly in the direction of the open door while muttering under his breath, “Wrong room. Wrong room. Wrong room.”
His bullshit senses heightened because of all the things that haven’t gone according to plan in the last five hours, he chases after Taehyung--much to the chagrin of Jimin who fails to stop him, one hand outstretched in an attempt to catch him by the sleeves of his dress shirt--and manages to grab onto the back of his collar right before the younger can make it through the doorway. Taehyung tries to flail away from his grasp but stops when he starts dragging him back inside.
The bed groans as he unceremoniously drops Taehyung onto it. He lets the younger sit himself up before he crosses his arms in front of his chest, leveling Taehyung with a pointed look.
The younger smiles sheepishly at him, seemingly unfazed by what just happened and spreading his arms out widely as if to address him in general.
“Jin-hyung--” he starts in that tone Seokjin knows is Taehyung's way of buttering him up.
But he's not having it. Not today.
“Skip to the end, Kim Taehyung,” he snaps.
Taehyung flinches inwardly, the easy-going bravado he put up instantly crumbling under the pressure of Seokjin's irritance.
It's not that Seokjin is annoyed at Taehyung himself per se. He knows that everyone knows he's not in the greatest of moods and really, he's trying to keep his cool to the best of his abilities. All he wants from Taehyung is to just get it over with because, of all the things that's happened so far, just one more mishap couldn’t possibly make things any worse than they already are.
He puts up one sculpted brow as Taehyung chooses to keep mum about whatever it is that’s wrong.
“Well?”
Taehyung bites at his bottom lip, his eyes going every which way and Seokjin could almost hear his internal monologue debating the pros and cons of telling him. But of course he doesn’t actually hear it. If he did, he would have known right then and there why Taehyung had been so evasive about the entire thing. And why everyone else in the room collectively held their breaths as Taehyung finally made his mind up.
In retrospect, he probably wouldn’t have minded not knowing. It would have lessened his stress considerably and Jimin had been right that Dabin--no matter how excellent she is at her job--can’t magically cover up whatever distress he chose to keep on his sleeve.
But he had to know. It was his job. It was his right. It was his wedding.
So, as his mind plays catch up with Taehyung’s lips and Taehyung’s words, he blinks a couple of times unbelieving.
And then--
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST HOLLY AND THE WEDDING RINGS!?”
He really could not have imagined his very own wedding to turn out like this. Really, he should have taken the sudden rain as an omen--gotten everyone and their mothers to go home and just postpone the day he gets married to the love of his life another day. A different day. One that isn’t so riddled with all the things that could exponentially go wrong when planning an event of this scale.
Or! Or--he and Yoongi could just drive to city hall, skip all this hullabaloo ‘cause really it’s just a reception anyway, apply to be wed to the first available preceding judge, and then they’ll be officially announced Mr. Min and Mr. Kim and live happily ever after in their beach house in Busan.
That sounds like a solid plan, right? It’s totally something they could do, right? It’s not like they spent six solid months planning and organizing to have this one night be the most perfect night of his entire career, no--his entire life. Right?
He vacantly recognizes his reflection in the mirror just as Jimin’s hushed voice pulls him from his thoughts.
“He’s in here, hyung,” the younger whispers to someone from behind the bathroom door.
Seokjin doesn’t really want to be in the presence of anyone right now. When Taehyung told him the sour cherry on top of his already misshapen cake, he lost it. He literally lost it. Everything he’s worked so hard for, he could practically feel dissolve into to tiny, tiny pieces on the ends of his fingertips.
Now, having worked almost every single day of his life for the past eight years planning events and making sure they go off without a hitch, he knows that anything--absolutely anything--could go wrong. He can’t control nature. He can’t control human error. He can’t control the things that are simply beyond his reach. But with everything just toppling down like pillars, one after the other, crashing to the ground in a cacophony of infinite proportions, well--it feels like an extremely excruciating punch to the gut.
He should be good at this. He is good at this. He is, as people have called him, one of the best in the industry. He built his way up from the smallest of gatherings to the grandest of affairs. He’s handled his fair share of big names and high profiles. He’s had clients who were so frustratingly insufferable to the point that he once told Yoongi he was going to quit event planning forever and become a vegetable farmer instead. But he’s never gone through with it because even with all he the mountains he had to climb, the oceans he had to swim, the deserts he had to cross, he was always going to get over every single obstacle so his clients would have the best memories they possibly could have.
The wide smiles on their faces that are encapsulated forever within the photos, the laughter and the cheers that every single guest uttered out of joy, the satisfaction of his clients over the success of every single one of their parties--it makes him feel fulfilled. Makes him feel that this job is worthwhile because he’s spreading happiness to people. That’s all it’s ever been about--spreading happiness.
And yet, for his own wedding, for his and Yoongi’s wedding--Yoongi who had always been by his side since they met at the park when they were both just starting out, Yoongi who stood by him when he was at his lowest because his client had severely scammed him, Yoongi who is his rock and his anchor, his fireplace on cold winter nights, his shelter from wild thunderstorms, Yoongi whom he loves and who loves him to the next universe and back--not being able to give him the happiest of memories when Yoongi only deserves that much, he feels like a complete and utter failure.
The bathroom door creaks open just as the tears he’s been trying to keep at bay spill onto his cheeks. He and Yoongi look at each other through the mirror and he does his best not to crumble at the mere sight of his fiance.
Yoongi turns to Jimin at the other side of the door and his ears catch him say, “Can you give us some time to ourselves?”
He doesn’t hear Jimin’s reply but he does hear shuffling from the other side of the room.
He turns back to his reflection in the mirror. His eyes are red from the tears that are fresh on his cheeks, Dabin’s work on his face completely ruined. He looks absolutely pathetic and it just makes him cry even more.
Wishing for his emotions to just stop, he tugs at his sleeves and rubs hard at his eyes.
“Hey, hey, don’t do that,” Yoongi’s voice gently stops him, the younger wrapping his hands in his and pulling them away from his face.
He keeps his head down, not wanting to look Yoongi in the eyes again, but Yoongi is having none of it.
“Look at me, hyung. Come on.” The younger places his fingers under Seokjin’s chin and lifts his head up. He meets Yoongi’s face smiling at him. “There you go.”
Seeing Yoongi up so close makes the guilt in his heart wrench tighter. He closes his eyes and feels more of his tears escape.
“Aigoo, why are you crying, hyungnim?” He feels Yoongi’s hands cup his face and his thumbs carefully swipe across his cheeks. “It’s our wedding today. You should save it for when I start walking down the aisle.”
He lightly slaps Yoongi on the arm, the jest lighthearted enough to momentarily make him forget about his worries.
“You and I both know I’m the one walking down that aisle.”
“Can’t we switch it up though? Everyone’s going to expect you walking but if I do it, they’ll lose their minds.”
Seokjin shakes his head, letting out a sniffle. “First of all, you don’t walk; you waddle. It's adorable and I love it. But second, it’s going to look weird and I don't want to look back on our wedding video and see every one of our guests laughing their asses off. It's supposed to be emotional."
"Happiness is an emotion," Yoongi shrugs and Seokjin has to pause.
"I--Well, yeah it is but that's not--"
"So it shouldn't be a problem then," Yoongi declares, not letting him finish (ha). "I know that your main goal in life is to spread happiness so let them be happy."
Seokjin knits his eyebrows at Yoongi in confusion and mild disbelief, searching his face for something like a crack that would show that he is still joking. But the thing with Yoongi is he is so good at bullshitting his way through life that he can and will make you believe that your glass of water is grape-flavored and you won't know any better until you've had a sip of your water and he's had the last laugh. But in all honesty, he's pretty much the same way too so pranking their group of friends is always fun.
Finding nothing on Yoongi's face that would incriminate him, Seokjin figuratively waves a white flag in defeat. "You're so weird."
"And yet you're marrying me anyway."
He lightly slaps Yoongi on the arm again, a small smile breaking its way onto his face. He ducks his head and nuzzles Yoongi’s chest, wrapping his arms around the younger’s waist. He feels Yoongi run his fingers through his hair before pressing his lips on top of it.
They stay like that for a little while, just them in each other’s arms in front of the bathroom mirror. The silence is comfortable like it always is when he’s with Yoongi and he indulges himself for just a bit longer.
Taking in a deep breath, he breathes in the citrusy-marine scent of Yoongi’s perfume that he’s learned to love. People would think that Yoongi would choose scents that are woodsy and very earthy, not unlike how Yoongi presents himself to the world. However, he thinks that the brightness of the grapefruit, complemented by the blue of the sea, which fades away into the mossy undertones of oakwood and ambergris with notes of jasmine to round it all up, aptly describes Yoongi in all his complexities and idiosyncrasies.
He is both flighty and grounded, electric and subdued. One moment he’ll be waving his arms by his sides in excitement, laughing in that light unadulterated laughter that tickles Seokjin’s ears, and the next thing you know he’ll be sitting in front of his computer working on a track, his face unmoving, serious, and determined. Seokjin likes seeing both sides of Yoongi and he’s honored to be one of the few people whom Yoongi has allowed to see him like that. It makes him feel special, like Yoongi is telling him, “you’re my safe space.” He guesses that it’s just as well since to him, Yoongi is exactly that.
He wraps his arms a little bit tighter around Yoongi.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me what’s got me so upset yet?”
Yoongi hums, carding his fingers through his hair once more.
“I figured you’d tell me when you’re ready.”
He sighs. Even after all these years together, Yoongi still has his way of making his heart do somersaults.
He loosens his grip around Yoongi’s waist before pulling away completely. Standing in front of Yoongi, he takes in another deep breath. Yoongi offers him a hand and he takes it, allowing himself to be led away from the bathroom to the bedroom which is now completely deserted.
They walk over to the bed hand in hand and sit at the end of it, Yoongi rubbing circles in his palm.
It takes him a minute, “I’m sorry, Yoongi-ah.”
“Hmm. What about?”
He gestures to all the abandoned things in the room from Dabin’s makeup kit on the vanity to the turned off studio lights in one corner of the room that was supposed to be for his photo shoot for their photo book.
“For this. For everything that’s gone wrong on our wedding day.” His throat tightens a little bit and he coughs, holding his emotions in.
“I just--I wanted this day to be perfect. For our wedding to be filled with so many happy memories because--” He pauses, blinking rapidly because he doesn’t want to cry again. Yoongi slips one hand to the small of his back, urging him, reassuring him.
He closes his eyes and calms himself down before opening them again and looking straight at Yoongi.
“Because you make me so happy. So, so happy.”
The smile on his face gets accompanied by a solitary tear that rolls down his cheek. Yoongi reaches out and cups the side of his face, wiping at the tear with his thumb like he did in the bathroom. But this time, Seokjin puts his hand over Yoongi’s, pulling it away from his face and intertwining their fingers.
Yoongi squeezes his hand before bringing it to his lips. “You make me happy too, hyung.”
He breathes out a short laugh in response, his heart yet doing another somersault.
“I still feel like I’ve failed you though. Failed everyone. Failed myself. Like, I’ve been doing this for so long and not once has an event ever gone wrong on this scale. It’s like the universe is telling me that our wedding isn’t meant to happen. Not like this. Not right now.”
A pause.
“Do you...want to move it to another date or--”
“No! No! I mean, everyone’s already here and it starts in less than an hour. I just--I just wish I could have done more, you know? To make it less of a major fuck-up. To make it something worth remembering over and over again.”
Yoongi looks at him with an indiscernible expression. Before he can ask what’s wrong, however, the younger stands up and puts his hand out for him to take. He blinks at Yoongi’s hand and then at Yoongi who must have seen the question marks popping all over his head because then he says, “Do you trust me, hyung?”
It doesn’t really do much to mitigate his confusion but he answers in the way he knows his heart feels, “Of course I do. I trust you with my life.”
It would seem that his answer is what Yoongi was hoping for because the next thing he knows is the younger closing the distance between them before whispering very low in his ear, like a secret only for them to share, “Run with me.”
“Sorry! Excuse me!” He shouts back to the people they run past as they traverse the halls of the hotel at a speed that isn’t really good for his heart.
In front of him, Yoongi leads the way to who-knows-where, his hand so tightly interlocked with Seokjin's that he can't even begin to think of the possibility of letting it go. Not that he wants to or even can. At the pace that they're going, doing so might just make them trip over their feet and he doesn't really want that. Besides, running with Yoongi isn't so bad. In fact, he finds it mind-numbingly exhilarating.
When Yoongi told him to run back at the hotel room, he didn't think he was being serious. But then the younger grabs his hand and starts hauling him to the door with a force he didn't think the younger was capable of. He didn't even have time to process what was happening, his feet moving on their own for him lest he be dragged across the floor. He thought to ask (re: yell at) Yoongi where in the hell he was taking him but the younger just looked back at him, a couple dozen supernovas exploding in his eyes, before grinning and saying, "It's a surprise."
And that's where they are now. A couple of mad men clad in blazerless suits, zigzagging through the hotel, narrowingly avoiding the guests and the hotel staff they cross paths with, and skidding across the floor as they turn corners upon corners upon corners. To the people around them, they definitely look like they’re out of their minds and Seokjin has to be honest that he actually kind of feels like that. Never in his life did he think that he’ll be causing a ruckus in a hotel with his soon-to-be-husband by acting like a pair of kids on a sugar high whose parents just let them go nuts.
But he’s fine with. Because he and Yoongi are running and the breeze that blows on his face feels like an adrenaline rush. Because his heart is beating a hundred times per minute and he knows it could beat more so long as Yoongi is concerned. Because this is the most fun he’s ever had in his life and, if Yoongi keeps holding on tightly to him, he’d gladly do it again and again and again.
For the first time since he woke up this morning, he laughs.
He and Yoongi slow down once they get to the main lobby.
Their foreheads beading with sweat, he pulls out the handkerchief in his pocket and pat dries the both of them down. Yoongi gratefully pecks him on the cheek and he tries not to blush.
His heart still recovering from the unforeseen marathon he just ran, he fans his hand to cool himself, noting how his other hand is still tightly enclosed within Yoongi’s fingers.
They continue to walk, Yoongi still leading and him still following. They pass by the dining hall of the hotel and he swings his and Yoongi’s hands.
“Will you tell me where we’re going now?”
Yoongi hums. “We’re nearly there. Just one more corner and a couple more doors.”
Sure enough, after walking about a dozen more steps, they meet what seems to be a dead end but, walking further, branches out to the left in a corridor where on its left side is the typical wall design of the hotel but on its right side are windows that span from the floor to the ceiling, showing whomever is walking along it a full view of the garden. Safe to say, it takes Seokjin’s breath away, even if it is still raining outside.
“I didn’t know this part of the hotel exists.”
“Not a lot of people do. The hotel chooses not to advertise it for what reason I think I kinda get.”
Seokjin puts an eyebrow up at that.
“You do?”
“Yup.” Yoongi replies, popping the ‘p’.
Seokjin waits for Yoongi to elaborate.
When he doesn’t, Seokjin asks, “What’s the reason?”
Yoongi stops walking and turns to him. “It’s good for surprises.”
Seokjin doesn’t notice that they’ve reached the end of the corridor until Yoongi is pushing open the white double doors in front of them.
It’s honestly like a scene from a movie. Before him, the doors open to an indoor garden. From the door, a wooden path emerges with walkways going straight forward and to either side. Surrounding the path are shrubs of different types of flowers--he identifies a few of them, namely, the hydrangeas, the pansies, and the foxgloves--followed by a grassy area which circles the main attraction in the room.
Right in the middle, the path leads to a small gazebo, made from what looks like a dark cherry wood. It’s quite a simple structure, modest, but right now it’s been decorated with fairy lights all over the trellises at the back and a couple of white sheer curtains at the front. It’s a very easy set-up and Seokjin’s sure he’s done this for some of his clients who have a limited budget. But what it lacks in pizzazz, it makes up for in earnest sincerity and really that’s all that weddings need in his book--wait a second--
He turns to Yoongi wide-eyed as the gears in his head turn.
“Yoongi, what exactly is this surprise of yours?”
At that, Yoongi becomes just a tad bit shy, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck and a light pink flush rushing to his cheeks.
“I know how stressed you’ve been this entire day, hyung. (Heck you’ve been lowkey stressed for the past six months.) And you’ve been doing your best to try and show that you’re doing alright, especially with your name as the planner in line and all. And I get it! I really do. Event planning is your thing, making music is mine. We’ve established that a long time ago. But I just think that you’ve been so focused on being the planner for your own wedding that you haven’t truly taken the time to be the groom. And I know you said that you want our wedding to be filled with happy memories for me but I think that’s a little bit unfair on your part, don’t you think? I mean, I’m not getting married to myself, am I?”
Seokjin finds himself just looking at Yoongi. Like, really looking at him and he wonders what on earth he has done in his life to deserve a guy like him.
“I just--I want you to enjoy the wedding too. And though we can do that with the main ceremony, I thought that maybe having a little small ceremony of our own, we’ll have a memory to look back on that’s just between the two of us. Well--us and Namjoon and Hoseok.”
Seokjin raises his eyebrows to which Yoongi just nudges his head in the direction of the garden. Seokjin looks back inside and finds that in front of the gazebo stand their friends. Seeing Seokjin spot them, Namjoon and Hoseok wave at him excitedly. He waves back though a little more meekly.
“Were they hiding there while you were surprising me?” he asks Yoongi.
“Yeah. Joon’s the only one certified to officiate and we needed one more witness to make the ceremony valid. Also I needed someone else to help set all this up.”
“Oh.” He purses his lips together. “So, nobody else knows where we are.”
“Nope.”
“And in addition to Holly and the rings, everyone is probably also scrambling to find us right now.”
Yoongi pauses as if he had to think about his answer before shrugging and saying, “Yup.”
Seokjin just stares at Yoongi, the event planner part of him already panicking to the moon and back at the catastrophical implications of all of this. But then he looks back at the gazebo and the fairy lights twinkling in the distance. They’re so quaint and effortless but also heartfelt and humble. It’s not exactly what he had planned but he also thinks it might just be what he needs.
In the past half hour or so of him and Yoongi just talking and running around the hotel, not once has he thought about what he needs to do to make sure everything goes well. The only thing on his mind is him and Yoongi, being together, laughing together, running together, and how he’d love to just do that for the rest of their lives. He loves Yoongi so much and knows that Yoongi loves him back too. He doesn’t need the perfect wedding to have happy memories. Just being with Yoongi is enough.
God, he really can be an idiot sometimes.
“But you’re my idiot, hyung.”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “I really am.”
Yoongi offers his elbow for him to take.
“Ready to get married then?”
Seokjin takes one last look at the love of his life before hooking his arm around Yoongi’s elbow.
“With you? Always.”
Outtake #1:
They start to walk into the garden when from behind them a tiny but oddly arresting bark erupts. They both look back to find a certain brown miniature poodle with a pastel blue ribbon around his neck trotting towards them like he didn’t just cause the emotional break down of one of the grooms and isn’t currently the main protagonist of a hotel-wide excursion of Where’s Holly?
Still, Seokjin doesn’t deny the whole sigh of relief he releases upon seeing the poodle.
Holly stops at their feet and Yoongi bends down to pick his baby up.
“Where have you been, little man? You’ve got everyone so worried.” Yoongi rubs at Holly’s head as Seokjin checks the ribbon to make sure the rings are in tact which thankfully they were.
He sends a prayer of thanks to whatever force out there exists before booping his fiance’s dog on the nose.
“You’ve been really naughty today, Holly. You made me bawl my eyes out.”
Holly just looks at him like he always does, indifferent and like he’d rather be doing something else.
“I don’t know why I expected you to care.”
Yoongi continues to pet the little diva.
“At least we found him.”
“More like he found us.”
“Eh. Tomato, tomato.” Yoongi shrugs. “But what do you wanna do now? Should we go back and tell them to stop the search?”
Seokjin looks at Holly before looking back at the gazebo and sparing a glance at Hoseok and Namjoon who were playing rock, paper, scissors.
He narrows his eyes. “What rings did you plan to use for our small wedding?”
“Hoseok and I tied gummy worms to make gummy rings.”
“Fancy. Let’s use that and tie them around Holly's ribbon so he could be the ring puppy for this one too."
"What about the actual wedding rings?"
"Give them to Hoseok for safekeeping and hope for the best?"
Yoongi turns to the indoor garden where Namjoon and Hoseok are now crouching in front of one of the flowering shrubs. "Sounds good to me."
"Alright then. Let's get married, take two?"
Yoongi grins at him with the gummy smile that he loves. "Let's get married, take two."
Outtake #2:
"Can I walk the aisle for this one?"
"In your dreams, babe."
Outtake #3:
But because Seokjin is soft, Yoongi does walk the aisle for this one. Or rather, waddle.
It's adorable and Seokjin loves it.