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Kim Namjoon would like to consider himself a master of awkward situations. A PhD in awkwardness, if you would. He’s gone pro in saying you too when the waiter tells him to enjoy his food, more than once has gone for a handshake at the end of a date when his date was leaning in for a kiss, regularly finds himself ducking into the nearest aisle at the supermarket to avoid talking to old high school acquaintances—he’s become so notorious for missed high-fives among his friends that he’s convinced at this point that they’re doing it on purpose to fuck with him.

And then, well, there’s this.

The scene: Seoul Pink Dot. Namjoon, dressed in his Pride best (he’d even pulled out his favorite—and shortest—denim shorts for the occasion, which means he’s real serious), standing in front of a rickety table full of pins and buttons in every possible color combination of flags, manned by two women alternating carrying a toddler-aged little girl, staring wide-eyed at them like he’s been shot.

“Pardon?” he asks the woman who’d just spoken to him, hoping against hope that the pin he’d accidentally dropped in surprise when in the middle of examining it is still intact.

(It is, even if the landing impact has knocked the impeccably aligned display of rainbow stripes a little wonky.)

“I said thanks for your sign-up!” she calls, a little louder over the music booming from the next booth over. “We’ll see you and your partner back here in two hours!”

Namjoon wonders if the confusion is written across his face or not, because it feels obvious, but the women across the table from him both have on smiles that seem unaffected by the way his jaw is hanging open dumbly. He haphazardly tries to realign the pins without looking at them, gaping like a fish for a few moments before remembering he is a human being, occupying a corporeal form, standing in the middle of a rainbow crowd of people and taking up half of this table with his awkward gawking.

“Um,” he starts, hesitant and maybe a little too quiet over the music and chatter surrounding them, “excuse me?”

Neither woman’s smile falters, each only turning a little more amused. The taller of the two shifts the child to the other hip and taps the clipboard next to the pins with her free hand.

“The couples’ dance event this evening that you just signed up for?”

“The couples’—” Namjoon stops himself, taking a second look at the clipboard. He’d seen the two women and the kid and just assumed he was signing a petition about family equality, then got immediately distracted by the array of homemade pins and buttons strewn about the table because Kim Namjoon during Pride Month is nothing if not a magpie for shiny, rainbow things.

Now, he’s faced with a sheet of paper that confirms that not only is this a couples’ event, but specifically a dance event for couples to enjoy.

He should deny, probably. Definitely. For one, he’s single, and for two, he is the owner of two very left feet, but the women have also been nothing but kind, handing out free pins and water bottles and not-so-covertly giving extras to the children who approach them, and Namjoon is also nothing if not a sucker for that kind of selfless kindness, so—

“Right! Sorry, I got distracted,” he lies, not smoothly but with a smile that he hopes covers that fact up. “We’ll be there!”

And immediately, he turns around and spots a head of blonde hair towering over a head of soft black, bounding towards them with a sense of urgency that he usually reserves for… nothing, because once his therapist told him it was okay to move slowly, and frankly, that’s been a lot better for his general physical wellbeing, anyway.

But this. This requires urgency.

“Hyungs,” Namjoon says, not even bothering for Seokjin or Yoongi to even finish turning towards him at the sound of his voice to keep barreling on, “I need the world’s biggest favor.”

A pause, a contemplative sigh. Seokjin, holding a rabbit-shaped, bi pride flag-colored cotton candy in one hand, and Yoongi’s tight in the other, raises an eyebrow, intrigued.

“Hmmm,” he says. “No.”

Yoongi snorts behind his free hand. Namjoon groans, rubbing his temples with a hand. “You didn’t even let me—”

“I said what I said,” Seokjin snaps around a sticky mouthful of cotton candy.

“You said you owed me for bailing—”

“Like five minutes ago, Namjoon, with the implication that we owe you at a later date,” Seokjin says. “And I resent calling it bailing, you know, I was just—”

Namjoon levels him with a flat look. “Making Yoongi-hyung fake a headache because you’re an old married couple minus the old and married and can’t handle crowds of, and I quote, ‘the youths’ for too long without needing a nap.”

Seokjin poises a faux-offended hand over his chest, which might have had some impact had it not directly meant that a rabbit ear of candy floss is shoved directly into his face. “Wow,” he says. “Betrayal from my own flesh and blood? Low fuckin’ blow. I won’t even listen to the favor you wanted now.”

Namjoon can’t fight the ugly laugh that forces out of him. “We’re not even related, hyung.”

“The blood of the covenant and the water of the womb and all that.” Seokjin waves his cotton candy in the air as he speaks, and Yoongi at his side makes a show of dodging it every time it nearly collides with his head. “Anyway, I changed my mind, tell me your thing because I’m nosy.”

Namjoon rolls his eyes, almost ready to give up on it, but Yoongi’s quiet nod of encouragement spurs him on.

“So I accidentally signed up for a couples’ event?” he says, guiding the three of them between a pair of booths with smaller crowds and quieter music so they can hear better, unseen by the crowds around them. “I thought I was signing a petition, but it ended up being a charity event for couples to have a chance to dance together without prejudice, and now I am single and gay and can’t dance.”

“Then just rescind your signup?” Yoongi suggests, drawling and matter-of-fact, at the same time that Seokjin murmurs, “But you’re always single and gay and unable to dance.”

“That’s the thing though? The women running the signups were so nice? So nice. If I cancel, that’s on my soul forever.”

Seokjin barks a loud laugh. “Can I just say preemptively that neither of us are going to be your fake boyfriend who accidentally falls in love with you over the course of the night? Because it sort of sounds like that’s what you’re asking for.”

“Not… the second half of that. Nothing past the word ‘boyfriend.’”

“Joon-ah,” says Yoongi, placating. His car keys are hooked around his finger already, and there’s a sense of finality in his voice. “Just cancel. They’ll understand.”

Namjoon makes a noncommittal noise, slipping back into the crowd. “We’ll see,” he says. “You know, I wouldn’t be in this situation had the two of you not abandoned me.”

“This isn’t abandonment!” Seokjin splutters. “Think of this as your two best friends who are in a relationship, and probably the world’s worst wingmen because of it, letting you, our single gay butterfly son—”

“You’re both less than two years older than me,” Namjoon adds futilely.

“—Our single gay butterfly son,” Seokjin reiterates, twice as fervent, “be free to flutter wherever he’d like.”

Before Namjoon can open his mouth to object, Yoongi claps a hand over his shoulder. “You got this, Joon-ah,” he says, and he’s tugging Seokjin to the other end of the plaza so Namjoon and all of his single, gay, unable to dance-ness is left alone to figure out what the hell he’s going to do about the situation he’s gotten himself into.

“I can’t believe you’re abandoning me,” Jeongguk whines. “At my first Pride event ever.”

It’s a big deal for Jeongguk. He’d spent a solid two hours this morning between painstakingly stitching patches onto his jacket, painting his nails, and drawing rainbow flags on either of his cheeks in glittery eyeliner that Taehyung, to his credit, tries his very best not to smudge as he cups Jeongguk’s face in his hands.

“My sweet, darling baby dongsaeng, you know I love and support you and your journey to being the out, proud, and confident person you are today.”

Jeongguk frowns, squinting in the sunlight to see better, even though Taehyung’s pretty much impossible to miss with his electric blue hair and pink feather boa. “There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there,” he grumbles, trying to shrug Taehyung’s hands off to no avail.

“But there are two dancers quite literally calling my name”—a gesture over his shoulder, where one of the dancers in question, lavender hair and thick lips and glitter-strewn collarbones, winks through orange-tinted sunglasses and the other, parted black curls and bronzed skin and a big smile, mouths Taehyungie—“and it would be not only incredibly rude of me but also a federal crime to deny them literally anything they want me to do to either of them. Or both. At the same time.”

Jeongguk juts his lower lip out, the face he uses when he’s trying to get Taehyung to cave and let him get his way. It’s not working, clearly, but Jeongguk sort of gets it—he’s still relatively new to this whole knowing and acknowledging that he’s gay thing, but Smiley Dancer and Glitter Dancer are both undeniably good-looking and undeniably into his best friend.

Still, he’s at least got to put up a customary fight. “Is it not also a federal crime to leave me all alone, hyung?”

“You’re not alone!” Taehyung protests, frowning like he really is starting to feel bad about it. “You have Seunghee and Jiho!”

Except neither Seunghee nor Jiho responds, because they’ve both wandered off to a lesbian poetry reading across the park. They’re Taehyung’s friends more than Jeongguk’s, anyway—most of their few conversations have happened because Seunghee and Jeongguk both frequent the same record store, and Jiho comes to pick her up after class sometimes.

“…Okay, maybe not! But is anyone who’s single and adorable and wearing a rainbow cape in a park full of fellow gay people actually alone, my sweet, sweet, Jeonggukie?”

He sounds a little desperate. Jeongguk almost feels bad—Taehyung’s dedicated a lot of time to helping him through his Sexuality Crisis in the past few months, always vigilant in watching over him when the two of them venture into potentially mixed company, never really getting to enjoy himself. He deserves two hot dancers eyeballing him, even if it’s a little nauseating to think of his childhood best friend in that situation.

Jeongguk bats Taehyung’s hands away from his face with an embellished huff and roll of the eyes. “Go,” he says, nudging Taehyung back a few centimeters. “Have fun.”

Taehyung’s eyes go wide—wider than usual—like he hadn’t been expecting it. Concerned, almost, like he’s pushed too hard, so Jeongguk ruffles his already ruffled hair and pushes him again, making eye contact with the glitter-strewn dancer, who nods in approval.

“Are you sure?” Taehyung asks, twisting his boa between his hands like they’re dying to grip something now that he’s had to let go of Jeongguk’s face. “I was mostly kidding about it being a crime.”

“Hyung,” says Jeongguk, “you’re fine. I’m probably just going to sit and eat some food, Seunghee and Jiho are in my line of sight if I need anything, and I have your number—”

“You have my number,” Taehyung reiterates as he backs up, edging closer to the dancers. “And you know I can and will drop everything if you’re in any sort of trouble, right, Jeongguk-ah?”

“I know,” Jeongguk says, chuckling. “Go on, hyung.”

“I love you!” Taehyung cries into the crowded air, scampering a little frantically to the dancers, neither of whom are even attempting to hide their laughter. “My best friend, single men in the crowd!”

It takes a lot of effort not to hide his face in embarrassment, but the urge is overridden by his desire, again, to not smudge his makeup. Instead, he waves sheepishly to Taehyung as Glitter Dancer twines their fingers together and Smiley Dancer says something to him that makes his lips pull into a teasing little pout as an arm winds its way around Taehyung’s waist.

And so, left alone, Jeongguk wanders, pausing at one of the food stalls for a snack and quietly munching as he meanders through booths—signing petitions, grabbing freebies, letting himself fill his pockets and bag with informational pamphlets for charities and events and organizations.

There’s a comfort in knowing that he’s surrounded by people who are like him, or, at the very least, don’t mind that he’s walking around with a pride flag around his neck, glitter on his cheeks, rainbow shellac on his nails. A crowd of people with different expressions of themselves, their sexualities, their gender identities, their fashion senses in general—it’s nice. It’s nice to lean against a table and have an older woman approach him, asking to examine his nail polish—oh those are such lovely colors, that yellow on your skin tone is beautiful, you remind me so much of my grandson, he’s right over there, see him? Nice for a boy across the way to smile unabashedly at him, nice to feel wanted in an innocent way that he’s never quite felt before, even when he’s tagged along with some of his university friends to the crowded gay bars of Itaewon.

It’s nice to feel like he’s allowed to want, too, wandering towards a quieter part of the plaza and letting his eyes wander, and catch—catch on a head of swept-back hair, a hand-painted pink t-shirt, striped socks sticking out of Timberlands and leading up to a pair of—

“Oh wow, thighs,” is all that comes out of Jeongguk’s mouth as the man in question comes within earshot. Immediately, he knows it’s coming in close to the top of the list of Terrible Things Jeon Jeongguk Has Said In His Lifetime, especially when the man looks right at him, tilting his head curiously.

Jeongguk tries to deflect. “I—I mean—I like—” He splutters, trying to find the words, any words, anything he can get his brain to focus on besides thighs, to save himself. “I like your... shorts?”

Which is also probably fairly high on the list of terrible things he’s said, too, considering the man’s very short denim cutoffs are the very reason his gloriously thick, tan thighs are on display.

“Oh god,” Jeongguk mumbles into the hands he’s brought up to cover his face, cover his shame. “That was so inappropriate, holy shit. I’m so sorry.”

The guy, to his credit, looks a little lost. A lot lost. In the literal sense, like he doesn’t know where he’s going or why he’s being spoken to or possibly what day it is.

Oh god, Jeongguk thinks. What if he actually is lost? What if he’s not even here for the event? What if he’s straight and weirded out by the rainbow-covered kid with the glittery face and painted nails?

Even if it’s illogical, even if the guy is wearing an impressive array of rainbow himself, socks and headband and the pins stuck all over the chest of his t-shirt.

“I’m sorry?” says the guy, eyes wide and lower lip pouted in confusion.

Jeongguk just barrels on, word vomit spewing because he’s just embarrassed himself in front of the most handsome man he thinks he’s ever seen, and his little frown shows off dimples, and—okay, Jeongguk has never been one to care that deeply about dimples, owning a pair of them himself when he makes certain faces, but these dimples? Angel kisses pressed into honeypot gold cheeks. Perfect indentations on an already practically perfect face.

“That was so rude of me, I literally don’t know what I was thinking? Except—well, maybe I did? But you shouldn’t always speak your exact thoughts, you know? It’s my first Pride event, and I got abandoned by my best friend so he can go have a threesome, and—”

“Hey,” says Dimples, bending the few centimeters between the two of them so they’re eye level. It’s comforting, rather than patronizing, but that could also be the wild attraction blooming in Jeongguk’s chest talking. “Hey, it’s okay, I literally didn’t even hear what you said before? You’re fine, I promise.”

His smile is so genuinely kind that Jeongguk kind of wants to just. Sit down on the floor for a while. Contemplate it.

(He doesn’t—among the weird things he’s done in the last few minutes, that might take him over the top of the tolerable threshold—but he considers it, he really does.)

“Oh,” says Jeongguk. “Then, uh, carry on, I guess.”

But Dimples doesn’t—in fact, he takes half a step closer and the kind smile softens even further into something warmer, inviting.

“I got abandoned by my friends, too,” he says. “Not for a threesome, but because they think they’re in their seventies, not their twenties.” A soft laugh, half under his breath. “This is your first Pride?”

Jeongguk nods. “The parade was going to be my first event, but my best friend said he likes to go to Pink Dot to mingle and support local performers and—”

“And have threesomes with them?” the guy chuckles.

He’s well out of view now, disappeared into the crowd a long while ago, but Jeongguk still looks over to where he’d last seen Taehyung and smiles, a soft shadow of a thing. “He deserves it, honestly.”

Dimples lives up to his name—he smiles, big and bright, extends a hand out to Jeongguk, and it takes Jeongguk a second to realize he’s looking for a handshake.

“If you’d like someone to hang out with,” he starts, voice and grip both soft and firm, “my name’s Kim Namjoon.”

Jeongguk eyes him up and down, trying to no avail to quash the warmth creeping up in his chest. “Jeon Jeongguk,” he says finally. “Gay, Virgo, 1997.”

Namjoon laughs, small but barking. “1994, also gay, also a Virgo, but I have no idea what that actually means.”

“Neither do I,” Jeongguk says, “but any time I do anything at all, my best friend says you’re such a Virgo, Jeongguk, so.”

“So,” Namjoon repeats, scanning the area, squinting a bit in the golden hour sun, “there’s an ice cream stall just down this aisle that I’ve been eyeballing all evening. My treat?”

And if Jeongguk didn’t like this man too much as it is already, that would be what did it for him.

The thing is—

The thing is this.

Kim Namjoon considers himself a master of awkward situations. He does. He couldn’t tell you how many people he’s nearly stumbled into today because he doesn’t always have the utmost control of his limbs at all times, and he’d very nearly wandered away from the ice cream stall without paying because he forgot that he’d shoved the money in his pocket while trying to maneuver both his and Jeongguk’s melting soft serve without dripping it on their clothes (and failed anyway).

But this? Being around Jeongguk? Feels good. Natural. Not like they just met a little over an hour ago because they got bailed on and were forced together by graceless, clumsy destiny—but like Jeongguk’s been his friend for a while, an easy sort of comfort.

They’re still awkward—that’s bound to happen when two awkward people come together—but rather than dwelling on it (the purple smudge of melted ice cream on his pants, on Jeongguk’s shirt; the way their laughter fades into silence sometimes), it’s easy to shrug it off. It’s just… easy, full stop.

Almost too easy to forget that Namjoon’s now fifteen minutes out from the couples’ event he’d accidentally signed up for and subsequently forgotten about because of a cute boy. Ignoring Seokjin’s last message, pocketing his phone, he breathes a quiet groan into the air.

“Everything okay, hyung?”

Jeongguk leans back onto his palms, bright green blades of grass sticking up between his fingers. The sun’s getting lower, the temperature dropping, and he’s pulled the top layer of his hair out of the tiny bun it had been tied in, shaggy black curls falling into his eyes as he tilts his head at Namjoon.

“It’s fine,” Namjoon says, though he can’t quite keep the whine out of his voice. “Just being reminded of the crushing realities of life.”

Jeongguk raises an eyebrow. “Like how we’re going to leave today and have to face the reality that outside of here, we have to be careful about who knows we’re gay, and that the corporate heterosexual world at large only pretends to care about our community for one month a year?”

“I—” Namjoon splutters a terrible, breathy laugh. Jeongguk sounds like him at his first Pride. It’s not possible to like someone this much so fast, and yet—here’s Jeon Jeongguk, an impossibility. “I mean yes, absolutely, but—god, I actually meant that I accidentally signed up for an event and I either have to go rescind it or show up to a couples’ dance single, so.”

Namjoon wonders how many times Jeongguk can tilt his head with those big, dark puppy eyes aimed at him before he stops denying to himself that he’s managed to develop a pretty sizable crush in the last hour and a half.

“I’ll go with you?” Jeongguk says, half a question.

“Oh.” Namjoon pauses. “Oh! Yeah, we can just head over and tell them it was a misunderstanding, and—”

“Um,” stammers Jeongguk, leaning forward again, fingers twisting now in his lap. “Actually I meant, like, I’d go and dance with you? I’m a good dancer.”

“Oh,” Namjoon repeats. “Well that’s a good thing, I guess, because I am really, truly not.”

And that’s how they end up back at the booth that kicked off the entire chain of events that has been today, standing in a short but lively line of couples waiting to dance. The women running the signups—sans their daughter, who’s napping in a carrier at the table, guarded by an older man who Namjoon assumes is a grandfather—collect donations for local LGBT organizations, welcoming people, greeting friends and family.

When they reach Namjoon and Jeongguk, the shorter of the two barks a laugh as she pins a leftover rainbow button to each of their shirts. “Nothing against ya, kid, but I honestly thought when you were signing up that you did it on accident and didn’t have a partner, to bring, the way you reacted.”

That’s when Namjoon feels the quiet warmth of a palm sliding against his, and if he loses all color in his face, the woman doesn’t notice. Jeongguk squeezes his hand, smiling big and cheesy at the woman, and Namjoon squeezes onto whatever life force he has left inside of his body.

“Funny, that,” he says weakly.

The dancing is casual, and thank god for that, because at least Namjoon isn’t the worst dancer who showed up. It works in his favor that he’s sober; at least he’s not tripping over Jeongguk’s feet that much, unlike some, and at least Jeongguk just smiles, nose scrunched and teeth  bared, every time it happens. A gentle hand on his waist correcting his posture, a nudge to his side to get them on the same foot.

They dance to music coming from a tinny Bluetooth speaker, and they dance when performers start to dance, sing, play music the stage in the middle of the plaza and the speaker gets muted, and they keep dancing when the crowds around the booths start to thin out, everyone migrating towards the stage to get good standing room for the lighting ceremony.

They’re the last two left at the booth as the women pack up their daughter’s carrier and fold up their rickety little table, clapping Namjoon and then Jeongguk on the shoulder in thanks, wishing them a good night and safe travels home.

Jeongguk doesn’t let go of Namjoon’s hand, and Namjoon doesn’t try to make him.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says into the cool breeze that’s picking up around them. “For the dance, and for today, and for getting me out of an awkward situation.”

“Honestly, I probably owed you,” Jeongguk chuckles. “The first word out of my mouth when I saw you being ‘thighs’ and all.”

“Oh god, that’s what you said?” Namjoon snorts, and Jeongguk squeezes his hand in what he can only assume is embarrassment, the way he’s making resolute eye contact with his shoes as they wander slowly into the bright pink crowd.

Jeongguk groans, a sweet picture: face lit up in the soft pink glow of a panda shaped lightstick that hides whatever blush may lie beneath. “I know I’m an asshole, I’m sorry.”

“Literally don’t even be sorry,” Namjoon says as they enter the thick of people. He’s handed a pink light, too, and he holds it proudly next to Jeongguk’s.

“Well, thank you,” Jeongguk murmurs, almost too quiet to be heard over the crowd, but Namjoon pinpoints the shy voice, feels the burning of big eyes on the side of his face. “Um, can I—”

Now it’s his turn to tilt his head, bending once more to meet Jeongguk’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“Can I see you again? Um, at the parade, or—or we can go to coffee. Or boba, if you don’t drink coffee, or—”

And all Namjoon can do is squeeze his hand in reply, bringing a smile to Jeongguk’s face that’s almost as vibrant as the pink light around them.

At the end of the night, Taehyung’s waiting for Jeongguk right at the exit of the plaza, and Jeongguk wants absolutely no part in hearing the story of why he is covered head to toe in glitter, or why the dress he’d fashioned into a shirt is the only thing he’s wearing besides his boa, pants and shoes discarded somewhere. It’s probably related to the massive hickey blooming purple up the side of his neck, another thing Jeongguk truly does not want to hear about.

“So I had a good night,” he says, slinging an arm around Jeongguk’s shoulders and pushing the two of them down the sidewalk towards City Hall station. “Did you?”

“It was…” Honeypot dimples and strong thighs and a warm smile, boisterous laughter, melted ice cream, slow dancing in the park, a goodbye kiss pressed to his cheek and new number in his contacts list. “It was good.”

A raised eyebrow, skeptical. “Just good, huh?”

Jeongguk shoves Taehyung’s shoulder, laughing. “Don’t make it weird, hyung.”

“Me? Making things weird? I’d never,” Taehyung cackles. He flicks a pin stuck through Jeongguk’s shirt—the one the woman at the dancing booth had given both him and Namjoon, a tiny little pastel rainbow that he’d moved to cover up the ice cream spill. “Nice pin you got there, liar.”