Chapter Text
When you signed on for the volunteer work at the local vet clinic, this was not what you had in mind.
Idly, your fingers graze over the corners of adoption and vaccination records, the pages folding slightly beneath your touch. The stack of papers is thick, seemingly endless, and the thought of documenting them all makes a sharp pain form at the center of your forehead. Distantly, the howling of dogs in cages not far from you laces through the air, entwining with the desperate meows of cats - all lonely and hungry for a home - becoming the somewhat distraught the soundtrack to your work day. Closing your eyes, you try to ruminate on things you love about this work, about the noise and cacophony of this over the rhythmic punctuation of a heart monitor.
It’s rewarding, you think, in some way being involved with the delivery of a fur baby to a forever home. This, you know, is a platitude. With these words in your head, your job and your life sound nice, rather than thrilling, the words a mantra to act a balm for the bruising of your pride. This kind of affectionate language never suited you, warm and fuzzy, cuddly in every way you are not and would never be, if only because the world you lived in was too brutal for such terminology.
The seat at this desk was not for you, someone approaching graduate school to be an orthopedic veterinary surgeon, someone with a delicate touch and a strength in her arm. The seat at this desk was not for you, someone who balances scalpels in her hands better than she can handle a pen, precise in an incisive way and delicate in a way that comes with urgency, rather than sweetness. Glancing down at your own messy penmanship, you sigh, bearing witness to the proof in a signature, lopsided and slightly illegible.
It is not that you are ungrateful, you tell yourself for the third time in an hour. It’s not even that you resent the work, it’s simply that your seat is so close to the double doors of the surgical side of the clinic, a side that glimmers with an astringent sort of glow. Every now and then, the flicker of the fluorescent light catches your attention, and your turn in your chair to stare through the small window. Beneath those lights, the whole spectrum of human emotion lives, becomes tangible in a way that it coats the skin like dust. Throughout the day, parts of you hunger to live on that side, yearn to learn and fear and study, to watch hope be brought back to the hopeless.
True, hope happens from where you sit daily, but it’s not the flavor you crave. Six weeks on and now you’re starting to think it might not be worth it, that the graduate school application would look better without the half hearted attempt at giving back to the world. This position was never a necessity, but something that would make you look irresistible, but now the paper cuts on your fingers sting more than alcohol in a wound, you think you might be becoming bitter.
As if to gload, Yoongi pushes through the double doors and traipses into the shelter, unapologetically radiant in his blue surgical scrubs. Rolling your eyes, you sit up and begin inputting adoption records in the database. You do your best to mask the slow, begrudging way your fingers work, watching sidelong at the way he pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes deep. Irritated, you stifle a laugh, knowing this is just for show.
The same way the job feels like a necessity, so too is Min Yoongi cold and distant, perhaps even a little entitled, in the way he moves throughout the clinic. Everyone you work with calls him the best, say he is destined for this kind of work, and that animals could walk and live thanks to his precise diagnoses. Pride adorns his shoulders daily, a chip on his shoulder the size of Atlas, as if to prove to the world and to himself that he is brilliant and that he is needed. And each time he sees you, he moves swiftly and without care, casting downturned eyes in your direction with a sneer at his lips.
For weeks, you have tried to convince yourself maybe he has a right. He had recently completed graduate doctoral work, though he is unable to be officially hired as such out of formality - because his thesis has yet to be defended or marked, and because he will not let himself be considered a surgeon until he has been appropriately awarded. Still, he carries himself as though he is, as though these things have already come to pass, a metal rod in his back every time he walked into an operating room; shoulders tucked back every time he is asked to review x-rays.
For weeks, you have tried to convince yourself he is allowed, convinced yourself that the detached way he speaks to you is simply because he is miles above and beyond in his education; that it is okay if only because you’d have nothing to discuss anyway. He is ice where you always felt you are fire; he is analysis where you are tactile feeling, hands on bones always the best way to learn a problem. Best then, you thought, to keep your distance, to let him have his pride if only because you do not think he is worth the fight.
But six weeks in, and your ability to stomach Yoongi is even less than you anticipated.
These days, the sight of him makes your stomach drop and your jaw clench. Some days, you think it’s envy; other days, you think it’s jealousy. Mostly, you know it’s because he’s an ass, and you don’t think you owe it to yourself to look for any other reasons than this.
With a cough, Yoongi leans back on the balls of his heels and sighs, cracking his back as best he can. This time, you can’t help but scoff, rolling your eyes at the sight and returning your focus to the computer. You don’t bother to question why the sight of him stretching bothers you so much today, only allow yourself to accept that it does, and that the faster you finish inputting records, the faster you can leave.
Keeping your peripheral trained on his figure, you watch the way Yoongi brings his attention to you, unease flooding your veins the moment he welcomes you as his target. Momentarily, he massages his hands and flexes his fingers, elongating the joints in a set pattern, before he runs a hand through his hair.
Watching him like this, you think he might be handsome if he smiled more, or laughed more. Tall and lean, he wasn’t unattractive by any means, but he was cold and distant, traits you always associated with the more cruel side of human nature, and thus it became impossible to see him as anything more or less.
Pleased with the motions of his body, Yoongi stops moving altogether and studies you with a penetrative stare. He takes his time watching you, learning the way you sit and type, as though he were learning the form of your skeleton beneath your skin. Anxiously, you chew at the inside of your cheek, wishing he would speak, wishing he would leave, wishing he would do something other than keep you with him, and keep himself near.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks, eventually.
The low edge of his voice makes your stomach drop and your teeth grit, body shutting down as if already bored and tired of this conversation. As usual, the languid way he clings to the last syllable of his sentence makes you want to grip the desk and flip it. Always, he does this, holds onto words as though he’s kissing them or reluctant to set them free. Something about this makes your knuckles clench, wishing he would give over to concise, sharp speech.
Closing your eyes keep your composure, you inhale slowly through your nose before opening them and carrying on. ‘Filing,’ you announce sharply, tapping at the keys with slightly more force.
‘Obviously,’ he snorts, gesturing at the paperwork surrounding your coffee mug. ‘I meant what are you doing at this institution.’
Rearing back in your seat, you cross your arms and fix him with a cool stare. Even with his unspoken disdain for you, the question itself is rude, uncalled for, and you plant your feet into the floor as if preventing yourself from being removed.
‘What are you, my boss?’ you retort, eyeing him conspicuously.
‘No,’ he shrugs, as though this conversation were something pleasant. ‘I’m just curious.’
Cocking your head to the side, you keep your gaze locked on his impassive features, quizzical and challenging.
As if mirroring your body language, he crosses his arms and leans back against the lockers, masquerading in the pretense of being casually indifferent. Like this, your stare begins to feel something akin to a stand off, the air between your bodies thick and heavy, too warm for the already heated office. Seconds pass in which neither of you says a word, waiting to see who will break first, or who can stomach the tension best, but even still you can see words swimming behind his eyes.
There’s an intensity to his eyes, an inquisitive sort of glowering that makes you feel vulnerable, naked. It takes effort to remember this is the way he looks at everyone, or if this is something he has reserved for you, but immediately you know you hate it. Something about this look feels far too intimate, and to stop it you find you’re willing to lose.
‘Funny way of asking.’ The words fall slowly from your lips, hesitant and wary, and unwilling to give him whatever he asks for. Each syllable takes on a pointed edge, sharpened like a knife, and you’re glad that beneath this gaze you do not wither.
‘I know you don’t like me,’ he says, a sly smirk pulling at his lips.
He appears pleased with himself, moving his hands to his pockets as though he has somehow won this confrontation before the heat of battle has even commenced. The hard angle in his jaw is his tell, though, you’ve learned it over weeks watching the way he speaks with everyone who is not you. When his jaw is locked like this, it means he keeps words tucked behind his teeth, thoughts moving through his mind like wildfire, but he keeps himself in check.
A flippant tongue is a violent thing, brash and careless - wholly unskilled for a verbal combat. It takes work for Yoongi to keep his composure like this, and now that you know his secret, you think it’s easiest to bring him down.
‘Is that surprising?’ you snort, raising an eyebrow at him. You thought you were obvious in your feelings towards him.
‘No,’ he laughs, shaking his head. The action sends strands of his hair into his eyes, and he huffs as he pushes them back, frustrated.
Once again, you are reminded he could be handsome, perhaps even charming, if he could learn to soften. For all his hard edges, there’s a softness to him that lingers and comes forward when he finds himself with animals. His hands become gentle, careful, his lips pushing outward into a pout of affection; at once, the glimmer in his eyes disappears, ice melting in the wake of warmth that spills over from his heart.
Time and time again, you’ve seen it, the kind way he handles every animal, regardless of health. Almost instantly, he becomes boyish, unrecognizable in the way he loses himself. But then, one word from a person and he pulls himself back together, guarded behind a tower of ice and skin turned to iron once more.
Turning back to your desk, you roll your eyes and stare absentmindedly at your work, running your fingers over the pages. ‘Then why bother sharing?’
Yoongi settles deeper against the lockers, reclining as though he were talking about his weekend. ‘Cause you’re misguided.’
Heat creeps up into your neck at his words, angry and seething, making your cheeks and chest flush with indignation. Countless thoughts and words race forward, turning the flavor of your tongue bitter, but you hold back, lift your head and feel the way your gaze turns to steel.
‘Excuse me?’ you say slowly, the words metallic and sour. You scowl at him, brow furrowed in preparation of offense, but you bite your lip to keep your tongue in line.
‘In everything,’ he clarifies, keeping his gaze trained on yours, ‘not only in your opinion of me.’
It takes effort to keep your mouth relaxed, and body poised, but you refuse to let him see just how deeply he gets to you. With his eyes on you, your body is starting to itch, skin taught with displeasure, and even though you want to win whatever challenge he started, you much prefer him gone from you.
‘I was minding my business.’ You gesture vigorously at the work on your desk, irritated. ‘You started this conversation for what purpose? To pick a fight with me?’
‘No,’ he begins slowly, and the gentleness with which he says the word only turns your blood into an inferno. ‘I want to understand why you’re here.’
Tilting your head back, you groan loudly. ‘Why are any of us here!’ you announce to the ceiling, hoping someone or something else will remove one or both of you.
To your surprise, Yoongi closes his eyes and chuckles, shaking his head as though he were teaching a child. ‘We’re all here for better reasons than you can come up with for yourself.’
‘Good lord,’ you snap. ‘Is there a point to this conversation beyond insulting me?’
Pushing himself off the lockers, he strides over to the desk and leans forward, elbows pressing into the documents to create creases. Part of you wants to move him away, wants to glance at the mess he’s made of your work, and therefore your day, but you hold his stare, unblinking. At such close proximity, you see the gold in his eyes, the specks and flakes that turn him into something powerful and fierce.
So too can you smell and taste him, the air placing his cologne the center of your mouth, filtering through your parted lips. He’s rich musk where you always thought he would smell of leather and suede, the earthy tone catching you off guard and making your throat suddenly feel thick. All at once and all over again, you find that you are vulnerable in front of him, defenseless in the way his eyes and his person unmake you. If he would step back, you think you could find your voice once more, but like this, he has stolen it, kept it locked tight in his fist until he was willing to acquiesce.
‘I heard you talking to Elise while you were cleaning the dog toys,’ he starts, voice low with gravel. There’s a rolling, inquisitive cadence to his words, the deep intonation tumbling like thunder down your back. ‘You’re here just to look good on an application?’
Frowning, you shake your head to protest. You swallow several times, desperate to wet your vocal chords to bring your voice back. ‘That’s not the only reason -’
But Yoongi cuts you off, letting his head fall serenely to the side. For such a simple, erroneous action, you find he appears more like a dragon than you’ve ever seen him. ‘That shouldn’t be a reason at all.’
With that, he pushes off your desk and away from you, the papers rustling and bending with his swift motions. With his eyes no longer on you, the air around you seems to change, and you feel your body relax as though you had been held bound. For several seconds, you let yourself adjust to this new freedom, a freedom you did not know you had lost.
‘Where are you going?’ you bite out, watching the way he moves as though he were entirely unaffected by your discussion.
Dismissively, he waves a hand at you, not bothering to spare you a second glance. ‘I have vaccinations to give to the strays brought in yesterday.’
‘You’re not even going to let me defend myself?’ Fire builds in the veins of your legs, all of you wanting to chase after him and keep fighting, but you keep still. For some reason, you do not have it in you to move.
‘No,’ he says, holding open the swinging door. This time, he turns to face you and you feel yourself back against your seat, the chair sliding into the desk with the force. Yoongi has been many things in the time you have known him, but never has been so serious. ‘I want you to prove yourself. Not just for me, but for them.’
Extending one arm out, he points to the wall containing rows and rows of animal cages. You follow the direction of his finger and sigh, taking in heady way hope mixes with a forlorn longing and each of their eyes, dogs and cats alike trying to wish but not knowing how.
Spite burns at you, makes acid crawl up the back of your throat at his implication. As though you were not here for them, as though you did not care about them at all. Sure, that may have been the reason in the end, but it was not at all why you bothered coming her in the first place. A laugh builds in your chest, foul and almost cruel, but you don’t care, you rather like the way it feels. Yoongi called you misguided but oh how wrong he was about you.
In one swift motion, you turn back to spit fire at him, ready to call him out on his unforgiving opinion of you. But he’s gone, the door swinging lazily without a trace of him left behind.