Work Text:
Five miles.
There are almost five miles between the gas station Jimin works at on weekday mornings and the tiny art deco studio apartment that Taehyung calls home, with the fluffy white chair they always stuff themselves into to watch movies together because there isn’t enough room for a couch or even a loveseat because, for goodness’ sake, Taehyung is just a little artist in a big city and Jimin has to work two minimum wage jobs to get by. And between those five miles, Jimin rides a metro, daydreaming about the moment he rips the tacky plastic name tag from his tawdry button-up and declares his freedom from his Slim Jim grease-coated corner store somewhere in the middle of Seoul’s triumphant streets, onto bigger and better things that make those alleyways and city lights look less intimidating and big than they always seemed.
(Bigger and better things, it’s worth mentioning, aren’t just a lucrative career. Merely a stepping stone. No, bigger and better things are closing that five-mile gap and inviting Taehyung into their own home for two. That’s the biggest and best thing.)
So following his eight-hour shift at Don Quijote one unsuspecting Saturday morning, Jimin took the eleven-fifteen five-mile trip to Taehyung’s baby loft downtown — with news. Because at eleven on the dot, Jimin received the call he had been shaky and jittery and jumpy about all week, the call that had his hands trembling as soon as he saw the unmistakable number flashing across his screen promising some twisted fate that he frankly felt was cruel to keep him waiting a whole five days for. With his lungs crumbling inside his chest and all sense of air sucked in tighter than Taehyung’s suffocated place, Jimin answered after two rings and got his answer.
He got the job.
He doesn’t even remember the name of the law firm he’s starting at on Monday morning, but dammit, it’s unimportant. What matters now is picking up the remnants of his shattered composure and piecing it back together before he screams into the receiver and forces whoever the lucky individual on the other side of the line is to reevaluate the company’s decision to hire Jimin because there was absolutely no containing his madman-caliber happiness.
He would close the five-mile gap between him and his boyfriend soon. Smother it.
The longest fifteen minutes of Jimin’s life begins now, drawn out with every bounce of his restless leg and each second his permanent Glasgow smile lasts. His brain squirms instantly with an influx of ideas on how to present his new job to his boyfriend; maybe he should deliver the news with a traditional bouquet of delphiniums from the florist a few buildings down from Taehyung’s.
Yeah. Flowers.
His grin widens, if that’s even possible, because he knows Taehyung will kill him for spending money on him, not because it’s tight but because Taehyung never really cared for material anything. Tae is such a hippie. Jimin can’t wait to make fun of him for it — after he tells him he’s finally going to be a paralegal and make all of this money and they can live together. And get a real couch. And maybe a Pomeranian. Maybe.
Jimin feels Seoul’s morning light streaming from the huge metro window make him glow a little extra as he grips the vertical pole that his feet are shuffling around, and he can tell because he catches a young girl in red shorts giggling at him and a crass old man staring. Jimin’s never embarrassed about this sort of thing (what can a guy with chameleon hair who sports tattoos and the occasional sparkly jewelry expect?), but today he feels so simply golden that the eyes on him should consider themselves lucky. He decides to send a wink to anyone on this public train who’ll give him the time of day; the little girl hides her face on her mother’s shoulder and the old man’s eyes quickly jump to the passing world outside of the window.
Jimin’s heart bursts again.
Metros, he then decides, are too slow. His foot, clad in loud, worn-down sneakers, continues to beat the hard floor beneath him as he waits and anticipates the moment he arrives at Taehyung’s door with blue delphiniums behind his back, a shy grin assuming a role on his lips as he keeps his secret locked behind them.
“Hello, neighbor. Can’t say I was expecting you today,” Tae would tease, leaning into Jimin and giggling through his teeth with his cute little eyes that scrunched up at the corners, hidden behind a curtain of his famous jet-black curls.
Jimin would smile back, hoping his boyfriend couldn’t see the enormous flowers peeking above his shoulders. “Thought I’d visit for a few hours before my shift, if that’s alright with you.”
And as he and Taehyung make their way to the fluffy white chair made for one person and squish together so they can finish whatever that film with Uma Thurman and the feet is called, Jimin would silently place Tae’s delphiniums on the dinner table directly behind their special seating arrangement and the TV set. Hopefully, it’ll go unnoticed.
In the middle of the movie, Jimin will batter Tae’s nose and lips with sweet kisses, and Tae would push him off as far as he can, entangled like this, the way he always does. “Go away, loser. We’re too close already,” he’d growl, but Jimin would catch the dumb unmoving smile on his face and poke his cheeks.
“You can’t resist me, Alien.”
And then Tae would oblige with a chaste press of his lips to Jimin’s, too weary of the chipper little man’s antics to formulate a response, hoping he can shut him up about the alien thing. “How was work?” he’d eventually ask like he always did after they broke their kisses to breathe, with a hand cherishing his lover of four and a half years by the jaw, his stone eyes soft as they drink in Park Jimin’s glow.
(It’s one of the things Jimin loves about Tae, the way he’s rough around the edges but so transparently warm at the same time. He could see it in the way he looks at everything, the way he does everything, the way he just is. Especially when he was in art school, Tae’s eyes would harden on whatever he was creating with his nimble fingers, and then when he’d sit back to review his work, they would flush with admiration and light. Jimin hated not being able to watch him do it all day because of stupid work.)
And then that’s when he’d tell him. Jimin would reach right behind the couch and present to Taehyung his favorite delphiniums, whisper “I got the job” against his lips, and move in for a passionate kiss that leaves both of them seeing some of the stars they’ve reached for for so long.
That’s the plan.
It goes accordingly when the train finally, finally stops at Jimin’s spot, all of the energy stored in his non-bouncy leg catapulting him out the doors and into the bustling streets, where he feels like he could start dancing right there in front of everyone.
If he weren’t a man on a mission, that is.
Jimin now sets out on what is usually a cumbersome seven-minute walk to his boyfriend’s place, only he somehow manages to condense the trek to the florist next door into a blink of maybe four. Powered by the convenience of employment and the absolute love of his life, his treacherously happy feet park in the flower shop with little more than delphiniums on his mind.
“Jimin-ah!”
It’s teenage Ji-eun, emerging from the backroom of her family-owned store with a swish to her flowy skirt, whose face Jimin knows all too well: the past four years and nearly seven months of visits for every anniversary and every squabble had planted him next to her in this very room of beautiful, beautiful flowers.
(And an overweening mixture of rather unpleasant smells in his personal opinion, but Jimin wouldn’t ever tell her that.)
As they exchange bows, he’s quick to realize that there are no delphiniums. In hindsight, he’s not sure they ever had delphiniums, but that’s okay — red roses will do.
Ji-eun hastily ushers Jimin out as soon as she’s done assembling his assortment because of the way he rapid-fire rambled about his plan to surprise Tae, and he’s thankful that her size doesn’t quite match up to her feistiness because she pushes harder than Tae’s neighbor, Yoongi, who happens to be a grown man — an angry, bitter, miserable, utterly loveable inside-and-out grown man.
“Get that couch, Jiminie!”
Her cry fades behind him as his feet scrape against the cement, scrambling to reach the apartment building that houses an entire galaxy in a room fit for a single star. When Jimin reaches his final boss, a few flights of stairs, he feels like he can take over the world.
Inhale. Five-dollar mini bouquet of roses bound together with a silky white ribbon behind his back. Exhale. Go.
Jimin takes on what has got to be the longest, most windy set of stupid stairs he’s ever had to face, his legs burning with an out-of-shape, energized cocktail of every positive emotion under the sun. The smile on his face is too heavy, and he almost trips at some point going up the second flight which causes his heart to drop — but when it bounces back up, he feels even more adrenaline surge through his veins than before. Something settle in his stomach.
Is Park Jimin nervous?
Questions don’t have much time to marinate now, but one thing’s for certain: Jimin is an improviser. On the contrary, Operation: Tell Taehyung We Can Move Into a Bigger Place and Buy a Real Couch and Maybe a Dog is a calculated move, garnished with flowers and a course of action. A plan.
Plans are scary.
Scary is easy to translate, though: both fear and excitement activate the same motor in his little heart that propel him up the longest stair journey ever and finally, finally at the fourth level, where Tae lives.
Three doors down. Three doors down. Jimin can practically taste the finish line, buzzing with residual relief from that phone call and the swell of his heart because he not only gets to see Tae today, but he gets to surprise him with the best news ever. Two doors sprint by in a flash on his two legs, and sure enough, he’s here.
There’s no hesitation when he raises his fist to the door. His trademark sequence of five sporadic knocks in a row blow by a little faster than usual, but there’s still that unmistakable Jimin-ness in them that he knows Tae will recognize. And he does, because the door to 4C swings open.
Now, Jimin is face to face with a familiar boxy smile and the same warm skin he always comes home to cloaked in a coffee-colored sweater that hangs off of his body like it doesn’t want to touch the fragile piece of art that it covers. And after one million times of seeing Kim Taehyung, one million years of dating Kim Taehyung, and one million five-mile trips to visit Kim Taehyung, Park Jimin is speechless at the sight of Kim Taehyung.
There’s something about the bed hair splayed across his forehead and the way his round glasses sit upon a throne of his delicate nose that ruins Jimin. The way sleep frames his face like he rubbed it into his honey skin this morning when he followed that meticulous skincare regimen with all the steps that Jimin tries to follow but can’t remember. The cozy hues that paint Tae all over, despite his building’s cold fluorescent lights oppressing them with such a gross contrast to his snugness. The light stubble peppering his pretty lips. The dainty manliness. The prostrated love he wears on his sleeve, chipped at and apparent like it comes from old money (although it’s safe to say he’s piss poor). It’s all too much.
Jimin forgets his lines.
Taehyung is grinning so brightly it takes the words from Jimin’s tongue and throws them behind his boyfriend and into his place. Nothing of his plan is left except for the roses behind his back.
Behind his back.
Wait.
Slowly, Jimin’s line of sight follows where Tae’s adorable eyes, now seated above a deep scowl, are trained: on the five-dollar mini bouquet of roses he’s gripping as ferociously as his tiny fingers will go right in front of his chest like a moron, which would explain why his boyfriend is in the middle of saying, “For me?” in the most devastatingly childlike, slightly miffed way.
So Jimin does what anyone would do in a situation that calls for improv: he chucks the flowers forward to Taehyung’s right, about where he thinks the universe threw his words, and tackles his boyfriend to the floor.
“I GOT THE JOB!!” he yelps as he collapses on top of Tae, showing no sign of regard for safety other than the tightness of his arms around his lover’s waist with the door wide open behind them. Jimin’s forearms hurt like hell, but pain is on hold for the time being. He’ll deal with it later.
There’s no time to await a response, or at least he doesn’t waste a single moment allocating a slot for Tae’s input on the situation before Jimin plants the wettest, sloppiest kiss he’s ever spat up on his boyfriend’s lips. They follow a trail equally as messy up the side of Tae’s artfully crafted face until he’s forced to climb up so he can reach his forehead. Jimin delicately pushes his boyfriend’s bangs out of the way with his stubby fingers so he can plant a million more pecks across its expanse until the frozen Taehyung suddenly catches Jimin’s wrists on either side of his head, hoisting himself up agilely with sirens blaring in his eyes, wider than they’ve ever been before, to look in his boyfriend’s face. Jimin gulps, wondering for a split second if maybe Hippie Tae will return to the subject of the flowers. Or the law firm, ethics and all. Hippie Tae would’ve done his research, Jimin curses silently.
“You…” he begins.
Jimin nods at a mile a minute. Like a puppy’s tail wagging when his owner comes home.
“We…”
Jimin smiles, really smiles. His eyes are doing it too, creasing in concert with his mouth. Like his lips ask his cheeks to gather every muscle in his face so they can all shout a chorus together.
“WE’RE GETTING A COUCH!”
The pair of lovers erupts into warm, elated clamor as they squeal and yodel and squawk incoherently, rolling around on the floor together in a fight over nothing in particular punctuated by giggles and grunts whenever one manages to flip them both. In the midst of it all, Taehyung announces his revelations as they hit him.
“We’ll get a dog! We can throw out that chair! Wait, hey, why’d you — WHY’D YOU BUY FLOWERS? YOU TOOK THEM FROM THEIR—“
“YAH!”
They pause mid-roll, Taehyung’s knees framing Jimin’s hips as his head gravitates toward the wall to their left. Even with worried eyes and his mouth hanging open, even as Jimin’s own senses scatter with the panic of a neighbor’s wrath, he can’t help but admire the way his boyfriend looks above him. Is it possible for the art itself to be an artist? Jimin will just have to use that line and find out. He secretly makes a note of it in his brain, and normally he’d struggle to stifle one of his signature smirks at the thought, but Taehyung’s pink lips in the shape of an “o” beneath his leaping eyebrows are beautiful enough to render him speechless again and swallow his pride.
Jimin’s attention snaps to the open door in front of him, however, when pointed footsteps announce the arrival of a very sleepy, very angry Min Yoongi, who leans his shoulder against the frame with narrow eyes and arms crossed. Taehyung gives Jimin a wide-eyed look before turning his head back to his lovely neighbor.
“If you’re going to commit a brutal murder on my day off, do it with the fucking door closed.” Yoongi’s siesta hair, as it turns out, is incredibly fluffy, and from his vulnerable spot on the floor, Jimin is having a hard time not snorting at the sight of the seething little man with his lips pressed together unwittingly and trying with all of his might to be intimidating.
“Sorry, hyung!” Taehyung squeaks, twisting back to face his boyfriend underneath him. “But Jiminie here,” he pinches Jimin’s cheeks, “IS GETTING ME A COUCH!”
The two burst into pure white, happy giggles again, and though Jimin can’t see his face now that he’s soaking in the joy he’s given to Tae, he knows well enough thanks to daily visits to this building that there’s a hidden smile in Yoongi voice as he deadpans a congratulations and stalks off after shutting their door.
With their newfound privacy, Jimin lurches forward and rests his forehead against Tae’s, giggling against him. Tae wraps his arms around Jimin’s neck, releasing a deep exhale against him, and when Jimin smells his boyfriend’s breath and doesn’t feel like chucking his breakfast burrito up all over the floor, he knows he’s found The One.
“You didn’t have to get flowers,” Taehyung ghosts against Jimin’s lips, his eyes closed softly so that his lashes lie straight down on his cheeks, looking like a broom that Jimin hopes sweeps all of his boyfriend’s worries about money or comfort or the future or anything far, far away. The whole five miles away. Beyond that.
He rubs his nose against his boyfriend’s and giggles airily about nothing. “And I don’t have to get you a Pomeranian,” he teases, pecking Tae’s lips and retracting just as playfully.
“Well, you have to celebrate,” Tae retorts as he places both of his hands on Jimin’s chest and pushes only lightly, like his boyfriend is delicate — but not fragile enough not to hurt him a little. “C’mon, let’s go finish Kill Bill.”
And Taehyung rises first, only with a tiny bit of dread that their moment on the floor is over, offering one of his warm, waifish hands to Jimin, who grabs it with his ridiculously small ones that Tae always looked at fondly (always masked by the meanest laugh, of course).
When Jimin accepts, he decides to pull his boyfriend back, pressed up against his chest, clasping their fingers together and taking him up in a messy tango, to which he gasps but quickly catches on. He lets the smaller man lead them to their chair, and Jimin can tell, no matter how surprised or annoyed or over it he acts, that he has effectively reduced Tae to nothing but joy by the lasting, rectangle-shaped grin he wears on his face. Their feet are hitting the floor in a talentless staccato rhythm, dotting Tae’s shabby carpet like jumping beans with a royal negligence of technique — all they care about is being close. Jimin makes it a point, even, to lodge his toenail into the sole of Tae’s foot when he steps on him twice in a row.
“Go to hell,” he chuckles, spreading his legs nearly five miles apart so as to avoid more tango combat as he wraps an arm around Jimin’s torso. Tae’s other hand stays wrung up lazily in his boyfriend’s, and Jimin somehow smiles even bigger. That, too, must stretch for five miles; he wonders how his lips haven’t thinned and broken just from watching Tae cling to him with his ass sticking out as they shuffle backward to their old chair.
With a final sway, spin of Tae in a tiny circle around Jimin, and appreciative chuckle, they collapse into the chair with Jimin’s leg resting over Tae’s because they don’t both fit. He throws an arm around his neck and uses the other to grab the TV remote. “Now we celebrate.”
“That we do,” Tae sighs, knocking his head against Jimin’s. “I just wish we could do more, go out to eat or something, you know? You deserve more than this.”
As Uma Thurman beats the shit out of some guy in a hospital room on the television that sits maybe a foot away from them, Jimin shifts his head to place a tender kiss on Tae’s temple, tightening his arm’s hold on his shoulders. “We’ll celebrate for the rest of our lives, baby.” Tae squeezes his own arm around Jimin’s waist, and he continues. “We’ll make enough money to be able to go out and eat sometimes, and get a sofa, and get you a puppy, and whatever else we want. If I can promise you comfort and happiness, I’m more than content with staying in and watching a movie with the cutest, handsomest, smartest, kindest, most artistic, sweetest—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Tae laughs, beckoning for a peck on Jimin’s lips with his index finger guiding his chin forward. Pushing off of him as far as he can within the strict confines of their chair, Jimin giggles.
“As I was saying,” he teases with his tongue out, “it’s well worth the investment. You are worth any investment. That’s part of this deal, I guess, I love you so much I’ll put anything into making your dreams come true. The very least I can do is free you of financial worries.”
“You’re investing in me?” Tae pushes, grasping Jimin’s collar and pulling him forward so he can rub his nose against his tenderly, which feels, weirdly enough, more intimate than kissing or sex for Jimin. Like Tae himself, it is simply warm.
Jimin basks in the feeling for a while, and he knows that Taehyung knows he’s not avoiding the question; he’s just trying to swim in the moment. As cheesy as it is — and Jimin definitely wants to use this line sometime — if his boyfriend is an ocean, he’s sinking every single time he’s around him. That’s the inexplicable effect of being in neck-deep love, Jimin supposes. It’s more mature than a shallow thrill, deeper than puddles of lust. Nothing feels, nothing is, better than Taehyung. Not going out to eat, not a new loveseat, not a new house. Jimin could live here forever, for all he cares. If Tae remains, it’s the warmest, sugariest place in the world to call home.
“All things considered, that is one stupid ass question.”
The boys erupt in ugly giggles against each other’s faces, ending, of course, with a swipe of Jimin’s tongue against Tae’s pouty bottom lip. He breaks into a smile, wrapping his arms around Jimin’s neck to bring him in for a close, tongue-less kiss, his lips simply pressed against his lover’s indefinitely until he speaks against them. “I love you,” he mumbles, gifting the corners of Jimin’s mouth with kisses, “you are a work of art.”
Jimin gains a second heartbeat and a swirl of flutters in his gut as the special meaning of Tae’s words is not lost on him. Admittedly, it’s smooth, and Jimin could dwell on the pride he feels for having taught Taehyung his ways, but he decides not to as he sweeps his tongue between his lips and snakes his hands under his boyfriend’s oversized sweater to finally feel his velvety, fresh-baked skin under his fingertips. Tae responds with a rejuvenated fervor, bringing his legs up and wrapping them around Jimin as his hands map his shoulders and back like he hasn’t felt them five thousand times.
“Maybe we should, ah,” Jimin interrupts with a last smack of his lips against Tae’s, hands gingerly ghosting his sides, “keep this tiny-ass chair.”
Tae chuckles, his eyes smiling at Jimin’s as they ravage his love bank like they always do, and he melts all over again like he’s falling in love with him for the first time all those five-ish years ago, five miles away. “It would be a good investment.”