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The phone rings for nearly a minute before Jimin finally picks up which means Taehyung nearly drops it in the toilet in shock when Jimin’s voice finally filters through. “Hey, Taetae,” he says, edged with a hint of heavy breathing that means he’s probably been rehearsing, and Taehyung immediately feels kind of guilty for calling for such a stupid reason. But. Still.
“Jimin,” he says, very urgently, “I need your help.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date right now?”
“Yes,” Taehyung hisses emphatically. “That’s what I need your help with.”
Jimin laughs, loose and delighted. “Mm, he’s hot, isn’t he?”
“No,” Taehyung says, then, “Yes extremely, but that’s not the problem,” and when Jimin starts to say something else, “Shhh, Jiminie, I’m on a limited time frame here so please listen.”
“Okay,” Jimin says, “I’m listening.”
Taehyung takes a furtive glance around the bathroom stall he’s currently gingerly sitting in, already cringing at how long he’s been hiding out. But he figures either Seokjin is the kind of guy who would judge his date on simply the implication of needing to take a dump, or he’s the kind of guy Taehyung actually wants to date. And besides none of it matters based on the information Jimin may or may not be able to provide him anyways.
“He’s wearing a shirt,” Taehyung says, “and it says, I quote, ‘I eat oil paintings when the security guards aren’t looking,’ and I can’t tell if it’s a joke or not.”
Silence. Taehyung pulls the phone away from his ear to make sure he hasn’t accidentally hung up or something, but then Jimin starts laughing loud enough for him to hear it anyways.
“I’m serious,” Taehyung says.
Jimin, still laughing, chokes out, “I know, I know.”
“We’re at an art gallery Jiminie,” Taehyung hisses, “what if he actually tries? What if I take him to my favourite Van Gogh and he—he eats it?”
“Oh my god Taehyung,” Jimin says, then dissolves into another round of giggles. Taehyung patiently waits it out, and sure enough, after a long, drawn out sigh, Jimin’s voice pops back onto the line. “Okay, okay,” he says, “I’m okay, I’m fine. Sorry, that was just a really fucking funny mental image, you know that?”
“It would not be funny,” Taehyung intones, “it would be traumatic, thank you very much.”
“So what do you want me to do about it?”
Taehyung frowns. “Well, is he joking?”
“How in the world am I supposed to know?”
“You set me up with him!”
Jimin clucks his tongue. “Yeah but he’s Joon’s friend. We’ve only really talked a couple times. I approved on basis of his ridiculously hot face. I’m thinking you two can be one of those intimidatingly hot couples people avoid on the street to avoid being stared down too much, you know?”
“Not if he eats my favourite paintings.”
“Tae,” Jimin says, and Taehyung can just see the smile he has to have on right now, half indulging and half mirthful, shaking his head even if his eyes are winking crescents. “He’s not going to eat the paintings. First of all, imagine how long that would take. I bet some of it would be salvageable even if he tried.”
Taehyung makes an inadvertent whining sound.
“Which I’m sure will not happen,” Jimin says, very firmly. “Joon vouched for this Kim Seokjin, you know? He’s a good person, I’m sure, so if you lead with ‘this is my favourite painting,’ I’m sure he’ll leave it alone even if he was planning on… eating it when your back was turned.”
“That sounds suspiciously like logic.”
Jimin huffs another laugh. “Trust me.”
Taehyung frowns, presses the phone tighter to his head.
“You know,” Jimin continues, gentler now and without the earlier teasing bite, “Jin-hyung’s a nice person. You can trust him.” With more than your favourite paintings, goes unspoken, in that way that Jimin is good at, reassurances that he doesn’t have to vocalize to be felt. Out of the two of them, Jimin’s the more talkative one, sure, but he knows where to leave his silences. Knows that despite liking people and the beautiful, gentle worlds everyone carries inside them, Taehyung finds it hard to trust people with the world of himself. Mostly because he finds it equally as hard to go slow, partition bits out, let people in secret by secret instead of all at once. When Taehyung loves, likes, falls in infatuation, whatever, he does it full bodied, beating-heart-handed, chest unfurling to offer up all his tender moments.
It’s just too bad that despite the general concept of humanity being fragile and broken and lovely in all the ways Taehyung is fascinated by, sometimes, specific people are kind of jackasses.
Ergo: the crux of the problem, weird painting T-shirts be damned. What kind of specific person is Kim Seokjin? The kind who, when probably told offhand by Namjoon that Taehyung likes art, would wear that shirt just to prove his aloofness? Or the kind who, knowing this about Taehyung, just wants to break the ice? Impossible to tell.
Taehyung shifts the phone to his other ear. “You just said you don’t know him that well.”
“Eh, I got enough chaotic vibes off of him that I can totally see him chowing down on a painting, but I also got enough like genuine good person vibes that I’m sure everything will be fine, you know?” Jimin clucks his tongue, and Taehyung can see him rolling his eyes. “Now stop hiding in a bathroom and at least have a proper conversation with him before you judge him on basis of his sartorial decisions.”
Taehyung pouts. But Jimin is right, so he balances his phone on his shoulder and unlocks the stall.
“Are you going?” Jimin shouts from over the line.
“Yes,” Taehyung hisses, then hangs up halfway through Jimin’s encouraging holler.
Thanks, he texts as a follow-up, even though he knows that Jimin knows, and then when there’s nothing else to do to stall, he splashes some water on his cheeks and heads out the door.
Seokjin is waiting outside, and the sight of him, long legs crossed as he leans up against a pillar, peering down at something on his phone, his other arm tucked over his chest in a way that covers up half the offending text in question on the weird T-shirt, almost makes Taehyung turn tail and walk straight back into the bathroom. But then Seokjin, somehow, looks up at the exact right time and smiles in the exact right way—bright, expectant, but not questioning, like he was waiting, and now he’s glad to see Taehyung back.
It’s enough to make Taehyung smile back, giving into the warm spark waiting to bloom out from his chest.
“Where to?” Seokjin asks, breezy. He pushes himself off the pillar and adjust his loose blazer collar. It looks good on him. It all looks good on him, even the fit of the stupid shirt.
Taehyung tries very hard not to stare at it. “Have you been here before?” he asks.
Seokjin’s still grinning when he replies, “Nope!”
“There’s an exhibit,” Taehyung starts up, “one of the smaller ones. I’ve been to a bunch of museums, but this one is my favourite.”
“Then let’s go,” Seokjin says. He holds out his arm, winks in a way that Taehyung is sure some people would call obnoxious, but, honestly, he finds embarrassingly endearing. “I don’t know anything about art,” he says, admits maybe, the tips of his ears turning the barest blush of pink.
“That’s okay,” Taehyung finds himself saying, “I know lots.”
“Oh,” Seokjin says, mock sultry, “you can be my teacher, then.” And then he laughs, full-bodied, head tossed back, his nose scrunching up in the most ridiculous laugh Taehyung has ever heard in his entire life, and oh fuck, this is it, Taehyung thinks, he’s amazing.
*
Taehyung falls in love with Seokjin one painting at a time.
Maybe that’s a little dramatic. It’s one date. Just one date, and a blind one at that. But one, hopefully meaning first, hopefully meaning first of many dates, and when you came down to it, isn’t this what love this? To want more, more time, more moments with this other person in your life? It’s simple. Sometimes, love can be simple.
At the very least, Taehyung falls in something there isn’t really a word for with Seokjin one painting at a time.
Like, maybe, he thinks as he walks them both through a roomful of sepia photographs, a local artist’s exhibition that’s been a mainstay at the gallery. “He documented his fishing trips,” Taehyung explains, and Seokjin hums in all the right places, and when Taehyung’s finished his long spiel about how the smudged photos depict the artist and a mysterious follower, footsteps in the woods, a shadow flitting between trees, Seokjin leans in to squint at the last photo—an empty boat swinging in the lake—and says, “It sounds like he had a Nemo-sis,” then dissolves back into that squeaking laughter from earlier.
And Taehyung can’t help but laugh at the stupid joke, get caught up in Seokjin’s infectious glee. “That’s not even the right kind of fish, Seokjin-ssi,” he manages.
Seokjin winks. “Well, either way, it looks like either his creepy shadow self got him in that last photo, or he vanished in fin air, huh?”
No, Taehyung thinks, like isn’t the right word, as a smile blooms out over his face, wide and involuntary in the way that all the best smiles are. “The ambiguity is the point, I think,” he says happily, “and actually if you look at all the photos there’s another narrative where there wasn’t a Nemo-sis at all—all the doubles can be shadows or reflections if you look closely, you know?” and the delightful thing inside him glows, paints the whole room brighter as he watches Seokjin’s eyes go wide as he turns them back to the exhibit and does a full round of all the photos, asking Taehyung questions about where the shadows are at every single one.
Fond, he tries on as Seokjin drags him over to a small collection of sculptures Taehyung had never quite managed to figure out.
“What’s this supposed to be of?” Seokjin asks, jabbing one slightly crooked finger at a little lumpy looking thing encased in glass before them. Taehyung wants to take that finger in his own hand, trace all the knobs of Seokjin’s knuckles, learn the feel of them.
But maybe that’s a bit much. Or, at least, that’s what the voice that sounds suspiciously like Jimin’s nagging warnings in the back of his mind informs him.
So Taehyung shrugs. “I dunno,” he says.
“Yah,” Seokjin says, “aren’t you supposed to be my art guide?”
“The best guides,” Taehyung says solemnly, “know when to admit they don’t know something.”
“That’s a terrible philosophy,” Seokjin says. “I want my money back.”
“You’re not paying me.”
“I demand some sort of compensation.”
And Taehyung, never one to lose a challenge, slowly shuffles up to the lumpy thing and stares into approximately what he thinks looks like a couple of bulging eyeballs. “This,” he says dramatically, squinting, “is some sort of… creature.”
“What kind of creature?” Seokjin asks, fake imperious.
Taehyung swivels, holding his arms and legs out in his best imitation of the statue’s contorted form. “This kind of creature.”
For a moment, he and Seokjin stare at each other. Taehyung’s legs wobble.
Then, Seokjin nearly bends in half, and there’s that stupidly wonderful laugh again. Seokjin laughs, tries to straighten, but Taehyung is holding position, and as soon as they meet eyes again, Seokjin dissolves back into helpless giggles. Taehyung pokes his tongue out and holds his arms up as long as he can, but, well, he’s not the most flexible person even if you weren’t comparing against Jimin, and eventually he falls flat on his ass with the effort of it.
Which, of course, only makes Seokjin laugh harder, shaking his head as he stumbles forward and falls down on his knees in front of Taehyung.
“Oh my god,” Seokjin is saying, trying to help him up even though they’re both kind of scrabbling around on the floor now, “oh my god, what the fuck, Taehyung-ssi.”
Taehyung looks up at him, grins, and says, “You can call me Taehyung-ah if you want,” then tips his head forward in an open question.
Seokjin smooths his hands over Taehyung’s shoulders, still shaking with silent laughter. He squeezes his eyes shut, then holds up his slim, interesting finger again. Taehyung, giddy, waits.
When eventually, Seokjin’s laughed himself out, he wipes honest to god tears out of the corners of his eyes and says, “Call me hyung, then,” with all the warmth of meaning it.
Taehyung could, quite possibly, stay here on the floor forever. Certainly it would be nice, staring up into Seokjin’s nice eyes, glittering with a sheen of mirthful tears still, the bottled up joy of everything bundled up inside his chest, pressed just under his sternum, like a breath he doesn’t want to let go of. Certainly, he could be content to live out the rest of his fleeting mortal years right here on this hard linoleum floor, and this has to be love, then, in its own special, simple way, an easy love that doesn’t have to be earth-shattering or world-changing or anything other than what it is.
“Okay,” Taehyung says easily, and ignores his inner naggy Jimin and reaches out to catch Seokjin’s interesting hands between his own. He laces their fingers together, trying to memorize every crooked edge of Seokjin’s, index, middle, ring, pinky, all of them tucked into his own hand. Not quite perfect in their knuckles knocking together when Taehyung shifts, but it’s beautiful. That’s why it’s beautiful.
Seokjin goes a little quieter, his mouth falling a little slack when he looks down at their linked hands.
Taehyung beams. “Do you want to see my favourite painting, hyung?”
*
It’s not so much his favourite painting as it’s his favourite painting for now. Taehyung mentally tacks that on, even if he knows it’s nowhere near as impressive sounding, because he likes to leave room open for things to change wherever he can. It’s just right.
But—one thing he doesn’t want to change: Seokjin’s hand in his, loose gripped, swinging a little bit as they traverse the creaky grand stairs of the gallery to the small tucked away room upstairs where Taehyung’s (current) favourite painting rests.
“Give me a hint,” Seokjin says.
“What?”
“Of what it’s like.”
Taehyung sucks his cheek in between his teeth, thinks. “It’s very pretty.”
Seokjin trills a short laugh and nudges him in the shoulder. “Of course it’s very pretty. Why else would it be your favourite?”
Taehyung shrugs. “My last favourite painting was kind of ugly.”
Seokjin raises an eyebrow. “Then why’d you like it?”
Taehyung thinks back to the smudgey pastel thing he’d fallen in love with last month, not even in a gallery, but in an artist’s alley marketplace he’d been strolling through. How he’d walked through the ferns and plants that were being sold half a street away, emerged into the little pop-up shop under the glaring light of the sun, and locked eyes with this dark little canvass, barely even big enough to be noticed. “It was red,” he says, recounting the story, “and black, and kind of messy, like the artist had gotten halfway through and stopped. But the lines told me a story, and I wanted to know what it was.”
“Did you buy it?” Seokjin asks.
“No,” Taehyung says. “I bought a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night at the same place for Jimin’s birthday, because Jimin likes simple pretty things, and I left.”
Seokjin tilts his head. “Why not?”
Taehyung steps neatly through the threshold to the gallery room. “I don’t know,” he says. “It didn’t feel right. I don’t like owning my favourite things.”
Seokjin nods, like that makes any sense, and a different sort of fondness sparks between them. Like they have quiet spaces, too, now. Like Taehyung can be quiet if he wants, not explain himself. Jimin had pestered him for hours after he’d told the story, why didn’t you buy it, Taehyungie? I want to know what it looks like, but Taehyung hadn’t been able to articulate it any other way than that taking it for himself felt like robbing the world—and some other person out there—of something important. Taehyung’s a fickle person, after all. He has as many favourite things as there are days in a month.
“I like you, hyung,” he says into the sudden stillness, staring ahead at the empty doorframe that would lead them forward. “I really like you.”
Seokjin starts, like he hadn’t been expecting it. But he doesn’t draw away. Instead, his hand tightens in Taehyung’s, a gentle reassurance. “I like you too, Taehyung-ah,” he says, soft. Smiles soft, too, nothing like the bombastic force of his laugh. But it carries the same nudging glee. The same easy happiness that makes Taehyung want to return the expression.
“I thought you were going to eat my favourite painting at first,” Taehyung blurts without realizing the words were coming out of his mouth.
For a moment, Seokjin’s eyes bug. His face folds in, like he’s confused. Taehyung watches. It’s fascinating, the different ways that handsome face could be contorted, and, yet, still be so goddamn pretty. Then, his eyes widen in a different sort of emotion, one that Taehyung might call ‘horror’ if he were so inclined to put a name to it, as Seokjin turns his attention down to the shirt that he fully picked out himself, and wore to this date.
“It’s okay,” Taehyung says. “I got over it.”
Seokjin’s eyes crinkle. “Is that why you were in the washroom so long at first?”
“It took some time,” Taehyung says solemnly.
“Well,” says Seokjin, letting go of Taehyung’s hands to smoothing a palm over his—broad—chest where the words sit, “I thought it would be funny.”
There’s a tone of nervousness to his voice, and it makes Taehyung’s heart flutter. He smiles, open and unabashed. “It is,” he decides, then and there. “I didn’t think I liked it and I thought maybe that would mean I wouldn’t like you at first, but I do.”
Seokjin shrugs, a little helpless thing. “I’m really glad for that.” The tips of his ears are turning pink again. He looks bigger than life and small all at once. “I’m glad you gave me a chance.”
Taehyung thinks about the ways the world can be surprising, novel, how things can be beautiful in more than one way, how he’s still startled by all the lovely things that people will think of and do and enact into it. He thinks about giving things a chance, blooming. Thinks about the unexpected hilarity of it all, some may say his overreaction. “This will make a great party story one day,” he declares.
Seokjin squeaks out another laugh. He pitches his voice low, leans in all conspiratorial, “So, Taehyung-ah, how did you and your handsome boyfriend meet?”
Taehyung clears his throat dramatically. “Well, you see, he was wearing this shirt.”
“Does this mean you want to go on another date with me?” Seokjin asks.
“Yeah, hyung,” Taehyun returns, beaming. “Yeah, I do.”
*
Seokjin picks the next place. Some fancy restaurant, local food made best, Seokjin insists. Taehyung drags Jimin to the craft store the weekend before.
When he shows up in steak earrings and a shirt that says: I like my dates medium rare, Seokjin nearly knocks over the liquor display laughing, then pulls him close right then and there.
“You’re gonna eat me?” he asks, long fingers cupping the side of Taehyung’s face.
Taehyung leans in, gives Seokjin his best feral grin, and devours him in a kiss.