Chapter Text
Seokjin is out with his best friend, Hoseok, both of them about four beers deep when his phone starts buzzing on the table between them. He reaches for it, but Hoseok is quicker, snatching it up and squinting at the screen with red and bleary eyes. Bless his heart, but he’s always been a lightweight.
“It says... Checkmark Motherfuckers?”
Seokjin sighs. “It’s the Nike people.”
Hoseok snorts as he hands the phone back over. “You have one of your biggest sponsors in your phone as motherfuckers?”
“I find them to be very annoying,” Seokjin says, signalling to their waiter that he wants another beer.
Hoseok shrugs. “I think they’re fine, but they also don’t care about me enough to call me personally. They just call my manager. I don’t even have them saved in my contacts.”
It makes sense. Ever since Seokjin won his first Olympic gold medal in singles figure skating at sixteen, becoming one of the youngest men to do so, he’s been their golden boy every time winter rolls around. Because interest in skating goes up in the winter, his managers have so helpfully explained to him.
As if figure skating isn’t a year-round sport. As if Seokjin hasn’t been in the rink constantly, regardless of season, for as long as he can remember.
“They keep asking me if I’m going to Worlds next year.” He says it quietly, staring down into his empty glass, but he knows that Hoseok can hear him.
“Are you?”
Seokjin has known Hoseok since they met as teens— in the Olympic village, the same year Seokjin won his first gold medal and everything changed for good. Hoseok was there as a young snowboarding hopeful, and they both attracted a lot of attention for being 1) Korean American and 2) so young, just fifteen and sixteen years old.
Hoseok hadn’t managed to place first that year— Fucking Shawn White, the little Oompa-Loompa, Hoseok had grumbled — but they had remained in touch ever since. At the time, they lived a few hours apart, but their intense training schedules made it so that it was hard for them to maintain close friendships with other people. Without really realizing, they became best friends, and Seokjin knows that there’s no one in the world— not even his family— who knows him like Hoseok does.
If anyone would be able to understand Seokjin’s hesitancy to continue with his wildly successful career, he knows it’s Hoseok. So when the other man asks him that question, Seokjin answers honestly.
“I don’t know. I don’t really want to.”
When he forces himself to look up, Hoseok’s face holds no judgment. He offers Seokjin a small smile, shoulders shrugging a bit. “That’s okay. You’ve been doing this for a long time, Jin.”
Something about verbally admitting the way that he’s slowly falling out of love with what he does makes Seokjin feel anxious, his chest tightening. He tries not to show it, but he can’t help the way he reaches out and starts nervously crumpling at a napkin.
“Yeah, but I’m still only twenty-six. If I quit… what am I supposed to do now?”
It’s been his biggest fear. What is Seokjin if he’s not a figure skater? It’s been all he knows, the biggest piece of his identity since he was a little kid idolizing Michelle Kwan. If he quits now, what next? He goes into retirement and starts doing Subway commercials? He hasn’t even gone to Subway ever since they stopped doing five dollar footlongs.
Seeming to sense his inner turmoil, Hoseok kicks Seokjin gently under the table.
“Hey,” Hoseok says. “You don’t have to have it all figured out now. But you’ll find something you want to do. You might just need a break in between.”
Seokjin groans. “I haven’t taken a break since I was sixteen.”
“Well, that’s just sad, and it’s a miracle that both of your ACLs are still intact.”
“Yeah,” Seokjin sighs. “You’re right.”
The waiter comes with his new beer, and Hoseok pushes it toward him immediately. “Here you go, Jinnie. Drink up. You’ll feel better.”
Famous last words, Seokjin thinks, and then he lifts the beer to his lips and starts chugging.
When Seokjin wakes up with a pounding headache early the next afternoon to find a text from Hoseok that reads simply: u seen this?? waiting for him, he doesn’t have any expectations about the attached Youtube link. Knowing Hoseok, it could be anything ranging from a random mukbanger to a surprise Taylor Swift album that just dropped. Seokjin clicks the link with mild disinterest, still at least partially asleep as he rolls over and tilts his phone to watch.
The first thing he notices is the video’s title: MIN YOONGI BACK ON THE ICE .
Well, that’s certainly a name that Seokjin recognizes.
Onscreen, the slightly younger man pays no attention to the camera. The camerawork is a little shaky, and the angle the video is shot from isn’t great, but Yoongi’s form and movements as he glides across the ice are clearly visible.
Finally waking up and gaining more awareness, Seokjin quickly notices a second thing: Yoongi is skating Seokjin’s own routine from the last Worlds competition.
It’s not perfect. Yoongi seems slightly out of practice, and his form slips on occasion. When he jumps, some of his landings are shaky, and at one point, he subs in a triple instead of a quad. None of this matters, though. Seokjin is unable to look away.
Yoongi skates with his heart. Even now, as he’s getting a real look at Yoongi’s skating for the first time, Seokjin can see it. There’s unmistakable passion and emotion in the other man’s movements, and it doesn’t matter if the routine isn’t technically perfect— even this soon after waking up, at a time when Seokjin usually feels barely human, it evokes something within him that he hasn’t felt properly in years.
He can’t quite put his finger on it, at first, what it is that he’s feeling. It’s close to excitement, his heartbeats coming just a bit quicker as he watches, tiny hairs on his arms raising. The video ends, and Seokjin places the feeling that has been so elusive to him recently.
Inspiration.
A bit crazed, he gets out of bed and goes directly to the bathroom. He needs to think carefully about the wild and slightly manic idea that has sprung up within him with such determination, and there’s nowhere that’s better for thinking than a shower.
(Two hours later, he books a flight from New York to Jeju Island and starts packing his bags.)
☀
Min Yoongi is having the worst week of his life.
“I’m so sorry, hyung,” Namjoon tells him, for what must be the hundredth time. They’re on the couch, watching a Youtube video called MIN YOONGI PLAGIARISM ACCUSATIONS? on Namjoon’s laptop — Yoongi dispassionately, and Namjoon with deep horror. “I swear I didn’t know they even knew how to work a phone that well. They’re four.”
“Generation Alpha are becoming technologically literate at very early ages,” Yoongi says absently, eyes still fixed on the sports journalist who is predicting the end of Yoongi’s disastrous career. “I hope you and Taehyung have parental controls on your Youtube apps.”
Judging by the way Namjoon jolts and immediately starts fumbling with his phone, Yoongi guesses that the answer is no.
The video ends, and as the anxiety and embarrassment starts to swell in his chest, Yoongi tries to reason with himself. It’s not the end of the world, he thinks. So Namjoon and Taehyung’s twins secretly filmed him mid mental breakdown as he copied one of his figure skating idol’s legendary performances. So they then uploaded that video onto Youtube. So the video was then reposted by a popular figure skating fan account, and the reupload has five hundred thousand views.
Things could be worse, probably.
“I’m so sorry,” Namjoon repeats. “Tae is sorry too. He told the twins they’re grounded until they start high school.”
“That might be a little drastic.”
“Oh, he’s absolutely going to let up in about a month, don’t worry. But they are in trouble, and we are so fucking sorry.”
Yoongi chokes out a laugh, trying not to look as horrified as he still feels, even three days after the video was posted. “I know, Joon. You’ve said it a million times. It’s okay.”
It’s not okay, but Yoongi isn’t mad. Not at Namjoon and Taehyung, or even at their adorable little brats, whom he knows he will continue to spoil despite this great betrayal.
He’s just embarrassed.
He can’t believe so many people have seen that video. He can’t believe he’s making news in the figure skating world for being a hopeless Seokjin Kim fanboy. Not to be dramatic, but just thinking about it makes him want to dye his hair, change his name, and move out of Korea.
“Do you think he’s seen it?” Yoongi mumbles.
Namjoon turns to look at him, brow furrowed. “Who?”
Yoongi sinks back into the couch cushions, head lolling back to stare at the ceiling. “Seokjin.”
“I mean… surely not, right?” Namjoon says, in a tone that isn’t at all convincing. “He’s probably super busy with, like, being himself. I doubt he has time to troll Youtube for random videos.”
“There were Naver articles.”
“Maybe he doesn’t speak Korean. He was born in America, right?”
Yoongi shifts his weight, slumping forward to bury his face in his hands. “He’s trilingual,” he says miserably. “He speaks English, Korean, and conversational Mandarin— which you would know if you had paid attention to me at all when we were teenagers, you bitch.”
“I’m sorry,” Namjoon says once again, clearly still feeling far too guilty to tease Yoongi the way he usually would when his high school fanboy crush on Seokjin Kim comes up.
Yoongi sighs. “It’s okay. I’m gonna go for a walk, okay? I need to clear my head.”
Namjoon nods quickly, and with a final, parting “sorry,” Yoongi leaves.
Vibrating with nervous energy, Yoongi runs three laps around Namjoon’s block before finally starting the fifteen minute walk back to his parents’ house. It’s a nice day— partly cloudy, mild temperatures, a pleasant breeze. Yoongi forces himself to take it all in. He walks slowly along the sea-side path leading to his childhood home, taking deep, measured breaths and focusing on the small things. The sun on his face, or the way the wind rustles his hair. By the time he’s close to his parents’ house, he actually does feel somewhat better.
As he makes his way up the path to the house, he notices a man hovering outside. He’s tall, with dark hair and an oversized sweatshirt. It’s not abnormal— his parents run a small hot spring resort on the same property as their home, and customers can often be found wandering around the area.
“Hello!” Yoongi calls out, shifting into the business voice that he learned back in high school, when he used to be a part time employee for his parents. “Are you here for the hot springs?”
Once he’s spoken, the man turns around quickly to face him. Once Yoongi gets a look at his face, he can’t stop his jaw from dropping wide open.
“What the fuck.”
“Hi,” says Seokjin Kim, in perfect Korean, flashing his trademark winning smile. Yoongi feels faint. “I’ve come to be your coach.”
Although Yoongi thinks that he’s been acting fairly normally, it takes him a solid half hour to stop believing deep down that he’s hallucinating.
“Let me get this straight, Seokjin-ssi,” he says.
“Hyung.”
“Pardon?”
“I mean, call me hyung, please,” Seokjin says pleasantly. He’s sitting at Yoongi’s mother’s kitchen table with perfect posture, back ramrod straight and hands folded neatly before him as he sits in the same spot where Yoongi did his homework for his entire childhood.
The image makes no sense in Yoongi’s brain. It’s like the random Starbucks cup in that Game of Thrones scene— it’s just not right.
“Okay,” Yoongi says, thinking vaguely that his teenage self would be having a stroke by now. “Let me get this straight, hyung. You saw that video, and you suddenly decided to quit training and fly to Korea, all to coach… me?”
“Yes,” Seokjin says, as if this is all perfectly normal. “I think you have potential.”
“Thank you,” Yoongi says, acting purely on autopilot, as his brain has now dissolved into mush. “But, hyung, I actually….”
With a shake of his head, he trails off.
“Go on.” Seokjin says it in an encouraging tone, but Yoongi doesn’t feel comforted. Instead, he just feels ashamed— just like he has been feeling, ever since last March, when he went to Worlds and choked.
“I left Seoul and came back to Jeju because I’m quitting, Seokjin-hyung. I don’t think I can do this professionally. It was arrogant of me to try.”
Seokjin blinks. Yoongi stubbornly refuses to look him in the face, his eyes fixed on the grainy wood of the kitchen table.
“So, you see, I don’t need a coach at all. I’m sorry to have wasted your time, hyung.”
For several moments, there is silence. Yoongi shifts uncomfortably where he stands by the stove, feeling awkward and shamed. After what feels like an eternity, Seokjin finally speaks.
“Well, I disagree.”
Yoongi can’t help himself. He snorts.
“You disagree? What, based on a shaky Youtube video filmed by toddlers?”
Seokjin looks surprised. “You had toddlers record you?”
“I didn’t know they were— you know what, actually, that’s not even the point. With all due respect, you don’t know me, hyung. And what you have seen of me….” Yoongi cringes. “God, do you really not look at the news? Did you not see what happened at Worlds? My performance was called the worst of the 21st century. They made fun of me on Fox News.”
“Fuck Fox News,” Seokjin says immediately. “They’re garbage anyway, and who cares what Steve fucking Doocy says about you? He voted for Trump.”
“So you did see it.”
“That is simply not the point,” Seokjin says primly. “The point is, I’ve seen you skate enough to know that you have talent, and you have passion, and I won’t let you waste that.”
Yoongi huffs, slightly offended. “Oh, you won’t let me, huh?”
“That came out wrong. I just meant… I think it’s worth trying. Won’t you try for me, Yoongi?”
Seokjin looks up at him with big, pretty, beseeching eyes. Quite frankly, Yoongi feels attacked. “I don’t know….”
Maybe Seokjin senses Yoongi’s weakness. “Just give me a month,” he pleads. “Train with me for one month, and see what you think. I don’t think that one failure means you have to give up. Don’t even think about anyone else— I can tell you love the sport. Don’t you owe it to yourself to give it one last shot?”
Yoongi lets out a long, shaky breath. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it, is the thing. Seokjin didn’t need to come and drag all of this up for Yoongi to be unsure of his decision. He thinks about it constantly— when he’s doing work for his parents, when he skates with the twins, when he’s trying to fall asleep at night. It haunts him, this constant shadow of a feeling that he’s not done. That he’s not ready to let go of his dream just yet.
“Okay,” he says. “One month.”
Seokjin beams. “Excellent! You won’t regret this, Yoongi. You have so much talent.”
“Sure, hyung,” Yoongi says, pretending as if his whole face isn’t flushing red in the face of Seokjin’s blinding smile and praise. “We’ll see.”
“You know, I didn’t expect you to be this shy,” Seokjin tells him. “It’s cute.”
Yoongi spins around to face the oven, hands moving automatically to put a tea kettle on so he has something to focus on as an excuse to hide his face. “Shut up.”
Behind him, he can hear Seokjin laughing softly. He’s so embarrassed that he must miss the sound of the front door opening, too busy staring blankly at the stove top. Just when he thinks he can’t get any more overwhelmed, his mother’s voice breaks the silence.
“Yoongi-yah, why is Seokjin Kim sitting at my kitchen table?”
Ah, shit.
Yoongi loves his mother, but she is an absolute fucking menace.
Within five minutes of her arrival, she had 1) extracted the information that Seokjin was going to be coaching Yoongi now, 2) decided that Seokjin would be staying in one of their resort guest rooms for the duration of his coaching, and 3) declared that she would be treating Seokjin to a home cooked meal, and no, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Seokjin, ever the well-mannered gentleman, tries to tell her she doesn’t need to put herself out for him. “Really, Mrs. Min, it’s not necessary for you to—”
“Nonsense,” Yoongi’s mother says, not even turning to look at him. “With how much we all had to listen to Yoongi go on about you back in the day, it feels like an old friend has come to visit. I have to feed you.”
“Oh?” Seokjin says, looking entirely too interested. “Yoongi used to talk about me?”
“No,” Yoongi says.
“Yes, of course,” his mother says, ignoring him. Yoongi rubs at his temple and tries to manifest his own sudden demise.
Unfortunately, he has no luck. He’s only dead on the inside.
“He was your biggest fan as a kid, you know, he wanted to be just like you. I think he might have had a poster at one point, actually.”
“Eomma,” Yoongi sighs, pained.
Seokjin, for his part, looks incredibly pleased when Yoongi ventures a look in his direction. “Aw, Yoongi, that’s so sweet. Would you like an autograph?”
“No,” Yoongi says flatly. “Thanks.”
His father comes home and they all eat together. The mood is merry, Seokjin effortlessly charming both of his parents as they all shovel his mother’s food into their mouths. Yoongi’s cheeks don’t stop flushing the whole meal.
Later that night, after Seokjin has been shown to his room and Yoongi has showered and gone to bed, Yoongi lies wide awake as he tries to make sense of the past day. He hasn’t texted Namjoon or Taehyung about it yet— mostly because he’s pretty sure that they would never believe him. He can practically hear Taehyung now— Sure, hyung. Would you like to start going by Y/N?
Seokjin told Yoongi in no uncertain terms that he was expected at the local rink at five thiry sharp the next morning, and despite knowing that waking up that early is going to feel like death, Yoongi just can’t seem to fall asleep.
He isn’t sure how he feels about all of this.
Mostly, he thinks he’s nervous. Skating in front of Seokjin Kim sort of sounds like a nightmare to him, and he knows he’s out of shape. He hasn’t really been training for the past few months, just slipping into the Kims’ rink after close on occasion to scratch the itch. He hasn’t stuck to any sort of solid workout routine, either, and he’s been eating large amounts of rice and meat, piled on him by his parents. His body isn’t as strong as it was at the beginning of the year— it’s more relaxed, softer. It hasn’t bothered him, but now that he suddenly has to impress Seokjin fucking Kim tomorrow morning, it’s becoming a bit of a concern.
However, even despite all of this, he knows that he’s being kept awake by more than just his anxiety. There’s a buzzing within him that’s less fatalistic and more pleasant.
Excitement. Despite everything, Yoongi is excited.
Seokjin Kim is coaching him. The man who inspired Yoongi to get into figure skating for real, instead of just as a hobby, wants to coach him— so much so that he flew across the globe on a whim. Even if the circumstances are strange and embarrassing, how can Yoongi really complain?
“For fuck’s sake,” Yoongi complains, bent over at the waist as he gasps for air. “I need a break, oh my God, hyung, I think I’m gonna throw up. Or maybe die.”
Standing somewhere around the centerline that’s painted on the rink for hockey players, Seokjin watches Yoongi with a straight face, entirely unsympathetic.
“It’s conditioning, Yoongi,” Seokjin tells him. “It’s supposed to feel like you’re dying.”
“You’re insane.” Yoongi stands up straight, glaring daggers at the other man. “If you wanted me dead, you could have just killed me. You didn’t need to coach me as some sort of an elaborate ruse. I’m a little guy, I wouldn’t have put up a fight.”
Seokjin cracks a smile. “You look scrappy. I couldn’t take chances.”
Lulled into a false sense of security for a moment, Yoongi snorts out a laugh, leaning against the rink’s wall.
“Now, three more circuits, let’s go.”
Yoongi groans.
They’re four hours into their third day of training, and Yoongi has to admit— his old coach never worked him this hard. Ever. He’s certainly not having trouble falling asleep anymore, that’s for sure— each night, he sits in his parents’ hot springs until the ache in his weary muscles subsides, and then he drags himself to bed and passes out the moment his head hits the pillow.
He’s not sure if this is a good thing or not, really, but Seokjin is insistent that the exercise is essential.
Logically, this makes sense. Figure skating requires an absurd amount of strength, much of it in the lower body and core. Conditioning is essential. Yoongi doesn’t think he’s ever worked out to the point of nausea before, though.
When he finally comes to a stop after finishing the circuits Seokjin demanded, Yoongi truly doesn’t think he can keep going anymore. His lungs ache with every desperate gasp of air he takes, and his legs are starting to feel numb. Just as he’s about to admit this to Seokjin, the other man skates up to him, water bottle in hand.
“Here,” he says kindly. “Drink all of this. It’s time for your break.”
If Yoongi feels so relieved that his legs almost buckle, Seokjin doesn’t need to know that.
Together, they get off the rink and go to the bleachers. Yoongi automatically sits down on the floor and starts some cool down stretches, not wanting his muscles to lock up before they continue training. Seokjin, meanwhile, perches on the bleachers behind him and watches.
“You are doing okay,” Seokjin says suddenly.
Yoongi almost chuckles. “Thanks for the effusive praise, coach.”
“I’m saying that for being out of shape, you are keeping up pretty well. I meant it in a complementary way.”
Yoongi, as unable to take a compliment as ever, turns to look over his shoulder with a grin. “Has anyone ever told you that you speak Korean like an ahjussi, hyung?”
If Min Yoongi can do anything, it’s deflect.
Seokjin splutters. “Excuse me?”
“Your Korean is really good, obviously, but it reminds me of my dad.”
“Wow.” Seokjin narrows his eyes. “You know, I was going to offer to end practice a little early this evening, but I think I might add time instead now.”
Yoongi throws his head back and laughs. “Don’t lie to me. You were never ending practice early to begin with.”
“Maybe so,” Seokjin sniffs. “But now I’m definitely not.”
(In the end, Seokjin really does end up keeping Yoongi half an hour later than they planned. Despite this, Yoongi remains unapologetic.)
They’ve been going to and from the rink together. Since they’re living right next to each other, it just makes sense. They usually take the walk in a comfortable silence, with Seokjin occasionally asking friendly questions— about his hobbies, his friends, what he’s been up to since returning to Jeju— but Yoongi tends to remain quiet overall, still feeling a bit shy around Seokjin, even if he would rather die a long and painful death than admit this.
When Yoongi has changed and packed his bag to go home, he finds Seokjin waiting for him by the door with a small, tired smile. It might be another thing he’ll never admit, but this has been Yoongi’s favorite part of the past few days. It feels nice just to exist around Seokjin— to take these quiet walks together, to have quiet conversations where he feels like he’s actually getting to know the person who, yes, he used to have posters of hanging on his bedroom wall.
Smiling back at him, Yoongi walks up to him. “You ready to go, coach-nim?”
Seokjin snorts, rolling his eyes, but Yoongi thinks he looks fond.
“Yeah, let’s go.” He opens the door, and gestures for Yoongi to go through it first. With a nod and a slight flush (Yoongi still hasn’t managed to rid himself of that horrendous habit) he walks outside— and immediately and slams into a wall of muscle.
“What—?”
Yoongi stumbles backward, squinting through the dim twilight to see who he’s just run into right outside the rink, which isn’t open to the public right now.
He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Jungkook Jeon, the current reigning American national ice-skating champion and the most recent second place winner at ISO Worlds, ranking only behind—
“Seokjin, what the hell are you doing?” the younger man demands, in furious English. “You promised me— you swore that if you ever quit, you would be my coach!”
Confused and only barely understanding the younger man (his English has never been great), Yoongi turns to look at Seokjin, raising both hands in the universal gesture for What the fuck?
“Oh,” Seokjin says, also in English, with a look of dawning realization and horror. “Oh, fuck.”