Work Text:
If anyone asked Jeongguk, he would say that they entered his life like sunrays filter through the window glass on a Saturday morning of spring. He might sound too poetic, maybe too pretentious, but they always get the sentimentality he didn’t know he had out of him.
So, they came into his life like that, longed for a long time, welcomed with an open heart, appreciated in a warm silence.
His boyfriends. Seokjin and Yoongi.
Jeongguk still feels butterflies inside his belly whenever he says the word. Boyfriends. His boyfriends.
They entered his life quietly, slowly, but growing roots so deeply inside him that they became a part of him, something he can’t live without, something he didn’t know he needed but he can’t let go anymore.
His flatmate and best friend, Jimin, begs him to join him and his not quite boyfriend yet Namjoon for dinner, simply because he is too afraid to be introduced to Namjoon’s friends alone. And Jeongguk, being the bestest of friends, agrees only after making Jimin promise to do their laundry for three weeks.
He doesn’t expect to find the two most handsome men alive and dead of the world at Namjoon’s. As soon as his eyes land on their figures, he knows his existence is fucked up. Seokjin greets him first, plump lips stretched in a warm smile, brown hair styled away from his model-like face. He stands up from where he was sitting on the sofa and moves to greet them when they enter the living room. Yoongi doesn’t move from his spot until Seokjin scolds him for being impolite – “Yah, Yoongi! You are being rude! Come and greet the boys” – and when he comes closer and introduces himself, black undercut on display and deep eyes, Jeongguk has to refrain himself from asking him to talk him to sleep because. That voice.
It doesn’t take too much time to know that they are a couple, an established one at that. The way Yoongi moves one of his hands to touch Seokjin whenever they are near each other, or the gaze full of love and admiration Seokjin only has when he is looking at the other are very obvious to Jeongguk and probably to the rest of the world.
They sit next to him at the table and on the sofa after dinner, they talk to him and he gets to know them for hours until it gets too late and they all have to go home. Jimin hugs him tightly for a long time and whispers into his ear how proud of him he is before letting him go inside his room and under the covers back at their shared flat.
More than a week after the night at Namjoon’s, Jeongguk meets Seokjin during his morning jog at the Han River. They spends hours talking and playing with Seokjin’s dog -a poodle named Holly- until Seokjin checks the time and almost screams when he finds out he is going to be late for his lunch with Yoongi.
“Do you want to join us?” he ask with a bright smile on his face, and Jeongguk only agrees with a shy nod of his head. Seokjin drives him back to his apartment so he can change his sport wear with something more suitable, and they definitely arrive late because Jeongguk spends minutes in front of his wardrobe freaking out.
Yoongi greets him with a warm smile, and the three of them spend the entire afternoon together, talking about everything. Seokjin works at his father’s company while Yoongi is a novelist, and between them there are only three months difference, but Seokjin is still the hyung.
Jeongguk tells them shyly that he is a University student, that thanks to his studentships he doesn’t have to work part-time jobs, but he still sometimes sells his paintings and sketches.
“Can we see some of your works someday?” Yoongi asks with his low voice and Jeongguk internally screams because Yoongi said someday, which means they will meet again.
And indeed, they meet again. And again. And again.
There are times he meets with just one of them, like when Yoongi texts him asking if he is free and willing to walk Holly together at the park, or when Seokjin needs to go grocery shopping for another dinner with their friends and Jeongguk tells him he want to help. But most of the times it’s the three of them together, somewhere outside at first, for example at the mall or at a museum, but then they invite him to their home and after that they hang out sitting together in front of the massive fireplace of their living room, Jeongguk squished between the older two.
His crush on both Seokjin and Yoongi grows bigger and bigger day after day. When he tells Jimin about his insecurities and fears -the two of them sitting on Jeongguk’s bed facing each other, the younger one’s eyes red and swollen- he thinks that maybe all of this is too soon, too sudden, and maybe he isn’t ready for something, if there is anything at all. But Jimin reassures him, wipes the tears off his cheeks and tells him that everything is going to be alright.
Yoongi texts him one morning asking if he wants to get ice-cream together in the afternoon, and Jeongguk is too distracted by the non-date-that-looks-a-lot-like-a-date that he forgets he has a therapy session, and he ends up showing late at their non-date. He apologizes a hundred of times, and Yoongi tells him a hundred of times that it is no problem, that he doesn’t mind wait for him at all. Jeongguk blushes hard. He explains he had a meeting with his therapist that he forgot about behind a mint-choco ice-cream cone, ashamed and afraid of what the other might think of him now.
“You see a therapist?” Yoongi asks behind his strawberry popsicle “I used to see one too. Sometimes I still do” he smiles at him, and then starts talking about the new book he is reading.
At first Jeongguk doesn’t understand why none of them asks him about his struggles -or whatever goes on inside his brain, seriously- but they never do. They don’t ask for an explanation when he ditches them without any warning and goes MIA for almost a week, don’t knowledge out loud whenever he flinches away from a touch or startles because of a loud noise, don’t say anything when he meets them with swollen eyes and trembling lips.
Seokjin and Yoongi just give him a warm smile and a tight hug when they see them again after days, give him his favourite tea to calm him down and touch him only when they are sure they can, kiss his wet cheeks until he smiles again.
And one night almost five months after they first met, it happens. They are watching a movie at Seokjin and Yoongi’s home, Jeongguk is sitting between the two of them, his body leaning onto Seokjin’s side, his head on his broad shoulder, Holly is sleeping at their feet on the carpet.
Jeongguk has no idea what the movie is about, has only watched the first five minutes or so before he moved his focus on the two men at his sides and their voices. Yoongi likes to comment everything, and Seokjin scolds him every time he opens his mouth, saying he is distracting him. At one point Yoongi takes one of Jeongguk’s hand between his while he keeps talking, and Jeongguk thinks he did it unconsciously like he does with Seokjin, reached for him without even thinking, and then he focuses on the way Seokjin is petting his hair like he knows the younger one likes.
He doesn’t know he is crying until both Seokjin and Yoongi stop bickering and look at him with wide eyes. His sniffles are loud inside the quiet room.
“Jeongguk-ah?” Seokjin calls him, Yoongi tightens the grip on his hand “baby, what’s wrong?”
Jeongguk only cries harder because. Baby.
It’s been a while since Seokjin first called him that. Jeongguk was too focused on reading a new receipt on his phone that he didn’t answer the older one when he called his name, but when his ears captured the pet name he blushed hard and stuttered an answer. When he went back home, he screamed into one of his pillows so loud Jimin ran into his room worried he was dying.
His heart feel so full of emotions, but at the same time it feels so light, like it hasn’t been for a while.
Because this is the first time in so long since he felt so connected to someone else, it has been so long since someone felt like home. Because Seokjin knows he likes his coffee with a teaspoon of sugar in it and doesn’t like detergents with strong smells, so he bought new ones with light fragrances. Because Yoongi knows he likes listening to lo-fi music when he draws and paints and needs to relax, so he made a playlist just for him.
Because they always ask him first.
“I like you” he whispers, and his heart feels so light all of a sudden “I like both of you so much I don’t think I can live without you in my life anymore”
And then he is squeezed between two warm bodies, and there are soft words and light touches and.
“We like you too” Seokjin tells him.
“We like you a lot” Yoongi murmurs.
And then they ask him if they can kiss him. At first Jeongguk hesitates, even though he dreamt about kissing them for a while now, but they wait, they don’t force him to do anything.
They wait for him, for as long as it takes. So he nods.
Seokjin kisses him first. His kisses feel like a cosy morning, when you have iced coffee outside of your balcony, the sound of birds around you, and you take your time because it’s your day off.
Then Yoongi kisses him next. His kisses feel like a peaceful night out in summer, in front of a bonfire on the beach, the stars above your head while you share your deep thoughts with someone you care about.
They spend the night talking about their feelings in between slow kisses and gentle caresses, fingers intertwined and, when they shyly ask him if he wants to be their boyfriend, he weeps some more.
And agrees.