Chapter Text
The steps down to Seoul Art Space Sindang aren't intimidating by the traditional sense of the word. Nothing about them is inherently scary or grandiose. They're a little inconspicuous, if anything, a red carpeted slope set to the side of a bustling marketplace. It's easy to be distracted and taken in by the many booths of the marketplace above, trying to see the food, the wares, and the quiet, marked entrance could be simple to just walk past in favor of more easily accessible things
But taking the curious route leads to a colorful world. The smell of hot iron, unmistakable, is ever present within the colorful walls beneath the market. Every bit of the hallways are covered in art, purposeful graffiti on the walls and bright light installations to catch the eye above.
As familiar as the path has become to Jungkook over the past few months, it's scary today. Today, he knows what lies at the end. Beyond the sliding glass doors and the hotshop where his tongs and hammer rest. Where art and care and love have grown.
Jungkook squares his shoulders.
And today, Jungkook has decided, is the day.
Today is the day of Jung Hoseok’s gallery that officially ends his fellowship with the artist’s space. And today is the day Jungkook is going to tell Hoseok that he loves him.
“That’s a terrible idea,” says Seokjin one month earlier. “On his gallery day? Seriously? That’s like someone proposing at someone else’s wedding! Never understood that.”
“Well, I can’t exactly do it before his gallery.” Jungkook huffs from his position on the floor. He’s just a little bit too far away to smack Seokjin the way he wants to, so he settles for leaning back and using his feet to bat at Seokjin's ankles until Seokjin pins his toes to the floor with his heel. "He's working and stressed and he doesn't need the weight of a confession on top of all that! What if he's not at his best? What if he rejects me? I'll never know if it's because he's in a bad rut and has to focus or if he actually doesn't like me."
"If he says yes, won't you just worry that it's because he's high off his own success and in too good of a mood to turn you down?" Yoongi asks, the words smooshed against Seokjin's shoulder.
Jungkook pauses, his battle to wrest his foot free from Seokjin momentarily forgotten. "Well I wasn't. But now I'm going to."
"Yoongi-yah, be nice to the kid."
"Be nice to the kid? You were just telling him what a terrible idea this was?"
"And it is an awful idea!"
"It's a great idea," Jungkook says mutinously. "Taehyung said it was real romantic."
Yoongi and Seokjin pause in their bickering to respectively squint and stare at him in disbelief. "And you listened?"
Jungkook levels a finger at Yoongi. "Yes."
In his defense, Taehyung is a very romantic person and Hoseok's assistant in the hotshop. If someone was going to know how best to work with Hoseok, wouldn't it be someone who literally works with him? After all, it feels like it was just yesterday...
"Why do you have that look on your face?"
"Shh, Yoongi-hyung, I'm trying to reminisce."
"Right, right, sorry for interrupting your flashback sequence." Yoongi trades a glance with Seokjin, the corner of his mouth twitching before he covers it with a hand. Jungkook knows he's trying not to laugh but it's okay. "Carry on."
Primly, Jungkook says, "Thank you," and does.
Approximately eight months before Jung Hoseok's Gallery Day (aka the day where Jungkook is going to risk it all.)
Jungkook walks past the sloped entrance to SAS Sindang twice, doing a full circle of the expansive marketplace overhead, before he works up enough courage to override the jitters and actually go down there. The sounds of people above never truly leave, but other noises filter in to fill the gaps. Rhythmic tapping, a soft swish-clack that Jungkook can't quite place, and beyond it all, the gentle rumble of a furnace. All of them come together in a tapestry that settles like home right beneath Jungkook's skin.
He peers into the glass-doored set-ups, amazed. There are so many people down here. All of them artists just like him. He's examining the painted walls closely (not that he's stalling going any further in or anything, but he doesn't want to get lost and he's supposed to stay near the entrance, and what if he goes somewhere he isn't supposed to?) when someone calls out to him.
A man approaches him, tall and handsome, hair swept back from his forehead, and Jungkook's mouth goes a little dry. Probably from nerves. Definitely from nerves. He bows reflexively.
"You must be Jungkook!" the uncannily handsome man says when he gets close enough, returning Jungkook's bow. "We've been expecting you. I'm Seokjin. Namjoon, he spoke to you on the phone, he's back in his studio right now. You're here for the forge, right?"
"Yeah, yes! Yes, I'm here to ah, blacksmith," says Jungkook, awkwardly brandishing his bag of equipment. His tongs clank around in there. It's a whole mess, but at least Jungkook didn't grab his hammer like he did last time someone asked.
Seokjin smiles kindly, and that last knot of uncertainty at the base of Jungkook's belly unclenches as he smiles back. "Want to go see your space?"
"Yes, please," says Jungkook.
Seokjin points out the different artist spaces as they go, showing off a pottery room, a loom that was the source of the clacking sounds, someone hard at work weaving fabric. There's so much that Jungkook fears he won't remember it all, until Seokjin comes to a stop in front of one door.
"Here," he says. "You'll be sharing with anyone who needs welding tools and the glassblowers, alright? Hobi, especially. He's one of the residents here. All that stuff on the wall is his, and some of the light covers too."
Jungkook looks at an impressive array of delicate glass items, from large smoky vases to petite, brightly colored fish, to what looks like a glass recreation of some designer shoe, and just some wild amorphous riots of color. They've all been crafted with the same amount of care, and Jungkook is fascinated. They're much finer than what he can accomplish with blacksmithing, or at least, a lot smoother, which is interesting in a tactile kind of way. And the color, especially.
"These are amazing," he says.
"Aren't they? Hobi really knows his stuff, even if his color choices can be a little..." Seokjin's mouth twitches in a smile, staring at one particularly egregious affront to any common understanding of color theory. "Bold. Let's go in! Get you all set up!"
He opens the door.
Immediately someone yells, "Hey, stand back!"
And Jungkook, well aware of the dangers of not listening to shouts inside a hotshop, flattens himself against the wall just in time to see a willowy man spin a rod a full 360-degrees vertically, the orange-white hot mass at the end elongating as he does. He's dexterous, the movement smooth and professional. It's, frankly, amazing to see. Like a pendulum, if the end of the pendulum was semi-molten glass, spun into color and wobbling as he goes. Jungkook stares in wide eyed amazement as the man nods and then-
“Alright, get this back in the glory hole!”
Jungkook fumbles his bag, a set of tongs dropping out. He can NOT have heard that right. There is no way he just heard this sharp-soft faced man cheerfully yell about a glory hole while they’re in the hot shop.
Mortifyingly, everyone present whips around to stare at him at the noise. He knows they're already underground but if Jungkook could just be a little deeper and this time on his own, that'd be just great. Leave him to rot here.
"You act like you've never been around a glassblower before!"
Jungkook jumps. But then the man who had spun the rod smiles at him. It is perhaps the nicest smile Jungkook has ever been on the receiving end of, and he smiles back tentatively as the man pushes his tinted safety glasses up to rest on top of his hairband and shakes his gloves off. "Hi! Didn't mean to startle you there, that spinning move is just a bit dangerous." The glassblower sniffs, peeking back at where his assistant has the pole shoved into the furnace. "End result is pretty cool though. I'm Jung Hoseok, resident glassblower! That's my helper, Taehyung. Are you the blacksmith Namjoonie told me about?"
"I, yeah, that's me! Jeon Jungkook." Jungkook bows hastily, dipping a little further than necessary to sweep up his tongs while he's down there. "Nice to meet you! I hope we can share the space well."
"Oh yeah, we cleared out an area for you!" Something catches Hoseok's attention, and he nods to himself. "Alright, Taehyung-ah, let me have the punty. It's done, we just have to move it to the annealer now."
While the two of them cluster around the... gloryhole (which is still a terrible name to give something that isn't an actual gloryhole) and with a little nudge from Seokjin, Jungkook familiarizes himself with the little workstation they've set aside for him. Plenty of space for his tongs and hammers, plus all the edges he'll need for shaping hot metal as he goes, and there are preprinted labels set aside so he can hang things up and mark them as he goes. It's not something he would have done on his own, but it's a thoughtful touch from the others in the space.
"That's a big hammer," a deep voice says very close to his ear. Jungkook jumps. Taehyung leans over him, his head tilted curiously, and his gaze fixed on his hammer. "If it's not named something cool, you should name it. Is that why you became a blacksmith? To have a cool named hammer like Thor?"
Oh thank god. "Yes, exactly like Thor," Jungkook says, grateful he doesn't have to explain anything else. Well. "Okay, like Thor and also like... y'know. I wanted to make anime swords."
That gets Taehyung's attention. "Nice."
"Oh no, another anime fan." Hoseok closes the doors to a large white kiln and shucks the big fire-proof gloves he had, revealing delicate wrists and deceptively thin arms. "Well, at least someone will know what Taehyungie's going on about." Then he gives Jungkook an evaluative up-and-down, and Jungkook has never wanted to flex more in his life, but he plays it totally cool by breathing in deep and setting his shoulders back a little to emphasize his chest. From the way Hoseok's eyes dip, it totally works. "I can ask you to help if I need something heavy lifted though, right?"
"Right, yeah, absolutely," says Jungkook breathlessly. "I could even lift you. Not that you're heavy. Just that you're a person and people are- hey do you want to see me move my anvil in here?"
There's a sound behind him that's eerily like someone slapping their palm against their forehead, but Jungkook absolutely does not notice it. He's busy showing off for a pretty man with a prettier smile and hoping that he can learn to be comfortable here. Nothing at all to be scared of after all.