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Today is the day, Jungkook thinks with grim determination. Today is the day he will get over his crippling fear of rejection, or worse, humiliation, and he will ask Seokjin Kim on a date.
Jungkook can recall clearly the first time he realized that what he was feeling for the other teacher’s assistant was a crush and not just indigestion from the questionable library sushi. Seokjin was about fifteen minutes deep into describing his master’s thesis on the practical applications of game theory as they pertained to political decision making, complete with the most animated expression Jungkook had ever seen on a person when presented with the thought of three-by-three cell payoff matrices and a set of wildly gesticulating, crooked fingers, and instead of praying for Professor Nash to come interrupt their conversation, Jungkook only wanted to hear more.
Later, Jungkook realized that it wasn’t game theory that had suddenly become the world’s most fascinating subject matter, but Seokjin’s almost feverish passion for it that attracted Jungkook. Seokjin Kim could read the dictionary from cover to cover and his audience would still be entranced by the slight lisp in his s’s and th’s or the high, squeaky pitch in his laughter when he came across a word he found amusing.
That was the fifth week of classes in the Fall, and from there, Jungkook’s crush only escalated. There had been a point, perhaps two weeks into the spring semester, where Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook’s brother, father, mother, therapist, and anyone else who would listen had grown utterly sick of hearing Jungkook moon over “the Hot TA”, as Seokjin was dubbed by Jimin. Long story short, Jungkook was told to man up and ask the Hot TA out, or move on to something new.
Despite that loving encouragement, Jungkook still needed close to the whole semester to do so. He’d encountered a problem along the way, one other than his innate social anxiety. Seokjin was beautiful, and smart, and radiant, and Jungkook wasn’t the only one to notice this. He received more confessions than a priest, and was asked out on a near weekly basis. Seokjin had become so immune to romantic overtures that Jungkook’s first five attempts to subtly invite him on a date had gone right over his head.
At first, Jungkook thought that Seokjin wasn’t interested, and was trying to let him down gently—as he’d done with the junior who’d asked him out to lunch the second week of April, and the senior football player the week before that—but then he’d flirt back when Jungkook flirted, and squeeze Jungkook’s bicep or run his fingers over Jungkook’s in a decidedly not platonic way, and Jungkook would think, maybe he has a shot.
There’s a chance that Jungkook is imagining all of this. That Seokjin is tactile with everyone and Jungkook’s just never noticed, hence the potential for humiliation and rejection, but at least this way he’ll know.
Finals week is nearly upon the masses, so, three days ago, Jungkook suggested that they work together to create a study guide for Professor Nash’s students at Jungkook’s apartment. Once they’re finished, Jungkook will casually suggest that Seokjin stay for the dinner he’s been cooking for an hour, during which time Jungkook will ask Seokjin outright if he’s interested in seeing Jungkook in that way. He even made sure that his roommates were out and wouldn’t be back until later, or tomorrow in Mingyu’s case, because he spends most nights at his girlfriend’s place anyway.
Jungkook stirs the bright red soondubu jigae, a recipe for which he had to ask his mother. If he doesn’t want you after tasting this jigae , she’d said, then there’s no hope . Seokjin texts instead of buzzing the intercom to say that he is downstairs; Jungkook presses the glowing green button to release the electronic lock, and tells Seokjin that he’s on the third floor, as if Seokjin would have somehow forgotten in between now and twenty minutes ago, the first time Jungkook texted his address. There’s another text from Jimin, but Jungkook is too nervous and scatterbrained to open it.
His hands are shaking. He puts the soup spoon down before he splatters it everywhere, then wipes them on the cooking apron wrapped around his waist. The doorbell rings.
“It’s me!” Seokjin says through the door without prompting.
“Coming.” Jungkook opens the door and can’t help scanning Seokjin from head to toe. He’s dressed casually, in basketball shorts over a pair of compression leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that manages to swallow his broad shoulders, yet he still looks like a damn supermodel. When Jungkook dresses in workout gear, he looks more like the guy who forgot to do laundry for three weeks in a row and only has ratty sweatpants left, not like he just stepped out of a Nike catalogue. The fact that he is usually the guy who forgot to do laundry is besides the point.
“Do I smell soup?” Seokjin asks. He toes off his sandals and drifts towards the smell. “God, not to be the worst guest ever but can I have some? I can’t remember the last time I had a meal that wasn’t caffeine or cup ramen. And not Shin Ramyun either, the twenty-nine cent a pack stuff that’s supposedly ‘chicken-flavored’,” Seokjin bends his fingers in air quotes, “but tastes like gargling straight MSG and freeze-dried carrots.”
Jungkook can feel redness shoot up in his ears, ruthlessly burying his first instinct to say that he made the soup for Seokjin, and manages a casual shrug. “Sure, I’ve got plenty to go around. Do you want to eat first or get some of the study guide done, then eat?”
“Hm.” Seokjin taps a finger against his lips. “Study guide first, eat later, that way we can relax! I think I can stave off my stomach for another hour or two.” He slugs his backpack onto the dining table bench and pulls out what Jungkook assumes are his notes from the semester. “These poor freshmen need all the help they can get. Far be it from me to gossip but it’s a wonder how these kids survive. How is it possible to spend an entire semester studying economics and still not know the difference between the demand curve and the supply curve?”
“Half of them couldn’t care less, and are just taking this class to knock out their gen credits.” Jungkook knows, because he was that idiot, but instead of struggling in econ, it was biology.
“You’re so right. They don’t pay us nearly enough for all the shit we put up with.” Seokjin is looking at him with a strange smile on his face, not the one he gives Professor Nash when he hands them two hundred quizzes to grade and wants nothing more than to tell him to shove it, but something smaller, and a little more real.
“Have I got something on my face?” Jungkook asks. Has he splattered a bit of soup after all?
Seokjin shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. You just look very cute in your apron.”
Oh, the Winnie the Pooh apron he’s had since high school that his grandmother gifted him because she believed that his tastes in TV shows hadn’t changed since he was a chubby four-year-old? The one his mother won’t let him throw out and insisted he take to school, that he forgot to untie before attempting to confess to his crush? That apron?
“Piglet was my favorite,” Jungkook says, grasping at something semi-coherent.
“I was more of an Eeyore man myself.” And just like that, they bypass the subject of Jungkook’s choice of cooking apron.
Jungkook grabs his own notes to join Seokjin at the table, when his phone rings. He almost ignores it, but it’s Jimin, whose text he already ignored earlier, plus he’s facetiming, which means it could be important.
“Sorry,” Jungkook says to Seokjin. “Just give me a sec.” He can’t find his headphones so he answers and puts the call on speaker.
This decision appears to be a grievous mistake as the first words out of Jimin’s mouth are: “So have you asked out Hot TA yet?”
There are no words in any of the languages Jungkook speaks fluently to describe the depth and breadth of the mortification that drenches him like a bucket of ice water. He freezes, like one of those raccoons crossing a road that thinks if it stays still enough, the car won’t see or hit it, except Jungkook is praying that his stillness is so all-encompassing and complete he’ll actually go backwards in time and undo the damage done.
Jungkook is also pretty sure his heart has fallen out of his ass and is pumping blood all over the freshly scrubbed living room floor; his chest feels appropriately empty and his head airy, like he might pass out. Suddenly, the Winnie the Pooh apron is a distant memory.
He stares resolutely at the far wall while Seokjin’s gaze bores into the side of his head, unsure of how to proceed given this inauspicious turn of events.
“Jungkook?” Jimin is still on speaker. “Are you there?”
Jungkook can’t come to the phone right now on account of his soul astral projecting into another plane of existence. Hopefully a nicer plane, where he possesses proper social skills and better friends, and is experiencing at least one-tenth less embarrassment than he is currently.
Seokjin makes an appearance on the screen, leaning over the phone, upright facing the ceiling where Jungkook had dropped it, and says, “I think Jungkook might have to call you back.”
“Oh fuck,” Jimin mutters, of course, still on speaker. “Oh fuck.” Then he hangs up.
Idly, Jungkook wonders how much jumping out of his third story window and making his escape that way would hurt. He might break a bone or two, but a shattered femur could be worth it.
Seokjin coughs. “So … am I Hot TA—”
“No!” Jungkook denies instantly and idiotically. “Jimin was just joking! Actually, he was talking about someone else. Not that you’re not hot! Or not a TA … You know Professor Augustus’s TA … Minnie? That’s who Jimin was referring to. Definitely not you, though.”
“Didn’t Minnie say to your face that your dick was so small you need a microscope to find it and told you to go back to your own country because you wouldn’t help her grade some of her papers?”
Still panicking, Jungkook informs Seokjin that some people find that hot, because what’s sexier than public degradation with a side of racism?
“Right,” says Seokjin, along with the raise of a judgemental eyebrow. “Well that’s a shame because if it was me that your friend meant, I’d say yes to a date. Quite enthusiastically, in fact.”
“You would?”
“I would, but since it’s not—”
“It’s you!” Jungkook blurted. He’d already attained the maximum level of embarrassment it was possible for someone to achieve in a single given interaction so why not go for broke? “You’re Hot TA; fuck Minnie, I wouldn’t ask her out if someone held a gun to my head, I don’t even know why I said that. I don’t know why I’m still talking either, if you could kill me to shut me up now that would be greatly appreciated. Jimin will handle the funeral arrangements, and make sure to tell him that I want spider lilies not lily of the valley, he always mixes them up—”
He’s cut off as Seokjin leans across the table to plant a kiss on Jungkook’s lips. Jungkook’s eyes are wide with shock, then he remembers that it’s weird to look at someone while they kiss you, even if Seokjin is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen and he wants to carve this moment into the neural pathways of his brain to be remembered for the rest of time. Before he can commit the exact shape and feel of Seokjin’s mouth to memory, the embrace ends.
Seokjin laughs a laugh Jungkook’s never had the pleasure of hearing before, deep and mellow and penetrating. “Don’t look so disappointed. There’ll be more where that came from.”
“Is that you saying yes? To a date, that is?”
“Jungkook Jeon, I’d be delighted to go on a date with you.”