Archive of Our Own ^beta

“hey dad, can i ask you something?”

yoongi glances into the passenger seat and nods at sungmin to ask his question. he shifts his hands on the steering wheel, leaning back as he stares at the traffic in front of him. he should have known better than to take this route during morning rush hour. there’s no way he’ll be able to make lunch in time before taehyung arrives and he has to go to work. he reaches over and nudges sungmin’s shoulder lightly with the back of his hand, smiling encouragingly. “what’s on your mind?” he prompts, knowing how shy his son can be sometimes. like father, like son, he supposes. 

looking out the window, sungmin sighs quietly. “hypothetically,” he starts and takes a deep breath, turning his head back to yoongi. “and i’m saying this is hypothetical, right?”

“right.”

“hypothetically, how mad would you and mom be about me not doing well in school…” sungmin trails off and looks away again, tapping his fingers against the car door.

yoongi lifts his eyebrow a little and looks back at the road, inching his car forward. he rolls his shoulders back, letting go of the steering wheel to crack his knuckles. he reminds himself this is only a hypothetical—not that he would genuinely be mad, but it raises question for concern. “well,” he says and turns down the volume of the music playing. “hypothetically, of course.” yoongi cracks a smile when sungmin looks at him while nodding vigorously. “i would hypothetically ask why you didn’t bring this up with both of your parents. especially when we were just at your mother’s house.”

another quiet sigh from sungmin. yoongi waits patiently, flicking on the blinker when they finally start getting close to their apartment complex. “okay, so it’s not a hypothetical,” he says as yoongi turns the corner, turning off the blinker. he narrows his eyes at the dashboard, noticing the blinking red light to refill his gas tank, and makes note of it for when they’re a little closer to home. “i knew mom would be mad so i didn’t say anything while we were with her.”

“she would, huh,” yoongi replies with a soft laugh, nodding in agreement. he and his ex-wife don’t really see eye-to-eye on parenting, hence the reason yoongi is the one with custody. she’s just a pain in his ass at this point—and sungmin likes seeing her now, so he’s at least trying to give his son stability that way. yoongi tries his best to meet sungmin’s needs. “i’m not mad, you know that, right?” sungmin nods and sulks a little. “i’d want to meet with your teacher to see what’s up.”

sungmin sucks in a breath, like the idea is a bad one. “he said he would call you,” he says and yoongi nods a little, turning into the gas station. “i told you, he's new, right? but he’s nice. i like him. he’s better than miss lee was last year—she was really mean.”

yoongi laughs softly and parks in front of a pump, gesturing towards the 7/11 shop on the side. “you want a snack or anything for later? you can go pick and we can talk more about this when i come back from work?” he suggests and sungmin nods, climbing out of his seat at the same time as yoongi. the doors shut one after another and yoongi hands over some money to let sungmin go inside on his own. 

he fills up his tank rather quickly, paying at the pump before parking in front of the store. he joins sungmin inside the shop, finding him staring blankly at the snack aisle. yoongi stands behind him, waiting patiently with his hands on his son's shoulders. eventually, sungmin just picks a pack of cookies and walks towards the counter. yoongi takes out his wallet as he follows, paying for them. 

when they're finally back at their apartment, yoongi gets dressed for work after giving sungmin leftover takeout for lunch. he fixes his tie in the mirror, adjusts his hair a little, then grabs his jacket on the way out of his bedroom. taehyung is already sitting at the kitchen table with sungmin, talking animatedly about something that happened to him at the grocery store today. yoongi ruffles taehyung's hair on his way to the door, snickering quietly when he stops talking just to shoot a glare at him. 

"it took me ten minutes to do this hair," taehyung says as yoongi ties his laces, flicking off a leaf stuck to the bottom of his shoe. 

"it took me ten seconds to do mine, and i look great," yoongi says with a little grin, standing from the couch to pull on his jacket. "who's the real winner here?"

taehyung narrows his eyes. "i'm not single or thirty, so it's still me, hyung," he says and yoongi walks past him again to get a bottle of water from the fridge. "mini just told me about this hypothetical he has."

yoongi laughs a little and leans against the counter, looking at sungmin getting flustered at the table. "i thought we established, like, half an hour ago that this isn't a hypothetical?" he asks, eyebrow raised. sungmin's ears start going red, taehyung suppressing a smile as he turns to face him. "what's your teacher's name again, mini?"

"mr. jeon. he looks like he's taehyungie-hyung's age," sungmin says and yoongi nods, putting the water bottle in his bag before shouldering it. "which is young, tae-hyung! very, very young. like—mid-twenties, hyung."

yoongi laughs at taehyung's slightly surprised face, watching fondly as sungmin gets attacked by tickles for his comment. he leans down to kiss sungmin's forehead briefly, grabbing his keys on the way out of the apartment. he sighs when he steps out to the landing, feeling his smile drop and shoulders sag a little. he stands there for a minute or so, before forcing his legs down the stairwell. it's shocking how fast the exhaustion hits him when sungmin isn't in the room. 

he knows his son isn't stupid. he knows that sungmin can see when he's starting to get worn out, because in those moments, he never pushes yoongi too hard, never asks him for something that could be deemed unnecessary. regardless, yoongi doesn't like showing that side of himself to anyone if he can help it. but it's only inevitable that it shines through every once in a while. if it weren't for taehyung, seokjin, and namjoon, he would be completely frayed at the edges. 

life wasn't always like this for yoongi. it was only when he split with his now ex-wife that things suddenly got painfully more difficult. yoongi took custody of sungmin without needing to fight for it, because miyoung already cared so little for the both of them, that she didn't want the work of watching a three year old. she only cares now because sungmin is older, and she has some influence over him. yoongi always fears that sungmin will want to start living with her because she can financially support him better. 

but he also knows that sungmin just—likes him more. yoongi thinks of himself as a laid back dad, just a little bit. he doesn't try to act cool or anything, but he does try his best to understand sungmin. his wants, his needs, whatever is going on in that nine-year-old brain of his. yoongi only wants the best for his son, and he will always do everything in his power to give him that, whatever it might be. 

throughout the day, yoongi is occupied by piano keys and intrigued stares of passers-by, feet pressing into pedals, losing himself in the music. playing the piano at the mall on weekends only recently became a second job of his. his first job is still music production, after going to school for it. yoongi was seriously lucky enough that he at least got his degree before getting his divorce. especially considering miyoung was the one who was paying for it, with all that money in her parent's bank account. 

obviously yoongi's first job, as a producer, is much steadier than this—but for some reason, yoongi likes this one a little bit more. for the entire morning, he gets lose himself in his favorite thing, sink into music, show off his virtuoso abilities. on some days he can't get taehyung or someone else to watch sungmin, yoongi will bring him along. sungmin will sit on a stool beside the piano and just watch in adoration. yoongi loves that sungmin looks up to him like that. 

when his shift ends at two, yoongi swaps places with the other person who plays on the weekends. a woman, he can't recall her name, but she doesn't seem as comfortable playing in this setting as yoongi is. he puts on his bag and makes a stop at a restaurant on the drive home for lunch. yoongi eats alone quietly, checking his phone to see if anyone has sent him songs to work on. there are a few longer emails, so yoongi marks them for later and finishes eating. 

as he sits in the car again, yoongi's phone rings in his front pocket. he groans and shifts awkwardly to take it out, answering it without looking. "hello?"

"hello," comes a soft voice, a man, but so smooth that it takes yoongi by surprise. "is this min yoongi, the parent or legal guardian of min sungmin?"

yoongi guesses this is the phone call he's been waiting for. "yes, that's me," he confirms, and switches which ear his phone is against so he can start the car. 

"okay, great—my name is jeon jeongguk, sungmin's teacher at school. i hope i'm not interrupting your sunday afternoon."

"you're not. sungmin mentioned to look out for a call from you," yoongi says and puts on his sunglasses, placing his phone in a cup holder, letting it connect to his car automatically. "all he really told me was he's not doing well in school. i was hoping you could give more context because i'm a little concerned."

jeongguk lets out a little sigh, and yoongi hears flipping pages through the speakers of his car. "ah, well. for starters, his grades are generally not very good right now. i don't usually reach out to parents like this, but it's been this low since march," he says and yoongi nods, knowing he'll probably continue. "sungmin has a lot of trouble focusing in class. he zones out and most of the time, doesn't complete his work. i spoke to his physical education teacher and he said sungmin is a little... spacey there as well."

"i see," yoongi murmurs and finally backs out of the parking spot, adjusting the volume of the speakers as he starts driving home. "he's always been a pretty quiet kid, so i'm not... surprised that he's behaving like that. i'm more curious about what you think, as his teacher, on how to help him."

the line goes quiet for a few seconds and at a red light, yoongi checks if for some reason the call ended. he flinches when jeongguk's soft voice filters through again. "in my experience, kids like sungmin—they usually end up having a learning disability." yoongi sighs quietly. he knows firsthand how difficult that is, and he's spent the last nine years hoping sungmin wouldn't get those genetics. "i know a lot of parents are hesitant about this, but mr. min, i'd recommend seeing a professional."

"i appreciate the recommendation," yoongi says and runs one hand through his hair, clicking on the blinking to make a left turn at a stop sign, then makes it after checking for cars and pedestrians. "what else do you think will help him?"

"there aren't a lot of things i can do for him, honestly," jeongguk says and yoongi feels himself deflating against the back of the car seat, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. "all i can do on my end is encourage him to participate in class, which i already do. he seems to like me." he lets out a soft laugh, almost giggly. yoongi is taken by surprise, yet again. if he didn't know any better, he'd say that sungmin's teacher is just some kid. "on your end, though, i think sungmin can use some support."

yoongi nods even though jeongguk can't see him. he parks in his spot outside their apartment building, sitting back with a sigh. "okay," he says and takes off his sunglasses, tilting his head back. "it's still early in the school year—is there a way we can set up a... i guess a long-term plan for sungmin? i just want what's best for him, and i'm sure as his teacher, you do too."

"i do," jeongguk agrees and yoongi shuts his eyes, wondering why he's so entraced by someone's voice. and weirdest of all, the voice of his son's teacher. "if you're available at... four pm tomorrow, maybe, we can schedule a meeting together to discuss something in depth."

yoongi reopens his eyes and picks up his phone, the engine of his car still running. he briefly checks his schedule and notices he does have a meeting at three-thirty, but sungmin takes precedent. "four pm is good," he agrees, sending a quick text to the artist he's supposed to be meeting, asking if she can reschedule. "thank you for telling me all of this. honestly... sungmin doesn't show those traits when he's at home."

it sounds like jeongguk is smiling when he says, "i really think your son has a lot of learning potential, mr. min. i try not to play favorites since it seems unfair, but i truly have a soft spot sungmin. he's a really good kid, and i think he just needs some guidance."

"i understand," yoongi sighs. "thank you for your help mr. jeon, i will see you tomorrow at four pm, just to double check?"

"four pm tomorrow. yes. i'll see you then, mr. min."

yoongi lets jeongguk hang up on his own and finally turns his keys in the ignition back to off. he lingers in the car for a little bit, even more exhausted than he was this morning, but still—yoongi persists. he climbs out of the car with his bag and locks it, walking up the stairs as he searches for his keys. he unlocks the door and pushes it open with his shoulder, immediately toeing off his shoes. 

the apartment is quiet as yoongi locks the front door, placing his bag beside the couch. he continues on to his room and shuts the door halfway, changing into more comfortable clothes. he crosses the living room to the door of sungmin's bedroom, knocking lightly on it before poking his head inside. 

immediately, yoongi spots sungmin and taehyung lying on sungmin's bed, but sungmin is asleep. he smiles a little and steps through the doorway, waving at taehyung awake and on his phone. carefully, taehyung gets up and slips out of sungmin's grasp, tucking him in. yoongi holds the door open and shuts it when taehyung steps out, joining him on the couch. 

"work okay, hyung?" taehyung asks as he kicks his feet into yoongi's lap, resting his head on the arm. yoongi sighs and runs his hand through his hair, shrugging in answer. his mind is still distracted by his phone call with sungmin's teacher. "ooh, yoongi-hyung, you have your stressed face on. what's up?"

"i don't have a stressed face."

"you totally do. tell me what's going on or i'll shove my toe into your nose."

yoongi grimaces at even the idea, putting distance between his face and taehyung's feet, pushing them to the floor. "just worried about sungminie, that's all," he says quietly, smoothing his hair back with both hands, looking at taehyung. "fuck. i'm so tired."

taehyung shakes his head and sits up, pulling yoongi into a hug. "are you not taking care of yourself, hyung?" he asks, petting the back of yoongi's head. 

"i'm—fine," laughs yoongi and entertains the hug for a moment, then pulls away. he gets up to go into the kitchen, coming back after opening a bottle of beer, having a slow sip of it. taehyung looks at him in disbelief. "i'm taking care of myself just fine, tae. seriously."

"hyung..."

"i'm okay," he insists, rubbing one eye before smiling reassuringly at taehyung. "promise."

taehyung sticks his pinky out and yoongi links his on, pressing his thumb to taehyung's. sometimes he wonders who the child is—taehyung or sungmin. 

"why are you worried? sungmin's doing pretty good, from what i can tell," taehyung says as he lies down again, this time with his knees in the air. yoongi sits back, having more sips from his bottle before setting it down on the coffee table to look at taehyung. "is it the school thing he was asking about earlier?"

"yeah. i think i'm gonna take him to get tested for adhd."

"seriously?"

yoongi shrugs and tilts his head up a little, staring at the ceiling. maybe he should take a nap too. "i mean, it makes sense, right?" he closes his eyes and stifles a yawn. "it's genetic. i have it, i'm pretty sure my dad did too. i was hoping mini didn't but—his teacher said it's likely from his behavior."

taehyung sighs a little. "huh," he murmurs and crosses his arms. "hyung, you're falling asleep."

blinking his eyes open, yoongi nods in understanding. he pats taehyung's knee and finishes his beer, leaving the bottle on the coffee table. he shuts his bedroom door and crawls into bed. there isn't even really any time to mull over anything sungmin's teacher told him—yoongi is already asleep when his head hits his pillow. 

++

the next day, after a long studio session, yoongi stands outside the slightly ajar classroom door, checking his watch for a moment. five minutes early is pretty good by his standards. he pushes the door open a little and peeks inside, only seeing the side of sungmin's face and his teacher seated at his desk in the front corner of the room. yoongi walks over to sungmin, putting his hand on his shoulder before kneeling a little. 

"doing okay?" yoongi asks softly, looking at the unfinished korean grammar work on sungmin's desk, then back up at him. "i'll help you with this when we get home, okay?" sungmin nods and gets out of his chair, shuffling forward a little. yoongi gives him a tight hug before standing again, resting his hand on top of sungmin's head. “let’s go talk to your teacher now?”

sungmin nods and gives him another quick hug before going over to the front of the room, yoongi trailing after him. he immediately notices a major difference in sungmin's behavior. he's so quiet while speaking to his teacher, his voice is barely carrying over to yoongi, who is only a few feet away. which is so weird to yoongi—he’s so used to seeing sungmin in such a talkative way. he's shy with yoongi sometimes, but he always opens up in the end. 

sungmin's teacher—yoongi cannot remember his name for the life of him—lifts his eyes a little higher to meet yoongi's gaze. his eyes are really big, just on their own. he gives this bright smile and stands, offering a ninety degree bow. yoongi bows back, less perfect, then takes the man's hand for a brief shake. as yoongi takes a seat in a pulled up chair, he quietly thanks god or whoever that this man has his name on his desk. jeon jeongguk. it should stick now.

"sorry—one sec," he says and yoongi only nods, watching as he bites his lip and does something on his computer. jeongguk turns his attention to sungmin and yoongi after shutting the screen, giving another smile. it's kind of... cute. his cheeks bunch up a little, showing off perfectly white teeth. yoongi blinks a couple times to get himself out of this mindset. he's here for sungmin’s education, not to check out his teacher. "okay, so i mainly wanted to talk about grades."

yoongi nods and takes sungmin's hand to squeeze lightly in reassurance. "is there a certain subject he's not doing well in?" he asks, and sungmin keeps his palm resting in yoongi's. 

jeongguk lets out a wince, then laughs softly as he flips to a page in this massive book—his grading book, probably. he turns it and pushes it forward for yoongi to look at. yoongi peers at it curiously, looking at the poor scores with only a little disappointment, then tilts his head to the side after noticing something. ”music and art is good," he states and looks up again, studying jeongguk's neutral expression. 

then he smiles again, softer this time. “in my opinion, those are sungmin’s strong suits," jeongguk says, then tilts his head down a little to look at sungmin. his voice changes a little, becoming gentler with the same amount of authority in it as he says, "sungmin-ah, how about you get your favorite art pieces to show your dad, yeah?”

sungmin nods wordlessly and slides out of his chair, hands behind his back as he walks calmly out of the room. yoongi looks from the doorway to jeongguk again, realizing it had only been a way to get sungmin out of the room. "i want to keep this idea brief since he'll be back in a couple minutes, but sungmin struggles the most in writing and reading comprehension. english is also difficult for him, even at such an low level." yoongi nods in understanding. school isn't easy for everyone, he knows that more than anyone. by the looks of things, school now is even harder than when he was a kid.

"i think his strongest points are in art and music, and also in math and science. he’s doing okay in social sciences. sungmin is good at math when he tries, and science seems genuinely interesting to him—art and music he views as a hobby. i understand you work in music?" jeongguk asks, hesitant, like he's not supposed to know that. but yoongi knows that sungmin takes pride in his occupation, and likes to tell people how cool his dad is. yoongi finds it endearing—but because of that, he’s not surprised that sungmin’s teacher knows this.

"i'm a music producer, yeah. i guess it's a hobby because i raised him around music. and my friend who often watches him for me is an artist."

jeongguk nods and smiles again—yoongi notices he has an overbite. it especially shows when he smiles, his eyes crinkling upwards and his face kind of scrunching together to make him look like a bunny. "i'm most worried about korean and english,” he says, crossing his arms over the table to lean forward. “i can take care of english. as sungmin's father, i was hoping you can engage him in reading more often. start with lower level books, maybe second grade? then work your way up to fourth. maybe even read with him as encouragement. it'll help sungmin expand his vocabulary and understand things better when he reads them."

yoongi taps his fingers to his chin before crossing his legs, folding his hands on top of his right knee. "and this is long-term, right? i don't want to rush him into reading things that are too long or at a level that's too difficult.”

"right, exactly."

"dad, look!" sungmin calls out as he walks back into the room, holding a small folder between both hands. he gives it to yoongi, bouncing on his toes as he waits for yoongi to open it. 

yoongi takes it and glances up at jeongguk for a moment, then opens the folder. "mini," he says in slight surprise, taking out a colored pencil drawing of the sunset. maybe yoongi is a little biased in thinking that the drawing is amazing but—it is. the colors sort of meld together carefully, the sun slipping behind the mountains. it looks like sungmin spent a lot of time on it, to make it perfect. he looks up at sungmin and smiles a little, closing the folder to hand it back. 

gentle tone, yoongi asks, "sungmin-ah, why didn't you tell me you like doing art?”

sungmin takes the folder and hugs it to his chest, lowering his chin with a guilty expression. he mumbles something and yoongi leans closer, nudging him lightly to repeat himself. “i thought you would be upset,” he whispers softly and yoongi sighs, uncrossing his legs to sit up a little. whatever is going through sungmin’s head right now—it’s nothing that yoongi has taught him. this has to be coming from somewhere else. maybe the other students in his class—or worse, maybe it’s miyoung. “i’m not smart like the other kids, dad.”

“that’s not true,” yoongi says immediately, bringing sungmin to stand between his legs, sort of ignoring jeongguk’s presence for the time being. he adjusts sungmin’s bangs across his forehead before smiling at him, holding his shoulders. “you are smart. you just need to use it in a different way, mini. you know, i used to think i wasn’t smart too—when i was in school. but you think i’m smart right?”

sungmin nods enthusiastically, tears in the corners of his eyes. yoongi wipes them with his thumbs and kisses his forehead lightly, looking at him again with the same smile as before. “i realized i just wasn’t applying my smartness. you can do that too, sungmin-ah. i’ve seen it.” he taps the center of sungmin’s chest with his index finger, then wipes away his tears when they start to fall, sungmin sniffling quietly as he tries to hold it in. “you can cry, mini. i won’t judge you. and i’m sure mr. jeon won’t either.”

“of course not,” says jeongguk and he stands from behind the desk, sitting in the chair sungmin was in before he left the room. jeongguk is a lot… bigger than yoongi expected. the gay part of his brain unhelpfully supplies: look at his thighs! while the rest of his brain screams at it to shut up. this is not the time. “i used to be really bad at focusing on things i didn’t like. honestly, i’m still not very good at it.” 

his smiles grows and he laughs a little, leaning back in the chair. “but… when i thought about moving forward, i realized i needed to be better. you want to be better, right?” sungmin nods again, his eyes wide as he faces jeongguk. yoongi listens with his eyes back on sungmin. “to be better, i had to work really hard. some people have to work harder than others. with that work i put in, i was able to get this job, and become your teacher.”

finally, sungmin lets out the tiniest of giggles. yoongi rubs his back lightly, wiping his cheeks again, smile turning small and soft. “when we go home, do you want to show this drawing to taehyung-hyung? he’ll be so happy and proud. maybe you can borrow some of his supplies,” he suggests and sungmin nods once more, looking at yoongi for a moment, then at jeongguk with wide eyes. yoongi turns his head towards jeongguk too, biting his lip. “sorry, i didn’t even ask if he could take it. is that alright? i’ll make sure he brings it back tomorrow.”

jeongguk shakes his head and waves his hand in the air dismissively, close mouthed smile. “no, it’s okay. take it and keep it. sungmin can make plenty more drawings to keep here whenever he wants,” he says and yoongi nods, urging sungmin to put the drawing in his bag, then turns his attention back to jeongguk when he walks away. “judging just by that, i can tell that sungmin really looks up to you. i really think that if you keep encouraging him, we can turn these grades around.” he taps the book still open at the front edge of his desk. 

“you’re a really great teacher,” yoongi comments, watching jeongguk lower his head, red spreading on his cheeks and up to his ears. now that they’ve kind of discussed the pending issue, yoongi lets his mind wander into thinking that jeongguk is cute. because he is cute, and he just so happens to be yoongi’s type. it’s unfortunate, how slim the chances are of him being attracted to men. “sungmin told me that you’re new?”

jeongguk shrugs a little, touching one of his ears, sort of hiding them from yoongi. maybe he’s embarrassed. yoongi notices there’s a hole in his lobe, but no earring. he guesses it’s school policy. “it’s only my second year teaching. i made a lot of mistakes last year and i’m trying to learn from them with the students i have this year. honestly, i did… not know what i was doing last year.” yoongi nods in understanding—he was kind of lost his first few months at his company, before he started to make work friends. “everything is a learning experience, i guess.”

nodding, yoongi says, “you’re still young, i’m guessing, so you have a lot of room to grow.”

“how do you know i’m young?”

“you kind of have a baby face.”

sungmin appears between the two chairs again with his bag over both his shoulders. “it’s a nice face, mr. jeon!” he says, clearly having moved past crying not only five minutes ago. yoongi feels himself blushing, though he nods in agreement and stands so they can leave.

jeongguk doesn’t really look fazed. he stands and ruffles sungmin’s hair, matching the grin on his face. “you’ve got quite a handsome face yourself, sungmin-ah,” he says and lifts his hand a little. sungmin gives him a sturdy high five. “i’ll see you tomorrow.” 

sungmin bows before stepping to stand behind yoongi a little, holding onto his sleeve. yoongi shakes jeongguk’s hand again, and for a moment, yoongi blanks out because he’s so focused on how soft jeongguk’s hands are—he didn’t quite notice it the first time around. but luckily some subconscious part of his brain makes him pull away, then put his hand on sungmin’s shoulder. yoongi gives a final nod of goodbye, then leads sungmin out of the room.  they walk out to the parking lot and to yoongi’s car in comfortable silence, with sungmin humming a song yoongi produced while he puts his bag in the backseat.

on the drive home, sungmin asks, “so… what did you and mr. jeon talk about?” he sounds hesitant and nervous—as if there could be anything bad to say about him. 

“he wants you to start reading more,” says yoongi, cracking his knuckles when they’re stopped at a red light, placing his hands on the bottom of the steering wheel. “maybe we can go to the library later this week? we can make time before bed to read, if you want. what do you think?”

after a moment of silence, yoongi turns his head to see sungmin staring out the windshield with his head tilted to the side. “they have to be really cool books,” he finally says and sits up, putting his hands under his thighs. he looks at yoongi with excitement, eyes sort of sparkling with it. “i don’t want to read anything boring. do you think there’s cool books at the library?”

“i mean… probably,” yoongi replies and scratches the back of his neck, laughing a little. “we’ll go and see after school one of these days.”

“okay,” says sungmin and goes quiet for a moment before adding, “i’m kinda excited.” 

yoongi only smiles a little wider and reaches over to pinch sungmin’s squishy cheek. 

++

taehyung’s hands slam down on the kitchen table, across from where yoongi is peacefully eating dinner. “i’m staging an intervention,” he says and plucks yoongi’s phone out of his hand. and this isn’t the first time this has happened, so yoongi lets his phone be taken and takes another bite of his meat, chewing it silently. “hyung, i’m serious. i even have jin-hyung and namjoon-hyung involved.” yoongi leans to the side a little to look past taehyung, waving his chopsticks a little at seokjin and namjoon sitting with sungmin on the couch. 

“i’m not going out anywhere,” yoongi says after finishing his bite, picking up his glass of water to have a gulp of it. he licks his lips and uses his spoon to have a mouthful of rice, looking up at taehyung. he points at him with his spoon, waiting until he finishes his bite again to add, “you can’t stage an intervention if there’s nothing to intervene in.”

“we’ll see about that.”

somehow, something or the other in taehyung’s elaborate plan actually works because twenty minutes later, yoongi finds himself in a clean outfit, sitting on the floor of the living room as taehyung does his make-up. his eyes keep fluttering when he applies eyeshadow and taehyung keeps threatening to stab him in the eye—but that torture doesn’t last long before they move onto doing his hair. taehyung works quickly and meticulously, silently as ever. yoongi gives a jokingly pleading expression to sungmin on the couch, who has a low level chapter book open in his lap. it’s good to see him reading now.

they went to the library on wednesday and yoongi helped him pick out two books, and he’s been doing well with the first one so far. they read the first two chapters together—the first on wednesday night and the second on thursday night. namjoon agreed to read chapter three with him tonight so yoongi can go out to do whatever the fuck taehyung is going to make him do. well, taehyung knows his boundaries and yoongi is very unwilling when he wants to be, so really it’s yoongi who is doing something tonight. taehyung is only the enabler. and at this point, yoongi feels like maybe taehyung is right with an intervention. it’s not like yoongi has dated (or gotten laid, for that matter) since he was divorced. 

after a final check, taehyung leaves briefly to go to his, seokjin, and namjoon’s apartments next door to fix himself up. yoongi waits with seokjin in the kitchen, watching him cook soup on the stove before he’s dragged away by taehyung. he waves to sungmin when he’s in the doorway, shutting the door behind them. yoongi locks it, then follows taehyung down the stairs to his car. 

“it’s friday,” taehyung says upon sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, already starting it as yoongi puts on his seatbelt.

“amazing observation,” yoongi murmurs sarcastically, propping his elbow on the door to lean his hand in it. “what does that have to do with anything?”

taehyung sits up a little. “how do you feel about bars, yoongi-hyung?” yoongi shrugs in response, watching taehyung grow easily frustrated by that. he smirks—getting taehyung riled up has to be some kind of talent of his. “come on, give me a little more than that. i’m trying to gauge if you want to go to a bar or not. and which kind of bar you want to go to tonight.”

for a moment, yoongi looks down at his outfit, then back at taehyung with his eyebrows raised. “i feel like you dressed me already knowing where you wanted to take me tonight. and just know—that if i, by some very off chance, actually meet someone tonight—i am not saying thank you.” 

“noted,” taehyung says as he backs out of his parking spot, driving onto the road. “why’re you always so pessimistic about this stuff?”

yoongi scoffs and looks out the windshield, chin tilted upwards. “you try getting married out of high school.”

“and who told you to do that?”

“are you purposely trying to make me want to jump out of the car?”

taehyung laughs and shakes his head. “no, hyung—it just baffles me that you let yourself do something like that. of course i didn’t know you back then, but didn’t anyone tell you it was a bad idea?“

“you know the story,” sighs yoongi, shaking his head. “so why are we talking about this?”

“okay,” says taehyung, quieter now. yoongi flicks his eyes over to him, reaching over to pat his shoulder reassuringly. it’s not so much that yoongi doesn’t like talking about it, but he really doesn’t want to be thinking about his biggest mistake right before he’s about to try and meet people. “sorry for bringing it up.”

the rest of the drive is quiet save for yoongi humming, his eyes falling shut the rest of the way. he gets out when taehyung parks and fixes his hair in the window, following him up to the entrance of the bar. it isn’t a busy one, and there’s no queue line, so yoongi and taehyung simply show their ids and walk inside. 

immediately when he walks in, there’s the sound of chattering and music in yoongi’s ears, and he finds a corner to sit in while taehyung gets him a drink. that must have been part of the deal that convinced him to come, paying for yoongi’s drinks. it's not really crowded, surprising for a friday night, but it's wide and there are groups and individuals scattered across the room. yoongi finds himself trying to search for someone interesting to talk to, but he can't tell from the far seat he chose. 

a couple minutes later, taehyung returns with a glass full of tap beer for yoongi and a can of soda for himself. he sits in the chair across from yoongi, elbows on the table as he drags his eyes around the room. yoongi drinks the foam off the top of his glass and licks his lips, resting his forearms on the table as he stares at his hands disinterestedly. he stretches his fingers out, tilting his head to the side for a moment. the more he stares, the more he feels weird about them. 

"hyung, no one's gonna want to try and pick you up if you look bored," taehyung says, kicking his foot lightly against yoongi's. yoongi gives him a little smile before letting it disappear. he takes another sip of his beer, playing with a strand of his hair nervously. it's weird going out, being here—not that yoongi hasn't gone to a bar in nine years or that he's never been hit on, but he hasn't gone out a lot with the specific intention of meeting someone. 

taehyung grabs ahold of yoongi's still fidgety hands. "i'm going to be at the bar, okay? try to approach people. or look approachable," he says and lets go, pushing himself up. yoongi watches him go up to the bar, away from where any people are. he knows that taehyung will have people approach him instead, because that always happens with him. but taehyung is, of course, loyal to seokjin as his boyfriend. yoongi drinks more of his beer in slight misery. 

surprisingly, it doesn't take too long for someone to actually approach him. yoongi is almost done with his drink when a man comes up to the table, and asks, "can i sit here?" yoongi only glances around the room and shrugs, looking at the man. he's not really attractive to yoongi, a little on the taller side and one arm littered in tattoos. automatically, yoongi thinks that sungmin would probably be afraid of this guy. it's not the tattoos, but more this guy's aura that would scare him. 

yoongi takes out his phone upon remembering him and sends namjoon a questioning text about how he's doing, then glances awkwardly up at the man sitting across from him. he feels beyond uncomfortable with a stranger like this. he shifts his eyes to the bar to see taehyung still sitting alone, then finishes the rest of his beer. he leans forward on his arms as he faces the stranger. he looks to be even younger than taehyung. 

"hey," he says to get the man's attention, looking him up and down for a moment. yoongi smirks a little knowingly, figuring that if he can't find someone he actually likes upon seeing, then he'll just try to mess up someone else's game. at the end of the day, yoongi doesn't actually have any plans of leaving with someone's phone number. the man looks at him in slight surprise. "listen... i get you probably sat here with intentions of flirting with me."

the stranger sort of flinches, but yoongi continues, "but i'm not interested." he pauses a little, watches this man as he stares back at yoongi with wide eyes. "and if that's not enough of a turn off, then i have a nine-year-old kid. probably not what you're looking for in a guy, right?" the man just—stares, mouth parted in surprise, following yoongi's movement as he stands. 

huffing quietly, yoongi crosses the room to the bar counter and leans against where taehyung is sitting. "i know we just got here, but can we just get food somewhere else instead?" he asks quietly, elbow on the counter as he watches taehyung finish a glass of water through a straw. "please, tae? this guy sat down and he didn't say anything and it freaked me out, so can we just go?"

"okay, hyung. just wait here. i'm gonna use the bathroom real quick first. think about where you want to get food," says taehyung, handing the glass to the bartender and sliding off the stool. yoongi nods and sighs, watching as he disappears into the back corner of the bar. so much for trying to pick someone up—the whole trip was a bust. he kind of feels bad about wasting taehyung's efforts on his make-up and outfit. 

he sits at the counter as he waits for taehyung, and decides to just fuck it and order another drink. he gets a whiskey this time, needing something stronger to deal with whatever the fuck just happened at the table. yoongi stirs the drink after thanking the bartender, who flashes a pretty smile before returning to his job. yoongi stirs his drink for a moment before having a couple of baby sips, leaning his head in his left hand. 

sitting a few stools away is a man, unsurprisingly, but what's different is he's alone too. dark hair shields his face as he sits hunched over some books, dressed in a casual unbuttoned flannel and jeans, timberlands on his feet. just from his physique yoongi is intrigued by him, deciding to move one seat closer for a better look. the man lifts his left hand and runs it through his hair, exposing his side profile. it's like yoongi's heart stops.

"what the fuck," he whispers upon noticing who it is, already feeling his skin getting hot at the realization. 

he's about to look away when jeongguk raises his head a little, turning it towards yoongi to make eye contact. he stares for a second, then two, before widening his eyes a little. "oh my god," he says and lowers his head again, covering his face with that same hand as before. "this is not happening."

yoongi takes another sip of his drink, wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "coincidences happen," he says and decides to move closer again, because he hates raising his voice regardless of the situation. he feels a little floaty as the alcohol kicks in, laughing softly as jeongguk continues to shield his face. "you know, sungmin was completely right when he said you have a nice face. so stop hiding it."

"are you flirting with me?" asks jeongguk, and he does lift his head, cheeks flushed pink. 

"is it working?" yoongi responds, blinking a couple of times as he steadies himself from the alcohol. has his tolerance level really changed so much that it's already affecting him? he glances down at the books jeongguk was previously looking at, and bites down another laugh before looking at him again. "did i misinterpret you sitting in a gay bar? or is it just the fact that you're my son's teacher?"

jeongguk winces and offers a smile, no teeth. "the second one, sir."

immediately yoongi shakes his head. "oh my god, no. that's so weird. call me yoongi, not sir. what the hell." he should stop talking. he should really stop talking. yoongi takes a steadying breath and gulps down the rest of his whiskey. he smiles a little at jeongguk again, hopefully less intimidating. "like i said. please call me yoongi."

"okay, uh... yoongi-ssi," jeongguk says with hesitance, reaching for a mug and having a sip of what's inside. yoongi smells coffee, so he guesses that's what it is. "it's definitely the second one. i feel like there's an invisible line between professional and personal relationships and we are crossing it by talking right now."

yoongi props in his chin in his hand. "because i'm attempting to flirt with you, right?" he asks and watches in amusement as jeongguk grows flustered. "what? am i really that out of practice, jeongguk-ssi? maybe i should go out more if this is really not working."

jeongguk shakes his head and smiles genuinely this time, with those bunny teeth. "no, no. i'm just not used to this, i guess." he takes another sip from his mug and places it away from the papers spread out in front of him. "um... and yes, it's working. to answer your question from earlier." jeongguk's face is almost entirely pink. when he runs his hand through his hair again, yoongi notices an earring dangling from his ear. 

he takes a deep breath and looks up at yoongi again, kind of smirking a little. yoongi leans closer in interest, wondering what jeongguk has up his sleeve. "you know," he starts and very, very unsubtly drags his eyes down yoongi's body before returning to his face. "you look quite young for a dad. i was surprised when you walked into my classroom on monday, i had been expecting someone older."

"if you're trying to ask for for my age, i recently turned thirty-one," yoongi says and finds jeongguk's attempt at flirting back to be sweet and a little endearing, almost. he acts cute despite his very handsome face. "you're young for a teacher too, but i guess it makes sense since you're still new at your job."

jeongguk nods a little. "i'm twenty-six, since you're asking," he replies and yoongi nods, grateful to know that they're not actually too far apart in age, that this couldn't potentially get weird in that way. five years is a lot, but it's only three months into the calendar year. for all yoongi knows, jeongguk's birthday could still pass. he looks away for a moment, then back at jeongguk. his eyes are trained on yoongi, big and sort of bugging out at him. "so... what brings you here tonight, anyway? and while alone?"

"it's complicated, what brings me here, but alone because i've been single for five years and my friends are fed up, i think," he says like it's a normal, casual thing to say. yoongi isn't opposed to being a little more open when it comes to this stuff. and he gets this feeling that he will definitely be seeing jeongguk again after tonight, certainly outside of his classroom. "i hope that's not alarming or anything. or a turn off. sorry. i always tend to kill the mood."

"my mood's still alive, so." jeongguk shrugs a little and turns away just to gather his papers together a little, looking up once more. "it's not a turn off. i haven't really been in the game either, not recently, at least. i was in a not-so-great relationship my last year of university and haven't tried dating anyone since, you know?"

"trust me. i know."

for a moment, they're both quiet, and yoongi traces the rim of his glass as he searches his brain for something to talk about. unable to find anything he deems worthy, he resorts to the one thing he knows they have in common. "i took sungmin to the library a couple of days ago. we're starting with one chapter at a time, and he asks me questions afterwards," he says suddenly and looks up at jeongguk, just to see him wearing a pleased smile. 

"he was telling me that during lunch yesterday," jeongguk says and turns towards what's spread in front of him, starting to put the stacks of papers into an accordion folder. yoongi watches with his head leaned into his palm, catching sight of the bartender for a moment, and asks for a refill on his drink. "you know, sungmin doesn't have many friends. well—he's friendly with his classmates, but he doesn't really use his time to spend with them. does he meet anyone outside of school?"

yoongi shakes his head no and furrows his eyebrows a little, briefly thanking the bartender for his drink. he takes a sip before setting it back onto the napkin, running his tongue over his teeth. "i think that's my fault," he admits, rubbing the back of his head nervously. he glances around briefly in search of taehyung, but doesn't see him. "i work two jobs and he's only every exposed to people older than him. he's great with me, and my friends—and clearly with you, even as an authority figure in his life. but he's never really... had friends his age, i guess."

"that's unfortunate." jeongguk looks so genuinely upset about this—and now that yoongi is thinking about it, he feels a little guilty that he hasn't given sungmin a proper childhood. sungmin had friends when yoongi was still with his ex, but since those were miyoung's friend's children, they didn't really stick after they split. yoongi isn't even sure if sungmin remembers them. "it really kind of, stunts his inner child, i think. even though he's behind in learning, sungmin is behaves really well and maturely for a nine-year-old. i think he's forcing himself to act like a grownup when really..."

"he's just a kid," finishes yoongi as he takes another sip of his drink. he brushes his bangs aside a little, watching as jeongguk smiles a little with a nod. "i don't think i ever noticed that. maybe because i was raised in a way that forced my inner child back inside, and i had sungmin so early in my life, that i never had the chance to try and let it out." he pauses and looks down at his glass, the barely-there reflection of his forehead. "maybe i should try that."

he looks up again when he feels jeongguk's hand on his arm, and an encouraging smile on his face. yoongi feels himself blush a little, looking back down. jeongguk has a very comforting aura, and an even more comforting touch. "i mean, i obviously have no idea what you've been through but—you should. it's very relieving." he pulls his hand away and puts his folder in a bag to his right, then a couple of other regular folders that yoongi hadn't seen. "and therapeutic."

yoongi goes quiet for a minute as jeongguk packs up his stuff, then asks the bartender for a glass of water. he looks up when he notices taehyung's sit on his left, tapping lightly on jeongguk's shoulder for his attention. "jeongguk-ssi, this is my friend taehyung. tae, this is jeon jeongguk—he's sungmin's teacher."

"wow. you're an elementary school teacher?" asks taehyung, his eyebrow lifted a little after giving a head bow. "you have a nice face, jeongguk-ssi."

"that's what sungmin said," says jeongguk, running his hand through his hair again. yoongi watches the movement in a bit of a trance. how is someone so attractive?

"when did he say that?" asks taehyung, frowning now. 

jeongguk lets out a quiet laugh, soft and giggly—it's like the one yoongi heard on the phone. "monday, when i met with, uh, yoongi-ssi about sungmin's progress in class," he explains and then sighs a little. "sorry. calling you by your name is kind of weird to me. it'll take some getting used to."

yoongi shrugs. "you can call me hyung, if that's better," he suggests and taehyung elbows him in the side, wiggling his eyebrows a little. yoongi rolls his eyes and pushes his arm back, turning his head back towards jeongguk. "is hyung better or am i pushing it?"

"no—hyung works. i can do that, um, yoongi-hyung?"

taehyung smiles widely. "aww, hyung, i like him. can we keep him?"

"he's not a dog, taehyung-ah."

"but he's so cute."

jeongguk pouts and that certainly doesn't help the cute thing. "i'm right here, you know," he says and takes a sip of his water, licking his lips after. he looks away with a cute scowl and takes his phone out of his jean's back pocket. yoongi waits patiently, ignoring taehyung's suggestive looks in the corner of his eye. he digs his nails in taehyung's thigh to make him stop. about two minutes later, jeongguk puts his phone away with an apologetic smile. "sorry. i should probably go. my roommates are getting worried."

nodding, yoongi watches with his eyes as jeongguk stands and pulls his bag on. "wait," he says suddenly while jeongguk is adjusting his bag. yoongi takes out his wallet and one of his business cards, looking back to jeongguk. "do you have a pen?"

kind of frantically, jeongguk opens his bag and rifles through it before producing a pen. he passes it to yoongi, who clicks the back and writes his personal phone number at the bottom of the card. he double checks the it's legible, before giving it and the pen to jeongguk. "text me," he says and looks up jeongguk, who is back to seeming flustered. 

"i will," he says and tucks both items in his flannel's front pocket. "tell sungmin hello for me. and, tell him good job for the reading thing." he smiles and does a quick little bow before walking with still flushed cheeks.

yoongi watches until he's completely out of sight, turning his head back to the counter. he kind of smiles to himself, hoping that jeongguk actually will text him. he can't believe that taehyung's plan worked in meeting someone. well, he supposes that he already knew jeongguk, but still. yoongi never could have guessed this upon meeting him earlier in the week. taehyung nudges him a little, another suggestive smile and yoongi merely rolls his eyes before getting out of the seat. 

maybe he can actually do this. maybe he can actually start something new. 

++

yoongi kicks his feet onto the couch after lying back, dropping his arm over his eyes in attempt to remedy his headache. the week isn't even over and he's already so exhausted, having been back and forth between meetings and his studio the last couple of days. even though today was a little more relaxed, and he got off early enough that he could actually pick up sungmin from school, yoongi has this raging headache. he doesn't know what it's caused by, but it's drumming against his skull nonstop. 

shifting onto his side, yoongi presses his face into the back of the couch, not wanting to look at his phone when he hears it buzz. distantly, he can hear sungmin singing to himself in his bedroom, and yoongi really doesn't have it in him to kill that mood by telling sungmin to be quiet. so he simply continues to lie on his side, rubbing his temple in frustration. even with medication and food and plenty of water, it hasn't gone away since yoongi woke up in the morning. 

when the lock on the front door clicks, yoongi doesn't even lift his head, already saying, "taehyung-ah, i'm really not in the mood today," when he hears someone taking off their shoes. 

"i know you're not," says seokjin instead and yoongi finally looks up to see him carrying a plastic box. "sungminie came a couple hours ago saying you looked sick, so i made some soup. completely homemade. namjoon did not help this time, i promise." yoongi laughs a little at that and sits up with his back against the arm of the couch, watching as seokjin moves around the kitchen. "what's not feeling well, yoongi-ah?"

"head hurts. woke up with it this morning. i think it's a migraine," he answers, rubbing his burning eyes before returning to watching seokjin. "you didn't have to make me soup, hyung. i would have been fine."

seokjin shrugs and smiles, carrying over a steaming bowl with a spoon in it. yoongi moves his legs to let him sit, watching him scoop some up and blow on it lightly. "open," is all he says and yoongi is too tired to complain, so he simply opens his mouth and accepts the hot soup. he swallows it down, fanning his mouth after. "too hot or too spicy?"

"hot." yoongi picks up his phone from the coffee table, tilting his head to the side at the unknown number messaging him. he looks back at seokjin when he brings over another spoonful, slurping it up before looking down again. it takes a couple seconds of reading, then rereading the message before what the sender is trying to say finally clicks. he looks up at seokjin again. "is tae home?"

"no, not yet. i think he's selling something today. at least that's what he told me this morning," says seokjin, feeding yoongi more soup. it's less hot now, soothing to yoongi's dry throat. the ache in his head lessens. "why? you need him for something?"

yoongi shakes his head, then shrugs. "the guy i met last friday finally texted me," he says and seokjin lifts his eyebrow. yoongi drinks more soup and leans sideways on the couch, legs folded underneath him. "i don't know what to say back. i think... he's asking me on a date? but i'm so bad at this, i can't tell. it's been years since i went on a date, jin-hyung, what if i fuck this up?"

"okay, well—for starters, get out of that mindset," he says and yoongi nods in understanding. if he's down on himself for this, then it won't be any help. but he's so unsure about his ability to appeal to someone new. he's hasn't even made new friends in so long that his people skills have kind of wavered. "and tell me what he said. i'll help you phrase a response. a normal one, at least. you know taehyung would try to come on too strong or make you flirt way too much."

yoongi furrows his eyebrows, but relaxes them when it only sends flaring pain to the pressure points beside them. "i didn't know that, but noted. figures he would do something like that," he says and savors another spoonful of soup. he licks his lips and leans his head on the couch, phone in his left hand. "this soup is really good by the way. can you send me the recipe? maybe i can make it if sungminie gets sick."

"sure. you're deflecting. read the message, yoongi-ah."

with a huff, yoongi unlocks his phone again and brings the screen a little closer to read it with ease. "hi yoongi-hyung, i'm sorry it took so long to actually text you. this is jeongguk, by the way. i wanted to—" he pauses to slurp up more soup, swallowing before he continues. "i wanted to know how you think about dinner." yoongi pauses again to let out a soft laugh because he has to read this virtual fumbling aloud. "well, i mean dinner with me. on saturday. nowhere fancy."

"wow. and that's word for word?"

yoongi nods and takes the bowl when seokjin hands it to him, drinking up the last of the soup. he places the empty bowl on the coffee table, leaning over to look at his phone in seokjin's hand. "he's asking me out, right?" he asks and takes his phone back before seokjin can type anything on his own. "i'm so awful at this, hyung, what am i going to do."

"relax," laughs seokjin, pushing his bangs aside, then sits back with his ankle propped on his knee. "you want to go, right?"

"i mean... yes, i do."

"then say that. ignore whatever anxious mess this guy is in, it'll make him feel better. if you're not already busy on saturday, and i know you're not." yoongi rolls his eyes a little at that. "then just tell him you would like to go to dinner. ask the what time and where, figure out the details and boom. you have yourself a date."

yoongi bites his lip and only nods, looking down at his phone. he types out the message and reads it about five times before finally hitting send. he slumps against the couch, sliding forward until his forehead hits seokjin's shoulder. "i suck at this." seokjin laughs and pats the top of his head. 

"stop saying that."

"it's true. i'm just going to make a fool of myself."

seokjin pushes yoongi up by his shoulders and smiles reassuringly. "you won't. i'll make sure you won't. just be yourself, okay? stop stressing yourself out."

sighing, yoongi only nods and rubs his face, pushing his hair back with both hands. he gets up, maneuvering around seokjin's legs to get to sungmin's bedroom door. he knocks and waits a couple of seconds before opening the door just to check on him. he sees sungmin sitting at his desk, pencil in hand as he does his homework. sungmin looks up after finishing writing something, flashing a toothy smile. "need any help?"

"no thanks." sungmin shakes his head and twists his pencil in his hand. "you should sleep. you look sleepy, dad."

"do i?" laughs yoongi, rubbing his left eye. he glances down at his phone, surprised to see that jeongguk already has all the details worked out. he looks back up at sungmin. "this saturday, are you okay with staying here with your hyungs if i go out?"

sungmin crosses his arms and lifts his chin in attempt to look intimidating. "it depends," he says, and yoongi leans against the doorframe while fighting down an amused smile. "where are you going? and with who?"

yoongi laughs a little, letting go of the doorknob. "aren't i the dad here?"

"it's just me and you, dad," says sungmin and yoongi lets himself go, grinning widely at that. he couldn't be more right. "so... where are you going on saturday?"

yoongi sighs and shakes his hair out of his eyes, putting his phone in the pocket of his hoodie so he can cross his arms too. "if i tell you, you won't be upset, right?" sungmin looks confused, so yoongi moves to sit on the edge of his bed in order to be closer to him. the headache from earlier has faded into something dull, more like someone tapping against the side of his head rather than drumming. "it's kind of confusing."

"i can take it."

"you're being awfully insistent."

"what's that mean?"

yoongi purses his lips a little and sighs. "it's like... kind of pushy. asking a question a lot of times, like that, i guess. you're being insistent because you keep asking me to tell you where i'm going," he teases at the end, reaching over to fix some of sungmin's messy hair. "anyway, i went out with tae-hyung last week, right?" sungmin nods in understanding, sitting with his legs criss-crossed in his chair. "and i met this really nice guy there, so we're going to go out for dinner."

he waits quietly for sungmin's reaction, though his face doesn't change much while he processes what yoongi just told him. "like, on a date?" he asks for clarification, and yoongi nods while laughing quietly to himself. it's really adorable how concerned sungmin is. "that's cool. what's his name?"

"that's the confusing part," yoongi says and scoots up further on sungmin's bed, sitting criss-cross too. he leans back on his hands, tilting his head to the side as he tries to figure out how to phrase this to a nine-year-old. "you know your teacher, right?"

"mr. jeon?" yoongi nods. "i mean... yeah, i see him five times a week when i go to school. i know him."

yoongi narrows his eyes. "are you being smart with me?" sungmin breaks into giggles and only shrugs in response, trying to play it off. sighing, yoongi brings his hands into his lap to crack his knuckles nervously. "well, we met by chance when i went out last week. so—i'm going with him. on a date. i know that's probably super weird."

sungmin shrugs again and spins the chair around, stopping when he's facing yoongi once more. "i mean, you and mom have been divorced for a long time. i don't expect you to be single for the rest of your life." he laughs and so does yoongi, tilting his head back for a moment. he looks back at sungmin with a smaller smile—he feels relieved that sungmin is okay with this. "it's a little weird, but it's fine. i just want you to be happy."

"wow," says yoongi, tilting his head back as he starts to laugh again. "he was right. you're way too mature for a nine-year-old."

"what's that supposed to mean?" sungmin asks as yoongi stands, big and wide eyes staring up at him. 

"means do your homework. also i'm taking a nap. jin-hyung is in the living room if you need anything."

"okay. thanks dad."

after flushing out all the details with jeongguk, the anticipation sits inside of yoongi for the rest of the week. despite how busy he is at work, his mind is occupied by the date, what will happen, and so on. yoongi spends the entirely of thursday and friday just fretting about it in his own mind, until his friends catch on and all three of them force him into a ranting session once sungmin is asleep on friday night. it’s very therapeutic, and there’s alcohol involved, and yoongi gets drunk enough to profess how much he loves the three of them. namjoon gets it on video, and the next morning yoongi wrestles his phone out of his hand to delete the evidence. 

when saturday evening rolls around, yoongi enlists sungmin and taehyung’s help on what to wear. they pick out some regular black jeans first, then a few different shirts that yoongi tries on. eventually, they settle on something that’s not too out there for him—a black long-sleeved shirt, and a jacket for if he gets cold. basically, they all agree that he can’t go wrong in mostly black, save for the light brown jacket. yoongi worries that he might just look straight-up bad, but sungmin reassures him otherwise. yoongi’s not sure if getting fashion advice for his nine-year-old is the best idea, but taehyung would probably put him in something with way too much color. 

after his outfit is in order, and they choose which shoes to wear (just slightly heeled boots, because jeongguk is taller than him), yoongi settles in the same spot on the floor as last friday so taehyung can do his make-up. yoongi convinced him that he’s okay doing his own hair, and made him promise to not go overboard with his face. when he looks in the mirror afterwards, he’s satisfied with the natural look taehyung gave him. taehyung looks pleased when yoongi tells him so. 

he puts on some last minute accessories, a few rings and necklaces, and a nicer belt—then switches his stud earrings out in exchange for some hoops. he spends a few minutes adjusting his hair in the mirror, then finally puts on his shoes when he’s ready to leave. 

“thoughts?” yoongi asks sungmin, doing a final hair check in the mirror by the door. he turns back towards his son, jacket hooked over his arm. 

“one sec,” says sungmin, and he walks to the kitchen table, dragging over a chair. he stands on it, about yoongi’s height when he does, and carefully adjusts the pendant on yoongi’s necklace. he brushes aside yoongi’s bangs to create a space on his forehead, then fixes the collar of his shirt. “okay, there. you look nice, dad.”

yoongi smiles softly. “thanks mini,” he says and lifts sungmin off the chair, giving him a hug afterwards. “be good for your hyungs. and let them know if you need anything.”

sungmin pulls out of the hug, then pushes yoongi lightly towards the door. “i’ll be fine, just go,” he says and even opens the door for him. 

smiling, yoongi looks up taehyung and seokjin on the couch, talking to each other. taehyung stop to send him a thumb up, and yoongi gives one last goodbye and little head kiss to sungmin before he’s finally on his way. when he sits in his car, driving to the address that jeongguk texted him, all he hopes is that tonight goes well. there's some expectation building in his mind, of how tonight will go—hopefully they'll be able to get to know each other, maybe jeongguk will flirt with him a little. maybe they'll kiss. 

oh god. yoongi hasn't kissed anyone in almost three years. 

he parks in front of the restaurant in a mild panic, then loiters in front of the restaurant. he texts jeongguk that he's arrived, then taehyung about his fuck i don't know if i remember how to kiss moment. not even a minute later, taehyung is yelling at him through text (GET YOURSELF TOGETHER AND GO WITH THE FLOW HYUNG!) and yoongi debates sending back a photo of his middle finger. he actually considers it to the point that he’s opening up his phone camera, until he feels a gentle tap on his shoulder. 

yoongi whips around with his phone braced against his chest, breath immediately caught somewhere in his lungs as he takes in jeongguk's appearance. he looks so different than the last two times yoongi has met him, less formal and less bar-attire, something else yoongi can’t quite put his finger on. it’s not different in a bad way, but not in a hot teacher way either—it's more in the hot younger guy way. jeongguk gives this devastatingly beautiful smile, a hint of shyness, hands clasped behind his back. and—wow, yoongi is kind of losing his mind right now. 

yoongi does a one over of him as subtly as he can. it seriously doesn't help the breathing problem. jeongguk is wearing a white button up, loose around his body, tucked into his jeans. his very, very tight jeans that outline every inch of his legs, from his hips to his thighs to his calves. he's wearing the same timberlands from last week, which kind of make yoongi’s attempts to be taller with his shoes a fail. yoongi finally takes a deep breath, giving jeongguk a nervous smile, wiping his hands on his own jeans. what the fuck. how is jeongguk so attractive?

"should we go inside, hyung?” asks jeongguk, pointing with his thumb to the restaurant behind him. yoongi nods silently in lieu of being able to actually form words, so he just follows jeongguk inside. 

they sit at a table near the back because apparently jeongguk gets cold easily, and yoongi doesn’t mind facing his back to the door in case a gust of wind blows in. yoongi looks at the menu, but he keeps looking at jeongguk across the table and itching to check his phone in case taehyung actually gave him some helpful advice. he shifts his weight in his chair, looking around the shop, then back down again. the words are kind of blurring together, so he finally just asks, “have you been here before?” yoongi looks up to meet jeongguk’s slightly widened eyes. “i mean, what should i get?”

“oh. um, yes—i actually come here a lot,” says jeongguk and he blushes, pushing his hair aside. it’s styled pretty much the same as yoongi’s is, parted down the middle, bangs on either side of his forehead to expose the center. it’s a nice forehead. “it’s a good place to get my work done, when the bar we were at last week is too busy. i kind of go back and forth between them. um… i usually get meat and some kind of noodles. if i’m really tired or come just to eat, i’ll get a bunch of side dishes and soup.” he laughs quietly. “i’ve had pretty much everything on the menu. everything is good, so.”

yoongi laughs softly. “alright,” he says and closes the menu, sliding it onto the table. “i’m not picky, so you can order for me.”

jeongguk’s eyebrows shoot up. “are you sure?” 

“yeah.” yoongi waves it off, folding his hands in his lap. at least talking is helping him calm down, otherwise yoongi could be halfway through a panic attack by now. “if you’ve had everything, then you know what the best thing to have is.”

“oh, yeah. i guess that’s true,” says jeongguk and nods, licking his lips as he looks down at his menu. he twists his body and simply shouts to one of the workers what he wants to order, then pushes the two menus to the far end of the table. he leans forward on his forearms, a little intimidating in yoongi’s book, hair hanging in front of his face. but yoongi reminds himself that jeongguk is twenty-six and not someone to be intimidated by. it helps, significantly, when he puts into perspective how much older he is than jeongguk. his shoulders drop, slightly smiling back at jeongguk. “how was your week?”

taken aback by the sudden small talk, yoongi simply indulges honestly. “i mean, it was alright. kinda long. one of the idols i work with came to me with a bunch of ideas and i’m still sorting through them. she’s bright, kind of on the young side and only recently debuted in a girl group, sorry i can’t say their name.” jeongguk waves off the apology with his hand, but looks genuinely interested, so yoongi continues, “anyway, it’s just that she has a lot of ideas. the other members too.” he stops and shakes his head. “it’s always the kids with the biggest imaginations, i think.”

jeongguk nods in agreement, rubbing his chin for a moment. he opens his mouth to say something, but one of the older woman why works in the restaurant brings them two shot glasses and a bottle of soju. jeongguk nods his head politely and thanks her, before scooting his chair closer to the table. yoongi looks at the bottle for a moment—it’s peach flavored—then up at jeongguk. “seems like we have similar taste,” he says and opens it, pouring it into the two glasses. yoongi knows he shouldn’t have much because he has to drive himself home, but he takes a sip anyway, placing the glass back down. jeongguk drinks about half before placing his glass back on the table too.

“i think i see kid’s imaginations firsthand,” jeongguk says after clearing his throat, licking his lips. his eyes aren’t really focused on yoongi as he talks. normally yoongi might be offended, but he can see how nervous jeongguk is just by looking at his eyes. “like. obviously. i’m a schoolteacher, part of my job is to encourage imaginations. i see all sorts of things. one of my students drew a unicorn-whale swimming in a pool while in art. like, who thinks of that?”

"nine-year-olds, apparently.” yoongi laughs a little and has another sip of his soju, licking the flavor off his lips and the corners of his mouth. for some reason, jeongguk follows the action with his eyes, then offers a breathless smile. “sungmin’s pretty imaginative, despite what you said about his inner child and whatever. you said he’s genuinely interested in science, right? it’s really funny that you said that, because when he was about six or seven, he begged me to help him make his own planets to hang on his ceiling. we don’t have it anymore because we moved, but he created his own little universe and stuff. gave the planets names and everything.”

jeongguk’s smile widens. “wow. that’s really cute. sungmin is really adorable, you know?”

“i, of all people, definitely know.” yoongi laughs again and sits back in his chair as he grows more relaxed. he can’t even remember why he was getting nervous in the first place. then again, this could be the alcohol working for him. it’s not like he’s had much, but just the presence of it helps create a more laidback environment. “you know, i told sungmin about this. about going out with you, specifically.”

“really?”

yoongi nods his head and sits up again to finish the soju in his glass. “yeah, and… i don’t really know what i was expecting, but he was actually really calm about it. that thing you said about his maturity, i realized it’s true. he said ‘i just want you to be happy’ and i was kind of just sitting there, feeling surprised.” he sighs quietly and places his chin in his hand. why do all his conversations revert back to his son? can’t he talk about anything else? yoongi furrows his eyebrows at the table. “that’s my job, you know. i’m supposed to worry about his happiness, not the other way around.”

“i know i work with kids, but i really can’t imagine what it’s like to be a parent,” says jeongguk, following it with a sympathetic sigh. both jeongguk and yoongi move their arms off the table, making space for the food that jeongguk ordered. in an instant, the table it covered with steaming food, and yoongi feels his stomach grumble in anticipation just at the sight of all his options. “i hate to ask, but i want to know what i’m getting myself into—sungmin’s mother, is she in the picture at all?”

“not really.” yoongi helps himself to some noodles, slurping them into his mouth, shutting his eyes for a moment as he chews. there are so many flavors bursting at once he has to press pause on his thought. he only continues when he finishes his bite. “she’s—well, she’s there, but she’s not very helpful in parenting sungmin. he sees her a couple times a month, and will stay one weekend out of those times. i don’t feel like getting into it, but the gist is that she didn’t give two shits about either of us.”

jeongguk nods distractedly with his mouthful, furrowed eyebrows and lips in a pout as he chews. he doesn’t even set his chopsticks down, simply holding them with his wrist against the table. for the next five minutes, jeongguk is eating and savoring his food with dazed stares into the space above yoongi’s head. and yoongi just watches him, eating his own food, but also very intrigued at how jeongguk doesn’t even really remember him being there until yoongi is refilling both their glasses. he opens his mouth to say something, but yoongi only shakes his head and slides the glass forward. “just eat. there’s time to talk after.”

with a sheepish smile, jeongguk doesn’t argue and continues to eat. yoongi doesn’t know how, but ten minutes later, they’ve both burned through all the dishes and yoongi is stuffed, so satisfied. he excuses himself briefly to use the restroom, only to be able to check his phone without appearing as rude. there aren’t really any messages, a couple encouraging ones from seokjin, then a video of sungmin painting with taehyung. yoongi watches it with the stupidest smile on his face, and texts back, only to get a scolding for using his phone during a date. he does end up quickly using the actual bathroom, returning within a reasonable time. 

before he makes it back to the table, yoongi stops to pay for their meal, trying to ignore how much it’s going to cost him. he supposes he might just have to work some longer weekend shifts to pay it off. he returns to the table, already cleared away, and jeongguk is sitting quietly while staring blankly out the window. it takes a couple seconds, but he notices yoongi’s presence, giving him a soft smile when his tilts his chin up to look at him.

“i’m wondering, do you want to get a coffee before you go home? you drank a little, and i would feel better if you waited a bit before you drive,” he says and pushes himself up to stand, reminding yoongi how much bigger he is as he pulls on his jacket. he does his best to not look at jeongguk’s legs. yoongi nods in agreement and puts his hands in his own jacket pockets. jeongguk lifts his hand, scratching behind his ear as he starts, “i should go pay—“

“oh,” yoongi says, cutting jeongguk off with a shrug. he turns towards the door. “i already did, so we can just leave.”

“yoongi-hyung, you really didn’t have to.”

yoongi shrugs again, a little embarrassed as he pushes the door open, holding it for jeongguk to walk through. “i’m the hyung, so it’s seriously not a problem.”

“but hyung—“

“shh. stop whining. if you’re that upset over it, you can pay for my coffee, okay?” he squeezes jeongguk’s arm lightly as they fall into step together, smiling a little reassuringly. “also, i’m putting some trust in you to know where you’re going. i’m not familiar with the area.”

jeongguk smiles and nods, his hands in his pockets. “don’t worry, i know a place and it’s not far. what kind of coffee do you like?”

“iced.” he pauses. “iced americanos. decaf now, caffeine started giving me the jitters after i did my military service.”

“one of my roommates drinks his coffee like that. but—minus the decaf part. i think hobi-hyung would rather die than live without coffee.”

“understandable.” yoongi nods a little and halts at a busy crosswalk, pulling jeongguk back onto the sidewalk by his elbow before he walks into oncoming traffic. “do i need to hold your hand or something?” he asks, more out of parental instinct than the actual desire to hold his hand.

jeongguk laughs sheepishly and shakes his head for a moment. “you can,” he says softly after another thirty seconds pass. “hold my hand. if you want. um—“

yoongi takes jeongguk’s left hand and loosely laces their fingers. just like when he shook jeongguk’s hand, it’s soft under yoongi’s touch. jeongguk holds his hand loosely, not too tight that it’s unbearable, but still enough room that when he drags yoongi across the street, their palms disconnect while their fingers stay locked together. despite his previous safety instinct, as they cross the street, yoongi is distracted by the fact that this date is going much better than he expected. jeongguk is even better as a potential boyfriend than as sungmin’s teacher. 

the whole walk, jeongguk is rambling about a new diet that not only one, but both his roommates are trying. and yoongi listens attentively, nodding along and commenting in the little breaks of the conversation. he keeps talking even when they’re in the coffee shop, only quieting down once they’ve ordered and sat down at a table in the center of the shop. yoongi takes off his jacket and lays it across his lap, looking up at jeongguk. he takes a quiet breath and suddenly says, “i’m really enjoying this,” then looks down at his hand folded on top of the table.

“me too.”

yoongi looks up again and really can’t hold back his very bashful smile upon seeing jeongguk’s, his face feeling warm, chest growing fuzzy. jeongguk pushes some of his hair behind his ear and looks down, then up again. “i’d like to… do this again,” he says quietly, pausing to the the barista who brings over both their drinks. yoongi wraps his hands around his glass, taking a sip of the cold coffee. 

he nods after, running one hand through his hair for a moment, before saying, “next time, let me make you dinner?”

“you cook?”

yoongi nods and grins proudly. “i’m pretty good, too.”

jeongguk smiles shyly, then nods. “i would like that, then.”

++

next time turns out to be the following friday. yoongi is buzzing just thinking about it, and he’s been low-key texting jeongguk all week about various things. since they both have busy work lives, a lot of said texting happens at the end of the day. literally everyone notices that yoongi is on his phone a lot more than usual, and yoongi resorts to locking himself in his room like a teenager just so he can text jeongguk in peace. lately yoongi feels like he’s floating somewhere between a dream and reality, mostly because he can’t really believe that he’s met someone. someone he likes, and who likes him back.

sungmin is still supportive when yoongi lets him know that jeongguk will be coming over for dinner. of course, sungmin won't be there, because he'll be with taehyung and seokjin next door instead, but yoongi still feels obligated to let him know. somewhere during the week, jeongguk lets him know that sungmin is doing better with his focus and that luckily things aren't weird between them in class. but yoongi wonders how that will change if he and jeongguk end up officially dating each other.

yoongi spends the entirety of friday afternoon cleaning around the apartment, which is tedious and he sneezes  a bunch from the amount of dust collected, but things actually look decent by the time sungmin gets home from school. he gets to food prepping after that, slicing and seasoning the meat, carefully cutting up vegetables to be cooked and fresh kimchi to have on the side. when it gets close to six, yoongi organizes everything on the counter before going in for a shower. 

it's kind of rushed, and yoongi messes up the process of drying his hair, but he quickly fixes it by drenching his hair and starting over. he gets dressed after, more casual this time because he is not the type to dress fancy while in his own home. he made sure to convey this to jeongguk too, so hopefully he listens and yoongi doesn't embarrass himself. yoongi is buttoning his jeans when he already hears a knock on the door. fuck. yoongi checks the clock on his nightstand. it's still ten minutes to seven.

he's early. and sungmin is still here. 

yoongi quickly slides on his belt, buckling it as he leaves his room, shutting the door behind him. he double checks his appearance in the mirror by the door, finally opening it after messing with his hair. jeongguk is standing their with his wide eyes, luckily dressed down too, and a smile appears on his face when he sees yoongi. his eyes crinkle up in the corner and yoongi smiles back, laughing a little nervously.

"you're early," yoongi says, but still opens the door a little wider for him to enter. jeongguk steps inside and takes off his shoes, placing them on the empty shelf of the shoe rack. "i wasn't, um, expecting that."

"sorry. i was nervous so i ended up getting here a lot faster than i'd expected myself to," he says and when yoongi turns around after shutting the door, he catches sungmin peeking out of his room past the doorframe. he retreats when they make eye contact and yoongi looks back to jeongguk, who looks as nervous as he says he is. jeongguk smiles again. "i hope that's... not a problem."

yoongi shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck. "it's okay," he says and gestures to the couch. "give me, like, five minutes, i wasn't really done getting ready." he looks back to sungmin's room, nodding his head a little, then smiles softly. "come here for a couple minutes, sungmin-ah. do you have all your stuff you want before you go to tae and jin-hyung's?"

"yes," sungmin says shyly and jeongguk turns away, eyes and smile softening into something even gentler. he gives an awkward little wave to sungmin, who emerges from his bedroom to hide behind yoongi inside of the doorframe. yoongi reaches back to place his hand on sungmin's shoulder, bringing him to his side if not in front of him. sungmin bows once he's finally facing jeongguk properly, then stands quietly to yoongi's left. yoongi has no idea how weird this probably is for sungmin. 

"i'll be right back," says yoongi, and squeezes sungmin's shoulder before going back to his bedroom. he leaves a couple cracks open as he puts his jewelry back on, and ends up hearing this:

"do i still have to call you mr. jeon?"

"um... no. i guess you can call me jeongguk-hyung when we're not at school."

"jeongguk-hyung." sungmin pauses for a moment. "that feels weird."

jeongguk laughs quietly, still sounding nervous. "yeah, i felt that way when your dad asked me to call him by his first name."

"you're asking me to call you by your first name."

sungmin laughs, then so does jeongguk. ”i see the similarity."

when yoongi emerges from his bedroom again, closing the door behind him, they're both standing in the spots yoongi left them in. he briefly takes a moment to text taehyung to come get sungmin, then tells sungmin to grab his stuff. taehyung comes about a minute later, holding the door open for sungmin as he walks out, winking at yoongi before shutting the door again. and now yoongi is alone with jeongguk. now yoongi's nerves are settling in. 

"i haven't actually started cooking yet because i wanted everything to still be hot and fresh when you eat. so you can just watch for now," yoongi says and pushes up his sleeves as he enters the kitchen space, opening a cabinet to get two wine glasses. he picks a bottle of red wine and jeongguk nods in approval at the choice. yoongi pours out two glasses and leaves the bottle on the table before approaching the counter. "you're not picky, right? food wise, i mean.”

"not at all," says jeongguk, his voice soft and timid today. yoongi realizes that outside of the classroom, jeongguk doesn't really present himself as someone super outspoken. he's shy and gets flustered easily—and honestly, it makes him ten times cuter. yoongi smiles to himself a little as he oils a pan after placing it on the stove. "so... hyung, have you always known to cook?"

yoongi turns his head to look at jeongguk a moment, watching him sip on his wine as he sits at the table. "i wasn't born with the knowledge, no," he jokes and jeongguk rolls his eyes a little, but smiles nonetheless. yoongi turns back towards the stove to continue working. "i had to learn how when my ex-wife was pregnant with sungmin. i was in university at the time, and of course we lived together, so i was balancing school life and married life at the same time. we didn't have a lot of money at the time, so i picked up cooking instead of ordering out."

"you were married?"

to play off his major anxiety about the topic, yoongi laughs a little and nods. "right out of high school, yeah. she kind of manipulated me into it, somehow, and my parents were reasonably pissed at me for it—but she wanted to be able to 'keep me' while i did my service. you know, whatever that means." he pauses and lowers the flame a little to get the seasoned meat out of the fridge. "we lasted five years before i finally realized how bad it was for me and sungminie."

jeongguk is quiet, so yoongi pauses to face him again, picking up his own glass to have a slow sip of his wine. maybe he opened up too early on—maybe he should have waited, but then jeongguk says, "in my last relationship, my ex-boyfriend controlled me a lot. i didn't live with him, luckily, but i was blinded by what i thought was love before my friends helped me out of it. he's the main reason i've been so afraid of another relationship." he pauses and smiles up at yoongi, shaking his hair to the side a little, no longer hiding his beautiful eyes. "but... i'm liking where things are going with you."

"me too," yoongi agrees and he places his glass on the counter again to fix his attention back to the food. he takes out two plates and places them side-by-side, then heats another pan to be able to cook the meat. "most of my hesitance is with sungmin. i got over my ex-wife just fine. like, really easily. i think i had stopped loving her at some point during our time together. my friends, they live next door—they helped a lot. good emotional support. it was hard getting through a divorce regardless of how i felt about her, especially with sungminie being so young."

"it sounds hard," jeongguk says and his voice is quiet and heartfelt, like he's truly sympathizing with yoongi's experience. "but that was a while ago, right?"

yoongi nods in confirmation. "sungmin was three, so it's been about five or six years. i'm definitely past it, but i never looked hard for another relationship because i was okay with it being just me and mini. then i met you and here we are." he carefully places the meat on one heated pan, and the cut up vegetables on the other, then takes a sip from his glass. 

"you said your hesitance is with sungmin?" jeongguk asks and yoongi hums while nodding, more focused on the food than the conversation at this point. "i want you to know, um, i'm not—like... i don't have a problem. with you being a dad. just to—say it aloud, in case you had any doubts."

"your good communication is astounding," yoongi says a little absently, turning the meat over with tongs for the other side to cook. he pauses with the tongs midair, considering that he sounds a little like namjoon. 

"um, thank you? i think."

"take it like a compliment. shitty communication is the bane of my existence."

"same. and noted for future reference."

the room falls quiet as yoongi gets lost in his cooking, finishing his glass of wine between clearing up and watching what’s on the stove. he is very aware of jeongguk's presence and jeongguk watching him, but yoongi doesn't mind all that much. every time he catches a glimpse of jeongguk, he’s watching in awe and it’s painfully cute; mouth parted, both hands around his glass, following yoongi's movement with his eyes. 

it takes another fifteen minutes and half a glass of wine for the food to be ready, spreading the dishes across the table. he sets it for two, with the wine bottle between them, before finally sitting across from jeongguk. 

"eat," he says and pushes forward the steaming meat, jeongguk's eyes glued to the plate. "i could see you making heart-eyes at it the moment i started cooking."

"do you always cook like this?"

"only for people i like," yoongi says and watches jeongguk blush, then grin a little as he puts food in his plate. yoongi eats silently and normal paced, watching as jeongguk slips into that same state as last week, cheeks full of food and something blissful in his expression. it's so endearing to see—jeongguk really eats so well, he’s almost full just by watching. it reminds yoongi a little of sungmin, then butchers the thought. he should not be comparing jeongguk to his nine-year-old son. 

eating the actual meal passes in silence too, though jeongguk refills his glass and gives yoongi to big thumbs up in satisfaction. after, yoongi relents in letting jeongguk help him clean up. he’s not sure if jeongguk notices, but he hums and sings under his breath while he washes the dishes—and that really only makes yoongi like him more. at first, yoongi is taken by surprise and he almost interrupts to ask him about his voice, but he seems so lost in the english song he’s singing that yoongi doesn’t have the heart to stop him. 

so yoongi listens as he puts away what little leftovers they have, resisting the urge to record it or something like that. he wipes down the counters, a smile pulling at his mouth when he switches to a k-pop song that yoongi does know, and yoongi has to stop himself from pulling jeongguk in and kissing him right then and there. feeling so much for one person all at once—yoongi is not used to it. 

when he was with miyoung, he’d realized that things were just easy while being with her. he never felt excited in their relationship to begin with. she’s older than yoongi, too, and she held some sort of advantage because of that. yoongi was afraid of appearing disrespectful for so long that he didn’t realize he was the one being disrespected. their relationship was so obviously unequal from the start. 

when jeongguk stops singing, drying his hands with a towel, yoongi finally says, “you have a really beautiful voice,” very quietly, not even really looking at jeongguk as he admits it. 

“oh,” jeongguk says and pauses. “you… too?”

yoongi looks up at him, covering his mouth to hide his mouth as he laughs a little. “i wasn’t the one singing,” he says and drops his hand, bravely turning his head to the side to kiss jeongguk’s cheek. “but thanks anyway.”

he moves past jeongguk to put the last of the leftovers in the fridge, getting two bottles of beer since he’d accidentally already put the wine away. as yoongi opens the bottles, he notices jeongguk wandering around the living room, big curious eyes floating along the pictures of their little family and small gifts that sungmin had bought for him through the help of his hyungs. yoongi brings the beers over, sitting on the couch with his ankles crossed. he passes the second bottle to jeongguk as he sits down beside him. 

“you have a nice home, yoongi-hyung,” he says after taking a few sips, bringing a coaster to the edge of the coffee table to set his bottle down. “it’s cozy.”

yoongi keeps his bottle between his hands, leaning back a little, keeping his face towards jeongguk. “thanks,” he says softly, bringing the bottle of his lips just for something to do. the silence isn’t bad, but yoongi just doesn’t really know what to say. he kind of wants to lean close and kiss him, but he’s so scared, and he simultaneously doesn’t want to scare jeongguk away. is he rushing things? would doing something like that be considered as too soon? how does someone even go about this? yoongi sets down his bottle before he does something like spill it all over himself. 

he turns his head towards jeongguk again, admiring him as jeongguk's eyes go around the room again. from this close, yoongi can tell that he’s wearing just the smallest amount a make-up, because the color of his face changes ever so slightly as it descends into his neck. he counts a few different beauty marks on the side of his face, watching jeongguk run one hand through his hair and have another sip of his beer. he places it between his thighs after, and yoongi glances down at them, where luckily jeongguk is wearing loose pants so yoongi can’t really tell how big they are. he looks back up to find jeongguk watching him too.

“jeongguk-ah,” yoongi says quietly and turns his body a little to face him, and it’s cute how jeongguk puts down his bottle to do the same, expectant expression. he leans closer a little, not really close enough to indicate he wants to kiss him, but then jeongguk moves closer too—and that’s certainly close enough that yoongi could kiss him. their noses bump for a moment and yoongi lets out an awkward laugh, clenching his hands into fists nervously. “can i kiss you, jeongguk?”

“yes please,” says jeongguk.

with a brief nod, yoongi leans a little closer to kiss jeongguk. his lips are a little chapped, tasting of a strange mixture of red wine and sweet beer, but it’s not bad at all. it’s gentle and chaste, because yoongi is hesitant and still afraid, but it’s so good anyway. he pulls back after a few seconds and searches jeongguk’s face with his eyes, heart ramming against his chest, palms sweaty and shaking a little. “sorry,” he whispers and leans in to briefly kiss him again. jeongguk kisses him back with the same amount of pressure. “i’m a little out of practice.”

“me too,” laughs jeongguk and his hands meet yoongi’s waist with a barely-there touch. “again?”

laughing and nodding, yoongi lets jeongguk pull him a little closer, knees touching at the same times as their lips do. jeongguk kisses him a little harder, and yoongi meets him in the middle as his trembling hand cups the back of his neck. he pulls away, but not for long—yoongi kisses jeongguk again with more confidence, moving closer to partially sit in jeongguk’s lap. his other hand comes up to hold his face, cradling it as jeongguk’s hands rubs his sides through his shirt. yoongi lets his lips slide between jeongguk’s for something a little deeper, breathing through his nose with fluttering eyelashes. 

he moves even closer, finally bringing all the pressure into the kiss. both his hands hold onto jeongguk’s face now, stroking lightly along his hair, smoothing it back. jeongguk pulls their chests together and yoongi decides to fuck it, and fully straddles jeongguk’s hips. their kiss remains easy—a careful pace, with lingering tastes of alcohol and something kind of like cherry, but yoongi’s not sure where that's coming from. jeongguk holds him close and doesn’t really escalate the kiss in any way, and neither does yoongi, so it’s still just—it’s nice, that’s all yoongi’s brain can come up with because it feels so fucking amazing. 

some time passes before jeongguk pushes him away, flushed in his face and mouth a little red around his lips, panting breathlessly. yoongi sighs happily, not as much out of breath, but lets jeongguk catch his. in the mean time, he lets himself explore jeongguk’s face with his fingertips; curiously traces his nose and beneath his eyes, following his hairline down his his chin and back. he lowers his own head a little and kisses his jaw lightly, over to his ear, where he tucks his head into jeongguk’s neck while sitting back on his thighs. 

“i really like you,” jeongguk eventually says when his breathing has evened out. yoongi can feel his heart still racing, and his voice is trembling when he makes his confession—but yoongi figures it’s either from nerves or excitement, because his own heart is beating in sync. “i know it’s only been a couple weeks, but—i do feel that way, and um… i really want to try and make things work? yeah—um, yeah.”

“you’re such a nervous wreck,” yoongi teases as he pulls out of jeongguk’s neck, placing another kiss on his lips. jeongguk looks up at him with this adorable half-smile, his chest rising and falling slowly. “i like you too, you know? and i get how you feel, because i feel like that too. like. like i’ve known you my whole life or something, it sounds stupid—“

“it’s not stupid.” jeongguk shakes his head and tightens his arms where they’re wrapped around yoongi’s body, heat radiating off of him. “it’s not, i feel like that too. and i know we’re both coming from, like, i guess damaged relationships? and taking it slow would be the smart thing to do—“

yoongi cuts him off. “you don’t want to,” he finishes, and jeongguk nods with a little smile, his face still flushed pink. yoongi figures he looks about the same. “i don’t… i don’t think that’s particularly bad, you know? um, i mean. not taking it slow or waiting. if we know we like each other, and that we feels this way. that… this could potentially be long term…” he says it hesitantly, but jeongguk nods with enthusiasm so yoongi lets a relieved smile break onto his face. “then we should. it’s not like we’re going to jump into something like moving in together. it’s just—being in a relationship. dating, and being each others boyfriend.”

jeongguk nods again and says, "okay, so... you're my boyfriend, then.”

"yeah." yoongi kisses him softly for a moment then says, "and you're mine."

jeongguk breaks into another big smile after that, planting a kiss to yoongi's nose, which only scrunches up in reaction. yoongi moves out of jeongguk's lap, but still sits close to him, hugging his left arm while leaning his head on his shoulder. "do you want to watch something?" he asks when he feels jeongguk lay his head on top of his. 

"what do you have?" he asks, the vibration of his gentle voice traveling into yoongi's heart. 

"taehyung's netflix."

jeongguk laughs quietly and sits up, so yoongi lifts his chin to look up at him too. he lets go of jeongguk's arm and instead grabs his beer, taking another sip of it. "i'm fine not watching anything," jeongguk says and sits back, running his hand through his hair. "i'm okay with just sitting here with you, honestly. unless that's weird. is that weird?"

"no," yoongi says and kisses his cheek, smiling softly. "it's not weird."

"i just... i had a long week."

"okay. we don't have to talk if you don't want to."

jeongguk nods and somehow, he curls up small enough to fit under yoongi's arm, leaning into his chest. yoongi gently strokes the back of his head for a couple of minutes, before just sighing in contentment. he's not sure that he's felt this way about anyone before. he's never wanted this closeness, both the emotional and physical kind, until now. he's not complaining though, because even if they're just sitting in each other's presence, it's so comfortable this way. 

having someone near him again—yoongi is cherishing it. sure it may be very early on in their relationship to feel in love, he thinks, but yoongi also thinks that it could turn into that. jeongguk fits into his life like a puzzle piece, not the last piece yoongi's needs, but maybe the biggest one that he's needed for the last few years. even with his friends and sungmin, yoongi felt lonely. being a single father was just like that, especially with how utterly useless miyoung is. 

until he got home from his date with jeongguk, which ended with jeongguk kissing his cheek, yoongi didn't realize that he actually craved this from someone. he's always taking care of others, whether it be taehyung or sungmin, or whoever—yoongi just never noticed that maybe he needed to be taken care of too. seokjin does a good job of that, but it's not quite the same as this. after meeting with jeongguk in a more romantic setting, yoongi figured out he wouldn't mind getting that from him. 

yoongi figured out he actually wants jeongguk to take care of him. 

++

breaking the news about their relationship to sungmin is easy enough. the next morning, yoongi sits him down and explains what exactly his relationship is with jeongguk. he’s always been kind of transparent when it comes to explaining things to sungmin, because he learns best when someone's direct and a little blunt. when sungmin accidentally said a curse word when a couple of years ago, yoongi obviously didn’t explain the meaning, but he explained how people use it in a negative and mean way to teach him why it’s wrong to say. and ever since then, if yoongi slips up around him and accidentally curses, sungmin scolds him. 

so he answers all of sungmin’s questions about relationships, skirts around one random one regarding babies that he luckily doesn’t bring up again, and yoongi feels very happy by the end of it because sungmin is just a curious child and for some reason, that warms up his entire heart. the two of them, they’ve been through a lot together. sungmin has unfortunately seen yoongi at his worsts, but they’ve always had each other because they are all they have. when yoongi first told sungmin about jeongguk, and he said that, it truly hit him how much sungmin relies on him as not only as a father, but just as a friend, as someone who is there.

being with jeongguk brings a lot of—well, if yoongi is being completely honest, it’s fun dating him. it gives a lot of opportunities to do couple stuff together while also with sungmin, because they’re both not really fond of doing super extravagant or fancy things for dates. they do the bowling alley once, and apparently they all have a competitive side, so it’s a tough game. jeongguk wins because he’s a sore loser otherwise, and they remedy sungmin’s loss with some ice cream. they go to the library a lot, and sungmin’s reading comprehension improves the more time they spend reading together. maybe it’s a perk of dating a teacher, or maybe jeongguk is just that good with sungmin, yoongi isn’t sure which one. 

despite that, most times they get the chance to meet each other, it'll be at yoongi's apartment. at first, yoongi sends sungmin over to the apartment next door to get some privacy, but then he realizes it doesn't really matter. having sungmin and jeongguk in the same room helps them get comfortable with each other in a setting outside of school. so yoongi starts letting sungmin stay—sometimes he'll be in his room while yoongi and jeongguk are on the couch, sometimes he'll be on the couch while yoongi and jeongguk watch him from the kitchen. it happens slowly at first, but they form a talkative and almost brotherly dynamic. yoongi doesn't mind that, he doesn't expect jeongguk to act like a father—he's just glad that they're getting along. 

there’s an unexpected moment, one saturday night in yoongi’s and sungmin’s apartment. yoongi and jeongguk have sungmin sandwiched on the couch, where he fell asleep after they watched a japanese animated film. it made jeongguk and sungmin cry a little, which yoongi wasn’t all surprised by. they carefully retreat from the couch and yoongi grumbles to himself that sungmin is too big for him to carry back to his room. jeongguk is gentle when he effortlessly lifts sungmin into his arms, and yoongi simply tucks him into bed when jeongguk lays him down. they leave the room quietly, and yoongi shuts the door behind him. 

“going now?” he asks softly, watching jeongguk pull on his jacket. 

“unless you don’t want me too,” jeongguk teases and yoongi only rolls his eyes in response, despite the fact that he doesn’t really want jeongguk to leave yet. he doesn’t voice that though, watching a little sadly as jeongguk sits on the floor to put on his shoes. he stands again and opens his arms. yoongi indulges and steps up to him, wrapping him into a tight hug, chin hooked over his shoulder. “you know, you don’t have to squeeze me so tight, i’ll see you on wednesday like we planned.”

yoongi pulls back and shrugs. “it’s like, half a week. i’m trying to charge up jeongguk energy until then,” he says and smiles a little, opening the door for him. he accepts the soft kiss jeongguk gives him when yoongi stands in the doorway, smiling bigger and fuller at him, heart growing so fond. “text me when you get home.”

“i will. good night hyung.” 

he watches as jeongguk descends down the stairwell and shuts the door, sighing quietly. he goes to clean up their mess in the living room, folding up the blankets they were using to put in the closet, as well as the board game they played over a box of pizza they all somehow finished. he clears away any stray popcorn pieces, and tosses what kernels have been left at the bottom of the bowl. yoongi finishes washing the dishes they used, wiping down the counters, and yawns a little as he heads for his room. he stops in his tracks at a knock on the door, confused.

despite being tired, yoongi turns around to check who it is. he furrows his eyebrows a little and opens the door, looking up at a sheepish jeongguk. “forget something?” he asks, running his hand through his hair before rubbing at one of his eyes. jeongguk shakes his head, so yoongi raises his eyebrow a little. “what’s wrong?”

“my car won’t start,” he says and rubs the back of his neck. “and i don’t know what to do.”

yoongi nods and puts on his slippers immediately, pulling on a jacket. he grabs his keys and shuts the door, locking it out of paranoia. “show me,” he says and follows jeongguk down to where he has his car parked. he yawns and halts when jeongguk does, taking his keys to sit in the driver’s seat. 

yoongi checks for himself if the car won’t start, then if the steering wheel is locked. it isn’t, so yoongi gets out again to check the hood. he leans away when smoke rises up at him, looking over at jeongguk on the sidewalk. he shuts the cover for the hood, sighing. “i only know basic car stuff, i don’t know how to fix this gguk-ah. you’re gonna have to take this to a shop or something.”

jeongguk rubs his face and nods, looking like he’s falling asleep on his feet. yoongi shuts the door for the driver’s side and locks the car, grabbing jeongguk by the shoulders to jolt him back awake. “hey,” he says and waves his hand in front of his eyes, watching as jeongguk smacks his lips and flutters his eyes a little. “okay, you are literally sleeping while standing. come on, you’re staying over.” yoongi steadies him and holds his face, pulling lightly to keep his eyes open. “jeongguk. hello. are you literally asleep?”

“no, hyung,” he murmurs and shakes his head. “just tired now.”

“i can see that.” yoongi sighs—his exhaustion is catching up to him too. he pulls jeongguk back towards the stairwell and climbs back up to the door of his apartment, unlocking it. he pushes it open with his shoulder, holding jeongguk’s bicep with both hands to keep him from falling over. jeongguk leans against the wall with his eyes shut, pushing his shoes off with his feet and taking off his jacket again. yoongi places his shoes beside the others, wrapping his arm around jeongguk’s waist to help him to his bedroom. 

they fall onto yoongi’s bed together, jeongguk looking up at yoongi through slightly narrowed eyes. “will you sleep here too?” he asks and licks his lips, rubbing his eyes a little. yoongi stares back at him, gently running his hand through his hair. “hyung?”

yoongi kisses his forehead lightly. “yeah. let me go see if someone next door has some clothes you can wear. you won’t fit in anything of mine,” he says and pulls away from jeongguk, watching him stretch across the mattress with his eyes shut.

laughing quietly to himself, yoongi leaves the apartment briefly, knocking on the door beside his own. he leans his palm against the wall, waiting silently. he knows taehyung or at least one of them is awake, since his phone buzzed with a text to their groupchat only five minutes ago. the door opens a crack first, then wider when whoever it is notices that it’s only yoongi. namjoon rubs the back of his neck, squinting a little into the dim light on the landing. “what’s up, hyung?”

“uh…” is all yoongi can say at first, then shakes his head to gather his tired thoughts. “sorry, just tired. um—jeongguk is staying over and i was wondering if you have clothes he can borrow.” he furrows his eyebrows then and narrows his eyes. “it’s saturday. why are you awake of all people? were you working?”

“maybe,” namjoon says and smiles a little, dimple poking out. “i’ll go see if i have anything. if not, i’ll grab something of seokjin-hyung’s.”

yoongi nods and waits by the door, stifling a yawn with his head leaned against the door frame, closing his eyes. he opens his eyes about a minute later when namjoon returns, thanking him for the small pile of clothes. they’re soft in yoongi’s hands, grip tightening around the fabric. “good luck, yoongi-hyung. i know you’re too tired to think right now, but don’t freak out when you wake up.” namjoon sighs a little. “and don’t do anything weird with him while mini’s in the house.”

“i want to punch you in the face,” he murmurs back, dazedly looking at namjoon’s face in the shadows.

“sure you do. good night, hyung.”

yoongi nods and waves, returning to his own apartment. he locks up and checks on sungmin to make sure he’s asleep, then gives the clothes to jeongguk. he’s surprisingly still awake and they both get changed in sluggish motions. yoongi is awake enough to brush his teeth, but jeongguk is passed on in the middle of the bed by the time yoongi comes back from the bathroom. he shuts all the lights and climbs into bed, lying on his side while facing jeongguk. jeongguk stirs a little and reaches out, putting his arm over yoongi’s body. yoongi hesitantly scoots closer and settles in his arms.

he closes his eyes, breathes deep, and falls asleep easy.

the morning comes in slow increments. first it’s the sunlight in the room, because yoongi forgot to close his curtains. then it’s warmth all around him, then it’s the distinct smell of jeongguk’s cologne lingering in his bed. he turns onto his back and opens his eyes, blinking at the ceiling. “good morning,” jeongguk says and reaches out from his left, tapping the tip of yoongi’s nose gently. he leans closer and kisses yoongi’s cheek, settling his head in his neck after. “you’re really clingy when you sleep, hyung.”

“sorry,” yoongi mumbles, smoothing back jeongguk’s messy hair, continuing when jeongguk sighs happily. “did you sleep alright? i know it can be weird sleeping somewhere new.”

“no. it was fine, i had you here.”

“cheesy,” says yoongi, turning his head a little to be able to kiss the top of his head. “what do you want for breakfast?”

“kisses.”

“jeongguk-ah. that’s not what i meant.”

"hyuung. kisses."

"that's not food."

jeongguk climbs to lie on top of yoongi, legs on either side of him, pulling the blanket over them with his face in the pillow beside yoongi’s head. “give me hyung’s affection,” he says and yoongi laughs, pushing the blanket off their bodies so he can sit up. jeongguk whines as yoongi untangles himself, reaching out once yoongi’s out of bed, his usually big eyes now barely open. "please?"

“you’re worse than sungmin,” yoongi says and goes into the bathroom, leaving the door open as he washes his face. jeongguk’s cheek is smooshed into the bed, lying on his stomach with his head turned to watch yoongi in the bathroom. yoongi brushes his teeth and leaves a clean toothbrush on the counter for jeongguk, kissing his cheek before leaving his room. 

sungmin is sitting with his legs criss-crossed at the kitchen table, a bowl of cereal and milk and one of the books they picked up on their latest library visit in front of him. “morning mini,” yoongi says and kisses the top of his head as he passes, then steals a bite of his cereal before he continues to the electric kettle on the counter. “have you been up long?” he asks when he finishes the cereal bite, taking out two mugs for coffee instead of just one. 

“not really. just like, twenty minutes or something,” sungmin says and puts a bookmark in his book, shutting it afterwards. he has a bite of his cereal, then folds his hands on top of the table while leaning forward. “dad.”

“sungminie.”

“did your boyfriend sleep over?”

for some reason, it takes yoongi a moment to figure out who sungmin is talking about, then narrows his eyes a little. “yes,” he says slowly and leans back against the counter with his arms crossed. “how did you know that?”

sungmin points to the area by the front door. “his shoes are still here.”

yoongi chuckles softly and shakes his head, turning around to pour the water into both mugs. “observant,” he murmurs to himself and smiles a little as he puts creamer in one of them, and leaves the other one black with a couple spoonfuls of sugar. “is that okay with you? it doesn’t have to become a regular thing if you’re uncomfortable with it.”

“it’s okay, dad. whatever makes you guys happy.” yoongi laughs and sets down his coffee on the table, then takes the seat across from him. 

“sungmin-ah, you know you don’t have to like something just because makes me happy,” he says after taking a sip, watching him refill his bowl with more cereal and milk. 

sungmin shrugs, swinging his legs a little beneath the table after he puts the milk back in the fridge. “but isn’t it like, i should be okay with it because you’re happy?”

yoongi shakes his head. “not quite how it works in this situation. for more general things, yes. for example, i’m okay with… taetae-hyung doing my make-up because it makes him happy. i don’t really like it that much, but he does—so i let him do it because it makes him happy. make sense?” sungmin nods and takes a bite of his cereal, touching his hair to sweep his bangs to the side. “but here, this is a big thing. when it’s bigger thing, you have to think about all the people involved. we have to think about me and jeongguk-hyung, because it’s our relationship, and we have to think of you because you’re my son and we’re kind of a package deal, right?”

“right. but i am okay with it even if it’s a big thing,” sungmin says and sits on his knees, scooting his chair closer to the table. “jeongguk-hyung is nice. he doesn’t make me uncomfortable. so… it’s okay that he sleeps over. i like him. and you love him like how taehyungie-hyung loves jinnie-hyung, right?”

yoongi smiles and drinks more of his coffee, then just kind of laughs because sungmin is really just a kid, who is still learning and growing and trying to understand things. he’s only nine-years-old, yet asking yoongi about love and if he’s in love with someone. “i’m not,” he says softly to sungmin, watching him frown a little. “right now, i just like him a lot. he’s very sweet and kind to me. and he takes care of you and i, while also letting me take care of him. i think i will love him, eventually, but love has to build up for some people.”

“i don’t really get it, but it sounds cool.”

“it is,” says jeongguk, jolting yoongi a little from how quietly he came out of the room. yoongi looks up at him and can’t help but smile as jeongguk beams back at him. his hair is a little bit of a mess, and namjoon’s clothes are a hanging big on him, but. the way jeongguk is smiling at him ignites something inside yoongi's chest. he walks over and places his hand on top of sungmin’s head, ruffling his hair lightly. “love’s tricky. some people fall in love really hard and really fast.” he looks at yoongi with a soft smile. “and some people, like your dad, have it build up over time. little-by-little he feels more in love.”

yoongi tilts his head to the side at that explanation, but jeongguk simply keeps going. “and of course there’s other kinds of love,” he says and walks around to the other side of the table, leaning down a little to kiss yoongi’s forehead. yoongi drops his chin and smiles shyly, taking another sip of his coffee. is jeongguk trying to tell me something? “but we don’t have to get into that. it’s confusing. even i get confused.”

“i’m very confused,” sungmin states.

“i made you coffee,” yoongi says instead of contributing to the conversation any longer. he smiles a little wider when jeongguk’s fingers card through his hair, then scratch lightly on his scalp.

jeongguk smiles again, full with his bunny teeth. probably one of the prettiest smiles yoongi has ever seen. “thanks hyung,” is all he says and pulls his hand away to get his coffee. 

yoongi turns his head back to sungmin, tracing along the rim of his mug. “you’re too young to worry about this, sungminie. just… focus on school. and make good friends.” he pauses a little. “and make sure you take care of me when i get old.”

“dad.” sungmin reaches over the table and grabs yoongi’s hands, leaning forward on his elbow. he rocks the table a little, but luckily nothing spills. “you are only thirty-one. please stop talking about getting old.”

“i love how you think thirty-one is only. it makes me feel better about myself. sometimes jeongguk calls me ahjussi.”

“that’s because you act like an old man.”

“i do not!”

sungmin winces. “hyung's right. you do sometimes, dad.”

yoongi can’t help but sit there and pout with his arms crossed. “i don’t.”

"okay, now you're acting like a five year old," jeongguk says and pulls out the chair beside yoongi's, sitting with his coffee in his right hand. "decide. old man or child?"

"can't i just be min yoongi?" he whines and lays his head on the table, sungmin patting the back of his head. "min yoongi is both."

jeongguk's arm wraps around his torso before he lays himself over yoongi's back. yoongi groans at the pressure, turning and trying to push him off, but jeongguk is a lot bigger than him. he finally shoves him to the side and gets up before he could get any more ideas. he gets out the box of eggs from the fridge and boxed ramen from the cupboard to get started on breakfast. 

as yoongi begins to boil a pot of hot water, he hears sungmin loudly whisper, "so hyung, do you love my dad?"

"can you keep a secret?" jeongguk whispers back, and yoongi keeps his back facing away, not sure if jeongguk knows he can hear them. he assumes sungmin nods in answer, because then he says, "i do. a little bit. but don't tell him that, okay? promise?"

when yoongi chances a brief glance, he only sees jeongguk's back, though sungmin is leaned over the table with a massive smile on his face. yoongi turns back towards the stove, unsure what to do with this information. jeongguk had been trying to tell him something earlier, when he first walked out of his bedroom, talking about fast lovers. he'd been referring to himself. and yoongi, maybe he noticed how jeongguk kind of grew around their relationship, how his behavior changed gradually.

even if jeongguk is a hard and fast type of guy when it comes to falling in love, he's not very loud about it. yoongi—now that he thinks about it, stirring uncooked noodles into boiling water—feels like jeongguk has been gently loving him for the last couple of weeks. how he hadn't noticed is beyond him, because yoongi thinks of himself as attentive to detail, noting the little things that others might bypass upon first or second glance. he completely missed how jeongguk has been sprinkling his feelings within yoongi's life, a fairy who carries magic dust and hovers over yoongi's shoulder to ensure he is constantly loved. 

the way jeongguk smiles at him, for one, started to change during their first date. it became softer around the edges, still entirely full—and yoongi thinks it's his eyes, oh it's definitely his eyes. instead of his eyes being normal, all round and big, warm whenever yoongi looks at him; instead of that, his eyes get smaller, the corners crinkling up, holding that same warmth. he suddenly looked so enamored with yoongi, as if he's the center of the world. it's similar to how he looks when he laughs, yet simultaneously so different. yoongi knows it's for him. it's special, and it's just for him.

the texts and calls—how could yoongi have missed it there, too? the texts in the mornings, asking if yoongi has a busy day, to make sure he drinks enough water and has all his meals, accompanied by a different gif of an animated animal blowing kisses. who does that unless they are just completely in love with someone? why else would jeongguk call him before bed, just to tell yoongi about his day, to ask about yoongi's day, to whine about how much he misses yoongi's kisses? admittedly, maybe yoongi had been too occupied with being embarrassed, but shouldn't he have seen it anyway?

the way jeongguk acts—his heart is massive. the moment yoongi saw how he behaved with sungmin when they first met, even when he heard how concerned he was for sungmin on the phone, he'd started to feel a little bit of something for jeongguk. he cares so much, and so intensely about everything and everyone around him. but that only makes him ten times more fragile, ten times more vulnerable, and so prone to getting his heart broken. yoongi hopes he won't break jeongguk's heart.

it should have been a sign when jeongguk's roommate jimin pulled him aside the first time yoongi went over, with sungmin because it was an off-chance that no one could watch him. jimin had gazed fondly at jeongguk, brotherly love, something reminiscent of a blanket of care, then said, "take care of him, yoongi-ssi." yoongi hadn't known what to say, but jimin continued anyway. "jeonggukie, he's been through so much. people have taken advantage of him, and yet he still smiles like that. yoongi-ssi, please protect that smile."

shouldn't that have been telltale, the most obvious of them all? jimin had practically just told him yoongi, jeongguk is in love with you and yoongi simply nodded in answer. why is he so dumb about this stuff? here jeongguk is, loving him and sungmin like that's what he was born to do, while yoongi is only slowly falling for him. it seems unfair that jeongguk isn't receiving love in return. but surely what yoongi gives him is something, right?

the doubt trickles in surprisingly quick. yoongi mixes the now cooked noodles into the seasoning in the bowl, eyebrows furrowed into it. yoongi had been the one who said to jeongguk that they should take the risk in being together. they both had felt so strongly about each other from the beginning and felt that they should just be together. but yoongi, now, he keeps thinking back to his failed marriage, and how painful it had been to realize his mistake and actually file for divorce.

did he rush this by taking the risk? has he pushed them into the deep end, in a substance too thick to swim or float in? somewhere that only yoongi can move, and he has a weight chained around his ankle, dragging him into a bottomless abyss of his own fear. far away from jeongguk, far from any of the love that jeongguk has shared with him. it feels ridiculous when yoongi thinks about it—why is he letting himself descend? why can't he break the chain on his ankle?

what is the weight? where is this fear of loving jeongguk coming from?

++

yoongi tries his best to keep the brewing thoughts to himself over the next couple of weeks, but it's hard with how often jeongguk likes to come over. he knows he's good as masking his emotions, probably has the best poker face out of everyone he knows, but it doesn't make it any less difficult. it's harder knowing how jeongguk really feels about him, it's harder not knowing why he doesn't feel the same way yet, it's harder with jeongguk smiling carelessly because he doesn't know what's going on inside yoongi's head. 

he considers turning to one of his friends, but he doesn't know what they would think about this. it took a while just for taehyung and seokjin to get together and flush out all their problems. yoongi easily notices the strain on their relationship, especially because sometimes namjoon will sleep on his couch to get away from their arguing. yoongi knows they're in a steady place right now, and he doesn't want to plant his doubts in anyone's mind. namjoon isn't an option either because he's too swamped with work to be able to even hangout, so it'd be useless trying to get through to him. 

yoongi feels stuck in a position he can't get out of. that damn weight keeps pulling him down, dragging him further and further from jeongguk. he knows exactly what he's doing, pushing jeongguk away because he's too scared of confronting this; of all that he feels building in his heart for jeongguk. it happens slowly, yoongi not answering phone calls and responding late to his texts. then it descends into canceling dates because he's overworking himself, spending longer hours at the studio as an excuse. he even starts bringing sungmin back to work with him some days because he doesn't want to see jeongguk's disappointed face. 

it all crashes down on yoongi when he's lying on the couch, a little drunk and drowning in his self-deprecating thoughts. there's a knock on the door and it's almost eleven pm, so yoongi doesn't make a move to open it. but then there's another knock about a minute later, and he doesn't want sungmin to wake up from the noise, so yoongi gets off the couch after finishing his glass of whiskey and checks who it is. yoongi leans his forehead against the door before opening it. 

jeongguk is staring at him, exhausted expression, hands in the pockets of his jacket. he looks like just rolled out of bed because he's wearing plaid pajamas pants and a black shirt underneath his unzipped hoodie, though his hair is damp so maybe not. there's a distant look in this eyes that yoongi doesn't recognize—it's cold and dark, so guarded. yoongi tightens his grip on the doorknob and clenches his jaw to keep himself from getting angry. there's no one to be angry at other than himself, anyway. 

"can we talk?" jeongguk asks instead of a greeting, his voice trembling and pupils shaking. yoongi watches his adam’s apple bob when he audibly gulps, then opens the door wider for jeongguk to come inside. he exhales shakily after shutting the door, watching nervously as jeongguk removes his slippers and faces yoongi. 

yoongi, unable to look him in the eye, moves past him to return to his spot on the couch. he pours himself another glass of alcohol and takes a sip, sitting down again with his eyes shut. he doesn't open them when jeongguk sits down somewhere to his left, holding the glass to rest on his knee, index finger tapping the rim. when jeongguk starts talking, yoongi's eyes flutter open. "h-hyung," he says slowly, voice no better than it was a couple of minutes ago. yoongi can't imagine the courage it took for jeongguk to come here. "yoongi-hyung, d-did i do some-something wrong?"

a sinking feeling rests in yoongi's chest, pulling him down, down, down and he wants to cry because he's realizing how much he's hurt jeongguk by trying to protect himself. yoongi doesn't even know what he's been shielding himself from. "no," he replies in the softest voice, finishing his glass and setting it back on the coffee table. he doesn't refill it, and he doesn't look at jeongguk, and he doesn't say anything else. 

"please talk to me..." jeongguk starts and trails off, reaching out, and yoongi knows he shouldn't, but he instinctively turns his shoulder away. "hyung?"

"i'm sorry," yoongi says and wipes his eyes, wipes his nose—he doesn't want to break in front of jeongguk. he curls one hand into the blanket he'd been using earlier, trying to focus on something that will stop his racing heart, but nothing will help. he feels a tear slip, then another, then buries his face into his hands so jeongguk won't see him crying. he feels awful; so, so guilty and pained that he's built up so many walls of caution around himself. 

then jeongguk touches his shoulder, his palm sweaty even through yoongi's shirt, using force to lift yoongi's head out of his hands. yoongi can't move, he's frozen and crying and hates himself a little bit, but only because he's lost in this maze of love. he feels so fucking stupid that he can't figure out this battle inside him, between just loving jeongguk back or continuing to push jeongguk away instead. 

jeongguk's eyes return to a gentle gaze and he has tears forming in them, steadily slipping past the corners of his eyes, down his cheeks. he slides off the couch to kneel in front of yoongi, sitting right between his knees, so yoongi has no choice but to look at him. his hands finds yoongi's and their fingers slip together easily, because yoongi is growing steadily more drunk and tired of holding himself down. 

"you have to talk to me or i won't be able to help you through whatever this is, hyung," jeongguk says and his voice is steady now, firm tone rather than the pleading one from before. 

"i know you love me," yoongi rasps quietly and watches jeongguk's slow reaction, his head tilting to the side, his grip on yoongi's hands loosening. he pulls away and sits back on his heels, no longer crying while tears continue to pour out of yoongi's eyes. jeongguk's head tips forward to hide his face and yoongi reaches out, brushing his hand through the damp hair, gentle when his fingers catch on knots. "i know you love me and i feel so fucking awful that—that i don't know for sure what i feel for you back."

jeongguk is quiet for a few seconds, head still lowered when he asks, "that's what this is about?"

yoongi finally lifts his hands to wipe away his tears, forcing them to a stop, eyes burning in protest because there's still more lingering behind. "i'm scared, jeongguk. i'm so scared of this and i know i'm being so hypocritical by feeling like this. i was the one who said we should go for it. i'm the one who said i hate bad communication. i'm the fucking one who initiated this, when i flirted with you in that bar and i just—i didn't realize how i would hurt you by doing this, i was trying to save myself."

"save yourself from what?"

"i don't know."

they sit in silence and yoongi can't hold back, anchor pulling inside his chest once more, triggering his tears fall all over again. he pulls his legs up to the couch, folding them underneath him, leaning his head back as his chest heaves. yoongi wipes his cheeks and turns his head to the side, wiping again more frantically when he sees sungmin peeking around the corner of the wall beside his bedroom door. "sungmin-ah," he says in surprise, rubbing beneath his nose with the back of his hand. "why are you awake?"

sungmin cowers behind the wall, and yoongi is just tired so he gestures him forward, patting the spot on the couch beside him. "i heard the knock," sungmin says quietly when he sits with his legs criss-cross. "then i heard you and hyung talking and i heard you crying, so i wanted to see what was wrong. i know i'm not supposed to eavesdrop, i'm sorry."

yoongi sighs a little and reaches behind jeongguk for a tissue, but jeongguk grabs his wrist with a questioning look. he turns his head a little to look at the table and lets go, flustered suddenly. yoongi's drunk mind doesn't really understand and simply grabs a tissue to dab his wet eyes. jeongguk doesn't say anything, still seated on the floor, nibbling at his bottom lip. 

finally, he says, "sungmin-ah," and sungmin sits up to look at jeongguk. "is it alright if i ask you to go back to your room and shut the door, so we can have some privacy?"

yoongi watches sungmin nod, then turn his head to kiss yoongi's cheek. yoongi feels warm all of a sudden, watching sungmin get up and return to his room after that. jeongguk stands and grabs ahold of yoongi's forearm, yanking him off the couch. "ow, jeongguk," he hisses and rubs his shoulder, surprised at jeongguk's determined expression, dragging yoongi towards his bedroom. 

yoongi shuts the door behind him and jeongguk lets go of his arm, sitting on yoongi's bed legs criss-cross. he hesitantly joins jeongguk, a couple feet away with his knees to his chest instead. yoongi watches as jeongguk fidgets in place, continuously touching his hair, fingers twitching for something to do. jeongguk takes a deep breath, then lets it out in a heavy sigh. 

"yes," he says quietly, and he's looking directly at yoongi, ultimately making yoongi drop his gaze to the sheets. "i do love you. it kind of started the day we met and it ballooned after that. i didn't want to overwhelm you so i never said anything."

"i heard you telling sungmin," yoongi admits in a mirrored quiet voice, still unable to look jeongguk in the eye. "in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago, the night you slept over. after i heard you admit it to him, i panicked because i didn’t know what you would expect back from me. so—i pushed you away knowingly instead of talking to you about it.”

“you shouldn’t have done that.”

yoongi laughs weakly and rests his chin on his knees. “yeah,” he says quietly, pushing his hair back, tugging on the roots in mild frustration. “i can see that now.”

when he does finally manage to look at jeongguk, he’s smiling. it’s small and close-mouthed, lips bitten red by his own teeth, but it’s got a melancholic undertone to it. yoongi knows he’s trying to hide his hurt, but it’s better if they’re both honest right now, no matter what. “i’m sorry,” he says and makes sure his voice is clear and steady, maybe not the loudest because he doesn’t want sungmin to hear on the off-chance that he’s eavesdropping on them again, but he needs jeongguk to hear him. “i was being an immature coward by ignoring you. i was afraid of what it meant if i admitted to myself i fell in love with you that fast, too.” 

he’s not even sure where these words are coming from. maybe it’s the alcohol. yoongi doesn’t know, but he keeps going anyway. “pushing people away, it’s not something i usually do. but—i was scared of hurting you if i somehow let you find out my inner turmoil, and i let that fear consume me to the point where i was hurting you instead of helping you. i’m a terrible boyfriend for doing that, and i’m really fucking sorry.” yoongi pauses and takes a shaky breath, trying to steady himself. his hands are clenched in fists around his soft gray comforter, damp from his sweaty palms. “i shouldn’t have assumed how you would feel. i should have just admitted this as soon as i started to feel it, but i let it pile up and it’s just because of this stupid fear.”

“hyung,” jeongguk says abruptly and he moves to his knees, scooting close until they’re pressed over yoongi’s bare toes. he smiles still, leaning closer to kiss yoongi’s forehead. yoongi goes a little cross-eyed. “i understand. your fear was reasonable, but i wish you would have dealt with it in a different way.”

“i’m know. i'm sorry,” yoongi repeats.

“i know you are, hyung.”

yoongi sniffs a little and wipes his nose again, raising his chin to look at jeongguk sitting in front of him. “i think,” he starts, then stops to frown a little. “jeongguk-ah, do you want me to love you the way you love me?”

jeongguk shifts with sudden discomfort, his hands falling to hold yoongi’s ankles loosely. “um…” he murmurs softly, then clears his throat, chin meeting his chest to stare at his lap. “eventually, yes. i understand that you express your feelings differently than me, so i get that right now you might not feel the same. but—i do want to keep dating you, hyung.”

“i wasn’t implying breaking up with you, gguk,” yoongi says and sits up a little, shifting to match jeongguk’s seated position. he grabs jeongguk by the cheeks, cradling his delicate face beneath his palms, fingertips ghosting over his skin. jeongguk looks back at him with wide eyes, blinking slow, though his gaze never leaves yoongi’s face. “i don’t want that. at all." he sighs quietly and smiles a little teasingly. "did you miss the part where i said i was scared of admitting i'm in love with you too?"

jeongguk's mouth makes a little 'o' shape, opening it to say something, then shutting it again. "um," he says, eyebrows slowly furrowing. "you're... not just saying that, right?"

"no, jeongguk-ah." he pauses and takes a deep breath, moving one hand to run through his hair again. "i'm not just saying that. i really do think i love you."

without giving much time for yoongi to register what he just said, jeongguk is pressing their lips together. one of yoongi's hands slip to the back of jeongguk's neck, the other instinctively curling around his waist. jeongguk pushes him back against the bed with force and the mattress springs a little beneath yoongi, but he's quick to pull their lips back together. yoongi runs his hand through jeongguk's hair repeatedly and slows the pace of the kiss, not really in the mood for something heated. yoongi might be drunk, but he's well aware of his nine-year-old across the living room. 

jeongguk pulls back, his hands beside yoongi's head, grinning down at him with flushed cheeks. "i want to keep taking care of you, hyung," he says and presses another kiss to yoongi's lips, a couple to his cheek before laying himself on top of yoongi. "is that okay? can i love and care for you and sungminie?"

"yeah," whispers yoongi, rubbing along jeongguk's back lightly. he helps him take off his jacket, tossing it somewhere towards the foot of his bed so jeongguk can get comfortable. "only if you let me love and care for you too, jeongguk-ah."

"of course."

yoongi leans his head back against his pillow and yawns a little, murmuring, "i'm so drunk."

a minute later, as yoongi feels himself falling asleep, he hears jeongguk whisper, "i love you, yoongi-hyung."

when morning comes, yoongi is alone in the darkness. his sheets smell distinctly like jeongguk, rolling onto his side with sleepiness still lingering in his mind, eyes narrowed at the empty space. he climbs out of bed and grabs his phone on the way to the bathroom, checking it for work emails as he brushes his teeth. he pockets it in his pajama pants when he's done, scrunching his face up in the mirror as he takes in how exhausted he looks. forcing his feelings inside definitely took a toll him. 

but now that everything is out in the open, yoongi feels like he doesn't have to hide anymore. 

yoongi decides to take a shower, allowing himself to relax under the shower head, the heat loosening his tight muscles. he makes it short out of habit, quickly washing his hair and body, getting out only after a few minutes. he blow dries his hair, gets dressed in shorts and hoodie, finally walking out to the living room and kitchen. 

he's surprised by the sight he's met with. sungmin is seated on the counter, still in his pajamas and hair sticking up, swinging his legs at little as he watches jeongguk. and yoongi has to stop drool from straight-up coming out of his mouth, because jeongguk is standing shirtless in his kitchen. all these back muscles that yoongi didn't really know he had are suddenly on display, and jeongguk casually turns around to smile brightly and say, "morning hyung."

"morning dad!" sungmin chirps and points to the stove, which jeongguk is standing in front of. "look, jeongguk-hyung is making us american pancakes."

yoongi blinks a couple of times and blurts, "gguk, why aren't you wearing clothes?"

"it got hot while i slept," he says casually, then turns to wink at him. "why?"

"absolutely no reason," he says quickly while clearing his throat, finally walking into the kitchen. he gets a mug from behind sungmin's head and starts the kettle, crossing his arms while he stands beside jeongguk. he lifts his chin a little, finally looking at jeongguk's face. yoongi uncrosses his arms and puts one on his cheek, quickly pecking his lips before returning to making his coffee. 

once jeongguk finishes making them pancakes and sets the table, and yoongi takes some medicine for the barely present hangover he has, the three gather around the table to eat. sungmin is enthusiastic about the pancakes, rambling about how sweet they are, and yoongi watches fondly as he and jeongguk get into a war of how many bites they can fit into their mouths. on the other hand, yoongi peacefully finishes his food and sits back to drink his coffee. 

"dad," sungmin says after jeongguk wins, and yoongi looks at him, taking another sip of his coffee. "can hyung make us pancakes everyday?"

"no, mini, pancakes aren't really that good for you," yoongi says with a laugh, pinching sungmin's cheek before getting up to start cleaning the empty dishes on the table. he places them in the sink and pushes up his sleeves to start washing. "and jeongguk doesn't live here, so we wouldn't even be able to have them daily. i'm definitely not making them for you."

yoongi jumps a little when jeongguk wraps his arms around him from behind, chin nestled above yoongi's shoulder. "lame," he mutters softly and yoongi rolls eyes, simply continuing to do the dishes. he smiles a little when jeongguk lightly kisses his neck, then whispers, "i love you," into his ear. 

it sends happy shivers and tingles down yoongi's spine. he doesn't say it back, but he hopes that the elbow to jeongguk's ribs and the smile on his face says enough for him.