Archive of Our Own ^beta

Five years of marriage, three years of dating, and a handful of months as acquaintances through mutual friends before that, and Jimin is still just as thrilled by the sight of Seokjin’s broad back when he cooks as he was at the start of their relationship.

“Your nose is freezing,” Seokjin says, not sounding perturbed at all as Jimin buries his face in the crook of Seokjin’s neck, wrapping his arms around Seokjin’s waist as he does so. “Is the bedroom cold?”

“Mm, no,” Jimin says quietly. “I let the cats out in the garden before I came in to see you.”

“Really? I didn’t hear you get up,” Seokjin replies.

Jimin hums again. “You filming?” He asks; he feels, rather than sees, Seokjin nod. When Seokjin had first started filming himself cooking, vlog-style cooking videos for a YouTube channel intended as little more than a monthly hobby, Jimin had avoided getting in the way; had dipped out of sight of the camera and crouched behind furniture to avoid ruining takes, until Seokjin had told him that he could edit Jimin out of the videos if he didn’t want to appear in them.

Now the channel’s taken off, enough that Seokjin does it full time, and Jimin still hasn’t shown his face in any of the videos. The viewers know he exists – there’s too much evidence of him around the apartment for Seokjin to ever cut out all of it, and Jimin’s seen the trends on Twitter when his silhouette is spotted in the background of a video – but he still hasn’t done a face reveal. He prefers it that way, likes being able to keep his social media presence fairly public without having to worry too much about what he posts on there.

Jimin lifts his head from Seokjin’s shoulder and notices a zippable lunchbox on the counter, the one Seokjin uses when he has to commute into the city. “Who’re you meeting today?”

Seokjin glances over his shoulder at him; Jimin nods to the lunchbox, hooking his chin over Seokjin’s shoulder in the process. “Oh, no one,” he replies, turning back to the pan he’s watching. “It’s for you.”

“You didn’t have to make me lunch,” Jimin says with a little frown. “You already make me breakfast every morning. And dinner most nights.”

“My job is to cook at home, Jimin-ah, what else would I do with all that food?” Seokjin laughs. “And the lunchbox isn’t entirely altruistic, I’m thinking of starting a new video series where I make you packed lunches for work.”

“Sounds pretty altruistic to me,” Jimin says, reaching out to the lunchbox to see what Seokjin’s made him; Seokjin swats his hand away gently. “Um?”

“No spoilers,” Seokjin says, eyes alight as he tries to bite back a laugh.

“Alright, alright,” Jimin replies, pulling his hand away. “Do you need to film any additional material with it before I go to work?”

Seokjin hums thoughtfully, casting a glance at his camera set-up, at the lunchbox, and then at Jimin. “Yes, actually – can we film an intro to the series? Have you got time now?”

Jimin looks at their kitchen clock and nods. “Yeah, I’ve got time. What do you need?”

Seokjin dismantles his flexible tripod, detaches his camera, and reattaches it to his overhead slider rig, adjusting it so that it will run parallel to their kitchen table. When he first started to make videos, Jimin remembers Seokjin painstakingly making a cardboard case for his camera to tape to the ceiling for his overhead shots, or tying his camera to a motorised toy car for panning shots; watching him now, his practiced hands assembling camera that the revenue from his videos has paid for, has Jimin marvelling at just how far he’s come.

“So, I’m thinking,” Seokjin says, checking the view on his camera. “That I push the lunchbox across the table to you, and have the camera pan along as it slides, then you pick it up, and boom – title card.”

“What title are you going with?” Jimin asks, getting into position on the opposite side of the table to Seokjin.

“‘My Husband’s Lunch’,” Seokjin says, giving the lunchbox a little push to judge its speed. He looks up at Jimin and smiles, a little wry. “I’m pretty sick of the YouTube Moms trying to flirt with me.”

“You made a series when we were dating called ‘Things I’ve Cooked For My Boyfriend’, and you wear your wedding ring in all of your videos, if they haven’t gotten the hint yet then there’s no helping them,” Jimin says, wiggling his splayed fingers. “Okay, slide.”

It takes them a few attempts, including one where Seokjin shoves it so hard that Jimin has to catch the lunchbox hurtling towards him with both hands like a goalie in soccer, but eventually Seokjin nods, still giggling from the sight of Jimin lunging to catch his lunch.

“Thank you,” he says, checking the footage. “That’s perfect – I’ll send it to you later? I want to know what you think.”

“I’m sure you’ll do a great job, you don’t need my feedback,” Jimin says, straightening up and glancing at the clock again. He really does need to start getting ready for work, but he’s loath to leave Seokjin’s company until he absolutely needs to.

“I’m sure I will,” Seokjin agrees airily. “But I want to know what you think.”

There had been a wobbly period, a few months into their marriage, when Seokjin’s YouTube career was just starting to take off. He wasn’t making enough yet for it to be his only source of income, but it was also a disproportionate time sink – filming for hours, editing for even longer, all to create a video somebody could watch in ten minutes. His view to like ratio was on the lower side, and his viewer to subscriber conversion rate was even lower, and it seemed as though a disproportionate number of his videos weren’t getting sent to his subscribers’ feeds.

“I should cut back,” Seokjin had said one night, late enough that it would have been more reasonable to call it ‘early’. They’d both been sitting on the couch, zoned out in front of a movie, unwilling to go to bed and cut short the only extended period of time they’ve spent together all week. “On YouTube. I’m spending more time on it than my full-time job, but it’s not paying like one.”

“No knee-jerk reaction – what do you want to do?” Jimin had asked quietly. He had lifted up the blanket he’d been huddled under, allowing Seokjin to scoot closer into his side as he thought his answer through.

“I want… To make videos, and not worry about getting demonetised by some robot that can’t even watch the video properly,” Seokjin had said, leaning his head on Jimin’s shoulder. “I want to focus on one thing. I want to stop feeling so tired. I want to spend time with you. I want someone to tell me what I should do.”

“We’ve got savings,” Jimin had suggested.

“Those are for our future.”

“And this could be our future.” Jimin had wrapped his arm around Seokjin’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “We’ve got options – if we decide not to touch the savings, I make enough for both of us to live on for a bit, even if we have to cut back on things. We could look into brand deals – there’s bound to be some out there that’ll suit your channel better, even if the only ones you’re being sent right now are for Express VPN and Raycon earbuds.” Seokjin had hummed quietly. “And if you decide you don’t want to do this professionally, or even at all, well, then I’ll support you in that choice, too.”

“What do you want me to do?” Seokjin had asked curiously. “Not… I’m not asking you to tell me what to do, I know that’s an unfair thing to ask. I just want to know what you think.”

“I want you to do what you love,” Jimin had said. “I know it’s naïve, but I see how happy you are when you’re making videos, and I want you to feel that way as much as possible, and… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that way about your job. When we talk about our days, you always talk about YouTube, not your day job.” Jimin had giggled a little. “I can name lots of your regular commenters, including the ones with a dozen numbers in their usernames, but I’m not sure I even know the names of most of your co-workers.”

Seokjin had readjusted them so that they were lying down, his head on Jimin’s chest. “I won’t decide now,” he had said quietly to the ceiling. “Like you said, no knee-jerk reactions. But thank you.”

“For what?” Jimin had mumbled, feeling his body getting heavier as he had sunk towards sleep.

If Seokjin had responded, Jimin doesn’t remember it, but he does remember that Seokjin had seemed more assured after that night, making the decision to quit his job and focus more on YouTube.

“A lunchbox, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi asks, looking up from his computer as Jimin walks into the office. “Not like you.”

“Ah, my husband made me lunch,” Jimin says, setting the lunchbox next to his own computer. It’s nice, working with colleagues with whom he can be open about his relationship status, even if he does feel a little shy talking about it. He’s been working in the admissions team for a pretty big school in Seoul – big enough that there’s always work to be doing, but small enough that there isn’t quite that level of stress that would come with working with one of the bigger schools.

He's been here for a few months, now, and he likes his team – Yoongi, their team leader, Namjoon, the outreach officer, and Taehyung, his fellow office administrator – so he’s a lot more open with them than he had been at his last place of work. They know he’s married, and they know that Seokjin is a qualified chef, but they don’t yet know that he’s a YouTuber – initially, Jimin had been waiting to make sure his new colleagues wouldn’t treat Seokjin’s job as dismissively as his old colleagues had, but now he’s just waiting for an opportune moment to bring it up.

“I wish somebody would make me lunch,” Namjoon says, casting a glance at the pot of instant noodles laying on its side next to his desk phone. He sets it upright with a huff. “I don’t know why it keeps falling over,” he mutters.

“Hyung could make you lunch,” Yoongi offers, staring very hard at his computer. Jimin’s worked at this office for long enough now that he’s familiar with their particular brand of flirting, simultaneously overt yet oblivious.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Namjoon says, looking very much as though he wants to ask Yoongi to do that.

“You could make me lunch?” Taehyung calls over, shooting Jimin a sly grin over the top of their computers when Yoongi pouts a little.

“If – if you want,” Yoongi says, clearly torn between wanting to make Namjoon’s lunch and wanting to offer to help Taehyung.

“I do!” Taehyung replies. “What shall I have… Jimin-ah, what’ve you got?”

“I don’t actually know!” Jimin laughs, pulling the lunchbox towards him and unzipping the top. “Seokjin wouldn’t let me open it at home, he wanted it to be a surprise.” He lifts the lid to have a look, but stops when he comes across a sheet of paper.

It’s a sheet of printer paper – odd, considering they don’t have a printer at home – which Seokjin’s folded in half and written Jimin’s name on. Jimin plucks the paper out curiously and unfolds it.

Dear Jimin, it reads. Do you remember our first date? Of course you do, your memory’s always been so good. I was thinking about it last night, so I wanted to try my hand at the meal that almost stopped our relationship in its tracks. All my love, Seokjin.

Their first date, Jimin remembers, had been to a mediocre restaurant – a terrible first date to take a line cook on, in retrospect, but Jimin hadn’t known what Seokjin did then, and it had been within their price range. Seokjin had asked Jimin to order for them both, later revealing that he had been trying to find out Jimin’s tastes so that he could cook for them on their next date. Jimin had ordered, amongst other things, spicy braised tofu.

It hadn’t been well made – heavy handed on the hot pepper flakes, green onions, and sesame seeds, with barely any tofu to compensate for the lashings of sauce. It had been so unbalanced and spicy that even Jimin had raised his eyebrows. Seokjin, meanwhile, had taken one bite and promptly started coughing, a small piece of tofu flying across the table and landing incriminatingly close to Jimin’s plate.

“I – oh, god, I am so sorry, I – I promise I don’t normally – no, I’ve never spat food across a table? Or anywhere, actually-”

Jimin had just laughed, pulled the plate of tofu towards himself, and pushed the other plates closer towards Seokjin. “It’s fine, don’t worry. It’s quite spicy, isn’t it?”

The rest of the date had gone well, even if the pink had never quite left Seokjin’s ears.

(Jimin splutters out a laugh as he unearths a box of spicy braised tofu from the lunchbox Seokjin had packed for him.)

“What is it?” Taehyung asks, standing up halfway out of his office chair so that Jimin can see his whole head over the tops of their computers. Jimin holds up the box of tofu, the movement making Seokjin’s note flutter across his keyboard, drawing Taehyung’s attention. “Did you husband write you a love letter?” Taehyung says, sounding impossibly endeared.

“A note,” Jimin corrects, folding the note up again and slipping it through the gap in his lockable desk drawer.

Taehyung sighs dreamily and slides back into his seat. “I wish I had a handsome husband writing me love notes and packing them with the lunches he makes for me.”

“How do you know my husband’s handsome?” Jimin asks, poking his head around the side of his computer to look at Taehyung.

Taehyung peers back so that Jimin can see him rolling his eyes. “Of course he is, he writes love notes and handmakes lunches for you.”

Jimin can’t really argue with that, so he puts the lunchboxes back in their case to put in the staff fridge; as he walks past Namjoon’s desk, Namjoon’s phone rings, and he knocks his instant noodle pot over in his haste to answer.

Seokjin’s sitting on their living room floor and unboxing a package of kitchenware when Jimin gets home from work, laying out each piece and taking a photo of it for his own records. Their cats are each laying on an arm of Jimin’s armchair; when they see him at the door they jump down, rub around his ankles, and then jump right back up onto the chair. Jimin approaches, squats down behind Seokjin, and drapes his arms around his shoulders, leaning his weight gently against his back.

“Thank you for lunch,” Jimin says, hooking his chin onto Seokjin’s head. “It made me smile.”

Seokjin tilts his head back just enough so that Jimin can see the upward curve of his cheeks. “Yeah? I’m glad.” He lays out a saucepan, frowns at it, and then holds it up to examine it closer. “Why would anyone make a saucepan with a hole in the handle right next to the pan itself? You’ll get food in here.” He peers through the triangular hole built into it, lining it up with his eye and turning his head to blink at Jimin through it.

“Sponsorship?” Jimin asks, looking through the assembled cookware. It’s generically Instagrammable, in muted, matte shades of apricot, honeysuckle, and periwinkle.

Seokjin nods, wrinkling his nose. “I told them it probably won’t be a positive review, but the company said ‘the exposure on a channel with almost a million subscribers will be worth the fee we’re paying you’.”

“Is it that bad?” Jimin says, picking up a spatula that just looks misshapen to his eyes, but is probably ‘ergonomically designed’, or ‘ethically sourced’, or something equally nonsensical but great for Instagram’s SEO.

“It’s not… Great?” Seokjin says diplomatically, picking up a spoon and spinning it between his fingers. “Like, it’s fine, but it isn’t going to stay this pretty colour, and the pieces are definitely not worth what these companies insist on charging. You’d be better off spending that money on a decent cast iron skillet, which can last for decades if you take good care of it.” He picks up a notepad and scribbles this down.

Jimin peers at the notes over his shoulder; he laughs, ducking his head to the side. “Are you scripting a sponsored video where you specifically tell your viewers what to buy instead?”

“Look,” Seokjin says, handing Jimin the notes to read through. “I told the company this is what I’d do, and they agreed! If anything, they’re basically asking me to do this.” The script is clearly still a first draft – there are a few paragraphs with ‘insert product here!!’ written in and underlined instead of actual recommendations – but Jimin can already imagine the video that this script will become, Seokjin’s particular brand of narrative voice shining through. “I wasn’t going to taint any of my other videos with this sponsorship deal, are you kidding? They deserve better.”

“How’s the first episode of My Husband’s Lunch coming along?” Jimin asks, handing the notes back.

“Really well!” Seokjin says enthusiastically. “It’ll probably go up next week. What about you, tell me about your day?”

Sure enough, the first episode of My Husband’s Lunch goes up on the channel almost an entire week after Seokjin had made the lunch in question, and Jimin gets to experience the singular sensation of Taehyung recommending the video to him during their lunch break.

“I’m so excited!” Taehyung says enthusiastically around a mouthful of ramyeon. As Jimin unpacks the individual boxes from his lunchbox, Taehyung slurps up the rest of his noodles. “I’ve watched this guy for a while now, he manages to make cooking look like something enjoyable, rather than a task I have to do to keep me alive. This new series looks really good.”

Jimin considers keeping it a secret, but he finds that he wants to tell Taehyung, so he grins and says, “I’m the husband.”

It makes Taehyung pause for a second, and then he smiles wide. “No kidding? You’re Eat Jin’s secret husband?”

“I mean, I’m not secret, I just don’t want to be on the channel, you know?” Jimin says, shrugging. “One of Seokjin’s friends had their fans get super weird about their romantic relationships,” he says, remembering the fans that had stalked Hoseok’s partners online, going so far as to email their employers whenever their relationships with Hoseok ended. “And I kind of want to keep our private life private, at least for as long as we feasibly can.” Because Jimin can see how that’ll get harder, further down the line – Seokjin’s getting more and more invites to in-person YouTuber conventions and panels and gatherings, and while he doesn’t want to go alone, going with Jimin will just invite speculation as to who Jimin is.

Taehyung nods. “I get that. That’s so cool, though, your husband’s gonna teach me how to cook properly.”

“You’re learning to cook?” Namjoon asks as he comes in from the staff kitchen. Yoongi, who’s been working at his computer with his headphones in, slides them down around his neck when he sees Namjoon sit back down. “That’s really cool. I keep meaning to learn how to do things beyond the basics.” He turns to look at Yoongi. “You’re a good cook, right, hyung?”

“I – I get by,” Yoongi says.

Taehyung raises an eyebrow incredulously at Jimin, who has to actively fight back a laugh – he turns his attention back to his lunch in order to avoid Taehyung’s eye. He finds today’s note as he does so, written on a very long piece of curling ribbon wound into a tight coil; he unfurls it delicately. It’s so long that most of it hasn’t even been written on, but the note reads;

I have bean in love with you for a very long time!!

Sure enough, nestled amongst the fried rice and bacon in one of the boxes, is a little stack of buttery green beans.

“Imagine being so in love with someone that you end up smiling at a box of rice,” Taehyung teases, his chopsticks hovering over his ramyeon as he looks at Jimin.

“Maybe I’m just happy to see this rice, you don’t know,” Jimin says, promptly shovelling several mouthfuls of it into his mouth in quick succession. He can’t quite hide the pleased quirk of his lips or the delighted flush of his cheeks as he imagines Seokjin giggling to himself as he wrote out the note, but Taehyung mercifully doesn’t call him out on it.

Jimin lets himself into their house and, as soon as he sees the back of Seokjin’s head from where he’s sitting on their couch, he says, “That pun was terrible.” Jimin can see him watching Jeongguk’s stream on half of his screen – Jeongguk has been Seokjin’s part-time editor for a few years, but he’s only recently started streaming himself.

Seokjin turns around, smiles in automatic greeting, and then frowns as he processes what Jimin’s just said. “Wait, what? No? My puns are great, always.” Jimin’s still in his suit, still feels a little hyperaware of the way the cuffs of his shirt rest against the bones of his wrist, the way the crease of his collar lays against the back of his neck, but he sits down next to Seokjin anyway, because he hasn’t seen him all day and he’s missed him. “Good day?”

Jimin hums noncommittally. “Lunch was good, but a shitty parent took up most of my day. It’s not like I set the entry requirements for the courses, I just answer the phone.” Seokjin rests his hand on the back of Jimin’s neck and massages his thumb along the knot of pressure that’s built there; Jimin closes his eyes with a sigh. “What about you?”

“Spent the day typing up recipes,” Seokjin says. Jimin opens his eyes and frowns at Seokjin’s laptop screen – sure enough, the other half of his screen is taken up by a document.

“It’s supposed to be your day off,” Jimin says, hovering his finger over the power button on the laptop. He knows that Seokjin has his documents set to auto-save, but he still swats Jimin’s finger away.

“It’s not really work,” Seokjin wheedles as Jimin tries to dart his finger past Seokjin’s hand.

“You’re literally working on a recipe book, I think that’s the definition of ‘work’?” Jimin says.

Seokjin wasn’t always like this, is the thing. When they’d first started dating, Seokjin had been very easy-going, almost lackadaisical with his approach to life. Days off were observed almost religiously – long, slow days spent watching Seokjin run through a 2D Mario game at a speed that he’d describe as ‘fine’ while Jimin would watch, enraptured, as Mario would run through the levels at an almost magical pace.

He'd apologised for it initially, during those first few months when they were tentatively getting to know each other – apologised for the boring dates, apologised for not cooking on his days off (as though he wasn’t cooking on an almost industrial scale every other day of the week), apologised for not being able to be ‘funny or cool or interesting’ all of the time. Jimin had countered that, if he wasn’t enjoying himself, why would he be hanging out with someone he had only just met, with whom he had very few friends in common?

“Besides,” Jimin had finished, gently leaning his weight against Seokjin’s arm. “You’re good at playing video games, so it’s fun to watch you play.”

Seokjin’s ears had flushed pink as he laughed. “Yeah? Maybe I should become a YouTuber then?”

“I’ll be your first subscriber,” Jimin had said, before thinking nothing more of it.

(In retrospect, Jimin takes this conversation as the first sign of what was to come – Seokjin says that he started to consider becoming a YouTuber when he’d filmed instructions on how to grate nutmeg for a friend and hosted it on YouTube, only for the video to receive a significant amount of good feedback from the viewers – but, with hindsight, Jimin can see the building blocks of his YouTuber career.)

Now, though, Seokjin is, at times, hyper-focused on his work, to the point where he will sometimes take days where he just wordlessly hands all of his devices to Jimin in order to force himself to take a break. He’s getting better about finding a happy medium, allowing himself to have lazy days again, but some days Jimin will come home from work to find that Seokjin’s spent his day off working anyway.

“I spent most of the day not working,” Seokjin says, closing out of the document and gesturing to Jeongguk’s stream, which is still playing at a low volume.

“You should be spend all day not working,” Jimin says. He sets Seokjin’s laptop of their coffee table before sliding down the couch and twisting his head to bite Seokjin’s thigh admonishingly.

“Yah, Park Jimin, do I not feed you enough?” Seokjin yelps. “I take back my apology!”

“You haven’t actually apologised yet,” Jimin points out, resting his cheek against Seokjin’s leg and looking up at him.

“That’s a shame,” Seokjin replies, squishing Jimin’s cheek with his palm so that his lips pout out. “You would’ve really liked it.”

“Yeah?” Jimin tries to say through his squashed mouth.

Seokjin hums, moving his hand to card his fingers through Jimin’s hair. It’s still got product in it from the workday, and it’s getting a little longer than Jimin’s used to, but he’s loath to cut it when he gets to enjoy Seokjin running his fingers through his hair as often as he does when it’s on the long side. “It was very heartfelt. There was going to be two elements, actually – the first part was going to be typed up in my Notes app, which would let you know it was genuine, and then the second part was going to be a teary video, and I would’ve even made sure it was over ten minutes long.”

“Gotta get that ad revenue,” Jimin agrees a little sleepily as Seokjin moves his fingers to allow him to scratch at Jimin’s scalp lightly.

“Naturally,” Seokjin says, scratching in slow circles. “Want to have a quick nap before dinner? I was thinking of ordering takeout.”

“Sounds good,” Jimin says, watching Seokjin’s laptop as he sets up the stream so that it’s playing a little louder, audible enough that Jimin can hear what Jeongguk’s saying, but not so loud that he’s likely to wake up if he does fall asleep.

Sure enough, he dozes off, and doesn’t wake up until he hears Seokjin’s phone go off. He jerks a little in surprise; Seokjin places a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Food’s here,” Seokjin says softly, gently helping Jimin shift into a sitting position. “Sleep well?”

“Mmrgh,” Jimin says, neither an agreement nor a disagreement. He feels a little as though he’s wrapped himself very tightly in cotton wool, everything soft and fuzzy in his head as he tries to adjust to being awake again. He pats his cheeks a few times as Seokjin goes to get their food from the door, feeling more awake and lucid by the time he returns.

“Ah, there he is,” Seokjin says cheerfully, divvying out their containers with a practiced hand. “I got your favourites.”

“Thank you,” Jimin says, curling his toes, pleased, at the smells permeating their apartment. “Ah, I’m still in my suit.”

“I feel very underdressed for this impromptu date,” Seokjin says wryly, glancing down at his own shorts and baggy t-shirt.

It’s not a traditionally romantic evening – there’re no rose petals, no schmaltzy music, no candles – but Jimin wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Jimin’s surprised, when he stops to consider it, by just how quickly he’s gotten used to having homemade lunches daily – even before My Husband’s Lunch Seokjin had cooked for them far more often than Jimin did, but Jimin usually made his own lunch, at least on days when he was working.

It's only been a few weeks, but the lunches, and the notes that come with them, have become a staple of his workday. Some of the notes have little puns; others have anecdotes of their life together, memories that Seokjin had wanted to evoke through the food he had cooked, like the recreation of the hastily cobbled together saeng sun jun he had made on the day they had picked up their cats from the rescue centre. One of the notes was even a playlist, ten songs entitled ‘Songs I Cooked This Meal To’, which Jimin had listened to as he ate the lunch, and then listened to again on repeat as he worked through the rest of his day.

Which is why it’s such an immediate shock that today’s lunch comes with no note. Jimin frowns a little, readjusts the boxes and doublechecks the lining of his lunchbox to make sure he hasn’t missed it – nothing.

It’s silly – he doesn’t need notes to know that Seokjin loves him, just like he doesn’t need the daily lunches to know that, either, but he has enjoyed reading them, nonetheless.

He takes the lid off of one of the boxes, and smiles wide when he spots the immaculately piped ketchup heart on top of his rolled omelette.

“Boss, Jimin’s smiling at his lunch again!” Taehyung calls across the office.

“For the last time, you don’t need to call me ‘Boss’,” Yoongi says tiredly, pulling up one of his headphones and letting it slap roughly against the side of his head. “And if Jimin-ah wants to smile at his sappy husband lunches, well, that’s his business.”

Jimin doesn’t really have a means to refute this – the lunches, and the accompanying notes, are pretty sappy, so he just pokes out his tongue, first at Yoongi, who just rolls his eyes and returns to his work, and then at Taehyung, who sticks his tongue out right back.

He pops a mouthful of omelette into his mouth and sighs happily as he goes back to his emails. The eggs are light and fluffy, and the ketchup has that perfect blend of the sweetness of the maple syrup and the sourness of the apple cider vinegar, with just a hint of something else – Jimin thinks it’s lime juice, but he’s been trying to guess for years – that tells him that he’s eating Seokjin’s homemade ketchup, a ketchup that has ruined him so much for any other sauces that he has taken to carrying little bottles of it with him on the occasions where they do go out to eat.

The thought of Seokjin piping out a careful heart with the ketchup he handmakes because he knows how much Jimin loves it makes Jimin want to announce to the world just how much he loves his husband. For now, he settles for texting Seokjin;

Seokjin reads it almost immediately, but Jimin doesn’t expect a response – he’ll often read his texts only to respond hours later, especially if he’s in the middle of writing a script or editing a video. Indeed, he doesn’t get a response until he’s approaching their building on his way home from work – it’s a picture of the ketchup bottle, freshly filled and freshly labelled with a label proclaiming it to be ‘Daddy’s Special Sauce’.

As soon as he opens the door he hears the sound of Seokjin’s laughter, warm and vibrant and echoing through the house. It’s a lovely sound to come home to – and then Seokjin appears in the kitchen doorway, backlit like an angel, cheeks pink with mirth.

“I have not stopped laughing about that label all afternoon, Jimin-ah, please don’t divorce me,” he hiccups around another laugh, and Jimin can’t help it, laughter spilling out of his own mouth until the two of them are howling with laughter in the hallway, unable to stop and setting each other off all over again whenever it sounds like one of them is beginning to calm down.

Jimin’s been starting to feel… Out of sorts, as of late. Not bad, necessarily, but that low-level of constant anxiety that comes with not doing something. The only problem is, he doesn’t know what he’s not doing that’s making him feel this way.

He’s gone through his to-do list at work an uncountable number of times, spoken to everyone he works with, even cleared his emails to Inbox Zero for the first time since he’s started working here, so he’s almost positive it’s not work related. He’s made a calendar for upcoming birthdays and anniversaries, so he knows he’s not forgotten anything like that. He’s even taken to double-checking the expiry dates on their food, his cosmetics, even his photo IDs – nothing.

It's getting to the point where the not-knowing is causing him more anxiety than the thing itself, so he’s having to make much more of an effort to concentrate on his tasks. Sometimes while he’s working he’ll put on Seokjin’s YouTube videos as background noise – he doesn’t talk in a lot of them, only in his Q&As, so they’re a mixture of light, royalty-free piano music and the soft sizzle of oil in the saucepan, the expert tapping of chopsticks as Seokjin cooks, the sped-up swish of a knife. It’s usually enough to help him focus, but today he just… Can’t.

He watches the video in the hope of it at least distracting him from how he’s feeling, but he keeps trying to work out just when Seokjin must’ve filmed this – the last time he’d put rolled omelette in Jimin’s lunchbox was over a week ago, so he must have a pretty substantial backlog of footage to use if he’s only just posting this on YouTube today.

Then again, it would make sense for him to have a sizeable backlog – Jimin has lunchboxes five days a week, and Seokjin posts My Husband’s Lunch on Mondays. Thinking this immediately makes Jimin feel worse, so he sighs, exits out of his computer, and stands up. “I’m going to take a walk,” he announces to the room at large, which only consists of Yoongi, who has his big headphones on askew, one over his ear while the other rests over the upper part of his head.

He still lifts them off his head when Jimin speaks; he looks at Jimin thoughtfully, and then stands up too. “I’m coming too.”

“Are you sure?” Jimin asks as Yoongi pulls on his coat. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you leave the office during work hours. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you leave the office,” he teases, but his heart isn’t really in it.

“You look like you could use the company,” Yoongi says simply, gesturing for Jimin to lead the way out of the office.

Yoongi doesn’t speak as Jimin begins leading them aimlessly around the streets surrounding their office, so Jimin feels the almost desperate need to fill the silence. “I’ve been feeling… Off, recently. I guess you’ve noticed, huh, that’s why you’re out walking with me? I don’t know, I just feel like I should be doing… More.” Yoongi doesn’t say anything, but he hums in acknowledgement, so Jimin ploughs on. “I’ve tried to pinpoint what it is that’s making me feel like this, but I can’t – nothing’s really changed recently…”

“What about your husband?” Yoongi suggests.

“Seokjin?” Jimin frowns. “No, we’re good. Great, even – he’s started a new project for work which is going really well…” Jimin stops and thinks, really thinks, about My Husband’s Lunch. Thinking about it makes him feel on edge, but it’s not, as he’d originally thought, anxiety – it’s inadequacy, the feeling he gets when somebody gives him an unexpected gift that he has no response for, except worse, because he’s been letting these lunch gifts go unreturned for weeks. “Oh, god. I’m terrible.”

This was not, apparently, the response Yoongi had been expecting – he raises his eyebrows very high, before very obviously schooling his expression into one of careful neutrality. “Well… Whatever you’ve done, can you talk it out with him?”

“I – I guess?” Jimin bites his lip. “I didn’t even realise,” he finishes, trailing off into a whisper.

“You didn’t – you didn’t realise?” Yoongi replies confusedly.

Jimin shakes his head. “I’ve just been letting this go on for weeks, hyung, and I mean, sure, I’ve said thank you, but it’s not as though I’ve done anything to return the favour, you know?”

“I – I don’t?” Yoongi looks even more confused. “How would you even return the favour?”

“I’m not that bad at cooking,” Jimin says, a little indignant. “I could cook us breakfast on the weekends?”

“Cooking – you’re talking about the lunches,” Yoongi says with breathless relief. “Oh, thank god.”

“What did you think I was talking about?”

“I thought you were admitting to accidentally cheating on your husband, and I was trying to work out why you’d want me to comfort you, or give you advice-”

“Cheat on Seokjin?” Jimin says incredulously. “I could never!”

“You can see why I was confused,” Yoongi points out. “From my perspective, you went from smiling besottedly at some rice to potentially admitting you were cheating.” They stop outside the office building, but Yoongi gestures for them to carry on walking. “So you’re feeling bad because your husband… Makes your lunch?”

Jimin huffs. “You don’t understand, hyung.”

“Then help hyung to understand,” Yoongi says.

“Seokjin has a really full-on job,” Jimin explains. “He works ridiculous hours, and now that he’s making my lunches, he effectively starts working before I get up. And he’s usually still working when I come home. The lunches are so thoughtful, with the notes, and I feel like… What am I doing for him, you know?”

Yoongi nods consideringly, mouth flattened into a flat little line as he thinks. Now that he’s uprooted the cause of his uneasiness, Jimin doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence, so they walk companionably back around the block and into the office.

Jimin expects that to be the end of the conversation, but before he can sit back at his desk Yoongi gestures for him to follow him into the staff kitchen. “Has your husband suggested that he wants anything from you in return for him making your lunches?” He asks.

“That’s not really Seokjin’s style,” Jimin admits, trying to imagine Seokjin saying anything like that before drawing a blank. “He doesn’t do things because he wants something in return, so he probably hasn’t even thought about it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do something for him.”

“I don’t know your husband, so I can’t really make suggestions,” Yoongi says before huffing out a laugh. “Not to mention I’ve been single for years, so by virtue of the fact that you’re married, you’re doing better than me.” It still makes Jimin smile, hearing people refer to his relationship as a marriage – it may not be a legal marriage, but Jimin doesn’t need recognition from some out-of-touch policy makers to know that Seokjin is his husband, and will be for the rest of their lives. “That face,” Yoongi says suddenly, making Jimin jump. “That’s why I was so confused when I thought you were cheating – you’re clearly besotted.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Jimin says honestly. “Talking about this has helped. And if you ever want to talk…” He trails off, making a concentrated effort to not look at Namjoon’s desk, empty as he does outreach work at one of the local schools.

“If I ever want to talk, I promise that you, the only married person I know, will be the first person I come to,” Yoongi says, also very pointedly not looking at Namjoon’s desk.

“I resent the fact that you wouldn’t even consider coming to me,” Taehyung says, having appeared from the staff kitchen while Jimin and Yoongi had been very deliberately not looking at Namjoon’s desk. “But I understand that Jimin’s very wise, so I’ll let it slide.”

“Uh… Thanks?” Yoongi says. “I mean… No offense, Taehyung-ah, but you’ve been single for… A while.”

“The last time I dated, dating apps didn’t even exist,” Taehyung says cheerfully. “We just used to shout our names into the wind and hoped to find our matches that way.”

“That sounds romantic, Taehyung-ah,” Namjoon says, making the three of them jump guiltily. “I wish dating was that easy.”

Beside him, Jimin can feel Yoongi bristling like a disgruntled cat, so he says, “You’re on dating apps, Namjoon-hyung?”

“Ah, no,” Namjoon says shyly. “I used to be! But I deleted all of my profiles recently… You know.” He shrugs and returns to his desk.

“Seriously, hyung,” Jimin mutters, touching Yoongi’s elbow before he goes back to his own desk. “Whenever you want to talk.”

Yoongi doesn’t answer, but the blush on his cheeks is all the response Jimin needs.

Jimin knocks on Seokjin’s office door, pokes his head around it, and holds up a flask of tea. “Time for a break? You’ve been in your editing cave for a while.” He’s trying to be more mindful of things Seokjin might need during the day – keeping him hydrated, reorganising the spice rack so that all of the labels are facing forward, all of the little jobs that usually get missed due to their busy lives.

“I’m not editing,” Seokjin says wearily, pulling his second office chair closer to him and gesturing for Jimin to sit in it. He takes the flask Jimin offers him with both hands and cradles it for a moment, and then jerks his head at one of his computer screens. “I’m about to hit a million subscribers.”

He doesn’t sound pleased – if anything, he sounds stressed by this development. “But that’s… That’s good? You’ll get your Gold Play Button, right?” Jimin sits down and looks at the screen; there are enough charts and graphs and models on screen that he feels a little dizzy, like he’s fallen into an anxiety dream where he’s taking a math exam he’s forgotten to study for.

“I promised my subscribers that I’d do something fun for it,” Seokjin says, looking at the screen a little desperately as one of the lines ticks upwards again, at a sharper degree than the faint line had projected it would. “And I have no ideas.”

“How long have you got to come up with an idea?”

“At the current rate I’m gaining subscribers at…” He changes some of the numbers; Jimin marvels at the fact that he has a job where he spends hours at a time on a computer, yet continues to only use his middle fingers to type. “Six days.”

“What about a livestream?” Jimin suggests, racking his brain for other celebration videos he had seen before. “Or a Q&A?”

“I do Q&As a lot, what would a thank you Q&A even entail?” Seokjin asks, before snorting. “No, wait, I know what it’d be, there’d be a few polite questions from my actual subscribers and then thousands of nosy questions about you.” He hums. “A livestream could be fun, though.”

“Like a ‘cook with me’ sort of thing?” Jimin says – Seokjin nods, before closing out of the charts and turning off his computer. Once he’s done, he uses his foot to pull Jimin’s chair closer.

“I do have one idea,” Seokjin says consideringly; Jimin raises an eyebrow. “Which the livestream could fit into. I could livestream myself cooking food for a party – I could invite JK and Hobi, you could invite your friends from work.”

Jimin nods. “I like that idea. See?” He knocks his knee against Seokjin’s. “You did know what to do.”

“Talking through it with you helped, though,” Seokjin insists, hooking his ankle around the chair Jimin’s sitting in, spinning it, and then darting forward to press a quick kiss to Jimin’s mouth - the whole thing is over before Jimin has even realised what is happening. “And thank you for tea, I really appreciate it.” He kisses Jimin again - this one is longer, long enough that Jimin starts to think that maybe Seokjin’s decided not to do any more work for at least the next hour, but eventually he pulls away reluctantly. “Now, go, you’re distracting me, I need to go on Twitter.” He says it like he’s announcing he’s going to go and vacuum the apartment - a necessary chore, but one he doesn’t necessarily want to do.

Seokjin @EatJin · 2m

The road to 1M – this Saturday, 12.00 KST

@hopeonthestreet @JK_lmnop

“A party?” Taehyung asks.

“More like a dinner,” Jimin explains. “Us, and then Seokjin’s inviting two of his… Friends? Colleagues? Kind of.”

“You know, when you say things like that, you make it sound like your husband’s a spy,” Yoongi points out. “But yeah, that sounds like fun. Do you need me to bring anything?”

“There’s gonna be so much food anyway, so I wouldn’t worry,” Jimin says. “Seokjin’s cooking the food for work, and we’re gonna need help eating it all.”

“Well, I’m not gonna say no,” Taehyung says. Namjoon nods in agreement, so Jimin takes out his phone to text Seokjin.

“Wait, this means we’re finally going to get to meet your husband!” Taehyung says suddenly, shaking Jimin’s shoulder back and forth as he laughs over Seokjin’s text. “Yoongi, I think you should give us the rest of the week off in order to prepare for Saturday.”

“…It’s Tuesday,” Yoongi points out slowly, as though he’s surprised it’s something he needs to point out. “Also I don’t have that power.”

“I’m sure if we all left the office no one would notice, it’s not as though the Admissions team is needed until applications start coming in anyway,” Taehyung says. He bats his eyelashes at Yoongi, who is resolutely avoiding his gaze; he turns his attention to Namjoon. “Hyung-”

“I’m not in charge,” Namjoon says quickly, holding up his hands defensively. “I’m just as allowed to give us time off as Yoongi is, or Jimin, or you, Taehyung.”

“Jimin and I get to decide?” Taehyung says. “Pack your bags, Jimin-ah, we’re not coming back to work.” Jimin laughs as Namjoon looks despairingly between them.

“That’s not what I - hyung-”

“Stop teasing Namjoon,” Yoongi says, his frown looking a little more like a pout. “That’s my job.” Namjoon blushes, coughs, and hurries back over to his desk as Yoongi buries his head in his work again.

Both Seokjin and Jimin are awake and ready to go by six in the morning on Saturday. Jimin’s helped Seokjin set up streams before, especially in the early days when all Seokjin had was his terrible microphone, which recorded all of his audio like he was listening to it back through a conch shell, and a single ring light that Jimin had to physically sit next to and hold to prevent the loose pan-tilt from allowing the ring light to droop.

This stream is nothing like those early ones had been.

They’re streaming from the kitchen, for a start, so first they need to reconfigure the cameras, microphones, and lights in such a way that the stream will look good, but Seokjin won’t trip over any errant wires or tripod stands while he cooks.

There’s also the ticking clock they have of Seokjin’s current subscriber account, which is climbing much faster than Seokjin had predicted - his prediction algorithm had claimed that he’d hit one million subscribers at roughly two o’clock, which they’d worked into the cooking preparation schedule so that Seokjin would have a limited number of things to pay attention to at the moment he was scheduled to hit one million. However, the excited anticipation of the stream is prompting more people to subscribe than they’d predicted.

“If you hit a million before the stream even starts, then that just means you can start the stream with a celebration,” Jimin says comfortingly when Seokjin takes a moment to look at his stats again. “Imagine how excited your chat will be!”

Seokjin, in the middle of weighing out dry ingredients into little ceramic dishes, a technique he never bothers with when he’s cooking just for them but that looks aesthetically pleasing on camera, opens his mouth to answer, but the doorbell rings before he can say anything.

“Look who I found pacing around the front of the building!” Hoseok says delightedly as soon as Jimin opens the door.

Jeongguk smiles embarrassedly. “I wasn’t sure if this was the correct building.”

“You’re so cute,” Jimin says, inviting them inside and waiting for them to take their shoes off. “Seokjin’s still setting up in the kitchen.”

“It’s so weird seeing your place in person again,” Hoseok says, looking around at their furniture curiously. “All your furniture looks a different colour on camera.” Seokjin looks up as they enter the kitchen, shoots them a fleeting grin, and then gets back to carefully measuring out spices. “Hyung! This all looks great.”

“Ah, Hoba,” Seokjin says embarrassedly, using a nickname older than Jimin’s marriage.

“It’s true, hyung!” Jeongguk says, quickly checking over Seokjin’s monitors before offering an approving nod. “You should be really proud of all the hard work you’ve done.”

“Okay!” Seokjin says loudly, his ears burning red. “Jeongguk-ah, can you check the audio levels for me, please? It’s been a while since I last used OBS for streaming on YouTube.”

“Hyung mentioned your friends from work are coming this evening?” Hoseok asks Jimin as Seokjin continues prepping his ingredients and Jeongguk triple-checks the settings. “This is the first time I remember you inviting work colleagues over?”

Jimin nods. “I like them, Hobi-hyung. They’re the kind of people that I want to introduce to Seokjin, you know? I want to share this part of my life with them, and I think Seokjin will really like them, too.”

Hoseok wraps his arms around Jimin’s shoulders, plastering himself to Jimin’s back. “You’re both so cute.” Jimin, seeing the dishes beginning to pile up as the dishwasher continues its cycle, waddles them both over to the sink in an attempt to clear some space.

Seokjin doesn’t stream often. It’s not something that necessarily lends itself well to Seokjin’s particular style of cooking, which usually involves careful focus and meditative quiet - he doesn’t even listen to music, preferring instead to listen to the sounds of oil sizzling in the pan, the slow carve of his knife through vegetables, the crack of an eggshell, the thud of dough against the countertop.

“Cooking’s a sensory experience for me,” Seokjin had once said during an AMA he’d had on his subreddit. “It makes it difficult for me to remember to look at chat, or even talk to the viewers, you know? I don’t think it’d be very enjoyable to watch.”

On the few occasions he had streamed in the past, it was always with someone - with Hoseok, who runs a yearly charity streamathon that Seokjin usually takes part in, or Jeongguk, who recently did a 50000 second gaming stream to commemorate 50000 subscribers, which Seokjin had pitched in for. Aside from that, Jimin can’t even remember the last time Seokjin had streamed.

He can, however, remember the first time Seokjin had streamed. They had not long since moved in together, and they had both taken a Saturday to install an on-air light outside of Seokjin’s office, so that Jimin wouldn’t accidentally stroll in during the middle of a stream.

They’d then taken the Sunday to put up soundproofing panels, but when Jimin had returned home from work on the Monday, he could hear Seokjin through the office door, which they hadn’t thought to put panels onto.

“…Will I do a boyfriend reveal?” Seokjin had read out from his chat. “Um, I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘never’, but I don’t think it’s currently likely? We both value our privacy too much, you know?”

Jimin had stepped away from the office door at that point - it wasn’t anything he didn’t already know, considering he’d had that very same conversation with Seokjin himself, but he had still had the distinct impression that he had been eavesdropping, so he went into the kitchen to get a head start on the steak to make bibimbap.

Seokjin had emerged not long after, a slightly pinched look to his face that had melted away as soon as he had seen Jimin. “I didn’t hear you come in!” He had leaned down and kissed Jimin, his lips curving into a smile as he rested his fingertips on Jimin’s cheek. Jimin had never been kissed the way Seokjin kissed him, and still kisses him to this day - sweet and slow, as though they had all the time in the world to learn one another.

“I heard you streaming,” Jimin had said once Seokjin had pulled back a little, his other hand coming to rest on Jimin’s waist, fingers curling to lay on his back. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”

Seokjin had wrinkled his nose. “My YouTube Partner Manager recommended it - he said it would help me to engage with my subscribers, but it’s pretty obvious that YouTube is trying to encourage as many people as possible to livestream, so that it coincides with them now allowing people to livestream from their phones.”

“You don’t like streaming?” Jimin had asked; Seokjin had shaken his head. “Then don’t do it. Who cares what your YouTube Partner Manager recommends? He’s not your boss, and at the end of the day he’s got YouTube’s interests in mind over yours.”

Now, Jimin watches Seokjin get ready for this livestream, casting nervous glances at the cameras, and he wishes he could give Seokjin the same advice. They’re older now, though, and Jimin’s learned that sometimes telling someone what they want to hear isn’t necessarily the best advice.

Not to mention that Seokjin had specifically chosen to do this, and to do this with friends who he respected as both content creators and streamers, so what Jimin says instead is “Do you want me to stay in here while you stream?”

“I’d like that,” Seokjin says, pointing to one of their kitchen chairs, which Jimin had thought he’d just wanted moved out of shot - it’s pressed up against the wall, right next to their kitchen bin. “That chair there is out of sight of every camera.” Suddenly, he opens the fridge and pulls out the lunchbox Jimin’s been using for the past few weeks. “I almost forgot, I made you this - just in case you get hungry while I’m streaming.”

It’s the first time he’s opened one of the lunches in front of Seokjin - before he reads the folded not tucked neatly inside of the cutlery pocket on the underside of the lunchbox’s lid, he glances up at Seokjin - his ears and neck are flushed pink, but he nods.

Dear Jimin,

My Husband’s Lunch is a series I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and I got the idea for it from you. Obviously, because you’re the titular husband, but, and I don’t know if you remember this day specifically, it’s not an anniversary or anything, but you once made this meal for me at a time when my work was stressing me out. That was when I knew I was in love with you (which I suppose makes it something of an anniversary?), and it was also when I first had the idea of wanting to make your workdays as easy as you make mine.

All my love,

Your husband

Jimin’s breath hitches as he opens the lunchbox to reveal bibimbap - artfully arranged, and much nicer to look at than his own haphazardly assembled bibimbap from all those years ago, but still, undeniably, the same bibimbap. He checks the time to make sure Seokjin isn’t immediately about to go live, before darting out of his chair to throw his arms around Seokjin’s neck. Seokjin catches him easily, using the momentum to spin them around so that Jimin’s pressed up against their countertop.

“Oh, hey, you’ve just hit a million subs!” Jimin thinks Jeongguk says, but he pays him little mind as Seokjin kisses him thoroughly.

“Where is he?” Taehyung asks as soon as Jimin opens the door - Taehyung is standing on his tiptoes to peer past Jimin and into the apartment, while Namjoon and Yoongi stand behind him like parents.

“In the kitchen,” Jimin says, laughing when Taehyung darts inside, toes off his shoes, and barrels through the apartment.

“He’s been really excited to meet your husband?” Namjoon says, his voice trailing up into an unsure question as both he and Yoongi take off their coats and shoes at a much more sedate pace.

“Yeah, he watches him on YouTube,” Jimin explains.

“Your husband’s a YouTuber?” Yoongi asks. “I thought he was a chef?”

Jimin nods. “He is a trained chef, but he’s a fulltime YouTuber now. It works well for him.”

“I’ve never met a YouTuber,” Namjoon says thoughtfully. “Or, well, someone who does YouTube fulltime. I’ve met someone who uploads music in his spare time…” The glance he shoots towards Yoongi is both unsubtle and incredibly endearing.

“No kidding?” Jimin asks Yoongi.

“Loads of people do it. It’s no big deal,” Yoongi says gruffly. “My audience is pretty small, but it’s fun to do.”

Jimin is prevented from pressing the matter further when they enter the kitchen; Taehyung is enthusiastically shaking Seokjin’s hand under the amused stares of Hoseok and Jeongguk. Judging by Seokjin’s flustered expression as Taehyung pumps his hand up and down, he’s been doing this since he entered the kitchen.

“-watched the stream today, which was incredible, it’s so cool that I get to eat the food I just watched you cook? It feels like I’ve just watched an episode of Delicious Rendezvous and then been invited to eat the food by Baek Jong Won himself, you know?”

“I – I wouldn’t go that far-”

“I see you’ve already met Taehyung,” Jimin says, grinning when Seokjin shoots him a frantic look over Taehyung’s shoulder. “And this is Namjoon-hyung and Yoongi-hyung.”

Seokjin shakes hands with Namjoon and Yoongi, then introduces everyone to Hoseok and Jeongguk.

“Dinner’s all ready - obviously. The cameras are off, but I can move them back to my office if they make you feel weird,” Seokjin explains, waving his arm around at all of the recording equipment in their kitchen.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Yoongi says; Namjoon and Taehyung nod in agreement, so the seven of them sit at the kitchen table. Their table had only come with six seats, so Seokjin’s wheeled his own office chair into the kitchen, and they’ve already set all of the dishes out onto the table as part of the stream.

“Thank you for cooking, Seokjin-ssi,” Namjoon says politely once they’re all seated.

Seokjin just waves a hand. “Call me hyung, and you’re welcome. Please, eat well.”

It’s a surprisingly easy atmosphere, especially considering how few people knew each other before the meal. Hoseok strikes up a conversation with Namjoon and Taehyung, asking them questions about the work they do in outreach to local schools on behalf of the college they all work at, and Yoongi’s inherent hyung tendencies kick in as he starts piling Jeongguk’s plate high with pork.

“Holy shit,” Jeongguk says suddenly, doing a doubletake at Yoongi’s hand as he holds his chopsticks poised over Jeongguk’s plate. Everyone stops talking to look at Jeongguk; he doesn’t notice, continuing to stare at Yoongi’s hand. “You have Agust D’s hands.”

“Uh, I mean, these are… My hands,” Yoongi says slowly, setting the chopsticks back down on the plate of pork and examining his hands like he’s looking at a slide under a microscope. “Agust D is mine, too. The channel, I mean. That’s me. I’m him.”

“Jesus, hyung,” Namjoon mutters, a fond grin on his face as Yoongi starts to pink under Jeongguk’s enraptured attention.

“Your music is so cool!” Jeongguk says enthusiastically. “I listen to it a lot when I’m playing games…”

Jimin lets them continue talking, focusing instead on watching Seokjin - he’s not eating, preferring to instead watch everyone else eat with a pleased little smile on his face. He notices Jimin looking at him and raises his eyebrows curiously, smile still lighting up his face. “What?” He murmurs.

“Nothing,” Jimin says, unable to stop himself from smiling too.

The stream went well. It went so well that, not only did ‘Eat Jin’ end up trending on both Twitter and YouTube, but Seokjin also gets invited to speak at an online conference about engaging with subscribers.

“I’m not sure what qualifies me to speak at this conference,” Seokjin says worriedly, sitting with such perfect posture at his desk that Jimin can’t help but reach his hand out to massage his neck; his shoulders slump gratefully. “I’m just a guy who cooks on YouTube.”

“I can think of a lot of things,” Jimin says, digging his thumb right into the point on Seokjin’s shoulder that starts to throb when he gets too stressed. “First and foremost, though, is that you’re good at what you do. Really good, yeobo. There are plenty of content creators who could stand to learn a thing or two from you. Not to mention that all of the stats on your recent series have been amazing, right? Your average view percentages are higher, and your subscribers have gone up significantly since you started uploading the series - not that subscriber counts are necessarily a good indicator of quality, but in your case, they are.” Jimin nods decisively. “Susan herself could learn something from you.”

“Susan?” Seokjin asks, looking more relaxed.

“Susan?” Jimin repeats. “The CEO of YouTube? You know, Susan.”

Seokjin looks over his shoulder, blinks, and then laughs, the last of the tension draining from his shoulders. “Right, Susan, of course.” He pats Jimin’s hand on his shoulder, and then leaves his hand there as he sets up the conference call on his end.

“Is there anything you want in particular for lunch?” Jimin asks, squeezing Seokjin’s shoulder once. Seokjin shakes his head, pressing his lips together as he opens up his video feed. “Hey, you’ll be great.”

Seokjin inhales slowly, deeply, and then exhales even slower. “I know,” he says, his put-on confidence sounding a little shaky, but he smiles at Jimin reassuringly.

“Text me if you need anything,” Jimin says - he had specifically booked the day off from work to be around if Seokjin needed anything during the four-hour long livestream of the conference, so his only plans for today are to catch up on some Netflix shows while he waits for Seokjin to text him.

Seokjin nods, takes a deep breath again, and then noticeably adjusts his posture, getting into what Jimin fondly refers to as his ‘YouTuber persona’ like a puppeteer pulling at marionette strings. Jimin kisses him on the cheek, and then leaves him to it.

Seokjin doesn’t text.

Jimin’s used to this, though - sometimes Seokjin feels too shy to ask for help, even after all this time, but sometimes Seokjin literally just forgets, especially if he’s intently focused on his work. So, instead, Jimin makes regular flasks of tea to drop off on the small bookshelf next to Seokjin’s office door, and he makes a quick batch of ramyeon to coincide with a ten-minute break between panels.

Eventually, when Seokjin emerges - half an hour after he was supposed to, because these things always seemed to run long - Jimin turns to look at him over the back of the couch, smiles widely, and then pats the cushion next to him.

“How’d it go?” Jimin asks as Seokjin throws himself down next to him, sighing in relief like a deflating balloon.

“Alright,” Seokjin says, stretching enough that his shirt lifts a little, revealing a strip of his stomach. The satisfied moan he emits is sexy - the following crack as he stretches his neck, much less so. He turns to look at Jimin, and the look on his face is almost devastatingly fond. He tilts his head a little, showing off the curve of his cheekbone, the line of his jaw, the warmth in his eyes and the soft quirk of his mouth. “Hey. Thank you.”

Jimin thinks this over, but draws a blank - Seokjin had thanked him after every tea delivery and when he’d raced out of his office to pick up the bowl of ramyeon, so Jimin can’t think what he’d be thanking him for. “For what?”

Seokjin shrugs. “So many of the panellists today were talking about how important it is to build a support network within the community. How partners and spouses sometimes don’t understand how our YouTube work is a job that can be stressful, which makes it all the more important to have friends who are YouTubers, and I just thought… You’ve never once made me feel like you don’t understand. Or, well, you’ve never once made me feel like you don’t want to understand.”

“Well… You’re welcome?” Jimin says. “I don’t think I’m doing anything that great, though. I like learning about what you do, and I might not be able to sympathise with you when you talk about the algorithm, but I can empathise? It’s pretty easy to empathise with, actually, it sounds like a pain in the ass - what?”

Seokjin’s smiling at him again. “I just love you a lot, that’s all.”

“Oh, well, if that’s all,” Jimin jokes, tucking his legs up underneath himself. “I love you a lot, too, and I’m glad you feel that way.”

“You’re glad I love you? I should hope so,” Seokjin responds, gently pulling Jimin’s legs onto his lap.

“No. Well, yes, I am, but I’m glad you feel supported,” Jimin says. “I was a little… Not worried, but I felt like I needed to up my game as a husband.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way,” Seokjin says with a frown, pulling off Jimin’s slippers before digging his thumb into the sole of his socked foot.

“You haven’t,” Jimin says immediately, curling his toes as Seokjin massages his foot. “I think I’d just gotten it in my head that you were doing so much for me - making me lunches, writing me sweet notes… I wanted you to feel the same way you make me feel.”

“You do, you sweet, silly man,” Seokjin replies, his frown melting away into a smile. “Every day.” His smile widens further into a laugh. “That’s one of the reasons why I started making you lunches, actually - I wanted you to feel the same way you make me feel.”

"Stupid,” Jimin says joyfully. “As though you don’t make me feel like that all the time.”

“Stupidly in love,” Seokjin says, laughing loudly when Jimin pulls his feet back in order to flop into Seokjin’s side dramatically.