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You were busy clearing the table after dinner, just a little, even though waitstaff would take care of it. Still, you had been a server at one point, so you couldn’t physically tear yourself away from a table until you’d made sure all the napkins were in a pile for washing, all the chopstick papers and cheap disposables were together in a pile, any major spills had been mopped up. It was common courtesy. And anyway, when all of you got together, it was almost always a noisy mess coming and going, and the waitstaff shouldn’t have to endure the remnants of your group even once you’d gone.
Seokjin was still mid-sentence with Namjoon when his fingers took hold of your hips, as he leaned in close to whine, “Y/N… let’s go…”
“You can go on ahead.”
“You’re making the servers feel weird. Look, they’re waiting for us to get the hell out so they can do their job and go home. We tipped them well,” he insisted. “Come on, here’s your tip.” He kissed you quickly on the cheek and used that as an opportunity to tug you away from the table.
“I just used to wait tables and--”
“I know, I know!” he laughed. “I know all about every job you’ve ever had. But you don’t work here. They aren’t going to pay you, even if you hold your hands out and blink at them cute.”
Playful as you followed Jin and his friends out into the warm night, you held your hands out and blinked at him, just so.
He grinned and slipped his hand into yours, “Ok, here’s your payment, most precious thing in the world--”
“You’re a goose.”
“I hate when you call me a goose,” he immediately cried. “Any other bird would be acceptable. A swan! A crane! A heron!”
“Pigeon.”
“Rock dove,” he corrected.
“Are we naming birds?” Jungkook stopped ahead of you both to ask.
“Birds that remind me of Jin,” you answered.
“Stork.”
“Fucker--” Jin mumbled, taking a quick step forward as Jungkook laughed and turned at Taehyung’s nudge.
“What are those really big buff birds?” they heard Taehyung ask Jungkook quietly.
“Cassowary?” you helpfully called. “Or ostrich? I could see an ostrich.”
“Emu?”
“Those aren’t buff, just fluff.”
“I was going to walk you to my place,” Jin glared, “but now I think I’ll walk you to your own place.”
You laughed, having caught out his (unsurprising) plan, “Oh yeah? You’re doing me the favor of walking me to your place? Such a gentleman.”
“Mm-hm.” His straight-lipped smile, the one that made him look a little muppet-esque, melted you as always. “But not anymore--”
“Spoilsport.” You reached up to brush the swoosh of hair out of his eyes. It was getting long. This was the point he always debated whether to cut it. You were desperate for him to grow it out long, just once, to make your historic kdrama dreams come true in the vehicle of your boyfriend. But he got cranky about having to constantly toss his head to get it out of his face, and complained he couldn’t pull off headbands and hair clips like his friends. It was a lie; you knew, in fact, that he could put his hair into a ridiculous ponytail sprouting straight up from his head and look absurdly adorable. At playful times like that, it was impossible for you not to imagine him on the ground with your fictitious future children, attending a tea party, adorned with plastic jewelry and an ill-fitting princess dress and that sprout of hair. Jin was so playful, he’d be game for anything, he’d be such a good dad…
“Why are you staring at me?” he demanded, bumping solidly into you. Because your arms were linked, you only stumbled a little. “I know I’m handsome--”
Jungkook shouted over his shoulder, “Hyung, if you fall behind, I can’t protect you!”
It immediately set Jin off, shouting back, “Protect me! I don’t need your protection! You think because you dress like a black Crayon, you’re better to protect me? Remember who needed help in arm wrestling, it wasn’t me!”
“Ten years ago!”
He marched off ahead, still shouting playfully at Jungkook, who shouted back, until the two of them were basically slapping chests. Namjoon, Jimin, and their girlfriends had taken a different path through this park but could clearly still see and hear what was happening because they shouted and waved their arms, their laughter carrying on the clear night. You felt that pang in your belly, knowing noisy friendly evenings like this wouldn’t last forever. After the new year, Namjoon and his fiance were moving to the city. Jimin and his girlfriend were already talking about moving in together, but back near his parents, who were needing some support from their son these days. Jungkook had a job opportunity on a film in South America and he was an unstoppable rising sun --according to proud hyung Jin-- so probably that would lead to more opportunities. Taehyung was flirting with moving to Spain or Portugal or Italy, just for a while, just because he wanted something new.
Hoseok would still be here at least, and Yoongi. Would the two of them be enough of a friend group for your boyfriend? The very one who claimed to yearn for lazy days of isolation but then immediately dropped everything to figure out food when someone stopped by, or dragged you to someone’s house because there was the most minor thing to celebrate, or who sometimes lay awake at night reading the group chat? Not even responding, to be clear, just reading it and laughing at his friends until he’d find something they (or he himself) said that was so funny he had to read it to you, even though you were pretending to be asleep.
You were pulled more quickly towards him as the fighting broke off, Taehyung acting like the referee he rarely actually was. You slid your hands up Jin’s broad back before he could set the younger guys off again, pressing your face briefly to his shoulder, just for the comfort of contact. So much change for your little friend group, but Jin wasn’t going anywhere. Jin was happy with his job and happy with you and happy with where your lives took place. He’d promised these things were true when you’d voiced concerns before.
Without breaking off his playful threats, he took your hand from his waist and held it loosely in his own, dragging it along for his gesturing. Jungkook and Taehyung were laughing before they darted across the street without waiting for the light to change. Jin made you wait, maybe to follow the rules, or maybe so he could loop his arm around you.
“You saw that, right? I held back. We don’t need them to walk us home. You’re safer with me than you are with them. Drop something shiny on the ground and Jungkook’s attention is gone. A movement in a tree will have Taehyung chasing a cat that’s not even there.”
“I’ve never felt more safe than with my boyfriend who will run ahead and leave me alone in the park to play-fight with his friends.”
“Heeeeey,” he complained. He was breathing a little heavily after the fight, his neck a flushed. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, calming down from it now, sliding back from playful eldest of the friend group to responsible eldest, stable boyfriend, actual competent adult. You adored the multiple shades of Jin, that in a single day he could go from fluffy cloud pajamas to a menacing light blue button up and black slacks combo --top button alluringly undone and hair brushed back from his forehead-- and then back to plaid fleece pajama pants and a lavender shirt.
You crossed the street, still leaning heavily on his arm, and it was then he finally noticed and asked, “What are you being so soft for? Is something wrong?”
“Hm? No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just feeling soft about my boyfriend. Is that wrong?”
“Yeah, it’s suspicious! You’re not about to dump me or something. You’d better not. I have a meeting tomorrow, I can’t stay up crying all night and then my face will look puffy tomorrow--”
“The opposite, you idiot,” you sighed, shaking your head.
“The opposite--” He broke off, holding you immediately at arm’s length as he insisted, “If you propose marriage to me I will never forgive you.”
“What?!”
“That’s my job! I get to do that!”
Your ignored the pounding in your chest, because you had not really ever talked about this before, but chose the security of teasing him back, “Well you aren’t doing your job so--”
His grin was threatening. Terrifying. He was out to kill as he grinned,
“You don’t know what I’m doing or not doing.”
“What does that mean?” you immediately demanded. He continued to grin rather smugly to himself as he caught your arm again and propelled you forward.
“Nothing.”
“Are you… you’re… you’re planning something?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Your heart was running away with you though and it was leaving you breathless so you forced a stop. You planted your feet, even though it spun him around you in orbit as you demanded just as bluntly,
“You want to marry me?”
He looked at you with such a soft smile that you briefly considered melting at his feet. The answer was clear on his face, such a casual confession conveyed through that bright-eyed smile.
Then he lifted his hands to cradle your face and sighed, “I knew it was asking too much for you to be both beautiful and smart.”
“Seokjin!”
“Do you think I don’t notice everyone escaping? I have to make my plans to make sure you don’t escape me too,” he said. His hands dropped from your face but he caught yours and began to walk again with your fingers intertwined, his other tucked into his pocket. It was endearing, the way his ears were visibly red beneath the streetlights’ glow. He could act self-assured, but his ears never lied.
It took you a moment to find your voice again before you could assure him, “I’m not going to try and escape you. You don’t need a diamond to keep me. I’m already all yours.”
“Yeah, I didn’t get you a diamond--”
“You already bought a--”
“--It would just be jealous always of the diamonds in your eyes,” he grinned.
“You already bought a ring?” You didn’t even bother responding to the joke. You were too side-swiped to learn that all this time you thought you were going to have to be the one to start giving your boyfriend more pointed hints about where you saw your future going… he was already charting the course.
“You know why my shoulders are so big, jagiya?”
“Genetics?”
“Secrets. Because I am very good at keeping secrets. So stop pressing me. But don’t steal my thunder by asking me first, I’ll be really angry at you.”
You giggled about it. Maybe you frustrated him sometimes, or baffled him, but Seokjin was never angry with you. The closest he ever came to angry was dirty feet in bed, or food in bed, or that one time you’d used dish soap on his cast iron pan… but Seokjin’s anger tended to be righteous rather than personal, it wasn’t ever directed at you but at bigger people, ideas, or systems that deserved his actual cutting fury. You were safely protected from it, by it, within a soft inner circle of his arms around you. He never stayed mad at you for long. Even when you dyed a whole load of his white shirts pink. He just decided pink was his new favorite color and continued to wear them. Because Seokjin was a man who thought carefully about which battles were worth fighting, which punches were worth rolling with, and what sort of man he wanted to be. He was a very good one.
“My answer will be yes,” you whispered to him, leaning closer for a moment as you walked. The block was empty and quiet here; Taehyung and Jungkook had disappeared far ahead, maybe they were already even to their apartment down the row from yours.
You could feel Jin’s smile without even looking up at him as he leaned down close and whispered back, “This is why your shoulders are much narrower than mine, you’re really bad at keeping secrets.”
“Jin!” This time you did look up at him, mock outrage undermined by your smile. His jokes were paused though as he slid his arm around your waist and pulled you into him for a kiss. Nothing playful about the kiss this time. Usually he was a little more shy than this about kissing you in public, even on an empty street, but the pressure of his fingers against your waist and neck hinted at relief. Maybe he’d been nervous about his planning. Maybe he wasn’t sure you’d say yes. Maybe you weren’t the only beautiful idiot in this relationship.
So you kissed him back harder, wanting to erase any of his doubts or fears, kissed him until your own head spun and he sounded breathless as he mumbled,
“Let’s go home.”
“And put on pajamas?” you suggested, only the beginning of Jin’s endearing bedtime preparation routine. You had known it was serious with him when he started letting you pick pajamas to borrow from his stash of matched sets. Jin was the only adult you knew who actually owned and wore matching pajama sets.
His mouth near your ear made you shudder as he answered, “Eventually…”