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With how loud a tattoo shop naturally is, Jeongguk used to think it’d be easy to sneak up on people, but that was before he met Min Yoongi, the artist he apprenticed under for a year. Yoongi somehow could hear anyone coming with his eyes closed, back turned, music on full blast, and machine buzzing. Fuck those new silent machines, Yoongi always inists. Classic is better. (Yoongi likes to pretend he’s at least twice his age when in reality he’s only a handful of years older than he and has been tattooing for only a decade, but Jeongguk supposes that is part of his charm.)
“Hyung, when’s your next appointment?” he asks from the safety of Yoongi’s door to his private room. Yoongi’s laid out on the couch in there, acting as old as Yoongi pretends to be.
Without opening his eyes, Yoongi replies: “Seven. You done for the day?”
“Gotta love the early birds, coming in during the day.” Jeongguk grins. He could take a walk-in later if he wanted, but he doesn’t need or want to. “What time you think you’ll be done?”
Yoongi shrugs. “We’ll see. If what he wants is what I think he wants, shouldn’t take long, but my seven o’clock Mr. Kim was a little hard to pin down from his email. A stark contrast to my one o’clock Mr. Kim, who asked me to copy another rendition of serpent and roses off the internet.”
Jeongguk winces. Yoongi does that same look about three times a week. “That’s always the question, isn’t it?” he tries to sympathize, giddy after finishing a unique chest piece on his last client. Given she only had a couple of tiny tattoos from years ago, she sat remarkably well for him, and they both loved what they ended with.
Being the good dongsaeng he is, Jeongguk disappears down the street to apprehend dinner for Yoongi and Seokjin before he heads home for the night, or maybe he’ll go bother Taehyung if he can catch his friend before he goes out. When he walks through the door of a mellow sunset and into the dark interiors of Yoongi’s shop, it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, so at first he’s in disbelief over what he’s seeing (or thinks he’s seeing), but he stands there so long in the door, still open, that Jin pokes his head out of his room to yell at him to stop letting in all the cold air.
Which causes Yoongi and his client to turn in his direction. It happens almost in slow motion, the turn of this man’s neck and the way his dimples reveal themselves to Jeongguk. It was always Jeongguk’s opinion that Kim Namjoon’s dimples were the eighth wonder of the world, because they were always there. Whether he was laughing or crying, or just thinking deeply about the stars. His dimples never disappeared, unlike the man himself.
“Hyung.” Jeongguk barely breathes it, whispers it. Even if Namjoon can’t hear it, he knows he hears it.
“Oh.” He smiles at Jeongguk, but it’s not a smile he’s familiar with, despite all of their once history together. “Jeonggukie.”
Yoongi stares at Jeongguk, clipboard with paperwork in hand, and Seokjin whips his head back and forth looking between him and Namjoon, eyes narrowing. “Hyungwon, we’re taking a quick ten minute break!” he yells back into his room.
He snaps off his gloves and grabs Jeongguk by the wrist, pulling him out of sight and into their small communal kitchen and lounge area, shutting the door behind them. The whole way Jeongguk looks back at Namjoon, and Namjoon stares straight back. Now, there is a door between them when there used to be whole continents.
“Hyung, you can’t leave a client like that!” Jeongguk says, mouth mushy, brain mushy, thinking of the boy he left behind. Or, the boy who left him behind.
“It’s Hyungwon. It’s fine. He’s used to how I work,” Seokjin insists, waving his hand around, then grabbing Jeongguk by the shoulders. “What’s going on? I thought you left for the night. Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
Jeongguk grimaces; up until this moment, Namjoon felt as real to him as a ghost. “I know Yoongi hyung’s client.”
“That is obvious, padawan, but who is he?”
“Kim Namjoon.” Jeongguk is so quiet when he murmurs the name, he’s shocked Seokjin hears it, but Seokjin only pretends to be hard of hearing when it’s convenient to him.
“Wait. Wait, hold on, back up.” Seokjin’s brows furrow. “Kim Namjoon. Yoongi’s seven o’clock appointment.”
Jeongguk nods. Seokjin holds him by the shoulders, else he might float away. In elation? In desperation? He isn’t sure. Jeongguk smiles though.
“Kim Namjoon is your Namjoon, your first everything, drop-everything-for-him-if-he-asked Namjoon, marry-him-if-you’re-both-single-at-33, Kim Namjoon?”
Jeongguk frowns. “I don’t think I described it exactly like that.”
“Forgive me.” Seokjin makes another grand hand gesture. “I seem to have misremembered all of your drunken soliloquies at two in the morning about Kim Namjoon, your great and only love, the boy whose heartbeat you could hear from a city away, whose dimples you wanted to live in, who you finally confessed all of your feelings to right before he moved away to - ”
“Okay, I know I did not say all of that!” Jeongguk protests, heart beating strangely fast. Sure, some of that was true - Jeongguk grew up chasing after Kim Namjoon, both literally and figuratively. Namjoon was older, smarter, busier. He was also kind though, and happily made time for Jeongguk once he became aware of Jeongguk as a gangly limbed fourteen year old kid.
“Oh, but you did, my dear boy.”
“I haven’t even spoken to him in four years!” Jeongguk protests.
“I know that too, Gguk-ah.” Seokjin softens his voice. “It always sounded like some things got in between the two of you, but here he is. In this very place. In Seoul, South Korea, getting a tattoo, when last you heard he was in another country. Seems oddly like fate, doesn’t it?”
Jeongguk doesn’t reply, head full of Kim Namjoon in a way it hasn’t been in a long time. Sure, he’s never entirely stopped thinking of his hyung - where he was, what he might be seeing through his telescopes, wondering if he ever thought of Jeongguk still too - but over time Jeongguk had to let go, at least a little. After all, Kim Namjoon confessed that he returned Jeongguk’s affections after years of silent pining, only to get on a plane and almost immediately cease speaking to him.
“Hyung, I gotta - ” Jeongguk gestures at the door and Seokjin nods.
“Sure you do,” he says, gently tugging on a longer strand of Jeongguk’s hair. “Go get him, tiger.”
He isn’t sure if Seokjin means go get your man or go scold the man who left you high and dry without answers; Jeongguk of only a year or two ago probably would have avoided any potential reunion and confrontation that came with it, would have seen Namjoon from across the lobby and hightailed it out of there never to return to work again, but Jeongguk today is different. Braver, if you will, or maybe just more stubborn and set in his ways, but he’s worked hard to be where he is, and he’s worked hard for what he has now.
Jeongguk let Namjoon slip away once. He won’t do it again, not without something. Some kind of truth. Namjoon owes him that.
By the time he’s gathered up his resolve, Namjoon sits in Yoongi’s chair with the tattoo artist hunched over the back of Namjoon’s arm. Jeongguk takes up the spare chair in the room and drags it to Namjoon’s side.
When he turns to face Jeongguk, it’s almost slow motion again, and this time his smile looks genuinely happy to see him. “Gguk-ah.”
“Hyung.”
“Yoongi-ssi tells me you work here,” Namjoon says quietly, even quieter than before. His hyung was always soft spoken, but Jeongguk hears the difference immediately now.
“Yes, for four years now.” Jeongguk searches Namjoon’s face; it looks almost the same, and after all it’s only been five years. Not so long, not long enough to put serious wrinkles on him or gray hair, but Namjoon feels - different. Misshapen, almost. There’s no mistaking him, and yet.
“Ah,” Namjoon hums. “So, not long after we - ”
He hesitates long enough. “Not long after you stopped talking to me for good.”
Namjoon’s smile fades, even if it remains on his face, both dimples present. He doesn’t move - he’s sitting well if it’s his first tattoo, but Jeongguk isn’t sure of that. Can’t be sure of anything about the man anymore. He didn’t even look at what Yoongi was working on when he came in.
Yoongi keeps going, but it’s the only sound in the room. For whatever reason, Yoongi chose to forgo putting on music. Maybe because he was waiting for Jeongguk to join them.
“I’m sorry, Jeongguk,” Namjoon finally says, smile still on his face, but still vacant. “I wish I could give you some kind of valid excuse, but I don’t have one.”
“No, that’s not true.” Jeongguk shakes his head. “Something happened. The Kim Namjoon I knew wouldn’t do that. Tell me hyung, what happened?”
The smile on his face finally slips away. Namjoon stares at him as Yoongi wipes his arm down on the other side. He breaks the silence: “We can take a break now or I can finish this up in the next thirty minutes.”
Namjoon doesn’t reply; he doesn’t even blink, just watching Jeongguk. With a sigh, he reaches out and briefly squeezes Namjoon’s hand closest to him. “I’ll wait for you, if you’d like.”
Namjoon nods, but Jeongguk isn’t sure he even heard the question. Yoongi’s gun turns back on and he rolls his shoulder once before diving back in.
Next he sees him, Namjoon’s arm is wrapped and hidden under a loose zip up hoodie. Jeongguk wishes to know what the ink is, but it doesn’t matter. It won’t mean anything to him anymore. “Come on.” He grabs Namjoon’s hand and pulls him out of the studio. Outside, it’s cold enough in the evening that a jacket is warranted, but Namjoon’s shaggy hoodie reminds Jeongguk of all the times his mother scolded him during high school for not dressing appropriately. Then Namjoon went off to college, and any time Jeongguk visited him he was perpetually dressed in baggy sweats with a beanie pulled over his hair to keep himself from pulling at it all the time. At least that remains the same. Same black beanie, pulled down low over his head.
Namjoon walks along kind of beside him, kind of behind him, eyes glued to Jeongguk’s profile. “Never thought I’d get to see you again, Jeonggukie.”
“You say that like you couldn’t reach out.”
Namjoon shrugs. “Didn’t feel like I could anymore,” he whispers.
They’re ambling along the sidewalk, headed towards a small park next to one of the nicer residential buildings in the neighborhood. Jeongguk sighs, pulling Namjoon into it. “Hyung, what happened? I told you that I was in love with you, and you told me you felt the same, then you got on the plane, all happy and waving goodbye. I watched you. You promised to keep in contact, you promised that I could be the first one you’d see when you came home to visit - ”
Namjoon winces.
“ - and then you almost immediately stopped texting. Wouldn’t pick up my phone calls, and you definitely didn’t read my emails. Like we hadn’t already endured something similar when you went off to undergrad. What happened? What changed?”
Namjoon whips his beanie off his head suddenly; it’s only then that Jeongguk thinks he hasn’t seen his hyung without some kind of hat since Namjoon’s junior year of high school.
Jeongguk gasps: Namjoon’s hair is buzzed down to almost nothing, but on his scalp are little wounds. Too big and deep to be scratches, but vividly red like little pock marks.
“Oh, hyung.” Jeongguk reaches out for his head but stops himself. Namjoon never cared much for physical affection back then, and then they were close. Now, they’re - not. They’re something else, something in-between in a way that you can only say about your closest friend from childhood even when it’s been a long time.
“Had bit of a breakdown after I left,” Namjoon says, zero emotion or inflection in his voice. “I, uh. Wanted to talk to you, Jeonggukkie, I really did, but everything was so much worse when I was in the States. I thought I could handle it, at least during my PhD, even if I didn’t make it into NASA, but uh. I didn’t. Make it.”
Jeongguk really doesn’t want to cry. It’s not fair to Namjoon if he cries, but he should have known, always did kind of wonder. Namjoon’s depression in high school was barely a thing, but during his sophomore year of college while Jeongguk was still in high school, more of a thing. Jeongguk didn’t really know a lot of details. Everyone kind of knew about it, but it was never a thing to consider when considering Kim Namjoon, because Kim Namjoon was brilliant. A truly gifted mind that wanted to go to the stars, was immediately accepted into a doctorate program right out of undergrad where he could intern in conjunction with NASA’s aerospace engineering department.
No one really worried about him. Not enough, apparently.
Jeongguk wants to ask again why Namjoon couldn’t reach out with anything - even an emoji, even a single letter, anything that might have signaled to him that his hyung needed help. Jeongguk likes to think he could have put together the pieces. He understands rationally how hard depression can make it to do anything - he thinks he gets it, but.
“Can I hug you?” he asks, because if he doesn’t touch Namjoon at least one more time he might actually die.
Namjoon shrugs. “If you want to,” he croaks, the first audible emotion Jeongguk’s heard. Jeongguk lunges for him, holding him as tightly as possible. When Namjoon was still in college and Jeongguk would visit him, he used to delight in how small Namjoon could make him feel. Now, though, he wants to feel big and strong for Joon. He gently guides his hyung’s head down into the crook of his neck.
“I missed you so much, hyung, but it’s okay. I understand,” he says, kissing the side of Namjoon’s head. He makes a pitiful noise before he hastily tries to pull his beanie back on. Jeongguk helps him, although he also tells him he doesn’t have to wear it if he doesn’t want to.
“Makes people uncomfortable to look at, so.” Namjoon shrugs. Jeongguk sees now just how short and blunt Namjoon’s nails are.
Jeongguk slides his hand over the bare part of the back of Namjoon’s neck. He thinks he remembers how soft Namjoon’s hair once was where it poked out of his beanie. “I’m looking. I’m not uncomfortable.” Jeongguk gives him what is hopefully his most comforting smile.
“Did you miss me, hyung?”
Namjoon smiles up at him, crowding in to lay his head back down. “You know I did. I used to think of you and wonder what you were drawing that day, and now here you are. A tattoo artist. It makes total sense.”
Jeongguk shrugs, frowning. “I didn’t make it in art school. Couldn’t finish.”
“That’s okay, Gguk. School isn’t for everyone. Look at me. Look at what all of my schooling did for me.” Namjoon’s smile looks like a wilting flower now.
“You don’t have to force yourself to smile for me. It’s okay.” Jeongguk threads his fingers through Namjoon’s. “Is this okay?”
His hyung nods. They stand side-by-side and it feels so much the same and so drastically different at the same time. Namjoon feels a stranger more now than ever, more than when Jeongguk thought of him and imagined all of the scenarios that could have played out. For years, Jeongguk pictured his hyung having the time of his life in the States, surrounded by friends and a romantic partner who wasn’t him, completely moved on from one Jeon Jeongguk.
“Are you back in Seoul for good?” Jeongguk chews at his lip ring. He feels Namjoon’s nod next to him.
“Yeah. I’m - it’s better, here. At home. I’m better here. I had to make some choices, but in the end, they were easy to make.”
Jeongguk nods. He can only imagine; he wonders what Namjoon has found to do in Seoul. Truthfully, Namjoon can do anything he wants, no matter where he is. He’s brilliant. Jeongguk knows that’s never changed. “I want to be part of your support here. Now that I’ve found you again.”
“I’d like that, Gguk.” His voice sounds oddly hoarse now.
“Let me buy you some tea? Do you still like rose milk tea?”
“Do you still only drink banana milk?”
“It’s the best flavor!”
Namjoon laughs, a small almost questionable thing. “I used to look for it in the stores. You don’t see it in the States very often, but when I found it, I always bought it, but I never had anyone to give it to.”
Jeongguk’s heart shrinks; he shoves himself at Namjoon. “I am gluing myself to your side starting now. Let’s go find some banana milk, then you can buy me some, right now.”
Namjoon giggles, just a tad lighter this time. Jeongguk hears it. “Sure, Jeonggukie. I think I have a lot of apology banana milk to buy.”
Jeongguk actually buys both of their drinks that evening, but that’s okay. The very next night, Namjoon buys them both a ridiculously sweet milkshake, and the night after that, they share bitter iced coffees. The next night, only water, but poured out over their joint meal.
“I think I’m still in love with you,” Jeongguk confesses.
“I think I’m okay with that,” Namjoon says. This time, after this confession, Namjoon stays.