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Did it feel like deja vu? To look at a person and feel like you’ve seen them before; as if you knew them in some other existence? He doesn’t know why he did it. He doesn’t know why he reached out that day, or why he offered up his name so willingly, but maybe he was reaching for something he used to hold in a different life.
…
Contrary to what his sunny demeanor told you, Hoseok loved rainy days. There was something cinematic in the way they washed the outside world in translucent paint. There was something magical in the way light reflected off of every wet surface, making the world glitter like it was bathed in fallen gemstones. It made him feel fresh. It made him feel alive.
Even in the dull gray of the early morning the world felt delicate and special in its misty blanket. Hoseok was the only person sitting outside one of the only opened coffee shops that morning, save for a black-clad figure seated close enough to recognize a human shape, but too far to make out any clear features. If he took a few steps towards the person maybe they’d feel inclined to strike a conversation. Then again, maybe not. Not every person lived life as if they were in a movie. Or rather, not every person lived in the same movie as Jung Hoseok.
As Hoseok watched the steam rise off his coffee mug and dissipate into the air, he let his mind wander. Thoughts drifted aimlessly through his head, disappearing as quickly as the mist around him. He was so lost in thought that he almost didn’t notice a shadow spread across his table and block the rising sun from view.
This shadow turned out to be the stranger he’d been watching earlier; and this stranger had hypnotizingly beautiful feline features and was staring at him with a gaze hotter than a summer sun. Had he been watching Hoseok this whole time too?
“I think you dropped this,” the man finally said, drawing Hoseok’s gaze down to the ballpoint pen balancing in his open palm.
Oh.
Right. He’d been so engrossed in soaking in the sparkling world around him that Hoseok had completely forgotten why he had even chosen this spot in the first place.
“Thank you,” he said quickly before he could overthink a response. For a second he’d almost entertained the idea that this man, this stranger, wanted to have an actual conversation with him for some unknown reason.
The man didn’t move. Instead he took a step closer.
He leaned in close, but not too close to be invasive. Avoiding eye contact completely, he studied the sketch book that took up almost half the table Hoseok was using.
“Are you a designer?” He finally asked.
Hoseok couldn’t prevent the embarrassed laughter that escaped his mouth.
“Oh no,” he said, unable to control the heat that was rushing to his neck and to his cheeks. “This isn’t…no, I’m not.”
The man only hummed before speaking again, “This is really good though. You do it for fun then?”
So maybe this man did want to start a conversation after all. Hoseok had half the inclination to offer him the vacant chair across from him, but even if everything about this conversation was weird to him, that seemed a step too far.
He shook his head. “No.” Then, “I mean, I do enjoy it, but it’s for work. I’m an artist,” he laughed bitterly, “or I guess aspiring artist would be more accurate.”
And that’s why he came here today. Because he could have sketched from the warmth and comfort of his own apartment but it didn’t have the spark that this place did. He could have walked the short distance to the park down the street but it didn’t have the same breath of life that the sleepy morning city did. He chose to drive all the way here. To find inspiration. Or maybe something else entirely.
“Can I see?” The man asked, as if to remind Hoseok that he was still standing there, awkwardly bent at an angle. His gaze was no longer on the sketch book but now focused intently on Hoseok, with something softer hidden in the depth of his eyes.
“Of course.”
It was more a breath than a stable sentence. The already present blush burned deeper into Hoseok’s skin though he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint why. If Jimin were here he might laugh and tease him about having a crush on this stranger, but Hoseok had the frustrating habit of blushing whenever unexpected attention was directed his way.
He also had the habit of being far braver than his shy demeanor would suggest. Which is why, as the stranger took the seat across from him, Hoseok couldn’t fight the urge to ask him his name.
The man laughed, the small smile ghosting his cheeks warm and incredibly inviting.
“Actually” he started as he shuffled to reach one of his pant’s pockets. He returned with a flat disk shape in his hands, flipping it to reveal a name carved into the surface:
Min Yoongi.
“I work here,” he clarified when Hoseok did nothing but stare. “Don’t tell them I'm fraternizing with the customers on my break.”
“Of course Min Yoongi-shi,” Hoseok replied. Then, “I don’t want to take up any of your down time though.”
Yoongi smiled again and Hoseok couldn’t help but think about what a nice smile it was. Even just the half smile, with a few teeth peeking through, showed off his rounded cheeks and if he smiled any wider then perhaps Hoseok would be a goner. Which was ridiculous, to be so easily enamored by a stranger, but what could Hoseok say, he found a little beauty in everyone he met.
…
He doesn’t know why he started looking for him in the faces of every stranger walking on the street. Maybe some invisible force was inclining their eyes to search for the other. Was it fate? Or just the kaleidoscope of butterflies in his chest that made every new person feel like The One. Sometimes he stared at their interlocked hands on their walks home and wondered, is this real life or have I entered some sort of dream?
It was spring. Trees blossomed and birds sang from where they nestled in the leaves. The sun shone bright, with a warmth that covered the world in a comforting sense of security. Maybe after the sparkling painting of rainy days, this was the next best thing. Everything was bathed in a bright glow, filled with laughter and the promise of new beginnings.
New beginnings. The concept danced around inside Hoseok’s head. It trickled through his veins like electricity, spreading to his fingers that were wrapped tightly around Yoongi’s. He wondered if the other could feel the aftershocks against his skin.
New beginnings always turned themselves into old habits. Now, as if on instinct, Hoseok’s feet found themselves stopping at the same cafe everyday.
The first time he found himself here it was completely by accident. His face had flushed with embarrassment when he’d stopped to admire the window display, only to then look up and find Yoongi’s half smile watching him. It had only made sense that they walk home together that afternoon, after all they were both heading in the same direction.
The second time was a vague hope disguised as coincidence. He’d walked there with a purpose, with a hope that Yoongi would want to see him again, but when Yoongi laughed, asking him with lightness on his tongue if Hoseok was stalking him, Hoseok dismissed the idea. After all, he was only here due to his suddenly realized coffee craving and this cafe was the best place around.
Neither of them said anything as this slowly became their routine. Yoongi would end his shift with two iced coffees in hand and Hoseok would be waiting for him, with his latest sketch and a sparkle in his eye. Not that there was much to say anyways. Hoseok was a natural at making friends and well, that’s what they were.
Right?
Days bled into weeks which in turn merged into months. Then, slowly, this budding friendship blossoming in Hoseok’s stomach grew vines that stretched up and into his throat until he was choking on a new feeling all together. A new feeling that made him feel slightly giddy and mostly anxious.
“Okay,” Hoseok said on a day when the spring sun made it hard to look Yoongi directly in the eyes.
“Okay,” he repeated. “This might sound crazy but,” he paused, less for dramatic effect and more to allow himself the chance to back out. “…what if I said we should be boyfriends?”
Yoongi didn’t seem to be as phased as Hoseok put forth the idea. Instead, he kept walking, his firm grip still holding Hoseok’s hand in his.
“Why would that be crazy?”
Hoseok took a breath, holding it as he thought. He could list off so many reasons why it would be a 100 percent completely ridiculous thing to even ask. For one, and maybe this was the biggest reason, all they had was these walks. All they had was afternoons containing 30 minutes of conversation. It was hardly the picture of romance.
“Because what if you said yes,” is what he finally settled on.
“Mm,” Yoongi’s voice was a low rumble as he thought. Hoseok could feel his hands start to sweat from where they were intertwined. Neither moved to pull away.
When Yoongi finally spoke the words reverberated throughout Hoseok’s chest.
“So is this a hypothetical question or are you really asking?”
“I’m really asking,” he quickly shot out because there was no way he could just laugh this whole thing off as a joke. He’d already dug his grave and now Hoseok was prepared to die in it.
This time Yoongi did stop walking. Hoseok would have kept going, his attention still on anything but the person next to him, but Yoongi's tight hold on him kept him grounded to this moment.
Hoseok turned to face him-he had no other choice but to face him. How could he feel so confident in a boardroom and yet so vulnerable and exposed under the gaze of a single person?
“So why is it such a crazy thing to ask?”
“You asked that already.”
Yoongi’s hand was still holding him in place, preventing him from running. Not that he would but the thought sounded appealing.
Yoongi took a step closer, “and you never gave a good answer,” he said with a pout bordering on comedic.
A pout. He was pouting and Hoseok was trapped with no other option but to stare at Yoongi’s burning stare and taunting pout.
“Well,” Hoseok stalled as he ran through a response in his mind and tested the words on his tongue. There was a reason he was against the whole notion of asking Yoongi out after only months of casual walking and talking, but the more Hoseok thought about it, the more it just sounded like an excuse not to try something new and scary.
There was a reason he felt silly and naive for the way his stomach tied itself in knots over even the smallest of things Yoongi would say or do. There was a reason he couldn’t accept this feeling burning in his chest everytime Yoongi so much as looked his way. Everything felt…wrong. Out of order. This wasn’t how falling in love was supposed to happen. Not that what he was feeling was love exactly, but it was pretty close to it.
“Well,” Hoseok said again, unsure of if he was mulling things over in his head for hours or simply seconds.
“What reason do we have to want to try being in a relationship? We’re barely friends..”
Okay, now that sounded wrong and rude and not at all how Hoseok wanted to start his explanation.
“I mean, I do think of you as a friend, “ he clarified, “but we’ve never really hung out outside of walking home together, and this is never how I imagined falling for someone. I guess…growing up, in my head I’d always imagined I’d have someone who would grow with me. Maybe we’d be neighbors, or school friends, or maybe we’d be childhood rivals. And maybe we’d fight and drift apart, but one day, when we were older and matured, we’d find each other and suddenly everything would just… make sense. It would feel like love.”
Hearing himself finally voice these feelings out loud definitely made Hoseok feel unhinged and deranged, but he’d spent his entire life daydreaming about this exact moment and suddenly all his dreams were being proven wrong all at once. He’d never even had a proper crush before and now all he wanted to do was grab Yoongi’s face and kiss him senseless, to explore every inch of his body and discover every thought in his mind.
That childhood dream still lurked in the back of his consciousness however. He couldn’t just let it go .
Yoongi nodded, his expression unreadable. “So what you’re saying is you’d always imagined something grand and dramatic and you never thought you’d develop a crush so simple and anticlimactic,” it was more a direct statement rather than a question.
Even still, Hoseok felt the need to defend himself, to defend his feelings. He shrugged in a way he hoped came off more casual and less of a deflection. “That’s just what I’d always thought would happen, but I’m not in contact with any of my childhood friends. So either I’m going to spontaneously run into one of them or I’m going to die tragically alone.” Then, after a second of extra thought, “You aren’t…this isn’t anticlimactic just…unexpected.”
“I see.”
The sun shone bright from behind Yoongi, casting his face in shadow. The only thing Hoseok could make out clearly was the already all too familiar, gentle smile Yoongi reserved for when he thought Hoseok had said something funny, even if Hoseok was never really in on the joke.
“Well then,'“ he said. “It’s a shame you feel that way Hoseok, because I’d really like to be your boyfriend.”
…
Sometimes he still felt like he was dreaming. Sometimes he’d lay awake at night and wonder if the body next to him was even real. One the days where the sunlight caught sparks in their eyes and the night sky reflected back their souls, he stopped and wondered. One the days where he was left breathless from love, and hurt, and sadness, and joy, and all the things that made up love-on those days he had to remind himself that this was real. In some ways, you could say they made it.
“Do you believe in soulmates?”
It was early morning. The two of them were laying in bed as the winter sun illuminated their tangled limbs. When Hoseok opened his eyes, Yoongi was watching him, eyes heavy with sleep.
Do you believe in soulmates?
The question hung heavy in the air like a whispered confession. Then there was Yoongi, watching and waiting for Hoseok to respond.
Soulmates. Despite his status as a self proclaimed hopeless romantic, the truth was that the concept of soulmates wasn’t something he entertained often. It was something better suited to novels and dramas, not real life. However, if the glimmer in Yoongi’s eyes was anything to go by, Hoseok was alone in this assessment.
“Hmm, I haven't really thought about it,” he finally answered when he couldn’t come up with anything better to say. “I know I love you, that I’m in love with you, but…" he trailed off, searching for the right words to describe all the half formed thoughts floating around inside his head.
Soulmates.
Fate.
Destiny.
It sounded grand and romantic in theory, but in practice it didn’t leave much room for spontaneity. And wasn’t that the remarkable thing about love? The unpredictability of it? The way things just seemed to happen. No set rules. No invisible strings. Just two people who cared enough to love and keep and cherish.
“It kind of takes the beauty out of love if people are just destined to be together don’t you think?”
A tiny burst of air tickled his face as Yoongi let out a silent contemplative laugh. Slowly, his hand trailed up Hoseok’s side with a touch as light as feathers. Only when Yoongi’s hand finally came to rest around Hoseok’s cheek did he notice that they somehow were even closer. He was too distracted by Yoongi’s fingers grazing his skin to notice him wiggle closer and slot their legs together.
Instinctively Hoseok threw an arm over Yoongi’s middle to slip a hand under his shirt and rub circles on his skin. The warmth of their bodies bundled so close together, sheets tangled at their hips and ankles, radiated throughout the room as proof of their love. The feeling of skin on skin gave proof to their existence.
"So you believe in childhood friends to lovers but you don’t believe in soulmates?"
"Yes!" Hoseok exclaimed, as enthusiastically as he could while laying pinned on his side. "Exactly!
“I don’t think that at all.”
Yoongi’s voice was a low breath, a rumble more than anything else. Hoseok could feel it vibrate against his chest, the sound deep and soothing and slightly gravely. He would be content to hear Yoongi only speak in hums and drawls his entire life if he could feel it’s weight soak his pours just like this.
So he didn’t say a word. He laid wrapped around Yoongi contently and waited for him to speak again. He always wanted to hear Yoongi speak.
“Sometimes things happen that was can’t explain. Sometimes we meet people and it just feels right . Maybe some would say the concept of soulmates takes away any sense of free will but I don’t think that’s true. We all have the choice to embrace or ignore fate. All I know is that I’m drawn to you-I’ve always been drawn to you. In some ways, it feels like you were made specifically to fit all the cracks and curves in my soul.”
He punctuated his confession with a kiss. A slow lingering one. There was no move to rush it, no need to. They could exist in slow motion, satisfied to explore each other in deep sweeping motions.
Maybe Hoseok didn’t have an answer. Maybe love didn’t have some grand grounded thesis. Maybe the rules of love were something meant to be created together over years of levity and struggle.
In some ways it was up to chance that they were both here now. Maybe a part of him would always believe in the grand idea of fate, but now he was content. Satisfied to just let this be what it is-love. Sometimes he still stops and wonders how they made it this far. He still doesn’t know what it was that led them to this moment, but he’s glad they made it here nonetheless.
Yoongi doesn’t know why Hoseok chose him but he’s glad he did.