Archive of Our Own

Yoongi sat in your kitchen, a pile of old newspapers in front of him, wrapping and packing your dishes into a cardboard box. He half-listened as you explained to the other guys what to take and what to leave. Furniture for the most part stayed, except for the dining room table and chairs. All of the boxes would go. Most of the things in your office would stay but needed to be moved into the dining room, except for your keyboard and all of Yoongi’s things, which of course needed to go. Your piano was heavy and well-loved and had to be rolled, not lifted, he heard you tell Namjoon and Jungkook. 

Yoongi frowned to himself as he wrapped a wine glass in paper. He hoped today wouldn’t end with your beloved piano falling apart in Namjoon and the maknae’s hands. His members were great people, and he knew they meant well, but despite the years of dance training, they still somehow managed to be about as graceful as baby giraffes.

He had wanted to hire movers--professional ones, with a truck and all those tools that help them lift heavy things carefully--but the guys had overheard the two of you discussing it and had volunteered. You had willingly agreed before Yoongi could even voice his concerns. It would be safer this way, you had argued. Your building’s security was great, but with movers coming up and down, you didn’t want to risk someone sneaking in that wasn’t supposed to be there. 

You set the guys to task then, dividing up jobs between the six other members. Namjoon and Jungkook would handle the heavy stuff, Tae and Hobi on boxes, Jimin would grab the stuff out of your bedroom and the bathroom, and Jin was on elevator duty. Yoongi heard a jingle as you handed over the elevator keys your building manager had let you borrow. 

After a moment, you joined him in the kitchen. Your eyes widened slightly at him as you exhaled, and Yoongi flashed you a smile as he put another wrapped cup into the box.

“You have enough boxes?” you questioned, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and giving a little squeeze. 

He chuckled lightly. “I think if we can’t get your dishes into five boxes, it might be time to give something up.” Yoongi stood to grab more things to pack from your cabinets, kissing your temple as he passed you. “Which cups did you say you wanted to leave again?”

“The rainbow plastic ones.” He could hear the darkness in your voice, and he knew what it was you weren’t saying. Your mother had shipped you those cups when you first moved to Korea, and you had used them out of necessity for a while. But now that you had a choice... the less things that reminded you of her, the better. Silently, he pushed the plastic cups aside and grabbed four glass tumblers from the cabinet above your sink.

When he turned around with the cups, you were staring at your phone, your bottom lip between your teeth. You looked up after a moment and met his eyes. After a second of eye contact, Yoongi glanced away, turning his focus to wrapping the glasses in paper. He couldn’t help it. He tended to be bad with eye contact in general, but even after a year, he still found that if he kept your gaze for too long, his stomach would turn to knots and his face would heat up.

“Still time to change your mind,” you said quietly, bumping him playfully as you passed by to grab the last of the cups. 

He shook his head. “Never.”

“Okay, well, just-”

A loud cough in the doorway interrupted whatever you were going to say next. 

Jimin leaned against the doorframe, an amused smile on his face. “If you two are done flirting, I could use some help in the bedroom. I’m not quite sure what you want folded and what you want in the garment bag.”

“Be there in a second,” you reassured Jimin as you set the cups you were holding on the island beside Yoongi. He disappeared almost as suddenly as he arrived. You turned back to your boyfriend and squeezed his shoulder gently. “I’ll be back. Be thinking about what we should order these guys for lunch.” He nodded silently and then you were gone, leaving him with his thoughts.

If he was honest with himself, he was nervous. Not because he was questioning his decisions or because he was worried about the future. Perhaps nervous was the wrong word, but he wasn’t really sure how else to describe the butterflies that had slowly been appearing in his stomach for the past week or so as he helped you put your belongings into boxes.

No, nervous wasn’t the right word.

Yoongi was excited. He wasn’t sure when he last felt like this. Debut? Their first number one? Their first award show? Maybe. But then again, this was somehow a whole new feeling. Moving in together felt so official. Granted, you had been living together since his surgery, but that was a result of certain unfortunate circumstances. This was a conscious decision to pack up your individual things and move into an entirely new apartment. 

You had gone shopping together the week before, scouring nearly every furniture store in Seoul for the perfect couch to fit in the weird little nook in your new living room. He had been confused by the half-wall when he had first bought the apartment, but you seemed to know exactly what to do with it. You had found the perfect couch in deep mocha, but it was custom, and you’d have to wait for it to be built. Unfortunately, most of your furniture would need to be custom-made--Yoongi hadn’t realized when purchasing the apartment that it would all be such awkward sizes--so the apartment was much more bare than he would have liked.

But you had convinced him to just jump into it. It would be fun , you had reasoned. When’s the last time you got to feel like a normal 28-year-old, waiting for his furniture to be delivered like the rest of us? And of course, he had agreed. 

This was a big step forward in your relationship, one he hadn’t even hesitated to make. When he had asked you at Christmas, he never could have anticipated how much just officially moving in together would cause him to start thinking about the future. He wanted you to meet his dog. He knew that you loved pets, so maybe the two of you could adopt one together a cat, if it got along with Holly, or something smaller, like a sugar glider or a rabbit.

His mind had even drifted to marriage once or twice, although he refused to entertain the thoughts for very long. The two of you had joked about being old together on occasion, but he didn’t want to think too much about getting married without knowing how you felt about it. 

Taehyung popped his head in the kitchen, startling Yoongi out of his thoughts so violently that he almost dropped the final cup he was wrapping.

“Sorry, hyung,” the younger man said, a slight frown crossing his lips briefly. “Are you done with that box? We’re almost done with the living room.”

Yoongi nodded. “Yeah, there’s this one and that one over there you can take.” He pointed to a box in the corner marked ‘plates.’ “But you might want to take the table apart and get it in the car first. It’s kind of big.”

Tae nodded. “Good idea. Do you have a screwdriver?” 

Yoongi told him where to find the toolbox, and Taehyung turned excitedly. “Don’t forget to let us know when you’re running out of room in the Hyundai!” Yoongi called after him. “We can pull her car around, too.”

“We will, hyung!” It was Hoseok’s voice that answered.

Silently, Yoongi praised your forethought of pairing Tae and Hobi. Hobi could pack a bag like no one else, and Yoongi hoped he would bring that skill to fitting six dining room chairs and your Ikea table into one SUV. He was suddenly also very glad that he could just borrow a car from BigHit.

“You need an allen wrench, Tae.” Yoongi heard you sit something heavy down in the hallway--a suitcase, he guessed--before the sounds of rummaging in the toolbox and a successful ‘aha!’ “You can put this in after the table.” He heard you pat the suitcase and Hobi’s affirmative, and then you were in the doorway to the kitchen again.

“The bedroom looks weird ,” you admitted softly, approaching Yoongi and slotting your chin on his shoulder. “I’m leaving two sweaters and a hoodie here just in case and they look so lonely in the closet.”

“Am I going to miss the hoodie you’re stealing from me?”

“Listen, you can’t buy hoodies in my size and expect me not to steal them.” You reached up and grabbed the last of the dishes--your whiskey glasses--and handed them down to him to wrap.

He laughed. “You say that like I didn’t buy them specifically for you to wear them.”

“Then why are you complaining, honey boy?” You winked at him cheekily and sat down beside him at the island. “You think pizza for lunch?”

“Gino’s?”

You hummed, checking your phone. “Oh good. Soo-Yun says she thinks she aced her audition.”

“Is she the one that wants to do theatre abroad?”

You nodded. “Today was her audition at Tisch. I’m glad she did well.” You sighed happily, and Yoongi slung an arm around your shoulders. There was something about the pride you took in your students that made him fall a little more for you. 

“Table and chairs are in the car!” Hobi announced happily, his head poking around the doorframe. “We can probably get your suitcases in too, but your office stuff and the kitchen stuff will probably need to go in your car.”

You nodded and stood. Yoongi’s hand slid to your hip. “I’ll go pull my car down to the elevator. Do you want to order lunch?” Yoongi nodded and squeezed your hip. You kissed his cheek quickly as you passed, following Hobi out into the hallway. 

He heard your keys jingle as you grabbed them out of the bowl by the door. It, like most of the things you needed to teach, would be staying. Weirdly, Yoongi knew he was going to miss the stupid ceramic bowl. He pulled out his phone and began to peruse Gino’s menu.

Yoongi sighed contentedly, leaning into your touch as your fingers combed through his hair. You were both on the floor of the living room, his head resting in your lap as he laid perpendicular with your body. Boxes were piled around you. It was dark, the only light coming from the single lamp you had managed to plug in and whatever ambient light was seeping in from the city below through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The tv was mounted above the fireplace, but neither of you could be bothered to actually dig through the boxes and look for the remote.

The only furniture currently in the apartment aside from your dining room table was the mattress in the master bedroom, which was on the floor because of course the bed frame wouldn’t arrive until the rest of the furniture did.

“This is cozy,” you said softly, brushing Yoongi’s bangs out of his eyes. “I wish we could get the fireplace working.”

“I’ll figure it out in the morning while you’re doing virtual lessons.” You hummed. He could hear the amusement in your tone. “What?”

You chuckled, tracing the bridge of his nose with your index finger. He shivered under your touch. “You know my schedule.”

Yoongi felt his cheeks burn. “Yeah, well,” he stammered, turning his head to the side so he wasn’t looking directly up at you. He liked that you could still make him feel shy, but you didn’t need to know that. “Your schedule’s only been the same since we met, so…” He trailed off, and he heard you let out a soft exhale of a laugh. 

“It’s okay, honey boy. You’re allowed to be obsessed with me.” He smiled widely, laughing, because of course he was obsessed with you. He didn’t even have to respond for you to know it was true. When he looked up at you, your gaze was focused out the window. 

The view was part of the reason he had bought this particular apartment. It had a similar view to the dorms, large windows looking out over the Han River and Gangnam in the distance. The city looked breathtaking from this high up. 

Blindly, Yoongi reached out, groping for the hand that wasn’t in his hair. Eventually, he found it just behind you, holding your weight. He placed his hand over yours, squeezing it gently. “What are you thinking about?”

You continued to look out the window for a moment before letting your attention fall to him. You smiled, soft and sweet, and for a second, Yoongi was convinced you were some sort of goddess. “Just thinking.” Your tone was gentle, but he could hear the hint of timidness in it. “Checking in with myself.”

He nodded. You had told him about the practice when the two of you had first started dating. It was a suggestion from your therapist in college, a way to break through the noise and connect with how you were really feeling about a situation. 

“All good?”

“All good,” you confirmed. “I’m happy. You make me happy.”

Yoongi was not one to cry easily, but hearing the tenderness and honesty in your voice made his throat tighten a little bit. He was happiest when he was with you, whether you were making dinner together, or sitting in your office working together but separately, or laying on the floor of your empty living room. 

He sat up and scooted closer to you in one motion. Your hand fell out of his hair and landed gently on his shoulder. Almost immediately, you moved it so that you were cupping his jaw, your thumb running gently across his cheek.

“I’m happy, too.” It came out softer than he intended, but the way the small smile spread across your lips, he knew you had heard.

He was suddenly very aware of the chill rolling off the windows, and how warm your hand was against his cheek. Even in the dim light of the single lamp, your eyes sparkled, deep and warm and magnetic. He leaned in then, his lips brushing briefly against yours. Your lips were chapped ever so slightly, thanks to the dry early spring air, but they were full and plump and addicting. Yoongi pulled away just slightly and rested his forehead against yours. 

Your hand slid behind his head, your fingers finding purchase in the short hair at the nape of his neck. You tugged him toward you, his lips connecting with yours just as his eyes fluttered shut. Yoongi’s hand pressed into your waist, his thumb slipping under the material of your hoodie to massage the skin just above the waistband of your jeans. Your teeth tugged on his bottom lip, and he let you greedily deepen the kiss.

In that moment, with you wrapped up in his arms, your lips on his, Yoongi felt at home. The softness of you under his touch, the way you softly tugged on his hair just to hear him moan, the way you smiled into his lips, he could feel it all pooling in his chest, filling his heart with what was--unmistakably and undeniably--love. 

When you pulled away, his lips chased after yours, pressing two quick pecks to them before you touched your forehead to his. You were breathless, and Yoongi couldn’t help the surge of endorphins that came from knowing he had made you that way. He sighed and pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead.

He was happy he had asked you to move in with him, and even happier that you had agreed. Because in that moment--now and always--he knew there was nowhere he would rather be than on the living room floor. With you.