Chapter Text
Yoongi is furious.
Trust fucking Namjoon to betray him like this. Yoongi’s been gone for, what, three months? Four months? And already Namjoon has found a replacement— a younger, hotter, smarter replacement—
“Hotter?” Namjoon repeats, his eyebrows raised. Yoongi is going to kill him.
“Yes, hotter,” he spits out. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides. He genuinely doesn’t know why Namjoon isn’t cowering in fear right now. “Is that the only thing you’ve managed to retain from my impassioned, eloquent speech?”
“Oh, it was very eloquent, don’t get me wrong,” Namjoon says earnestly. Too earnestly. His days are counted, the two-faced little jokester. “It’s just, you know. If the first thing you notice about Jungkook is that he’s hotter than you, then I’m worried that something’s going on, like. Have you been struggling with your self-esteem, maybe?”
One, two, three. Deep breaths, Yoongi. Deep breaths.
He’s suddenly aware of how loud he’s been talking. Replacement could probably hear him. Hell, he’s probably listening at the door, the little shit. He looks exactly like the sort of weasel for whom that kind of thing is second nature.
“I will count to three,” Yoongi says calmly. Namjoon’s looking at him expectantly, the very image of sincere attentiveness if not for the hint of a smirk on his stupid smug face that means he’s probably enjoying Yoongi’s descent into madness—
“I will count to three,” Yoongi is very calm, “and then you will tell me exactly how you are planning on resolving this unfortunate situation. First, consider how long we’ve been best friends for. Then answer. One—"
“You’re a shit best friend,” Namjoon smiles fondly as Yoongi gasps with disbelief, a cold sense of dread slowly dawning on him, “but I’ll take pity on you.” The black cloud of dread draws nearer.
“You and Jungkook will both stay here as vicars.”
And that’s how Yoongi’s hell begins.
Being a vicar isn’t so bad. It’s a pretty sweet life, actually, under normal circumstances.
Your duties mainly consist of writing some of the sermons, hearing confessions and managing the parsonage’s money. Easy shit. Other than that, you’re pretty much left to your own devices, in Yoongi’s experience at least.
And, also: you live in a pretty house that you never have to clean, with your own room and a pretty back garden. You get fed by a housekeeper three times a day, plus an unlimited number of snacks and cups of coffee in between. And when you’re walking around town, everyone looks at you with either respect or a friendly smile.
So, yeah. Pretty sweet life.
Of course, the circumstances Yoongi has now found himself in are anything but normal.
“Sure,” he says through gritted teeth, once he accepts that God isn’t going to strike Namjoon down for his betrayal just yet.
There’s a hundred reasons for why the solution Namjoon’s suggesting could never work, but for now Yoongi lists the first one that springs to mind. “And, pray tell, where the hell am I going to sleep?”
“Yoongi, language,” Namjoon chides him. Replacement looks shocked for a second – of course he was listening at the door, just like Yoongi guessed, and came stumbling into the room at Namjoon’s insane announcement – and then his face goes back to a resentful scowl.
Yoongi smirks at him. “What, were swear words punishable by earlier bedtime at your college or something?”
“We probably attended the same college,” Replacement tells him haughtily, “and I thank heavens that we never ran into each other.”
“Listen here, you little—” Yoongi’s fuse is admittedly pretty short at the moment. He’s not about to apologise for it.
“OKAY.” Seokjin is standing in the door, his hands on his hips and a look of righteous fury on his beautiful face.
“Sorry.” Yoongi folds immediately. Seokjin’s scary when he’s angry, okay? “He started it.”
Replacement lets out an indignant squawk, but Seokjin just ignores him. He was always Yoongi’s favourite for a reason.
“Yoongi, Namjoon and I are so glad that you came back,” Seokjin says, a bit mollified—Yoongi’s eyes feel hot, all of a sudden— “but you know this wasn’t part of the plan. Jungkook lives here now, this is his home. You’re both going to live here and work together, so the sooner you grow up and start getting along, the better for everyone involved.”
“Well, gee, hyung, it’s good to see you, too,” Yoongi tries, but a glare from Seokjin silences him quite effectively.
“You’ll sleep on the blow-up bed tonight,” Seokjin informs him. “We’ll get a new mattress for you tomorrow. And now I have to get started on dinner, so Namjoon, you’re in charge.”
“Uh, yeah,” Namjoon manages to say as his gaze trails after Seokjin disappearing into the kitchen. “What Seokjin said.”
No changes on that front, then. Great.
Yoongi is, as always, surrounded by idiots.
The blow-up bed is in Yoongi’s—sorry, Replacement’s—room, because of course it is. Yoongi is so focused on containing his rage within the walls of his body that he doesn’t think it through, inflates it right there on the floor.
It’s only when he’s finished and Replacement, busy pretending to read a book up until now, asks, “Uh, are you going to sleep in here?” that Yoongi realises his mistake. That it looks as though he was—ugh.
The best defense is a good offense. Every child knows that. “Uh, are you?”
“It’s my room. So, yes.” Replacement squints at him. There’s a faint flush to his face, Yoongi notices, and cuts his eyes away. “You always act this weird?”
“Nah.” Yoongi’s hands are unsteady, for some reason, and the fucking air valve thing on the side of the bed won’t shut properly. “Only when someone tries to steal my fucking life from me.”
“I’m not stealing anything!” Replacement has the gall to actually raise his voice at him. Yoongi glances up, incredulous. “I got assigned here by bishop Bang PD himself!”
Yoongi snorts. “Yeah, sure. The bishop just assigned you here for no reason. Not like you plotted and schemed to get here—”
“Oh my god!” Replacement throws his hands up. “It’s not my fault you failed your studies, okay?”
And that—okay. That one stings, a bit.
The valve finally clicks shut and Yoongi gets to his feet, awkwardly hauling the slightly flabby mattress halfway upright. He needs to get out of here, fast.
“Hey,” Replacement says. He’s frowning, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. He looks like he’s sorry. He looks—pretty, kind of. “I didn’t mean it like—you know.”
Huh. So he does possess some sense of decency. Interesting. Not that Yoongi particularly cares, in that moment. All the rage seems to have left his body, replaced by a bone-deep weariness and apathy that’s become all too familiar to him in these past few months.
“Whatever,” he mutters, feeling like shit, feeling like—Replacement was right—like a failure. He makes his escape to the living room as gracefully as possible, though it’s not easy to do while dragging a 90x200 cm mattress behind him.
He dumps the air bed by the radiator, next to his unpacked suitcases, and makes his way to the kitchen. His spirits lift as soon as he steps into the warm, cosy room – it occupies a special place in his mind palace.
Seokjin is leaning against the counter, stirring sauce in a large pot, and it’s all so familiar—the sight, the smell, Seokjin’s inquisitively raised eyebrow as he glances Yoongi’s way—that Yoongi has to blink rapidly a few times, shake his hair into his eyes. He really needs to get a grip. Tearing up twice in the span of an hour—Christ. He’s acting like a baby.
“I’m not a baby, by the way,” he tells Seokjin as he drops heavily at the breakfast table. If picking a fight with Seokjin won’t make him feel better, nothing will. “It’s the Replacement that should grow up. How old is he, anyway?”
“Jungkook is twenty-three,” Seokjin says calmly. “He’s a very mature young man. Namjoon and I are quite obsessed with him.”
He puts the ladle down and turns away from the pot, and he must see something in Yoongi’s face that Yoongi didn’t mean to show, because then he frowns and says, “Oh, Yoongi.” In this gentle tone, like Yoongi really is a child. Like he’s a hapless calf that got stuck in the fence again and it’s becoming obvious to everyone that it’s probably kind of stupid.
“What,” Yoongi says defensively.
“Nothing, you idiot.” Seokjin goes back to stirring. “Jealousy’s not a good look on you, and neither is repressing your emotions—” he ignores Yoongi’s scoff, “—and stop calling Jungkook ‘replacement’. You know perfectly well no one could ever replace you.”
“Thank you.” Yoongi says after a beat, his hair still in his eyes. “That is the first reasonable thing I’ve heard since I got here.”
Vatican was—fine. It was exhilarating.
It was the most miserable time in Yoongi’s whole damn life.
He’d been excited when the bishop announced it to him—smiling benevolently, pleased at being the bearer of good news—he’d thought his life was finally going to begin.
“Namjoon tells me you’ve settled in great here,” the bishop had said, “and he couldn’t be more pleased with your conduct as vicar. He says you’ve become quite indispensable.”
Yoongi had tried his best not to preen.
“I almost feel bad for sending you away!” The bishop had laughed, a booming ha, ha, ha! that always reminded Yoongi of the fun uncle he saw once a year on Christmas who could rip a phone book in half with his bare hands.
“But since this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you, I trust he will forgive me. Many clergymen would give up anything for the chance to study in Vatican City, you know. The connections you make there can set you up for life—and, of course, there’s the Vatican library…"
He’d gone on like this for some time, with Yoongi hanging onto his every word, feeling grounded and elated at the same time, feeling like this would be the adventure of his life – and if he had to say goodbye to everything he’d known and start anew, well, wasn’t that the whole point?
Yoongi wakes up on the floor, because of course he does.
Well, technically, he’s still on the blow-up bed. It’s just that it’s not quite blown up anymore. It deflated completely overnight, and Yoongi can feel the ramifications of that as soon as he tries to sit up. His body feels like he got ran over by a train, or trampled by a bull, or like he slept on a hard wooden floor all night – same difference. He feels like he’s eighty years old and dying.
Seokjin is already setting the table for breakfast, carrying things from the kitchen to the living room. He notices that Yoongi’s awake and blinking blearily up at him from next to the radiator, and cracks up. “Rough night?”
Yoongi scowls. “Fuck you. This bed is a joke.”
“A few nights on it won’t kill you,” Seokjin waves his hand dismissively and goes to the kitchen again.
“My whole life is a joke,” Yoongi tells him grimly, and then he registers what Seokjin just said. “Wait—a few nights? Wasn’t it supposed to be just last night?”
Seokjin appears in his line of vision again, holding a bread basket and a jug of orange juice. “Okay, how long do you think it takes to get a new bed delivered? Five minutes?” He sets the food down on the table, sneaking a slice of cheese from the cheese plate.
“I don’t know!” Yoongi says, agitated enough to finally sit up, wincing in pain in the process. “Sue me for thinking you had some sort of a plan, or something. Not like it’s your literal job to take care of shit like this.”
“Just for that,” Seokjin points the slice of cheese at him, “you’re not getting any dessert today.”
“Fuck you and your dessert,” Yoongi tells him. “I can’t believe I have to say this again so soon, but I am not five years old.”
“Yeah, I wonder why it keeps coming up,” Seokjin snorts. “But sure, be my guest. You’re getting dessert but you’re not getting any coffee, how’s that?”
As if this morning couldn’t get any worse, that’s when Replacement appears in the door. His eyes are nearly closed, he’s still in his pyjamas – not actual pyjamas, rather a ratty grey t-shirt and sweatpants – and there’s a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.
He shuffles towards the table, picks up an empty glass and is about to turn and leave when he glances up and makes eye contact with Yoongi, who’s still sitting cross-legged on the deflated air bed, leaning against the radiator, his eyes puffed-up from sleep and his hair definitely a mess.
“What?” Yoongi growls after a beat, when Replacement just stands there staring at him like it simply doesn’t compute why Yoongi would be in the parsonage’s living room at 9 am on a regular Saturday.
At the sound of Yoongi’s voice, Replacement flinches and seems to wake up, flushing and turning quickly to leave the room, glass in hand and the stupid toothbrush still in his mouth. He flushes, Yoongi notes with a weird flutter in his chest, rather easily.