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It honestly takes Yoongi a lot longer than it probably should to realize that he’s not the only person with a key to his apartment.
Of course, the landlord has a key. Yoongi knows that because he’s locked himself out of his apartment more times than he can count at this point. He’s lived in the same apartment for nearly three years now, but still, at least twice per month, Yoongi has to sheepishly call his landlord to let him into the apartment.
When Yoongi had signed his latest lease, he noticed that there was an added clause regarding fees, stating that if the landlord had to come to the apartment between the hours of eight p.m. and eight a.m. to help a locked-out tenant, additional fees would be added to the next month’s rent. Yoongi isn’t self-centered, he knows that the world doesn’t revolve around him, but he knows that this particular addendum is because of him.
But besides the landlord, Yoongi should be the only person with a key to his apartment. There’s only his copy of the key and the landlord’s original key. No one else should be able to get in there.
Which is why Yoongi should have noticed earlier that other people have a copy of his key.
It starts out innocently enough.
When Yoongi’s best friends, Taehyung and Namjoon, waltz into his apartment on a Sunday morning, Yoongi assumes that he drank too much the night before (okay, he knows that he drank too much the night before because he definitely sent his longtime crush Jungkook an embarrassingly long text message at approximately 11:30 p.m.) and forgot to lock the front door to his apartment.
The second time that it happens, Yoongi is on a FaceTime call with Jungkook, and he really thinks that he might finally ask the younger boy out on a date.
And then, his neighbor Seokjin bursts through his door with a loud, “Honey, I’m home.”
Yoongi jumps slightly and Jungkook purses his lips to give Yoongi an unimpressed stare, says that he didn’t want to impose on their alone time, and hangs up before Yoongi could even explain that Seokjin is just his annoying neighbor who is way too chatty in the elevator turned good friend and nothing more.
Yoongi thinks he can’t be blamed for not realizing that Seokjin shouldn’t have been able to get into his apartment because he was too busy trying to convince Jungkook that he didn’t have a boyfriend.
Yoongi starts to think something is up the third time it happened.
See, Yoongi has a favorite cafe in the suburb that he lives in. He’s not quite in the center of Seoul, but a fairly short bus ride gets him to his job, it’s less expensive to live a little outside of the city, and he likes being near his favorite dog park, his favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and his favorite cafe.
And it’s not just his favorite cafe because Jungkook is a barista there. Jungkook is a barista there, the best barista in the whole suburb, in Yoongi’s humble opinion, but that’s not the only reason that Yoongi likes that cafe so much.
He absolutely loves the red velvet cupcakes that the owner- a wonderfully sweet ahjumma- bakes every Friday morning.
Yoongi never misses a chance to go in and get one of them. Seriously. It’s how he starts his day every single Friday. He knows that it will be a good day if he’s able to see Jungkook and have a delicious red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting.
But then he gets sick.
Yoongi wakes up in the morning, realizes he has an intense fever, and calls out sick at work for the first time in the year that he’s been working for the small record label. He falls back to sleep pretty much immediately.
When, hours later, Yoongi wakes up and wants nothing more than to drink three glasses of water consecutively, he reluctantly rolls out of bed.
At first, Yoongi doesn’t notice anything, simply grabbing a glass out of his cupboard and drinking so much water that he kind of feels nauseated.
But, then.
Sitting on his counter is a box with a single red velvet cupcake inside.
“What the fuck,” Yoongi says.
But, still, Yoongi plays it off as being sick. He must have, somewhat delirious with his fever, gone to the cafe still so that he could get his weekly dose of Jungkook and a cupcake.
Sure, he doesn’t remember going, is fairly certain that he fell back into a dead sleep the second that he got off the phone with his Human Resources director, but there’s nothing else rationally that could have happened.
Right?
Wrong.
Yoongi realizes, about two weeks after the red velvet cupcake incident, that something weird as fuck is going on.
He’s on his way home from the gym. He doesn’t know why (he does), but Yoongi let Jungkook talk him into going to the gym at seven in the morning on a Saturday. It was worth it- definitely worth it- but Yoongi knows that if he doesn’t soak his entire body in epsom salt right now, he’s going to deeply regret it and might not allow himself to go there again. And he definitely wants to have free reign to ogle Jungkook’s muscles in the future.
When he gets to his floor, though, Yoongi sees someone coming out of his apartment.
At first, Yoongi assumes that it’s his landlord. The light in his dining room hasn’t been turning on recently, and he’s been sending his landlord text messages for days begging for it to get fixed.
Then Yoongi recognizes one of the boys who works at the library with Namjoon.
“Hoseok?”
Hoseok jumps, then turns around. “Oh, hey, Yoongi-hyung!”
“Hi,” Yoongi says, stunned. “What were you doing in my apartment?”
Hoseok looks back at Yoongi’s door like he’s confused. When Yoongi is the one confused. Why the fuck was Hoseok in his apartment?
“Oh,” Hoseok laughs. “You had an overdue book!”
Yoongi nods. He had planned to return it later in the day when Namjoon would be working so that he could beg for the late fee to be waived. Though Namjoon would tell him that his late fee is very important to keep the public library running and Yoongi would just end up donating more money than the late fee was even worth.
“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees. “That doesn’t mean that you come to my house to get it?”
“But,” Hoseok says, pausing. “I have your key.”
Yoongi blinks. “You have my what?”
“Your key. Like, your spare?”
“What the fuck?”
Hoseok immediately begins apologizing, seeming genuinely sorry and like he thought that it was normal for him to have a spare key of Yoongi’s, despite them being acquaintances, at best.
“I just thought that everyone had a spare key to your apartment,” Hoseok says. “Just last week, the ahjumma from the cafe was talking about how she brought you a red velvet cupcake and Seokjin uses his to sneak over and make sure that your plants are watered because he says that you’re really bad at taking care of them-”
“What the fuck,” Yoongi mutters again. “Where did everyone get a copy of my key from?”
“Probably that hardware store near the library where they recently started making copies for keys,” Hoseok says. “That would be my guess.”
“Then I guess I’ll head down there.”
Yoongi takes Jungkook with him. He mostly wants to see Jungkook again and beg him to let Yoongi use the foam roller that he knows Jungkook has at home after they’re done, but he also thinks that he could use Jungkook’s big biceps to scare whoever at the hardware store is giving out multiple copies of his key.
“Where is the key copying?” Yoongi asks one of the workers at the cash register, hoping to get this over with quickly.
The young girl points toward the back of the store, muttering something about how someone is always looking for the pretty, new boy.
Yoongi grabs Jungkook’s hand and drags him toward the back of the store. He’s so confused. Doesn’t have any clue how his key (that only he and the landlord should have a copy of) ended up in the back of this hardware store that he’s literally never been inside of in his life.
But all of Yoongi’s confusion clears the second that he sees the boy behind the counter. Because Yoongi knows this boy. Yoongi’s seen his face as his best friend scrolled through this boy’s Instagram account for the thousandth time.
“Park Jimin,” Yoongi says, understanding exactly how his key ended up here.
Jimin, to be fair to him, probably has no clue that he’s been making copies of Yoongi’s apartment key. And he definitely looks confused. Clearly he has no clue who Jungkook or Yoongi are.
“Hi,” Jimin says, putting on his best customer service smile. “How can I help you?”
“Do you know someone named Kim Taehyung?” Yoongi asks, sighing. He knows the answer already, but he just has to make sure.
Jimin nods, a blush rising on his face. “I do,” he says. “Um, how do you know him?”
Before Yoongi can answer, though, Taehyung rounds the corner of an aisle, saying very loudly, “Jimin-ssi, you’re never going to believe this! I lost my key- Oh.”
Yoongi narrows his eyes. “Yeah. Oh.”
“Well, Yoongi-hyung, isn’t it fancy meeting you here? And, oh, this must be Jungkookie,” Taehyung says, very obviously trying to change the subject. “I’ve heard wonderful things about you! You’re even prettier than hyung said that you were; I can see why he’s so smitten! And I definitely understand what he means about your waist-”
“I will kill you twice,” Yonogi hisses. “Once for getting at least three copies of my key made-”
“I think that I’ve made at least ten copies of that key,” Jimin says, looking terrified. “Oh, god, I’m going to get fired and then arrested.”
Yoongi turns to Jimin. “No, don’t worry. You won’t get into trouble. It’s not your fault that Taehyung is a dumbass who doesn’t have enough confidence to just talk to the boy that he likes-”
“He’s at work, hyung! You can’t ask someone out at work for moral reasons!”
“You can ask me out,” Jimin says.
Yoongi glares. “No, he can’t! Taehyung, how much money did you spend to get ten copies of my keys made? And how did you even get my key? And who did you give all of those copies to?”
“That’s a lot of questions,” Taehyung says, not looking guilty in the slightest. “Wait, did Jimin say that I can ask him out?”
“Wait,” Jungkook says, halting the chaos of conversations happening around him. Then, to Taehyung, he asks, “Why didn’t you just get copies of your house key made?”
Taehyung smiles sheepishly. “My apartment complex has a keypad with a pin for entry. I don’t have a key.”
“Taehyung,” Jimin says, voice sounding soft and Yoongi absolutely does not know what to make of that. “You didn’t have to get ten copies of his key made just to talk to me.”
Jungkook leans toward Yoongi and whispers, “Why didn’t Jimin question how often he loses his key?”
Yoongi shrugs.
“I did hear you say that I could just ask you out,” Taehyung laughs. “Which I am now doing. Asking you out, that is.”
“Of course I want to go out with you,” Jimin says, moving from behind the counter to hug Taehyung. “Do you really think that I wasn’t suspicious about you losing keys all of the time-”
“-Called that-”
“But I didn’t want you to know that I knew. Because then I might have scared you off and I really just wanted to keep seeing you. Hoped that you were going to ask me on a date.”
When Park Jimin and Taehyung look suspiciously close to making out in front of the entire store, Yoongi grabs Jungkook’s hand once again and pulls him out of the hardware store. Truly, Yoongi hopes that he never has to go inside it again.
“Great,” Yoongi sighs. “Now I have to figure out who all has keys to my apartment.”
Jungkook, face bright red, says, “Well, you know that I never got a copy of your key.”
“No?” Yoongi asks, but he figures that it makes sense. Taehyung seemed to have been meeting Jungkook for the first time in the back of the hardware store.
Jungkook shakes his head. “I didn’t, but I think it would be cool if I got one. You know, being able to let myself into your apartment. See you whenever I want to.”
“You’re always welcome to see me.”
“But what if I wanted to see you more? See you inside your apartment and inside mine and keep seeing you at the cafe and keep going to the gym,” Jungkook says, words coming out quickly. “But we could also go out to eat together and to the movies and on walks in the park and be real, proper boyfriends.”
Yoongi smiles, wide and gummy and happy. He’s been trying to ask Jungkook out for months, but really hasn’t been able to yet. “Well, that’s a lot of places that you want to go. Lots of copies of keys that we’ll need Jimin to make.”
Jungkook grins back. “I think we just need two copies. One for my house and one for yours.”
And Yoongi figures that he would have gotten a date with Jungkook eventually, but if catching Kim Taehyung in the middle of a key-theft scheme is what it took to get a date with Jungkook, then Yoongi can’t be too upset about the key thing.