Chapter Text
Kim Seokjin lived a very normal life.
He had reusable grocery bags. A preferred brand of soy milk. A child with mild separation anxiety and a husband who loved tangerines. He paid bills on time. He watered plants (with a 40% survival rate). He owned one pair of good jeans and a wallet full of reward cards he never used.
Today, his single objective was simple:
Pick up Jungkook from preschool.
Don’t forget the juice box in the car.
Don’t cry if Jungkook cries.
Resist the urge to run away to the mountains.
Normal.
Very normal.
Except—there was a tree that hadn’t been there before.
Not a literal tree. That would’ve been less unsettling.
This was a man. Tall. Broad. The kind of broad that didn’t come from pilates or morning jogs, but from carrying things Seokjin preferred not to name. He wore a cap pulled low, the universal uniform of “please don’t notice me,” which of course made him the most noticeable thing on the street.
Seokjin slowed. Blinked. Walked two steps forward.
So did the tree.
He narrowed his eyes.
Two more steps. The tree moved again.
“Nope,” Seokjin muttered. “Not fucking today, Satan.”
He adjusted his bag, quickened his pace toward the preschool gate. The art of looking casual while internally screaming was something he had perfected long ago — right alongside assembling IKEA furniture without instructions and convincing a toddler to eat vegetables.
The man kept pace. Close enough to be felt, far enough to be deniable.
And then, mercifully, the school gate creaked open.
“Apppppa!”
In a blur of tiny sneakers and too-long sleeves, Jungkook hurtled toward him like physics had given up. Seokjin’s chest eased immediately — softer, looser, the way it always did at the sight of him.
“Oof—!” Seokjin’s breath caught as the full weight of four-year-old determination slammed into his chest. He staggered back half a step, arms wrapping around the bundle of energy before it could take them both down.
“Careful, little nugget,” he muttered, half-laughing, half-winded.
“I missed you,” he added more softly, crouching to steady him. Jungkook smelled like crayons and yogurt and something vaguely chemical, probably glue. Seokjin pressed a quick kiss to the crown of his head.
“You’re late,” Jungkook accused, very serious.
“I’m literally ten seconds early.”
“You’re still late,” Jungkook declared, completely unbothered by facts.
Seokjin stood up, scanning the sidewalk.
The man was gone.
Just… gone.
No rustling footsteps. No car engine. Just a shadow where someone had been, and the ghost of suspicion crawling up Seokjin’s neck.
He squinted toward the end of the street. Nothing.
“Appa, can we get ice cream?” Jungkook asked, bouncing now.
“We have ice cream at home.”
“Liar,” Jungkook said, deadpan.
Seokjin sighed, tugging his cap lower.
“I can’t believe you’re four and already trying to trick me.”
“I’m five soon!”
“God, help me.”
They walked down the street — one of them skipping, the other mentally preparing a very strongly worded text to someone he hadn’t spoken to in years.
Because Kim Seokjin was, technically, a very normal man.
By the time they reached the apartment complex, Seokjin had almost convinced himself he’d imagined it. Almost.
Jungkook insisted on walking on the edge of every curb, every tile, every imaginary beam of balance that didn’t exist.
His tiny hand swung wide in Seokjin’s grip, tugging left and right like a kite that refused to fly in a straight line. Sometimes he sang — off-key, loud, and proud. Sometimes he narrated entire dinosaur sagas that made no sense and demanded full emotional investment.
“And then the dinosaur said nooo, because he didn’t like cheese—Appa, are you listening?”
“Of course,” Seokjin hummed. “Dinosaur. Cheese. Very high stakes.”
Jungkook nodded solemnly. “He gets a tummy ache. Like Daddy. When he eats cheese.”
Seokjin’s lips twitched. “Ah, you mean lactose intolerant?”
Jungkook ignored the word, as always, but nodded fiercely. “Yes. That.”
“The real villain of the Cretaceous era,” Seokjin said, straight-faced.
By the time they climbed the stairs, Seokjin’s mind had slowed enough to feel ordinary again. Their apartment was two blocks down, third floor, second door on the right. The walk was short but sacred — one of Seokjin’s favorite parts of the day. The part where his life was quiet, where he could believe — even for just fifteen minutes — that this was all he was. Father. Husband. Story-listener. Dinosaur sympathizer.
Until—
“Appa?” Jungkook pointed at the doormat. “Why do we have a letter?”
Seokjin froze.
There was an envelope.
Not in the mailbox.
On the floor.
That, by itself, wasn’t damning. Sometimes the mailman was lazy. Sometimes Yoongi dropped it there in a rush.
But Seokjin hadn’t received a letter in years.
Jungkook darted forward before Seokjin could stop him, holding it up with sticky fingers. “It’s just lines.”
Seokjin crouched, plucking it carefully from his grip. “That’s because you’re still learning to read, silly.”
“Nooo,” Jungkook whined, stamping a little foot. “It’s not letters. It’s lines. Like not-words!”
Seokjin looked down at the paper.
And his breath caught.
Years of training moved faster than thought. The patterns hit him like gunshots: slanted diagonal cuts, four tight parallel slashes, the curve that wasn’t a curve. The kind of ink that smudged under pressure — invisible to the untrained eye, sharp as a knife to his.
Cipher.
His jaw tightened.
The neurons fired. The codes clicked. His blood spiked in his ears.
He could read it.
And what he read — he didn’t like.
His grip on the paper curled a little too tight.
“Appa?” Jungkook tugged his sleeve. “Open the door. I wanna go in.”
Seokjin swallowed hard, forcing a smile. He tapped Jungkook’s nose.
“You’re right, little dinosaur. Even I can’t read this.”
Jungkook’s grin bloomed wide. “See? Told ya!”
Seokjin unlocked the door.
He looked once, over his shoulder. Down the stairwell. Across the hall.
Nothing.
Just quiet.
Too quiet.
His heart was pounding a little too hard in his ribs, a beat off rhythm, an old song he thought he’d never have to hear again. His fingers ached with the familiar twitch of instinct — fight, flee, protect.
He slammed the door shut behind them.
Locked it twice.
Because Kim Seokjin was, technically, a very normal man.
But he was also — just maybe — the kind of man who had a knife hidden away in his clothes.
Just in case.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆:. ───
Seokjin forgot about it.
Almost.
But forgetting required free brain space, and all his was currently occupied by the mathematical tragedy unfolding at his kitchen table.
“Two plus three,” Seokjin said patiently. “You did this yesterday. Remember? Two apples plus three apples. How many?”
Jungkook, frowning ferociously, tapped his pencil against the worksheet. “...These don’t look like apples?”
“Then let's imagine, Kookie. Apples. Two apples. Plus three apples. That makes…?”
“Five.”
“Good. See? Now it’s candies.” He pointed at the next problem. “Two candies plus three candies. Same thing.”
“Noooo,” Jungkook groaned, collapsing dramatically onto the table. “That’s apples. This is candies. Different!”
Seokjin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Math is not a betrayal of your trust. Try again.”
“But Appa,” Jungkook whined, rolling his head to the side, “Candies and apples are not friends. I eat candies and I don’t eat apples.”
“That’s—” Seokjin opened his mouth. Closed it again. “You know what? Fine. You ate three candies and then two more, how many now?”
“No, I didn't eat any because you hid them, ” Jungkook sulked.
And just as Seokjin was coaxing him upright again, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Jungkook squealed, springing to life like he hadn’t just faked his own death over math homework.
“No—Jungkook!” Seokjin called after him. “How many times do I have to tell you? We don’t open doors without Appa—!”
“But it’s Daddy!” Jungkook announced gleefully, already twisting the knob with fingers still stained with orange marker and some mystery snack.
And sure enough, there he was.
Min Yoongi, framed in the doorway like a tired painting. His work bag hung off one shoulder. A thin layer of exhaustion pressed into the corners of his eyes. His glasses were slightly crooked, his tie half-loosened, and he still managed to look like the calmest person alive.
“Hey, Kook,” Yoongi murmured, bending slightly to catch the incoming hug.
Jungkook barrelled into him, small arms barely wrapping around Yoongi’s leg. Then, in the next breath, he was trying to climb him like a jungle gym.
“Appa says you’re too small to be a jungle gym,” Jungkook giggled, clinging to Yoongi’s arm.
Seokjin appeared a beat too late, heart still thumping from the habit of panic. He arched an eyebrow. “He’s not wrong. You’re going to snap your poor daddy in half.”
Yoongi huffed a quiet laugh, shifting Jungkook to his hip like it was second nature. “I deal with students all day who think I’m a stepstool. He’s just training young.”
Seokjin’s lips twitched despite himself. Their conversations always went like this — tiptoeing around anything real, filling the gaps with domestic nothings. Careful. But comfortable, too.
“Hey,” he said finally, soft.
“Hey,” Yoongi smiled back, warm but quiet. “I’ll just freshen up.”
“I’ll bathe with Daddy!” Jungkook declared, already halfway through unbuttoning his superhero shirt.
Seokjin groaned. “No, you will not. You’re going to help me set the table. Come on, kitchen duty soldier.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts.’ Your daddy’s tired. He needs five minutes of peace or he’ll start seeing things.”
Yoongi chuckled softly, pushing his glasses up.
“It’s okay, really—”
“It’s not okay,” Seokjin cut in, shepherding Jungkook toward the kitchen. “Go. Shower. You smell like corporate misery.”
Yoongi’s smile widened, the kind that looked effortless, and he nodded. “Roger that.”
He disappeared down the hallway, and Seokjin took a moment — just one — to look.
Four years.
That’s how long it had been.
He still remembered the day they were matched — assigned, really. Marriage is cover, Agent Jin. You’ll blend in.
He’d wondered why. Of all families, of all people — why this one? A young professor without a tenure and with a baby. A quiet life. No known enemies. No pattern that matched any of their usual cases. And yet, they asked him to marry into it. To sleep under the same roof. To play husband and father.
And so, he had.
At first, it was all performance. Smiles. Chores. Packed lunches. Civil routines. He kept the ring on. Kept his guard up. Never slept too deeply.
But over time, it blurred.
The lines between cover and comfort.
Between acting like he cared, and actually caring.
And now—?
He looked toward the hallway.
Yoongi’s toothbrush sat next to his.
Yoongi’s quiet footsteps were just part of his life now.
And yet.
Four years in, and it still felt like they stood on opposite sides of a glass wall. Roommates. Friendly. Familiar. But never close enough to reach.
“Appa, do I have to carry the spoons?” Jungkook whined from the kitchen.
Seokjin blinked, pulled himself back.
“Yes,” he called out. “And the chopsticks. ”
Dinner was simple — rice, kimchi, soft tofu stew.
Jungkook babbled through most of it, swinging his feet under the table, stuffing his cheeks with alarming efficiency. Yoongi asked about school. Seokjin reminded Jungkook to chew. Yoongi passed him the water jug without looking. Seokjin took it with a quiet thanks.
It was warm. It was routine.
It was almost real.
And maybe that was the strangest part of all.
After dinner, Jungkook darted away with the speed only sugar could grant, leaving his kitchen duty half-finished. Seokjin muttered about deserters under his breath as he stacked the dishes, only to find Yoongi already at the sink, sleeves rolled up, rinsing bowls with methodical care.
“You don’t have to,” Seokjin said automatically, gathering chopsticks into a neat bundle.
Yoongi didn’t look over. “It’s fine. My hands need the hot water anyway. Lecture halls are freezing.”
There was a quietness to it, a rhythm they had fallen into — one washing, one drying, Jungkook humming some nonsense tune in the living room as he scribbled with his markers again.
Seokjin passed Yoongi a plate, their fingers brushing, just lightly. It was nothing. It was everything.
He caught himself staring at the droplets of water sliding down Yoongi’s wrist before snapping back to his task.
“Your students still terrorizing you?” he asked, half to fill the silence.
Yoongi gave the smallest of laughs, low and private. “Always. I think they band together to test my patience.”
“They picked the wrong person,” Seokjin muttered, drying the plate a little too briskly. “You’re impossible to shake.”
Yoongi tilted his head slightly, just enough that Seokjin caught the edge of his smile. Not wide. Not showy. Just… there.
And it did something to him. Something it shouldn’t.
Later, when Jungkook was finally wrestled into pajamas and tucked under his blanket fortress, Seokjin lingered in the doorway, watching Yoongi crouch by the bed. He adjusted Jungkook’s blanket with the same precision he used on a chalkboard, smoothed back his hair, and listened to him ramble about a dream he wanted to have.
“Goodnight, Kook,” Yoongi said softly.
“’Night, Daddy.”
Yoongi straightened, catching Seokjin’s gaze across the small room. For a second — one fragile, fleeting second — it felt like the glass wall between them thinned.
Then Yoongi clicked off the lamp, and the moment dissolved into shadow.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆:. ───
Morning came soft and deceptively ordinary.
Seokjin was willing — determined, even — to believe that whatever happened yesterday, the letter, the doubt gnawing at the edges of his chest, had been a mistake. An oversight. Something that would smooth itself out if he just leaned harder into the rhythm of routine.
At breakfast, Yoongi was leaning across the table, one hand steadying a glass of water while the other poked lazily at Jungkook’s round cheek.
“Up,” Yoongi murmured.
“Mm-mm,” Jungkook whined, swatting blindly, face buried in his arms. “Five more.”
“You’ve already had five more,” Yoongi countered, pressing another poke into his puffed cheek.
Seokjin placed a plate down with unnecessary force. “You’ll be here before your mother comes, right?”
“I will be. Don’t worry.” Yoongi didn’t look up, didn’t smile — though the corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to.
“What?” Seokjin demanded, indignant, as he set two neat lunch boxes on the table, one in front of Yoongi, the other before his still-slumped son. “You know she hates me.”
Yoongi’s voice stayed level. “She doesn’t. She just mothers you the way she mothers me.”
“She thinks I’m leeching off her darling son.”
“Jin,” Yoongi said simply.
The sound of it — trimmed, easy, folded down to something only Yoongi used — always caught Seokjin in the chest. He hated that it did. That a single syllable could feel both grounding and dangerous.
Yoongi went on, steady as ever, “She doesn’t hate you. And I’ll be there before she even arrives. I’ll help you with dinner, don’t worry.”
Seokjin sagged back against the counter, exhaling loud enough to make his point. But the corners of his lips tugged upward anyway.
“Fine. But if you’re not here—”
“I will be.” Yoongi finally looked at him then, gaze calm, expression barely-there amused. “Before she arrives.”
“Good,” Seokjin muttered, before slipping back into his seat.
Together, they reached out at the same time — two hands poking at opposite cheeks — until Jungkook yelped, finally sitting up in protest.
The day smoothed out from there, the way days always did. Packed lunches. School drop-off. Work hours scattered between the three of them. Afternoon errands. Chores that repeated themselves so often it was hard to tell them apart.
Almost everything was back to normal.
Almost.
The peace lasted until evening. Dinner came and went, full of chatter and the clink of chopsticks. By the time dishes were cleared and the teapot set on the table, the house had softened into something warm and deceptively safe.
Jungkook yawned wide, clinging to his cup of milk. Yoongi bent slightly to pass it to him, the warmth of the glass cradled between both their hands for a moment.
Seokjin sat across from them, his mother-in-law beside him, her posture straight, her gaze too sharp to miss. The steam curled upward between them, fragile threads dissolving into the air.
The quiet was not peace.
A normal sound in a normal house on a normal night.
The doorbell.
Seokjin shoots up immediately, his chair scraping back.
“I’ll get it.”
Yoongi glances up from his bowl, brows drawing faintly together, but Seokjin’s already at the door.
He peeks through the peephole. Lips flatten.
Outside, under the dim porch light, stands a delivery man. Cap low. Plain brown box in hand. Casual.
Too casual.
Seokjin mutters under his breath. “Namjoon, if this is you, I swear to god—”
The man looks up.
Smiles like he’s been caught with his hand in the national security cookie jar.
“Hyung,” the delivery guy says, voice unmistakable. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Seokjin opens the door just enough, peeking from the small space.
“Are you insane?” he hisses. “You show up dressed like a courier?”
“Hello to you too, Agent Jin.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Still your designation.”
Seokjin’s lips curl, the venom sharp. “Designation my dick, you bureaucratic shitstain. Try calling me that again and I’ll make sure you’re pissing sideways for the rest of your life.”
Namjoon exhales through a laugh, shaking his head. “I see your vocabulary’s as colorful as ever.”
They stand there — porch light haloing Namjoon’s too-familiar face, the box dangling carelessly from his grip. But Seokjin knows it isn’t the cardboard that weighs heavy; it’s everything Namjoon carries with him. The past. The agency. All the things Seokjin folded, and folded, and folded again, until they became small enough to tuck behind the rhythm of packed lunches and bedtime stories.
“You got our letter,” Namjoon says gently.
“You abandoned me,” Seokjin snaps. “You ghosted me for four years.”
Namjoon doesn’t flinch.
“That wasn’t—”
“The agency abandoned me,” Seokjin cuts in, sharper. “They told me to go deep, start a life, ‘maintain cover until further instructions.’ And then? Radio silence. My handler was dead, the emails I kept sending went unanswered, bounced back, or ignored. I didn’t know if I was burned, or forgotten, or—”
He laughs once, short and bitter, shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket.
“I thought maybe I was dead already. And then Yoongi and I… with Jungkook… I thought maybe this was it. Maybe the mission was the family.”
Namjoon’s voice is too soft.
“You made it real.”
“Of course I did. What else was I supposed to do? Look over my shoulder every time the mail was late?”
Silence. Namjoon holds his gaze steadily.
“Hyung,” he says finally. “This cover was temporary. But we need you back. One more mission.”
There it is.
Seokjin barks out a hollow laugh. “Undercover, Namjoon-ah? Four years? A legal marriage? Raising a kid? How much deeper do you want me to go? Should I fake an affair next? Adopt another child for the cause?”
He’s spiraling. He knows it.
But the words won’t stop. Because the house, the routine, the warmth—they’re real now, whether or not they were meant to be.
“Seokjin?”
Yoongi’s voice. Muffled.
Then louder: “Who is it?”
Seokjin freezes.
He cracks the door just enough to keep himself half outside, half in, his shoulder wedged against the frame.
“Delivery guy!” he calls back, too quick, too loud.
Footsteps pad closer. Yoongi’s hand lands on the knob from inside, trying to tug it wider.
“Delivery? This late at night?”
Seokjin presses the edge of the door tighter, palm braced flat against Yoongi’s chest through the narrow gap. He forces a laugh, thin and bright.
“Didn’t you hear me? Poor guy’s all kinds of confused. Messed up the unit numbers—this is for Mrs. Lee upstairs, not us.”
Yoongi frowns, peering over Seokjin’s shoulder at the shadow on the porch.
“But he knocked here—”
“Yeah, because he’s exhausted, probably. Overworked, underpaid. Work hours are in shambles right now,” Seokjin says quickly, waving vaguely toward Namjoon. “Capitalism. Inflation. The gig economy. Workers exploited across all hours—don’t you have a lecture about this?”
Yoongi blinks, half-ready to argue.
Seokjin grabs his wrist, voice dropping into falsely bright domesticity: “Okay, Professor Min Yoongi, come on. Dinner’s getting cold.”
For a moment, Yoongi studies him. Too long. Too careful.
Then he exhales, shrugging. “Fair point.”
And retreats.
Seokjin turns back. His mask slips.
“This was supposed to be over,” he says, low. “I was supposed to be done.”
Namjoon’s expression doesn’t change. “He’ll come for you, hyung. He’s already started.”
Seokjin shuts the door.
And presses his back against it, pulse hammering.
On the other side of the hall, Yoongi is coaxing Jungkook to finish his milk, his voice low and patient. Warm. Familiar.
It should be ordinary.
It should be safe.
But the peace is broken.
And Seokjin knows — no matter how many times he folds the secrets smaller, they won’t stay hidden forever.