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Seokjin looked silently at the calendar. October 13th. He gnawed at his lips and rocked on his heels, biting his lip nervously. His hands had long ago crumpled the few bills that Jimin had left with him, every day in hopes that Seokjin would buy something to eat.
“Seaweed… sesame oil… beef… And.. eggs.. onion..” Seokjin whispered nervously to himself. He turned and patted around for a piece of paper and something to write with. He grabbed a pen on the counter and tore a piece of the envelope that had come with spam mail, carefully writing ingredients. He counted out the bills and folded them carefully into his pocket before shrugging on a large hoodie and pulling a cap low on his face.
He sucked in a deep breath and made sure he had his key before carefully turning the door knob. No straggling fans, as he’d been scared of. He swallowed thickly and his teeth chattered as he let the door shut behind him. It was the first time he was stepping foot outside since 3 months ago when –
He shook his head and refused to let himself think about it. He took the elevator all the way to the parking level, hoping that there would be less eyes there. He hugged his chest and looked around, satisfied at the lack of fangirls, and hurriedly made his way out. He hadn’t been outside since Jimin brought him here, but the day they moved in he’d seen the small grocery store.
The man at the counter didn’t seem too concerned with him, so Seokjin grabbed what he needed. “Is – is there a butcher nearby?” He managed to ask.
“Yeah, in the complex with all the other stores. It’s on the first floor. Never seen it?”
Seokjin shook his head and bit the inside of his mouth. “Thanks.” He hugged the groceries to his chest and wondered if he should just go back home. But he couldn’t make the soup without the beef. He willed himself to make the walk, head bowed with his face basically buried in the green of the leek. Fortunately the complex was more old fashioned than he thought, and most people were ahjummas gabbing away with their bowl of oden. He wandered the narrow pathway between stores, but stopped when something at the stationary store caught his eyes.
He paused, shook his head, and dashed to the butcher. He carefully chose the beef he wanted and grabbed the bags tightly in his hands but he found himself pausing at the stationary store again. He pressed the cap lower down onto his face and grabbed a few things to rings them up.
“You look familiar,” the woman said, ringing him up cheerfully. “I swear I’ve seen you somewhere.”
“Oh.” Seokjin felt his heart seize. “I-“ He grabbed desperately at his groceries bag. “I-“
She raised her eyebrow at him and handed him the change, and he managed to squeeze out an apology before turning and running. His teeth were chattering and he gripped the bags in his arms.
He ended up running headfirst into a tree. He blinked, stunned, and then he looked down at himself and around. At 11AM on a week day, there was no one around. He was running from nothing. He swallowed and tried to calm his trembling, and just hugged the groceries tighter before he realized he had eggs. “Oh, no..” He bit his lip and opened the plastic bag, and sure enough the eggs were crushed. He just hoped some were salvageable.
He took a shuddered breath and adjusted his cap and hood. It’s going to be okay, hyung, Jimin always told him, whenever he woke up crying so hard his eyes hurt. I’m right here and it’s going to be all right.
He didn’t know how he managed to get back home, half out of his mind, but he almost collapsed when the door shut behind him. Seaweed soup, he told himself. Maybe egg rolls. Skew some together with shrimp they had in the fridge because Jimin had bought a bunch on sale. Right.
He washed his hands and carefully took out his small bag from the stationary store first. He’d bought a small plastic box – pink with some random princess on it that probably meant it was aimed for little girls – a cheap plastic ring, and a few hair pins. It looked pretty pathetic by itself but Seokjin hoped Jimin would remember.
He carefully peeled off the princess sticker, and without the gaudy anime character the box looked a little better. He put the hair pins and the ring into the box and carefully set it on the table. He stared at it, sighed, and tossed it into the trash. “Stupid, Seokjin,” he mumbled, “he gets all the expensive things from fans and you think he’ll be happy with pieces of plastic. Dumb, dumb, dumb.” He bit his bottom lip and made his way into the small kitchen instead.
He started on the soup first, pushing the beef into a big pot of water to drain the blood first. He soaked the seaweed and grabbed the sesame oil, trying to remember when the last time he’d made the soup was.
..Yoongi. It was Yoongi. He’d left before he could make for either Jungkook or Namjoon. His hands shook and he tried to calm himself, and he turned to instead work on the skewers. He could get them started, and then make egg rolls. Keep his mind busy.
He managed to skewer everything and started the fire for the egg rolls, managing to salvage most of the broken eggs. He set both the skewers and egg rolls aside when he was done, making a note to heat them later.
He set up the beef stock first, redoing the water before starting the fire up so the water could boil. He reached for the seaweed he’d been soaking – and ended up knocking it to the floor.
He stared, his teeth chattering, a taunting what can you do right ringing in his head. “Jimin,” he whispered, “It’s Jimin’s birthday.” He bent to shakily pick up the bowl. He could just soak another batch. He had some left and he had time. Jimin’s birthday. He wanted to make a birthday meal for Jimin. Jimin, who’d given up everything for him.
And he couldn’t even prepare a meal right. He curled up, burying his face in his knees, and cried.
--
“Hey, hyung, I’m home.” Jimin rubbed his head. Apparently, BTS being on ‘hiatus’ for now didn’t mean he didn’t have schedules, for some reason. He’d been hoping that he could spend more time with Seokjin as he healed, but they were called to work harder than before. The others had testily mentioned his birthday, and he got the usual load of presents (he was honestly a bit surprised at that). He pushed the boxes and bags in front of the couch, thinking he’d open them with Seokjin. “Hyung?”
His first bet was Seokjin was asleep – he tended to do a lot of that after that day, but steam from the kitchen alerted him. Was Seokjin cooking? Figuring that meant he was getting better, Jimin quickly paced to the kitchen. “Hey, hyung, what’re you ma-Hyung!”
He dove immediately for Seokjin curled up on the tiles. He shut off the fire, quickly grateful that nothing had caught on fire, and realized there was water all over the floor. “Jimin?” Seokjin whispered, and Jimin winced at how bloated his eyes were. “I – I tried to do something and I messed up again.” He trembled and tried to draw away from Jimin. “I’m so sorry.”
Jimin grabbed him and tugged him closer into a tight hold. “Sorry for what? God, hyung, that egg looks delicious.” He popped a neatly cut roll into his mouth and grinned. It was way too salty but he chewed thoughtfully through it. “Delicious. Did you spill something? How long have you been sitting in the water? Come on.” He coaxed Seokjin up onto his feet and pushed the soggy seaweed away with his feet.
“I wanted you to have a proper birthday meal,” Seokjin whispered, numbly watching Jimin tug the wet socks from his feet and coax him to take his pants off. “I couldn’t even finish that.”
“Spilling the water wasn’t your fault.” Jimin reached up and pressed a kiss on Seokjin’s nose. “The eggs were great, and I want to try the skewers, too.” He climbed into the bed next to Seokjin and held him, rocking him. “You did nothing wrong, hyung. Nothing. Okay?”
Seokjin just buried his face into Jimin’s shoulder and Jimin ignored the way it quickly soaked through with tears. He held Seokjin until Seokjin fell limp in his arms, and quietly, slowly slipped his arm out from under Seokjin. He padded to the kitchen, cleaning up the mess and soaking a new batch of seaweed in the water. He didn’t think he could salvage the eggs but a bite of the skewers told him the seasoning was fine, so he quietly plated the skewers and tossed the eggs into the trash, wrapping up the plastic bag so Seokjin wouldn’t see.
He quickly ran to the grocery store, grabbed a carton of eggs, ran back, and hoped he wouldn’t mess up simple internet recipes.
--
“Hey, hey.” Jimin shook Seokjin awake. Seokjin raised his face from the pillow he’d buried into and Jimin’s jaw dropped. “Hey, what happened to your face!?” He grabbed Seokjin’s chin and turned it to the side. “Hyung, what happened?”
Seokjin blinked at him. “What happened?”
Jimin raised his hand and carefully thumbed the bruise and scrape on Seokjin’s cheek. “How did you get this?” He bent close to examine the injury. Seokjin winced when Jimin brushed his thumb over it. “Hyung, how did this happen? Did – did someone hit you when you were outside?”
Seokjin hung his head. “.. I ran into a tree.”
Jimin blinked. “..What?”
Seokjin ducked his head but Jimin could see his ears were bright red. “I ran into a tree. I got scared when one of the ahjummas recognized me so I ran with my head down and ran into a tree.”
Jimin didn’t respond so Seokjin looked up, and when their eyes met, Jimin burst out laughing and Seokjin’s blush darkened. “Sorry, sorry.” Jimin tried to take deep breaths and then burst out snickering again. “Right. Sorry. I thought someone hit you. You don’t have to be scared someone will recognize you, hyung. Come on, let’s put something on that and then eat. I finished the seaweed soup. I’m not sure how it’ll taste, but it’s done.”
Seokjin fumbled with his fingers. “I’m sorry. I was going to make it. It’s your birthday…”
Jimin grinned. “Hey, you going out to get these things for me is enough of a present. But seriously, hyung, it’s okay if someone recognizes you.” He tugged Seokjin out of bed and grabbed the small first aid kit, spreading the ointment over Seokjin’s cheek. Upon further inspection he noticed Seokjin’s knuckles were scraped as well, so he carefully patted ointment on before pulling band-aids over the scrapes.
Seokjin sighed, “I don’t want to cause you any trouble, Jimin. You’ve given up so much for me as is.”
Jimin pressed a firm kiss onto Seokjin’s nose. “Nonsense. You’re the one that gave up everything. You have enough to deal with right now, hyung. Don’t worry about anything but getting better, okay? I’ll shield you from everything else.” Seokjin just leaned wordlessly against Jimin and Jimin pressed another kiss to the top of his head. “Come on, let’s eat.” He went to toss away the band-aid peels in the trash and paused. “What’s this?”
Seokjin jumped up from his seat. “Nothing.” He reached to take the box, but Jimin had already opened it. “It’s nothing,” Seokjin flushed darkly. “I was being dumb.”
Jimin stared at the small toys in the box. “Dubai, right?”
Seokjin paused. “Oh… You remembered.”
“Of course I remember. Why’d you throw this away?” Jimin pulled out the ring and the packet of hair pins. He ran back into their bedroom and brought back out a small chain to loop through the ring and looped it around his neck. “I’m going to keep it until it breaks. I don’t think the pins will last as long, but I’m keeping them until they break. Now come on and eat, hyung.”
--
Jimin thumbed the plastic around his neck. He took it off for stages when he had no choice, and it was basically nothing but a lump of plastic now with the color job completely gone, but he’d kept it along with the pink plastic.
“I keep telling you that I’ll get you another one,” Seokjin mumbled, placing the final dish on the table. Jimin was half convinced the table would break under the weight of the food. “I can’t believe you still have that.”
Jimin grinned. “No way. It’s the most valuable present I’ve ever got.” He leaned back and took a moment to awe at everything Seokjin had prepared. Seokjin had come a long way, from being so terrified he couldn’t even see where he was going, to being able to legitimately go grocery shopping. He still got scared but it was nowhere near as much as he used to, and his terror episodes came rarely and lasted much shorter. “Well, maybe second.” He grinned, and Seokjin raised an eyebrow at him. Jimin stood and leaned over the table to press his lips against Seokjin’s. He felt Seokjin smile against him and thought definitely second.