Chapter Text
The board reads:
Special of the day: Lavender in Denial (violet honey tart, limited) "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken and also their croissants weren’t as good."
4:47 AM.
Yoongi likes this hour with a ferocity he's never tried to explain to anyone, the dark outside the windows that precedes the arrival of dawn, the warm pungent smell of levain, the way the baking lab in the back of Sugar Hour belongs entirely to him.
The baker stands at the center island in his oldest apron, black, soft from washing, with a small burn mark near the left pocket from an incident in 2019 he barely remembers. A thick, rainbow headband keeps his long, dark hair out of his face. He is kneading and he is thinking about indigo.
Specifically, the problem of obtaining indigo without resorting to artificial food dyes. This indigo gap in the rainbow that the natural world, in what Yoongi considers a significant oversight, has not adequately addressed.
The plan is clear, in his head at least. An assortment of sandwiches, each row in one color of the rainbow, already decided and non-negotiable. The kind of plan that arrives unwarranted but fully formed at 3 AM and is either genius or hubris. Six out of seven colors are sorted, all derived from the gifts of mother nature. He has freeze-dried beetroot for red, carrot powder for orange, saffron and turmeric for yellow, matcha for green, butterfly pea flower for blue, ube powder for the rich purple he projected in his mind. The lineup is solid. It is almost complete. Between blue and purple there is a color that is neither, and it exists, Yoongi has seen it in the world.
He just doesn’t know how to get it.
He contemplates it as he kneads and stares at his stand mixer beating the egg whites for the meringue.
He glances at his notebook, where he wrote: butterfly pea + controlled acid. test pH. indigo is a state of mind. The last part is crossed out. Just a line, enough to not make it unreadable, and enough to make a point.
He feels the green matcha dough as a living thing under his hands. It’s warm and resistant and airy in the way only fermented things are. He folds it with practiced movements, the kind of muscle memory that lives somewhere below thought. This is what he loves about bread, specifically. It requires presence and absence of mind at the same time. You cannot be somewhere else while bread is happening, you can forget the outside world, focusing on the kneading, the elasticity, the humidity. The dough will know if you don’t pay her enough attention.
By 5:30 he has seven test portions proofing in a row, each one a different color, each one labeled in his notebook with detailed proportions and a small question mark next to the indigo candidate, which is technically a very deep blue-purple and is going to have to accept being called indigo on a provisional basis until he figures it out.
He photographs the row of colored doughs for future reference.
He puts his phone back in his apron pocket, turns off the stand mixer and goes to start the new batch of madeleines, which have nothing to do with anything, least of all with the fact that a person he knows once lived in France for two years and might theoretically appreciate a properly buttery madeleine.
The madeleines are for the display case to be paired with cappuccino. Obviously.
Nestled in a small street in Jongno-gu, Sugar Hour has been there for three years and it’s like it was always meant to be. When Yoongi saw the corner venue, with big windows that allow the light to filter at every hour, and enough space to build a functional pastry lab, a display that contains all his creations and the right amount of seats so that customers have space without being cluttered, he immediately signed the lease.
The counter occupies the entire northern angle of the café, because pastries and cakes and baked goods are Yoongi’s priority. A small part, four stools total, is for customers that don’t want to linger but don’t want to buy to-go. There is a coffee corner where his employees navigate the most expensive coffee machine on the market and make it thrive, and next to it a small, crooked sliding door that gives direct access to the lab, Yoongi’s world.
The walls and the counter are all soft greens and creams and browns, and everything else is color. From the pastries themselves, the main characters of the business, to the assortment of mismatched tables and chairs, to the mugs. From the wall that showcases local artists' works, rotating every couple of weeks, to the plants in their colorful vases. From the wooden board where the menu of the day is written in blue chalk, to the pride flags scattered across the place.
Because Min Yoongi is queer, his pastries are queer, his employees are the queerest of them all, and his customers are either queer or allies, or out of his café.
It is a normal Monday, and what is a normal Monday without Jimin arriving late.
The short (one centimeter shorter than Yoongi and it's a very important detail to note) man arrives at 7:05 AM, a cheerful “good morning!” announcing his arrival. Despite his contract stating he is supposed to be there at 6:45 AM, Jimin always arrives at random times, or exactly when he chooses, and without fault his entrance in the café is preceded by loud talking and wild gestures.
This is normal. Jimin operates at a frequency slightly above the audible range of most mammals, and his volume in the morning correlates inversely with how recently he's had coffee, which means the first ten minutes of any given day are delivered at a pitch that makes the sugar jars vibrate faintly. Yoongi has worked around this by having Jimin's latte ready before the door opens. He hands it over without looking up. Jimin accepts it without interrupting himself. It’s a well-oiled machine.
Jungkook, his other employee, is more respectful of his contract-established hours, technically awake but mumbling something about laundry running away from him that suggests he is still in dreamland. His muscle memory still allows him to perform all the tasks required to get the café ready for opening.
Jimin hasn’t noticed it, or he doesn’t care much about it.
"...and then Sooyoung said that Ryujin said that the party was supposed to end at midnight but obviously it didn't end at midnight, nobody's party ends at midnight, that's a theoretical endpoint, so we were there until…"
Jungkook's eyes are open and oriented more or less forward, but the processing speed behind them is running at maybe forty percent. He has been cleaning the same mug for approximately ten minutes, nodding to Jimin’s blabbering.
"So I said to her, I said, Chaeryeong, that's not how tarot works, you can't just–" Jimin pauses. Looks at Jungkook. Looks at the mug. Looks at Yoongi. "How long has he been doing that?"
"He hasn’t taken his coffee yet,” he points out at a mug of Americano, now cold.
Jungkook keeps cleaning the mug like someone who has found his purpose. Jimin watches him for a moment with a fond and exasperated expression mixed with something softer that he covers quickly by draining half his latte.
Yoongi pays them zero attention, focused on the croissants that need to be filled. He considers his options. Jungkook is more skilled at piping, but with the state he’s in now he will probably fill the mug with cream instead. Jimin is functioning at high capacity, meaning he will eat half the cream before filling the croissants.
He sighs and picks the sac-a-poche.
Jimin prepares the roasts for the day, humming gently, giving up on recounting his weekend shenanigans to the barely awake Jungkook.
As if on cue, the youngest looks up from the mug. "Hyungie."
“Mh?”
"What about the tarots?"
Jimin’s smile is so bright, it burns Yoongi’s eyes. He begins exactly from where he left off, while preparing another Americano for his younger colleague.
Yoongi sighs. Hopeless idiots.
He plates a couple of cookies. He slides it in his employees’ direction without comment.
Jimin says "You're my favorite person alive."
Yoongi replies "You have latte foam on your lips."
The morning continues like a normal Monday, slow, then suddenly busy when people come in to get their caffeine fill before devoting their lives to capitalism. The cases fill up: the special of the day (Lavender in Denial, Yoongi came up with it at 2 AM and wrote it down with grim satisfaction, he loves his board and his weird names have become sort of institutional after three years), the croissants, the meringues, all sorts of tarts, the simpler banana bread and carrot cake, the small shortbreads shaped like various things depending on which molds he finds first, today's being crescent moons and one (1) extremely detailed cat that Jimin immediately names Vanilla and refuses to let anyone buy. The coffee machine hisses and steams. Since the rainbow bread doughs are still experimental, Yoongi stares with disappointment at the plain white sandwiches that currently occupy the savory portion of the display.
The Sugar Hour board is just inside, next to the door, facing the street showcasing Yoongi's handwriting: neat and slightly combative. A woman comes in at 8:15, reads the quote, and laughs with her whole body. Yoongi doesn't look up from covering his mini krapfens with powdered sugar but the corner of his mouth raises.
Hoseok arrives at 9:02 AM like a weather event that no one expects but has come to accept as a fact of life.
He comes through the door with the loudest “good morning, my darlings!” of the day. He smiles like he has decided that the day is his personal project, a project that Yoongi has never figured out in twenty years of knowing him.
Big sunglasses cover half of his face, pale pink, spring edition, probably more expensive than Yoongi's first oven. His coat is the precise color of apricot jam.
Like a shadow, his personal assistant, a poor guy named Soobin who has survived Hoseok’s energy for more than a year, trails behind him at a distance of exactly two steps, carrying a tote bag, a folder, a travel mug, and the dead inside expression of a Gen-Z young adult who has chosen this life deliberately and continues to rechoose it every morning.
"YoONGI," Hoseok greets him while occupying his stool, surrounded by vibrating energy, preparing for an announcement.
Yoongi has been on the receiving end of his announcements for years now and waits for it with resignation.
"Hob-ah," says Yoongi, leaning on the back counter.
"It's spring."
"I’m aware."
"It's been spring for six days and we have done nothing to celebrate this."
"We celebrated Jungkook not dying of allergies."
Jimin claps lightly in the background, expressing his pride. Jungkook blushes. No one comments.
Hoseok puts both hands on the counter and looks at Yoongi over the sunglasses like a lawyer about to make his most important case. Then he reaches towards the tote bag, Soobin holding it open with practiced efficiency, and produces a list. A real list, handwritten with color-coded annotations in Hoseok's large, looping script, three pages held together with a bright red paperclip.
He places it on the counter. "For your consideration.”
Yoongi reads it. He gets through Proposal 1 (A Spring Bloom Menu, color-coordinated, Hoseok has attached reference photographs) and Proposal 2 (Flower arranging workshop, collaborative with a florist he knows, “it will be beautiful, Yoongi, it will be so beautiful”) and most of Proposal 3, which begins so hear me out–
He produces his faithful pen, a giveaway gift from last year’s Pansexual Alliance Meeting, and takes the list.
Item 1: small checkmark.
Item 2: small checkmark.
Item 3: he reads more of it. He writes, in the margin, in small letters and therefore more devastating: what is wrong with you.
"I can feel the negative energy of your words," Hoseok shudders.
"It's feedback."
"It's judgment."
"I don’t see a difference."
Hoseok takes the list back, reads the margin note, and puts it against his chest with a wounded expression. Soobin, who has read Proposal 3 and agrees with the margin note, looks at the krapfens.
"I need to console myself,” Hoseok says, putting the list back in the tote bag. “Jungkook-ah, one coffee, please." He contemplates for a second. "Pink."
Jungkook, who has been listening to this entire exchange while making a matcha latte for a customer, nods with mild focus. He simply turns to the espresso machine and begins building something. He uses rose syrup, the hibiscus cold brew Yoongi makes on Sundays and oat milk steamed to exactly the right temperature with a splash of something that involves lychee. With time, both Yoongi and Jungkook have learned to trust the younger’s instincts and have never been disappointed.
He puts it on the counter.
It is pink. It is also, as far as anyone can tell, delicious.
The kid is truly a master of the coffee machine, Yoongi considers.
Hoseok makes a sound that should not come out of a human being. He picks it up. He takes a small sip. He looks at Jungkook with pure uncomplicated wonder, like he has given him exactly what he asked for without being able to explain what it was.
"Jungkookie," he says. “This is amazing!”
Jungkook ducks his head. "It's nothing, hyung."
"Soobin-ah," Hoseok puts the coffee back on the counter, adjusting the position so it catches the perfect amount of light, "take a picture."
Soobin, the official manager of Hoseok’s life and unofficial manager of Yoongi’s socials (it was supposed to be Jimin, but he quickly delegated the task when he saw the opportunity arise), already has the phone camera open. He is also already drafting a poll: Name this week's creation! Options will include: Pink Agenda, Rose-tinted Delusion (Yoongi's suggestion, inspired by Hobi’s glasses), hiBIscus Has Rights, and, inevitably, Think Pink, Be Gay.
The winner will be announced Thursday.
🥐🥐🥐
The lunch hour has its own atmosphere. Contrary to the central office areas, here it’s slower, warmer, the café filling with people who have decided that Monday deserves a good meal. Yoongi, that during this hour emerges from the lab to help out with the customers, manages the orders and the counter and the one moment when a tray of savory croissants nearly migrates off the edge because Jimin is gesturing too broadly while recounting the tarot incident to a customer who asked one polite question and is now fully invested.
He rights the tray. He says nothing. Jimin doesn't notice.
Namjoon and Seokjin arrive at 12:40, which is when they always arrive, because they have the regularity of tides and about the same amount of force. Namjoon is still talking before he sits down, which means he's roped his boyfriend into a debate since he went to get him for their daily lunch break, and Seokjin is looking for his cue to reply.
As soon as he sees them, Jungkook starts the coffee machine. These two have been regulars for so long that the Sugar Hour’s staff knows what they need from a glance.
"The point," Namjoon is saying, unwinding a scarf that is slightly too long for spring, but he doesn't know this yet, "is that connection isn't mystical. It's biological. Shared microbiome, pheromonal communication, electrical field sensitivity in certain species…"
"The point," Seokjin cuts in, sitting with a calm that contradicts his impatience, "is that you're describing the mechanism and calling it the whole thing. Which is like saying a song is just air pressure differentials."
Namjoon opens his mouth. Then closes it.
"One Americano and a Pink coffee, Hob-ah’s idea," Yoongi says, placing them down. Seokjin looks delighted by the pinkness of the coffee.
"Do you think," Namjoon begins, resting his head on his hand to look at Yoongi, his eyes analytical and sharp, "that living things share a fundamental energetic connection? Beyond biology?"
Yoongi looks at him. Then at Seokjin, who is waiting for him to validate his opinion and discredit his boyfriend’s.
"A sourdough starter is just flour and water. Give it time and the right conditions and it becomes something alive. Something that responds. Something that, if you're not paying attention, you start to feel responsible for." He picks up his tray. "Biology and spirit are arguing about the same bread."
He walks back to the counter.
There is silence.
Seokjin whispers, slowly, "He's on my side."
"He's on my side," Namjoon counters, already reaching for his notebook.
They look at each other and smile.
Neither of them is wrong, which was, of course, the point. Yoongi, behind the counter, does not smile. He sends Jimin to get their food order.
He wonders if today…
He stops his thoughts before they can manifest a face in his mind.
At 1:23 PM, the door opens, the crooked bell chimes with its slightly off sound, and a deep, soulful voice greets Sugar Hour.
“Hello!”
Yoongi doesn't see it happen. He hears the combination of sounds, he looks up from the display case, and something in his chest does a thing he would love to ignore but is incapable of.
He is gone before it finishes doing it.
This is perhaps not his finest moment, strategically. He is aware that moving from the front of the café to the kitchen at a pace that is more suitable for a marathon is not the behavior of a man who is fine. He is fine. He is simply needed in the kitchen, where there is focaccia that requires his emotional support.
The focaccia looks fine.
Yoongi should be glad but is mildly disappointed instead.
He stands next to it anyway, because the resting shelf for the leavened products is close to the small window that allows Yoongi to see the main area of his café.
And it’s right there, through the gap between the proving loaves, of which there are several, arranged in a completely natural and non-deliberate way that happens to provide sightlines to one specific spot, Yoongi stares.
Kim Taehyung moves through Sugar Hour leisurely, as every regular customer does, but also like the place is new to him each time, like he's noticing it in a different light. He has, Yoongi counts them, four books, which he is carrying in a stack against his chest with both arms wrapped around them. There is a small smudge of something (ink? charcoal? Yoongi aches to get a closer look) on his left cheekbone, below the eye, an improvised companion to the mole on his nose. His hair is the color of dark chocolate fondant just before the ganache breaks, warm and soft and catching the midday light coming through the window. Yoongi notes this and hates himself for it and now he wants to make the richest chocolate ganache to scratch that itch.
He watches him reading the board and a small smile making its way on his face at the croissant quote.
Then he watches as Taehyung finds his table, the one by the window, second from the left, which he has claimed through sheer consistency and which Yoongi does not consciously keep available, and set his books down with lazy slowness, as settling into his own home after a long day out.
He watches him look up at Jimin, who is already there, and order something, and the two exchange a brief conversation before Jimin comes back behind the counter.
Jimin finds him three minutes later. Yoongi’s eyes are fixed on the bread.
"Hyung."
"What?"
"Taehyung-ssi wants a vanilla latte and a slice of whatever you think is good today."
A beat.
"You took his order already, you can pick something."
"He said 'whatever pâtissier-nim thinks is good’ in that cute French accent of his. He was talking about you." Jimin pauses. "So stop being a gremlin, pick something that pairs up with a lemon kombucha and bring it to him."
"I'm busy."
Jimin looks at his boss. Then at the bread. The completely finished, perfectly proven, requiring-nothing bread. He raises an eyebrow. Yoongi feels that the eyebrow is judging him as well.
"You're just standing here."
"I need to make sure the bread rises well."
Jimin looks at him for a moment with an expression of such pure, affectionate exasperation that it bypasses irritation and arrives somewhere almost touching. Then he whispers, gently: "Yoongi-hyung."
"I'll send out the tart," Yoongi says. "The special one. It’s fresh and sweet, matches the kombucha."
"Okay," Jimin says. Not okay, you absolute disaster of a human being, even though that's the full sentence. “I will send Taehyung-ssi your regards.”
Yoongi plates the tart perfectly. Because he’s a professional, and not because he has a crush on a cute painter who moved back to Seoul from Paris three months ago, has a cute, sexy French accent and smiles with his whole face when he eats something Yoongi made. He adds a small edible, purple flower from the decorating stock next to the tart. This is absolutely standard.
He passes it to Jimin.
He does not go back behind the bread display. He stands at his counter, and makes things and does not look at the window table. He manages for approximately four minutes.
Then he looks.
Because he’s a weak man.
Taehyung is looking at the plate with his full attention, the same look he has when he stares at the local art wall, where now one of his watercolor works stands proudly. Yoongi has noticed that look, his big eyes, the slight pout of his lips, the way he puts a strand of wild hair behind his ear to appreciate better. This is all purely observational, like noticing that the oven runs hot. He’s an observant person, attentive to detail, he’s a pastry chef, after all.
And he likes to see his customers appreciating his work.
He especially likes to see Taehyung, but no one needs to know that.
Taehyung picks up the fork. He takes a bite. And his face does something in between surprise and pleasure and his eyes close for a tiny bit. He turns towards the counter, and a small, insidious, stupid part of Yoongi thinks he’s looking for him. Whatever he was looking for, Taehyung smiles and opens his first book.
He stays until 5 PM.
Yoongi notices this because he has parfaits in the blast chiller that need to stay in there a certain amount of time or will become frozen.
Taehyung orders two more things. He makes notes in the margins of one book and flags pages in another. When Namjoon comes in for his afternoon slice of cake, they talk for twenty minutes about something Yoongi can't hear. He goes to the coffee machine to check if they need to order more coffee. No other reason.
At some point, he hears Jungkook chatting with him, something about a videogame, and he hears them giggle and suddenly Yoongi craves champagne raspberry sponge cake, because he feels sparkling and tingly inside.
It’s all very stupid.
When Taehyung leaves, his arms heavy with the books again, he leans over the counter and when he encounters Yoongi’s eyes he lights up and says “Bye, pâtissier-nim!”
Yoongi waves stupidly.
Jimin materializes at Yoongi's elbow. "He was sad you barely came out, he wanted to tell you that the tart was amazing."
Yoongi nods, still entranced by the fact that Taehyung wanted to wish him goodbye and looked for him to wish him goodbye.
Jimin sighs and goes to help Jungkook clean up.
Yoongi goes to check on the rainbow bread. The indigo layer is still the wrong shade. He stares at it for a long time next to the pantone sample that he got for reference.
He rewrites the proportions and gets the flour.
It’s better than yesterday, he thinks, which is not the same as good enough, and he knows the difference, and so does the bread.
At least the tart was amazing.