Work Text:
Jimin knows that the only way to own his body is to own it. Being alone with his body in a studio, with music filling every corner, is not the same as feeling like a ghost in his own flat. Being alone with his body is scary, for so many reasons, some of which he isn't thinking about right now, but he and his body need to get to know each other again.
They need to figure out together where they exist in this space, and what they are, and who they can be. Together and separately.
He's heard that before. About other things. And every time it's turned out to be true, however painful it gets at times.
This is painful too -- studying choreography, trying again and again, dancing in front of a mirror in bright lights so he can see every flaw... He's supposed to be looking for flaws in his choreo but it's hard not to also see his own physical flaws. Put him in a room like this with anyone else and he would notice their physical flaws but be able to easily set them aside because who really cares?
When it's all himself, though, all he can see are the places where he's still too round, where the extra isn't melting away as easily as it had when he was a teenager; scars, muscles that are shaped differently than they were ten years ago, stray hairs, a blister.
He's working on the Sinnerman section of Revelations right now -- not his favorite Ailey, but it's so good, and it's a fun kind of work to adjust it from three for a solo dancer. And once he hits his sweet spot, it's like any other choreography: his body is the music.
Not all choreo is created equal; not all choreo is genuinely fun or feels like it's the right way to move his body. Sometimes it's downright awful for whatever reason, sometimes it sucks to want to be dancing but have to think about singing instead. (Sometimes it sucks to want to be singing but have to be thinking about dancing instead; that problem is less common but still exists sometimes.)
But tonight he gets one hundred and fifty seconds of being A Thing, a piece of Creation, his body just an extension of the music and the floor.
When he sits up from the final pose, in the mirror he can see Namjoon hyung watching him, leaning against the wall next to the door. He has a moment of desperately wanting to cover himself where he knows his dance shorts are riding up over the currently-too-curvy curve of his ass, but it's barely a thought to shake himself out of that. Kim Namjoon has seen him in worse than spandex shorts; he's seem him naked, bleeding, puking, crying, covered in and filled with come. And it's not 2011, there won't be a weigh in or any measurements, no one giving him disappointed sighs.
In fact, Namjoon hyung's eyes are kind of wide; he looks... thunderstruck.
Jimin cocks a hip, puts his hand on his waist, and poses while he meets Namjoonie's gaze in the mirror. Namjoon's mouth, slightly open, slams shut so hard Jimin thinks he hears Joon's teeth clack.
"Hey, hyung."
"Hey, uh." Namjoonie clears his throat. "I thought I would, uh. Um. Check on you. Because. It's late." He clears his throat again. "A car is here for me if you. If I can give you. That is -- do you need a ride home?"
Jimin wants to be sexy and hot and slink over to Joonie and say something seductive, like, like maybe, Oh, Joon, I would love for you to give me a... ride...
But now that he's standing still, he is both too cold and too hot, and his body is covered in sweat that he wants to scrape off with a shovel, and his feet are dirty. He can feel that his feet are dirty.
"Ah -- thank you. I think I need a shower first." He turns, puts his back to the mirror so he is looking directly at Namjoon hyung, nothing between them. "Unless you want to wait?"
He says it as a joke, just a tease; obviously Namjoon isn't going to wait two or three times the amount of time it's going to take him to get home just so that Jimin can take a shower and ride in the car with him.
He grins at Namjoon hyung, and then feels himself freeze when Namjoon hyung says, "Okay. Yeah, yes, that's fine, I'll wait."
"Hyung," says Jimin. He's not sure what he's going to say after that, but he doesn't have to know -- before he can get any other words out, Namjoon says:
"Why don't you come over to mine and we can eat together? I was thinking gochujang jjigae, uh, I found a place the other day that makes it with lamb." Namjoonie rocks forward onto his toes and then back onto his heels. "Hyung will treat."
Jimin doesn't mean to, but he takes a step forward. He can't help himself. If he didn't feel so disgustingly sticky with sweat and the dust from rolling around on the floor, he would fly right into Namjoonie's arms. Instead, he wraps his arms around himself, and makes himself take a breath.
They're friends, best friends, and colleagues and coworkers and family and -- and everything. Sometimes jjigae and a ride are just jjigae and a ride. This doesn't mean anything more than what it is, not even combined with their complicated history, both ancient and recent; not even combined with the way Namjoon had been looking at Jimin that first moment when he'd come out of the dance, shock and desire and longing and awe all at once.
"You want to wait for me to shower?" Jimin asks, trying not to infuse it with any other meanings. "It's okay if you just want to go home."
"I want to wait. If that's okay?" Namjoonie looks like the most hopeful puppy. He smiles at Jimin, popping his dimples out. "I'd like to spend time with you, Jiminah, if you have the time for me."
"Joon, I always have time for you," says Jimin automatically -- too casual and too sincere, too much... but instead of Namjoonie shying away, he just creases his dimples even more deeply.
"I'm glad that's still true," Namjoonie says quietly, his smile still so broad. "Come on, shower off, Minnie, I'm starving."