Summary: Y/N moves to Korea for a short-term teaching program with HYBE, teaching trainees about American history and culture. Not only is her trip funded by them, but she is soon dating Jung Hoseok and now that his career is feeling established and comfortable he is ready to settle down. But will y/n be willing to put down roots in Korea? It’s straight up romantic fluff.
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I’d been planning on this for a long time, and I’d been looking forward to this for a long time, but now that I was actually in Korea I was absolutely terrified.
I’m young and untethered and now felt like the perfect time to just go for it and teach overseas. It’s early in my career and I am not established yet as a teacher in any specific school or area. If ever there was a time for adventure it was now! I didn’t want to teach English and I didn’t want to teach in an American school, and amazingly I found a job that was teaching Korean students about American history and culture that specifically wanted me to teach in English. It was ideal and the fact that I got it seemed a miracle.
It wasn’t until I started the onboarding process of my new job when I realized who my employer was: HYBE. And the Korean students I would be teaching? Kpop trainees. How did this information slip past me while I was applying and interviewing I will never understand. But the fact that I would now be employed by the same company behind BTS was definitely giving me heart palpitations.
Thus moving to this new country, for a new job, with a new company, and in potentially the same building that BTS may be in?! Time to whip out my deep breathing techniques because wow. I’m freaking out.
After working at HYBE for a few months I was finally starting to relax and get into a routine. It turns out teenagers are teenagers no matter where they are from or what industry they are working in. And since I was already used to teaching teenagers that part of the job was pretty easy even with the language barrier we had. And now that I had successfully worked in the building for several months and never accidentally run into any BTS members I was feeling a lot more calm and felt less like I needed to be ready to possibly meet a beautiful man at any moment.
So it was of course at this moment that I got an email from my supervisor letting me know that I would have some visitors in my class to observe. The program I was teaching was a new program at the company and some of the bigwigs wanted to come by and see how it was going and what it looked like in the classroom. By this point I had convinced myself that this company was far too big and I was far too insignificant to ever meet BTS and especially not my bias Hoseok, so I felt relatively calm going into the work on the day of the scheduled visit.
“Alright everyone, now that we’ve talked about the Bill of Rights, I want you to find an American news story for the amendment that you think has the biggest impact on American culture today,” I wrote the assignment on the board and tried to ignore the groans behind me. “Hey now, you won’t be complaining when you see an idol perform a song that offends half of the United States because their company didn’t train them in American culture will you!?” I whipped around and gave my best teacher face to the groaning students, only to see that the delegation of visitors had arrived.
The students noticed at the same time and became deathly quiet and obedient all of the sudden. I tried desperately not to blush violently because in the group of visitors was none other than Jung Hoseok. What the actual fuck? Why would he be here? How am I supposed to operate under these conditions?
“Teacher can you help me? I keep getting the first and second amendments mixed up,” my star (and brown nosing) pupil raised his hand and requested my help. It was the perfect way to not have to directly interact with the group as they talked amongst themselves and moved around the classroom. I had never been more grateful for a student being a try hard.
But unfortunately once that interaction was over I could tell the group was very politely waiting for me so they could ask me some questions. Blessedly, Hoseok stayed at the back of the group, just listening and not asking questions. Although his eyes on me felt like heat lamps, warming my face and flustering me just enough.
“How is the curriculum going? Does it seem like the students are understanding what we want them to learn?” “Does the curriculum seem right to you? Have you been able to have any input on it since you are our resident expert?” “In your opinion, is this program working?” They threw all these questions at me and more, but thankfully my supervisor had given me a heads up on what questions they would likely ask and we went over all the answers together before the visit.
Once the bigwigs seemed satisfied in my answers they began to break up and wander around the room, some of them even leaving. All except for Hoseok, who quietly hung back, staying near me. It was clear I wasn’t the only one affected by his presence, several of my students kept shifting their eyes near him while they were working. I wasn’t sure if I could look directly at him and pretended to be distracted by all the visitors in the room.
Hoseok cleared his voice and I finally looked at him. “Excuse me, I was just wondering if I could ask about the assignment you gave the students when we came in.”
“Oh sure! The purpose of that assignment is to…” I switched over to my teacher voice and was quickly interrupted.
“No, actually I meant…I’d like to learn about it. I wish this program had been around when I was a trainee. I want to do more work with other American artists but there is so much history and culture there that I don’t understand.”
“Oh! Oh of course! I mean, not that I expected you to not know…I mean not that you have to know…I’ll go and get the assignment papers for you to look at,” I haltingly and embarrassingly moved through a sentence full of unfinished thoughts. I hurried to my desk to pick up an extra paper for him only to turn around and find him right behind me as he had followed me to the desk.
I nearly jumped back on the desk with a small yelp.
“I’m so sorry,” Hoseok quickly said and bowed over and over.
I laughed nervously, “it’s okay I just didn’t hear you behind me, I’m a little jumpy with all these visitors today I guess.”
Hoseok smiled warmly looking right in my eyes as he took the papers, “I don’t blame you. No matter how long I’ve been at this company seeing all these important men in suits still stresses me out.”
“Oh great, so I’ll never get over it? Perfect.” I teased.
“Oh! No I’m sure you’re much braver than me!” His eyes widened in shock at my negative sounding comment and he started to bow again.
“No no no, I was just teasing!” I reached out to stop him from bowing and touched his shoulder. My hand tingled from the touch and he started to laugh.
“Oh wow, of course you were joking. That’s embarrassing,” he continued to laugh.
“It’s okay, you don’t know me well enough to know how often I joke,” I tried to reassure him.
“Well then I guess I should get to know you more.”
My heart stopped. He continued and pulled out his phone.
“Could I get your number? You can help me with this assignment, and I can learn more about your sense of humor,” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
“Yes, I breathed out, suddenly remembering that I had been flirting with an idol in front of my trainee class and they were surely going to interrogate me as soon as our visitors left the room. I could feel their eyes on me as I took Hoseok’s phone and entered my number.
“I’ll text you right now so you know when it’s me that texts you,” his eyes on his phone as he took it back.
My phone buzzed less than a second later with a text.
I glanced at the text and tried desperately not to blush so I could still look him in the face. But before I looked back up he was talking again.
“Looks like it’s time for me to leave. I’ll text you soon Y/N.”
I finally looked up to see Hoseok wink and leave the classroom with the rest of the men in suits.
After the door closed there were a few seconds of silence and then the class erupted with excitement, most of it directed towards me and the interaction I’d just had with THE Jung Hoseok. It took ages to focus them back on the assignment.
I pinched myself, it hurt, I am really here.
I am really in Jung Hoseok’s apartment, sitting in his kitchen as he finished setting the table for you two to have dinner. And yes, it’s just as gorgeous and expensive looking as I expected. Did you know Louis Vuitton makes napkin holders? Well at least for Hoseok they do.
“Almost ready, sorry I’m running behind! I couldn’t decide what to wear and so I’m running late.”
In what world would Jung Hoseok worry about what he wore in front of me?
“It’s not problem at all,” I smiled at him looking flustered, “I’m terrible at being on time usually so it’s my own fault for being on time.”
Hoseok laughed, throwing his head back and smiling at me. “You really are funny Y/N.”
I smiled and blushed lightly. This is already going incredibly well.
“Okay,” Hoseok stepped back from the table and made a quick adjustment to the tablecloth that seemed to make him feel everything was now ready, “we can eat now.”
I walked over to the dining room table and took my seat, “fantastic.”
Our conversation ranged from the assignment he had asked about, to Korean culture, to the absurd nature of both the English and Korean languages, and then to music and dance.
I was terrified to admit that I was a dancer because I was far from professional. But Hoseok finally needled it out of me when he could tell I knew too much about dance to just be an admirer of it.
“Y/N! You’re a dancer! No wonder we get along so well! What kind of dance do you do!?”
“Oh I haven’t danced in so long, but I used to do a lot of contemporary dance when I was in high school. I danced a little in college but I just haven’t had the time since then. I miss it a lot.”
“You should use the practice rooms at HYBE and dance, I’m sure they’d let you,” Hoseok’s eyes lit up at the thought of me having a space to dance in.
“Would they really…let me,” I pointed at myself sarcastically, “use the practice rooms made for international superstars like you?” I pointed at him just as sarcastically.
“Well…they’d let me use it. So what if I reserve one and oops! You use it instead of me?” Hoseok eye’s continued to twinkle.
“Really?” I smiled slowly, already thinking about the music I would use and imagining myself letting out all the stress of the last few months in a new country and job.
“Yes. But only if I get to see you dance.”
My smile wavered, “Uh…..”
“Only when you feel comfortable with it though, I don’t want you to feel nervous like you’re performing for me or anything,” Hoseok’s hand shot out to cover mine in an attempt to calm me down. Little did he know while his words calmed me down his touch did just the opposite.
“Well if you’re really willing to reserve a room for me, I would honestly love that. It would be such a great way to relieve some stress,” I tried to talk through my fantastically beating heart.
“I totally get that, there is nothing quite like dancing out your stress.” Hoseok agreed. “In fact, do you want to dance a little right now? I want to listen to that artist you told me you love so much. Do they have any good songs we could…slow dance to?”
Slow dance? He wanted to slow dance with me? My heart wasn’t going to get a break was it?
“I think Benediction would be the best one to play by them, and the group name was The Arcadian Wild,” I directed him as he typed in his phone looking for the music.
The familiar music filled the room as Hoseok pushed play. He then stood up, pushed his chair in, and offered his hand to you, pulling you up from your chair as well and pulling you into the open space between the dining room table and the kitchen island.
Obviously he is good at dancing but I didn’t expect him to be such a firm leader in couple’s dancing. He expertly placed his hand on my shoulder blade, using his other hand to take mine and waltz me around the room.
“You can waltz too? This doesn’t seem fair, you’re too talented,” I teased him because not only is teasing my primary mode of flirting but I physically can’t allow moments to get too good without trying to ruin them with humor.
“I could say the same for you! Contemporary and partner dancing? You’re very good at following, some women try to lead and it’s very uncomfortable,” he smiled down at me.
“I’m very good at following when I have a good leader,” I smiled up at him and forced myself to let the moment sit and not ruin it with another joke.
We continued to dance and Hoseok spun me, twirled me, and dipped me until the end of the song. As the music came to its end his hands let go of my shoulder blade and hand and slipped down to lock together behind my waist as my hands reached behind his neck.
For a moment it almost seemed like he was going to kiss me, but then two things happened. First the song changed to a much more upbeat song and second, we ran right into the kitchen island as we had not been watching where we were going.
Hoseok let out a loud laugh “I guess I’m not that good of a leader am I? I led us right into the kitchen island! Are you okay?” He pulled back and inspect the back of my arm that had hit the edge of the island.
It had been two months since that dinner at Hoseok’s. There had been more dinners at his place, and more times that it almost seemed like he wanted to kiss me, but he never did so I assumed it was all in my head. I mean who am I going to trust? My ARMY brain whose had Hoseok as her bias for years? Or the actual action’s of Hoseok. It would be insanity to take my own word for those experiences so I tried to pretend they never happened.
There had also been many dance session, Hoseok reserved a dance room for me at least once a week. At first he really kept his distance, but slowly we would start to share the room and even sometimes show each other some of the things we were workshopping. Even though teaching is now my profession, dance continues to be my creative outlet even though it’s hard to pursue that as an adult.
Eventually the dance sessions even started to include Jimin, which was very uncomfortable for me at first.
“Hoseok, Jimin is actually a contemporary dancer! You watch my contemporary dancing and are impressed because you don’t know anything about it. Jimin will actually known how mediocre I am, it will be so awkward.”
“First of all Y/N, I’m impressed with your dancing because it’s good, not because I’m ignorant thank you very much. Second, you are much more than a mediocre dancer. And finally, Jimin hasn’t even done contemporary in so long when I brought up what we were doing in the practice rooms his whole face practically lit up when he thought he might have finally found someone to do some contemporary with. Come on Y/N! It will be fun,” Hoseok’s eyes twinkled. It was a trick he could play, anytime I wasn’t sure about something he would pull out those twinkly eyes and I would just melt.
“Fiiiiiiiine, but only because I know that he is incredibly polite and kind so I assume that if he thinks I’m terrible and doesn’t actually want to dance with me he will pretend I’m great and then just never come back again.”
So that’s what explains the next phase of our practice room dancing. Jimin and I doing mixtures of solo and duet improvisation while also putting together some choreography on each other just for fun every once in a while. I had to admit, it was really nice to do some no-pressure contemporary choreography with someone. It was relaxing and fun and I always left in a good mood and much less stressed. And Hoseok was right, Jimin loved dancing with me, he had missed it a lot in the last few years where he did a lot of non-contemporary dancing.
One night in particular I was specifically in an improvisation mood because of something that had happened the weekend before.
It had been yet another night at Hoseok’s, a game night with Hoseok and a few friends including Jimin and I. I wish I could say there was something specific that had happened, but it had just been one of those times when Hoseok looked devastatingly handsome and I was constantly aware of how attracted I was to him. The more I got to know him the more I liked him. I watched him that night laugh and joke, listen to and comfort his friends, get unnecessarily competitive about games, and he kept doing that thing I loved where he touched my elbow every time he talked to me and put his hand on my lower back every time we walked near each other. I left his apartment absolutely whipped for him and I just didn’t know how I could keep doing this.
So that day in the practice room when it was my turn to improv I put on “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri and tried to work through my feelings for Hoseok through dance. If there was any hope at all, I would truly wait forever. I’d never met someone like him, someone kind and funny and beautiful who worked hard to keep me in his life. I often felt like I was the initiator in a lot of my previous relationships, both romantic and platonic ones. Hoseok always made sure we didn’t go more than 2-3 days without texting,talking, or seeing each other, which as good because I would have never have had the courage, especially at first, to initiate anything with a Kpop idol. I would have assumed he always had something better to do than hang out with me.
While I was dancing, it was almost like the practice room disappeared around me and all I saw was Hoseok, sitting on his couch, eating at his dining room table, watching him dance, dancing while he watched me, laughing at his jokes, making him laugh. By the time the song ended it was almost jarring to come back to the reality off the practice room with Jimin standing and watching me.
“Wow Y/N. That was beautiful, I feel like there is a story behind that song…you had such a clear purpose when you were dancing.”
“I..uh…well, just reminds me of something in my life,” Jimin and I had been getting fairly close, but I can’t imagine ever getting close enough to him to admit that I was in love with his best friend. Especially when his best friend was an international superstar that had millions of people that would likely give anything they owned to be with him. Who was I to think I was anywhere near influential in the romantic equations of Jung Hoseok?
I then saw Jimin raise his eyebrows and seemingly look at something behind me. I turned around to the window leading out of the practice room but didn’t see anything.
“So Y/N,” Jimin started as I turned back around to face him, “I know you were ARMY before you took this job, but you never told me who your bas was. Did you have one?”
Oh goodness, the exact conversation I wasn’t interested in having.
“I mean, yes, I definitely have…had…a bias.” I stammered out, looking for my water bottle to try to occupy my mouth. I could tell if he poked me hard enough I would spill every bean. I am not feeling strong enough to hold these feelings in right now.
“So….who?”Jimin asked as I started to guzzle my water bottle.
I took my sweet time swallowing that water and let the silence sit,hoping it would deter Jimin from getting his answer. It did not, he maintained eye contact in a major way.
“H..Hoseok…” I finally admitted after Jimin’s eyes had basically bored holes in my head with their intensity.
Jimin began to smile and raised his eyebrows once more, “And Hoseok was your bias….or is your bias?”
Man alive this guy as good at intimidating eye contact, he could get war criminals to confess to crimes I feel confident about that.
“Hoseok….Hoseok is my bias,” I whispered to him.
“So that dance was about him wasn’t it?” Jimin pointed to the dance floor where I had been dancing just a minute or so ago.
“Yes,” I admitted quickly, “but Jimin you can’t tell him it’s so embarrassing! He’s been so nice to me since I’ve moved here and I don’t want him to think I have all these ulterior motives for getting to know him, he’d be totally creeped out.”
Jimin put his hands up and backed up slightly, “Hey, I can keep a secret calm down. Though I must say I don’t think he’d be creeped out. But if you don’t want me to tell him anything I’ll keep my mouth shut. Promise.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, Jimin and Hoseok may be good friends but Jimin is very good at keeping his word.
What I didn’t know was that Jimin was not the only person to not only see me dance. Hoseok had been watching through the window to the practice room, which is what Jimin had noticed before asking about my bias. But he had skedaddled as soon as I turned around so he hadn’t heard my confessions. And Jimin was true to his word…technically.
‘I think we should have a movie night tonight, just you, me and Y/N’ Jimin texted Hoseok shortly after I left the practice room.
‘Okay! But why just us three…do you know something I don’t know?’ Hoseok had been thinking about you so intensely since stepping away from watching you dance that he had officially run into three walls in the last four minutes. He was really hoping that Jimin knew something specifically that he didn’t know. Something that he wanted to know, something that he wanted to be true…
‘Let’s just say, I think the smaller the better tonight. And I may have to leave early…😉’
Hoseok’s heart jumped, he was about to text Jimin demanding real answers when he got another text from him.
‘I’m sworn to secrecy, that’s the most you’ll get out of me.’
‘I’ll tell you this much, you saw her dance today, you should ask her about that.’
I arrived at Hoseok’s with my heart beating out of my chest. Why was I so nervous? I had been to his place probably 2-3 times a month since moving to Korea? What was different about tonight? Well, because tonight happened after today and today I had confessed how I really felt about Hoseok through both dance and words. As long as Jimin is here tonight as a buffer I’ll be able to operate just fine.
The door swings open to Hoseok’s perfect face.
“Y/N! Welcome! I just heard from Jimin and it turns out he can’t come tonight so it’s just us, hope that’s not too boring.”
My heart stops and the breath catches in my throat. I might die.
“Oh, that’s fine,” I manage to squeak out.
We soon got situated on the couch and seemed to have run out of small talk, no one was even mentioning the movie we were planning on watching. Was it just me or did Hoseok seem as nervous as I felt?
“So…Y/N. I saw you dancing today,” Hoseok finally said shyly, not quite meeting my eyes.
“You did? That must have been what Jimin was looking at behind me!” The look Jimin had given after my dance suddenly made sense. And then horror flooded my body, he didn’t hear the conversation did he? “Did you hear the conversation I had with Jimin after that?” I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“No no no, I left pretty much right after you stopped dancing. It…well your dancing made me think…” Hoseok definitely looked flustered.
“…made you think what Hoseok?” I prodded hopefully.
“Watching you, and listening to the words of the song I just…well I don’t know if you were dancing about someone in particular but it seemed like you were, it seemed like a really purposeful dance. And I…well I think whoever you were dancing about is probably just about the luckiest man in the world. And hopefully they know that.”
I paused, trying to take in what he said. Was he implying that he wanted it to be him? I wasn’t gutsy enough to just come right out and say that, so I inched toward the truth instead.
“He doesn’t know,” I whispered, unconsciously moving closer to Hoseok on the couch and hesitatingly putting my hand on his knee.
Hoseok mimicked my actions and scooted closer, placing his hand on top of mine.
I tried to answer, but my fear wouldn’t let me. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. He came to my rescue.
“Because I want it to be me.”
He squeezed my hand and cupped my cheek with his other, stroking my face lightly before leaning in to kiss me. It wasn’t a simple kiss, it was long-awaited and full of longing. It was pent up passion from our first dinner, from all the almost kisses and confessions in between.
Hoseok pulled away from me just far enough to say “I’ve been wanting to do that since the first time I saw you.”
I giggled. “I’m glad you finally did.”
The end of my one-year contract with HYBE was coming close. Hoseok and I had been officially dating for nearly half of that year. Jimin, by the way, took full credit for our relationship and made sure we remembered it.
I began to think about whether I wanted to renew my contract, because while this contract had just been a trial for a new program, the next one they wanted me to sign was for 5 years. The program had gone very well and they had been very happy with my work. I had loved worked there and everything about it had been such a joy. But.
I was so far away from my family, I had planned on this just being a small adventure before I decided to really settle down back home. I had always expected to go back to my own country and my own home state and put down roots there near my family. Living in Korea long-term was never in the plan and seemed crazy. Unless…unless someone here wanted me to stay.
I don’t think I’m wiling to put down roots in a foreign country if those roots are just mine, but if they are growing with someone else’s? I’m wiling to settle down in an unexpected place if I’m settling down with someone. I just needed to know if Hoseok wanted that same thing. I didn’t want to pressure him, we hadn’t been dating terribly long, but we had been dating long enough that this decision of mine included him, it couldn’t be just about me. But even then, putting down roots in a foreign country. That’s a lot to decide even if I’m doing it with a great boyfriend by my side.
Hoseok and I were settling down on his couch after dinner when I decided to tell him about the 5 year contract I had been offered.
“Hoseok, HYBE wants me to come back, they offered me a 5 year contract.”
His eyes went wide and his face broke into an ecstatic smile. “Really!? Y/N that’s amazing! Are you going to take it?”
“I haven’t decided yet, 5 years is a long time. I have loved my year here, I just can’t decide if it’s really what I want for 5 years. That’s a long time to be away from my family. It feels like it’s essentially deciding that this is where I’ll stay for the rest of my life and…I’m just not sure I’m ready to make that commitment.”
Hoseok nodded along as he listened, furrowing his eyebrows and focusing intently on my mixed emotions.
“I think all of that makes a lot of sense Y/N, you are the only one who can make that decision and I’m sure you’ll make the right one.”
“But do you want me to stay?” I asked. While it might not yet be the time to bring up the question of marriage, whether or not he wants you to stick around would say a lot.
“Oh jagiya I absolutely want you to stay. I wish it didn’t mean you were far from your family and your home and your culture and your language, but if it was up to me you’d never leave me,”he grabbed my arms and rubbed them up and down while answering my question. “But I don’t want you to only stay because of me.”
“I wouldn’t only stay for you, but knowing you want me to stay does factor into my decision,” I chewed my lip in concentration. This will be a hard decision to make even knowing Hoseok wants me here.
While you were contemplating your decision, Hoseok was getting the advice of his members, trying to figure out how to convince you so stay in Korea and to stay with him. He didn’t want you to stay if you would be unhappy, but he also wanted to remind you of how happy you could be in Korea with him.
“Okay how do I convince her to stay? What do I do?”
“I think you’ve got to make sure you’re texting her compliments all the time,” Jin offered, “remind her of how much you love her and how happy you can make her.”
“I think you should bribe her with gifts! You’re so good at giving gifts hyung,” V added to Jin’s suggestion.
“You’ve got to show her how great Korea is, not just how great of a boyfriend you are. Take her hiking, to art museums, remind her of all the great things Korea has that the US doesn’t have.” Of course RM’s suggestion included art museums, still a good idea though.
“Spend as much time with her as possible, you’re so good at making people feel good about themselves, the more time she spends with you the less she’ll want to leave,” Jungkook suggested.
“You should definitely dance with her hyung, so much of your relationship has included dance. Maybe if you offer to learn some contemporary you two can choreograph something together that is meaningful and make her think about staying here with you.” Jimin’s idea was one that Hoseok never would have thought of but he really liked the idea of it.
“When it comes down to it Hobi, it has to be her decision entirely, but I don’t think it is a bad idea to remind her of how much you want her to stay. As long as you aren’t guilting her into it,” Suga ended the advice session with his wise words.
“Okay okay, this helps. Thanks guys. I have a lot to think about now.”
My decision needed to happen in the next two weeks, and ever since I’d talked to Hoseok about it he seemed to have really amped up his boyfriending. We had done lots of little trips around Seoul, he was texting me compliments multiple times a day, and I had gotten presents from him almost every other day. I wasn’t complaining, but my favorite part was definitely what he had suggested we try in the practice rooms.
“Jagiya, I want to try some contemporary dance with you. I have seen you and Jimin dance and I would love to try. I get a little jealous when you two dance together, he gets to touch you and lift you with meaningful music and moves and I want to try to!”
I was more than happy to oblige and let him pick the song for us to choreograph together to. He picked a song by my favorite band, in fact the first band we ever danced to - The Arcadian Wild. And the song he chose was Roots, a song about putting down your roots with someone. This was clearly a calculated move but that didn’t mean I didn’t like it.
Choreographing with Hoseok to a song I loved with lyrics that fit what I wanted to do so much, put roots down with him, was really putting me over the edge with my decision. It became clearer with each dance session that this is what I really wanted. It didn’t really have much to do with being in Korea at all, it had everything to do with wanting to settle down in one place with one man. This man. Jung Hoseok.
I waited until our final choreography session to tell him, I had to give your decision to HYBE by the next day and I knew Hoseok was on pins and needles about my decision though he hadn’t been asking me about it at all.
But during this dance session as we lifted and twirled and wound our bodies around each other it almost felt like he already knew. I was dancing differently and he could feel it. He could feel my conviction, just like he could see my confession of love to him in a previous dance session months ago. But this time he knew it was about him.
Before the song had even fully ended in the middle of our ending pose, face to face with our palms together, Hoseok smiled, linked his fingers with mine and breathed out “You’re staying aren’t you?”
Tears came to my eyes, preventing me from answering him with words, I could only nod.
He quickly let go of my hands, linked his hands around my back, picked me up and swung me around while screaming “Yaaaaaahhhh!!!!!”
Hoseok finally put you down, took your face in his hands, wiped away your tears of happiness and kissed you. “I love you jagiya, I can’t want to put down roots with you here.”
It had been a year since you made your decision to stay in Korea. Another amazing year with Hoseok as a better boyfriend than you could ever imagine. I had visited my family a couple of times with him and they loved him just as much as I did. Seeing him with my siblings and parents and nieces and nephews made you me just love him even more.
Our anniversary was coming up and my whole family was coming to Korea to visit for the first time. I was extremely excited, but also nervous. It felt like Hoseok was planning something and I desperately wanted it to be a proposal. We had been talking about marriage and it was starting to look like he had hit a point in his career where he could get married without it being disastrous for him or BTS.
“Are you ready for tonight my love?” Hoseok asked as soon as you woke up and turned over to face him. It looked like he had been waiting for you to wake up.
“I am so ready, I can’t wait for my whole family to be here with us. And your family! And your members! It’s going to be a great party, thank you for planning it.”
“Of course jagiya, you know I love planning parties. And I have some surprises for you, so be ready for that,” he said with that telltale and heart melting twinkle in his eye.
It was hard to go through the rest of the day knowing that something so exciting would be happening that night. I tried not to assume it was a proposal but what else could it be?
‘Even if it’s just a fun party with your family and his family together and all his members it will be great. I’ll be happy even without a proposal’ I keep trying to convince myself.
The time finally arrived for you to go to the party. It was in the HYBE building and Hoseok was already there setting everything up, he wanted almost everything about the party to be a surprise and and had sent a car to bring you there.
The car that arrived was in fact a limousine and was filled with your family already. You hugged and chatted and it helped to have them there to pass the time it took to get to HYBE.
“I’m so excited for tonight Y/N, you are so lucky to have found someone as wonderful as Hoseok,” my mom smiled at me.
“He almost seems like a part of the family already,” my dad winked.
If that wasn’t a hint at a proposal I don’t know what was.
I expected the party to be in one of the open rooms on the top floors, but we were directed to a small auditorium instead. Color me confused, a party in an auditorium? I quickly spotted Hoseok and walked over to him.
“Y/N! You’re here! You’re all here!” He gestured to my family and started giving everyone hugs.
“Hoseok I expected this would be in one of those open rooms, what are we doing in an auditorium?” I questioned him.
There were his eyes twinkling again, “You’ll see, go take your seat, I’ve labeled ours so you know where to sit,” he pointed to the middle of the auditorium where there was a small couch in front all of all auditorium seats labeled with our names. Of course it also contained a bouquet of roses and peonies (my favorite) and a present.
“Go open it,” Hoseok whispered in my ear.
I headed over to my seat as my family sat around me and opened the present. It was a gift certificate for a tattoo parlor with a note that said ‘So we can have something matching’. I’d told Hoseok that I’d always wanted to have my wedding ring tattooed on because I was terrible at wearing jewelry. Yet another hint at what the night had in store.
Soon Hoseok’s family and the other BTS members started arriving and it was time to start whatever this party was. Hoseok came onto the stage.
“I want to welcome everyone and thank you for coming, I know you were expecting a party, and we will have a party later, but first I wanted to invite a couple of Y/N’s favorite bands here to celebrate the fact that one year ago today she decided to stay here in Korea with me. One of the things I learned about Y/N early on is that BTS was not her first boy band, or even, unfortunately her favorite boy band. For months I’ve been working on coordinating in order to get her favorite boy band here tonight and amazingly everyone’s schedules aligned and I am very excited to bring to the stage the Jonas Brothers!”
I’m sorry the WHAT!? Shortly after Hoseok and I had started officially dating he found out that I had been wildly obsessed with the Jonas Brothers in college and though he had been a little disappointed that they held my heart more than BTS ever had, he came to terms with it and loved to tease me about it. But never in my wildest dreams did I think me confessing that to him would lead to him bringing them to Korea to perform for me.
Kevin, Joe,and Nick walked on the stage and I involuntarily screamed and then laughed at myself. Once Hoseok came back to his seat next to me I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “You are unreal you know that?”
He pretended to scold me, “Shh! The Jonas Brothers are performing, I need to pay attention so I can finally figure out what they have that BTS doesn’t,” he finished his teasing with a wink while grabbing my hand and pulling it to his lap.
Of course they played all my favorites and of course they came down and gave me flowers and hugged me and Hoseok before they left the stage.
Hoseok hopped back up on the stage, “Now that our opening act has finished, it’s time for the main attraction.”
“Opening act!? Who could the Jonas Brothers open for? Who is bigger than the Jonas Brothers,” I genuinely responded to Hoseok then felt silly remembering all the other people in the room.
There was some laughter before Jimin responded “BTS!”
I turned around to see Jimin and the other members but seeing the shock on Suga’s face and seeing RM quick to shake his head no I realized Jimin was just teasing.
Well then who could it be?
When they finally walked out I realized it only could have been one artist. My favorite band, the first song we ever danced to, the song we danced to that convinced me to stay in Korea, a band that had been a soundtrack to so many of the high points of our relationship. The Arcadian Wild.
When Hoseok came back down to sit with me I was incredibly glad he had brought a couch in for us instead of the regular auditorium seating so I could cuddle right up to him. I didn’t care that our families were behind us and everyone could see. This music was too entwined with our relationship for me to not want to be as close as possible to him while we heard it live. He obliged and placed his arm firmly around me.
Neither of us moved until they announced their last song, Benediction. The first song we ever danced to.
“Do you want to dance?” Hoseok asked me, his voice shaking slightly.
“Yes,”I found it hard to control my emotions because it was so clear what was coming.
It felt like we were dancing on a cloud, I forgot all about everyone else in the room and only saw Hoseok as our eyes locked together. And then on my favorite line, a line about moving into eternity Hoseok pulled back and went down on one knee and pulled a box out of his pocket.
I know now, having watched the video back of Hoseok’s proposal, that everyone was cheering when he kneeled down. I heard none of it. I heard only him.
“Y/N, I can’t imagine my life without you. I had a good life before you, but my life since meeting you has been fuller than I knew it could be, happier, more meaningful. I know many people call me sunshine, but you are the light of my life, you are my sunshine. You have given me stability and comfort and friendship that I thought I wasn’t allowed to have as an idol. You make my life feel normal, and you know how much that means to me. Will you do me the honor of marrying me? Of waking up next to me for all eternity?”
“Yes Hoseok, I would love nothing more than to spend my eternity with you,” I answered with tears in my eyes.
After a few seconds of Hoseok putting the ring on my finger and us hugging ferociously I started to hear the crowd around us again cheering. Hoseok put me down and I looked around almost as if I hadn’t known anyone as there. Our families and Hoseok’s members began to move up from their seats to us to hug us and congratulate us. Eventually Hoseok moved us into a room much more fit for a party with food and drinks and music and plenty of open space to talk and dance.
The night finally wound down. By the time we went back to our place I had hugged everyone at least three times though Jimin had hugged me at least ten times before we finally left. I was happy and excited but also completely exhausted so I got into my pajamas as soon as we got back and snuggled into bed. It didn’t take long for Hoseok to join me and soon I was falling asleep with a smile on my face. Right before I fell asleep I felt a small kiss on my forehead.
“I can’t wait to marry you Y/N.”
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