✎ ˎˊ˗ Pairing: Min Yoongi x female Reader
✎ ˎˊ˗ Genre: Situationship, idol!au, angst, smut, coworkers, love triangle maybe
✎ ˎˊ˗ Summary: Across sleepless cities on tour, you and Yoongi cling to each other in an unspoken arrangement neither of you knows how to end until someone new makes you wonder if you should.
✎ ˎˊ˗ Chapter Warnings: BTS fucks a lot!, except one (he’s kinda depressed), implied smut, angst, heavy make-out, mention of death :c, mention of mental health struggles, second-hand embarrassment, MC handles rejection not super well, drinking, Mean Yoongi, canon moments I manipulated for my own sick pleasure, the ending, that fucking Hannam scene, holding hands (it deserves a warning in this fic), angst i guess, and again Mean Yoongi, redemption arc when?, he’s an idiot but he has heart I promise, probably wrong ways to play LOL chess/teamfight tactics, foyer quote was inspired by something i randomly saw in my feed, watch out for the time skips (one flashback and a tiny flash forward)
✎ ˎˊ˗ Word count: 10.3k whuuuut
✎ ˎˊ˗ Betaread by: Aqua (this is for you!), Tea, and Catie; credits to Aqua for inspiring one of MC’s quotes (marked **)
✎ ˎˊ˗ Playlist by @angellekookie (my very first fic with an OST i'm sobbing, ty sweets)
✎ ˎˊ˗ Notes: A whole ass year in the making and it took a trip to South Korea and experiencing Arirang in all its glory for me to finally bring this fic to life the way I envisioned it. After dropping two teasers I guess y’all really fw this plot, so I do hope you guys like it. Don’t forget to comment or reblog. I’d really appreciate it. I might take time to tag everyone that requested, so bear with me. Other than that, enjoy~ Thank you to the lovely and talented @risky-peaches for the banner. 💜
Series Masterlist | Masterlist
You’re part of BTS’ BTS.
Bangtan Tour Sluts.
It’s a term one of the make-up unnies coined half-jokingly, after realizing the truth: you’re a group of women who’ve practically dedicated your lives to seven men who are not even your family.
You’re a sorority of girls who go on tour with the group, taking on multiple hats, making sure every tour stop goes as best as possible.
You willingly do every beck and call of theirs because you actually like them. They are nice and you want to see them succeed. And even if they’re not being nice (oh the stories you could tell!), you still do everything for them. Like good girls. Like sluts.
Maybe that’s just what devotion looks like in this business.
Yours started with Hoseok.
Back before you had a name that anyone could recognize, you were just another girl on YouTube flexing dance moves in her tiny apartment. Somehow, he saw one of your clips, a clean cover of Dope, and sent your link to their performance director.
You got the email weeks later, went in for an audition, and the rest is history.
Then came the rehearsals. The late nights. The endless counts of eight. You were still so broke in those early days that you couldn’t even afford a cab after a late night practice, so you’d wait at the bus stop outside the studio, hoodie soaked through, sneakers squishing from the rain.
One night, Jin pulled up beside the curb and offered you a ride. You remember Yoongi was in the passenger seat. Wordless for the most part, but he blasted the heater so you wouldn't get cold. You thanked Jin profusely as he dropped you off.
He shrugged and said, “Good thing Yoongi saw you.”
You still remember the heat sinking back into your bones.
It added up over time.
Jimin once wrapped your ankle when you landed wrong after some crazy choreo you were trying to hit. Even crazier, Namjoon paid for your eomma’s emergency medical bills, because you were still struggling then.
You tried to pay him back. He just looked at you, shrugged, and said, “If you really want to, just stay with us. Stay in the team.”
So you do.
The boys noticed you beyond your work. Not all at once, but steadily, gradually, eventually. And maybe that’s all it takes. You’d follow them anywhere after that. From MOTS to PTD Live On Stage to Arirang.
The thing is, some of the Bangtan Tour Sluts do become that over time.
You once overheard a manager say: stupid idols date fans; smart idols date other idols. Or each other.
The boys are fine as fuck. But after living together for years, the latter feels… borderline incestuous. Except for two of them, who you suspected had something non-platonic going on, but you don’t want to speculate further.
You’ve seen some of them try dating other idols too, but it’s chaos. Too many schedules to align, too many eyes watching, security doubling the second they want to meet up even in a different city for a simple fuck.
It’s easier this way. Closer. Quieter.
You don’t even blame them for it. This arrangement. The girls are hot as hell.
There’s Angel from Wardrobe who’s become Taehyung’s emotional support buddy. She’s on-call to dress him and undress him, whenever the situation calls for it.
Jungkook’s got a couple in his roster. Bina from glam and Tiff, also from glam. It could be problematic, sure, but so far they’re having fun.
Somehow, even if you highly considered becoming Seokjin’s…
You ended up becoming Yoongi’s.
…and it all begins with a very mature game of Spin the Bottle.
You and the rest of the crew had stayed back in the rehearsal studio to celebrate the birthday of Rei, assistant performance director, resident tyrant, and class president of your little dysfunctional sorority.
There’s food, balloons, and too many empty soju bottles. One of which is currently spinning… and lands on you.
“Shit,” you mutter, already reaching for your beer. “Truth.”
A chorus of groans.
“Boring!”
“Ask her something good!”
The birthday girl leans forward, eyes glassy, tipsy as hell. “Aight, gun to your head—which member you gonna fuck?”
You choke on your drink. “No way I’m answering that. Next question.”
“Nah,” Tiff tosses a handful of popcorn at you. “You know the rules.”
You groan, tilting your head back dramatically before swatting the kernels off your lap. “You guys…”
“Wuss!” Bina teases.
“C’mon, you’ve thought about it. Don’t even play,” Rei smirks.
All eyes are on you. The pressure is mounting so high that you almost want to hurl. You take another swig. Rei is right though, as she almost annoyingly always is. You’ve definitely checked the boys out. It’s not even a question of who (singular), because if you’re gonna be honest, you have biblical levels of greed and there’s two in particular you’d let rearrange your guts.
But ugh. You’ll play along.
Just one name to satiate these hoes.
“Fine,” you huff, wiping your lip with the back of your palm, readying to reveal your answer:
“Kim Seokjin.”
The room erupts.
“OHHHH—”
“I knew it!”
And even if you know you could stop at that, the alcohol kicks your courage into overdrive.
“I’d let him fuck me raw until the inside of my coochie moulds to the shape of his dick...”**
The rest spills out of you in a half-slurred, disgustingly specific ramble that has the girls screaming and Angel spilling her shot.
You’re laughing, face hot, still high off everyone’s reactions when you feel the heat of someone’s stare.
You glance up and holy shit. It’s the name you withheld.
Feline eyes piercing and lips curling at the corners, oh Yoongi looks hella amused. He’s right there and he heard it all.
Fucking hell. Your life is literally over.
⊙⊝⊜
It’s later, much later, when you run into him again.
The hallway outside the bathrooms is quieter, the bass from the dance studio muffled into a distant thrum. Your head is a little light, steps a little uneven, but you’re mostly sober now. Okay, not really.
You push the door open and there he is, almost like he’s been waiting.
Yoongi’s leaning against the wall, one foot propped up, head tilted just enough that his hair falls into his eyes. He looks… loose. Drunk, then. Obviously. Just like everyone else in the party.
His gaze slides over you and that same almost-smile returns. “Seokjinnie-hyung, huh?”
You groan immediately, covering your face. “Oh my god, don’t.”
He huffs out a scratchy laugh and your fist collides against his arm.
He rubs the spot with his palm. “Didn’t know you had that much to say about him.”
“I didn’t know you were listening,” you shoot back.
“Right place at the right time,” he shrugs.
You narrow your eyes. “You’re enjoying my demise way too much.”
“Am I?” he says, pushing off the wall.
He steps closer. “I mean…” his gaze flicks down, then back up. “You were pretty detailed.”
This close, he smells like warm musk and whisky. It hits you all at once, heat creeping up your neck before you can stop it. You swallow it down, deflecting. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.” He smiles sweetly, pretty teeth and pink gums on show. Then he circles back smoothly to the topic because he is a piece of shit. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”
You scoff, folding your arms like that’ll save you. “Oh, there’s a lot of things you don’t know ‘bout me.”
His gaze dips, trailing down the exposed skin where your cardigan has conveniently fallen off your shoulder, towards your breasts hugged by your camisole. His eyes linger just a second too long before dragging back up to your face.
And there it is. He did the thing for you. That thing he does where his tongue presses into his cheek. Fucker.
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
Alarm bells are ringing in your head because is Min fuckin’ Yoongi lowkey hitting on you right now?
“Well…” his head tilts, voice dropping just enough to feel it. “Was that just talk?”
He is! Fuck. Why? No, shut up. It doesn’t matter right now. Say something.
You swallow, then tilt your chin up, meeting him head-on as liquid courage pushes you to say the next words. “What?” You shrug, forcing a smirk. “You wanna stand-in for your hyung?”
His lips curve, slow and amused. “Maybe.”
“I… could be open,” you say almost lazily.
And then he moves.
Rough hands find your wrist, tugging you down the hall before you can think too hard about it. You let him and the next thing you know you’re pressed behind his studio door.
Just the two of you.
Too close that you feel the heat emanating from his body.
“Jin’s got a girl,” he murmurs, close enough that you feel his hot breath grazing your cheek.
That makes you pause, because you didn’t know Jin was steady with someone. Else you wouldn’t have said what you said.
“And y’all won’t fuck nasty like that.”
Your breath catches, but you don’t pull away. Instead, you lean in, just enough that your lips brush his when you speak.
“No?” You lick between his parted mouth, pulling back with a smirk. “And… we would?”
“Like animals.”
And then he cups the back of your neck and crashes his lips into yours.
⊙⊝⊜
Monday comes faster than you’d like.
You don’t know what you were expecting from Yoongi exactly. A text, maybe? Something more than the thumbs up he sent after you told him you got home safe. Friday night feels like it happened in a vacuum, sealed off like crime scene evidence the second he booked you that Uber.
You’ve spent the weekend turning it over in your head, wondering if things are supposed to be different now that you’ve had sex. Are you supposed to be different? Is it going to be awkward?
You’re about to find out.
You don’t usually hang around after hours unless there’s a reason.
Tonight, the reason is Jimin, who’d dragged you in with the promise of early access to the new tracks you’d be helping to choreograph. You felt a little strange when you entered the studio and found just two members of Bangtan and one of their producers, who nodded at you casually as you entered.
So here you are, curled up on the couch in the corner of the studio, laptop open but mostly forgotten, as the last bits of a track play through the speakers. You’re too deep in thought to notice the delivery guy come in, but you do notice when Yoongi picks up the coffee tray, wordlessly plucking a cup free and walking it over to you.
He holds it out, no expression, no explanation.
“Hyung,” Jimin calls lazily from where he’s sprawled out on the floor. “Where’s my coffee?”
Yoongi doesn’t even glance up. “Just grab a Coke from the fridge.”
You stifle a laugh as Jimin groans dramatically, dragging himself up to rummage through the mini fridge.
A few minutes later, Yoongi slips out of the room, muttering something about finding Namjoon because he should have joined you all 30 minutes ago.
As soon as the door clicks shut, Jimin flops back down beside you, grinning like he’s got a secret he can’t wait to spill. “That’s him flirting, by the way.”
You blink at him. “What?”
Jimin points at the cup still in your hand. “Hyung doesn’t even order me coffee.”
“Why would he? You’re an annoying lil bitch.”
Jimin playfully slaps the visor of your baseball cap down so that it covers your eyes.
Which works out just fine because as you glance down at the cup again, you’re suddenly hyper-aware of the warmth seeping into your palms. You shake your head, trying to play it off, but the corners of your mouth betray you, tugging up into a smile you can’t quite hide.
You take a sip of your warm drink and pretend it doesn’t taste sweeter somehow.
Namjoon finally walks in ten minutes later, forehead sweaty, hoodie hanging off his shoulder. Yoongi follows behind him.
“Sorry, sorry,” Namjoon says, already reaching for the aux like he owns the place. He knocks over a cup of pens as he does so.
Then, his eyes land on you. “You ate?”
You nod, lifting your coffee, lipstick-stained spout and all.
“That’s not food,” Namjoon shakes his head, dimples deepening, as he reaches for something in his pocket. “This one’s better.”
A tiny Quaker Oats bar, a bit warm from pocket heat, lands on your lap.
“Thank you.”
The crinkle of the granola bar mixes with Jimin’s whines. “Why doesn’t anyone give me food?”
⊙⊝⊜
In the weeks that follow, when tour prep shifts into high gear, nothing else really happens—not in the way you thought it might, at least. Yoongi doesn’t seek you out. Doesn’t text. Doesn’t bring up that night, ever. You’re not really suprised, considering…
But you do notice he lingers in small ways. A bottle of water left by your things before you even realize you’re thirsty. A quiet “eat” when the catering after a shoot finally finishes setting up. The occasional glance. Maybe even a tiny smile here and there. You fall into an easy rhythm with him, familiar but not quite the same, and you catch yourself thinking, maybe something did shift.
Maybe this is just how it starts.
⊙⊝⊜
Rehearsals just wrapped up and your heart is reckless with exhaustion.
You’ve never asked anyone out before. Let alone a fuckin’ idol. But you’re young and dumb. Heavy on the dumb, actually. Anyway, you’ve already slept together. And you’re convinced the chemistry is off the charts. So, why not? And it’s just hanging out anyway. It’s not that deep.
You approach Yoongi as he’s wiping off his neck with a white terry cloth, still breathing heavily. It’s probably serendipity, how everyone else has already slipped out of the room, leaving just the two of you.
He lifts his eyes towards you, mouth slightly agape as he gulps oxygen back in.
Ugh.
Your earlier bravado is slowly evaporating.
This is stupid. So stupid. But wasn’t it him who said if you know you’re going to crash, accelerate harder?
“So there’s this café in Yeonnam,” you say, stopping in front of him as he ties his shoelaces.
“Apparently, the building it’s in has been standing since the Joseon dynasty. Crazy. Used to be an apothecary or a medical clinic and they restored it so well it looks so legit...”
You’re blabbing. His face is unreadable, but you press on, fumbling toward hope.
“You’re into historical shit… Daechwita vibes, right? Anyway, the place looks pretty cool. If you’re free sometime, we could—”
There’s an audible inhale as Yoongi stands, dusting off his jeans, slow and careful, before he lifts his head towards you.
“Look,” he says, and you already know how this ends just from the weight of that word. You wish the floor would just open up and swallow you whole.
“I’m not really…” he tilts his head, like you should know. Like you shouldn’t even be having this conversation. “You get it, right?”
You force your face into something neutral, something that won’t betray you. Shrug like embarrassment is not a fire razing you from the inside.
“‘S all good.” You smile albeit tightly. You even pat his shoulder as you pass, casual, almost laughing. But inside you’re ash.
“Oh, get that shoulder pop on 2.0 sharper,” you toss on the way out. “I’ll tell Junho to run it with you again tomorrow.”
Behind you, his eyes slant with what you can only tell is pity.
You make it to the hallway before the first tear slips free, quick and traitorous and pathetic, falling soundless onto the worn carpet.
You’re already a few beats away when you hear it, “Hey Y/N!“ and then frantic steps.
You don’t stop walking. No. No fuckin’ way. You speed up.
He can’t see you like this.
You round the corner and run straight to the fire exit to extinguish the heat of shame before you’re burned to a crisp.
It’s sort of easy to get back into the normal swing of things, despite everything. You’re not friends. You probably never will be. And that’s okay.
You have your dignity.
You have the girls.
You have Rei.
…who proceeded to scream at you when you explained to her why your eyes were bloodshot the day after you made that reckless decision to ask a world-famous idol out.
She had to re-orient you how this goes. The boys are not off-limits per se, but they do have limits. Fuck, it’s not like you forgot, you just thought… it was different. You were different. Or you could be, given your history. You’ve been in the team for years now and you’d like to consider yourself not just a colleague, but maybe even a friend.
Because there was that one time in Hannam when he… fuck. It’s probably irrelevant. Unimportant. You’re just making it a thing.
And you know what, honestly, you’re fine with rejection. You’ve had practice.
Jongho, back in fifth grade, returned the paper heart you gave him because Bora sent him one first. Bigger, more glittery.
Baekhyun, in college, dumped you for that French exchange student with ginormous tits.
Even recently, word got to Seokjin about your little drunken speech, and he wasted no time reminding you exactly where you’ve always stood—firmly in the friend zone. He has a girl after all.
It was during the Swim choreo shoot. Jin flicked your forehead when he caught you staring too long during break. He was sweaty and his lips were really plump and pink, and…
“Focus,” he said. “I know I’m handsome, but you can’t do that. Next time, I’ll have to charge you.”
You flipped him off. And thank God he laughed like a windshield wiper, otherwise it would just be really unfair.
As always, you survive. You move on. You always do.
But the real problem? Life is dangling you the man of your dreams like a keychain and you can’t seem to catch it.
Yoongi’s haircut. Right before tour.
It’s almost cruel, because Yoongi’s long hair is most revered by society, widely beloved. Tiktoks and shrines were dedicated to that lionesque mane. ARMY yearned for it. Scissors were manifested to disappear within a 5-mile radius from him.
But you? You personally liked cleaner cuts on guys. When you joined the team circa-MOTS, he had that sharp, neat cut that you were very much into.
To add insult to injury, you’ve always liked Nerds. You consider yourself one, too.
And now Yoongi’s walking around with this new pair of specs—rimless frames, whenever he feels like wrecking your equilibrium. It sits low on his nose when he’s tired or playing League of Legends Chess during breaks or sipping on his coffee in between takes, and it’s…
Torture. Pure, unadulterated torture.
Comeback season officially starts and everything else falls away. Days blur into soundchecks and rehearsals, quick meals eaten standing, ears popping from cabin pressure.
There’s no time to think about anything else when you’re moving from the Netflix show in Gwanghwamun to New York for that Spotify event and then back home again. You’re running on three hours of sleep and caffeine, counting formations in your head even when you’re off-work. You don’t have time to breathe, but somehow it’s easier like this.
Once in a while during rehearsals, Yoongi still asks for your input on how to execute a move better. Of course you give it; it’s your job. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting when he, famously allergic to eye contact, suddenly makes an effort to meet your gaze.
Honestly, you don’t know why he bothers. He doesn’t owe you anything. No line was crossed without your consent. And whatever that was, it’s not happening again. You almost wish you could just hate him, because that would be easier than this neutral middle ground you’re stranded in.
But you can’t.
Because you see the quiet way he takes care of people, especially Jimin. He shows up, every time, steady and professional and so annoyingly good at what he does. There’s something about that you can’t ignore.
You respect it, because you respect him.
Maybe that’s the worst part. Because he didn’t string you along and didn’t blur the lines more than you let him. You gotta hand it to him, he shut it down clean.
So… you just gotta move on.
Right?
And you… You’ve built this life carefully, piece by piece. You didn’t fight this hard just to get distracted now. So you buckle up. You lock in.
It’s days before the World Tour kicks off and you’re knee-deep in rehearsals. Day in, day out, you’re in the dance studio, double-hatting as a dancer and an assistant choreographer. You’re exhausted–bone-deep, muscle-aching tired, but you’re focused on the grind, on making this show the best fucking tour in history. The boys deserve it. The whole team deserves it. So do you.
You used to rewind dance practice videos frame by frame, pausing just to study the angle of an arm, the timing of a step. Back then, it was just you, your reflection, and the stubborn belief that if you worked hard enough, you could belong in rooms like this. And now you do.
“Let’s start?” Seung Eun calls and everybody hops back into formation. You drop your strawberry lip balm back in your bag.
There’s this sequence in Hooligan.
You and the other dancers crowd Yoongi during his verse, closing in until there’s barely any space left between bodies. It’s choreographed, calculated chaos. You’re meant to get in his face, invade his space just enough to look dangerous, just enough to feel menacing for him. And he’s supposed to hold eye contact, like he’s unbothered.
For this run, you’re standing in for Kian, who pulled his calf muscle and needed to get iced real quick. Injuries are part of the game, but there’s always a medic on standby to ensure any impact is minimized.
The music starts and your bodies move to the choreography. You slide into position on the last count, stepping into Yoongi’s space. He recites his line.
“Hooligan, like hooligan, ttaeryeo buswo like hooligan…”
You tilt your chin up slightly, eyes on his—ready, steady, professional. But that’s when it shifts.
His gaze doesn’t land where it usually does with the others. It drops to your mouth.
Anyone else might miss it, but you don’t.
And suddenly you’re hyper-aware of the way you’re breathing, the way your lips part just slightly, the way your body feels a fraction too close to his.
“Sigan dwaesseuni jom bikyeo jom…”
His next line stumbles.
“Ah, fuck—”
The music cuts.
Yoongi lifts a hand, already half-turning away. “My bad.”
There’s a ripple of movement around you as everyone resets, but you’re still standing there as blood rushes up your neck, your cheeks warming before you can stop it.
You glance at him. He glances back.
And then, quieter—almost under his breath—he mumbles to you without meeting your eyes. “That‘s… distracting.”
You gulp.
When the next sequence starts, there’s a faint smudge of red staining the back of your sleeve. You don’t remember doing it. But you do remember how Yoongi doesn’t miss a single beat when Kian steps back in to take your place.
[Goyang, SK, April 2026]
“Stay safe out there!” Namjoon calls just before the curtains are drawn and the opening beat of Hooligan detonates through the speakers.
The crowd goes wild as the bassline rattles your ribs, syncs with your pulse, turns your body into music before you even think. On cue, you surge forward with the rest of the dancers, breaking through the curtain like a wave, energy ripping out of you in sharp bursts, boots slamming against the stage in perfect unison.
You’re gripping a red smoke stick, heat blooming in your palm as it spits thick plumes into the air, bleeding color into the stage until everything is drenched in crimson. It curls around your bodies, around the lights slicing down from above like blades, burning the stage with fire without flames.
Man. Goyang hits different.
Maybe it’s because it’s home. Maybe it’s because this is the first real show where everything finally clicks into place—not just in your head, not just in rehearsals, but out here, in front of thousands of people screaming like the world is ending.
The 360 stage feels massive under your feet, lights slicing through the dark in perfect sync, pyro exploding at just the right beat. Every cue lands. Every formation locks. Every transition you’ve drilled into muscle memory finally breathes.
It’s insane and you feel even more insane because you’re in it. On stage, moving with everyone, keeping up, matching energy, feeding off it. The crowd roars and it vibrates through your bones, through your chest, through everything.
As rain pours down from the sky like blessings from above, you feel genuinely alive. Even though you’re damp and drenched and soaked to your very core, there really is no place else you’d rather be.
⊙⊝⊜
When you hit backstage after the encore, everyone’s wet, loud, breathless, half-laughing, half-shouting over each other, still riding the high of the first show. You don’t even think; you’re just moving, adrenaline buzzing under your skin as you high five whoever’s in reach, grinning like an idiot.
“Good job!” someone yells.
“You killed it!” another voice.
You barely register who’s who.
Hoseok finds you in the middle of it all and just pulls you into the biggest hug, squeezing tight like he’s just as proud of you as you are of yourself.
“You did so good,” he says, bright and warm and Hobi, and you laugh into his shoulder, still catching your breath. He praises you like you’re the global superstar, not him.
When you pull back, everything’s still squishing about, still loud and electric.
Namjoon messes up your hair. Jungkook gives you a high five. Yoongi’s across the room, exchanging quick fist bumps with some of the dancers, head dipped, saying something you can’t quite catch. Then he looks up and sees you.
There’s a split-second of indecision. But, you smile. He nods. A tiny one. He looks a little tired. He’s never been one to hide when he’s exhausted, but just like you he’s glowing. Tired, but certainly happy.
And then someone grabs him from the side, pulling him into a quick hug, and the moment’s gone just as easily as it came, replaced by high-pitched screams, and too-tight hugs from your girls.
[Tokyo, JP, April 2026]
You find Hobi slumped against the wall of the green room, half-hidden behind a rack of wardrobe like he’s trying to make himself smaller than he is.
You’d heard. Everyone had, in that quiet, careful way news like that travels—soft voices, lowered eyes, staff moving around a little more gently than usual.
You hesitate for a second, unsure if it’s your place. When you think about it, Hoseok isn’t just one of them to you. He’s your mentor. The reason you’re even here. The first person who saw something in you and decided it was worth something. And more than that, he’s someone you really care about.
Before you can think yourself out of it, you move closer. He looks up and red-rimmed eyes meet yours. Then, something in his expression breaks the distance you were trying to keep. You’re kneeling in front of him the next second, and he’s leaning into you, folding into your arms like he’s been holding himself together for too long.
His sobs are quiet, restrained, but they shake through him all the same.
You wrap your arms around him, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, the other rubbing slow, steady circles into his back.
“I’m sorry, Hobi,” you murmur softly. “I know she meant everything to you.”
He lets out a shaky breath against your shoulder, voice breaking. “I hate this. I should be home. I should be there, but I…” his grip tightens slightly. “I fuckin’ can’t.”
Your chest caves at that.
“She knows,” you say gently, pulling back just enough to look at him. “She understands. She’s looking down on you right now, smiling, so proud of you. I promise.”
Hobi looks up at you then and for a second, beneath the stage makeup and styled hair and everything that makes him him to the world, he just looks like a little boy.
Small. Hurt. Lost.
As your heart breaks a little, a soft cough breaks the moment.
You glance over your shoulder. Yoongi stands a few steps away, hands tucked into his pockets like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them, like he walked in on something he wasn’t meant to interrupt.
“I—um…” he shifts slightly. “They told me to come get you.” He means Hoseok, but for some reason, his eyes are fixed on you.
“Shit,” Hobi exhales, scrubbing at his face as he pulls away. “Yeah. Yeah, give me a second.”
Hobi stands, walking over to the makeup station, picking up a tissue and carefully blotting at his cheeks, trying to undo what he can.
It feels like your cue to leave. Rei’s probably already looking for you anyway because there’s a hole in the formation.
Hobi disappears into one of the changing rooms, pulling the curtain shut behind him as he gets ready.
You turn to go, but a hand catches your arm.
“Y/N,” Yoongi says quietly, before his fingers lose their grip.
There’s something in Yoongi’s expression that stops you for half a second. You don’t know what it is. But mostly you think, it’s gratitude sitting heavy in his gaze like he doesn’t know all the words for it.
You shrug lightly, because it doesn’t feel like something you should be thanked for. It’s the least you can do for someone who changed the trajectory of your life without ever asking for anything in return.
He just nods, still looking at you. You see his fingers reaching then drawing back.
It’s… a lot. More than you’re used to with him.
So you look away first, swallowing the tightness in your throat before the sting in your eyes turns into something else.
[Tampa, FL, April 2026]
Being in America is always exciting. Something about stepping onto U.S. soil flips a switch in the boys, like there’s something in the water, or maybe it’s just the distance from home loosening something in their bones.
Tae, for one, fully commits to the bit—gray sweats, tank tops, lewd little ad libs to the choreo. No one questions it. Angel is definitely going through it. Lucky bitch.
Jungkook is on his phone 24/7, liking everything in sight to send any and all users in a frenzy to fuel them until their next life. He also films these borderline menacing TikToks alone in his hotel room at ungodly hours, looking fucked out because well, he probably has done just that.
Jimin wakes up one day and decides he wants to have an even longer ponytail. And suddenly the internet is in shambles, ARMY collectively just losing their shit.
And that’s just the maknaes.
It’s fascinating to watch all of them, seeing different versions surface depending on where they are, like they’re all just slightly more themselves here. Or maybe just slightly less guarded.
After the last show in Tampa, the members decide to treat the crew to KBBQ at some nearby strip mall. You squeeze into a long table with some of the dancers and a couple of the boys, smoke from the grill curling into your hair, soju flowing a little too easily.
For one reason or another, as people made room for others, and chairs were moved left then right, you somehow end up in front of Yoongi like you just played musical chairs.
“How’s it going?” you say.
“Not bad. You?”
You shrug, “I’m okay.”
“Okay.”
The awkwardness is like a knot that loosens as drinks flow. Then, the easy back-and-forth comes like you do this on a daily basis instead of pretending you don’t think about him at all.
“You’re in a good mood,” you say, watching as he pours you another shot.
“Am I?” he asks.
“Yeah,” you shrug. “You talk more when you are.”
He huffs softly, like he doesn’t agree but won’t argue it either. He looks pretty like this, barefaced and sleepy. Then you remember something and you decide to be a menace. “Give me a reason to not tattle.”
His brows meet in the middle. Confused. “What do you mean?”
“Oh you know full well.” You mimic a head turn and flail your arms.
Yoongi’s cheeks turn pink. He fumbled the Run choreo. AGAIN.
“I recovered faster this time.”
“Not the point,” you reply pointedly.
“I ate in Day 1.”
“You did,” you nod. “Not the point though.”
He gives a wary glance over at Hoseok who has half a rib inside his mouth at the moment, when he looks back at you and challenges. “Name your price.”
“RP gift card. Could use some new arena skins.” You smile sweetly, knowing he’s been obsessed with LoL Teamfight Tactics, too. You’ve seen it on his phone.
“Fine.” Yoongi laughs, actually laughs, because he didn’t expect the response. “We should play sometime.”
And it was your turn to not expect that response.
“Oh, alright. Sure.” You nod, a little flustered even as you recall the nugget you’ve seen from one of his interviews. “Congratulations, by the way.”
Yoongi smiles, so gummy and wide, like he has a praise kink that you just discovered. “Thank you. Diamond is very hard to achieve.” So you let him brag a bit, before you decide to knock him down a peg.
“Trust me, I get it.” You bring the spout of your beer to your mouth and before you take a swig, you quip. “I’m a grandmaster.”
His jaw hits the floor and you almost spit your beer out. “You are not.”
You tilt your head as if to say, try me. He is still waiting. And the smirk disappears from his mouth when swipes of your screen later you show him your profile and your level is as you disclosed.
“Wow.”
“I know. Wow.” You say, smug. “Anyway, do you think you’re gonna get away with it, or is there a fan cam already circulating?”
“You tell me. I don’t watch those things.”
“My phone probably heard us and is about to add it to my algorithm. I’ll let you know.”
“Taehyung-ie threw me off, honestly.” He leans back and exhales deeply.
A giggle slips out of you because you know exactly what he means. “Yeah, no, everyone was just feeling it. Kookie did the dougie to Life Goes On. Namjoon was fucking the air to Butter of all songs. Insane behavior from all of you, actually.”
“I’m innocent.”
Oho. “You’re not off the hook.” You wag your finger.
“Wae?”
“Baepsae.” You lean your chin on your palm, referring to the Army time surprise song.
“What?”
“You got real close to a camera and let ‘er rip.”
“Did no such thing,” His lips stretch into that infuriating bracket-like grin. He’s obviously lying.
“Don’t even play. I saw the smile you tried to hide when you turned around, you dog.”
“So you were really watching me, huh?”
“I was monitoring the performances from backstage. As it is my job.”
“Mhm,” he hums, biting his lip to hide a smile as he shakes his head.
“Shut up.”
“I’m not saying anything,” he chuckles, voice a little higher than usual.
“Silence is admission.” You point your chopsticks at him and smirk. “It’s fine. You were just feeling yourself.”
You thought you were gonna have the last laugh. But as always, Yoongi knows how to render you speechless.
“And if I am,” he tilts his head slightly, eyes straight to yours. “What you gon’ do ‘bout it?”
You have a comeback. You definitely do. It’s just stuck in your brain traffic, unable to come out.
He pushes his glasses up higher on his nose bridge and the single action almost makes you fall to your knees.
God, you hope he doesn’t notice.
But he does.
That’s the only explanation for the text that you get while you’re settling in your hotel room that night.
Rei is on her bed already semi-snoring, her phone still lit up as a TikTok live seller continues to peddle a hyaluronic acid sheet mask bundle. 3+1 event—you’d check it out if you didn’t have a booty call staring back at you.
You check it again. Still not sure if you’re reading the text correctly.
Yoongi: 2004
Yoongi: come over if ur feelin it
So you find yourself on his floor thirty minutes later, the faint scent of your perfume still clinging to your blouse as you walk down the hallway.
Room 2002 has a very loud and dramatic show playing inside. For sure it’s one of the members as they’re typically roomed in the same floor. You just don’t know who.
A few steps over is your destination. Room 2004.
Fuck. You’re doing this. (Again.)
Except… There’s a sound.
No. A moan.
Your knuckles are frozen, inches from the door.
Someone is definitely having a great time in there.
You check the text again, because maybe you got the room wrong.
The numbers match. And yet, the math is not mathing. If he invited you, then why—
Oh.
Oh shit.
You look at your messages again and realize, all at once, what happened.
Your reply sits there with a red exclamation point. Which only means one thing. It was Unsent.
You: yeah, i’ll come ❗
Well.
Now?
No, you won’t.
“Fucking shit,” your phone flies out of your hand when you trip on the carpet floor like a complete klutz. You can’t believe you’re risking injury and getting benched for the rest of the tour for this stupid cat man.
“Y/N?”
Noooooooooo
You straighten up immediately, thankful it wasn’t Yoongi’s door that flew open. “Namjoon, hi.”
“Is this yours?” he bends to pick up your phone, which is resting by his doorway.
“Yeah, umm. That’s mine.”
He studies you as you take the device from his hand. Your screen is still bright and open and your Kakao app is just there. Ain’t no way he didn’t see who’s on your thread.
“Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m totally fine.” You pocket your device, forcing a light smile. But before you can say anything else, Namjoon is pulling his door wider.
You stay rooted in place, even as your eyes dart inside the plush suite. You realize he is wearing a black tank top and matching pajamas.
“I got food and a drama. Could use some company,” Namjoon says simply. No malice, no undertone. You’re sure Namjoon has no way of knowing you had a lacy thong underneath, so this is really just a simple invitation to hang out.
You consider it. At the same time, you think, huh, his dimples are really, really deep. Your reply came easy after that. “I–sure, yeah. I’m down.”
“Cool.” he tilts his head, gesturing you in.
The night settles into something softer in Room 2002, the noise in your brain fading into nothing thanks to room service, wine samplers from the mini bar, and Namjoon’s running commentary over a drama. He’s literally such a yapper. You lean back into the couch, listening to him more than watching the show, letting his voice fill the space instead of your thoughts.
It’s easy hanging with Namjoon. No guessing. No second-guessing. And you don’t realize until now how much you needed Namjoon’s friendship until now, but you’re glad he is offering it.
And maybe more than that, you’re glad he didn’t ask any questions you couldn't answer even if you tried.
⊙⊝⊜
The next day, rumors fly that Gwayoung from Digital was bragging about being on the receiving end of that tongue technology.
The same day, you also receive a 50,000 won gift card credited in your mobile game.
You know it’s from the same person. And you know which one you would’ve wanted more.
⊙⊝⊜
The tour goes on. It starts off like a high you can’t come down from. New cities, new crowds. You collect moments like souvenirs—late-night convenience store runs, inside jokes backstage, someone filming content here and there, drinking sessions inside someone’s hotel room. There’s always something happening, always someone around. You don’t have to think too much because everything moves too fast. It feels like living ten lives at once, and for a while, it’s enough.
But somewhere along the way, the novelty starts to thin out. The cities blur into one long stretch of airports, hotel hallways, empty highways, and backstage corridors that all feel vaguely the same. You wake up and sometimes it takes a second to remember where you are. Your suitcase never really gets unpacked—just opened, lived out of, closed again. Everyone’s tired in that bone-deep way that makes even laughter feel like effort. You’re surrounded by people all the time, and somehow, it still feels lonely.
You and the girls have a kind of unspoken understanding between all of you now, forged in cramped dressing rooms and shared mirrors, in the quiet rituals of getting ready before a show. Someone’s always borrowing someone else’s lip tint, someone’s fixing a crooked lash, someone’s complaining about a bruise they didn’t notice until they caught it under the harsh vanity lights.
“Why are we like this?” Angel groans one night, poking at a purple mark on her thigh.
“Occupational hazard,” Bina shrugs, already halfway through redoing her eyeliner for the third time.
“Is that the one that you banged on the clothing rack, or, ahem…”
Angel’s face heats. It was Tae. Rough Tae, as per usual.
Rei rolls her eyes. “Alright, we know you’re getting it good. No need to shove it in our faces.”
“You know who I wouldn’t mind shoving something in my face?” Lisa pipes in. She’s one of the newer dancers that joined the US leg.
“Who?” You ask, curious.
“Yoongi. Fuck. He looks so daddy these days. Literally need that.”
Rei shoves a protein bar into your hand, with a stern look to match. “Eat.”
You do, because if you don’t you might say something you’ll regret.
⊙⊝⊜
Since that late night hallway encounter several stops ago, you and Namjoon have somehow made hanging out into a thing. It just happens seamlessly. Over meals, passing conversations end up lasting longer than expected.
Off-handedly, he confides in you that he struggles to sleep. You piece together the rest on your own. Military life has altered his mental state in ways he is still struggling to undo and it’s been tough, but at least he’s a work in progress.
As far as you know, he’s the only member who doesn’t really… distract himself the way the others do on tour. Nobody waiting for a quick one backstage, no regular to help release all that adrenaline after long shows.
So instead, he watches dramas. It’s funny, really. But you guess, it works for him. He really likes those cheesy lovey dovey ones or those about heartache. Tells you it’s the closest he can feel something real and he lets them play until he passes out.
He invites you to join him sometimes.
At first, you’re suspicious. You wouldn’t have blamed him (or minded, to be honest) if there were other intentions. Everyone has needs, after all. And honestly, you would have been flattered to be considered by a catch like him. But after the third or fourth time of bingeing on drama and food, it becomes clear that he doesn’t want you like that. And you have to admit—he’s a fun time. So it’s cool.
When you hang out, he tells you about the books he’s reading, summarizing them in a way that makes you want to pick them up yourself. You tell him about choreography ideas, about how certain movements sit in your body, about how you think music should look when it’s danced.
“You think in shapes,” he says once, mimicking the way your hands move as you explain.
“You think in paragraphs,” you shoot back.
He laughs at that, dimples deep, eyes soft. “True.”
“Long-ass paragraphs, actually. Mr. Yapper.”
Sometimes, when the days feel too long and the nights stretch a little too quiet, you find yourself standing outside his door without really remembering how you got there.
No matter, Namjoon always lets you in.
[Las Vegas, NV, May 2026]
One night, you get a message from Hobi inviting you for drinks. You haven’t hung out with him in a while, so it was a no-brainer when you said yes. You don’t go out every night at every tour stop, but you made an exception this time.
You put on something cute. Not to impress Hobi particularly, but because you know he always dresses well, and you will not be caught dead looking shabby beside him. Lips a little glossy and cheeks a little rosy, you make your way to the hotel bar, heels clicking against the marble.
But instead of Hobi, you find someone else instead.
“Hey.”
“You stalkin’ me?” Yoongi smirks at his lowball.
“Yup, this is exactly what this is. Call Mr. Lee,” You deadpan, sitting on the bar stool beside him. “Where’s Hob-ah?”
He shrugs. “Not his keeper.”
“Is there another hotel bar?” You ask the bartender who was polishing off a wine glass.
“Yes, miss. There's another on the 31st.”
Realizing you might’ve gotten the venue wrong, you grab your clutch and start to slide off the stool. “I guess I’ll—”
“Stay.”
He says it so quietly, almost like he was hoping you don’t hear it.
You pause.
When you look at him, he’s not even looking at you—just staring into his drink like there’s something at the bottom of it worth pondering. You know you should leave, but you don’t.
“You look… a little worse for wear,” you say as you settle back into your seat.
“You can say I look like shit.”
You glance at him, then nod once. “Okay. You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
A beat.
“Everything okay?”
He shrugs. Noncommittal. Dismissive. Yoongi core.
You signal the bartender for a drink, letting the noise of the bar fill the space between you for a while as you wait for your cocktail.
It’s him who breaks first.
He slides a bowl of roasted edamame toward you, like a peace offering he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
“I dunno,” he mutters, more to the glass than to you.
You wait.
He exhales, long and slow, the amber liquid in his glass rippling with the movement.
“I keep listening to the album and it all just…” He trails off, jaw tightening. “Trash.”
You blink, shock evident in your face. “What do you mean?”
“Like I should’ve done it differently.” He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Every track. Every arrangement. Feels like I missed out on changing something obvious.”
“That’s just—”
“I know,” he cuts in, already shaking his head. “I know it’s not real. I know it’s just…” He gestures vaguely, searching for the word. “Fatigue. Whatever.”
But it doesn’t sound like he believes that.
“I can’t turn it off,” he adds, quieter now. “Even when I see how fans enjoy the songs, the doubt just eats at me.”
There’s something raw in that. Something he doesn’t usually let slip. You watch him for a second, really look at him. And it pulls something up from the back of your mind:
Hannam-dong.
⊙⊝⊜
A random weeknight. You’d gone out alone, too proud to call anyone after your ex ended things over something stupid that somehow still shattered you. You were busy ugly-crying over your gin until someone slid into the seat beside you.
Him. Yoongi.
“What are you doing here, Yoongi?”
He shrugs, like it’s obvious. “You looked like you needed someone.”
“You heard me crying from across the room?”
“It was a bit loud, yeah.”
Your face crumples again and you let out a broken sound, covering your eyes. “Oh my god, that’s so embarrassing…”
“It’s fine,” he says, voice low, even. “No one’s looking.”
You sniff again. “I look disgusting.”
“You look like you’re crying.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.” He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to you.
You let out a weak huff, somewhere between a laugh and another sob, before taking it.
He didn’t ask questions or make it a big thing. Just sat there with his black face mask, providing you with the comfort of company. He let you talk when you wanted. Let you cry when you couldn’t stop.
At some point, you’d leaned into him without thinking, and he’d just let you. Steady. Warm. He rubbed your back as you wrapped your arms around in his slight torso, sobbing slightly against his tee.
“Yoongi. Why are men pigs?” you sniff.
“I dunno. I’m a cat.” He shrugs. “...apparently.”
That makes you laugh, all wet and snotty. But it makes all the difference to lighten your mood.
“Look. I don’t know who the guy is. But I know he’s an idiot.”
“He is,” You nod immediately. “… but I am, too.”
A pause, before he chides. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
“I just…” You trail off lifting your head from his shoulder and looking up at the track lights hanging from the bar. “I just really love love, you know?”
He doesn’t interrupt.
“I like the idea of it,” you continue, words coming slower now, more honest. “Falling for someone. Growing with them. Having… I dunno, fuck…” you laugh weakly, shaking your head. “Someone to hold your hand ‘til it’s all sweaty and gross, like… I love that shit.”
It sounds stupid out loud.
“So even if I knew he wasn’t it, I tried to hold on. Because I’m scared of being alone. And I’m scared I won’t find someone who’d want me again.”
Jeez, that was a lot to unpack. You expect him to say something dry. He’s good at that.
No words come.
Instead, his fingers brush against yours where your hand rests on the bartop.
You glance down.
He’s not looking at you. Just placing his palm on the back of yours, before turning it over. And slowly, his hand closes around yours, fingers interlacing between each digit.
You’re staring at your conjoined hands and then his stoic face. He doesn’t look back, but he squeezes your hand tighter as if to say: I’m here. Not forever. But at least you’re not alone for now.
And that was enough. That night, you had someone to hold your hand til it was all sweaty and gross. You swallow, something tight in your chest easing just a little.
He walks you out after, hands still clasped. Makes sure you get into a cab. Waits until the door shuts before stepping back. Your hand feels cold without the feel of his when the car drives off.
But after that… nothing. He never brought it up again. Neither did you. Life got complicated. You don’t know what happened during his enlistment. So now you both just act like it didn’t happen.
If you will be honest, you still think about Hannam-dong sometimes. More than you will ever admit.
You’re reminded of it every time you see that random quote hanging on your foyer.
“The most romantic thing in the world is being understood. It’s even deeper than love.”
Things with Yoongi never really took off. But you will always have Hannam-dong.
⊙⊝⊜
Yoongi looks at you now, the same way you looked at him then, a little lost, a little broken, trying to stay strong. So you don’t make it a big thing either. You just reach for an edamame, pop it into your mouth, pull the peel, and shrug lightly as you mash the beans with your teeth.
“Sounds like your brain needs to shut the fuck up for a bit.”
He huffs, something almost like a laugh slipping out. “Yeah,” he mutters. “If only.”
“For what it’s worth, Album of the year, in my opinion.”
Yoongi can’t stop his lips from curling.
Satisfied, you call for the server. “Let’s eat something first. Then we solve your existential crisis.”
He glances at you, something unreadable flickering in his eyes.
“Yeah?” he says.
“Yeah,” you shrug. “I’m the best, right?”
He gives you a thumbs up. “Kkaepjjang.”
Ass.
You order food, which comes out quicker than expected, but what you really wanted to do to distract him comes in the form of a mobile game.
“You still play?” you ask, showing the app now loading in your phone.
Face instantly lighting up, he unlocks his phone and presses the same app sitting on the home screen. “One game.”
You grin. “Double Up?”
A small nod.
“Don’t drag me down,” he mutters as the queue pops.
“Tsss,” you shoot back. “I’ll carry.”
He huffs, but there’s no bite to it.
You fall into rhythm without needing to talk much—checking in here and there, nudging each other when it matters, covering where the other slips. Just quiet coordination, the kind that only happens when both people know what they’re doing.
At some point, you lose a round you shouldn’t have. You fumble a turn.
“I got you,” he says, and he does.
By the time the game ends—with a win you barely scrape—you’re both facing each other, knees touching, smiles plastered on your faces.
“Not bad,” you murmur, setting your phone down. “You did well.”
“But I always do well?” he replies.
You push him lightly. “Take a humble W for once.”
“No, cause I can’t remember ever doing poorly…”
“Oh my gooood, I’m tired of you.” You roll your eyes, attempting to swivel away from him, but his knees stop you.
He glances at you, something softer flickering through his expression. You look away first, because what’s with the face? You reach for your drink, swirling what’s left and sip.
“Thanks,” he says, and why are his fingers drumming on your knee? It’s kind of distracting, actually.
“Are you feeling a little better now?” You reply, forcing a neutral expression.
He pauses, exhales. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess I just got tired of my own head.”
And maybe it’s the fact that you’re sipping the final dredges of your margarita that the next words carelessly tumble out. “Maybe you just need good head.”
The dining area is still loud around you, but somehow, between you and him, it has become z-z-z. His fingers cease tapping against your skin.
Panicking, you blab. “Just text Gwayoung. Or Haein… I’m sure they’re available. You don’t have to look too far, you know.”
His eyes bear a weight you didn’t anticipate.
“I’m not,” he says quietly.
And the way he’s looking at you makes it very clear he’s not looking far at all. He doesn’t need to.
⊙⊝⊜
You don’t remember deciding to leave or how he even paid. Just the deja vu of how his hand found your wrist and the way you let it. Of how a door opens and then your back is firmly against it.
The next thing you feel is Yoongi’s soft lips sliding against your own.
His hand drifts up the side of your neck, fingers settling at the base like he’s keeping you right where he wants you, and it does something weird to your breathing—shortens it, stutters it—without needing to press.
The strap of your dress sags against your shoulder, but you make no move to fix it.
Your fingers find his hair instead, threading through the longer strands at the nape. It’s softer than you remember, just enough length to catch between your fingers, and when you tug, he groans against your mouth, the sound going straight to your center.
Total brain fog.
Your heartbeat, faint but present, is somehow the one that warns you about the risks. Because you’ve been in this situation before with Yoongi. You’ve been vulnerable in Hannam, and in his studio, and in the rehearsal space, and in room 2004. There’s a host of reasons why you should run away.
But it’s only taking one slow, smooth swipe of his tongue against the roof of your mouth for you to run in.
Your mouths part at the same time, an accidental knock of teeth, before he catches your lower lip between his and sucks softly, almost sweetly.
God. Yoongi makes your head swim.
And all this kissing is making you feel like there’s something more, when there is none. You’d do well to remind yourself of that.
By some miracle you find the strength to pull away.
“Yoongi, if we’re doing this, just…” you place your palm gently against his chest, pushing him back. “Don’t confuse me.”
Yoongi frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I know what this is,” you say, still a little breathless. “And I’m down, but I just… let’s not…”
The words stall out, slipping through your fingers no matter how hard you try to hold onto them. You inhale sharply, trying to piece together something that makes sense, something that doesn’t sound as messy as it feels in your head.
Because if you’re being honest—really honest—you’re already in deeper than you should be.
You never quite bounced back from his rejections. It lingers, quieter now, but still there, still tender in places you don’t like to acknowledge. And that’s not something you can tell him. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Not when he’s this close. Not when his lips are a soft, distracting pink. Not when he’s looking at you like this—like, for once, all of his attention is yours.
So you decide on something, albeit hastily. You shift your weight, looking him dead in the eye. “You can’t kiss me.”
He studies you curiously, too amused for your liking. His eyes are transfixed on your mouth, observing how they’re still shiny from his own spit. “Too late for that, don’t you think?”
“No, you can’t do it again. Not anymore.”
If he is confused, he doesn’t let it show. He scratches his nape. “Just your mouth, right? Anywhere else is fair game?”
His eyes dip, trailing your body like he’s already mentally undressing you. You feel heat building beneath your skin.
“Yes.”
“Sweet.” His thumb brushes the corner of your mouth, dragging lightly across your lower lip to wipe away the trail he left behind. Then he turns, moving further into his hotel room, dropping the keycard into an empty fruit bowl. “Anything else?”
You follow him in, dragging your feet on the plush carpet, still deep in thought.
You exhale through your nose, trying to keep your tone even. “Don’t make me sign an NDA.”
“No need, your current NDA’s already airtight.”
That—
You blink, thrown for half a second. The reminder lands colder than you expected, like a bucket of reality dumped over something that was just starting to feel… not real.
“Right.” You nod slowly, arms tightening across your chest. “Way to make a girl feel special, Yoongi.”
“Legal contracts don’t turn you on?” Yoongi drops to the couch.
“Not particularly. My dad’s a lawyer.”
He makes a face.
You snort. “What? Talking about my old hairy lawyer dad doesn’t turn you on?”
“Pass.”
That gets a real laugh out of you, the tension cracking just enough to breathe again.
He watches you when you do, like he’s taking note of something. Almost like he’s fascinated with you.
Then his head tilts slightly, a small gesture, almost nothing. “C’mere.”
You hesitate for half a second, but step forward anyway, closing the distance until you’re right in front of him, standing between his parted legs as he looks up at you.
His hand finds your wrist first, then your waist, guiding you down like it’s nothing. You end up on his lap, breath catching just a little as his hand slides under your dress, resting on your upper thigh.
“Tell me,” he murmurs, eyes dragging over your face, slower this time. “What does?”
The question sinks somewhere low, coiling tight, as he squeezes your soft flesh, so close to where you need him.
You open your mouth to respond, but he’s already leaning in.
His lips brush your collarbone first, not really doing anything but press his mouth against your skin. It’s almost absent-minded, the way he does it, like he can ask a question and distract you at the same time.
You inhale sharply.
His mouth drifts lower, grazing the hollow between your chest, and your thoughts start slipping, unraveling faster than you can catch them.
“Yoongi…”
He hums against your skin, like he heard you, but doesn’t want to stop. Frankly you don’t want him to when you feel his lips latch on the top of your breast and your brain goes foggy, words dissolving before they can form.
And that’s exactly why you…
“Wait.” You feel the solidness of him under your palms, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, as you lean back.
He stills, mouth swollen.
“Mm?” he hums, lifting his head but not moving far, like he’s willing to wait—but only just.
“Don’t you have your own rules?”
There’s a brief flicker of something, before his expression smooths back out.
He blinks once and huffs. “Don’t leave me on read.”
You almost react. Almost say something about that night, about the message that never sent, about the door you stood in front of, and the sounds that destroyed you before his friend picked up the pieces of you that shattered in front of room 2004.
But you swallow it down. He doesn’t need to know.
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
You study him for a second longer, like you’re trying to find something deeper and coming up short.
“Okay.”
A beat.
It’s decided.
“So,” he says, voice lower, like it’s already done. “Are we gonna do this, or—”
“Fuck me, Yoongi.”
His mouth curves, just slightly one corner. “Gladly.”
Part 2
A/N: .....hi? :)
Please let me know what you think. Leave me a note, or a reblog with your review. It's the best way you can show your support.
Thank you for reading you lovely, beautiful human xo
Synopsis: Mrs Min is persistent, she wants her son to get serious about dating and takes the matchmaking process in our own hands. Min Yoongi doesn't think he has the time or the space for a relationship, but it all changes after a few annoying texts from his mother and an elevator ride.
Genre: Idol Yoongi AU, FLUFF, a lot of FLUFF, boyfriend Yoongi, some smut, two people trying to figure out their feelings for each other. Art curator OC, it's just a lot of fluff with some smut because I am terribly single.
Word Count: 25K+
AOC Link: here
Link to Epilogue: here
"Mom, I don't want you intervening in my dating life anymore!" Yoongi's voice carries down the hallway the moment his phone buzzes with yet another contact saved under a name like Park Soomin - nice girl, works in finance, very pretty ♥. He stares at it for a long second before tossing the phone onto his bed. "I don't want you to help me find a girlfriend. I don't have time for a girlfriend."
He yanks open his closet and pulls out the last of the clothes he needs to pack, draping them over his arm with the practiced efficiency of someone who has lived out of suitcases for the better part of a decade. New York. Weeks of back-to-back schedules, press runs, radio slots, and performances and his mother was out here playing matchmaker like he was a man of leisure.
"I'm sure they're all great," he continues, softer now, more tired than annoyed. He means it, genuinely. It's never about the girls. "I just don't have the time." He pads out of the bedroom, heading toward the living room where he'd heard her shuffling around not twenty minutes ago, the familiar sound of her rearranging things that didn't need rearranging.
But the room is empty. Yoongi stops in the doorway, a dress shirt still folded over his forearm, and looks around. The television is off. Her reading glasses are sitting on the arm of the sofa. A half-drunk cup of tea steams quietly on the coffee table.
He blinks. "…Mom?"
He walks further in, checking the kitchen, empty, then their bedroom. Nothing. He stands very still for a moment and replays the last several minutes in his head. The bedroom, the closet, the hallway rant. Had she even been home? Had he just been pouring his heart out to an apartment?
He drags a hand through his hair and exhales slowly through his nose. His phone buzzes again on the bed, distant but audible. Probably another one.
Her phone rings for a while before she picks up, “Where are you?” Yoongi speaks to the phone as he continues packing. "I'm at the Lee's place." Her voice is bright, unbothered, the voice of a woman who has done nothing wrong in her entire life. "Their daughter is visiting. You should come over." A brief pause, then, as though it's a perfectly reasonable addendum: "Now."
Yoongi stops folding. "Their daughter," he repeats. "She's very sweet. She works in the arts world too, works as-" "Mom." He sets the shirt down. "I leave for the airport in twenty minutes"
"It won't take long, just come and say hello, what is twenty minutes-" "Why are you even there?" He pinches the bridge of his nose. "You went to the Lee's just… did you plan this? Did you leave so I couldn't argue with you in person?"
The pause that follows is a fraction too long. "Their daughter got some amazing desserts from Spain" she says finally, with great dignity. He laughs before he can stop himself, a short, disbelieving exhale and sits down on the edge of the bed amidst the half-packed chaos. "I'm not coming over."
"Just to say hello -" "I'm not coming over, I'm going to New York, and when I come back we are having a real conversation about this." He stands again, reaching for the shirt. "Enjoy the desserts"
"She has a very nice smile, so beautiful, perfect height for you" "Bye, Mom, I’ll see you in two weeks" He hangs up. Stares at the open closet for exactly three seconds, then gets back to packing. His phone buzzes again, information for the Lee’s daughter, like he’s really convinced by the hard sell his mother gave.
The elevator dings and slides open, and Yoongi steps in without looking up, wheeling his carry-on in front of him. He adjusts his mask, tugs his beanie down a little further, and stares at the floor numbers like they owe him something. He does not notice, at first, that he is not alone.
She's standing in the corner with her coat half-buttoned and her bag hiked up on one shoulder, the posture of someone who had also left a situation slightly faster than was polite. She'd walked into her parents' living room an hour ago expecting a quiet visit and had instead been subjected to an unsolicited slideshow. Her mother and Mrs. Min, two women who clearly missed their calling as matchmakers, had walked her through approximately twenty photographs. Career highlights, candid shots, one that looked suspiciously like a press photo with the watermark cropped out.
So she recognizes him from a maternal ambush conducted over barley tea and the good plates. She says nothing at first. The doors slide shut.
"Congratulations on the album," she says, pleasantly, the way you'd say it to a colleague in a lift. "My mother played me three songs from it this morning. Without warning."
That gets him, his head turns. Not just the sideways glance he'd given her when she shifted her bag a proper turn, eyes finding her face with something between confusion and alertness. The look of a man trying to locate the context.
"She what?" "The one with the soft intro," ___ continues, thinking back. "She said it proved you were sensitive. I think that was meant to sell me on you."
There’s complete silence from Yoongi’s side, he just stares at her. She can only see his eyes above the mask but it's enough she watches the exact moment the pieces assemble themselves.
"The daughter," he says slowly. "You're ___ Lee?" he recalls from the last contact information his mother sent. "And you're the son" She tilts her head. "Twenty pictures, by the way. I counted."
He makes a sound that isn't quite a word, more of a groan. His hand moves to the back of his neck. "I'm so sorry," he says, and he means it with his whole chest.
"It's fine." She smiles, and there's no edge in it, just genuine amusement. "Honestly the album part was good. I'd have preferred to find it on my own terms but-" she lifts one shoulder, "-here we are."
"Well, great to meet you." She steps out of the elevator first, one hand coming up absently to tuck a piece of her bob behind her ear before it falls back against her jaw anyway. Her coat is oversized, something vintage-feeling in a warm camel tone.
"I saw you guys in concert in 2019 and now we're being set up." She glances back at him with a grin that's more amused than anything else, fingers brushing through her bob again, a quick, unconscious sweep. "Funny how life works."
Yoongi follows her out into the basement, and for a moment he just looks at her. The way she says it, not starstruck, not awkward, just stating a fact, like it's a mildly interesting observation about the weather, catches him somewhere off guard.
He's used to two kinds of reactions. The overwhelmed kind, and the overcorrected kind, people who perform so hard at being normal around him that it becomes its own thing. She is neither. She's just standing there in her excellent coat, bag slouched on one shoulder, apparently entirely comfortable with the absurdity of the situation in a way that he, who has been mentally managing this airport run since Tuesday, is decidedly not.
"I'm sorry about my mother," he says again, because it warrants repeating. "You've said that already." "It deserves two apologies."
She laughs at that a real one, quick and unguarded, her hand going up to push her hair back from her face. It falls forward again immediately. She doesn't seem to mind. "She means well. They both do."
"I didn't know any of this was happening," he says, and he needs that on the record somehow. "I found out when she sent me your contact details. I was in the middle of packing."
"My mother sent me a voice memo," ___ offers. "Forty seconds. Very thorough." He closes his eyes briefly. "What did she-" he starts, then stops. "Actually, I don't want to know."
"She called you a great catch." ___ says it with complete neutrality, like she's reading from a grocery list. "Said you're the perfect husband material." A small pause. She tilts her head. "She mentioned the cooking specifically. Twice."
Yoongi stares at the concrete floor of the basement parking lot and says nothing for a moment. "The cooking," he repeats. "She seemed very proud of it."
"I made her one birthday dinner-" "Apparently it was very good." ___ is visibly enjoying this now, just slightly, the corner of her mouth giving her away.
He looks up at the ceiling. "I have to go to New York," he says in the tone of a man who has never wanted to board a flight more in his life. ___ laughs, warm and bright in the dim parking lot. "Go," she says, waving a hand. "Your perfect husband reputation is safe with me."
"Please forget everything she told you." "Absolutely not." She hoists her bag up and turns toward the exit, one hand ruffling to find her car keys "Have a good flight, Yoongi-si."
She disappears around the corner, still smiling.
His manager is at his elbow. "The car's ready." "Yeah." Yoongi watches her go for just a beat longer than necessary, the camel coat disappearing around the corner. "Yeah, okay."
The private lounge is quiet in the way airports never quite manage to be anywhere else — insulated, dim, the chaos of Incheon existing somewhere beyond the frosted glass. Their bags are lined up near the door. Someone has already claimed the couch. There's coffee on the table that Yoongi is already on his second cup of.
He sits down, sets his phone face down out of habit, and looks around at the others.
"Are your mothers also aggressively trying to set you up with someone," he says, with the careful delivery of a man who has been sitting on this all morning, "or is something wrong with mine?"
Namjoon looks up from his phone slowly, the way you look up when you want to assess the energy of a room before committing to a response. Jimin, who has been reorganizing his carry-on for the past ten minutes, stops and looks up. "What happened?"
"She left the apartment," Yoongi says. "While I was in my room packing, I thought she was in the living room… I was talking, going on and on-" he gestures vaguely, "-and she was already gone. At the neighbor's place."
"Doing what?" Hoseok asks. "Setting me up." He says it flatly. "Their daughter was there too. She sent me her contact details before I even knew any of it was happening. Then called me and told me to come over." He pauses.
"What did she do to sell you?" Seokjin asks, because he knows how mothers operate and he wants the full picture. "Apparently she played her our music." Yoongi stares into his coffee. "To prove I was sensitive. And she told her I could cook."
"She said I was the perfect husband," Yoongi continues, with the energy of a man reading from a police report. "To a stranger. That she had never met before."
"To be fair," Hoseok starts. Yoongi looks at him, Hoseok closes his mouth knowing when to not fan the flames.
"And then," Yoongi says, "I ran into her. The girl. In the elevator on the way down."
The lounge goes very still. "The girl your mother set you up with?" Namjoon says slowly.
"In your elevator." "Yes." "She was just, there?" "Apparently she left early too." He wraps both hands around his cup. "She must have been flustered by the set up too."
Then Taehyung, who has been sitting in the armchair with his chin in his hand and the expression of someone watching a very satisfying drama, asks the only question that matters.
"Was she cute?" Yoongi opens his mouth, closes it, looks down at his coffee, sets it down, picks it back up, like he doesn’t know what to say or what to do with his hands.
"We're boarding soon," a manager says. “Let’s get going” but none of the members move, waiting for Yoongi’s answer
“Hyung!!" Jimin says, slowly, the way you speak to someone who has already given themselves away. “We should go, board" Yoongi offers as he stands up.
"Was she cute?" Taehyung repeats. "She was- " Yoongi stops to clear his throat, "It was a thirty second elevator ride."
"That's not a no," Hoseok observes. "That's not what I-" He picks up his coffee again even though he's not drinking it, just to have something to do with his hands. "She was normal. She was a normal person. Can we drop it."
"He's flustered," Jimin says to Namjoon, delighted. "I'm not flustered, I'm tired, there's a difference-" "Hyung." Taehyung is grinning now, fully, without shame. "Just say she was pretty."
Yoongi stands up, reaches for his carry-on, and says nothing. Which is, somehow, the loudest answer in the room.
Every month’s second Friday dinners with Sunhee and Wonik are non-negotiable. They have been, for years, the kind of standing plan that survives busy seasons, travel schedules, and the general chaos of three people who probably have no business being as close as they are given how differently their lives run.
They're halfway through the meal when ___ sets down her chopsticks. "I want to tell you guys something," she says, "but you need to swear on your life and mine that you won't overreact."
Wonik looks up. "That is the single most alarming way to begin a sentence." "Swear first." "I'm not swearing on anything until I know the category of information I'm dealing with," Wonik says reasonably. "Is this a work thing, a family thing, or a-"
"Swear." Sunhee is already sitting up straighter. She has the posture of someone whose instincts are firing. "I swear," she says immediately. "Wonik, swear."
"Fine, I swear, I swear." "Okay." ___ picks up her glass, takes a sip, sets it down. "My mother set me up this morning. With the son of her friend Mrs. Min."
Sunhee's chopsticks hit her bowl, the sound is very loud in the small restaurant. "Say the full name," Sunhee says, in a voice that is very carefully controlled. "Say his full name out loud right now."
"Sunhee-" "___." Her eyes are very wide. "Say. The name."
___ looks at her. "Min Yoongi." Sunhee puts both hands flat on the table.
"I met him in the elevator," ___ continues, talking over whatever is happening on Sunhee's face, "for about thirty seconds. It was fine, he was normal, we were equally mortified because his mother had already sent him my contact details-"
"What about you?" Wonik asks. "Did you get his number?" "No." ___ shakes her head. "I mean…he's. You know how famous he is. That's not really something you just-" she gestures vaguely. "I have his mother's number. That's it."
"You have his mother's number," Wonik repeats. "She put it in my phone herself. Before I could leave." "Resourceful woman," Wonik says, almost admiringly.
"You were in an elevator," Sunhee says slowly, still processing, "with Min Yoongi." "For thirty seconds, yes-" "Of BTS."
"Sunhee-" "SUGA!" "I need you to not do that-" "How are you this calm right now? How are you sitting there like that?"
"Because it was thirty seconds in a basement parking lot and then he left for the airport," "Did he seem interested?" Wonik asks, cutting straight through it.
___ opens her mouth and closes it, well she couldn’t see much of his face other than the eyes, and his eyes were more irritated at his mother than interested, "He apologized twice for his mother."
"That's not what I asked," Wonik says. The table is quiet for a second. "He watched me walk away," ___ says finally, very casually, into her drink.
Sunhee makes a sound that is not words, close to a manic laugh. "You said you wouldn't overreact," ___ reminds her.
"I SWORE I WOULDN'T OVERREACT, I DIDN'T SAY I WOULDN'T HAVE FEELINGS-" "Same thing" ___ says with an incredulous laugh as she downs her shot of soju.
"It is absolutely not the same thing!" Sunhee shouts as she downs her drink. Wonik refills everyone's glass quietly, the expression of someone who knew from the word swear that it was going to be a long dinner.
Yoongi thinks about ___ the way he thinks about songs that aren't ready yet, circling it, not touching it, waiting to see if it still feels like something after enough time has passed.
It does. The contact has been sitting in his phone since the morning he left for the airport. ___ Lee. His mother had sent it with a string of hearts he had not acknowledged. He'd told himself he saved it by accident. He'd told himself a lot of things.
He's in the back of a car heading to some schedule. His life is mostly cars heading to schedules, he's come to understand, when he opens the contact and stares at it for long enough that the city outside the window blurs entirely. It's the jacket that does it in the end, or that's what he tells himself.
He picks up his phone, puts it down and picks it back up.
Yoongi: Where did you get the jacket you were wearing?
___ is in Hong Kong, sitting cross legged on her hotel bed with client notes open on her laptop, when her phone buzzes. Unknown number, she frowns at it slightly.
No hello. No name. No context whatsoever. Just that, from a number she doesn't recognize, as if the conversation had already been happening somewhere she wasn't aware of.
___: Who is this?
His response comes quickly, even if it’s pretty late in New York, mostly because he had been on his phone watching something when he couldn’t sleep. Yoongi immediately sits up, realizing what he’s done, just asked about a jacket without introducing himself, of course she’s skeptical.
Yoongi: from the elevator
She stares at that for a second. Then it lands, all of it at once, the basement parking lot, the beanie, the mask, the carry-on, their mother’s voice doing their best to convince her.
She puts her laptop to the side, the client notes can be taken care of later in the day.
___: It's vintage. There's no link I can send you
She has a ghost of a smile as she helpfully types.
___: I can lend it to you
___: No you’re rich rich, buy it from me
In New York, Yoongi reads that last message and something in his face does a thing he's glad nobody is around to see. He is not good at whatever this is, that’s what he’s realizing.
Yoongi: How much
___ reads that and laughs, a real one, sudden enough that it surprises her. She pushes her hair back and looks at the ceiling for a second.
___: I'll think about it
In New York, Yoongi chuckles as he turns around in bed, a real laugh, like he’s amused, like he wants to talk more, like he’s fascinated.
Yoongi: Take your time
He puts the phone on his chest and stares at the ceiling of his hotel room, the city humming its endless New York hum somewhere beyond the glass, and he thinks that this is perhaps the most words he has willingly initiated with someone new in a very long time.
He also thinks that I'll think about it is not a no. He falls asleep twenty minutes later with the phone still in his hand, which has not happened in recent memory either.
___ thinks about that for a moment. The hour it must have been in New York. The fact that he had her number this whole time, sitting there, and this is what finally made him use it. A jacket. An excuse so thin it was practically transparent and he'd sent it anyway.
She wasn't even looking, she rarely is when she finds the best things. She'd ducked into the thrift shop on a whim, killing twenty minutes between a gallery visit and a lunch she was already slightly late for, and there it was. Black leather, clean lines, interesting hardware on the collar. The kind of jacket that looks like it has a history without looking tired.
___ takes the mirror selfie without thinking much about it. One hand holding the phone up, the other shoved in the jacket pocket, her hair slightly disheveled from pulling it on. She looks at it for approximately one second to confirm it's not blurry.
___: Tan will wash you out a bit
___: How about something like this?
She sends the message with the image as she’s already buying the jacket, something in her telling her that she just needs to get this today.
Yoongi is somewhere over the Pacific, when the flight's wifi finally decides to cooperate. His phone loads a backlog of messages and he's scrolling through them automatically, half asleep, when he sees her name.
He sits up as the picture loads. The jacket is perfect. He knows it immediately, the same way he knows when a song is working, something just settles.He stares at the photo for longer than necessary.
In the seat beside him Namjoon is reading, headphones on, entirely in his own world. Across the aisle Jimin is asleep, nobody is watching as he smiles at his phone like an idiot. He makes no effort to mask the smile as he types back.
Yoongi: I like it
Yoongi: Where are you?
Her reply doesn’t come instantly, it comes as he’s being driven home from a long flight, trying to stay up to fight the jet lag.
___: Hongkong for the Art Basel event
___: I was there, now I am at the airport, waiting for my cab to pick me up
___: Do you like it?
Yoongi doesn’t stop to contemplate as he types, Jimin looking at him suspiciously as he does so with a faint smile.
Yoongi: Yes
___: Good, then you can pick it up from my studio when you’re free
He reads that once and then again.
A studio. She has a gallery. She was at Art Basel. He turns that over quietly, this small new piece of her that just landed without ceremony in the middle of his exhausted morning, offered the same way she offers everything, casually, like it costs her nothing, like she isn't handing him a reason to see her again wrapped in a sentence about a jacket.
He's smiling again as he mutters, "I think I've done something stupid," he mutters, to nobody in particular, to the window, to the general concept of his own decision making.
"Yes," Jimin says from approximately four centimeters away, "flirting via jacket is stupid." A beat. "It's also very you." Yoongi turns to look at him. Jimin is gazing out the window with the serene expression of someone who has absolutely been reading every message off the bright screen this entire time and feels no guilt about it whatsoever.
Yoongi: I can come by monday morning if that works for you
Yoongi: Send me the address
He locks his phone for a brief second before it buzzes again.
___: Perfect, but don’t come in too early, I’m useless before 10
Yoongi: I’ll be there by 11 then
Yoongi puts his phone in his jacket pocket and closes his eyes, the city still moving outside, home getting closer. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't particularly try to.
___ spends a bit longer getting dressed that morning, which is not the case on a monday morning when she doesn’t have any clients to meet, she doesn’t even go into work on a monday most weeks. She straightens the pale white dress one last time when she drops her handbag and goes around switching on the studio lights.
“Where are you off too? I thought you didn’t have any schedule” his mother asks as he continues to fix his hair, “Just some work came up, I’ll be back by dinner” he announces as he tries on three different pairs of glasses, landing on the same dainty one’s he’s been wearing for weeks now.
Yoongi is there quicker than imagined, parking the Mercedes quietly as he puts on a mask on, he doesn’t know who all are going to be there, and he’d much rather not have this visit becoming a bigger deal than it needs to be. The studio is located in a quaint neighbourhood, plants all around the glass door entrance as he walks up, coffees hand, he didn’t want to show up empty handed.
The door announces him, not a bell exactly, just the particular sound of glass and marble connecting, his footsteps suddenly loud and deliberate in the quiet of the space. He slows instinctively. His sunglasses are on his head, pushed up to get a proper look, and his eyes move around the room the way they do when he enters somewhere new, taking inventory, settling, trying to understand a space before the space understands him.
"You're early." He turns.
She's coming from the back of the gallery, and he stops. Not visibly, not in any way she'd necessarily catch, but something in him just pauses for a moment and takes inventory of her the same way he did with the room.
The dress is pale linen, short, simple in the way that only works when someone has a very good eye for what suits them. Her hair is pinned away from her face today. She looks entirely at ease in the space, the way people look at ease in places they've built for themselves.
And then he notices the tattoos. He doesn't stare. He notices, the way he notices the jacket, the coat, the glasses she isn't wearing today and darts his eyes away
"Traffic was light," he says. She glances at the carrier in his hand and one brow lifts slightly. "That's more than one coffee."
“Uh yeah, I didn’t know how you take your coffee, there’s an iced americano, hot latte and an iced latte” he explains and ___ smiles, picking up the hot latte for herself. “Thank you” she murmurs and he hums to himself, picking up the americano for himself.
“So, this is my uncle’s gallery, I’ve been working with him for god, ten years now” ___ explains as she walks a few steps ahead of him, showing him around, he hums every once in a while, he’s not very talkative, as she’s noticed.
He does the mental math quietly. She would have been young when she started, almost 20.
"We work with private collectors mostly. Finding them legacy pieces, introducing them to new artists, hosting shows sometimes." She pauses in front of a series of smaller works along the eastern wall, studying them for a second like she's seeing them for the first time. "It's quite fun, actually. Every collection is different. Every collector is different." A small smile. "Some of them are insane, but in the best way."
He looks at the series she's stopped at. Three pieces, related but not matching, a conversation between them rather than a repetition. "How do you find the artists," he says.
She turns, slightly surprised, not that he spoke, but at the specificity of it. Most people ask about the collectors. "Everywhere." She leans against the wall beside the series, arms crossing loosely, the tattoos catching the track lighting. "Art fairs. Studio visits. Sometimes someone sends me something and I can't stop thinking about it." She tilts her head. "Sometimes I find them in thrift shops in Hong Kong."
He looks at her then, and there it is again, that sideways almost-eye-contact, landing just adjacent to direct. The corner of his mouth does something small.
She pushes off the wall and keeps moving. He follows, hands in pockets, in no hurry, taking everything in.
"Your uncle started it?" he asks, after a moment. "Mmhm. Thirty years ago, almost." She stops at a large photograph mounted simply, no frame. "He took me to my first auction when I was nine. I didn't understand any of it." She pauses. "But it did flame the fascination inside me”
He looks at the photograph. Then at her, briefly, the way he does, quick, considered, like he's filing something away.
Yoongi’s phone is vibrating in his pocket, he knows that it’s his manager checking if he’s on the way to practice. They’re currently in the beautiful backyard, what Yoongi’s leart is that this used to be ___’s grandparents home before it was turned into a gallery. She’s on the other end of the bench as she places her empty coffee cup down.
“Anything that caught your eye in there?” ___ asks and he briefly looks at her before he looks away, his eyes falling on her red heels, quite high for a monday.
“A few things” he confesses with a faint smile as he looks around, at anything but her. “I’m not cultured enough to understand art so haven’t bought much as of late” he offers more, he knows that she’s been the one leading the conversation, he doesn’t want her to think that he’s not listening.
"I don't think people need to be cultured to understand art," she says. "There's art in almost everything." She says it without any weight to it, not a lecture, just a thing she actually believes.
He looks back down. At the floor, at the middle distance, briefly at her hands where they rest against her knee, the tattoos more visible from here, something intricate in the design, leaves or maybe something older than that, he can't quite tell without looking properly and he's not going to look properly.
She's in the middle of saying something about the artist, a story beginning to take shape, her hands moving slightly the way they do when she's getting to the good part of something when his phone rings.
Loud with no respect for the moment whatsoever. He pulls it out and silences it immediately, the name on the screen requires no explanation. He closes his eyes for approximately one second.
“You need to leave don’t you?” ___ asks as she stands up, “I do, we have a tour starting in two weeks” Yoongi offers as she leads them back in, her heel slipping in some mud before he catches her briefly.
“Thank you” she murmurs, steading herself as she fixes her posture, all he does is softly smile as he drops his hand from her arm.
“So, the jacket, it’s a vintage Ralph Lauren jacket” ___ speaks as she appears from her office, a bag in her hands. “Thank you, I don’t think I own any vintage pieces” Yoongi shares as she hands him the bag, their fingers brushing just for a second.
“Um, how much-” “Please, no, consider it a gift” ___ says with a soft smile, the smile that is making Yoongi late for practice. He holds the bag and looks at it and then looks at her. She can see him trying to find another angle on this and coming up short.
“We have a few concerts in Goyang, you should come,” Yoongi suggests and she presses her lips together like she’s thinking long and hard about it. “You got me a jacket, let me get you concert tickets, our come by rarely” he brags a bit, trying to sell her on this.
“Sure, but can I get a plus one on that?” ___ asks knowing full well Sunhee would quit on the friendship if she doesn’t get him a ticket. The plus one confuses him, like there’s someone already in the picture and she catches that confusion almost immediately.
“My friend, she’s a huge fan, she wasn’t able to get tickets” she says and he huffs, not quite a laugh but adjacent to one and looks away, and she watches him do it with the ghost of a smile that she doesn't bother hiding because he isn't looking at her anyway.
“Of course, I’ll text you the details?” he asks as he mentally prepares himself to leave. "Thank you," she says. "I really enjoyed the 2019 concert." She turns one of her rings, slowly, around her finger. Then another. He glances at her hands briefly. "And Sunhee fainted, which in this situation I think counts as a good sign."
He looks up at that. "She fainted?" "Briefly. She was fine." ___ pause, looking up at him "Mostly fine." The almost-laugh again, slightly more this time. He looks away before it becomes anything. "Okay." He takes a small step toward the door. "I'll see you. I really, really need to go."
He still doesn't turn around, she notices. "Yes, please." There's warmth in it, no edge. "You're a busy man, Yoongi-si." He turns then, just slightly, and there's something in his expression that she hasn't seen yet, something a little looser than his usual careful composure.
"Let's just -" he starts, stops and tries again. "We should talk informally. I'm not that strict, and not that much older than you"
She looks at him. He looks somewhere adjacent to her, the way he does, the tips of his ears faintly pink in the studio light, and she realizes with some delight that this small thing, dropping the formality, asking for it plainly, has cost him something, not much.
She tilts her head. "Okay," she says simply, no teasing. She gives him that much.
He nods once, like something has been settled. "I'll text you," he says.
"Go," she says. He is almost jogging out of the gallery. The glass door swings shut behind him and she stays exactly where she is for a moment, rings still warm from where she'd been turning them, the studio quiet around her.
Yoongi’s mother has made something good, as promised. The table is full and warm and she is asking about his week with the particular casualness of someone who has decided not to ask about anything specific, which means she is asking about everything specific indirectly.
He answers in the usual way. Fine, busy, yes he ate properly in New York. No he doesn't need her to call his manager about the schedule. His phone is face down beside his bowl.
He picks it up, checks it once, puts it back down. His mother says something about his aunt. He nods. She says something about the weather this weekend. He nods again.
His phone buzzes twice in quick succession. Then once more when he finally turns it over.
___: So I see you sunday?
___: I have to meet this client in Dubai and I fly in late afternoon on saturday, can I come to the stadium with a suitcase?
___: Can’t do saturday because Sunhee has a scheduled c-section for a patient
He reads them once, then again. He's smiling at his phone before he's decided to, the particular involuntary kind, and he catches it and schools his expression back to neutral approximately one second too late.
His mother is looking at him. "What," he says. "Nothing," she says, in exactly the tone she used that morning about the glasses. She turns back to her food with the serenity of a woman who has already won something and knows it.
They've been texting for two weeks now. Properly, not just the jacket, not just small talk, but the kind of texts that start about one thing and end up somewhere else entirely an hour later. She's funny over text in the same way she is in person, dry and quick, and she asks him questions that are more specific than people usually bother with.
He'd much rather call her. He knows that about himself already, that he'd rather hear her voice than read the words, that a call would be easier and faster and better in almost every practical sense. He's not ready to call her yet. He's not entirely sure what that means but he knows it's true.
Yoongi: I’ll have someone from the team meet you, they’ll take care of everything
Yoongi: Your friend is an OB-GYN?
___: Yes, she’s also my doctor, and will be for free for the rest of my life so I gotta treat her right. Also because I love her
He reads that and something about it lands warmly, the easy way she says it without any performance in it. He's about to type back when , "Have you reached out to any of the girls I sent you?"
He looks up, his mother is across the table, expression pleasant, chopsticks down, in the posture of someone who has been waiting for a natural opening and has decided this is it.
"No," he says. "None of them?" "None of them." She considers this with the gravity of a woman receiving disappointing quarterly results. "There was a very nice one, works in finance, you said you wanted someone independent"
"Mom." "And the architect, you didn't even look at her profile-"
"I looked." "For how long?" He doesn't answer that. She sighs with her entire body. "The concerts are this week?"
"Thursday, Saturday, Sunday." "Which day can we come? Me, your dad and your aunt-" "Saturday," he says immediately with no hesitation whatsoever.
She blinks. "Saturday? Not Sunday?" "All the parents will be there on Saturday" Yoongi says this like it’s a sure think which he knows isn’t, but he’s going to have to plan it so that it is.
"Your aunt was hoping for Sunday" He picks up his chopsticks with great authority. "I’ll have to check, but I already have your tickets for Saturday”
“Okay, but what about the Lee’s daughter? Mrs. Lee said she's very busy with work, always travelling, very independent, the hair cut was a disappointment to the parents but she’s still such a pretty woman, and she’s short enough for you” “I’m not that short mom” “It’s my fault, I should have married a taller man” His mother says with complete sincerity and Yoongi stares at her.
"That's" he stops. "What does that have to do with " "Your father is a good man." She picks her chopsticks back up serenely. "But the height. I should have thought more carefully."
"Dad is right there." From the other end of the table, his father, who has been eating in peaceful silence through this entire conversation with the practised serenity of a man who checked out of these discussions some years ago, looks up briefly.
"She's not wrong," his father says. "Dad." "I'm just agreeing with your mother." "You're agreeing that you're too short"
"I'm agreeing that she should have thought more carefully." He goes back to his food. "Very different thing." Yoongi looks between them. His mother is eating with great satisfaction. His father has returned to his bowl.
___ hasn’t changed in a bar’s bathroom before, so this is a first as she slips herself in a black dress right from the airport. Her hair is not the best, but that’s the good part about having a bob, it doesn’t need a lot of styling. What does need help is her face.
“How do you have no makeup?” ___ asks with disappointment as she slides back onto the bar stool, she’s swapped the beer for hard liquor because the dress she packed doesn’t allow for a beer belly.
“I have chapstick, but it’s not hygienic to-” “I have like five lip products but nothing for my face, I need to start carrying around a cushion foundation or a tinted sunscreen or something” ___ says as she she downs her drink, third drink of the night and with the little amount of rest she’s had all week, she knows she’s going to be hitting a wall soon.
“___ are you nervous?” Sunhee finally asks as the food comes, it would be normal for Sunhee to be nervous, but ___ is never nervous. “I don’t know, I am mostly tired” ___ offers as she stuffs her face with the fries, food should help her. She’s about to speak up again when her phone buzzes loudly against the table.
Yoongi: I’ve forwarded your contact to my manager, he’ll find you and get you guys to your seats
Yoongi: I’ll see you after the concert
___: All the best for the concert, I’m sure it’s going to be great
She types as Sunhee pays the bill, ___ might be nervous but Sunhee is anxious to leave this pub and be at the venue as soon as she can
Yoongi: Thank you, I’ll see you soon
___ doesn’t have a change to respond back before her phone is already ringing. It’s all too quick from there, they barely find a cab to the event, which Sunhee spends meditating like she does before operating, this is as she says, a spiritual experience for her.
“Why am I the only one that drank?” ___ asks as they sit down in their seats, the massive crowd all around her leaves her awestruck for a second. “I am on call” Sunhee answers, her eyes wandering, her short answers give her away.
“Come on, chill out, we’re going to be having a lot of fun” ___’s just the right kind of drunk now, the four drinks when everything is amazing and all you can think about is a drunk cigarette. The crowd around her is the kind of happy that's collective and contagious and she can feel it getting into her bloodstream alongside the liquor.
"Sunhee, your hand is shaking." Sunhee looks down at her hand. Places it flat on her knee with great effort. “That's adrenaline," she says. "It's a physiological response, it doesn't mean-"
The lights drop all the sudden, Sunhee grips her arm so hard ___ loses circulation for a moment. The crowd becomes something else entirely, a single enormous sound, and ___ feels it before she hears it, in her chest, behind her eyes, somewhere wordless and immediate. She stops thinking about the cigarette immediately as the music starts playing.
Between the singing and dancing that ___ and Sunhee have been doing, they almost miss Sunhee’s phone going off. She reads the message and is immediately a different person, “My patient just went into labour” she announces to ___ as she’s picking up her bag.
“How’ll you get back?” ___ yells over the music, "I'll call a cab-" "Are you sure-"
"___." Sunhee stops for a second and looks at her properly for one second, the exit forgotten. Her expression does something warm and knowing and slightly unbearable. "Stay."
"I was going to stay-" "I mean after." She squeezes her hand once. "Stay after."
___ opens her mouth and closes it, not able to form any words at the moment. The crowd surges around them as the last few songs begin to play, enormous and bright, and Sunhee is already moving toward the exit, bag on her shoulder, phone to her ear, slipping through the crowd with the quiet efficiency of someone who has somewhere more important to be.
___ sees him, her eyes almost involuntarily finding him every now and then, smiles to herself seeing him so happy on stage, his cute mannerism that she’s finding too endearing. How the crowds cheer for them, the heart that they sing and dance with, this kind of passion could move anyone.
The final note ends, the roar that comes after is physical, a wall of sound, and the boys walk back out for their bow, all of them, together, the stage lights warm on them, and the crowd sends everything it has left toward the stage in one long unbroken wave.
___ stays seated as the people around her continue to gather their stuff and move around, ready to leave. She's not sure where to go or what the protocol is or whether there even is a protocol, the text that said see you after suddenly very present in her mind now that after is here.
She's still sitting when someone appears at the end of her row. Yoongi's Manager, the same one who met her outside the venue, was efficient and unhurried, with the quiet competence of someone who has done this exact thing many times.
"Ms. Lee." He nods once. "If you'll follow me."
She picks up her clutch and stands too quickly, smoothing her dress in one swift motion, she walks as she reapplies her lipstick, hoping this can mask the lack of makeup.
She follows him through the emptying stadium toward the back, the crowd thinning around her, the stage growing closer, the noise of the night shifting into something quieter and more specific the further in they go.
The hallway outside the green room is not what she expected, though she's not sure what she expected exactly. It's busy in the contained way of post-show logistics, staff moving with purpose, and people. Guests, she realizes, a few of them, recognizable faces standing in the particular way that recognizable people stand when they're in a space that isn't quite public, relaxed but not fully, aware but performing unawareness.
Jimin notices her first as they emerge from the resting room, having caught their breaths after the concerts and now ready to greet their guests. His eyes land on her and then move to Yoongi in the same second, quick and unnoticeable to anyone not watching for it. She catches it.
The group collectively greets a few people as ___ stands on the side, not wanting to be in people’s way when Yoongi stops right in front of her.
Still slightly out of breath, towel around his neck, water bottle in hand, his eyes find her sneakers first. They make her considerably shorter than him and she watches him register this, his gaze traveling up slowly before it finds her face.
"Hi," he says softly, a small smile spreading on his face, she’s about to say something when he pulls her by the arm, away, in another quiet room, away from the people.
"Oh my god, you guys were incredible. I think my throat actually hurts from how much I was cheering, which has never happened to me before in my life-" Yoongi sets his water bottle down and disappears behind a curtain at the far end of the room, changing, and she can see his silhouette moving and hear the quiet sounds of someone pulling off a jacket, a shirt, the efficient undressing of someone who just wants to be in normal clothes as quickly as possible.
"-the production, the stage is so massive, and the crowd, every one having the best times of their life, my hearts still beating like crazy, I can’t even imagine what yours is doing” she talks naturally, like a person who had a life altering experience and needs to share it. There’s a faint laughter from his end as he continues behind the curtain.
“Seriously, the scale of this is crazy, you guys were amazing” He says nothing for a moment. She can hear him pulling on something.
He's tired, she can hear it underneath the silence, the particular quality of exhaustion that has gone past the point of showing itself and become something quieter. He performed for three hours, he's been doing this for days and he's here, behind a curtain, listening to her talk about the lighting.
She stops talking suddenly, very aware of how much she’s rambled on, "Sorry," she says. "You're exhausted." “I want to hear everything you have to say ___” he speaks softly as he emerges from behind the curtain.
“I always have a lot to say Yoongi,” she stops, copying the same emphasis he just placed on her name, “You might get tired of how much I have to say” she continues as he stops by a table, dropping all the clothes he was just wearing now that he’s in a simple jeans and black shirt.
Yoongi isn’t just tired, he’s exhausted, exhausted enough to do what he’s done each night after a show, and rush home. But he simply takes a seat on the sofa opposite to hers, he wants to continue listening to her voice.
“Seriously, it was amazing, congratulations, I would have brought flowers or something if I didn’t directly come from the air-” “You have freckles around your nose, they’re um” Yoongi interrupts. It comes out before he's made a decision about it. The exhaustion, probably. The way tiredness removes the small delay between thinking and saying, the buffer he usually relies on.
The briefest pause where his senses catch up with his mouth and he considers his options and decides on honesty anyway. "Very pretty."
The silence between them is the particular kind that has too much in it to be comfortable and too much in it to break carelessly. “Your friend? I didn’t see her-” “Oh her patient went into labour so she had to rush out, but she caught most of the concert and is now probably prepping to deliver a baby”
“Oh” that’s all Yoongi can muster now that the buffer of a friend is gone, when Yoongi was imagining seeing her after the concert, he kept imagining the friend. “Yeah, but I should get going too, you must be tired”
“I am tired, but I can still drop you home?” Yoongi asks, knowing full well that he should have probably asked her for dinner, given the thin smile on her lips. “Please, I can find my way-” “There’s going to be a lot of traffic ___” Yoongi offers and she smiles briefly as he says her name again, the particular softness that he uses.
"It's late," she says. "Which is why there'll be traffic."
"Yoongi-" "My car is already outside." He says it simply. "It's not out of the way." She looks at him for a moment. He looks her straight in the eyes for a second, like he really means this and isn’t offering this out of some formality.
“You don’t know where I live” she says with a teasing tone as they both stay seated, not quite ready to move onto what comes next. “Today I learn your address then”
The car is quiet, not the uncomfortable kind, but the kind where neither of them knows what to say. None of them imagined the string of events that led to this, it almost makes Yoongi chuckle to himself as he thinks about how vehemently against this he was, his mother can’t know any of this yet. Not until he knows why he keeps reaching for his phone for her text back, why he saved her address without thinking about it, why he's sitting in a car at midnight when he should be in bed.
He doesn't know yet. He'd like to figure it out quietly, without his mother's involvement, which is the only way anything survives in its early stages.
“So, the tour, you guys must leave soon” ___ speaks up as they stop at a red light, the traffic is indeed awful. “Yes, Japan, then the US, Mexico, back to US and then back in Korea around mid June” Yoongi hears himself say it. All of it, laid out in sequence, the shape of the next several months suddenly made concrete in the quiet of the car.
Somewhere in the middle of the list he understands, clearly and exactly why he told his mother he didn't have time for a girlfriend. Why he'd meant it. Why it was true then and remains true now regardless of freckles or the jackets or the way she says his name.
He can't do this to someone. The disappearing, the timezone math, the months of existing primarily as a name on a phone screen. He knows what that looks like from the inside and he knows what it asks of the person on the other end and it's a lot. It's always been a lot.
"Mid June," she says quietly, doing the math the same way he just did. "Mid June," he confirms with a long exhale.
"Do you get used to it?" she asks. "The schedule."
He thinks about it for a few seconds, deciding on how honest he should be, "You get used to moving," he says. "You don't really get used to leaving."
The car stops at another light. Somewhere outside a group of people are spilling out of a restaurant, loud and warm on a Sunday night, and she watches them through the glass.
She’s almost thirty two, a gallery she loves, clients she's spent years building relationships with. A life that moves exactly the way she designed it to move. She doesn't need to complicate that. ___ knows this.
She can't quite bring herself to be realistic about this, even if she has been realistic about way less complications in the past.
"What are you thinking about," he says, he needs to know just what she’s thinking because he knows it can’t be good.
She glances at him, he's looking ahead at the road, not at her, but his attention is entirely on her answer. "The tour," she says. Which is true but not all of it.
He nods, something in his jaw shifts slightly, the way it does when he's decided not to say something.
"Yoongi." "Mm."
"It's a long time to be away." "It is," he says, simply with no argument, he knows there isn’t one.
The light turns green. "Do you…" she starts and stops to try again "Is there ever a point where it gets easier? The coming back. Picking things back up."
He's quiet for a moment. "Depends what you're picking back up," he says.
She looks at him. He's still looking at his hand now and the city lights are moving across his face in slow intervals and she thinks distantly that this is an unreasonable amount of person to have discovered in an elevator.
She looks back out her window. "I'm not twenty anymore," she says, mostly to herself.
"Neither am I." "I mean-" she turns her rings once. "I used to be better at not thinking ahead."
"What do you see?" he asks. "When you think ahead." She's quiet for a long moment, outside Seoul continues, indifferent and bright.
"A very long tour schedule," she says finally. He exhales through his nose. Not quite a laugh, almost a laugh like he’s had this discussion before, "Yeah, that’s just the first leg" he says quietly.
The car moves through the city and neither of them solves anything and somehow that's alright, the silence settling back around them like something they've agreed to for now, the kind of quiet that isn't an ending, just a pause.
The car stops outside her building and they both get out, the night air cool after the warmth of the car. She tilts her head back slightly to take in the street, familiar and quiet, and he falls into step beside her naturally, walking her to the entrance the way he'd stood up to walk her out of the green room.
They stop at the entrance. The streetlight catches everything, her hair, her rings, the white sneakers. He's still in his cap and mask pulled down, hands in his pockets, adjusting his cap without meaning to, forward, back, forward again.
Neither of them starts the conversation. She looks up at him and he looks somewhere just past her, and the comfortable quiet of the car has followed them out onto the pavement.
"I think we should go on a date," she says. He goes very still as his eyes find her.
"A real one." Even, practical, like she's proposing something with a clear agenda. "Before Japan. Before our rational sides catch up with us and decide this is a terrible idea." A beat. "An experiment. To find out if there's actually anything here before we decide there isn't."
He knows what he should say. He's been doing the math since the car, since she said mid June in the quiet way she said it. He knows what this looks like, the beginning of something, the successful experiment she's predicting, and he knows what comes after that too, what he'd be asking her to sign up for.
___ deserves someone who comes home on a regular basis. Yoongi knows this.
"You know it won't stop there," he says quietly. "If the experiment works."
"I know," she says. "The tour is-" "I know, Yoongi."
"I'm just saying you might-" "I know." She says it gently, firmly, the way she says things when she's already thought them through and doesn't need him to think them through on her behalf. "I'm aware of what I'm suggesting."
He looks at her for a long moment, the way she’s fidgeting with her rings, "Okay," he says.
"Okay?" "One dinner." He holds her gaze. "Before Japan."
She nods once, that's when he looks down.
The height difference from here, standing on the pavement, is… notable. He does the mental calculation of exactly what his mother said and feels the smile coming.
"What," she says immediately. "Nothing." He presses his lips together and fails entirely. "My mother said you were short enough for me."
She stares at him. "She said that."
"Among other things." "Short enough for you," she repeats.
"Her words, not mine" "And what do you think?" He looks down at her from the full, considerable distance of his height, cap crooked, mask around his chin, and says with complete straightness,
"I think she was right." She laughs brightly and he lets himself smile properly this time, all the way, and for a moment they're just two people standing outside a building at midnight laughing about height and mothers and the specific absurdity of how they got here.
She steps back and looks up at him one last time. "Goodnight, Yoongi." "Goodnight, ___."
She turns and goes inside, the door closing quietly behind her, he stands there a moment longer than he needs to. Reaches up and adjusts his cap.
Gets back in the car and looks at the ceiling for a long moment, the city moving quietly around him.
He knows how this goes. He knows himself well enough to know that one dinner won't be one dinner, that the experiment is going to tell them both exactly what she predicted it would, and that she said I'm aware of what I'm suggesting with the confidence of someone who has never actually done this before. Not with someone like him. Not with a schedule like his.
She'll be realistic about it eventually. Everyone is, eventually. He just hopes she is the anomaly in the experiment that his dating history has been.
"-so you just decided, so young, that music was your calling?" "I didn't decide anything." He turns his glass slightly on the table, a small rotation, thinking about how to explain it to someone who hasn't lived it. "It was more like…the decision had already been made somewhere and I was just catching up to it."
She rests her chin in her hand, elbow on the table, the way she settles in when she's properly interested in something. She's been doing it on and off all evening and he's stopped pretending not to notice. "That's how it feels with the work I love too," she says. "Like you didn't choose it so much as recognize it."
He looks at her. "Exactly that." The restaurant is quiet around them, the kind of quiet that Tuesday buys you, a handful of other tables, low light, no one paying attention to anyone else.
"Okay," she says, picking up her glass. "Worst part of the job. Honestly." He thinks about it and she waits, turning the stem of her glass between her fingers, patient.
"The losing yourself of it," he says. "Not in a dramatic way. Just…" he pauses. "You're performing a version of yourself for long enough and you start to lose track of where that version ends."
She's quiet for a moment. "Does it come back?" she asks. "The original version."
"I'm still figuring that out." She nods slowly, like she's filing that somewhere careful. Not with pity. He'd noticed pity immediately and she seems to know that.
"Your turn," he says. "People assume I do this because I come from money," she says, the same even tone she uses for everything. "That it's a hobby dressed up as a career. Something for a well bred woman" She pauses to take a sip of her wine. "I would have done this regardless of the money. The money just meant no one could stop me from starting early."
He nods. That he understands, the specificity of a thing choosing you rather than the other way around. She looks at him for a moment. Something shifts slightly in her expression, a decision being made.
"Can I ask you something personal?" she says. "We’ve been doing that for some time now" Yoongi notes with a light chuckle.
"More personal." He leans back slightly, arms loose. "Okay."
"Do you actually want this? Not the date, not…" she gestures between them. "In general. A person. Do you want one or do you like the idea of wanting one?"
The table goes quiet. He looks at her steadily and she looks back, unhurried, leaving the question exactly where she put it.
"That's a good question," he says. "I know."
He takes a sip of his wine as he prepares to talk, "I miss it," he says simply, like something admitted for the first time in a while, to someone actually listening. "Having a girlfriend. Having someone who… knows your schedule well enough to know when you're tired before you say it. Someone to call when something happens. Good or bad." He pauses. "Someone to just, be there."
She's quiet as she leans in, like she wants him to know she’s listening. "I've told myself that life makes it impossible," he continues. "And it's not untrue. It's hard, it's always been hard." He glances up at her. "But I think I've been using it as a reason not to try. Which is different from it actually being impossible."
"That's honest," she says. "You asked."
"I did." ___ says with a small smile. "Your turn. Same question."
She exhales softly, "Yes," she says, without hesitation, which means she's known it for a while. "I'm not complicated about it. I just want someone, I've always wanted someone." She turns her ring once. "I've just been spectacularly unlucky."
He looks at her., and then her glass, and then the residual of her lipstick on the glass, "Unlucky how?"
She laughs, short and genuine, the kind that comes from a story that has lost its sting and kept its absurdity. "The last person I was serious about decided to move to London for work and forgot to mention it until two weeks before he left." She picks up her fork. "Before that there was someone lovely in every way except that he was still in love with his ex. Which he also didn't mention."
"I have good instincts about art," she continues, "and terrible instincts about men. Which is a very specific combination of traits to be living with” He presses his lips together, like he’s trying to suppress a smile.
"You can laugh," she says. "I'm not laughing."
"You're doing the thing where you're not laughing." He looks away briefly and then back at her, the wine really helping him look at her, "I'm not laughing at you."
"I know." She sets her fork down. "It's tiring, mostly. Being caught off guard by people when you're not someone who gets caught off guard easily."
The table settles into a quiet with something real in it now. The lightness still underneath but something more honest sitting on top as their plates get cleared, signaling a clear end to their date, or at least their time at the restaurant.
"How's the experiment going," he says, after a moment as he quietly places his card in the bill book.
She looks at him, steady and warm. "Terribly," she says with a pleasant smile.
He smiles into his glass. "Yeah," he says. "Same." Yoongi reaches into his pocket for his mask as they step outside, pulling it up with the practiced ease of someone who has done it ten thousand times, adjusting it once.
The street is empty and still. Tuesday midnight belongs to no one in particular. "I'll walk you home," he says, naturally, already falling into step beside her. “It’s a long walk” ___ retorts as they walk, hands brushing every now and then.
“It’s a two minute walk ___” Yoongi offers plainly as he doesn’t move away. They fall into step together and talk as they walk, nothing important, nothing that needs to be, she says something about a show she's been meaning to see, he says something about a track he's been sitting on for weeks, small things, the kind of conversation that exists just to keep the evening going a little longer.
It’s all light and breezy till they reach a crossing, he reaches out and takes her hand. His hand just finds hers as they step off the curb, the way you do something you've been doing for years. Fingers wrapping around hers, already looking both ways, already moving.
She looks straight ahead, hoping her hair masks some of her blush. They cross, but he doesn't let go.
She doesn't say anything. Neither does he. They just keep walking, her hand in his, and she looks at the street ahead with the expression of someone being very deliberate about not smiling and not quite managing it.
He looks at the building and looks back at her. Her hand still in his, the evening sitting between them with nowhere left to go, he leaves for Japan tomorrow, the night air cool and still around them.
She tilts her head up at him. "Do you want to come up?" she says. "I have dessert. Ice cream" she says as she tries to tug her hand to gesture with her hand, which he doesn’t let go.
He's looking at her with the particular expression she's learning, the one that isn't quite a smile but is adjacent to one, the one that lives mostly in his eyes, quiet and certain and slightly devastating at close range.
"Ice cream," he repeats. "Yes."
"What kind?" "Does it matter?"
He considers this with complete seriousness. "Somewhat."
"Yoongi." "I'm asking a reasonable question-"
"Come upstairs and find out," she says, and turns toward the entrance, and this time he lets her hand go, only to hold the door open for her, which she walks through without looking back at him because her face is still doing the thing and she needs another three seconds before she can be a normal person again.
Her apartment is exactly what he would have guessed and nothing he was fully prepared for.
Organized chaos, the particular kind that has a system even if the system isn't immediately visible. Paintings leaning against the walls in clusters, some framed, some not, some wrapped in brown paper with labels in her handwriting. Books on every surface, some closed, some splayed open face down. Magazines stacked in a way that suggests they're referenced rather than decorative.
It's lived in. Genuinely, thoroughly lived in, and it suits her so precisely. They end up on the sofa without deciding to, the way they keep ending up places without deciding to. Her legs tucked under her, turned slightly toward him. Him at the other end, bowl in hand, looking at the painting propped against the wall directly across from them.
They talk. The ice cream disappears somewhere in the middle of a conversation that moves from her uncle to his producing to a collector in Geneva who cried when she found him a specific work he'd been searching for for eleven years. He tells her about what it feels like when a track finally becomes what it was supposed to be. She listens the way she always listens, fully, without waiting for her turn.
It's past one when his phone lights up on the cushion between them. Mom.
She sees it the same moment he does. He reaches for it. "Pick up her phone," she says sternly, the tone of teasing right there.
"I'm not -" "Do not cut your poor mother’s phone, she might be sick and worried" ___ adds dramatically and he huffs and picks up the call anyway.
"Mom." "Where are you?" She’s wide awake, unbothered by the hour. "You're never out this late, are you sick-" "I'm not sick-"
"Have you eaten?" "I had dinner" "With who-"
___ opens her mouth with that same teasing smile and his hand moves before he's decided to move it, swift, certain, palm covering her mouth completely, cutting off whatever she was about to contribute to this situation as he closes the distance between them.
She goes still as he keeps his eyes forward, continuing the phone call, entirely composed. "With a friend, Mom, I'll be home soon"
___ looks up at him over his hand. She very aware, in the specific silence of having nothing to say because there is a hand preventing her from saying it, of his hands. The size of them. The warmth. The way it covers most of her lower face with a kind of easy certainty that she is finding deeply inconvenient given the current context of a first date and his mother on the phone and her own heartbeat which has made a unilateral decision she hasn't approved.
"You sound strange," his mother says. "I'm fine."
"Which friend?" "Mom -" ___ raises her eyebrows at him. He finally looks at her, briefly, and whatever he sees makes him look immediately back at the painting on the wall across the room.
His hand stays and she stays still beneath it.
"Come home soon," his mother says. "Soon," he confirms. "Go to sleep"
He hangs up with a huff and neither of them moves. His hand is still there, warm against her face, and the apartment is very quiet around them, the painting on the wall offering no commentary whatsoever.
Slowly, with the careful deliberateness of someone making a considered decision, he lowers it. She looks up at him. He looks back at her, right beside her.
"You were going to say something," he says shyly as his hand comes to rub his neck.
"I was going to be helpful," she says. "You were going to be a problem." "Same thing," she says with a smile, and her hands come up without much deliberation and fix his hair which the sudden movement moved out of place.
He goes very still, not uncomfortable. Just, very still. The way he goes still when something catches him off guard in a way he wasn't prepared to be caught. Her hand drops back down, briefly touching his thigh when she leaves them.
He's looking at her now, properly, the full direct version he allows himself in small increments, and from this close it's a lot. “I didn't expect to have this much fun," he confesses, his voice quieterl, like he's admitting something he hadn't planned to. "Not that I doubted you, I just-" he pauses, choosing the words carefully the way he does, "I haven't been on a first date this good in a while."
He looks at her when he says it, waiting for her reaction with the particular stillness of someone who has said a true thing and is now at the mercy of what happens next.
"I know," she says, and there's warmth in it, no teasing yet, just the honest version first. "I was kind of rooting for you to be this brooding, nonchalant musician, actually. Would have made it all much easier."
"Easier," he repeats. "To not like you," she says simply, reaching for her glass of wine. "I had a whole plan. You'd be aloof and a little difficult and I'd think, well, lovely person, interesting work, not for me." She takes a sip. "Very clean. Very uncomplicated."
"I almost cancelled," he says, after a moment. She raises an eyebrow. "Not because-" he stops, tries again. "I almost talked myself out of it. On the way over." He turns his glass slightly on the table, the small rotation she's noticed he does when he's thinking. "I do that. Find the practical reason not to."
"What changed your mind?" she asks. He's quiet for a moment, looks at the table, at his glass, briefly at her hands where they rest near her wine. “I really liked the feeling of seeing you after the concert," he says. Simply, without dressing it up, the way he says true things when he's decided to say them. He pauses. "I kept thinking about it on the drive over and I couldn't find a practical reason that was bigger than that."
She looks at him for a moment, this careful, deliberate man who thinks before he speaks and means everything he says and had apparently spent an entire car ride arguing with himself about her and lost. "The feeling of seeing me," she repeats, softly.
"Yes," he says. He's looking at her now, noticing how she looks in these dim lights.
They talk for a while, about something and nothing in particular, the night settling into the easy rhythm that has become theirs without either of them formally deciding. She tells him about an artist she'd found earlier in the year, eccentric beyond what that word usually covers, a man who'd moved deep into the woods over concerns about wifi radiation and could only be reached by a forty minute hike up an unmarked trail. "I showed up in the wrong shoes," she says, gesturing at her feet like the memory is still personal. "He didn't apologize. Just handed me a cup of something that tasted like tea and started showing me the work." She pauses. "It was extraordinary. The work, not the tea, the tea made me sick."
He's smiling properly now, elbow on the sofa back, chin in his hand, watching her the way he watches things he finds genuinely interesting. "Did you sign him?"
"I'm working on it," she says. "He doesn't have a phone so it's mostly letters." A beat. "Actual letters. With stamps." He laughs, low and warm, and she tucks her feet further under her, satisfied.
He talks about tour, stories that surface easily now in the comfortable quiet of her living room, the way they don't always in interviews or in rooms full of people waiting for something quotable. A night in São Paulo where the rain came down so hard they could hear it over the speakers and the crowd stayed anyway, every single person, standing in it. The particular feeling, he says, quieter now, of standing in the wings before a show when everyone is there together, all seven of them, and the noise of the crowd coming through the walls like something alive.
"You miss them," she says, not a question. "It's different performing without all of them," he says simply. "It'll be good to be back."
She looks at him for a moment, the lamp throwing everything soft and warm, his profile against the dark of the window, the city quiet beyond the glass. She's been thinking about something, something which is a lot to ask on a first date, but asks anyway.
"How does it work?" she says. "A relationship. With you on tour." She says it evenly, no weight of accusation in it, just the genuine question, the one that has been sitting underneath the whole evening. "Practically. What does it actually look like?"
He's quiet for a moment, turning his glass slowly. "A lot of texts," he says. "Voice notes when there's time. Video calls that get cut short because of schedules." He pauses. "Having them fly out for tour dates, as often as I can, as much as they can" He looks at the glass, talking in hypotheticals.
“The hardest part isn't the being away," he continues. "It's not being there for the small things. The ordinary ones." He glances up at her briefly. "Someone has a bad day and you're in a different timezone and a text isn't the same as being there."
She's quiet for a moment, turning her ring. "No," she agrees. "It isn't."
"I'm not going to pretend it's easy," he says, and she can hear the care in it, the way he's choosing honesty over reassurance because he thinks she deserves the honest version. "It asks a lot of the other person."
"It asks a lot of both people," she says. He looks at her then. "You'd be the one leaving," she continues. "That's not nothing either." He holds her gaze for a moment, something shifting slightly in his expression, like she's said something he hadn't expected to be said. "No," he says quietly. "It's not."
It’s about three am when Yoongi yawns for the first time, ___ chuckles as she stands up, they’ve talked for a while, they could keep going, but he also leaves for the tour tomorrow.
“What time do you leave tomorrow?” ___ asks as she walks over to the kitchen and refills her glass, “Around 7 pm” Yoongi says as he checks his watch, very aware of the time. He stands up, swiftly putting on his jacket.
“I should go, we both have stuff in the morning” He says as he stands awkwardly, he isn’t sure how to say goodbye, or if he even wants to.
“Yeah…yeah we do” The silence that follows is different from the ones before. He shifts slightly, hands sliding into his pockets, then out again, like he can’t quite decide what to do with them.
He’s not usually like this, but there’s something about this, about her, that’s throwing off his usual rhythm.
“Tonight was…” he starts, then stops, he exhales lightly, glancing away for a second before meeting her eyes again. “A successful experiment” ___ adds as she walks over, stopping just a few steps away from him.
“___,” he starts again, quicker this time, like if he hesitates he won’t say it at all. “I’d like to see you again.”
The words land between them, steady but unpolished, so painfully honest. “My life is complicated,” he continues, glancing at her briefly before looking back, like he’s choosing not to hide behind anything. “But I feel like we’ve got something good.”
He pauses there, watching her, trying to read her before he goes any further. He continues quietly, “something real”
For a second, she just looks at him, and then her smile grows. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she admits, closing the small distance between them.
Now they’re close, closer than before, close enough that she can see the growing blush on his face, “Because I was about to say the same thing.”
That catches him off guard, just slightly, his expression shifting to relief and something more warm. “Good,” he says, softer now.
“You know,” she adds lightly, her voice dropping just a little, “for an experiment, this went pretty well.”
“Mm.” “Almost like we should repeat it.”
That earns the faintest hint of a smile from him. “I was planning on it.”
Her eyes flick briefly to his lips before returning to his eyes, the movement subtle and quick, but not quick enough to escape him, and in that fleeting moment something in him settles, something quiet but certain, like a decision finally catching up to a feeling he’s been circling all night.
His hand lifts again, more deliberate this time, coming to rest at her waist, fingers curling slightly as if he’s grounding himself, or maybe holding onto the moment just a little longer, like he’s aware of how easily it could slip past them if he rushes it.
He doesn’t rush, and he doesn’t overthink it either, which for him is saying something, because there’s usually a pause, a calculation, a reason to hold back, but not now.
He stops just short of her, close enough that the space between them feels intentional rather than hesitant, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath, to give her the chance to pull away if she wants to, to change her mind, to set the boundary before he crosses it.
But she doesn’t, instead, she closes that last bit of distance herself, leaning in just slightly, just enough to meet him halfway, and that’s all the confirmation he needs.
When he kisses her, it’s softer than expected, not because he’s unsure, but because he’s choosing to be careful with it, choosing to let it build rather than take, and there’s something in that restraint that makes it feel more intentional, more real.
Her hand comes up almost immediately, pressing lightly against his chest, not to stop him but to steady herself, or maybe to feel something tangible in the middle of everything that suddenly feels a little too charged, a little too new.
And that’s what shifts it, that simple contact. It deepens the kiss, not dramatically, not all at once, but enough to change it from something tentative into something that lingers, something that holds, something that neither of them seems in a hurry to end.
___ didn’t know how to feel when Yoongi sent her the flight tickets. She isn’t even sure if they’re in a relationship, how does one qualify this as a relationship when it went from a phenomenal first date to flying across continents for the second one.
They’ve been constantly in touch with each other, texting, calling, even video calling a few rare times, each sending pictures from their day, and usually ___ would have classified this as something too difficult for 31 and moved on, but he’s just charmed her. His soft laughter, sending her flowers to the gallery, song samples that he genuinely wants her thoughts on.
She's found herself laughing into her phone more than she has in recent memory. While she drives to work and he's somewhere between cities, still half asleep, voice low and unhurried. While he eats dinner and she scrapes together a lunch at her desk, their schedules overlapping in whatever small window the timezones allow. The video call where he talked her through using a power drill for twenty minutes with the focused patience of someone who genuinely could not rest until she could hang the paintings in her living room.
___ pushes all the doubts aside as she moves through the airport, it’s still early morning and a significant amount at the San Francisco airport. ___ spots Mr Shin right away, Yoongi’s manager standing there with a warm smile as he waves his hands to greet her.
"Morning, Ms. Lee." He's quick, stepping forward to take her bag before she's even fully registered the intention. "How was the flight? Did you eat?" "I'm fine, really-" but the bag is already gone, and he's already moving, and she has learned enough about the people in Yoongi's orbit to know that efficiency is a personality trait they share collectively. She falls into step beside him.
The car is black, tinted, parked just beyond the terminal in the kind of spot that suggests someone made a phone call. Mr. Shin rounds the front of it and she follows, and that's when she sees him.
Yoongi is standing on the far side of the car, away from the flow of arrivals, away from the small clusters of people watching the arrivals gate. He's in a cap and a mask, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, she isn’t sure if he’s smiling, but his eyes light up for sure.
She stops for just a second. Then she keeps walking and he straightens slightly, the way he does when he's trying to look like he wasn't just waiting, and she would tease him about it if her own face wasn't currently doing something she'd prefer it didn't.
"Hi," she says, stopping in front of him. "Hi." His eyes move over her briefly, the way they do, quick and considered. “Long flight?" Yoongi asks, almost instinctively taking the massive handbag from her hand, their fingers brush, the simple touch is enough to wake him up.
“Yeah, there was so much turbulence, I didn’t get a minute's sleep” ___ shares as they stand a few steps away from each other, none of them ready to be bold this morning. “How do you look this beautiful after fourteen hours of no sleep?” Yoongi comments, a compliment filled with genuine curiosity.
___ blinks once. Then she breaks into that familiar laughter, the real one, sudden and unguarded, her hand coming up to hit his arm softly. "That's not-" she starts, still laughing, shaking her head. "You can't just say things like that."
"I'm just asking," he says, and he's smiling now too, the full version, the one that takes over his whole face when he's not paying attention to stopping it. "You're not just asking, you're-" she gestures vaguely at him, at the general situation, at whatever this is, and he watches her do it with quiet satisfaction.
“Mr Min, we’re ready to leave” Mr Shin speaks before he gets into the driver seat, they’re in the car quickly, ___ is the first to yawn then Yoongi when she laughs again, there isn’t much being said, both of them just glad to be in each other’s presence.
“Is there anything specific you want to do before you fly to LA?” Yoongi asks after three complete minutes of silence, he has five days before their dates in Stanford, but ___ has combined this trip with some work trip.
“Golden gate bridge for sure, lots of coffee” ___ talks as she looks ahead at the GPS, it’s going to be thirty minutes till they reach the hotel, “and eat all the food we can in Chinatown” she turns to face him, Yoongi is currently taking very serious mental notes, hoping he remembers this all.
"Everything," she adds, because she means it. "Dim sum, noodles, everything." "Everything," he repeats, solemnly, like he's committing it to memory.
The city slides past in the early grey light, the fog sitting low over everything, soft and unhurried. ___'s exhausted in the particular way that crosses the point of feeling like exhaustion and becomes something closer to weightlessness, the fourteen hours and the turbulence and the airport and the adrenaline all catching up at once now that she's finally still.
He's warm beside her, warm and solid and here, actually here, not a voice through a speaker or a name on a screen, and she is tired enough and brave enough that when her head tips sideways and finds his shoulder.
“Is this the shoulder with the surgery?” ___ snaps out of it, lifting her head slightly just to confirm things. Yoongi is still for a second, "No," he murmurs. His arm comes around her, slow and easy, like it's the most natural thing, settling at her back with a gentleness that she feels all the way through the exhaustion.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Yoongi shares a few moments later, knowing she’s fully awake. “Even more glad that you can stay a month” he murmurs softly into her hair as his hand gently rubs her shoulder. Her hand finds the fabric of his hoodie, fingers curling lightly against it, too tired to talk. Yoongi rests his cheek gently against the top of her head and looks at the road ahead with the expression of a man who is trying very hard not to think about how much he already doesn't want this month to end.
___ feels like a zombie dragging herself, barely awake yet fully awake, full of food, desserts and coffee that they kept stuffing each other with. Yoongi walks back to the park bench, water in hand and he too feels like he’s ready to call quits on the day even if it’s only 6 pm yet.
“You don’t look too well, do you have a fever?” Yoongi asks as he hands her the bottle, wiping his hand against his jeans before checking her temperature. ___ almost immediately falls into his touch, her eyes closing, her whole body leaning slightly into his hand like she's been needing to rest against something for a while now and this is close enough.
"I am just-" she starts, then stops, organizing her words with some effort. "I can see how much you've planned, I know you looked things up and I know you had the whole route figured out and I genuinely loved today, all of it, the food and all of it-" she opens her eyes and looks at him, earnest despite the exhaustion, "-but can we just go back to the hotel and sleep." A pause. "You should stay out," she adds, because she means it, "get some air, do something, I just really really need to crash."
He looks at her for a long moment. His hand has moved from her forehead to the back of her neck, resting there lightly, and she hasn't moved away from it. “Let me call a car, we can go to that restaurant some other time” he whispers mostly to himself as ___ sighs with relief, going back to resting against the bench back.
“I promise I’ll be a lot more fun tomorrow morning, I just need to sleep” ___ mumbles and Yoongi can’t help but be fascinated by this new side to her, the extremely exhausted that makes her whiny. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?" he asks, looking at her sideways, and his arm comes around her naturally, his hand finding her far shoulder and drawing her back toward him, her head settling against him with the ease of something practiced.
"I hadn't seen you in so long," she says finally, her voice quiet and honest, the filter that exhaustion removes making everything simpler. "I didn't want to waste time sleeping."
He goes still, not visibly, not in any way she'd catch in the state she's in, but something in him just stops for a moment and sits with that. “Please just tell me the next time you’re too tired” Yoongi pleads as a car rolls in, hoping it’s theirs.
"Come on," he says gently, standing and bringing her with him, his hand steady at her back. She goes without complaint, leaning into his side, and he keeps his arm around her as they walk toward the car, her steps slow and his matching them without thinking about it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to eat anything? Room service? Have food picked up?” Yoongi talks as he swipes the key card, “I can’t, I feel nauseous already” ___ answers with great delay as she picks up the pace, walking up to it but struggling to open it.
“Need any help?” Yoongi asks and ___ simply nods walking to the washroom, she is optimizing the time, going straight to washing up while Yoongi finds her pyjamas. He helps her out, wiping her face that she left damp, helping her remove her rings and watch, and is almost fascinated by the speed in which she gets into bed.
Yoongi slips into bed approximately twenty minutes later, hoping she’s already asleep and it seems to be true until she stirs towards him. “I am so sorry” ___ mumbles and Yoongi’s eyebrows knit as she moves even closer, or he does, Yoongi’s not sure.
“___ you flew across continents for me, you’re allowed to be tired” Yoongi speaks softly, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. “I know, it’s just that I thought we’d be having sex and instead we’re falling asleep at 6 pm” she speaks against his arm and something in his chest does a complicated thing and he presses his lips together and looks at the ceiling for a moment, and the laugh that comes out of him is low and quiet and completely helpless, the kind that sneaks up on him.
“We have an entire month” Yoongi reassures her, he isn’t sure what the move is, this is technically their second date, but he also wants to cuddle her, maybe even kiss her if he could be just a bit braver. “I counted, and with your work and mine, we only have 17 days together”
He pulls her in, properly, his arm coming around her, and she goes without stirring, fitting against him with the ease of something that has been doing this for years instead of days.
"Seventeen days is a lot," he says softly, into her hair. She makes a small sound, almost agreement, almost already dreaming. “We can still have a lot of fun, just tell me the next time you’re tired like this" he says, quieter now, his head leaning down but ___ seems to be fast asleep against his chest.
Yoongi has rules about this sort of thing. No sleeping in the same bed before the fifth date. No inviting someone on tour before you're actually together. No cuddling before, he looks down at her, well.
He looks back at the ceiling. The rules were built for a specific kind of situation. A careful, sensible situation where feelings arrived in an orderly fashion. The rules had not accounted for ___ specifically, which in retrospect was a significant oversight in the design.
He exhales slowly, a bit scared of how much he’s already feeling but also very excited but it all, no one has been like her, she’s truly the anomaly to the experiment.
“Come here, we should take pictures together as well” ___ gestures towards Yoongi who turns towards his security personnel with her phone. She’s banned pictures on his samsung, something about them just not looking right. Yoongi jogs beside her, the sun peaking through the golden gate bridge, the soft morning glow on her face, he can’t help but smile.
“You look very pretty in the morning” Yoongi compliments her, posing awkwardly beside each other. “You think I look pretty after a 14 hour flight, I don’t trust you” ___ teases as she shifts closer, the security guard continuing to take pictures.
“Well you’re always pretty to me,” Yoongi continues nonchalantly, like this is the most natural thing in the world, ___’s blush growing deeper. “Am I just that, arm candy Yoongi-si?” ___ teases as she looks up at him.
“Well that, also you're so terrifyingly confident and smart, so kind,” Yoongi says, his fingers intertwining with hers. “Wow, I’m arm candy for BTS’s Suga, I’ve finally made it in life” ___ jokes, mostly because she doesn’t want to process the other compliments he gave her.
"Okay," the security guard calls out, "I think I got some good ones." "Thank you," ___ calls back, and her voice only wavers slightly. Yoongi squeezes her hand once, still not looking at her, and starts back down the path, pulling her gently with him, away from the rocky terrain, his grip sure and unhurried.
“So, you fly to LA tomorrow morning?” Yoongi confirms as he drys his hair, he finds ___ staring at her phone intently, like she’s overanalysing something. “___?” he calls her again, walking closer. Yoongi sees her shuffling through the pictures from the golden gate bridge, stuck at one particular one where he’s looking at her instead of facing forward.
He sits down on the edge of the bed beside her. She looks up at him, then at the photo, then back at him. "What are we?" she asks. Not confrontational, not loaded, just genuinely asking, the way she asks things she actually wants answered.
He looks at her with the expression of someone who finds the question slightly puzzling. "What do you mean?" "I mean-" she gestures between them, "us. This. What is this."
"I'm your boyfriend," he says, simply, with complete confidence, the way he'd say something obvious, like the name of a street or the time of a flight. Then he tilts his head slightly, reading her face. "Was that not clear?"
She stares at him, “___ I begged you to join me for the tour, why would I do that? I didn't think we were dating?” Yoongi speaks, the towel coming up to her hair to dry it instead. “So, you’ve not brought girls around when they were just a fling?” ___ deflects again, teasing now that she’s gotten the answer she’s wanted.
“No” he says, flatly, no elaboration, the kind of no that closes a door completely. He keeps drying her hair, unbothered, and she lets him, looking up at him from where she's sitting, close enough now to see everything his face is doing in the quiet of the room.
“Did you really think we were a fling or something, what’s it called now?” Yoongi stops to think for a second, “A situationship?” his amused tone is not helping the laughter escaping ___, her falling flat on the bed.
“You grandpa, how do you know what that even is?” “Jungkook’s love live is complicated” Yoongi answers, pulling her up, but ___ just pulls him with her. She reaches up and pushes his damp hair back from his forehead, slow and deliberate, and he stays completely still beneath it, watching her, and when she doesn't move her hand away he turns his head slightly into it, just barely, just enough.
The kiss starts soft and then doesn't stay that way, his hand finding her waist, pulling her closer with the quiet certainty of someone who has wanted to do this all day and has run out of reasons not to. She goes willingly, her fingers curling into his shirt, unbuttoning his shirt almost immediately as his hands wander, his fingers running the length of her thighs, stopping just to pull her back up.
“Hey, you can’t do that” ___ complaints as Yoongi successfully makes her stand up, they have dinner reservations with the members in less than thirty minutes. “What? I didn’t do anything?” Yoongi answers with great restraint, knowing exactly what he just pulled.
“You know exactly what you just did Mr Min” ___ whines, going back to getting ready, very slowly putting on each piece of jewellery. “I kinda like being called Mr Min” Yoongi confesses as he watches her though the mirror, and the devious smile that immediately graces her lips scares him a bit.
“Oh, do you Mr. Min?” ___ teases turning around, her blouse coming off in one swift motion. She's looking at him with the expression of a woman who has just evened a score and knows it, perfectly composed, completely unbothered.
He looks at her, at the blouse on the floor, at her as she snaps off her bra in one swift motion, just standing there in a mini-skirt. "That's not fair," Yoongi mutters weakly, his eyes trailing all over her, clearly losing this as ___ pushes him back onto the bed.
"Isn't it?" she says pleasantly, her hands moving quickly to unbutton his trousers. “How about, for the little move you pulled earlier, I just do this for a second and get dressed again?” ___’s voice is low as her hands rub against his bulge.
“That’s just mean” Yoongi whines, propping himself against his arm, completely helpless to her whims as her soft hands wander, pulling his briefs low, “No what’s meaner is you pulling away after making me think you’re going to finger me” ___ complaints as Yoongi lets out a soft moan, her hand rubbing down his length.
“I am so sorry okay, but please keep going” Yoongi barely gets the words out as ___ gently kisses his tip. “Now what should we do, should I suck your dick or should we get dressed for dinner?” ___ knows they’re not making dinner when Yoongi moans a quiet please.
Yoongi’s phone is going off on the nightstand, as Yoongi pulls ___ back to the bed, she’s spent far too much time on her knees and he needs to be inside her. “Darling you are so wet already” Yoongi murmurs in her ears as his nimble fingers rub in a circle. “Stop fucking teasing me” ___ whines, pushing his fingers inside her.
___’s breathless, so close to climax as Yoongi’s fingers keep going in a steady motion, no matter how much she wants, he refuses to pick up the pace, taking his sweet time. His phone rings just as ___ is shaking in his arms, the waves of orgasm sending shockwaves through her but Yoongi just keeps going.
Yoongi sighs with frustration as his phone rings once again, “Stay quiet, just for a minute” Yoongi mumbles, his fingers still going as ___ kisses his neck just to keep quiet. “Jimin-ah, we can’t make it, ___’s sick” Yoongi talks with a devious smile on his lips as ___ takes a sharp breath.
“Hyung be better with the excuses at least,” Jimin teases and Yoongi chuckles, “I swear, she’s not well, she’s been in bed all evening” Yoongi talks and ___ lightly bites his neck, so close once again.
“Alright, if she’s sick, I hope she feels better” Jimin talks and all Yoongi does is hum as he ends the call. “You’re going to leave a hickey” Yoongi complains but ___ just cradles in his lap, facing him now, quickly putting on a condom.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped to pick up a call” ___ continues biting where she was as Yoongi thrusts inside her, the motion sending her in a frenzy as he just keeps going, slow and soft. “Maybe you shouldn’t have taken off your top” Yoongi teases, steadying her in his arms, the glow on her face, how her hair keeps sticking everywhere, he could get used to this view.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have teased-” ___ stops talking as Yoongi picks up the pace, arching back with pleasure, Yoongi’s takes a sharp breath, “Are you close, I am so-” Yoongi nods, biting her lower lip, kissing her rapidly as they orgasm. ___’s limbs give out, both of them falling back into bed.
She reaches up and traces the line of his jaw lightly, just because she can, just because she's allowed to now, and he closes his eyes briefly beneath it. “I don’t think I can walk Mr Min” ___ teases, pulling the sheets over herself. “You are beautiful” Yoongi notes as he turns to face her, her cheeks still flush as they both continue to catch their breaths.
“So are you” ___’s voice is uncharacteristically shy as he pulls the sheet even higher, “I am beautiful?” Yoongi teases, his breath finally even. “Yes, you’re also so buff, where did those arms come from?” ___ talks, running a hand over her heart, trying to calm herself down.
“Are you okay? Just give me a few seconds and I’ll get you some water” Yoongi mumbles, tucking her hair away, it’s gotten significantly longer since the first time he saw her, reaching her shoulders now. “I am fine, but you were great, really” ___ talks, shuffling closer till she’s firmly resting against his chest.
“And you are so evil, but also so amazing, taking off your top and we just derail our evening like this” Yoongi talks and he can feel her laughing before he hears it. He pauses and looks down at the top of her head. "I had a plan for this evening," he continues..
She tilts her chin up to look at him, her eyes still warm with laughter, her cheek pressed against his chest. "Was this better than the plan?"
He meets her eyes. Looks away and looks back. "Don't," he says. "Was it?" "You're so smug," he tells her.
"Yoongi-si" "Significantly better than the plan," he admits, quietly, which is the most she's going to get and she knows it and takes it anyway, her smile pressing into his chest as she settles back down. His hand keeps moving at her back, slow and easy.
___ goes around the apartment, picking up after herself. She really needs a cleaning lady or move because the mess around her apartment has only grown over the last six months. Her job’s always involved some travel, with a boyfriend on tour she’s been away even more and she doesn’t even remember the last time she was in the guest room.
___’s also cleaning because Yoongi is finally going to be back at home for a month, and the last time he was here he spent half the time helping her clean. She dials his number as she moves through laundry, but when the call doesn’t go through she just assumes he’s flying home, the last concert before the break was yesterday morning.
Yoongi: I’ve sent a few desserts your home as consolation for not being there to celebrate your birthday tonight, he should be there in 20ish minutes
Yoongi: Are you even home?
___: I am home, I’m not feeling the best and my apartment needed some TLC
___: You didn’t have to send anything, you’ll be here tomorrow anyway
Yoongi: Not feeling well? Oh, the first week of the month… you absolutely need desserts
___: Are you tracking my period?
___: It’s kinda cute but I don’t think I ever told you that explicitly?
Yoongi: We started fighting around the same day each month and I connected the dots
___: Are you saying that I pick pointless fights around my birthday? Because that’s rude
Yoongi: Darling, last month we fought about if a window should be opened or not and then you cried when I very gently explained why it needs to be opened for airflow
___: This feels like we’re fighting about a fight, am I that irrational on my period?
Yoongi: I don’t care, all those hormonal changes and pain would make anyone irrational
Yoongi: Just rest till the desserts arrive, I kinda like organizing your mess
___: It’s not my mess, it’s organized chaos
Yoongi: An organized mess where I can’t find the salt in the kitchen
___: okay, it’s a mess
___ goes back to cleaning when her phone doesn’t buzz for a while, Yoongi must have gotten busy with something, so does she as he hauls her laundry over the sofa. She’s mid-folding when the bell rings, for a woman living alone she should have checked through the peephole before swinging the door open.
But she’s kinda glad she didn’t, because the sheer surprise she feels at the view of her boyfriend standing outside with flowers and his carry-on dropped to his feet. “Surprise!” he musters up all his energy for that, engulfing her in a tight hug as he finally takes a deep breath.
“Oh my god, I thought you were flying tomorrow?” ___ talks into his jacket, momentarily lifting her face, only to be hugged tighter. “I didn’t want to arrive tomorrow and be groggy and tired on your birthday” Yoongi talks into her hair, taking a long whiff of her hair.
“So you flew directly after the concert?” “Who cares about the logistics, the important thing is that I am here” Yoongi talks as he finally detaches, taking a long look at her as he smiles widely. ___ intertwines their hands, leading him in and giving him approximately two seconds to drop all his stuff before she holds his face, it’s been too long since they’ve kissed.
"I missed you so-" she says between kisses, soft and unhurried, her thumbs against his jaw, "-so much, and I love you so so much and you're like the best boyfriend ever-"
He makes a sound against her mouth that is warm and amused and tired all at once, his hands finding her waist, pulling her closer with the ease of something practiced, and she can feel him smiling into the kiss which makes her smile too, which makes kissing considerably more difficult and neither of them minds.
"Best boyfriend ever," he repeats, pulling back just enough to look at her, his eyes barely open from exhaustion, red rimmed from the flight and the concert and the night in between. "I also did a bunch of shopping for you at duty free. Does that get me any brownie points?” Yoongi asks his eyes trailing down the white dress she always wears just at home.
His eyes trail down the white dress she always wears at home, the one he's come to associate with her off days, her genuinely-at-rest days, the version of her that exists only in her own apartment with no clients to see and nowhere to be.
"Honey, baby, sugar plum buttercup-" she takes his face in her hands again, very seriously, "-that gets you so many brownie points, but you have got to stop spending so much money on me." She pushes her hair out of her face with one hand, still not used to the new cut, the layers falling everywhere, doing whatever they want.
"Why?" Yoongi says. He pouts, she's too busy dealing with the direct effect of it. "I have too much money to spend in a lifetime. I should spoil my girlfriend after being away for so long."
"Yoongi-" "Six weeks," he says. "Six weeks, one day, and-" he checks some internal calculation, "-about fourteen hours."
She stares at him. "You counted." "I'm just saying the math supports the duty free shopping." He reaches up and pushes the layered hair from her face himself, tucking it behind her ear the way he always does, watching it fall forward again immediately. His hand stays at her jaw. "I like the haircut."
"It does whatever it wants," she says, slightly mournfully. "I know." He tucks it back again, pointlessly. "I like it." She looks at him, at the exhaustion and the pout and the hand at her jaw and the duty free bags presumably somewhere in the carry-on she hasn't let him unpack yet, and she thinks that she has been thoroughly swooned by a man who is barely conscious.
"You're impossible," she says. "I love you” Yoongi states simply, the same way he did earlier this year in Paris. He just blurted it out one morning while leaving for rehearsal, never making a big deal out of it, like it was the most natural thing for him to say.
“Are you sure that you want to go on a trip before the last leg of the tour? You’ll be exhausted from travelling by then?” ___ talks through her airpod, her phone still somewhere in her purse as she continues to get the gallery ready for an event.
“We haven’t just gone on a vacation just for us, it’s always been us trying to piece together a few days between the tour, that’s not a real vacation” Yoongi retorts as he sits down to get ready for the first Bangkok show. “There must be somewhere you want to go?” He continues already having shortlisted a few options.
“Oh this client last week was telling me about this amazing Maldives resort he went to, it’s so beautiful and private” ___ talks, fixing a few frames that still need to be put up. “He? Are you sure he was telling or was he offering?” Yoongi teases and ___ sighs. “I work in art, Yoongi,” ___ says. “Do you know how many men have tried to flirt with me by explaining private islands?”
He huffs out a laugh, the one that always sounds slightly disbelieving, like amusement caught him off guard. She can picture it immediately despite not being able to see him, head tipped back slightly in the makeup chair, phone balanced in one hand while someone fixes his hair.
“And?” he asks. “And what?” “Did the resort at least look nice?”
“Oh, unbelievable.” She bends to pick up a stack of exhibition cards from the floor. “White sand. Crystal water. Villas with pools bigger than my apartment.”
“See?” he says immediately. “You want to go.” She smiles despite how much they shouldn’t do this. “I want to sleep,” she corrects. “You’ll be exhausted, I’ll probably have three openings back to back by then, and we’ll spend the entire trip unconscious.”
“You know,” he says after a moment, quieter now as the backstage noise fades slightly, “I think I miss you best when I’m tired.” Her hands still briefly over the stack of cards.
It’s such a Yoongi sentence, not dramatic or casual. Just honest in that careful devastating way he has. “What does that even mean,” she asks softly.
“I don’t know.” She hears movement, fabric shifting, maybe him leaning back in the chair. “When I’m busy I can ignore it because everything’s moving all the time. Schedules, rehearsals, flights. But when I get tired enough that my brain finally shuts up a little…” A pause. “You’re kind of the first thing I look for.”
“Honey you can’t just say stuff like that when I miss you like crazy” ___ speaks softly, all she wants is to see him, feel him, she’s just been missing him. Something in his chest pulls tight in that quiet painful way longing sometimes does when it lands at the wrong time of day.
“Yesterday I was walking back home and all these couples were out,” she continues, absentmindedly straightening a stack of gallery brochures as she talks. “Getting dinner, holding hands, arguing about where to go, normal boring couple things.” A small laugh escapes her. “And I just kept wishing you were there.”
He looks down at the floor for a second. There’s always a specific kind of helplessness that comes with tour. He’s learned to live with it, mostly. The missing, the leaving, the constant temporary nature of things.
“What would we have been doing?” he asks quietly. She smiles immediately at the question, hearing what it really is beneath it.
“Probably arguing.” “About?”
“You refusing to let me smoke.” “You shouldn’t smoke.”
“You sound eighty years old.” “You cough for three business days afterward.”
“That’s not the point.” She walks toward the back office, lowering her voice instinctively once she’s away from the staff. “Maybe we’d stop for tteokbokki.”
“You always want tteokbokki at night.” “Because it tastes better at night.”
“That’s scientifically untrue.” She laughs softly, and he feels some invisible tension in himself ease at the sound. “And then,” she continues, settling into the fantasy now, “you’d insist on walking me home even though your place is in the opposite direction.”
“I would.” “I know.” Her voice gentles around the words. “That’s the problem.”
The thing about Yoongi is that he loves in practical ways first. Walking someone home. Buying three coffees because he doesn’t know which one they like. Remembering flight times. Sending weather screenshots. Calling managers to make impossible schedules work. But distance makes practical love difficult.
Distance leaves him with words instead, and he’s still learning what to do with those. “I miss you too,” he says finally, the sentence low and steady and entirely unprotected. “More than I thought I would.”
___ leans back against the desk behind her, eyes closing briefly. “Come home soon,” she murmurs.
There’s a long pause on his end, “I’m trying,” he says quietly, and she can hear the exhaustion underneath it now, the real one he saves mostly for her. “I think if I stay away from you much longer I’m going to start doing irrational things.”
She smiles immediately. “Like?” Another pause, she can practically hear him debating whether to say it.
“Looking at apartments closer to your gallery.” Her breath catches before she can stop it. Yoongi rubs his arm, not knowing if he’s said something utterly stupid, “Something for us maybe, I’ve just made one search” he continues honestly and ___ can’t help the tears welling in her eyes.
On the other end Yoongi immediately notices the quiet stretching too long. “Hey,” he says softly, sitting up properly now. “I didn’t mean it like-” He rubs at the back of his neck, suddenly uncertain. “I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, I thought it’d be easier if I was closer to your gallery and then-”
He stops himself, he’s rambling. Which she’s realizing is rare enough from him that it almost makes her cry harder. “It was stupid,” he says quickly, already retreating from the admission. “Forget I said anything.”
___ lets out a wet laugh despite herself, shaking her head immediately even though he can’t see it.
“No,” she says quietly. “No, don’t do that.” He goes still. There’s noise around him again now, staff moving in and out, someone asking about wardrobe changes, but he’s listening to her so fully it’s almost tangible through the phone.
“I just…” She exhales shakily, pressing the heel of her hand briefly against her eyes. “You caught me off guard.”
“With the apartment thing?” “Yes, Yoongi, with the apartment thing,” she says with a laugh threaded through the emotion now. “You can’t casually mention moving in together while I’m actively suffering from how much I miss you”
He thinks about all the versions of them that exist lately only in transition. Her half asleep face on facetime at two in the morning while he’s eating room service in another timezone. Her voice breaking apart through bad hotel wifi. Him landing in Seoul already calculating how many hours they get before one of them leaves again.
This, exactly, was why he didn’t want a girlfriend. Not because he didn’t want love. Because he knew what happened when love had to survive logistics. Because somewhere deep down he understood that eventually another person would have to start structuring their loneliness around his schedule.
He drags a hand slowly over his mouth. “I used to think,” he talks carefully, “that if I never let myself really build something serious then maybe I could avoid doing this to someone.” A small humorless laugh escapes him. “Very logical solution. Very emotionally healthy.”
“Yoongi…” “No, it’s true.” He rubs at his arm absently now, exhaustion making him honest in that dangerous way it always does. “I know what this life feels like from the inside. I know how disappointing it can be sometimes.” His jaw shifts slightly. “Missing birthdays. Leaving dinners early. Watching someone you love get used to being alone.”
The gallery office suddenly feels too small around her. Because she can hear it now beneath everything he’s saying. Not fear of commitment, but the fear of becoming absent.
“I remember telling my mother I didn’t have time for a girlfriend,” he says quietly, a faint disbelieving smile touching his voice now. “And I meant it. I really did.” He pauses. “I think I thought wanting someone badly enough would just make the impossible parts hurt more.”
“And does it?” she asks softly. The room goes quiet on his end for a moment. “Yes,” he says honestly. Then, after a beat, “But not having you hurts more.”
The tears come properly then, silent and immediate. ___ presses her hand harder against her eyes, breathing out a shaky laugh because of course this is happening on a Thursday afternoon between exhibition setups.
“I have to do math before I can even talk to you.” A wet laugh escapes ___. “Do you know how romantic it is calculating if your boyfriend is conscious?” That finally pulls a real laugh out of him, tired and warm and aching around the edges.
But she hears it fade quickly, because they’re both thinking the same thing now. How much work this is. How much wanting each other has become an active sustained effort. “That’s the part I didn’t expect,” Yoongi says after a while, quieter now. “How easy it would be to keep choosing you anyway.”
___’s hand almost absentmindedly plays with the pendant Yoongi got her for her birthday, “Yoongi,” she says softly. “Mm?” “I love you.” The words leave her gently.
On the other end of the line he goes completely still. ___ keeps turning the pendant slowly between her fingers, eyes fixed on nothing now. “I love you when I’m exhausted and irritated and calculating timezones,” she admits quietly. “I love you when I’m angry at tour for taking you away from me.” A shaky breath leaves her. “I love you even when this feels impossible sometimes.”
His chest aches so sharply it almost feels like fear, not of her loving him. Of how badly he loves her back. Because Yoongi has spent most of his adult life believing love had to fit around ambition carefully or it would break beneath it. That eventually someone would ask him to choose.
“I think,” she says softly, almost smiling through the tears now, “that’s how I know it’s real.”
He lowers his head briefly, eyes shut, he wishes she were here so badly it physically hurts. Wishes he could pull her into his lap and bury his face into her neck and stay there until this terrible restless homesick feeling finally settled.
“You can’t say that right before I go on stage,” he says finally, voice rougher now. A soft laugh escapes her immediately. “I love you too, I love you in hotel rooms,” he murmurs. “In airports. Half asleep. Fully stressed. I love you enough that I catch myself looking for things to bring back for you in every country now.” A faint breath of a laugh. “Which is deeply embarrassing.”
Her eyes close tightly. “And I think…” He pauses, searching for the words carefully now because he wants to get this right. “I think loving you stopped feeling temporary a long time ago.” That one nearly undoes her completely.
“Hyung? Are you okay?” Jimin asks as they are once again leaving the airport, Yoongi quietly mumbles a no as they shuffle inside the car. “It’s been an exhausting tour, ___ and I had this big fight last week about something so stupid and god am I tired” Yoongi confesses as the car moves around the highway.
“What happened?” Jimin asks quietly. Yoongi lets out a humorless breath through his nose. “She fell asleep waiting for my call.” Jimin winces immediately. “Ouch.” “Yeah.”
“I know this life is hard,” he says after a while. “I knew it before we started dating. I just…” He laughs once bitterly under his breath. “I think I underestimated what it feels like when the person waiting for you is someone you actually can’t stand disappointing.”
Jimin watches him carefully for a moment. Yoongi has always carried guilt strangely. Quietly. Internally. Like he believes if he absorbs enough of it himself nobody else will have to. “I hate this part,” Yoongi murmurs eventually. “The feeling that no matter how hard I try, eventually my schedule still wins.”
“Hyung,” he says softly, “you know what’s different though?” Yoongi glances at him tiredly. “You’re talking like someone who’s trying to keep her.” Jimin shrugs lightly. “Not someone looking for a way out.”
They’re quiet for the rest of the ride, Yoongi contemplating how he’s going to make it up to her, what he’s going to say. He almost dozes off till he’s being gently shrugged by Jimin, something about them being there.
Yoongi steadies his bag as Jimin nudges his rib cage, hard. “___?” Yoongi can make her out of just her shadow as she leans against a car, they had discussed this a few weeks ago, he just didn’t expect her to be here after whatever yesterday was.
“What are you doing here?” She shrugs one shoulder lightly, though her eyes are already glassy in the parking lot lights.
“I wasn't going to show up just because we fought?” Something inside him breaks instantly at how simple she makes it sound. Yoongi looks down briefly, jaw tightening hard enough that she realizes suddenly he’s trying very seriously not to cry.
“You shouldn’t have driven this late,” he murmurs instead because it’s safer than saying what he actually wants to say right now. “You shouldn’t have fought with me from another continent,” she replies softly.
That finally pulls a real breathless laugh out of him and then neither of them can really hold the distance anymore. Yoongi drops his bag carelessly onto the pavement just as she reaches him, and the second his arms wrap around her he exhales so deeply it almost sounds painful. Like his body’s been waiting to do that for days.
“I don’t want to say sorry because stuff like that might happen again and I can’t lie to you” Yoongi speaks truthfully. “I know,” she says quietly.
Yoongi’s expression shifts faintly at that, like he wasn’t entirely expecting this. “I just…” He exhales shakily, forehead dropping briefly against hers now. “I need you to know I’m never not trying.” His voice lowers. “Even when I get it wrong.”
“You know what the worst part is?” she murmurs softly. “What?” “I wasn’t even angry because of the phone call.” His hands tighten around her waist slightly. “I was angry because I missed you so much already.” A weak laugh escapes her. “And then I had to miss you disappointed too.”
Because that’s exactly what yesterday felt like, not conflict, longing with nowhere to go. Yoongi presses his forehead harder against hers, eyes closing briefly. “I hate that you cry because of me.” “You also make me very happy because of you,” she whispers immediately.
“That grammar was terrible.” “I’m emotional.” A tired laugh slips out of him then, quieter now, warmer. God, he missed this too. The way she can pull him back toward something lighter before he disappears too far into guilt.
“Now kiss and make up,” Jimin calls as he walks backwards toward his building entrance, duffel bag hanging off one shoulder. “I can’t take brooding Yoongi hyung anymore. He’s been unbearable all week.”
Yoongi sighs deeply without even looking at him. “Please go inside.” “I’m serious,” Jimin says, grinning now. “He kept staring out the van window like a divorced father.” ___ laughs against Yoongi’s shoulder immediately, the sound finally pulling a reluctant smile onto his face too.
“And he snapped at me because I asked if he wanted ramyeon.” “You asked me three times.”
“Because you looked emotionally unwell.” Yoongi shakes his head tiredly as Jimin snickers to himself. “Anyway,” Jimin says, swiping the card to the building gate, “fix him please”
Then a softer, fond voice follows, “You look better already, hyung.” And with that he disappears inside, leaving the two of them alone again beneath the parking lot lights. The silence settles differently now.
___ brushes her thumb lightly beneath his eye before speaking quietly. “Your parents are still on vacation, right?” He nods once slowly. “They left for Jeju yesterday, come home with me,” he says quietly. Yoongi’s hand slides up slowly into her hair, fingers curling gently at the base of her neck before he pulls her toward him and kisses her like he’s been hungry for her.
His mouth soft against hers as he exhales shakily into the kiss, shoulders finally loosening beneath her hands for what feels like the first time since he landed. “You know,” he murmurs softly, voice rough with exhaustion and affection both, “I think this is the longest week of my life.”
She smiles faintly, brushing her nose against his. “Good thing you’re home now.” His eyes close briefly at that. Home, not Seoul, not the apartment, her.
And maybe that’s the thing that feels different tonight. Not just relief. Not just surviving another stretch of distance. The tour is over. For the first time in months there isn’t another flight looming somewhere ahead of them. No countdown ticking quietly in the background. No rehearsals stealing entire weeks before they can properly settle into each other again. Their first anniversary is in two weeks.
“You’ve been living like this all this time, what do you need a walk in closet for?” ___ complains as she walks around the dimly lit closet, admiring his watch collection. “Come on, lets go to bed” Yoongi whines from behind her, his arms loosely wrapped around her, he’s been clingy like this since they got inside the apartment.
“I have a meeting set with a realtor next week, you sure you still want to live with me, I never put away my laundry” ___ speaks as they finally slip into bed. Yoongi turns toward her immediately.
There’s barely a second of hesitation before he moves closer automatically, arm sliding around her waist underneath the blankets until she’s tucked against his chest like that’s where she’s been sleeping forever. “I’ve seen your apartment,” he murmurs sleepily into her hair. “It’s a mess”
She gasps softly. “That is unbelievably rude.” “You own a chair entirely dedicated to clothes.”
“It’s an organizational system.” “It’s a fabric mountain.” ___ laughs under her breath as he presses a lazy kiss against her shoulder.
“Are you sure about moving in together? We might not tour this year but there might be times when I’m still away?” Yoongi asks as he trails kisses downward. “Yes I am sure” ___ replies confidently as Yoongi bites her boob, knowing exactly where this is going.
“Aren’t you tired?” ___ investigates as Yoongi mumbles a no, removing her slip dress in one go. She doesn’t get an answer. What she does get is Yoongi softly biting her nipple as she arches back. “Another perk of living together, we can have sex any time we want, anywhere we want” Yoongi says as his hand fondles her soft breast, the other hand trailing south.
“We can do it against the glass like we did in Maldives,” she murmurs. That finally pulls a real reaction out of him.
Yoongi groans softly into her skin, forehead dropping briefly against her chest like the memory alone exhausted him all over again. “You almost killed me that night.”
“You were very enthusiastic.” “You wore that bikini on purpose.” A faint smug smile appears on her face. “Maybe.” He looks up at her then, hair messy, eyes dark and sleepy and impossibly affectionate all at once.
Yoongi shuffles around the kitchen looking for a snack, all the fridge has is leftovers and fruit. He settles on an apple as he continues to wash it for a little too long, too lazy to do the whole peeling and cutting thing.
___: Why’d you leave this morning in such a hurry? Waking up all by myself is no fun
His phone pings and he stops mid-way, typing a response immediately, a ghost of a smile appearing the second her name appears. He exhales softly through his nose, drying his hand absently against his shirt as he types back.
Yoongi: I told you, my dad had a doctors appointment, he won’t tell but he wanted me there
Yoongi: I am sorry, I can make up by coming over tonight and not leaving in the morning
___: I have a thing, might not come home
Yoongi: What thing?
___: Work thing
Yoongi: That’s very vague, but okay, I’ll see you on Saturday then? Can we go shopping?
“Who are you talking to smiling like that?” his mother shouts from the other end of the living room, startling him, almost into dropping his phone. It’s been a year and he’s successfully kept a lid on this relationship, the less she knows the better.
“No one, the guys are being funny in the group chat? Where are you off too?” he asks as his mother continues putting on her earrings.
“It’s the Lee’s 40th wedding anniversary and I thought I might bring them something, and ___ is going to be there” he stills not very noticeably, “I just love her,” his mother continues, completely unaware, stepping back into the kitchen to grab the baked goods she ordered earlier. “Too bad you never went out with her.”
He almost chokes on his own breath, covering it with a cough. “…Yeah,” he mutters, because what else is he supposed to say to that?
But his mind is already moving. So, ___ is in the same building as him and didn’t even tell him, is this why she won’t be coming home tonight? The wheels in his brain are going, a smirk almost appearing, “Maybe I also come with you, I was pretty rude last time when I didn’t visit them?”
“When?” she asks almost absentmindedly, forgetting that afternoon completely. “The time you tried to, you know what, I am going to change, wait for me”
Yoongi scrambles around, picking out a soft blue shirt and tucking it in almost instinctively. He fixes his hair next, more carefully than he’ll admit, adjusting it once, then again, like he’s trying to make it look like he didn’t try at all.
“Why do you even want to come, you’re usually not interested in my friends at all?” his mother questions from outside his room, watching him contemplate between two belts.
“That’s not true, you remember when I sent flowers for your friend Mrs Song?” “You didn’t send them, I did” she retorts almost immediately, “Well, I paid for them” he shoots back, not missing a beat.
He tightens the belt, exhaling softly through his nose before grabbing his watch, fastening it around his wrist with a little more care than usual. “I’m just being polite,” he adds, tone deliberately casual, like this is nothing out of the ordinary. “You said it yourself, I was rude last time.”
His mother leans against the doorframe now, watching him more closely. “You didn’t care about being rude last time.” “Well, as I grow older, I am trying to be a better person, come on” he walks right past her, she nods her head in confusion but decides to go along with it anyway.
Yoongi wouldn’t admit it, but he’s nervous. Things have been going well, too well. They move in together in a month, all their free time is being spent decorating their new home. The next natural steps would be to meet the parents, something he’s never done. “Stop fidgeting” his dad comments as he continues to fiddle around with his collar, the shirt suddenly suffocating him.
Yoongi spends the entire elevator ride thinking of what he’s going to say, which isn’t a long time to prepare for something this monumental. What exactly is he supposed to say? Hello, surprise, I’ve secretly been dating your daughter for over a year and we accidentally bought an apartment together?
His mother rings the bell before he can spiral further. The door swings open almost immediately, to his relief it’s ___. For one beautiful second her face lights up instinctively at the sight of him. Then she notices his parents standing there and immediately freezes.
“Oh! Hi, um” ___ stammers, fixing her hair the best she can as she tugs the sweater, well his sweater to be accurate that she stole just last week. “Hi, how are you ___, we just wanted to stop by with some treats before your parents leave for Europe” Mrs Min adds and ___ nods quickly, recovering with impressive speed considering she is currently trying to piece together why he’s here.
“Right, yes, come in,” she says, stepping aside quickly. “Mom and dad are inside.” Yoongi walks past her carefully, close enough to catch the tiny glare she shoots him under her breath.
“Ah, you made it!” Mrs. Lee says cheerfully as she appears from the kitchen carrying coffee cups.
Mr. Lee follows behind her with Yoongi’s father, already mid-conversation about travel routes and airport timing.
For a few blessed minutes, things settle.
Coffee is poured. Pastries are unpacked. The parents fall naturally into conversation around the dining table while Yoongi hovers awkwardly near the kitchen island pretending he isn’t hyperaware of every movement ___ makes.
“I’ve also made some sandwiches, let me just bring those out” ___ adds as she stands up, wanting a few minutes just to herself. “Oh, I’ll help” Yoongi adds and all the heads turn to him, none of them expecting this.
“It’s not much Yoongi-si, I’ll just be a few moments” ___ argues with a tight smile, hoping no one in this room catches onto this tension. “Oh I’m sure my mother’s told you what a great cook I am, I can help” Yoongi can’t help but tease, knowing this is going to cost him later.
“What is with these two?” Mrs Min murmurs to Mrs Lee as the two walk into kitchen, “Maybe he’s interested now, too bad she already has a boyfriend” Mrs Lee comments as they continue to sip on their coffee.
“She has a boyfriend?” Mrs Min asks with shock, she has secretly been hoping for her son to come to his senses all this time. “Well, she hasn’t told me explicitly, but she went to a vacation to Maldives and that’s such a couples destination” Mrs Lee adds and the wheels in Mrs Min’s head are finally going.
“When was she in Maldives?” “Early January I think, she didn’t even send us any pictures-” “Yoongi was in Maldives early January” Mrs. Lee blinks.
Mrs. Min blinks back, silence.
“Oh my god.” “OH MY GOD SHE’S WEARING HIS SWEATER THAT I GOT HIM FOR CHRISTMAS” Mrs Min yells as she rapidly walks towards the kitchen. The closer they get, the quieter they become. Because suddenly they’re not entering casually anymore.
They’re investigating and then they stop dead in the doorway. ___ is standing close enough to Yoongi that their bodies almost touch, fingers gently smoothing down the collar of his shirt while Yoongi looks at her with an expression his mother has never seen him wear before.
Soft and completely gone for her. Like the entire world narrowed down to the woman fixing his clothes in the kitchen.
“Oh.” The word slips out of Mrs. Lee before she can stop it. The couple freeze instantly. ___’s hand is still resting lightly against Yoongi’s chest.
Yoongi turns first and unfortunately, instead of looking guilty, he looks caught in the exact way a man does when he’s deeply in love and interrupted mid-moment. Which is somehow more incriminating.
“How long has this been going on?” Mrs Min asks softly, not entirely believing what she’s seeing. ___ immediately drops her hand from Yoongi’s collar like she’s been burned.
Yoongi exhales slowly, knowing he needs to take the lead in this situation, “A year and a half” he answers, his hand coming up to ___’s waist like he’s trying to tell it all with a show but ___ swats his hands immediately, like she can still talk her way out of this.
There’s silence and immediately there are questions, lots of them. “A YEAR AND A HALF” “Why didn’t you tell us” “Is this why you’ve been working late” “Is this why we couldn’t come to the Paris show?”
Mrs. Min’s eyes widened further somehow. “Oh my god, you traveled to see him during the tour?”
“No..well sometimes-” “How many times?” Mrs. Lee gasps. ___ looks ready to faint.
Yoongi, meanwhile, has reached the point of surrender where he almost finds this funny. “Enough that she has airline status now,” he says honestly.
“Min Yoongi!” ___ hisses in horror. “What? We’re already caught.” “That does not mean volunteer information!”
From the dining room, both fathers have fully abandoned pretending not to listen and are now standing in the doorway too. Mr. Min crosses his arms slowly. “I knew something was going on when he wanted me to check documents to buy an apartment”
The interrogation moves from the kitchen hallway to the dining room because ___ can’t keep standing without feeling like she’s about to faint and Yoongi wanted everyone to eat the sandwiches she made.
“When were you going to tell us that you’re moving in together, after you had children?” Mrs Min asks her son incredulously, she’s still in shock from this all, happy nonetheless. “What you aren’t engaged are you?” Mrs Lee asks as she rapidly reaches for ___’s hand.
“I wouldn’t ask ___ to marry me without speaking to her parents first,” Yoongi says immediately. The room quiets slightly at the seriousness in his tone. Because despite the chaos, despite the interrogation and the absolute catastrophe of this reveal, he means that sincerely.
Across the table, Mr. Lee watches him carefully now and for maybe the first time all afternoon, Yoongi feels genuinely nervous. “I’m not irresponsible,” he says quieter now, gaze flicking briefly toward ___ before returning to her parents. “I know how serious this is.”
___ looks at him softly for a second. Because beneath all the teasing and disaster and accidental exposure, that’s the thing about Yoongi, once he loves someone, he becomes frighteningly earnest about protecting the future around them.
Mrs. Min’s eyes narrow suddenly, too suddenly. “Wait.” Every person at the table goes still. “You said you wouldn’t ask without speaking to the parents first.” She points at him slowly. “Not that you haven’t thought about it.”
Yoongi makes the catastrophic mistake of glancing at ___ for half a second. And unfortunately that alone is enough.
Mrs. Lee gasps loudly. “Oh my god.” ___ blinks between them in confusion. “What?” Mrs. Min sits forward immediately. “You’ve thought about marriage.”
“We’re in a happy long term relationship, of course we have” “Do you have a ring?” his mother throws that question like a grenade in the middle of the dining room. ___ turns toward him so fast she nearly knocks over her water glass.
Yoongi suddenly regrets every decision that led him here. Because the thing is, he does have a ring. Hidden badly, according to Namjoon. Carefully and thoughtfully selected over weeks because once the idea entered his head, it never really left again.
“No,” he says too quickly. Mrs. Min narrows her eyes instantly. “That was suspicious.” “I don’t have it with me.” The second the words leave his mouth, he knows he’s doomed.
“YOU HAVE A RING?” both mothers shriek simultaneously.
___ just stares at him, like her brain genuinely stopped functioning for a second. Yoongi rubs a hand down his face slowly. “Well,” Mr. Min says calmly, sounding deeply entertained now, “this escalated quickly.”
“You bought a ring?” ___ asks finally, voice small in a way that completely destroys him. And suddenly all the teasing leaves the room a little. “We talked about it, we were on the same page about marriage?” Yoongi turns, like he needs to talk about it urgently.
“We did, I just didn’t expect you to actually buy a ring” The vulnerability in her voice hits him square in the chest. Because he understands what she means, not disbelief in them. Disbelief in how real this all suddenly sounds out loud.
Yoongi shifts slightly closer to her instinctively. “I wasn’t trying to pressure you,” he says lower now, like he’s forgotten there are four other people listening. “I just saw it and…” He exhales softly. “It felt right.”
___ looks at him for a long second. “They bought an apartment,” Mr. Lee mutters. “The married couple part was already implied.” “That’s true,” Mr. Min agrees.
“Is there a date on your mind?” Mrs Min asks quietly and that earns another dramatic gasp from Mrs Lee. “Okay,” ___ says finally, standing abruptly before this spirals into someone discussing grandchildren. “I think this is enough for today. Mom, dad, you both need to leave for the airport soon.” Then toward Yoongi’s parents, polite despite the emotional destruction currently occurring in the dining room, “Mrs. and Mr. Min, the desserts were delicious, and I do love your son, so I hope today won’t leave the wrong impression on your minds.”
“Yoongi and I are leaving because apparently we need to have a conversation.” That finally gets his attention fully. Yoongi blinks up at her once. “Do we?”
“Yes.” “Am I in trouble?” “You will be if you don’t get moving” ___ speaks with a smile but Yoongi knows better by now and stands up immediately. She’s quiet as they close the door behind them and it’s right at that moment when Yoongi’s phone rings.
He declines it and ___ sighs as she presses the elevator button with no clear plan on where they’re actually going to talk. Yoongi groans softly this time before answering. “Hi.”
There’s a pause, then his entire expression changes. “Oh.” ___ looks over immediately. “Our mattress is going to be there in a few minutes, they need someone to let them in” Yoongi continues and ___ simply hands him her car keys, knowing where they’re going.
“Oh, hi… that room,” ___ says quickly, pointing them toward the bedroom. They nod and disappear down the hallway carrying it carefully while Yoongi steps aside to answer yet another phone call.
Apparently every single thing related to this apartment needs attention today. “Yes, Tuesday is fine,” he says distractedly into the phone while pacing slowly near the windows. “Yes please early in the day, I’m busy post afternoon”
___ watches him for a second. It still catches her off guard sometimes, this version of him. Not a massively successful musician. Not the exhausted version surviving airports and tour schedules. Just… her boyfriend trying to do everything right with their apartment.
The mattress gets assembled surprisingly quickly considering it took them nearly three weeks to choose one. “So, the sofa will be here on the tuesday so we’ll have enough of a ready home to move in, rest we can tackle once we’re here” Yoongi adds as ___ gets them some water from the fridge, they might not be living here, but they still have a fully stacked kitchen already.
“And I’ve booked a moving company for your place for Sunday, I’ll be there too-” Yoongi continues and ___ shuts him up with a soft kiss. All the tension from today just melts as he helplessly kisses her, his hands all over her till they settle under the sweater.
“You stupid idiot” ___ pulls back just to say that but Yoongi only smiles as he pulls her even closer. “Did you really buy a ring?” she continues and Yoongi sighs, resting his forehead against hers. “I swear my mother, can we not make a big deal out of this, it’s not happening that soon, I want us to live together first and you weren’t supposed to find out like this” he explains which only makes ___ laugh more.
“Is it beautiful? It’s not too flashy is it? I know you have money but big diamonds don’t suit me” ___ teases and he groans gripping her waist even tighter. “Darling I know what you like, can we just please drop this?” Yoongi pleads and ___ nods knowing when to give up.
“I didn’t think I’d be doing this with you after our first date, I really wanted to see you again but I wasn’t sure it would work” ___ confesses as she moves around, finally getting the water she wanted. “I really wanted to see you again,” she admits. “But I honestly wasn’t sure it would work.”
Yoongi’s brows lift slightly. “Really?” He watches her carefully now as she hands him a glass of water before continuing.
“And then you kissed me like that,” she says, pointing at him accusingly now, “and just left.” Yoongi looks entirely unapologetic. “I had an early flight.” “You kissed me after the best first date and just left and it felt like a romcom for a few hours till you didn’t text me for 12 hours”
“I was trying to seem calm.” That actually makes her laugh. Because if there’s one thing she knows now, it’s that Yoongi has never once been calm about her. “I was still dazed from the date and the kiss and I was all confused and and I um, was so surprised and I hated that I had to leave even if I really wanted to tour” Yoongi confesses and ___ smiles from the other side of the counter.
“I for a very long time believed that this all, a girlfriend, living together, the eventual stuff, planning a life with someone wasn’t in my books and for the longest time I was okay with it” The apartment falls quiet around them. Suddenly he looks younger somehow. Not physically, emotionally, like she’s catching a glimpse of the version of him that spent years convincing himself wanting less from life was safer.
“You just thought loving someone would mean losing parts of yourself.” That catches him off guard.
Because unfortunately she’s right. Yoongi looks down briefly, jaw tightening faintly like he’s still a little uncomfortable being understood this clearly. “Yes,” he admits quietly. “And honestly…” A tiny breath leaves him, almost amused at himself now. “I didn’t expect you to be this stubborn.”
___ smiles faintly. “Excuse me?” “We fought,” he continues, stepping closer again like he physically can’t stay far from her for long anymore. “A lot sometimes. Especially in the beginning.” His hands slide back around her waist naturally. “But you always treated the problems like they were against us.” He pauses, gaze steady on hers now. “Not us against each other.”
Something soft flickers across her expression immediately, because that mattered more to him than she probably realized.
“So, shall we break in the new mattress, take a nap?” ___ jokes and Yoongi chuckles holds her from the behind. “Is this us now, napping? So painfully domestic” he says, his warm hands back under the sweater.
“What’s more tragic is that I really want to nap” Yoongi confesses nuzzling his head into her shoulder. “Honey, we can do whatever we want, nap, look at vacuums, argue if we really want a piano in the living room” ___ teases and Yoongi laughs thinking back to the major vacuum selection fight.
Disclaimer: This is a dark fiction that includes heavy themes and adult content. Do not read if you feel uncomfortable with such topics. You are responsible for your media consumption. Please read with caution!
Chapter 1 - The Fansign
Chapter 2 - Where mistakes lead
Chapter 3 - Warning bells
Chapter 4 - Morning after
Chapter 5 - The softness of chains
Chapter 6 - The damage of gentle hands
Chapter 7 - Punishment
Chapter 8 - Cracks
Chapter 9 - The cruelty of kindness
Chapter 10 - Permanent
Chapter 11 - Bargaining
Chapter 12 - Terms and conditions
Chapter 13 - The shape of a cage
Chapter 14 - Normal
Chapter 15 - What was never spoken aloud
Chapter 16 - The note
Chapter 17 -
Chapter 18 -
Chapter 19 -
Chapter 20 -
But when he realised he liked you way more than what he prepared himself for
Oh then he was in trouble
So it took him a few eternities to gather up the courage to cross the "just friends" line
That's other thing I believe in
The friends to lovers trope is strong with this one alright
So the bad thing is that this is why it took him so damn long to accept his feelings and do something about it
Because he didn't wanna lose you and your friendship in case you didn't reciprocate
But it's also good
There's nothing better than dating your best friend after all
But moving forward to the actual dating stage
(because him gathering up the courage to shoot his shot was a whole odyssey)
Dating him isn't really about passion
Of course there's that
But the focus isn't on the fast heart beats and warmth spreading all over your being
It's about being safe, comfortable and understood
He's your rock and you are his safe place
So the relationship is very cozy and domestic
One of the things that didn't allow him to get close to you at first was his career
He didn't want to put all the spotlight and pressure on you
But now that he got you? He is not letting go
"but the fans won't like it-" too bad ig
"but the company didn't allow it" since when does he need to ask anything
"oh but-" no.
You can say whatever you'd like. He doesn't care, he didn't ask
You got crazy privileges tho
First to hear the music (and have some dedicated to you), free tickets, any merch you'd like
Just say the word and what you want shall be yours
But when it comes to him as a person, you are even more privileged
You're the only one he answers the phone to
You get to see the side of him that doesn't shut up and is full of jokes
Domesticity like folding laundry together, you drying his hair after he gets out of the shower and him making you breakfast when you just woke up tho it's almost lunch time
SO many inner jokes
Sometimes you both just look at each other and are already trying not to laugh
Will never admit it but he still gets a little nervous every time you see him perform
Even after so much time, he still wants to impress you
One thing he loves is how you seem to just fit in into his life
You and the boys act like siblings
His parents seem at ease with you
His dog acts like he can't live without you
You just look like you belong
Late night talks also go crazy with this one
I swear, he always has the most ?? things to talk about
In the end, this is all about silent yet firm love, always there when you need it and everlasting
Masterlist | you'll probably like: pick me!BTS
Daily click
Reminder this is just fiction!! I'm not trying to portray real life and you shouldn't believe that this is how the members actually are. This is just for the vibe and the delulu!
In honor of this account’s name, the first recommendation list will be dedicated to the love of my life, aka Min Yoongi. I read many of these fics a long time ago, but I could NEVER forget them, and honestly, I think that’s enough promotion on its own.
P.S. Besides the summary, I usually add a little review after each fic because duh, authors always deserve extra love and appreciation.
One-shots:
PRETTY GIRLS LIE PRETTY by @kikiskook
Summary: What if your girlfriend’s pissy friend didn’t want to steal you away? What if he just wanted to fuck the goodness out of you? And what if you let him?
Review: This one is kind of my guilty pleasure. Why? Because the main plot revolves around cheating. I KNOW, I KNOW IT’S BAD, BUT I CAN’T HELP IT, IT’S JUST TOO WELL WRITTEN. Blame Kiki for being such a good writer tbh. There isn’t a huge amount of plot here—it’s mostly smut with a bit of storyline—but it feels super well balanced, and the chemistry between the protagonists is insanely good. Like, I’m not even that big of a smut reader, and this story still had me completely hooked.
CALLING... PRODUCER MIN YOONGI by @bangtan-dreamland
Summary: The first time you call him, it's two in the morning.
Review: Guys, when I tell you this has been my favorite read of the year, I’m not exaggerating. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve read in MONTHS (at least when it comes to Yoongi lol). It’s honestly hard to find fics that don’t revolve entirely around smut, so finding this one-shot that’s just pure fluff, love, and the softest Yoongi ever was SO exciting. The story doesn’t really have a summary, but it’s basically about Reader calling a random number (cough cough Yoongi cough cough), and they end up building a relationship entirely through texts and phone calls—no pictures, no meeting each other, just their voices and messages and UGHH IT’S SO ROMANTIC GUYS AHHHH— Genuinely one of the best things you could read if you just want something sweet and romantic.
CAT-ASTROPHE by @dumpywrites
Summary: Your pet cat keeps going to your neighbor’s apartment and it’s a problem.
Review: This is actually a two-shot, but since it’s only two parts, I decided to include it here sjddjajd. Just like the previous one, it’s SOOO cute—like, I remember literally giggling and kicking my feet while reading it. The first part doesn’t have smut, BUT! The second one does. I totally recommend reading both, their relationship is incredibly sweet, and there’s also a cat involved (which is funny considering Yoongi has a cat just like the one described in the story lol). Cat + Yoongi = happiness.
Series:
THE 25TH HOUR by @jungkoode
Summary: "Everything freezes at 1:59 AM. You're not supposed to be awake, yet here you are—and so is Min Yoongi, looking at you with years of something you can't remember in his eyes. Your body knows him. Your mind doesn't. And you have exactly 60 minutes to figure out why."
Review: I know most people here already know Kiki, I know, I know, BUT! No one gives this series enough recognition. Like, it genuinely deserves so much more visibility and love than it gets (I’m a loyal defender of any fic involving mint Yoongi and sci-fi). Kiki is one of the best fanfic writers I’ve ever come across, reading her fics genuinely feels like an experience of its own, and this series proves it perfectly. I don’t want to say too much about the story because I feel like almost anything could count as a spoiler in this case, but I promise it’s absolutely worth it!
LOVE IS... ON TOUR by @httpknjoon
Summary: Tell everyone you know, Love Is… On Tour! Popstar!YN is set to start her sophomore world tour with her new hit songs, sparkly outfits, and talented live band. There are 352 days of this tour, which means 352 days of YN and her new bassist, Yoongi getting on each other’s skin in every way possible.
Review: When I tell you I was obsessed with this series, I mean it VERY seriously. I LOVE bassist/guitarist Yoongi, it genuinely makes me lose my mind with excitement. Band Yoongi? I’m completely sold every single time. So finding this fic, with a protagonist whose whole vibe revolves around Sabrina’s discography? Pure gold. This series is so fun to read, it has sweet moments, angst moments (dude, during the last episodes I was literally biting my nails and praying for an update to save the situation lol), and tension too (OBVIOUSLY). They’re one of my favorite couples ever, and I’m sure that if you give them a chance, they’ll become yours too <3
HOT AND BOTHERED by @ktownshizzle
Summary: You’re horny af one night so you login to your fave hook-up app for a quick fix. You match with Min Yoongi, expecting a cocky rapper with a filthy mouth, but instead, you get a soft-spoken man in a designer shirt and a gummy smile. He keeps asking you out, but there’s no kiss, no sex, nothing. Each date winds you up tighter than the last, your patience (and your lingerie) hanging by a thread, and now you can’t tell what’ll snap first: his restraint or your self-control.
Review: The things I felt for this Yoongi should genuinely not be considered normal, and I mean that very seriously. In general, I absolutely love the Yoongis K writes because UGHH I LOVE THEM, THEY’RE PERFECT, but this one? This one completely got me. Like, I’m genuinely not someone who goes back to reread fics more than once, but with this one I’ve reread at least three chapters just because of Yoongi. What can I say? Gentlemanly men who don’t kiss their date on the first date have a chokehold on me.
LOUD & CLEAR by @/ktownshizzle
Summary: Worst thing just happened to you, actually. You accidentally play a sexy audiobook out loud in the office. Thankfully, everyone assumes you just put someone on speaker. But things get complicated when you discover that the voice everyone heard might belong to the aloof IT guy at work… who happens to live a double life as Agust D, your favorite erotica narrator.
Review: If the previous one had me on my knees because of how sweet it was, this one has me on my knees because of how absolutely hot it is. First of all, the plot is incredible. The moment I read it, I immediately ran to catch up on all the published chapters because, duh, Yoongi reading books with that voice??? I’d pay for that too, you know? Anyway, I’m completely hooked on this story and I seriously can’t wait to read more of this couple (because yes, I'm here for reader too, she's an absolute sweetheart, she’s perfect, I adore her).
hook, line & stinker - a min yoongi one-shot
pairing: workaholic!dom!yoongi x needy!brat!fem reader feat. hoseok
genre: est. relationship, pwp
rating: M for mature and explicit content. No one under 18 should interact
summary: you love your boyfriend, but it really sucks when he holes himself up in his studio for days at a time, leaving you at home alone. when you visit him to make sure he's still alive and well, you have no intention of dragging him away from his work. but is there anything wrong with a little distraction in the form of lingerie?
warnings: jealousy, angst, (blonde snapback) yoongi is moody, reader feels neglected and pushes his buttons, arguments, there's no infidelity but reader pretends she takes an offer on a date w/ hobi and yoongi worries bc of insecurities and then brings up his ex, under the desk bj, exhibitionism kink, unprotected sex (if he doesn't wrap it, don't let him tap it!), rough make-up sex, oral (m. and f. receiving), spanking, spitting, light choking, multiple orgasms, i think this is pretty filthy, reader gets upset but yoongi takes care of her, they kiss & make-up & talk about boundaries, they love each other, fluff ending
wc: 10.8k 🤪
notes: thanks to this fic rec list, i decided to reupload!
You punch in the code to Yoongi’s studio (which just so happens to be your birthday), slightly irked that you have to come all this way because your boyfriend wants to continue to be a workaholic after you’ve lectured him countless times about the importance of taking a break. So you arrive with food and a cute outfit you think will help distract him.
Upon entering, you see he is deeply entranced by his screen and you can hear the echoes of music blasting through his headphones. You quietly maneuver inside and set the bag of takeout on the coffee table before tiptoeing up behind his chair and slowly reaching up to his shoulders. You roughly grab them and laugh at the way he jumps and tears off his headphones.
“Jesus Christ!” he exclaims as he turns to see who just scared the shit out of him.
“Deng! Guess again,” you say with a grin, leaning down to kiss him on the head. When you go to poke his nose, he bats your hand away and mumbles.
“You could’ve given me a heart attack.”
“Well, that’s one way to get you out of the studio. Give you a ride home in an ambulance. I never thought of that,” you sneer playfully, giggling when he glares at you. You slide back to the food on the table.
“Come eat, Min PD.”
“I’m almost done,” he grumbles and turns to face his desk. You roll your eyes.
“No, sir. You need to eat or you’re gonna make yourself sick,” you scold as you tug on the back of his chair to twist him around and he looks up at you with a whine.
“I will! I just need a couple minutes.”
You click your tongue. “A couple minutes to you is like eight hours. I swear, you go through a time warp every time you come in here. You know it's been three days since I last saw you? Let’s go.”
You grab onto his arm and tug him, but he goes slack in his chair and makes protesting noises as you drag him towards the coffee table, laughing when he stretches his other arm at his desk like he’s being pulled away from a long-lost friend.
“You are such a drama queen,” you sigh as you let go of his arm.
“I was almost done,” he pouts, crossing his arms. You roll your eyes as you take out the food you brought.
“Sure, sure. Just eat real quick and you can finish in 'a couple minutes,’” you say sarcastically with air quotes, and he scowls, nonetheless leans forward to reluctantly grab the box of food you hand him.
You walk around the edge of the table and stop in front of him. You smile as he begins to eat his noodles, so you grab his chin.
“Good boy,” you quip, and lean down to press a kiss to the corner of his lips, catching him off guard.
He coughs a bit as he processes what you said and watches you with wide eyes as you sit down in his lap. You laugh at his expression as you open your container of food and grab a pair of chopsticks. You both sit in silence and eat, glancing at him every now and as he chews with his head down, a line drawn between his brows that looks like he’s trying to figure out something.
“How’s your food?” you ask before taking a sip from your bottle of water.
“Good,” he grumbles without looking at you. “Thanks.”
You shift to get more comfortable in his lap and he starts to chew faster.
After he nudges you off his lap and helps you clean up, he turns around to scoot his chair back to his desk.
“Thanks for coming by and all, but I think you should leave."
You scoff, mildly hurt. “Why?”
“Because I know what you’re trying to do.”
You realize what he means and the brat in you makes an appearance, so you throw your hair haughtily over your shoulder and slyly walk up to his chair, sliding a hand down his arm.
“And what is that exactly?”
“You’re trying to distract me, but it’s not working,” he says through curled lips, staring at his screen.
“No?” you smirk. You squat and fold your elbows on the arms of his chair, propping your chin up on your wrist. “How am I being distracting? All I did was bring you food.”
He turns his head to glare at you, but his Adam's apple bobs when he looks down at your position, how your legs are spread to reveal the meat of your thighs, then at how you smile at him in a pseudo-innocent way.
“Exhibit A, B and C,” he says, gesturing to your legs, tits, and face.
You grin. “What? I’m just looking at you.” Your voice however drips in seduction.
He shakes his head and looks back at his screen, trying to stay strong.
“Precisely.”
Your tongue pokes into your cheek in amusement and a devilish lightbulb flashes in your mind.
“How is me looking at you so distracting?” you ask, settling on your knees before gliding a hand over his leg. “Wouldn’t it be something more like this?”
His mouth pulls into a thin line as he struggles to keep his eyes focused up. You slowly push at his leg to move him towards you so you can rise in between his knees, smiling at the way he refuses to look at you. You begin to slide your hands up his thigh, licking your lips as you head for his crotch, but he catches your wrist.
“Don’t,” he commands, now looking down at you with a serious expression.
Undeterred, you push your bottom lip out in the brattiest pout, and the severe clench in his jaw shows how hard he's fighting to keep his guard up.
“You’re just so stressed, and I want to help you… relax.”
He closes his eyes and swallows, and you just know he's trying to keep his imagination away from thoughts not suited for work.
“I appreciate that, baby, but I’m almost done here and when I am, I’m all yours, okay?” He lets go of your wrist to smooth out your pout with his thumb.
You believe him, but still, you want to bother him after he hasn't paid attention to you in a few days.
“Fine,” you sigh and start to stand up. “Well, I guess I can’t ask you for your advice on what I bought. If I want to return it, today is my last day, so it’s now or never.”
You only take one step away when his hand grabs your wrist. You smile. Hook, line, and stinker.
You look back in faux confusion. He licks his lips and swallows, hesitant yet desperate to find out what you’re talking about.
“What do you need my advice on?”
Without hesitation, your hands fly to the hem of your shirt. “Oh, just this.”
He sucks in a sharp breath as you tear off your shirt to reveal a lavender corset bra. The lace is embroidered with delicate floral designs to reveal the lower half of your breast, just barely covering your nipples, and parts of your ribcage below. His throat goes dry.
“It has a matching thong too. Wanna see?” Your question is rhetorical because you give him no time to breathe as you unbutton your shorts. You bend over to shimmy them down your legs, making a show of wiggling so your breasts move side to side.
You kick your shorts to the side and stand straight, carding your hair out of your face before placing your hands on your hips and standing confidently in front of him.
“So, what do you think?” you ask, cocking your head to the side as his wide eyes go up and down your form.
“It’s pretty,” he swallows, biting his lip to ignore the twitch in his boxers.
“Oh, see how it looks from behind.” You twirl around and adjust the clips of the corset then the hem of your thong, sticking your ass out in the process. “Isn’t it cute?” Yoongi is screwed.
You look at him from over your shoulder. “Do you like it?”
He nods, barely hearing you as his eyes train on the way the string of the thong disappears between your cheeks. You smirk when his tongue pokes out just over his teeth.
“The lace is really soft too. Here, feel,” you say, spinning back around and walking up to him, rubbing your fingers over the lace below your breast.
He swallows, wanting so bad to reach out and touch, but knowing if he does, it’s over for him, he’ll lose. But shit, you look good as fuck, and he can’t help but give in.
You grin as he reaches his hand out to feel the lace and he hums in approval.
“It’s nice,” he says, voice deep and starting to give away his desire.
“It’s even better here,” you say, gripping his wrist to plant his hand on your breast and he purrs as he lets his fingers squeeze your flesh.
You let him massage for a second or two and judging by his face he looks closer to giving into your distraction, but you'll wait.
“Okay, since you like it, I won’t return it,” you say, dropping his hand and turning to grab your shorts off the ground. “Thanks! I’ll let you get back to work.”
You bend over again to pick up your shirt, your ass right in his line of sight and he can’t deny the rock-hard bulge in his jeans.
“I’ll see you when you get home,” you say as you walk over to the table but his low voice rumbles through the sound-proof studio.
“Get your ass back here,” his words shoot straight to your core, the string of your thong growing wet.
“I thought you said you have to work,” you say innocently.
“Right now,” he growls, and you move towards him like a magnet.
Once again next to his chair, he slides his fingers underneath the lavender straps stretching over your hips to cup your exposed ass. Your skin flares hot when he squeezes.
“I don’t want to distract you.”
His dark eyes filled with lust shoot up to you and flicker with anger.
“It’s a little fuckin’ late for that, doll,” he grits. “You made a problem and now you’re going to fix it.” He moves his other hand to palm his bulge. Your eyes widen at the motion, and you cross your legs because, shit, you want to sit on that so bad.
“And then you’re going to leave and let me finish what you interrupted and wait for me to come home.”
“Yeah? Then what?”
His lips curl in what could be a growl, and he smacks your ass, pushing you to stand between his legs.
“Then I’m going to punish you for getting me hard at work.”
You moan as his hand moves to your front and feels over the lace material that covers your pussy. You shudder when his fingers slip between your thighs, battling with the string of your thong to rake over your clit and slit, groaning at how wet you already are.
“Fuck, you really get this turned on just from teasing me?”
You whimper in response as he drags his finger over your bud before removing his hand.
“We need to do something about that,” he says, sticking his fingers in his mouth to suck your arousal from them. Your legs shake involuntarily. “You can’t keep pissing me off so you can get your way.”
You breathe out a moan as he pops his wet fingers into view and licks over them slowly with his tongue flicking in the v-shape while looking right at you before dropping them to his lap. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as you imagine him doing that right on your clit.
“I keep saying, you make it too easy.”
He bares his teeth before gripping your sides and pulling you down to his lap, pushing your hips to roll on his groin.
“Or maybe you just need to have the brat fucked out of you,” he growls into your ear before biting the skin below it. Before you can do anything, he pushes at your waist and tells you to get on your knees on the ground, raking his hair back in frustration.
You hesitate as you stare at his crotch, wanting to reach for it but remembering all the times he's tied you up for touching him without permission.
“Get to work,” he says, letting his wrists dangle casually from the arms of the chair, bracelets clacking.
You greedily sit up on your knees as your fingers dig around under his sweater for his belt. You quiver at the sound of his buckle coming loose and bite your lip when you see the bulge straining in his underwear after you undo his jeans. Just as you begin to reach into his boxers, someone knocks at his door.
You both react in panic.
“Hyung, can I come in? I need to show you something,” the sound of Hoseok’s voice echoes from the other side of the door.
“Shit!” he breathes, pushing your hands away from his belt and rolling in his chair over to where you left your clothes on the floor. However, you have no intention of moving.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” He asks exasperatedly in a hushed tone when he finds you sliding back under his desk on your hands and knees.
“Yah, Yoongi hyung!”
Yoongi’s head whips between you and the door, blood pressure spiking. You put your hand out for the clothes he’s holding.
“It’s too late, I’ll just hide under here. He won’t see me.”
Yoongi’s jaw moves in annoyance, but he has no time to argue with you. So, he scoots his chair all the way under his desk to shield you with his widespread legs, throwing your clothes in your face. It works because you can barely see out beyond his lap, thanks to his wide and thick thighs, but this is no good news for Yoongi because another evil and salacious idea forms in your mind.
“It’s unlocked!” Yoongi calls and braces himself, praying that Hoseok cannot see under his desk.
As the door opens, Yoongi quickly busies himself at his computer, pretending that he doesn’t have his half-naked girlfriend underneath his desk and face level with his crotch.
“Sorry to bother you, I just wanted to ask your advice on something.”
Yoongi’s brow ticks. Why is everyone asking for his advice today?
“It’s fine, Hob-a, what’s up?” He asks, trying to play it cool.
But as Hoseok stands next to him at his desk, he feels hands slide onto his lap and he grips the edge of the table, hoping that you're only just teasing him. But that hope doesn’t last very long.
Hoseok wants to know what he thinks about one of his tracks, that there’s something off about it but he can’t figure out what. Hoseok hands Yoongi his flash drive and he plugs it into his PC, and as he clicks around for the file your fingers inch towards his unopened jeans.
As Hoseok points at the screen about different parts of the track he’s concerned about, Yoongi grinds his teeth, urging himself to stay focused even when you begin to palm at his clothed dick. He thinks about kicking you, but all thoughts get cut off when you reach in through the hole in his boxers and pull his cock out. Fuck, he's needy for you, even in the most unorthodox way. He jerks when your hand wraps around his length, the other diving back in to squeeze his balls but he plays it off like he’s adjusting in his seat, masking his moan with a cough. He slides forward in the chair so you can have easier access.
Shit. How can something so wrong feel so motherfucking good?
“You okay?” Hoseok asks, giving him a wary side glance as Yoongi clicks around the screen.
The older, sweating man nods stiffly and clears his throat.
“Yeah. It’s just been a long day. Do you wanna run it through?”
Hoseok leans over for the mouse and Yoongi takes the chance to let his expression crack while you run your tongue up the thick, pulsing vein on the underside of his dick, hand circling around his base.
Yoongi’s eyebrows pinch in fierce concentration on Hoseok’s track once he hits play but all of a sudden, your lips wrap around his tip, and you suck him into hollowed cheeks, devastatingly slow so as to not make noise even though the music would surely cover it. Stifling a groan, he straightens his back and presses his ribcage against his desk when you swirl your tongue around him. He’s going to fucking get you later.
Hoseok hits the spacebar and pauses the music. As it stops, you halt your movements. “See, there. Something doesn’t sound right.”
Yoongi’s brows furrow as he tries to center his attention even though your hand is massaging his balls.
“I think I missed it, sorry.”
Hoseok sighs but moves the mouse to rewind back a few beats. He points at the tracker on the screen to tell Yoongi which part to pay most attention to and he nods.
As the music resumes your mouth returns to his length, and you slowly move down until his tip hits the back of your throat and he holds his breath at the pleasure, moan catching in his chest. He's so goddamn pissed that you’re doing this to him, but it feels so good at the same time. He tries his best to resist the urge to let the pleasure consume him, so he knocks off his snapback to pull his fingers through his hair and begs his brain to focus on the music.
“Right here, hyung,” Hoseok murmurs next to him and Yoongi nods, listening closely even though your hot tongue licks from his base to the tip.
Then he hears it, some strange offbeat in the background and he taps the spacebar, sighing through his nose when the silence makes you retreat.
They go over it for a while until Yoongi finally figures out what’s going on since the blood returns to his brain once you stopped touching him (although that doesn’t mean he isn’t still hard, and his dick isn’t twitching in your face and making you salivate and want to touch yourself).
“Ah, okay, I see what you mean,” Hoseok says when Yoongi explains that there’s an extra beat embedded that’s easy to miss. “Thanks.” He claps him on the shoulder.
“Is that all you need?” Yoongi asks just to be polite but prays Hobi makes a quick exit.
He nods as he saves the file before ejecting it and Yoongi pulls out the flash drive and hands it to him.
“How long have you been here?”
“Uh, a while, but I’m almost done.” Yoongi hopes Hoseok doesn’t see the way his eyes squeeze shut when you begin to move your thumb over his leaking tip.
“Good. You deserve a break! You’ve been working so hard.”
“Thanks, Hob-a. You too.”
“How’s your girlfriend?”
Yoongi internally groans, now of all times Hoseok wants to make small talk.
“She’s fine,” he says in a tight voice, only because you have lightly dragged your fingers up his length.
“Uh-oh. Troubles in paradise?”
Yoongi’s eyes widen in confusion and your hand stills. “No? What makes you say that?”
“Oh, just saying, because usually when anyone asks you about her, you gush for like twenty minutes.”
Yoongi’s face and neck flushes a dark red and you have to press a hand over your mouth to keep yourself quiet.
“Do not,” he grumbles, although in denial.
Hoseok snorts. “Fat lie, hyung. You always jump at the chance to talk about her, you don’t realize that? It’s cute! Well, in a sickening kind of way, but still.”
Yoongi glares at him as he feels your head fall onto his knee, trying to keep yourself from laughing.
“Shut up,” he grumbles.
“Why? Are you embarrassed?” Hoseok teases in a baby voice, bending down to pinch at Yoongi’s cheeks. “Cute Yoonie loves his girlfriend so much that he wants to talk about her all the time.”
“Fuck off, Hoseok,” Yoongi mumbles, swatting at Hoseok’s fingers and pushing him away as he turns back to his computer, and thankfully you’ve cut him a fucking break under his desk.
Hoseok snickers and grabs his laptop. “You better go home and see her, go on a date. But if you’re too busy, I’d be more than happy to take her out for you!”
“Yah, Jung Hoseok!” Yoongi bubbles with fury and Hoseok just cackles and scurries to the exit.
“Bye!” Hoseok grins mischievously, wiggling his fingers in the air before closing the door behind him.
A few seconds after the lock clicks shut, you burst out into laughter, and Yoongi flushes a hot, steaming red all the way up to his ears.
Yoongi pushes away from the desk and ducks his head down to look at you as you begin to crawl out on all fours. He scowls when you giggle once you make eye contact with him.
“I don’t see what’s funny. You’re in big trouble, you know,” he says, stuffing himself back in his underwear.
You stifle a laugh as you stand up. “You mad?”
“Clearly!”
You cock your eyebrow when he darts a hand out in frustration. “At what, the fact that I sucked your dick under your desk or that I found out how much you love to talk about me?”
Yoongi narrows his eyes and crosses his arms. “Both.”
You smirk. “Aww, come on, Yoonie~” you tease, mimicking Hoseok as you go to sit on your boyfriend’s lap.
“Go away,” He tries to fight you off but you trap him by grinding down on his hips and shoving your tits in his face.
You hum as you press an open-mouth kiss to the corner of his mouth. “You sure?”
Your hand slides down to his clothed dick, still solid under your palm. “Don't you want me to take care of your ‘problem’?”
He swallows moan as you grope him. But he feels embarrassed and upset that you went down on him when Hoseok was there. Deep down he thinks it was hot, but he knows Hoseok has always had a crush on you and he doesn’t like the idea of him seeing you like that, especially with the kinds of comments he sometimes makes implying that he can treat you better.
“Yeah, when I get home,” he sighs and you deflate. “I’m almost done.”
“Seriously, are you mad?”
“No, babe. I just want to finish up now so that I can be done for the weekend. That’s what you want, right?”
You grimace, wondering what he means by that. “Fine,” you acquiesce, hopping off of his lap so he can roll back up to his desk.
You slide on your clothes and gather your things, biting your tongue to keep from saying anything smart, but you can’t help feeling that his words don't sit right in your chest. As you walk to the door and slip on your shoes, you glance over to see him hunched over his desk, not even bothering to look back as you leave.
“You know, maybe I’ll go find Hoseok and take him up on his offer. Since it seems he has the time for me,” you sneer after you open the door, stepping out and slamming it shut behind you.
Yoongi jerks his head and swivels around but you've already disappeared. Oooh, that pisses him off. He knows you only said it to do just that but that sits right along his insecurities and he wants to lose it. But he really is almost done with work so if he hunkers down now, he can finish and go home and tell you off.
**********
90 minutes later he receives a notification, a text from you with an attached image. You’re lying in bed on your stomach in your corset bra, holding up your head as you pout into the camera with your cleavage on full display.
my brat: Hoseok was busy :/
Yoongi drops his phone on the table, and it clatters, free hands rubbing frustration down his face. He knows what you’re doing, and he should have the willpower to ignore it but- FUCK are you good at getting what you want. You like pissing him off so that he'll be rough with you. And although he enjoys the dynamic, finds it fun, this is just one of those times that he really doesn’t like how you piss him off. He hates the idea of you alluding to the fact that you asked another man to fuck you. He knows you indeed haven’t, that you’re just messing with him, but he’s getting in his head with his self-doubt. He angrily decides that the track is good enough for now, that he can meet with Namjoon tomorrow or something to tweak it. He has to get home to make sure no one else has touched you but him.
You are in Big. Fucking. Trouble.
**********
When Yoongi walks through the door, you’re in the kitchen getting something to drink, wearing one of his flannel shirts over your lingerie. When he appears you smile and greet him, but falter when he ignores you and quickly shuffles by to the bedroom. You watch him pass you and your smile slips at the stone look on his face. You know you pissed him off but did you make him upset? You never want to hurt his feelings, you just want to get his attention. You set your drink on the counter and pad after him.
When you walk into the room and lean against the door frame, his back is to you as he strips off his sweater to reveal his dark gray t-shirt and silver chain.
“Did you finish?” you ask, twiddling your fingers over one of the buttons of his flannel.
“No,” he says, keeping his back to you. You frown.
“Oh. How come?”
“Because my bratty girlfriend can’t be fucking patient," he grits, swiping off his snapback.
You cross your arms, not appreciating his tone. “I left, didn't I?”
His shoulders shake in a sardonic laugh, fingers combing through his hat-hair. “Yeah, only after telling me you were going to look for Hoseok.”
“Yeah well, maybe if you paid more attention to me, I wouldn’t feel the need to do that,” you sneer before pushing off of the door frame to speed-walk into the living room.
You only make it halfway down the hall before a hand grabs your wrist. You’re met with Yoongi’s looming figure exuding anger as he glares down at you and you match his energy immediately.
“And you think the way to get my attention is by making me jealous?”
“Well, it seems to be the only thing that’s working! Isn’t that why you came home before you got done with work? Because you think I asked Hoseok to fuck me? Not because you-“
“Did you?” he interrupts and your jaw moves in irritation.
“What do you think?” you bark. He blinks down at the floor. There it is again- that insecurity. He backs you into the wall as he tries to control his anxiety.
“I don’t know,” he mumbles honestly and that pisses you off. He really thinks you would stoop that low?
“Really? What, you think I wanted to suck you off while he was there hoping he’d catch us? Ask to join? Have me suck his dick too?”
Rage floods through him at the thought and his hold around your wrist tightens.
“Would you?”
Your mouth drops open. “Wow. Screw you." You pry his hand off and angrily walk back into the bedroom, wanting to put on more clothes now that you’re upset. As he follows, you make a petty point by taking off his flannel and exchanging it for your own clothes, pulling on your own t-shirt and sweats.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says when he stands in the doorway.
"No? You don’t think that I’d jump at the chance to suck another man’s dick if the opportunity presented itself?”
“No, of course not,” he shakes his head, feeling guilty when you say nothing else so he continues, wanting you to understand where he's coming from.
“I just… You know he likes you.”
You spin around, flabbergasted. “Fucking so?”
He closes his eyes, feeling embarrassed that he’s about to bring this up. He has no reason to be worried that you like Hoseok but… he still struggles deep down that he doesn’t deserve you and that you’d be better off with someone else. Maybe someone like Hoseok.
“Why don’t you go ask him whether or not I took him up on his offer?” you snap. Then you stride across the floor and stand toe to toe with him.
“Or how bout you find out for yourself,” you provoke.
He looks down at you with your chin tilted up at his and a heartbeat passes before his hands fly to your face and he presses his lips to yours. You respond immediately by scraping your fingers over his ribs, hooking over his spine as he licks into your mouth, teeth clashing together desperately.
He begins to walk you backward towards the bed and when you hit the edge of the mattress, he tears your shirt off and lifts you by the waist to settle you down and kiss you hungrily as he climbs on top of you, chain laying on your throat. His hands move down to your sweats and he stands straight to rip them down your legs and onto the floor, looking down at your body decorated with pretty lingerie and he intrusively thinks about Hoseok seeing you like this and jealousy fires through him again.
He falls to his knees and loops his fingers under the straps of your thong to roughly pull them off, licking his lips at the sight of your bare pussy, glistening with the return of your arousal. He adds to it with his spit and promptly attaches his lips to your clit, growling when you cry out and arch your back in response. He wraps his arms underneath your thighs to hold you in place as he slathers your pussy with his spit and teeth and tongue.
His eyes close as you let out whimpers and whines of his name while your hands grip his hair, every sound making his dick twitch in his jeans. He sucks and slurps all over your cunt, making it messy between your thighs and on his chin, anything to make you keep wailing his name. He flicks his tongue over your clit and between your folds just like he demonstrated on his fingers back in the studio, and he has to flex his biceps around your thighs when you thrash. He can tell you’re close by the way your legs quiver beside his head and he slides your clit between his teeth before pressing his lips around it and sucking in a fast, relentless rhythm.
“Yoongi, gonna come!” you cry and a dark chuckle rumbles through his chest at the thought that no one else can get you to your peak as quickly as he can. He mercilessly continues sucking your clit until your legs violently shake and press against his head and you come with shrieks of his name. His tongue dives to your hole as it pulses and he licks your essence into his mouth and groans while he swallows, grinning victoriously as you continue to shake through throes of pleasure.
He slows his movements as you spiral down, loving the way you twitch at every touch of his mouth. He presses a final kiss to your clit before he moves his arms from under your thighs so he can hover over you while you catch your breath. He places his knee between your legs and leans down to kiss you so you can taste yourself, chain swinging over your heaving breasts. You moan as you dart your tongue against his and loop your arms around his neck to pull him down. Then he slides his lips down your jaw into the crook of your shoulder and speaks gruffly into your ear.
“You think he could make you come like that?”
You immediately shake your head, heat filling your gut at his dark tone. He bites your neck then rolls his tongue over the spot to soothe the sting.
“You need to say that out loud.”
You draw in a sharp breath. “No! No he couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t what?” he snaps.
“He couldn’t make me come. Not like you do.”
Pride shoots down his spine and he sits up to straddle your hips, turning you over onto your stomach so he can grab handfuls of your ass.
“You think he could fuck you like I do? Huh?” he experimentally rolls his clothed bulge over the swell of your ass.
“No,” you whimper with a desperate shake of your head.
“No?” he challenges. “You don’t think so?” He drags his hips against you slowly, hissing at the friction.
You continue to agree and he hums, still taking his time to drag this out. He just wants to hear it as much as possible but your smart mouth fucks you over.
“If you’re not convinced then we can go find out,” you say, voice muffled by the sheets but he hears you and snarls.
He leans down to grip a handful of your hair to turn your ear to his mouth.
“Why don’t you do that and I’ll go re-acquaint myself with Mina.”
A vicious green monster tears through your chest and you turn over to face him as your head fills with intrusive thoughts of the hands and body of his ex you once envied all over him while he enjoys it.
He chuckles mockingly at your expression. “Don’t like that, huh?”
You say nothing but look at him angrily as you picture him with her, hating it with a passion.
“Do you, baby?” he coos sarcastically, trailing the backs of his fingers down your cheek. “Don’t like the idea of my hands and my mouth being on someone else?”
He leans down to emphasize his point by kneading and kissing at your skin that he can reach and your chest heaves in response.
He rolls his hips. “Or my dick fucking another girl's pussy?”
You see red and your hands fly up to grab his chain and tug his face parallel with yours so he grunts, a dark grin spreading on his face.
“No, I don’t fucking like it,” you seethe.
“Now you know how I feel,” he says mockingly. You scowl, fucking annoyed, and let go of his jewelry.
“You brought this on yourself. I never talked to Hoseok. He was the one who said he would take me out if you didn’t.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have heard that if you hadn't been hiding under my desk sucking me off.”
“Oh, right and you were trying real hard to get me to stop,” you snap, pushing at his chest.
His jaw ticks, realizing you have a point. He leans up and sits back on his heels.
“Or just admit that you didn’t want me to,” you say, propping yourself up on your elbows. His eyes flicker to you darkly.
“That you liked it,” you taunt, moving to sit up on your knees so that you're level with him.
“That maybe if he did catch us he’d be jealous of your long, fat dick.” He shivers as your words send shocks to his core and his ego.
“And how good my throat is for fucking.”
His gulps at the imagery as your fingers trace under his shirt.
“And how he’d never get to find out for himself,” you say earnestly, looking directly into his eyes.
Then your hand slowly travels down to his groin.
“But if you want to go find Mina and see if she makes you feel as good as I do,” you mock as you grab his bulge and squeeze under his balls, making him hiss and involuntarily buck against you.
“Then be my fucking guest.” Your teeth grind as you let go of him to move off of the bed but you’re quickly stopped with a hand squeezing your elbow.
“Lay down,” he demands, warm breath fanning over your cheek.
“Make me." He huffs before moving his hand to your throat and pressing lightly on either side, making your resolve slip.
“Keep it up, brat.” The very brat in you comes back for an encore as you grab his wrist.
“Or what? Gonna go call up Mina? You think she’d even want you anymore?”
His eyes flash menacingly at the venom in your voice and you squeak when he bends down to pick you up, arms supporting your back and under your ass to carry you over to your shared desk.
“It doesn’t matter whether she would or not. Because I don’t want her,” he says simply as he sets you down, knocking the notebooks and tchotchkes out of the way, paying no mind as they clatter onto the floor.
“No? Then who do you want?” You know it’s a stupid question but you’re fucking triggered and you want to hear him say it. He tilts his head as he undoes the buckle on his belt.
“I’m looking right at her, sweetheart.” You falter, but you’re not about to let up that easy.
"Just - Fuck you for bringing her up." Gently pushing your legs apart, he gives you a remorseful smile.
“I’m sorry. I only wanted to get back at you but I took it too far.”
“Get back at me for what?” you ask, glossing over his apology and you’re almost able to ignore his fingers massaging the inside of your thighs.
He cocks his brow. “For that selfie you sent and your text implying that you asked Hoseok to fuck you but he was too busy?”
“You started it,” you scoff and cross your arms, chest heaving as his hands move slowly to the part of you that’s aching for him.
“Did I? You were the one who came into my studio and shoved your tits and ass in my face wearing this pretty lingerie all because I haven’t been paying you enough attention.”
“Try ‘any’ attention.” He hums and looks down to watch his thumb brush over your clit, smirking when you gasp and grab his forearm.
“Baby, it’s only been a few days. Are you that needy for me?”
You huff but don't try to deny it, eyes rolling to the ceiling when he slides two fingers between your wet folds, lifting up your knee to hold it on his hips so he has a better view and access.
“Thought so.” You shut your eyes so his smug face won’t piss you off.
“Well, remember I tried to leave but you told me to ‘get my ass back here right now,’” you recount, leaning back with a hand on the desk.
You bite your tongue when his fingers sink inside to slowly work you open.
“Yeah, well you’re sexy as hell in this lingerie and I’m a weak bastard for you, so sue me,” he grumbles, staring at your pussy as his hand picks up the pace.
“I’m only sexy in lingerie?”
He sighs. “Sweetheart, did you miss the part where I said I’m a weak fucking man for you?”
You hum nonchalantly, his words filling your heart up with butterflies but the brat in you is refusing to leave the stage so you ignore him.
He shakes his head and grips your thigh to get you to look at him, making sure you’re paying attention.
“Just shut that smart mouth of yours, baby girl. And let me show you I mean what I say.”
He lifts one of your arms to hook around his shoulder and you reluctantly acquiesce, letting him situate you in a way that’s comfortable before he pushes down his jeans to free his dick from its confines. Jerking his shaft, he tilts down in concentration to inspect your puffy cunt.
When he thinks it could use more lube, he holds his hand next to your mouth.
“Spit.” Letting go of your stubbornness, you obey, only because you enjoy the way he doesn’t mind your saliva dropping in his palm.
“Good girl,” he mumbles. You watch impatiently as he tilts his head back while spreading your spit over his tip, making you clench around nothing when his knuckles brush your folds. You whine his name again when you feel his head rub up and down your wet slit before he taps it a few times.
“Beg.”
Your hand slaps his back, matching your huff in frustration and his lip curls.
“Minus the fucking attitude.”
“It’s been three days.”
“What?” he snaps.
You lift your head with a glare. “I said it’s been three fucking days, why should I beg?”
He slides his hard, lubed up length in between your folds to show you what you’re stalling.
“Shouldn’t that be all the more reason to?” he growls as he smacks the side of your ass.
“I'm not the one who didn't come home. So shouldn’t it be you doing the begging?”
He stills.
“Maybe,” he says softly, massaging your skin that he knows is stinging from his hand. Your chest squeezes at the sad tone in his voice even though you’re pissed off.
“But you remember what I said about punishing you for getting me hard at work?”
Your eyes squeeze shut, lips pursing as you nod.
“This is part of it. You’d better fucking beg.”
He sighs and shakes his head, digging his fingers into your waist when you take a second too long to respond.
“I’m not going to tell you again.” He steps back, threatening to walk away. In a panic, you hook your heels behind him to keep him from going any further.
“Fuck, fine! Yoongi, please. Please fuck me!”
With a dark chuckle, he closes the distance between you again, arm circling around your waist, licking and marking under your jaw. Wrapping your arms around his neck as he holds up your thigh, you moan when he teases your entrance with his throbbing tip.
“I’ll always give you what you want when you’re a good girl for me.”
And just like that, the brat in you is gone. At least for now. He groans when you kiss him with ferocity and allows you to take the reins a bit. You moan and fist his hair in both hands, whining when his hand trails to your core to make sure you’re still ready, and he’s confirmed when he easily slips in three of his fingers, making you gasp into his mouth.
“You want it?” he growls against your swollen lips as he removes his hand covered with your essence to use it as lube on his dick. You nod frantically.
“Words.”
“Yes!” you wheeze.
“You gonna be a good girl for me?”
“Yes!” You exclaim louder.
“Then turn around.”
He helps you settle on your feet and twirls you around with both hands on your hips, biting behind your ear while he lines himself up behind you.
“You know I love you, right?” You nod, leaning into his teeth and wiggling your hips to entice him but his firm hand on your ass keeps you in place. “But right now I’m about to fuck you like I don’t.”
A spark floods through you at the way he curls a hand around your throat and simultaneously rubs his head up to your aching clit. You’re screwed, but you are so, so ready.
“Please!”
Without giving you a second to breathe, he spears into you, forcing you forward with your hands flattened on the desk. You yelp out when he begins ramming into you at an angle so deep your eyes roll to the back of your head.
He slaps your ass, harshly enough to sting, and grunts when you clench around him, continuing to make the room swell with lewd sounds of your wet pussy squelching with every smack of his hips. It feels feral, the force of his thrusts causing the desk to thump against the wall, but the rhythmic sound is drowned out by your mindless moans.
He fucks you like he hates you, like he doesn’t care how the wooden edge is digging into your waist, or the way he’s slapping your ass until your skin is raw, slamming his hips against yours so it’s certain you’re going to have trouble walking. If you didn’t like it so much, you’d be telling yourself not to piss him off ever again.
A hand on your spine pushes you down onto the desk, breasts and face squishing on the lacquered wood, and you moan when he pulls your cheeks a part and you can just picture the way he’s watching himself pound you, tongue poked out in fascination, head moving from side to side to see all the different angles.
“Nah.” He mutters to himself and you glance over your shoulder to see him shaking his head as your body moves up and down. “No one else can fuck you like this. Right?” He grits, fingers digging into your ass as he takes a long stroke of emphasis.
“Mhmm!”
He hums to himself in satisfaction, letting out an amused chuckle before he starts fucking you so hard and so fast and so goddamn good that you don’t realize you’re coming until it hits you, and your finger nails dig into the desk for dear life, leaving scratch marks. As you clench around him he lets out a string of curses that would make even a sailor blush, rubbing his hands up and down your back, fingertips kneading your ass as you shake and come apart.
You’re still trembling when he finally slows his thrusts to a moderate pace and his hands on your skin are moving more gently now that you’re coming down.
“Baby, talk to me. You good?” It takes you a second to register that he’s been talking to you for a few seconds. He just fucked you into euphoria, you’re drooling on the desk because of it, so you need a goddamn minute.
You whine in dissatisfaction when he pulls out of you, only for him to reach over to brush sweaty hair out of your face, and you blink open tear-filled eyes to him peering down at you with concern knitted into his brows.
“You good?” he repeats, continuing to brush your hair back and smoothe his hand down your spine.
You nod. “Mhmm. ‘M a good girl.”
His eyebrows lift in relief when you say something that’s somewhat coherent.
“That you are.” You swoon. That’s all you ever want to hear him say, even though more often than not your behavior speaks otherwise. At least he’s shown you that he loves to deal with it.
“I’m gonna bring you over to the bed. Can you make it?” Pushing your hands against the desk, you try to put some weight on your feet and know without even trying that you won’t. It feels like he was on the brink of splitting you in half.
“Only if you carry me.” You can feel his smile on the side of your face as he rubs your shoulders before gently pulling back on them, holding you against his chest once you straighten. He presses light but necessary kisses to your neck and cheek before turning you to the side so he can swoop you up in his arms like you’re his bride. You hope one day you will be.
You could almost cry at the tender way he puts you down on the mattress, his face dewy and red from exertion, and adjusts the pillows beneath you, fluffing them how you like it. How he can so easily slip from being your insane freak in the sheets who hates you to your sweet, doting boyfriend is beyond you but it’s one of the many things you love so much about him.
“Too much?” Your heart swells again at his loving tone as he coasts his hand down your torso, inspecting the indentations left on your waist from the desk to make sure they’re ones that won’t bruise.
You shake your head. “I can still remember my own name.”
“Dang, so I could do better,” he smirks.
Blowing a raspberry, you playfully smack the side of his head and he only chuckles and leans down to kiss you. Just as he brushes your lips, you push at his clothed shoulder, suddenly very much bothered by the fact that he is not completely naked yet.
“Shirt,” you mumble, tugging at his collar.
“What about it?”
“Off.”
He cocks a brow, mouth pulling up into a smirk. “Are you telling me what to do?”
“Yes. Problem?”
He hisses an amused sound, sits up on his knees and blinks down at you, lightly batting your hands away when you reach for the hem of his now unapproved fabric.
“We just went through all that, but you still want to have a fucking attitude?”
You withdraw your hands, rest them on your tummy as you look up at him sheepishly. He looks at you patiently, waiting for a response, but you don’t have one, so you instead raise your hands to the side in a shrug because what can you say? The smirk on his face grows until it turns into a laugh, and he kicks his head back. Fuck, you love his laugh. His shoulders start to shake, gummy grin on full display as he looks down at you through his stringy bangs, and you fall just that much more in love.
“It’s like that, huh?” He muses, coasting his hands up and down your thighs.
“It’s fun to piss you off,” you justify, holding your arms up in invitation and he pauses for a split second before lowering into your embrace.
“Yeah, and I know you have a blast doing it, much to my expense,” he mutters, letting you pepper his jaw with kisses. You giggle as you get over to his mouth and he opens up to swallow down your sounds.
As you makeout, his hips start to rock over yours under the covers, heavy cock desperate to fill you again so you trail your hands down to his ass, digging your go ahead into his skin. Keeping a hand next to your head and his tongue over yours, he reaches down to guide himself back in, humming when you moan in satisfaction. He lifts his head with a curse when you suck him in with ease, baring your neck to him that he nips before straightening his arm to plank above you. He stares down at you with lust-blown eyes as he takes your leg from under the sheets to rest on his shoulder. You bite your lip and grapple for his neck as he fucks into you slowly, hips rolling with deft, meaningful strokes. For a few moments he fucks you like that, reveling in your moans and whimpers, especially when he ducks his head to suck your tits into his mouth.
“Missed you, Yoon,” you whisper suddenly, blissed out and slack-jawed. He pauses his thrusts to put your leg back in place before dropping down to grab your hands and curl them under his, tongue licking roughly over the top of your mouth. Your chest heaves, breathing him in while he sucks on your lips and tongue.
“Missed you too, doll." His hips resume to a slow rhythm, and you let out a soft cry at the sensation of him filling you up to the brim despite never leaving.
You struggle to kiss him back as you get lost in the clouds again now that he’s rocking into you at a slower pace, pressing deeply into you so you can feel every inch of each other with every stroke.
“So fucking good for me,” he grumbles into your mouth, building rhythm as he brings himself to peak.
“Wanna be,” you slur.
“Hm?” His tongue pokes out as he focuses on rolling his hips against a tight, cushioned spot that kisses his tip and draws his orgasm closer.
“Wanna be so good for you. Always.” He grins, pride swelling his chest at your promise.
“Not for Hoseok?” Because he has to make sure.
“No,” you whimper, yanking at his chain to bring him down in a messy kiss. “Just you.”
He kisses you with a relieved smile, bites at your neck a few times, and slaps your hip.
“Then get up and ride me. I shouldn’t be doing all this fucking work,” he commands and slips out before pulling you up by the elbows. He crawls around you to sit against the headboard while you turn to face him and prop yourself up on shaking knees.
Noticing this, he pauses and holds you still. “Can you?”
“Mhmm,” you nod, confirming it with a sloppy kiss.
Grinning, he pulls you forward until you hover over his lap and fists his dick to hold himself in place while his other hand pushes you down by your hip. You grip his shoulders and whine as you sink onto him, waiting until you’re fully breached to start circling your hips. As you lean in to lick between his teeth, you rake your fingers down his chest, lightly scratching over his nipples and smiling when he moans.
“Shit,” he curses against you as you press your thumbs against his buds and he gets you back by attacking your neck with bites and bruises that you’ll have for days. You begin rolling in his lap and hold onto his shoulders for leverage, gasping when he wraps his arm across your waist to pull you closer so your breasts are right in his face and he attaches his mouth to one, leaning back on his hand to hold himself up.
He releases your tit with a pop and tilts his head to watch in content as your knees move to prop yourself up so you can bounce on his dick, appreciating his hand on your ass supporting and guiding you.
“Fuck, doll. Yeah, just like that,” He moans and breaks from your lips to throw his head back as his balls tighten, and you take your turn to make marks on his neck.
“Nngh, gonna come,” he groans deep in his gut, Adam’s apple bobbing and eyes squeezing shut as you continue to rock against him and it throws him over the edge. He pushes at your hips to force you off of him until you fall back once more on the mattress as he pulls out with a gasp. He growls and grunts as thick ropes of hot cum shoot out over your stomach and tits and you moan at the feeling and the sounds he makes.
“Goddamn,” he wheezes, jerking his dick through the final pulses of his orgasm and he grips your thigh to keep himself grounded. When his dick stops twitching, he falls back over to kiss you roughly.
“Close,” you tell him against his lips and he curses.
“Fuck, okay.” Anticipating being overstimulated but wanting nothing more than to satisfy you, he sits on his heels, pulls your hips onto his thighs and waits for your nod for him to plunge back in.
He wastes no time rutting into the very spot that he knows will guarantee you to come fast and hard. He has to bite his bottom lip to keep from whining at the overstimulation. But it proves fruitless when you pulse your orgasm around his dick, squeezing him so tight, that he starts to come again, encouraged by your endless moans of his name. He manages to keep his release at bay until he feels your wave wash back and yanks himself out at the last second so that he doesn’t give into temptation and come inside you. That level is on the horizon, but neither of you are quite ready for that. He knows just how addictive that will be and it’s too much of a risk.
So he opts to come on your stomach and chest for a second time, not bothering to jerk himself through it and just lets his cock bob on your center as he returns to his place above you. You open your mouth to welcome him before he even lands his fists beside your head.
“Fuck, I love you so much,” he breathes over you, ducking his head into your neck so he can hear you whisper the same.
Dick softening on your lower stomach, he kisses you until his biceps strain under his weight.
“You feeling okay?” He asks, sitting back on his heels and smiling warmly (proudly) at your fucked out expression.
He presses his hands on your hips, heart racing when you won’t stop staring at him and he has to look away to prevent a rise in blood pressure, instead staring at all of his cum spread over you.
He looks back up when he catches your hand reaching for him and he grabs it, wrapping his fingers around your knuckles and bringing it to his lips to kiss your palm, eyes never leaving yours.
“What?” He asks as you pout. He kisses the inside of your wrist and you sigh, let his lips linger there and your heart stops for a moment at his tenderness.
With a smile and one more kiss on the back of your hand, he gets up and grabs a pair of sweatpants on the way to the bathroom, running a washcloth under warm water and wringing it out lightly before bringing it back to you to clean up his mess.
A moment later, he watches you with wide eyes as you slide out of bed and head to the bathroom without a word, albeit with a noticeable wobble. He sighs when the door shuts, getting the feeling that fucking the shit out of each other just now did nothing to solve your problems. While he waits for you to come back out, he strips the bed of soiled sheets to take out to the washer in the hallway closet. Just as he starts the cycle, you emerge from the bathroom, arms crossed over your breasts as you scurry into the bedroom to dress into his hoodie and a pair of his hoochie daddy shorts. You keep your head down while you walk past him for the kitchen, but he catches you with an arm pressed into your abdomen.
“Hey,” he murmurs above your head. “Whatever you’re thinking, you can tell me.”
You nod against his bicep, slipping your hand down to his fingers and tangling them together to lead him into the kitchen. He doesn’t take his hands off of you while you maneuver around to retrieve glasses of water for you both, but you end up just sharing yours. Neither of you say anything for a moment after you refresh yourselves. Then, his knuckles under your chin bring your face level with his, away from staring into the void behind his shoulder.
“The sex was good in there, but it didn’t resolve anything,” he reminds you softly. “We should talk it out before you get too far into your head.”
Fuck. He knows you so well. With a sigh and a blurry waterline, you lean against him, head resting on his shoulder so he doesn’t see.
“I just really missed you,” you start in a small voice. On your temple, he frowns. “And I know it’s kind of pathetic because we live together and you were only gone for three days but I just wish you would make up your mind about coming home or not. It’s just frustrating when you say you’ll be done in a couple hours but it turns out to be five. Or I wait up for you just for you to tell me you’re staying overnight. I know how important your work is, especially when you have a deadline, and I never want to take you away from it, but sometimes it feels like when I tell you to take a break, you act as if I’m asking you to stop altogether. I’m just trying to make sure you eat and rest properly so you don’t burn yourself out and get sick.” Your voice chokes the more you admit, and he lets your words hang in the air before rubbing his hand across the back of your shoulders. Resting his head on yours, he takes a deep breath.
“I love how supportive you are of my job and how much you worry about me, but I’m sorry I make you feel neglected. That’s never my intention.” You hum in acknowledgement and he squeezes the back of your neck.
“I mean, I’m not trying to dig myself out of the hole here, but a lot of the time when I come to a dead end with a project and feel like giving up, I think about you and how the faster I get done, the faster I can come home and devote all of my time to you.”
You can’t hold back a sniffle. He frowns and gently pulls you by your shoulder and waist to press your fronts together. You wrap your arms around him and bury your face in his chest, along with your tears.
“I’m so sorry I made you upset, baby,” he whispers, his own voice choked up. “I just get stuck sometimes and it’s hard for me to give it a rest. Thank you for loving me so well that you knew when I needed you to come drag me out. And three days is way too long to not he home. I’m sorry I made you feel like it wasn’t.” You swallow a sob and hold him tighter.
“Well, I’m sorry I made you think I wanted Hoseok to fuck me.”
His nostrils flare with a small laugh. “I know you were just trying to piss me off. But I don’t know if I want us to make each other jealous by doing that anymore, y’know?”
You nod in quick understanding and he purrs gratefully, lifts a hand to gently tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear.
“Because I guess sometimes I just worry that you could do better.”
Your limbs freeze as his words sink in and spreads your blood thin. Placing your hands on his hips, you lean away to look right at him, eyebrows furrowing at his pained smile.
“That has to be the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever said.” Chewing the inside of his cheek, he suppresses a laugh.
“I’m serious.” You reach up to cup his jaw. “Don’t tell yourself that. I love you. You’re it for me, Yoongi.”
Starlight fills his eyes as he gazes down into your soul. He hugs you tightly, and whispers those same three words back, all of the weight he’s ever carried lifting off of his shoulders now that you’ve solidified that you’re his forever.
“I’m gonna do better to not spend so much time at the studio,” he promises, fingertips massaging the back of your head.
“Maybe just limit your overnighters to once a week.”
He smiles, leans in to kiss you, hearts feeling warm and full. “I can work with that. And next time you want to blow me at work, try not to do it when one of my colleagues is in there.”
“Fine,” you sigh in exaggeration. “But at least admit that you liked it.”
“I plead the fifth.”
You roll your eyes and swat his chest playfully. “It was a one time thing, so the least you can do is-”
He cuts you off with a kiss that wipes your brain clear of any thoughts.
“You were saying?” he mumbles against your lips with a knowing smirk.
“Fuck if I know,” you breathe and he chuckles.
Leaning back in, he kisses you slowly, thoughtfully for a few moments, then breaks away with eyes hazed with love and boops your nose.
“Why don’t we go shower and get dressed so I can take you out on a date, hm? We’ll go wherever you’d like.”
A bright and wide smile on your face, you tangle both of your hands together and lean up to kiss him. He melts into you and your heart glows as radiant as the rising sun. You break, and your cheeks burn when you notice how his have turned a noticeable shade of pink.
“Let’s both decide on a place. But maybe tomorrow or the day after when I can walk a little better.” He grins and kisses your forehead, softly pats your ass.
“Sounds good to me.”
.
.
.
thanks for reading! Please drop a like and comment if you enjoyed this and follow for more!! 💕💕💕
So, here are the myg fics I've read so far in my one year in tumblr (these were not all, unfortunately, I can only trace back the fics from the blogs I follow, the random ones that I've encountered were not here but may be added soon if I ever encounter them again hehe)
••°••••
monachopsis by @personasintro (a,s) ♡
three tangerines by @kithtaehyung ♡(a,f,s_ brother's best friend au) [my fave yoongi fic so far ♡] ♡
minted by @kithtaehyung (a,s_gang au) [latest chapter is 🔥] ♡
Amor Vincit Omnia by @lubdubsworld (arranged marriage au, gang au)
Void by @btssavedmylifeblr (s_space au) [ot7, but the Yoongi in here is ughh] ♡
glimpse of us by @wolfvmin (angst_arranged marriage au, divorce au)
Friendcation (ao3) by @kingofbodyrolls ♡ (f,s_f2fwb2l, camping au) ♡ [this is so cutesy and so romantic]
A Single Daffodil by @evangelical04 (a,f,s_arranged marriage) ♡
Steam Series by @hoseoksluna ♡ (s_bf!yoongi ft. jk)
The Ball of Light by @hoseoksluna (a,f,eventual smut_brother!yoongi ft jk/other members) ♡
✮ Summary: You try your absolute hardest to survive an economics project with your obnoxiously hot and cocky partner, only to realize that he has completely calculated his way into your heart.
✮ Genre: Enemies to lovers
✮ Tags: college!au, cocky!yoongi, fluff, yoongi is such a flirt
✮ wc: 6k
Rule #1: Don’t sit next to someone you’ve insulted in public.
You broke that rule entirely on purpose. Mostly because the only open seat in Economics 101 happened to be right next to the guy you had called “a walking overconfidence issue” two days ago at the campus café.
He looked up the second you pulled out the chair, his gaze drifting over you with a slow, deliberate sort of curiosity. To your absolute horror, a heavy flutter of butterflies erupted in your stomach at the sight of him. Those sharp, feline eyes had already captivated you way more than you cared to admit.
“It’s you,” he said.
You forced a sweet, innocent smile. “It’s me.”
Before he could say anything else, you hurriedly dropped your bag and started pulling out your laptop and pens, desperately trying to look busy. You were silently praying he wouldn't bring up the café incident. This was going to be your seat for the rest of the semester, unless some jerk decided to claim it, which would violate the unspoken rule of college lecture halls.
“You know,” his deep voice rang beside you, almost making you jump up in your seat, “for someone who claims to hate overconfidence, you sure just can’t seem to get away from me. You’re gonna boost my already big ego.”
Damn it. You knew right at that moment that your past words were going to bite you in the ass.
“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m clearly not here by choice,” you retorted, keeping your eyes glued to your screen as it booted up. To be fair, the lecture hall really was packed to the brim. If there had been a single other option, you wouldn't be sitting within arm's reach of him.
A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. They were a soft, prominent pink, and without even realizing it, your eyes dropped to them for a split second before you snapped your gaze back up to meet his. You prayed to every god in the universe that he hadn’t caught you looking.
“Fair enough. Let’s just hope you can concentrate on the lecture without thinking too hard about my overconfidence.” He then shifted his attention back to the professor, not giving you another look.
He turned his attention back to the front of the room, leaving you staring at his profile. Great. Now you were stuck next to the most obnoxious guy on campus. Your mind wandered back to two days ago, trying to remember what possessed you to open your mouth in the first place.
Wait, what was his name again? Boongi? Woongi?
Ah, wait, it was Yoongi.
Rule #2: Don’t get into arguments at a cafe.
It had started two days earlier in the campus cafe.
You were just waiting for your regular iced coffee when you overheard him pressuring the barista about “optimal espresso extraction timing.” It sounded like total gibberish. Jesus, you had thought, do people really have nothing better to stress about?
Before you could help yourself, the words came spilling out, “It’s not that serious.” Quickly, you bit down on your bottom lip, mentally cursing yourself for getting involved. He immediately turned around, his blond hair spilling across his forehead.
“It’s literally my thesis topic.”
Your eyebrows furrowed, crossing your arms over your chest. “So your thesis is about… coffee?”
He scoffed like you said something utterly dumb, and not like you had a genuine question. “My thesis is sensory perception and economic behaviour.”
You nodded slowly, “So… coffee.”
He nodded as well, and a small beat of silence passed before he asked, “You’re in econ?”
“Unfortunately.” You genuinely despised the subject. It was the kind of class that dragged on for centuries and felt devastatingly dry. You would have taken literally anything else, but you had completely missed your registration window, leaving econ 101 as your only option to fill the requirement.
“I’m not sensing a lot of enthusiasm.”
You rolled your eyes at that, irritation crawling up your skin. He seemed like the type of person who would like that class. “Please, spare me the details about how great economics is.”
Before he could say anything, the barista cleared his throat. “Yoongi, seriously. You’re holding up the line for the fifth time this week. I’m not helping you with your stupid thesis.” Your eyes darted to the barista, then down to his name tag. Jimin, it read.
Clearly, they must be friends if they’re on a first-name basis. You make a quick mental note of the blond in front of you, realizing Jimin called him by his first name, Yoongi.
Yoongi rolls his eyes before stepping aside to let you order. “You’re useless, Park.”
You quickly placed your order, paying the barista before moving over to the pick-up counter, right next to where Yoongi was waiting. The silence between you felt heavy, and the lack of caffeine was making you reckless.
“Maybe, he would help you if you weren’t a walking overconfidence issue,” you muttered under your breath. The second it left your lips, you wanted to swallow the words back down. Has your brain completely short-circuited?
But his reaction wasn't what you expected. There was no argument, no sharp retort. He just paused, looked down at you, and a slow, effortless smirk spread across his face. “I’ll have you know, a lot of people really like my overconfidence.”
Your face heated up, eyes slightly widening, but before you could say anything, he walked off, adjusting his backpack as he did.
You seriously needed to stop attending this cafe.
By the second week of term, that specific seat in the back row had officially become yours. But unfortunately, it had become his, too. You were in the lecture hall, seated side by side like a punishment. The professor droned on about supply curves, and you took notes meticulously. Beside you, Yoongi was doodling graphs that were annoyingly correct.
You slowly turned your head over, staring into his dark eyes. “Do you ever exist quietly?”
“No,” he said, without missing a beat. “That would be inefficient.”
You stared at him for a long moment, wondering how you got stuck beside him. Then, you wrote in your notebook: insufferable
He leaned in closer, musky cologne filling up your nose. He reached over, took the pen from your hand, and casually crossed out your word, writing his own beneath it: not insufferable. Just right.
You quickly yanked back your pen, flipping your hair over your shoulder. “Get your hands back to your stupid graphs.” In reality, you wouldn’t mind if he leaned over more. The smell of his cologne had infiltrated you, causing a permanent mark in your brain.
He smirked, his pink muscle coming out to wet his lips. “Anything for you.”
His words made your heart flutter, heat spiking through your body. You wanted to slap yourself for even thinking that he was… hot.
Stupid economics.
Rule #3: Don’t get paired up with him for a project.
The lecture hall was already half asleep. The projector was humming, pens tapping, and someone was aggressively trying to stay awake by pretending to underline everything… (that would be you).
Professor Lee clapped his hands once. “Alright, before I lose all of you to the void, I’m assigning project partners.”
That got attention. Not necessarily good attention, just awake attention. You straightened up in your seat, trying to make yourself seem more productive than you have been. Group projects were the worst. They meant control issues, negotiation, and compromise. All the things you tolerated in theory and hated in practice.
“I’m pairing you based on different strengths,” Professor Lee said, looking at his list. “You’ll work together on a case study about online work platforms and how people make economic decisions.”
You already felt tired. But then, you heard it.
“Min Yoongi.”
“Paired with–”
You could already feel it. Your name rolling off of your professor’s tongue.
“Y/N.”
You sank back into your hard plastic chair, the frame pressing uncomfortably into your shoulder blades. The universe truly had a sick sense of humor. Beside you, Yoongi turned his head to look at you, and you didn't even have to look back to know exactly what kind of smug expression was on his face.
“You will submit a joint proposal by next week. No exceptions.” Professor Lee finished, before sitting back down at his desk.
Finally, you turned to glance at Yoongi, only to realize he was still looking at you.
“What?” You muttered, packing your things in your backpack. The feeling of his eyes on you made your skin rise with goosebumps.
“I’m just excited to start this project with you, partner.” He remarked, tapping his fingers against the wooden desk.
“Whatever. Just give me your number so we can talk about the project details. I’m not chasing you across campus to get this done.”
For once, he does what he’s asked of. Grabbing his phone, he opens it up for you, allowing you to put in your number.
“And please,” you added, fixing him with a firm look. “Do not text me unless it is strictly about the project.”
Yoongi took the phone, his thumb dragging across the screen as he saved the contact. “Don’t worry your pretty head off, sweetheart. I wouldn't dream of it.”
Rule #4: Don’t answer messages from anyone, especially him.
He didn’t even last forty two hours before sending you the dumbest text ever.
Did you know that the earliest physical evidence of music dates back 40,000 ~ 43,000 years ago?
For a moment, you stare at your phone like it’s a rock. You didn’t even get the chance to put in a name for his contact; that’s how quickly he texted you. How do you even reply to that text? Before you overthink it any longer, your thumbs type up a message and hit send.
You: Wrong number. I don’t talk to history nerds.
Shutting off your phone, you keep it in your hands. It stays dark for exactly eight seconds before lighting up again. Without realizing, you unlock your phone immediately, reading the message.
Him: That’s interesting, considering you're my partner for this project and I have to hear you argue with me every day.
You should stop reading and stop engaging. Honestly, you should be doing the dishes that are piling up in your sink. But your thumb keeps moving anyway.
You: I don’t argue. I just like to correct mistakes.
Three dots appear immediately.
Him: So you’re correcting the mistake of me having your number?
You stare at that, then sit up slightly. This is not what this was supposed to be. You gave him clear rules that texting was only to be for the project. Not… whatever this is turning into.
Your phone buzzes again.
Him: Also, I’m not a history nerd.
You: You literally sent me a fact about ancient music.
Him: That’s behavioural economics. I was testing your reaction speed.
This man is insane. Or worse, he’s confident about being insane. Slowly, you conjure up a message.
You: You tested my reaction speed.. by texting me about prehistoric music?
Him: Yes. And you passed with flying colours.
You feel something dangerously close to annoyance flare in your chest, and something even worse underneath it. You want to lock your phone and throw it at the nearest piece of furniture.
Him: We should meet for the project.
Thank god, he changed the subject. You didn’t know how much longer you could talk about ancient music and continue with this small talk.
You: Fine by me. Where?
Him: My place. Tomorrow at noon.
You stared at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard. My place? Absolutely not.
You: No. Absolutely not. We are meeting at the library or campus cafe. I am not going to your apartment.
Him: Why? Afraid you won’t be able to handle my overconfidence in a private setting?
You: No, I’m afraid I'll end up throwing a textbook at your head. The library. 12:00 pm.
Him: Fine, but you’re buying the coffee.
You didn’t reply to that last text, firmly locking your phone and tossing it onto your bed. Your heart was doing that stupid fluttering thing again, and you hated it. You really, really hated it.
Rule #5: Don’t let him choose what you drink.
The campus library was packed the next day, full of stressed-out students cramming for midterms. You managed to snag a table in the back corner, spreading your laptop and notebooks out to claim the space. When you checked the time, it was 12:05, and he was late. It made your eyes roll.
“You didn’t get the coffee.”
You jumped slightly, looking up to see Yoongi sliding into the chair across from you. He was wearing a black oversized hoodie, his blond hair slightly messy, and he looked annoyingly good. In his hands, he held two paper cups.
“You’re late,” you pointed out, ignoring the way his scent immediately filled the small space between you. “And I didn’t say anything about buying coffee.”
“Well, good thing I had a feeling you weren’t going to, so I did it myself,” he said, setting one of the cups in front of your laptop. “Consider it a peace offering for my overconfidence.”
You looked down at the cup suspiciously. “What is it?”
“An iced Americano.” He took a sip of his own drink, his feline eyes watching you over the rim. “Drink it. It’ll make you hate economics less.”
“I doubt that,” you muttered, but you picked up the cup anyway and took a sip. It was, unfortunately, the best coffee you had ever tasted in your life. It wasn't overly bitter, and it had a smooth aftertaste. You tried desperately to keep your face completely blank, but Yoongi was already smirking.
“See?” he murmured, leaning forward on his elbows, bringing his face dangerously close to yours. “I know exactly what you like.”
Your throat went dry. “You don’t know anything about me, Min Yoongi.”
“I know you look at my mouth when you’re annoyed,” he said softly, his voice dropping an octave. “And I know you’re trying really hard right now not to smile.”
Your face flushed a furious shade of crimson. You quickly grabbed your syllabus, holding it up like a shield between your faces. “Let’s just start the project.”
Yoongi chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated right through your chest. “Whatever you say, partner.” He pulled the syllabus down with one finger, forcing you to look at him again. “First step of the project: data collection. We need to interview students about their gig-economy habits.”
“Right,” you said, clearing your throat and trying to channel your inner academic. “We can make a survey. Send it to the campus group chats.”
“Too passive,” Yoongi countered, leaning back and crossing his arms. “People lie on surveys. They click random answers just to get rid of the notification. We need in-person behaviour. Observation.”
You sighed, tapping your pen against the table. “So what do you suggest, genius?”
“We interview them at the cafe. While they’re buying their coffee.” He smiled, that sharp, cat-like grin that made your stomach do another flip. “I can get Jimin to let us set up at the counter table. High traffic, prime economic decision-making context.”
You stared at him, highly suspicious. “Is this just an excuse for you to spend more time hanging out with your barista friend and argue about espresso?”
“It’s called maximizing resource utility,” he said smoothly. “And if it means I get to watch you get frustrated with strangers instead of just me for a couple of hours, that’s a benefit.”
“You are infuriating,” you muttered, but you wrote In-person interviews - campus cafe in your notebook anyway.
He watched your hand move, his eyes tracking the ink. “We’ll start tomorrow afternoon. Don’t wear anything too distracting, Y/N. I need to focus on the data.”
You paused, your pen hovering over the paper. You looked up, caught his eye, and felt your face heating up all over again. “Distracting?”
“Mhm. I need to make sure all of our participants won’t be distracted by a pretty girl.” He mumbled, acting as if those words hadn’t just come out of his mouth.
“Shut up, that won’t happen.” You muttered, cheeks warm and pink. He really must be out of his mind to say something like that. And what is up with his pet names? It’s like he knows when your heart is beating out of your chest.
“Whatever you say,” he murmured, his gaze dropping down to your lips for a fraction of a second before locking back onto your eyes. Before you could even process the absolute audacity of that comment, he stood up, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. He hadn't even opened his laptop once.
“See you tomorrow, partner,” he said, tapping his knuckles twice on the table right next to your hand. “Bring your notebook. And try not to dream about supply curves.”
You watched him walk away, his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pockets, completely oblivious to the absolute chaos he was leaving behind in your chest.
Rule #6: Don’t let him see your playlist.
The next day, the campus cafe was sweltering. It was raining outside, meaning half the university had crammed inside to escape the downpour, creating a loud, humid wall of noise. You had arrived early, snagging the small counter table near the pickup station just like Yoongi had suggested. Jimin had given you a sympathetic wave from behind the espresso machine, looking like a man who knew exactly what kind of headache you were dealing with.
When Yoongi finally slid onto the stool next to you, he didn't even say hello. Instead, he reached over, plucked one of the wires of your headphones right out of your ear, and stuck it into his own.
“Hey!” you protested, reaching to snatch it back, but he blocked your hand with his forearm. He listened for three seconds, his eyebrows raising as the upbeat pop song blasted into his ear. A massive, teasing smirk spread across his face.
“What is this?” he asked, looking at you like he had just discovered your deepest, darkest secret.
“It’s music,” you snapped, your face burning. “Give it back.”
“It’s an anomaly,” he corrected, leaning close enough that his shoulder brushed against yours. “You claim to hate overconfidence, and yet your brain is currently being fried by 140 beats per minute of pure, unadulterated pop garbage.”
“It helps me focus!”
“It helps you ignore reality,” he said, though he didn't take the earbud out. Instead, he pulled his phone out and tapped the screen. “Here. Let’s optimize your acoustic environment.”
A second later, your phone buzzed.
Him: [Link: Chihiro’s Waltz]
You blinked at the title, entirely caught off guard. You expected a generic lo-fi playlist or even something instrumental, not a piano piece from a Ghibli film.
“Spirited Away?” You asked, your voice softening despite yourself. “You listen to Ghibli soundtracks?”
Yoongi didn’t look up, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a rare, genuine smile. “It’s structurally perfect. Joe Hisaishi understands melodic efficiency better than most modern composers. Besides, it grounds things when everything else gets too loud.”
You pulled your hand back so fast you nearly knocked over your notebook. Yoongi didn’t even blink; he just picked up his pen and started organizing the interview sheets as if he hadn’t just completely short-circuited your entire nervous system.
“Alright,” you said, your voice a little higher than usual. You cleared your throat forcefully. “Data collection..”
For the next two hours, the project actually kept you distracted. Yoongi, as much as you hated to admit it, was terrifyingly good at interviewing people. While you handled the writing, he leaned against the counter, using that low, effortless voice of his to charm answers out of stressed-out freshmen and tired seniors. By 4:00 PM, the rush had cleared out, leaving the cafe quiet except for the hum of the espresso machine and the soft rain tapping against the windows.
Jimin walked over, sliding two fresh glasses of iced water onto the table. “You two look like you’re plotting a bank robbery. How’s the data, Yoongi?”
“Promising,” Yoongi said, not looking up from the charts he was tallying. “Turns out 84% of students will sacrifice financial stability for a premium caffeine fix.”
Jimin laughed, wiping his hands on his apron. “And how’s your partner holding up? You look like you're about to pass out from a Yoongi overdose.”
“I’m fine,” you blurted out quickly, your face heating up. “Just… trying to understand his handwriting. It looks like a doctor wrote it while riding a rollercoaster.”
Yoongi finally looked up, a slow, lazy grin spreading across his face. “Hey, my handwriting is not that bad.” He looked at Jimin. “She thinks I’m insufferable.”
“You are insufferable,” Jimin agreed instantly with a bright smile. “Good luck, Y/N. You’re going to need it.” He gave you a supportive nod before heading back behind the counter.
You let out a breath, leaning your chin on your hand as you stared at the messy pages. “Okay, we have enough data for the joint proposal. I can write up the introduction tonight, and you can handle the data analysis section since you’re the math freak.”
“Deal,” Yoongi said. He closed his notebook with a soft thud and looked at you. Truly looked at you. The playful, teasing smirk was gone, replaced by something much softer, his feline eyes scanning your face in the dim cafe lighting. “You worked hard today.”
The sudden compliment caught you completely off guard. “Oh. Thanks. You too.” He kept his gaze locked on yours, leaning an inch closer.
“See? We make a good team. Even if you did insult me in public.”
“I didn't insult you,” you mumbled, suddenly finding the condensation on your water glass very interesting. “I just stated an observation.”
“Mhm.” Yoongi stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He reached out, his fingers gently catching a stray strand of hair that had fallen across your cheek, tucking it behind your ear. His fingertips brushed against your skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Go home and get some rest, Y/N. Don’t stay up all night thinking about me.”
Before you could even formulate a comeback, he turned and walked out into the rain, pulling his black hoodie up over his blond hair. You sat there for a solid three minutes, staring at the empty seat next to you, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs.
Rule #7: Don’t open up the shared Google Docs at 2:00 AM.
It was exactly 2:14 AM, and instead of sleeping, you were staring at your laptop screen in the dark of your bedroom. The document title, Econ 101 Case Study Proposal, glowed brightly. You had finished your section an hour ago, but you noticed a little pink icon active at the top of the screen.
Anonymous Cat is typing. You always wondered why he chose that as his display name.
You watched the cursor move across the screen as Yoongi formatted the data tables. He was moving things around with chaotic speed. Suddenly, the typing stopped. A comment bubble popped up on the side of your paragraph.
Yoongi: Your explanation of the consumer surplus is beautifully written. Too bad your grammar in paragraph three is a tragedy.
You narrowed your eyes at the screen. You highlighted his comment and typed back.
You: Go to sleep, Yoongi. Why are you even checking my sections right now?
A few seconds passed. The pink cursor blinked furiously. Then, instead of replying to the comment, he started typing directly into the document, right at the very bottom of the page where the bibliography was supposed to go.
Yoongi: Why aren't you sleeping?
You stared at the text appearing in real-time. You clicked below his line and typed back.
You: I asked you first.
Yoongi: Couldn’t sleep. Brain is stuck on a loop.
You: Econ data?
Yoongi: No.
You waited, your breath catching in your throat as the little cursor hovered.
Yoongi: Something else. Something with a bad attitude who listens to 140 bpm pop garbage.
Your heart did a violent flip. You stared at the words on the screen, your fingers trembling slightly over the keyboard.
You: You’re breaking the rules, Min Yoongi. This document is strictly for the project.
Yoongi: I don’t care about the rules, Y/N. I thought we established that on day one.
Yoongi: Besides, you're the one who introduced the rules. I never agreed to them.
You stared at the blinking cursor, your mind racing. You wanted to type a snappy retort, something about efficiency or his massive ego, but your hands froze over the keys. Before you could decide on a response, the pink text began to disappear, deleted backspace by backspace, replaced by a fresh line.
Yoongi: Get some sleep, Y/N. We have to present this proposal to Lee tomorrow, and I need my partner to be fully functional.
Y/N: Fine. Goodnight, Yoongi.
Yoongi: Goodnight.
You shut your laptop with a little more force than necessary, plunging your bedroom back into darkness. You pulled the blanket over your head, but the rhythmic, soothing piano notes of Chihiro’s Waltz were still playing on a loop inside your head, refusing to let you sleep.
Rule #8: Don’t celebrate a good grade with him.
The presentation went smoothly. In fact, it went better than smoothly. Professor Lee had actually smiled, an event so rare it should have been studied by the geology department, and handed your printed proposal back with a bright red A circled at the top.
“Excellent resource utility and field analysis,” Lee had muttered before moving on to the next group. As you walked out of the lecture hall, the adrenaline of surviving the presentation finally began to fade, leaving you floating on a cloud of relief.
“An A,” you breathed, staring down at the paper in your hands as you walked down the bustling hallway. “We actually got an A in Economics.”
“Are you really that surprised?” Yoongi asked, walking in step right beside you, his hands slung casually in his pockets. “I told you my data analysis was flawless.”
“Oh, shut up,” you laughed, the victory making you forget your usual defences. “It was a team effort.”
“It was,” he agreed quietly.
You stopped at the end of the hallway, turning to face him. “Well, since we officially passed the hardest part of the semester, I guess I owe you one. You want to hit the cafe? I’ll actually buy the coffee this time. No strings attached.”
Yoongi looked down at you, his dark eyes glinting with an emotion you couldn't quite read. A slow, lazy smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “The cafe is too crowded. And I don’t want a coffee transaction.”
Your eyebrows furrowed. “Then what do you want?”
He leaned in closer, his shoulder brushing against yours as students rushed past in the corridor. He tilted his head, his voice dropping to that familiar, low murmur that made your stomach completely bottom out.
“Celebrate with me tonight. Real food. My place.” He paused, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before meeting your eyes again. “And this time, you can’t use the project as an excuse.”
You froze, the paper suddenly feeling heavy in your hands. “Your place,” you repeated, your voice a little fainter than you intended. “For real food.”
“Unless you’re attached to the dining hall food,” Yoongi said, his tone returning to that casual, effortless drawl. He stepped back just enough to give you space, though his eyes never left yours. “I actually know how to cook. I have also heard that my cooking isn't mediocre, if that's what you're scared of."
“Of course, you know how to cook,” you muttered, trying desperately to ignore the frantic pounding in your chest. You looked down at your shoes, then back up at his blond hair falling slightly over his forehead. “Fine. But if you try to lecture me about the economic impact of grocery shopping while we eat, I’m leaving.”
Yoongi let out a low, genuine laugh that sent a pleasant shiver straight down your spine. “Deal. I’ll text you my address. Seven o'clock. Don’t be late, sweetheart.”
With a final, lingering look, he turned and melted into the crowd of students heading toward the campus exit. You stood there for a long moment, wondering how a public insult in a coffee shop had somehow spiralled into a dinner date at his apartment.
Rule #9: Don’t look too closely at his apartment.
Min Yoongi’s apartment was exactly like him: annoyingly organized, understated, and smelling faintly of coffee beans and cedar wood.
When you walked in at exactly 7:02 PM, you found him in the kitchen, the sleeves of his black button-down shirt rolled up to his forearms, revealing the sharp veins of his forearms and hands. A vinyl record player in the corner of the living room was spinning softly, filling the apartment with the familiar, calming notes of Chihiro’s Waltz.
You paused in the doorway, your bag clutched tightly in front of you. “You’re actually playing it.”
Yoongi looked up from the stove, a small, knowing smirk gracing his lips. “I told you, it grounds things. Sit down, Y/N. It’s almost ready.”
You sat at the small wooden dining table, your eyes wandering over to the shelves placed near you. There were stacks of books on behavioural economics, a high-end espresso machine that looked like it belonged in a science lab, and a small, framed photo of him and his family.
“Spicy braised chicken with rice,” Yoongi announced, breaking your trance as he set two perfectly plated dishes onto the table. He sat down opposite you, pouring water into two glasses.
You took a bite of the chicken, and your eyes widened despite yourself. It was incredibly good. “Okay, fine. You win. This is amazing.”
“I know,” he said smoothly, picking up his own utensils. But there was no arrogance in his voice this time, just a quiet, content satisfaction.
For the next hour, the conversation flowed with a strange, easy rhythm. For the first time since you met him, you weren't arguing. You talked about how much you both hated Professor Lee’s grading, your favourite childhood movies, and how you had accidentally missed the timetable sign-up because you slept through five alarms.
“So you’re just naturally chaotic,” Yoongi mused, leaning back in his chair and swirling the water in his glass.
“I am not chaotic,” you defended, your face warming up. “I just operate on my own schedule.”
“Mhm,” he hummed, his feline eyes tracking the way your lips moved. “It’s a miracle you even made it to econ.”
“Well, if I hadn't, you wouldn't have anyone to correct your overconfidence,” you shot back, a comfortable boldness settling into your chest.
Yoongi’s gaze intensified, the playful banter suddenly melting into a thick, heavy silence. The background record had transitioned to a slow, ambient jazz track. He reached across the small table, his large, warm hand settling over yours. His thumb softly brushed against the back of your knuckles, sending an electric jolt straight up your arm.
“I think we’re past the overconfidence defence, Y/N,” he said softly, his deep voice carrying a sudden weight that made it hard to breathe. “You don’t hate me. You haven’t hated me since the day at the cafe.”
Your heart hammered violently against your ribs. You wanted to pull your hand away, to find a rule to protect yourself, but your fingers remained locked beneath his. “Yoongi…”
“I sent you that dumb fact about music just to see if you’d answer,” he confessed, leaning forward, his eyes dropping to your mouth before rising back to your eyes. “I don’t do things inefficiently, Y/N. Except when it comes to you. You make my head spin."
Your breath hitched. You looked at his pink lips and realized you were completely, utterly defenceless.
“You’re breaking all the rules,” you whispered, your voice trembling.
A slow, breathtaking smile spread across his face, his thumb still tracing patterns on your skin. “I already told you, Y/N, I don't care about rules. Especially when it comes to you."
Before you could even formulate a rebuttal, he stood up from his chair, his hand never breaking contact with yours. He moved around the small wooden table, his steps deliberate and unhurried, until he was standing directly over you. The scent of cedar wood and faint espresso enveloped you entirely, making your head spin.
He reached down, his fingers gently cupping your jawline. His thumb brushed over your lower lip, tracing the exact spot you always bit when you were nervous or annoyed with him. The contrast of his cool rings against your heated skin made a quiet gasp escape your throat.
“Still think I have an overconfidence issue?” he whispered, his face inches from yours.
“Of course,” you replied, though your voice lacked any real bite. In fact, it sounded entirely like a surrender.
Yoongi let out a low, breathy chuckle against your lips. “Good.”
And then, he closed the remaining distance.
The kiss wasn't fast, and it wasn't chaotic. It was slow and intoxicatingly warm, his lips moving against yours with a gentle intensity that made your hands fly up to grip the fabric of his black button-down shirt. He pulled you slightly closer, his other hand wrapping securely around your waist. When he finally pulled away, just an inch, his forehead rested against yours. His breath was uneven, his feline eyes dark and completely focused on you. A beautiful smirk slowly returned to his face.
“Joint proposal completed,” he murmured against your skin.
You let out a shaky laugh, burying your face into his shoulder to hide how red your cheeks were. “You are seriously the worst, Yoongi.”
“I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to your GPA,” he corrected, his arms tightening around you, pulling you securely into his chest as the rain outside continued to beat a steady rhythm against the apartment windows.
Rule #10: Forget all the previous rules.
Two weeks later, the lecture hall for Economics 101 was just as cold, loud, and dreadfully boring as it had been on day one. Professor Lee was currently drawing a massive, confusing graph on the whiteboard, his voice droning on about deadweight loss.
Yoongi leaned back in his chair, a black beanie tugged low over his blond hair, his fingers lazily spinning a pen between his knuckles. Underneath the wooden desk, hidden from the rest of the lecture hall, his large hand was firmly intertwined with yours, his thumb mindlessly stroking the back of your wrist.
Your laptop was open, a blank word document on the screen. Suddenly, a notification popped up in the corner.
Min Yoongi shared a document with you: Econ 101 Pretty_Girl
You kept your face completely blank, desperately trying not to smile. The page opened to a single, typed line.
Yoongi: You’re wearing that perfume I like again. It’s really bad for my concentration.
A small smile tugged at your lips. You kept your left hand securely in his grip beneath the table while your right hand flew across the keyboard to reply.
You: Focus on the lecture, idiot. Lee is looking right at us.
You watched the screen. A second later, his cursor moved, deleting your text and replacing it with something else.
Yoongi: Let him look. I already know everything on the board. And I already know what I’m doing at noon.
You looked over at him from the corner of your eye. Yoongi didn't turn his head, but the slow, luscious smirk that spread across his face told you exactly what he was thinking. He squeezed your hand under the desk, a warm, reassuring pressure that made the butterflies in your stomach erupt all over again.
Stupid economics.
A/N: This fic genuinely took me forever because of all the economics research i had to do. Blond Yoongi will never leave my mind, so ofc i had to write about him!
Also, I hope someone caught the Chihiro's Waltz reference. Yoongi mentioned that he listened to that song in a Suga FM clip!
