Jin Fic Recs - Tumblr Posts - Page 2

almost, always - k.sj.

genre: fluff, angst (6.2k)

summary: how much of life will pass you by without loving anyone? or a fic in which you yearn and yearn and yearn for life and seokjin.

all works in the series can be real individually.  

(reposting because it didn’t upload properly before)

masterlist      series masterlist (colors!universe)  

your life had been exactly as you had imagined.

simple, monotonous, spontaneous nights that seemed to throw a blanket on the routine, but it had always been just that, just a few moments to make up for the others that you could barely call ‘moments’.

you reasoned to yourself that maybe life was just this, an endless routine with speed breaks in the middle to make it exciting with a drunken night, a hook-up, a date, a relationship but they all fade, and you’re left on the train of routine again.

because why would anything be exciting if it happened every day?

partying every day would make you sick of the hazy lights and the moving bodies, drinking every day would make you used to the recklessness it achieves, and smoking every day would make clean air feel like too much.

but regular life isn’t exciting enough either, is it?

how would it be exciting if you spent all of your youth cleaning tables and making coffee for tired strangers?

“steve carter!” you called out loudly to the busy café as you placed his order on the counter.

a black coffee.

you had always judged people for ordering black coffee, something about a person genuinely wanting to have that soul-less drink every day, unnerved you.

a blonde, white man came to pick up the cup, looked up at you, rolled his eyes, and walked away briskly.

you would scoff at his behavior if that wasn’t how people usually treated employees in the service sector and you definitely had bigger things to worry about than some man with attitude.

as afternoon flew, you dreaded your night shift even more but god knows you need the money. you had so many birthdays of friends this month and as much as the look on their faces when they open their gifts made it all worth it, it still was a large cut from your wages.

you loved your friends but would you even talk to these people five years down the lane?

was it mean of you to think about your friends this way?

you can’t remember the last time you had a positive thought about anything, at least one which is not followed by a million doubts about the goodness in it.

it was hard for you to believe that people can be truly good because you knew the worst parts of yourself and you knew those worst parts existed in everyone in different ways, how can you trust anyone with those parts in them?

night came.

you hated the moon.

it was pathetic to have to borrow light just to shine. if you shine, you shine, if you don’t, you don’t. you didn’t see a point in its borrowed glow.

maybe you just hated everything. maybe you will never love before you become ash.

the bell dinged.

the otherwise silent café filled with loud laughter and you groaned internally.

groups of friends were annoying to deal with, they always laugh too much when they place an order and some think it’s funny to crack jokes on the server giving them their order, you’ve seen it all and you were too tired of it to defend yourself.

you reluctantly looked up as a figure walked up to the counter to see a man smiling as he approached. if you hated rude customers, you hated those who thought they were better than others by smiling at servers, even more. if you’re smiling at employees to satisfy some self-validation you need, you’re worse.

“hello, what can i get you?” you mumble just loud enough for him to hear. “what do you have?” he hummed as he kept smiling and you almost glare at him. when he didn’t look like he got the hint, you pointed to the menu that was hanging above your head with a blank stare, “this is what we have.”

he purses his lips as you point out his error but when he looks back up, there’s no embarrassment on his face nor any annoyance, he just smiles again.

you are irritated by his smile already.

but it does make you tilt your head at him, usually, by this action itself, an employee pointing out the obvious is seen as rude. customers want to be nice to the employees who are ever so grateful, ever so cordial, and ever so obedient, as soon as an employee shows human traits besides the ones required for serving, a customer sees no need to see them as human.

but he smiled, and he’s still smiling.

“i should’ve looked up” he chuckles at himself and you know that if you agree, you’re going to be out of a job, so you stay silent. “i’ll take six black coffees and one hot chocolate, please.”

black coffee.

of course, everyone wants that soul-less drink at this hour.

“what should i put the name as?”

“kim seokjin on the hot chocolate, please.” he hands you his card.

kim seokjin.

it was a nice name, you weren’t going to lie. and hot chocolate is a nice drink, your favorite actually, you wonder if it’s for him or someone else.

“it’ll be ready in ten minutes, thank you sir.” you punch the order in and slide the card over the counter. you don’t look at him again, his smile unnerves you. as you make the drinks, you wonder why you can’t get his smile out of your mind.

objectively speaking, you have seen more beautiful smiles but most of them were just that, just beautiful. smiles for vanity. but he seemed to genuinely want to smile, not really caring to be beautiful, just caring to smile.

you shake your head at yourself, the night shift was finally getting to you.

“kim seokjin!” you yell as you place a tray on the counter, and instead of him, someone else comes to pick up the order, they also smile at you. a beautiful smile. you just hand the tray over and go back to wiping the counters.

but out of the corner of your eye, you don’t know why but you look over to where they were sitting with hesitant glances, you watch him to see if he chose the garbage drink or the drink that made you feel ever-changing seasons.

you wait as the friend places the tray on the table.

you wait as everyone hurriedly takes their drink, conversing all over each other.

you wait for everyone to move so you can see what he took.

you wait as everyone falls back to their seats and take a sip from their drinks.

you wait as your eyes fall on him and then his hands which held a mug.

he took the hot chocolate.

he smiles at the taste.

you smile at the counters you wipe.

-

“but why would you need afternoon shifts? you have a baby at home” you couldn’t help but judge your older co-worker who wanted to take your afternoon shifts and give you the night shifts. she purses her lips at your tone but doesn’t say anything.

“my husband’s working nights, someone needs to stay home with the baby. so, please let me work in the afternoon instead, i’ll talk with the manager myself.” she pleads with you and you shrink a little, maybe you judged too quickly.

you always do.

you didn’t have any reason to deny night shifts, you don’t have a kid at home to use as an excuse, so you agree with a sigh that has your co-workers breathing out in relief.

nights were boring.

you played with the keys on the computer and aimlessly swiped on tinder to pass the time, but nothing could really make the boredom feel any better.

the bell dinged.

your heart lurched for a second as a burst of familiar laughter poured into the café.

it was the same group.

six black coffees and one hot chocolate.

same guy.

same smile.

this was your fourth time seeing that smile.

not a beautiful smile, just a smile.

just kim seokjin.

you unconsciously follow his body as it moves across the store, you didn’t realize how long your eyes were following him until he was coming towards you. you spun around to hurriedly grab some mug and start wiping it.

it was a clean mug.

“hello, can i place my order?” his song-like voice forced you to acknowledge him. your hands tightened on the mug, why were you even cleaning it? why did you care about him catching you staring?

“o-one second!” and why the fuck are you stuttering?

you wiped your palms on your apron, you hadn’t even noticed how sweaty they were and walked up to the till with the most unbothered face you could make.

“what can i get you?” you clear your throat, not even trying to look up at him, and on the other side of the counter, seokjin tilted and dipped his head so his eyes would meet your downcast ones.

when they met, he smiled and you, well, you looked further down.

“just six black coffees and-“

“one hot chocolate” you finish punching in the order, not noticing that he hadn’t finished his sentence. seokjin’s eyes widen at you before they become half-crescents as his smile reaches full bloom, “exactly that.”

you don’t care.

you don’t care that he has the same favorite drink as you.

you don’t care that his smile looks like a floating cloud.

you don’t care that somehow your brain remembers his half-crescent eyes even after they’ve long disappeared.

you don’t care that you take extra time to make the heart on his hot chocolate.

you are the least bit bothered about kim seokjin.

this time, a beautiful smile doesn’t come to pick up the order, it’s the real one again, his eyes squint at the heart you spent so much time making and he smiles to himself, it’s much different from his usual one. it’s softer, more hidden, and much more beautiful but also more real, if that was even possible. he shakes his head at himself as he carries the tray to his loud friends.

the chaos continues, and you continue to sneak glances at him whenever you could. the way he talked with a certain gentle playfulness with them, the way he argued with a pout, the way he seemed to make everyone at the table laugh.

you want to laugh with him, you are not the funniest person but you could try.

when he stands up to leave with his friends, you pretend to wipe the counters as you try to catch your final glances of him for the night.

turn back.

turn back.

turn back.

turn back.

your shoulders that were bunched in anticipation, fall with a heaviness when he leaves without another look nor another smile. you could have used one more smile from him for this dreaded shift.

will it always be just this? just glances to quench your curiosity but not a brush of his skin against your fingers? will you always just look and never find out? will your eyes feed the hunger your heart felt? will you always remain this starved?

you sigh and step away from the counter, shaking your head at your loud doubts.

maybe you are a little bothered about kim seokjin.

-

seokjin had never been much of a café person, he always felt they were too quiet and that he was disturbing the people around him by simply existing and he wasn’t even a fan of coffee.

but café’s at midnight held a certain charm to him.

especially with his friends who had the ability to make any place as lively as it could be.

especially with a barista who seemed to like drawing hearts in his hot chocolate.

he had thought he had somehow conjured up the smile you gave your counters, the flustered state you were in, and the many glances toward his table, in his imagination.

did he try to be funnier than he usually was so that you would think he’s a cool guy?

seokjin would say no.

his friends would say yes.

his friends would also insist on going to the same café so that he could see the cute barista who seemed to have caught his attention.

“you want us to do what?” jungkook gave his friend an ugly look. “don’t come to the café anymore.” seokjin firmly declared (requested, really).

“you know the only reason she might think you are even half-cool is that we laugh at your horrible jokes, just so that she would look, right?” jimin stated the fact that they all knew and seokjin grew red from embarrassment.

“well, i want to talk to her. alone.” he murmured the last part, he didn’t need his friends to hear that too loudly but oh, they never let go.

the next hour, seokjin spent it begging and bribing his friends who wouldn’t budge but at the cost of finishing their errands from time to time, convinced them enough to back off.

now, seokjin would go alone.

he will get a hot chocolate.

and hopefully, a smile from you.

-

night shifts were tiring you out, you only got a few hours of sleep before you had to run to classes and it never got easy.

but as you carefully practiced hearts to draw on drinks, you knew you didn’t hate it all too much either.

he hadn’t come yet, you didn’t get the smile that kept you going today, there was no loud chaos or laughter in the café either and it was starting to worry you.

maybe he wasn’t coming back.

maybe the hearts were too much.

maybe his friends warned him about the barista who kept staring at him.

maybe he just didn’t like the hot chocolate and was smiling at another barista.

but you don’t care. you will keep telling that to yourself until you stop caring, until you stop anticipating his presence in your mundane routine.

the bell dinged.

your head snapped up faster than you would ever admit.

it was kim seokjin.

only kim seokjin.

that was odd.

no black coffee.

he’s always surrounded by his friends and you had taken the liberty of admiring him whenever you could, only because you were positive that his friends had all his attention, the chances of him catching you were zero.

“hello!” seokjin approached the counter with a wave and his usual smile, but this time, his greeting wasn’t too formal, he greeted you with familiarity, he greeted you as a friend would. inside, seokjin trembled, his hand froze in air as he desperately wished that tonight would go the way he wants.

you hesitantly lifted a hand up too.

you didn’t want to be his friend.

never his friend.

“one black coffee, please” you almost recoil when he says that.

a black coffee?

who was this guy?

how the fuck were you going to draw a heart on a black coffee?

“…black coffee?” you repeated, just to make sure you hadn’t heard him wrong and this wasn’t some parallel universe where he chooses black coffee over hot chocolate.

“yes, just one” he nods and you purse your lips as you type the order in, you can’t believe you like this guy. “it’ll be right up.” you mumble back and sigh as he smiles and proceeds to take a seat.

you will not acknowledge that his seat gives him a perfect view of the counter, where you’re working.

“kim seokjin!” you hold the cup instead of placing it on the counter, you hold your breath as he walks over, he reaches out for the drink in the same minute that you thrust it forward and your hands graze his.

both of your heads snap up, the little touch leaving your insides bursting with wild butterflies and you could feel your face heating up as the moment lulls over you two. you gauge each other’s reaction.

does he hate it?

does she hate it?

should i move?

but i want to stay in this temporary bliss of contact, your hands seem warm, i want to freeze them in mine.

reality comes to you slowly, a gentle wake-up call to you both that you can’t stand there forever and both of you move away.

no! wait, touch me more.

the cup falls between you two. you don’t even move but seokjin lunges to reach for the cup.

half of it is empty by the time it’s in his hands.

he wants to crawl inside the ground with the way you’re smiling at the scene, you want to crawl into his arms and pat his exertion away from his face. but both of you don’t let it show, because how could you? you don’t know each other.

you expect him to walk back to his seat, demand another cup, and maybe even throw a tantrum. but you also know that won’t happen. you don’t know him but you know that he wouldn’t do such a thing.

seokjin stays right where he stands, coffee dripping from the side of his cup. this wasn’t how he had imagined it would go.

he sips his drink.

his face falls into a grimace.

and you hold back your giggles.

“hot chocolate?” you gleefully ask him and he nods with a scowl still on his face, “yes, please, never black coffee again.” he grumbles as he walks away to his seat.

in that minute, you decide that you like him again. just a little.

and seokjin thinks of how many other ways he can bribe his friends to stay away because if it meant another minute of your smile that seemed to put the moonlight to shame, he might just say that he’ll finish all their assignments, as long as they stay away, as long as he gets to see you, alone, in glances.

he looks up to see you aimlessly scrolling on your phone, only to scold his eyes to look down when you glance at seokjin. you look away, as if you’d never looked at him in the first place, but your red cheeks are a traitor. he’s no better, a similar red blankets his face.

he will be satisfied with these glances for now.

just for now.

-

the bell dinged.

a new night.

a new way to look at seokjin without his knowledge.

but you won’t get to. it was probably the temp making his hot chocolate as you sipped on the lukewarm wine that was served at your friend’s birthday party.

you can’t believe a 20-something-year-old still wants house parties, still wants to serve cheap wine and vodka with neon lights falling on their heads. you guess if you were as rich as she was, you would try to be immature for as long as you could too.

you had thought everyone was too depressed to enjoy that kind of shit anymore but here you were, the expensive gift you got her (cost of four shifts, actually) lying under her bed as she fucked someone on it and you were stuck between people who sweat too much and men who got handsy with the excuse of being intoxicated.

if you hadn’t felt the social obligation to be here, especially because she considered you her closest friend, you would be making hearts on hot chocolate for someone, who several feet away, made you feel the buzz that you assumed everyone around you felt.

will the temp make his heart today?

he better not, making hearts for seokjin’s hot chocolate was your thing.

“hey?” it couldn’t be.

it shouldn’t be.

you wish you could pretend you didn’t recognize that voice.

he should be in the café right now, having his hot chocolate with his friends around him, he’s supposed to be laughing his head off at something they say, he’s not supposed to be here in this sweaty pool of adults who refuse to grow up.

“hot chocolate.” leaves your lips in a disappointed sigh to mask the underlying roaring excitement you felt, you didn’t want to see him here but the world really was small. he smiles when you face him, you wonder what it’s like to have a smile that forced you to just let go of everything that worried you.

“took a break from that for whatever this is, for today.” he doesn’t fail to mention it’s for today.

just for today, i’ll drink this cheap wine. tomorrow, i’ll be back for the hearts you make in my hot chocolate.

tomorrow, i’ll be back for you, just to never have the courage to come up and talk to you, just to have enough courage to look at you in glances.

but today, he will talk to you, even if words fail him, he will talk to you in whichever way he can.

“i’m assuming you know the birthday girl?”

“her closest friend, apparently” you shrug and he laughs silently into his cup, “apparently.” he muses with a smirk and you roll your eyes playfully.

“what are you doing here?”

why are we talking like old friends?

“a plus one.” oh.

so, he was here with someone.

nothing good ever comes into your life, does it?

“of a friend!” he yells in a rush, a few people turn to see what the noise is all about, and a dark red flush takes over his ears and neck. relief dances on your skin as you stifle a laugh at the scene he’s caused.

he meets your amused eyes with his embarrassed ones, quickly looking away to gulp the rest of his wine, he needed courage, he needed to stop boring you, and he needed to get to know this person who’s been on his mind.

“so-“ he starts.

“s-“ you start.

you both stop, a wide grin taking over his face as your frown disappeared into your skin. today was going to be good. “go on.” you gesture to him.

“do you want to maybe go upstairs, to the balcony? it’s quiet there, we can talk” seokjin says with great difficulty, pausing, resuming, but saying it.

you deflate.

yeah, all men were the same. all they ever wanted was one thing, a quick fuck, why else would he want to go where no one else is there?

but you are attracted to him, it’s been a while since you have gotten laid, so you will give it to him.

you will never make hearts for a man in your life again.

“sure, let’s go” seokjin can’t read your face, but upon your agreement, follows you up the stairs.

your face scrunches into a frown again, you knew it was too good to be true, you knew that men like him were always too good to be true but you let your heart slip anyway.

never again.

aside from her never-ending heels collection, one thing you will envy about your friend is the massive terrace she had. you always escaped here when she would snore.

the cold air greets you again, its embrace is familiar, its embrace is what you needed to put you back in the ground where love was all but a joke to you.

you don’t turn back to see if seokjin is coming, he doesn’t ask you to look back, he’s flustered as is.

seokjin’s never felt this refreshed to meet a person. he’s always been able to predict someone he’s met, their habits, their interests, their mannerisms, but you, you just felt brand new. a totally blank slate that he didn’t know what to expect.

“you know, i was pretty shocked when you got a black coffee that one time” you recalled as you leaned on the railing, your wrists going limp at the edge, “thought i’d see what the hype is all about.” he replies, leaning next to you, but maintaining a distance.

“and you found out it was shit” you hummed and he grimaces at the memory of the bitter, dead flavor that coated his mouth, “shit is a nice way to put it.” you laugh at the face he makes.

“you don’t know my name.” it dawns on you that you never actually gave him your name, “i don’t know anything about you.”

“would you like to keep it that way?”

do you want this night to be just one of many that mask the monotony in my life?

do you want to forget about this once we leave this night behind?

“not at all” his reply is quick, “if you’d let me, i would like to know everything.” he was a charmer, you will give him that, you wish you were foolish enough to just fall, fall and fall for a pretty face and pretty words.

maybe being naïve was the key to keeping people in your life.

“you don’t have to flatter me seokjin, we’re already alone” a bitter laugh and your name follows your words and he frowns. you feel confused at the furrow in his brows, wasn’t this the moment that he would just take you?

“i don’t understand?” he moves closer, not intentionally, but by instinct, he wants to understand why there’s this deep loneliness in your eyes even as you laugh.

“isn’t that what we came here for?” you gesture to the empty terrace with a heated face, it was devoid of sound, devoid of witnesses. it doesn’t dawn on him, seokjin had always been a little behind things like this.

you inch forward to him, he couldn’t be as innocent as he looked to be, you had a feeling he was just fooling you, that he was playing around with you, so you were going to test him.

seokjin’s eyes widen as your feet approach him, in slow, drawn-out steps, the grip he had on his wine glass slips a little as you look up at him with eyes clouded with, desire? determination? he wasn’t sure anymore.

he wasn’t sure what you were doing, but he couldn’t look away, he couldn’t move away.

his heart thundered as you approached him, his hand places the wine glass unsteadily on the edge of the wall.

never in his life before has seokjin ever felt so trapped and free, you were an inch away and his hand balled to a fist at his side. he couldn’t touch you, not now.

your face lined with his, a hairline distance between you two as your eyes shifted from his eyes, to his rounded cheeks, to his chiseled jaw, to his lips that looked like clouds. you had never wanted someone all to yourself, you had never wanted someone so badly but you were on a mission here.

with the lack of personal space, you waited for him to prove to you that he’s just like other men, at some point, they always do. you look up at him with welcoming eyes, invitation clear on your face. any man would go crazy, lose control, and blame it all on the bedroom eyes you gave.

you wait for him to grab you in urgency, you wait for him to ravish you under the moonlight, you wait for him to do anything that will make you turn and run away once tonight ended but seokjin just always had to be different.

seokjin watches you for a beat, two beats, three beats, enough beats for his heart to settle a little.

he grabs your hand, then your other hand, slowly, unsurely, giving you the space to move away, to back off if you didn’t like it. but your lips part, both in surprise and anticipation. your stomach turns in the most wonderful way when he nuzzles his cheek against your hands with a desire deep in his eyes, the warmth in his face envelopes your hands but his body stays away, his body lets you make the call.

ravish him. or not.

pull him into a kiss. or not.

let your mind give up fighting this. or not.

he’s proved you wrong.

seokjin waits and waits patiently as you continue to struggle internally, you hadn’t thought it would go this way, you hadn’t thought his grip would be so soft but grounding, you hadn’t thought that he would look so much prettier up close, you hadn’t thought the night would make you yearn for something you never had.

so, you pull him in, drag him in, and he doesn’t move a muscle until your lips are on his, and then, then seokjin decides that he will let the moonlight take you two away from reality. then, seokjin knows you want this too.

whatever you two were supposed to be, whatever you two felt, melted between your lips. words died, lungs exhausted, skin burned and froze, both of you were suspended in this moment of the bliss of nothingness.

a splash of color spilled on the blank slate he had thought you to be, a mix of greys and whites and blacks and reds, seokjin thought he’s always looked good in those colors. he looked good in your colors.

when you pulled away, seokjin’s hands stayed nestled around the curve of your jaw as he observed the state of you, your lips were red and swollen, your body fought to be closer to him and your eyes were closed as if you couldn’t bear it was over.

seokjin’s eyes dance over your face as his heart settles after racing for so long, he’s never seen a more beautiful sight.

you looked like the night, not the lonely, drowning dark of it as you would have assumed, but the stars and bare, flickering illumination that made everything look more magical. you looked like the nights that people lived for, people got ready for, the nights that people celebrated.

“your eyes don’t look so sad anymore?” your mouth opens and closes at his wandering question.

i’ve always hated the world around me, i only didn’t hate it when you were taking my breath away, when you were killing me and pouring life into me again. but i’ll tell you all this another day. if there is another day.

“i just got kissed real good” leaves your lips in hushed giggles and your laughter only grows when seokjin’s red flush takes over his neck and ears. he rubs the back of his neck with a wide smile on his face.

the real smile.

the smile that tilted your universe on its axis but kept you steady.

“maybe you should kiss me more, then.” he tries and fails to sound unfathomably confident as he says that but one eyebrow raise from you has him breaking into chuckles again. “are we getting too smart, kim seokjin?”

“i don’t know about smart, but i’m definitely getting too lucky.” he leans his forehead on yours and a sigh of bliss leaves his parted lips.

you made him feel lucky? has anyone else said this, have they only ever called you a burden, a baggage, a weight they can’t pull?

“i make you feel lucky?” rushes out of you, you were desperate to know if you were capable of making another person feel that way. seokjin can’t tell if you’re joking or not. but he sees the pool of tears that gather at the corners of your eyes and that’s when he knows, you have never heard those words before.

“one random night, my friends decided to get shit drunk and wander around for coffee, i turned up with them at this small café that we never looked at before. they tell me they were too drunk to order, i complained and came close to fighting them but i gave in. i came face to face with someone i want to figure out for the rest of my life. i would say i’m pretty fucking lucky.”

every word that leaves him have you gripping tighter to his shirt. as if he will say all of this and go, never come back, leaving you with the beauty of a memory but not the relief of a routine.

his hands slip from your jaw to close around the hand that pulls his shirt, and he tugs you closer, seokjin’s smile is softer, it’s eroded in the edges at the knowledge of your struggle to believe or not, run or not, stay or not. he wasn’t going to stop if you run, but he wasn’t going to stop chasing after you either.

“you really mean that?” you have to ask, people say this and leave, people say lots of things they don’t mean, people say things out of awkwardness, out of circumstance, out of emotions that overwhelm them but they throw those words away just the same.

“what do i have to do to make you believe me?” ask me anything, right now, the world is dancing at my feet and i want to give it to you.

“never take black coffee again” he smiles, largely, a small laugh as he steps away from you only to drift back just as quickly, “done, never black coffee again.” seokjin’s hands rub circles on your cheeks and you were right, his hands were warm, his hands held you with gentleness, not afraid that you’ll break, but afraid that you will slip away.

“you have to come everyday to the café or i’ll forget you.” i can never forget you, you’re etched into every night i’ll see out the window, every mug of hot chocolate i’ll hold, every smile around me that is beautiful but not true, but you can’t know that now.

“is that all?” he hums in amusement as he brushes your hair back, he had never planned on going anywhere else. you think for a second, two seconds and he just lets his fingers get used to your skin that dips beneath his touch.

beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

“you have to never stop smiling.” his smile was one that your heart caught and refused to let go, his smile made you feel that every horrible day would fly by in a breeze.

“i have one condition too” seokjin declares and you stand straight.

“you have to smile with me.” your breath hitches as he states his condition, you didn’t expect that, you weren’t one to smile much, “i’ll try” you can only try, you can’t just erase the years of hate you hold for your life.

“that’s enough for me” you can keep trying forever and i’ll wait forever, but i won’t give up, i won’t leave.

for the first time, you don’t feel the weight of expectations, of a good life, of a good partner, of a good touch, of a good love, you feel light, you feel that you can do anything. you felt excited, the same rush that spontaneous nights brought in, the same rush that unconsciousness brought, the same rush that you’ve been failing to catch up to all your life.

but even if you don’t know seokjin all that much still, you knew this wouldn’t drift away into nothing, it wouldn’t just be something you will yearn for, something you just remember, it will be something that you will live everyday.

“should we go down downstairs?” he notices the goosebumps rising on your arms and you do feel cold, the night was preparing to be day again afterall.

“no.” seokjin laughs at your answer, “then, come here.” he tuts at you before dragging you in by your arms and letting you nestle your body in his warmth.

you had a feeling you would never be cold again, you had a feeling he wouldn’t let you be cold ever again.

there would be another day.

-

the bell dinged.

your hands tightened on the mop you held; you knew who it was.

you popped up from behind the counter and seokjin smiles as soon as he catches a glance at you.

his heart clenches for a second, was it possible for a person to be more beautiful everyday? nothing else could explain you.

your eyes gaze dreamily at him, you always hated the moonlight but as it shined on him, you declared it wasn’t too bad.

“here you go” you hand him his daily hot chocolate, you drew a new kind of heart every single day he came in. you were running out of ideas as the days increased but that was fine. he takes the hot chocolate in one hand, your hand in another, and drags you to a table nearest to the counter.

his smile softens at the heart you drew today. it always did.

and when he meets your eyes over the cup, you smile back.

there would be another day.

there would always be another day with seokjin.

-

taglist: @savgogh

in you, i lay - k.sj.

summary: one night was all you needed to come back to him or a story in which love grows where seokjin goes, and you can’t help but follow.

genre: fluff (7.8k)

note: i have my exams soon, so i’ll get back to writing as soon as they are over, i wanted to give you all a little something before that so, i hope, with all my heart, that you guys enjoy this <3

masterlist

three years ago, your trip to berlin changed the entire trajectory of your life.

one day, your life was all black and white and then it burst into so many colors that you couldn’t quite grasp how quickly it changed to look so beautiful.

which is why you decided to come back to berlin. more successful, happy, and filled with life than you have ever been, you came back to live your bright past for one last time and move on to bigger things.

you look out the window as the cab breezes past the beach that held more memories than 23 years of your life, a smile unconsciously grows on your face as you think back on how different just 3 years of your life were.

you wonder how he is.

you never stopped wondering how he is.

the envelope holding your promotion was sat tightly in your hands, you knew he would be happy, ecstatic even, you just knew he would pick you up and spin you around. out of everyone in your life, you felt like he, of all people, would understand just how much this promotion meant to you.

“take a right or left from here, ma’am?” the cab driver’s voice breaks your train of thoughts. “right, you know this applefarm café which is around here? drop me off there.” you sit back and a giddy smile dances on your face, you wonder if you will run into him just like you did all those years ago or if you will have to call and find out.

you did worry at the beginning that maybe he would forget you, but every nerve in your body forced itself to implant him in your memory forever and you knew that he would do the same.

at applefarm café, you took a seat right near the entrance, it was exactly the spot where you had brunch with him after a night full of conversations that were embedded in you and your heart swelled when you saw the same elderly waitress, who served you all those years ago, heading towards you.

“what can i get for you today, ma’am?” she obviously didn’t remember you, but you couldn’t help but let a large grin split at her sight.

“a peach milkshake and chocolate tart please” it’s a miracle that you’ve managed to remember his order after all these years but every single second you spent with him is all your mind revolves around anymore, especially when you’re so close yet still far from him.

-

~2019~

you don’t know how your friends convinced you to come on this last-minute trip to berlin but here you were, not hating every second but still totally uncomfortable with how unprepared you were for this trip.

you were, to put it in a nice way, a total control freak.

you didn’t like going anywhere that wasn’t already dated in your planner, last-minute plans made you sweat like a wolf in heat, and it annoyed you to your very core when someone canceled plans that you had already made a schedule around.

even right now, as your friends happily pre-gamed before crashing a party, you were anxiously jotting down things you can do in berlin for the rest of your time there. your closest friend, jennie looks over and groans when she catches sight of the planner in your hands and immediately walks over to snatch it from you.

“seriously, what the fuck?” you yell after her as she locks the planner in the hotel room-provided vault. “i thought we all agreed on going spontaneous for this trip” she crosses her arms across her chest as she stares at you accusingly. “yes, all of you agreed but not me, we still haven’t done any tourist stuff and we leave tomorrow.” you desperately try to explain your friends, who through their fondness for your love for organizing, are shaking their heads at you.

“i have reached my limit of spontaneity, give me a break” you groan as you fall back on the bed, you don’t understand why you just can’t relax and let things be, you have always had a hard time with letting go or having fun, always too cautious and way too strung up to even think of doing something rebellious.

“listen, i know this is hard for you but for this one last night, just trust us.” lisa pats your thigh as she sits down beside you, trying not to grin at your obvious misery. “do i have a choice to do anything but that?” you can’t help but ask even if you know the answer and they all collectively smirk at you because they know that you know it too.

so, five hours later, when you’re sitting at your table in a club that you’re sure is way too small to fit the number of people in it, you are not the least bit surprised. your friends are swaying next to you, to the music and you’re all cheering before shots but you don’t feel all excited.

sure, you are happy, you love your friends but there is something missing in the air of the night.

maybe your drinks aren’t strong enough, maybe you are too in your head (yet again) to fully come out of your shell, maybe these lights are starting to make you feel dizzy, you don’t know.

but your attention is quickly taken away by the faint sound of a guitar strumming, and as you start to register the sound, you see everyone hurriedly walking over to the beach at the back of the place, all of them bubbling with excitement.

you watch as people keep shuffling towards the beach with loud chatter and you tilt your head at the commotion, wondering what could possibly have these people so flushed with anticipation.

and you don’t know why but your gut pulls you towards the back as well.

you have always been curious, about everything you come across, you need to everything that’s going on around you, and a large group of people migrating so suddenly, had your feet moving as quickly as they could towards them.

you look around confusedly at everyone gathered around a stage, quickly learning that a performance was set to take place, and also that there were no places left to sit so you dumbly hover by the door leading to the back, concluding that some hinge support was better than standing around in the loose sand for however long the performance was supposed to last.

then, over the gentle crashing of the waves to the shore, you hear it again, the faint guitar strumming but it’s not as faint anymore.

and it was coming from the right of you.

your head snaps to see the silhouette of a man tuning his guitar, and you automatically hold your breath as your eyes involuntarily lock on his figure.

you watched in wonder as the moon seemed to engulf him in cosmic light, you could see his high nose from where you were standing, you could see his hair with a few strands out of place, and you could see the loose shape of a t-shirt hanging off his tall and lean body, but you don’t know what exactly about him made every action in your body pause.

your eyes involuntarily follow him as he is joined by a few more people and all of them head onto the make-shift stage. loud cheers fill the previous silence but you don’t hear any of it, you don’t even hear your own heart beating out of your chest, you don’t see the hoards of people around you because your eyes still refuse to look away from him.

and when the honey-shaded light falls on him, you release the breath you didn’t know you were holding as your body shivers both in dread and delight, which you would later blame the cold weather for.

because nothing in the world could’ve prepared you for the sight that was that man.

you have seen good-looking people in your life, for heavens’ sake, you have some of the most attractive people you know as your friends but no one has quite invaded every one of your senses so quickly, as this man did.

and you are not sure how exactly you are supposed to feel about that.

from the cloud in your mind, you make out that they were introducing themselves but you don’t really understand what they’re saying. they start a song, you can see him singing, you can see his charming eyes hyping up the crowd from where you stood, you can see how the crowd is totally captivated by the dude with the guitar but you don’t know what they’re singing, you are not listening to a word they are pouring their heart into.

and you feel dirty, that you can’t take your eyes off him, you try to think of how if you were in his place, you wouldn’t want someone to stare at you like they haven’t seen another being in their life.

but then again, he wasn’t just any other being, he was literally the most beautiful being you have laid eyes on.

after forcing yourself to snap out of whatever mild haze that trapped your senses, you look around once again to see everyone enveloping the person next to them as they sway to the voice of the guy and the waves moved more soundly as if to accommodate the delicate ambiance that evening.

“maybe i’ll just never know, maybe i’ll just never hold you anymore but i can say i tried, i can say i fought for you, over the tallest hill in the world, i can yell that i loved you as much as i could, can you say the same?”

his angelic voice rings through the crowd, the lights falling even more delicately on him as he raises his gaze to meet the loved-up couples, and instead ends up meeting your eyes which haven’t been able to look away from him.

you turn your head with cheeks feeling hot as lava as you internally cringe at yourself.

what the fuck are you doing?

what has come over you?

sure, he is attractive but why are you acting as if you have never seen another man?

you sheepishly pat your cheeks before making a quick decision to leave as soon as you can, you can’t afford to make yourself look like even more of a fool than you already have.

but you risk it anyway, you tilt your head slightly to see if he’s gone back to what he was doing, you just wanted one last look at him before you left for good, you needed something to burn this into your memory.

so, imagine what happens when he gives you just what you need to never forget him again.

he was looking right at you, refusing to turn away even after you’ve clearly caught him and he continues singing while keeping his eyes on your every movement.

“but i can say i tried, i can say i gave it my all, i can say i used the last breath in me to breath life into you, can you?”

his lovely voice overshadows the bleak lyrics and you can feel your heartbeat all the way down to your toes.

and that’s when you leave.

you don’t notice the way his hands tighten around his guitar as you turn away.

when you go back in, you immediately collapse near the bar and your dress rides up your thighs as you slump forward on the counter and breathe out a long sigh. you can’t believe your body really gave up on you because one guy looked at you, and frankly, you are very much disappointed in your lack of self-control.

but he was looking at you too.

he refused to stop looking at you, even after you obviously caught him.

and that brought back the heat in your cheeks.

you feel ridiculous and embarrassed at your lack of composure, you don’t even think you have looked at any of the romantic partners in your life that way.

you shake your head at yourself, it was one thing to embarrass yourself, it was another thing to embarrass yourself in a foreign country, and you are so busy beating yourself up, you don’t see the person taking a seat next to you.

“whenever you are done talking to yourself, can i have a turn?” you hear the smoothest voice from beside you and you jump in surprise, not expecting another person to have joined you. in a panic, your eyes hurriedly meet theirs, and your breath is taken away all the same when you see who it is.

he’s still got his guitar resting on his shoulder, his hair is still fashionably out of place, his nose is still high from up close, his shirt hangs off his frame just the same but his face, his face was otherworldly this close.

and you have been talking to yourself like a mad person when he was right next to you.

how charming.

“what are you doing here?” the question tumbles out of your mouth before you can catch it and he quirks an eyebrow at you, an amused smile now gracing his features, you are sure he is smiling because of how wide your eyes have gotten. “if you are interested, i am here for you and if you are not, well, i’m here for this.” he picks up the glass collecting condensation on the counter and picks it up.

of course, with a gorgeous face like his, he is also a smooth talker.

“weren’t you just performing up there?” you try to ask with a clear voice but an audible gulp in the middle of the sentence gives away your nervousness. “i’m done, for today at least” he shrugs and you ignore the fact that his eyes never leave your face as he waits for you to speak.

if he noticed how nervous you are (which you frankly doubt he didn’t, cause you were being obvious with your fidgeting), he didn’t point it out which you felt grateful for.

“you’ve got a lovely voice” you tell him honestly, shifting in your seat to face him better, you did find his voice to be one of the sweetest you have ever heard. his voice held a different depth, now when he was speaking, that you are not sure you comprehend yet. “not lovely enough to make you stay till the end?” you want to run away again as he casually brings up how you ran away in embarrassment when your eyes met his.

“that was not the reason i left” you mumble as you lift your glass to take a large gulp and when you look back at him, he is smiling. he feels good, he feels damn good that someone as pretty as you, are losing your words over him. but he wasn’t doing any better, his heart was pounding in his ears with every word he spoke, and he still can’t believe he mustered up the courage to follow you in.

he hasn’t felt his heart leap so simply and so boundlessly, in a long time. he’s not even sure he’s ever felt this way before.

his pull to you felt magnetic, he didn’t understand why he felt the need to talk to you but he did, and he couldn’t ignore his feelings or understand them if he was being honest, so he was going to do everything he can to understand why you stood out to him in a room with 50 other people.

so he found himself, hurriedly running off the stage after his performance to find you again.

and now that he was this close to you, he understood his racing heart a little but that just left him wanting to know everything about you.

“my name is seokjin, and if you allow me, i would like to take you back there” he stands up, putting his hand out for you to take and your stomach tightens in the pure rush that simple line made you feel. seokjin’s hand trembled in the air, out of sheer nervousness that you were going to say no and turn away, he wished you didn’t notice.

“seokjin” you repeat in a quiet tone, you loved his name already, something about his name fit his face perfectly and you realize that while you were thinking of his name, your hand already reached to place it in his.

and his heart leaps again, he lets out a breath of relief as an easy smile takes over his face.

he gleefully tightens his hand around yours and pulls you to stand with him, that’s when you realize you didn’t even ask him why you were going back. and you can’t bring yourself to care, your entire body is flushed from his hand, you are sure your cheeks are as red as they come and your gaze decides to admire his broad back as he guides the both of you through the crowd.

this isn’t like you, this isn’t like you at all.

you never just talk to strangers, you don’t hold their hands, you don’t get this nervous around a person even if you are a shy person but your mind seemed to tumble on itself since you’ve seen him.

once you are out in the open air, your hot skin raises in goosebumps from how cold the weather had gotten and a slow, sweet song was playing. you could see that people were swaying their bodies with each other and it looked like the setting couldn’t have been more intimate, even with the full room.

you suck in a breath when seokjin turns around to look at you, your hand fell limply to your side as he left, and now, you could truly feel how bone-chilling it was.

“only if you want to, can i have this dance with you?” the way he asks in reassuring, laced with choice for you, it mattered to him more than anything, that you are okay with this and when you smile at him shyly, he swears his heart bursts into a million colors. “let’s go” this time, you envelop your hand around his and drag him with you where you can both dance without bumping into people.

you are still confused; you are still so new to all of this but you couldn’t deny how good it felt to be around him.

in a partly secluded corner, you remove your hand from his and wait for him to make the move which he doesn’t take too long to do.

within seconds, he hesitantly places an arm on the side of your waist and you step closer, feeling your breath waver already. he lets his eyes stay on your face as his other hand starts tracing where your arm begins to end by lacing your fingers with his and the entire time, he kept looking for any signs of discomfort in your face and lets out a breath of relief when he doesn’t see any.

“is this, okay?” he mutters, his voice lowering several more octaves and the room felt tight around you, like there was no space to move if it wasn’t in his arms and you found yourself wanting to erase any distance between you two. “more than okay” you mumble back and he bites his lip to hold back his huge smile at your response.

then, he took the confidence he got from the small smile on your face and tightened his hold on you as he started swaying the both of you to the music. and frankly, you didn’t care a bit about the song being played, maybe it was because of the way the same honey-light fell on him as he moved you two, maybe it was because you have never felt so breathless yet so full of life at once but you felt comfortable, comfortable enough to not question how you felt right in that moment.

he made small talk as he twirled you around, seokjin kept leaning in to make sure you knew that you had every bit of his attention and with every question you asked him, he answered with enthusiasm and humor which had your cheeks hurting from smiling so big.

for the first time in a very long time, you weren’t fidgeting to run around to get to the next thing you were supposed to do, you weren’t mentally counting down the minutes you needed to move on, because, somewhere in the middle of him dipping you dramatically to make you laugh to the way his touch left your skin burning; for those few moments, no other place in the world seemed more important.

seokjin’s very presence made you feel calmer than any years of therapy did and you weren’t sure what you were supposed to do with that information.

“aren’t you going to ask me for my name?” you remind him halfway through the third song and he laughs breathily, sucking in a breath before offering the widest smile to you, which made you instantly smile back even more. “i can’t believe i forgot to ask you that, please excuse my lack of manners. so, what is your name?” he asks, polite as ever, and you immediately tell him.

and just like you, seokjin finds your name to be perfect for your face.

“so, tell me y/n, what brings you here to this place?” his curiosity about you was eating him alive but thankfully, you were more than to humor him. “they have the cheapest vodka around here, at least that’s what it said on yelp” you answer honestly and jin lets out a snort at that. “alcohol shouldn’t be as expensive as it is” he shakes his head in a sort of agreement with you. “exactly like it’s my senses that are being deprived, why am i paying with half my kidney for that?” you complain with furrowed eyebrows and jin coos at the sight, he loves to hear you whine, he loves it way too much.

he keeps asking you questions, about what brought you to berlin, what you liked so far, and who you came here with and you felt yourself melting even more into him as you answer him.

“why did you start performing here?” you ask this time and giggle when he spins you around suddenly to place your back against his chest, both his arms still tightly wound around you as he looks down at you.

he barely knows you but seokjin is willing to bet that he’s going to remember this night forever because no one ever asked him about his purpose for performing.

"well, as you’ve said, i have a lovely voice, i thought why let it go to waste, you know?” you let out a small laugh at the confidence and silliness in his tone but quickly tilt your head as if it to ask him to answer seriously.

at the curious look in your eyes and the light hitting you just right, seokjin feels his senses drain from his body because suddenly, all his eyes can see, all his mind can register, is how close your lips are to his. and you notice his eyes fixating on your lips and your breath hitches. seokjin starts leaning in, his breath hitting your face in a warm wave and you stiffen in pure anticipation of what would come.

but then he shakes his head, leaning back with an uneasy chuckle.

“not now, not like this” you raise your eyebrows as you try to snap out of your own daze. “what do you mean?” you mumble, not doing a good job at hiding your disappointment and he panics, because the last thing he wants is for you to misunderstand him pulling back. “don’t get me wrong, trust me when i say i want to do nothing more than to kiss this night away with you but i want to do it right, i want to do it when both of us can’t think of anything else” as he utters those words, your heart pauses.

then beats.

then pauses again.

before beating louder than any rock music on the planet.

were you always capable of feeling this way?

“then, can i do something?” instead of answering you, he turns you back so you were chest to chest now. “you can do anything you want with me” he whispers back his answer with a dopey grin on his face and your chest tightens in the best way possible as you reach up to leave a light kiss on his cheek.

you are more than pleased to see his face turn red as he tries to hide his blushing face in your shoulders. “can we please get out of here? if you don’t have anything planned, i want to show you so much” he mumbles onto your shoulder and you don’t think twice before nodding.

it wasn’t your smartest moment, you were going to admit to that, jetting off with a stranger in a foreign country in the middle of the night, is never the smart choice but you also couldn’t let this night end here.

you wait at the entrance of the pub with flickering lights, pulling your shawl closer to your body after you waved your friends’ goodbye, needless to say, they were surprised by your impulsive decision but after making sure you had a way to reach them if things went south, they left with giggles about how berlin’s air changed you.

“why are you even going with him?” they had asked and were pleasantly surprised when you replied with “i don’t know” and a happy shrug, you were free of any riddling anxiety in your body at that moment. and your friends were glad to see it.

“should we?” seokjin walks out and your jaw drops because of how different he looked with just an outfit change. his loose, dark-colored t-shirt, torn jeans and chains replaced with a well-fitting cream-colored shirt tucked into beige pants and a blazer thrown over his arm. even his hair looked different, now neatly styled and tucked back.

“too much of a contrast, isn’t it? unfortunately, this is how i usually dress, pretty bland colors and all.” he laughs as he sees your face and you immediately shake your head, “it’s fine, it’s nice” it’s very nice and i might be drooling a little, might have been the more accurate response there. he stares at you for a few seconds, doing his best to hide the smirk growing on his face.

eventually, he shakes his head with a huge grin, reaching out to take your hand in his, he was no longer hesitant because if seokjin went by the way you looked at him, you wanted him just as much as he did.

-

your room wasn’t the best, it restricted your view of the prettiest city you’ve had the pleasure of knowing but you didn’t want to waste money on a room you were barely going to spend time in. falling on the bed, your mind goes back to seokjin, as if it ever stopped thinking of him. your smile grew and grew as you recounted everything that happened the night you met him, you can’t believe it was actually you who took off with a stranger.

but it was the best decision you made in your life.

not much has changed now though, you are still extremely strict with your plans and time but you allow yourself to let go when it feels right. you were grateful that you still had that strong work ethic in you because that rewarded itself in the form of a promotion you have waited forever for.

you get up to look out the window, your eyes set on the same pub that let you fall in love all those years and you immediately run to the bathroom to start getting ready.

you couldn’t wait any longer to see him and for someone who hated waiting the most, he truly put you up to the ultimate test.

your hand unconsciously reaches to the chain hanging off your neck, you just hoped he thought of you just as much.

-

~2019~

“so, why do you perform? you never ended up telling me” you pause from the breathless laughter you both have been tumbling in since you sat down near a stall owned by jin’s friend. ‘they have the best bingsu i’ve had in my life’ is what he said after learning that you enjoy sweet things.

“i told you, lovely voice and all” he quirked an eyebrow and you fight the grin on your face as you tried to glare at him. “okay okay, i’ll tell you” he gives in, moving closer to you on the long bench as the cold wind kept hitting both your faces.

you also moved closer, adjusting his jacket on your shoulder and seokjin fought the urge to hold you even closer, he didn’t like even the tiny bit of space left between you two.

“it’s not my actual job, performing at the pub. i am actually an accounting manager, but i was sent by the company to berlin, and they are based in seoul, which is also where i grew up.” he explains and it took you by surprise that this isn’t what he did for a living, he really looked like he was made to be on the stage. “i came here around 4 years ago, so not too long ago but long enough to know where the best food is, where the pretty places are, where the vodka is cheapest” he trails off with a teasing smile to you, and you giggle in response.

“i am holding onto you for the cheap vodka thing, you need to take me there” you say, tilting your head at him with a huge grin on your face and seokjin’s entire face softens at your smile. “consider it done.” and he doesn’t know what prompts him but he leans over to brush his nose with yours and you don’t back away, and instead nuzzle into his touch.

this was nice, this was way too nice.

then he continued, “when i came here, i didn’t know anyone, i was too shy to talk to people at work and i felt extremely homesick, the only thing that kept me sane then was cooking myself korean food from time to time. i was working like a machine, with no real motive or passion for anything, just a repeated cycle. but then, i met these guys, and somehow, ended up in a band with them. we perform only on some days, whenever all of us are free and i didn’t even know i would be happy singing in front of people, but i am, unbelievably so.” his voice was sad when he was talking about home but as soon as mentioned his friends, his voice became louder, more filled with pride and you didn’t need him to tell you that he thought the world of these friends.

he looked over at you and your eyes were slightly glazed over because you can’t imagine missing home, you can’t imagine not knowing anyone in a huge city like this, you would simply not be able to go through with something similar to what seokjin did, and your admiration grew with every word he spoke.

seokjin, on the other hand, can’t remember a time when he opened up so easily and deeply to someone.

“i am glad you performed today” you say, with warm cheeks and not really looking at him. one side of his mouth lifts up at your words, and he nods, “i am glad i did too.”

“so, what do you do? what unwillingly gets you out of bed every day?” he throws the question to you and you sit up straight, the thought of your work immediately alerting your senses.

“i am working at a start-up, we are trying to make a platform for people of color to express themselves on various attributes like their workplace and the micro-aggressions they face there, or their family’s immigration, how it feels to have to live in a place where the language and culture aren’t yours and how they deal with it. the idea is to express all this through different media outlets like videos, or a series of articles, or artwork.” you explain and seokjin sits in wonder at how smart you are, he expected you to be doing something like that, he didn’t know why but he just had a feeling that someone like you was just brimming with ideas.

but he does notice that your eyes don’t light up like his when he talks about performing.

“but you don’t like it?” you nod and then pause before shaking your head at this.

“the objective is great, the whole reason i joined was because i didn’t want people who looked like me, who sounded like me, to feel alone. i wanted to give them a safe place, a voice, something that was only theirs, something i wish i had when i started out.” you bite your lip because talking about your job makes you sad.

“i want to do so much but you know who’s the head managing all of these activities? a white person, a white person with privilege. he’s never had to fight for his voice. he’s straight, he’s white, he plays golf on the weekends, he has kids comfortably going to private schools and he has a trophy wife. he doesn’t understand these stories, he throws every single one that comes our way and refuses to hear out the already silenced people, always asking for something ‘spicy’ instead of the truth, he just wants a dramatic story to publicize. i just can’t stand working for someone like him, someone who refuses to see the entire reason for our establishment but i can’t give up now, not after i promised to myself that i will make it better for others.”

seokjin hears the determination in your voice, he understands the frustration more than anyone else which is he remains in thoughtful silence before he notices something else in your eyes.

a burning passion to destroy whomever this man was.

“you’re going to do something about him, aren’t you?” he smirks at you and your angry glare melts. “i am going to work till i’m seating in his chair and making decisions that he should be making right now, i’m going to make sure that whatever i do, it will be meaningful. i’m getting that promotion someday” seokjin feels his heart burst with pride, he might not know you all that well, but he knows how much this means to you and that you will do it.

“when you do it, you come and tell me all about it, yeah?” he bumps his shoulder with yours playfully.

it’s the way he says it, like he believes you will do it somehow and that fills you with renewed hope for your future.

“deal.” you whisper, bumping him back. you both sit like that, the night feeling longer than it was supposed to be, but you were all the more grateful for it. then, seokjin gets up, dusting his pants off before extending his hand towards you, and it’s instinct to put your hand in his now.

“come on, i want to show you so much more” and then you’re being dragged away to the next place jin wants to take you to.

that’s how you spend the night, hand in his, and exploring every small corner of berlin that they don’t mention in travel packages, you saw berlin through seokjin’s eyes, and those few hours of drifting away with the cold wind, filled your heart with a feather-like feeling, a feeling of being able to float into the sky if it weren’t for seokjin’s hand anchoring you to the ground.

there wasn’t anywhere or anyone else you wanted to spend that time with.

“you should go now” you whisper with your forehead against his, right outside your hotel, not really wanting to leave or him to leave. it was getting late or early to be more precise; the sun was threatening to peek through, the sky being filled with the faintest shades of orange and blue as you and seokjin stood under, hands refusing to leave the other.

“is that why you’re squeezing the life out of my hands right now?” your giggles escape into the space between you two, “but seriously, it’s too late already.” even as you say it, you don’t move an inch and he doesn’t either.

“i’m going to sound crazy” he starts and your ears perk up immediately, “come to my home, i promise i make a mean hot pot, we can do whatever you want to do.” it should scare you, a stranger inviting you to their home, should definitely trigger some fight or flight response in you, but you don’t feel any of your usual anxiousness, you just feel him and the strong urge to follow wherever he goes.

“i understand if you don’t feel comfortable, i totally get it so don’t feel obliged, but if you do agree, i’ve got a gift for you.” one of seokjin’s eyebrows draws up at the last words, and your curiosity bursts through you, any lingering hesitance immediately left your body.

“my answer” you trail off, stepping back, seokjin’s hands fall away from yours and he thinks this is where your magical night ends, this is the night he will spend weeks daydreaming about, the night that will keep him up forever.

he will spend many days just weaving through the possibilities of what you could be, of what you could’ve been.

you keep him waiting, dwelling in the satisfaction that his nervous face brought.

“depends on your gift.” you give him a coy smile and he lets out an airy laugh, “you had me really scared there, for a second.” he shakes his head at you and you fight your smile from growing bigger, “i know.”

and before you say something else to drop his heart to his ass, seokjin pulls out a chunky, tourist necklace with a laugh threatening to break from his throat. the necklace has a huge locket, with the words ‘berlin’ sprawled on it in vivd, neon colors.

it looks ugly.

he knows it looks ugly.

“i think i’ll just head inside” you playfully turn around on your heel and attempt to walk away, you count down the seconds it takes him to put you back in his arms.

one.

two.

three.

he lasted three seconds.

a record for the night truly.

seokjin’s arms immediately pulled you back to him and as you pretended to struggle against his grip, the ugly necklace was already resting on your clavicle.

“you really thought this would convince me to come home with you?” your hands pull on the necklace as seokjin bows over in laughter, “oh come on, it’s not that bad” he stands straight, clearing his throat, his face fighting to stay passive.

you give him an unimpressed look and that’s enough for him to burst into wheezes of laughter again.

and you love it, you love how freely seokjin laughs.

you want to hear it forever.

you stand there with your arms crossed against your chest, a fond smile etched on your face as you watch the man of your night, start to calm down. and he does, in the dramatic fashion you expect him to, fanning his face to force air onto his red cheeks as his eyes wrinkle with pure joy.

“if you’re done, can we go back to yours already?” you tap your foot impatiently, shying away from the fact that you just agreed to spend even more time with him. seokjin’s heart grows wings as his eyes drift over your soft smile, your tired but happy eyes, and then, the big, ugly necklace that rests on your body now.

“i knew you would like it.”

-

“you have a cute home” you look at the photos hanging off his walls, all of them with either his family or the boys from the band. a fond smile grew on your face as you come across a photo with a very young jin holding a fishing rod. “you fish?” you turn around to see him setting up wine glasses on the counter.

“i used to” he sighed, coming around to give you a glass, for which you thank him silently, “why, no fish in berlin?” you tease him as you take a sip, he remains silent. your mood slips when he doesn’t smile at you as he has been all night.

“i’m sorry if i overstepped” you quickly apologize, not meaning to bring up anything that wasn’t comfortable for him, he shakes his head in response, “no no, god no. don’t say sorry, i just haven’t didn’t feel like fishing anywhere except home” he stares at the picture where he holds the fish with both longing and resignation.

“you miss seoul?”

“always.”

“i can’t imagine missing home” you gulp as you imagine how you would be if you moved places, you wouldn’t survive without your comfort zone. “it’s not all bad.” seokjin smiles reassuringly but you aren’t convinced.

“you just said you miss home always.”

“i do but if i went back home, i would miss this too. imagine if i never left seoul, i would have never joined a band, i would have never put my lovely voice to use,” you scoff as he holds back a laugh, “i would have never known where you can find the cheapest alcohol in berlin, nor would i have ever bought some ugly necklace for a pretty woman.” you look away at the last part, hiding your burning cheeks away by staring out the window, “you buy a lot of women necklaces?”

“only the one, actually.” he steps in front of you with a smirk playing on his lips.

“my, she must be lucky” your voice drips with sarcasm as you raise the ugly necklace to his face, “i would insist i am the lucky one” his eyes are light as seokjin hums and traces the shape of the necklace which falls back on your clavicle.

the lightest touch between his fingers and your skin makes you suck in a breath.

as if a passing cloud suddenly rained down on you.

but you have been waiting for the droplets, you have been waiting for the thunder and storm.

you have been waiting for him to do something that leaves you breathless.

seokjin steps forward, grabs your wine glass, and places it on the counter.

“you know, i’ve met so many people over the years i joined the band,” he whispers his words and you quirk your eyebrow, “you’re not off to a great start, seokjin,”

he stifles a laugh behind his hand before clearing his throat and bringing his hands to rest on your jaw, “you are so impatient.” though it’s a trait of yours that you hate so very much, the way he says it with admiration instead of malice, makes your heart burn in your chest.

“you are making me wait too long” you whisper back, shivering under his fingers which traced your features carefully, intently as his eyes spark back with light-heartedness.

“i apologize for that” he sweeps a hand under your jaw and gently tugs your face towards his and your stomach flips into itself.

everything around you faded into oblivion.

but seokjin wandered and invaded every single one of your senses.

his lips were pillow-soft, as soft as you had imagined.

his soft breath warmed your cheeks.

his hair fell around your eyes and made it hard for you to see.

but you could see.

you could see all of him even with your eyes closed.

you could feel all of him especially with your eyes closed.

his hands that clutched your body like it was his oxygen.

his legs that couldn’t possibly step closer to you but still tried.

his shoulders that were strong under your hands.

how were you going to ever leave him behind?

“seokjin i-“ you let out helplessly, trying to tell him that this was only going to be this one night, that you would have to leave him here. he chooses to soothe his hands over your arms, easing your panic as quickly as it came, and gives you a soft kiss, parting away with a nod to let you continue.

that made it a thousand times harder to tell him.

there was no one way to do this.

“my flight is tomorrow.”

“what?”seokjin’s relaxed face twists as sadness settles behind his eyes. “it’s booked for the evening” you give the information with a wince. his grip on you falters as an uneasy smile break on his face, “i thought you were just at the beginning of your trip.”

you wish it was.

you wish so badly that it was.

he steps away from your space, you understand it’s his form of rejection. it feels like a burning sting running down your back and you hold back the tears that dangle on your lashes, you couldn’t bear this. this was the closest you had ever gotten to love in your entire life and it was crumbling in just some hours.

you didn’t want seokjin to be some distant memory.

you didn’t want to wake up and reminisce on what could have been.

“i don’t want this to end here” you say, voice quivering with vulnerability. you didn’t care if you will be rejected again, you didn’t care if he tells you to leave and your arms shifted to cover your stomach, a poor attempt at protecting yourself.

this was the first time you knew, for sure, something that you wanted and you weren’t going to cost yourself the pain that comes from not trying at all.

but seokjin’s silence was weakening your hope and you wanted to curl into yourself for ever believing that you could have a shot at love.

“i don’t want this to end either.”

his words sunk into you slowly and filled you with the warmth that dissipated from your body.

“are you sure?” you hated how weak you sounded.

seokjin tutted at you, stepping into your space to unfold your arms that held before you as defense and engulfed your hands in his.

“i would hate myself for a long time if i didn’t give us a try, it’s going to be hard but i have a good feeling about this. there’s so much more i want to know about you and there’s so much i want you to know about me, so this can’t end here.”

he breathes back life into you with the promise hidden in his words, that he’s going whichever way you are willing to as well.

“me too, i want more, way more than just this night.”

seokjin’s face fills with both relief and agreement, it reassures you that this wasn’t just you going crazy here, this wasn’t just you hanging onto whatever you could, this was both of you, unwilling to let your chance at love die tonight.

so, you spent all night, with each other, in each other, sharing every bit of yourself that you could in the time that you did.

but soon, the sun shone too bright and your eyes couldn’t stop filling up with tears.

-

you held your breath as you pushed the door open to seokjin’s studio, at least, you hoped this was the one. you had been to his old studios but they just moved into this one, so you had no idea what it looked like.

your palms were getting sweaty.

“y/n!” you heard hoseok, the vocalist and rapper from seokjin’s band chime from a corner and your entire body relaxes as you reach out for a hug. “seokjin hadn’t told us that you were coming, we would’ve cleaned up a bit” you both laughed together at the mess around your feet.

“this is kind of a surprise, so not his fault really.” you set aside the basket of baked goods you bought for them.

“thank you for this, we’ve all been out of it lately with the move and the new label so it’s nice to see you, i’m sure he will be ecstatic” hoseok hums as he digs through it.

“how’s the whole becoming a full-time band thing going?” you tried to distract yourself from the actual reason you were here, it was going to be a lot for seokjin to take at once.

“at the beginning, daunting as fuck, all of us were scared but we really didn’t have to worry so much, our gigs have been consistent and with this new baby, we can do so much more with our music.” you nodded, letting him rant to ease his mind and to also ease yours.

you were overjoyed when seokjin told you that they were becoming a legit band with a proper label, contract, and all the work. but hearing now how stressful it’s been, a tiny seed of worry plants itself in your mind that you were being selfish with this surprise.

but he will be happy, right?

like it’s all you two have talked about wanting. but that was before all the label stuff, before he had so much on his plate and your feet started tapping the ground incessantly as your worry continued to grow.

what if you guys break up over this?

what if he tells you that after all this time and effort, he didn’t want to be together anymore?

a jingle at the door made you jump as three figures started to huddle in.

you were out of time to worry anymore.

-

“just one more minute” you pleaded as your arms stayed tightly wrapped around seokjin’s torso, he let out a sad chuckle at that and granted your wish by letting you bury yourself in him. your friends stayed away to give you the privacy you needed for that minute.

this wasn’t fair.

your first shot at proper love couldn’t end this way, it wasn’t ending technically but still, you had no idea what would happen after this. all you knew for sure was that you had this one minute with him and everything after that, was left up to fate.

“i don’t think i can let you go” he whispers into your hair as he planted a soft kiss on your temple and your body shuddered with unshed tears threatening to cascade from your eyes.

“call everyday?” seokjin asks in a quiet tone, laced with the vulnerability that you braved when you told him that you wanted more. “everyday.” you nodded determinedly into his chest.

“visits whenever we can?” it was your turn to ask and seokjin nods just as determined as you, “whenever we can.”

“you won’t forget me” seokjin says with utter confidence, just to make you laugh, which you do with a full kind of happiness, “it’s kind of hard to” you point to the ugly necklace that you decided to keep on.

it was growing on you.

“we’ll find our way back to each other, okay? somewhere, the universe will and has to align for us and when it does, i will never leave you again.” your eyes, already swollen with the tears you’ve cried, grow wet again as you desperately force yourself to believe him.

it has to.

it absolutely has to.

it can’t just end here.

but as your hands leave him for the last time and your boarding ticket crumbles in your hold, you can’t help but feel that the future may not be as kind to you two as you hoped it would be.

-

meeting seokjin always felt brand new, in between the countless times you both flew to each other, touching his skin after waiting for a while, always took your breath away and managed to make you feel like the lightest cloud in the sky.

but as his arms engulfed you tightly, whispering words of surprise and amazement into your ears at seeing you after so long, your anxiety couldn’t be calmed, your hands couldn’t stop shaking and your breath refused to be even.

this was it, this was the day that would truly mark where you two would end up.

“i thought it was my turn to visit this time” he gleefully kissed your cheek and you nodded stiffly, “i just couldn’t wait” you replied, truthfully but your nerves were starting to give you a headache.

“are you okay? you look pale” seokjin’s eyes assessed you with concern as the back of his hand pressed into your forehead and you sighed.

you had to tell him, this could go badly but it could also go well and with that tiny hope, you tugged towards the exit with you and he followed you wordlessly.

through the years you have known seokjin now, you had fights, huge fights, arguments that you thought you couldn’t move past from, arguments that made you believe you were done. but every single time, you both found your way to each other.

and every single time, he gave you more reasons to stay and keep trying.

which is how you are here, in the city where you discovered love for the first time, throwing a stone into the blind for the future of your relationship and hoping it hits the right spot.

“so, what is on your mind?” he pulls you by your hand to wrap an arm around your body and you shiver with the same giddiness you felt all those years ago.

but you struggle to tell it to him.

no one talks about how scary it is to go a step forward in a relationship and just hope that they take the step too.

so, you don’t tell him. you slowly reach out for the promotion letter tucked away in your coat. you give it to him with shaking hands and with confused eyes, he looks at the paper that held both your futures.

you watch carefully as his eyes go wide and the largest grin grows on his face.

“you got it! you fucking did it, i knew you could but oh my god” seokjin gushes and smothers your face with kisses and you can’t help but giggle. “you actually kicked him out the program, i’m so proud of you” he presses a long kiss on your head and your insides warm with the love he showered on you.

“wait, look at the piece i submitted.” you show him the page where you wrote the story of men in berlin who found their home in each other and in their music, how they missed home but built a new one in a city unknown to them.

“this is about us?” the amazement in his voice brings a smile to your face.

“i couldn’t think of a better person to write about, you are the story that people need to know about because you’ve found the heart to make a strange, new place, your new home.” seokjin’s eyes fill with unshed tears, “you wrote all this?” he chokes back a sob and you know he’s beyond happy with it, so you nod eagerly.

“there’s more” you whisper as you point to the very end of the paper.

the end, where it states, that the headquarters of your organization would permanently move to berlin.

seokjin stares at the text for one second without a word.

two seconds.

three seconds.

this was a mistake, you should’ve talked about this with h-

“is this real? does this mean what i think it does?” he whispers to you, voice filled with confusion and hardly contained joy. you nod at him and bite your lip in anticipation, waiting for him to let you down gently or jump in the air with you.

his response comes in the form of him throwing his entire body onto yours, holding you so tightly that you can hardly breathe but you’re okay being breathless, you hardly contain your shivers of happiness when he starts whispering how grateful he was to you, and how much he loved you.

“so, you’re okay with this?” you ask, unable to keep the question hanging in your head. he pulls back and looks at you with such adoration, that you feel dumb for even asking the question.

“are you kidding me? this is all we’ve ever wanted, everything i’ve dreamed of since we started with this. i get to see you everyday and i can’t think of a better thing in my life from now on.” he pushes a strand of your hair behind your ear with teary eyes and that’s all it takes for you to cry as well.

“this is good, very good, why are we crying?” you sob into his chest and he shakes his head, unable to give you an answer but holding you tighter against him.

it was hard to make the decision to move but your town didn’t feel right anymore, and there were so many stories to tell, so many days to spend with seokjin that you just couldn’t give up on, so when the offer to berlin came through, you took it right away with a giddy heart.

“this changes everything for us” he sighs out and you tense again, “in the best way possible, i can’t wait to make you sick of me” seokjin lets out a low laugh at your worried face before kissing all your frown lines separately.

and you let him, you let him continue to kiss your worries away.

you look around the city which will soon become your home, a feeling churns in your stomach but you know this time, that it wasn’t your anxiousness, it wasn’t because you had to go running somewhere else, it was because you finally found your person and your place.

that was enough to spark tears back in your eyes and this time, it’s all happiness, it’s all joy, it’s all the excitement that comes with getting to spend every day with the person you love, in the city, that helped you find love.