Chapter Text
Summer in Seoul is always a suffocating affair. It’s already hot enough with buildings trapping heat between their cracks, but it’s made even worse with the multitudes of people crowding the one and only path he can take to school. All Jeongguk is wearing is a thin white t-shirt and a pair of berms, the perfect picture of a lazy college student, but the sweat is already starting to seep through the back of his shirt.
“Oppa, you made it,” Sooyoung grins, head perking up when she hears the telltale sound of someone frantically plopping into a seat. “Nils is just about to start his presentation.”
Life as a postgrad is strange, Jeongguk has to admit. When he graduated three years ago, he didn’t think life would be easy, but he definitely hoped that it would be easier—at the time, his heart had still been heavy with lingering want, but he’d believed that diving head-first into the industry, armed with his First Class Honours in Chemistry, would do him some good. Six months on and he found that everything he’d learnt in school was going to waste: no matter how good he was at pipetting samples or writing grant proposals, in the end, it all boiled down to how well he could deal with the politics of the workplace, of people backstabbing each other left and right.
And the realisation that he wouldn’t actually be able to do anything useful, nor anything he liked, drove him straight back to school. Almost two years into his PhD and every other day, he still wonders why the hell he signed up for this. But he wouldn’t give it up for the world, even if his desk is a mess (an organised one, he reassures himself) and he still has to take graduate classes and he has no idea what he’s gonna do for his dissertation.
“Any questions?” Nils asks, once he’s done talking about dopamine pathways in drugged mice. Jeongguk likes Nils, he’s nice enough, an enthusiastic and awfully smart guy from Germany—he just really has a thing against the ethics review committee.
Jeongguk zones out. It is, after all, the last official day of the semester, and he has no finals. As a graduate student, his summers are more or less nonexistent—he’d be checking in twice a week to help out at the lab, and he has weekly consultations with his supervisor to actually start working on his dissertation—so he will take this small reprieve, this tiny breather, with all that he can. He’d already given his presentation the week before, so there really is no reason he’s here other than the fact that Sooyoung would kick his ass if he skipped class.
Something strikes his shin, hard, and he almost curses out loud before realising he’s in a class of six people, including the professor.
“Pay attention,” Sooyoung hisses. “I need to get Park as my supervisor, can’t have him thinking you’re a slacker.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jeongguk nods, just to appease her. Sooyoung is great, but sometimes she’s just way too tense.
The class ends with all six of them taking a group photo together (“Let’s do a we-fie!” Professor Park had suggested, eyes gleaming), and even though Jeongguk isn’t a great student, he still likes the class enough to put on a bright smile, one arm slung around Sooyoung’s shoulders and the other held up in a peace sign.
“So, what do you want to do?” Sooyoung asks, as they head out to the hallway, locking her elbows with his. “Last day of school and all.”
“I don’t know, I kinda wanna just lie down and play Overwatch,” Jeongguk jokes. He holds his hands up in surrender when she throws him the nastiest look. “Just kidding. We can have dinner at that new Thai place that opened up? I have to go find Yoongi-hyung before that, though.”
“Nakhon Kitchen?” Her smile is so wide it stretches across her face. “Sounds good. Need me to come with you?”
“It’s okay,” Jeongguk replies. “I agreed to have a meal with him two months back, or something. He’s so busy these days, he had to pencil me in.”
Sooyoung shakes her head in mock aghast. “That’s terrible. I’ll see you later, then.”
“See you, too,” Jeongguk smiles, bringing her in and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.
Yoongi works at this nice, cosy studio that he opened up with Namjoon, and Jeongguk would be lying if he says that he isn’t jealous. The company is small and they’re only just starting to make some profit, mixing and mastering for those willing to outsource their production, and every time he sees them they’re just a little bit thinner, but their eyes are always glowing. He’s envious, he admits: to find your passion and be able to chase it is something few people ever get to do, and even if Jeongguk is happy for his hyungs, he can’t help but wish he were in the same position.
He’s been to Big Hit a couple of times. It’s tucked in one of the winding alleyways in Gangnam, sandwiched between huge bungalows and rundown convenience stores, smack in the middle of one of the most expensive districts in Seoul. It’s a funny contrast, whenever he goes to the south of the river. (He tries to convince himself that he doesn’t visit often because it is simply so far, but he knows there’s another reason, one that is infinitely more painful.)
“Yoongi-hyung!” Jeongguk greets. He’s smiling so wide, but he can’t help it, he hasn’t seen his hyung in a couple of weeks, and he just really wants a Lamb Skewer Catch-up right now.
But that’s not Yoongi behind the desk, fumbling with the mountain of documents. It’s definitely not Yoongi blasting jazz music throughout the reception of a hip hop music production company, definitely not Yoongi wearing that bewildered look that he hasn’t seen in years, but can somehow still remember down to every grain.
See, that’s the thing about first loves: you have them, and you lose them, but you never forget them.
He was immortalised back then, just like how this moment is immortalised now. Everything freezes, from the barely discernible flicker of the lights above, to the hover of a hand in the air, midway through a wave, to his wide, unblinking eyes, as large and bright as Jeongguk remembered.
After what seems like forever, someone speaks.
“I’m not Yoongi-hyung,” he says. The yellow hoodie is gigantic on him, practically swallows him up, and when he brings his hand down, the sleeves fall down to form adorable sweater paws.
“No, you’re not.”
There is a moment in the air that hangs between them, a note waiting to be played.
“Hi, my name is Kim Taehyung,” Taehyung greets, as if Jeongguk would ever have forgotten him and the gaping hole he’d left behind. He holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
What is this? Why are they acting like they’re strangers, when they knew each other inside out a forever ago?
“I’m Jeon Jeongguk,” he replies, regardless. He can feel his teeth digging into his bottom lip, waiting. “It’s great to meet you too.”
Taehyung stares back at him, eyes wide, skin smooth and golden, full mouth curving into a hesitant smile. Things have changed so much: Jeongguk is no longer the boy he was, lost and angry and frustrated with the world, and he has no idea what Taehyung is like now, face still the same but somehow different, eyes still bright but somehow duller. So before he loses the bravado, he asks, “Do you want to go out for coffee later?”
“Okay,” Taehyung says, and Jeongguk doesn’t expect it. He doesn’t expect the brilliant rectangular smile that he’d tucked away years ago, either. “I think we’ll be great friends.”
It’s now that Jeongguk notices how fast his pulse is racing, how hard is heart is hammering.
“I think so too.”
“You told me Taehyung-hyung was working at your company.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t tell me he would be working there today.”
“Jeongguk,” Yoongi sighs, reaching for a sip of the beer. Figures Yoongi, of all people, would drink at three in the afternoon. “I’m not at liberty to disclose my employee’s schedules.”
“It was completely embarrassing,” Jeongguk groans, throwing his forearms onto the table and burying his face into his hands. A year or two ago, Jeongguk wouldn’t have dared to be so open around Yoongi, not at all; but now, he’s probably the hyung that Jeongguk is the most comfortable around, even if he does like to ruffle Jeongguk’s hair every time they meet. “I was completely embarrassing.”
“I’m sure you were fine, kid,” Yoongi reassures, smiling. Then he leans back, and the expression on his face turns pensive. “You know, it’s about time you two talked.”
Jeongguk faces his problems head on. It’s a hard lesson that he had to learn a forever ago, and he hasn’t forgotten it since. He likes to deal with things as they come and move on right after, leaving them behind in the past—after all, that is how you make progress. But for some reason, even when his parents told him Taehyung had started to come for dinner regularly, even when Yoongi and Namjoon told him Taehyung was working for them now, that he was back from abroad—he just could not confront Taehyung.
All it would have taken was a phone call, or a text message, and that would be it. But he still couldn’t do it. He doesn’t even know if he can.
Taehyung was the one exception, and Taehyung is still the only exception.
“I don’t know, hyung,” Jeongguk huffs. “I asked him out for coffee on impulse, but I don’t know what I have to do next.”
“You don’t ‘have’ to do anything, you know. Nothing’s set in stone.” Yoongi takes a bite of a lamb skewer and chews for a bit before frowning at his dongsaeng. “Do you regret meeting him again?”
“I don’t know.” It’s so weird. His life has been hanging in this nice, comfortable equilibrium for the past year or so, and just a simple three-minute meeting with a single person has managed to upset it. “I thought I’d moved on? And I kind of have, I think, I like Sooyoung and lot and I’m okay with where I am, it’s just—seeing him, talking to him, it’s like I’m young and dumb and angry at the world all over again.”
“You’re still young and dumb,” Yoongi points out.
“That was unnecessary,” Jeongguk replies, and feels his mouth involuntarily transforming into a pout. “I don’t know if I’ve made a mistake, asking to meet again.”
“You never know unless you try.” Ever the optimist, this hyung. “And regardless of whether you want to face it or not, Tae is still a part of your family, and he’s also your friend, whether it’s now or in the past or whenever. You can’t keep running from that.”
And Yoongi’s right, as he often is. Sometimes it feels like his hyung is much wiser beyond his twenty-nine years.
“I’m sorry, I asked to meet you and I’ve made this all about me,” Jeongguk apologises, even though he knows Yoongi has the largest soft spot for him and will deny the statement to the ends of the earth and back. Yoongi opens his mouth as if to say something, but Jeongguk continues, “How’s the company? How are your children?”
“Stop calling them my children, I feel old enough already,” Yoongi scolds. “They’re doing good. We brought in a new boy from Australia; he’s danced before and he has a good voice, but he can still barely speak Korean at all. Namjoon’s the only one he’s spoken more than two sentences to.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen, sixteen. I feel bad, sometimes,” Yoongi admits, “taking them away from their schooling days. But they’re earnest and willing to work hard, so we’ll do our best to give them a chance to grow and learn.”
Seeing his hyung like that is remarkable. It’s a wonder what five years can do to a person, Yoongi having grown from wearing a stoic poker face all the time, to someone whose face softens when he talks about his poodle or the young musicians he’s taken under his wing. For most, the years harden and jade you into a cynic; for Yoongi, the years have been kind, as if the hardships have soothed him.
“Maybe I should come by and visit one day,” Jeongguk ponders out loud. “I haven’t even been to the studio since you guys renovated it.”
“You should,” Yoongi agrees. “Maybe you can join Hoseok and help them with dance training for a bit.”
This is nice, Jeongguk thinks. It’s been so long since he sat down with Yoongi properly and talked, without the guise of someone’s birthday party or the cover of alcohol.
“Don’t try to change the topic, though,” Yoongi points out. Then a sigh, “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
“Well, I hoped,” Jeongguk shrugs sheepishly.
“I know you better than you know yourself at this point.” Unfortunately, Yoongi is correct, yet again. “And I know you will be in a better place once you actually sort things out with Taehyung.”
“The first time we met, it was summer too, right?” Taehyung’s laugh is tight, like the sound had to be wrenched out of his throat.
“Yeah,” Jeongguk replies automatically.
Seeing Taehyung after so long—his hair now a dusky shade of brown, sitting opposite him in the coffee shop down the road and sunlight hitting his eyes so that he has to squint just a little bit, like nothing is wrong, nothing at all—is strange. It has been five years without Taehyung in his life, at least physically, and it’s not like in those novels where Jeongguk’s knees give way when Taehyung smiles, or his heart skips a beat, but—
—but it’s different, in ways both good and bad, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. Jeongguk knows he looks different, and so does Taehyung. Five years and a yellow brick path into adulthood will do that to people.
“I don’t think I ever got to apologise,” Taehyung says softly. He resolutely stares at the cinnamon roll on his plate. “For last time.”
“It’s okay.” Even though Jeongguk doesn’t really know himself. “Yoongi-hyung told me you travelled a lot?”
“I tried to work for a bit, but being an accountant just isn’t for me, I guess,” Taehyung chuckles. He sits back, forearms now relaxed. “Travelled around for a bit after that before I started working at Big Hit.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Everywhere? Or wherever I felt like going, at the time.” His eyes stray to somewhere far away, and the hint of a smile pulls at his mouth. Jeongguk wishes he knew what it is like to wander. “Did you know there are so many people just travelling without a plan? I met so many, but no one else from Korea.”
This is when it hits him, that Taehyung has spent half a decade without him, and he, half a decade without Taehyung. Five years of silence and not knowing what was going on; for all he did know, from this one conversation, Taehyung could be a completely different person. From the way his tongue curls around tales of his travels with wistful wanderlust, romanticism anchoring him to some place and time that is no longer here—the feeling of wanting to know that Taehyung, the one traversing from Myanmar to Iran to Slovakia, hits Jeongguk sudden and fast.
Taehyung is a wealth of stories. Jeongguk asks him about Japan, the first place Taehyung had left for, and immediately his eyes brighten up and he looks like a little child all over again, speaking so fast, hands moving so fast. He smiles as he talks about the people in Myanmar, and the kindness with which they treated a clueless foreigner with broken English.
“I did a trek for three days and two nights,” Taehyung tells. “My guide was lovely, she wore this giant hat the whole time and would run up the hilly paths and try to get us to reach the top before the sun set.”
He talks about Angkor Wat and the throngs of tourists, about getting ripped off when he tried to hail a tuk-tuk to the airport. He talks about being offered ecstasy in one of the clubs on Pub Street in Siem Reap and sneaking out to take a smoke instead, because he recognised none of the songs they were playing. He talks about the Kiwi Tour in New Zealand and how he met friend after friend without knowing their names, and only where they came from.
Taehyung is glowing, a light fade of happiness surrounding him as he speaks, but Jeongguk swears he shines when he talks about the people he’s met. The eighteen-year old German girl fresh out of high school with dreams of becoming a lawyer. The two Korean boys who had just finished their military service and were trekking through Thailand before having to return to the ruthless education system. The sixty-year old Japanese man who took a trip to a different country every year, but always came back to China every other year. The Italian woman who worked at the reception of one of his hostels, and regaled him with stories of how she had quit her job and trekked the entire Silk Road, alone.
Jeongguk was right. Taehyung really has changed. There are remnants of the old Taehyung, in the way he tries to pull his expressions taut, the way he moves his hands so fast and his eyes grow wide. But the sheer happiness with which this new Taehyung reminisces his past years makes Jeongguk wish he had been there too.
“I love travelling, and meeting new people, but it wasn’t like I could do it for a living.” Taehyung sips at his drink: a matcha soy latte, he had explained earlier, because he had met a vegan girl and fell in love with soy milk, even if he loved his meat too much. “Money was running out, and I had to stop eventually. So here I am, working for Big Hit.”
Jeongguk doesn’t know what to say. Even as a floater, a drifter, Taehyung sounds like he has everything together. He knows who he is and what he wants, and Jeongguk hates that he is envious.
“My life isn’t anywhere near as exciting,” Jeongguk starts. “I realised I didn’t like working in the industry that much, so I’m working on a PhD now, and hopefully I can go into research next time.”
It’s strange, that it is so easy to talk with Taehyung, even after everything. That one year had felt like a dream at times and a nightmare at others; it still feels the same. The memory of it isn’t as clear as day, there are moments that he finds impossible to picture, but he remembers how it had felt as if the stutter of his heart and the tightening of his throat were carved into his bones. He wonders, how is it that they can talk like this now, like that year had barely happened, a series of blurry, washed-out days and nights.
“You’re lucky,” Taehyung says, like he truly believes it. “You’ve always known what you wanted and gone after it.”
“I’m not so sure you’re right,” Jeongguk replies, and he’s about to continue, when his phone beeps and the screen lights up with a new text message. It’s Sooyoung. “Sorry, I need to reply this.”
“Go ahead.”
Jeongguk scans the text, and lets out a soft “Oh, shit” when he realises he has all but forgotten about his dinner date with Sooyoung. He glances at the time; it’s already half past six, and they were supposed to meet at Nakhon Kitchen in fifteen minutes, and he’s a good half hour bus ride away from the place.
“Is everything okay?”
“I forgot I had dinner plans, and I’m going to be late.’ Jeongguk sighs. “We can catch up more another time.”
“Yeah, of course,” Taehyung nods, although the glimmer in his eyes seems to have flickered out. “Maybe when we both go back for dinner.” He says this with a small voice, like he barely dares to let the words out. “I think they’d like it.”
Jeongguk stumbles as he’s getting up from the booth. Breath caught in throat, foot caught in mouth. “Y-yes, sure. That sounds good.”
“Actually,” Taehyung starts, voice back to normal, and this is how Jeongguk knows the topic is going to change, “do you want a ride? I got my license before I started travelling.”
Beggars can’t be choosers, so Jeongguk agrees. But when they head outside and Taehyung presents his baby, aptly named Hot Star, his jaw drops open.
“A motorbike?” Jeongguk feels like fainting. “Since when do you know how to ride a motorbike?”
“Since I realised I can’t rely on public transport and taxis the whole time.” Taehyung fishes out two helmets and hands one to Jeongguk. There is a caricature of Donald Trump on the back, and it stares at Jeongguk as if daring him to put it on. “Did you know that they announce closures for the subway in London in advance, because the workers want to protest? And that the tunnels in Singapore have gotten flooded?” He shakes his head. “It’s a mad world out there.”
Taehyung hops on and pats the backseat. Gingerly, carefully, Jeongguk straddles and feels like his chest is about to burst. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
“You can just grab the sides of the seat,” Taehyung explains, like he’s read Jeongguk’s mind. “I won’t go too fast, and this area isn’t so crowded.”
The ride is crazy. Even with the helmet on, the wind in his face is a strong chill that cuts into his cheeks, and he squints throughout the entire ride because he can barely keep his eyes open without tearing up. Taehyung drives like a madman; his ‘not very fast’ is clearly relative, because he weaves through Seoul traffic like navigating a video game, and when Jeongguk yells at him to slow down, he simply laughs out loud, baritone laughter carried away with the wind. The whole time, Jeongguk’s fingers dig into the side of the seat—for a moment or two, he thinks about holding onto Taehyung’s shoulders, maybe even his waist, but figures that he is already about to get one heart attack from the ride, he doesn’t need another one—and when they finally arrive, there are angry red imprints in his palms from where he had clutched the leather so hard.
“Wasn’t that fun?” Taehyung laughs, the sound like thick honey.
“That was fucking terrifying,” Jeongguk corrects, taking the helmet off. He runs a hand through his hair, and is glad to note that no, he does not have helmet hair, thank god. “Thanks for the ride, though. Even if I felt like I was about to die the entire time.”
“Hey, I got you here in ten minutes,” Taehyung protests. He leans against the side of Hot Star, his own helmet in hand, brown hair rustling in the wind, long body stretched out, the very picture of someone who belongs on a magazine cover instead of behind the counter of a small company. “So, who are you having dinner with?”
Jeongguk had expected this topic to come up, but he didn’t quite expect it so soon, and it feels like his heart is caught in his throat, his jaw is locked—
“That’d be me,” someone says, a bright, lilting sound. “Nice to meet you, I’m Sooyoung.”
Sooyoung appears at Jeongguk’s side, and reaches a hand out to Taehyung.
“This is Taehyung, my—my stepbrother,” Jeongguk fumbles, and he prays no one noticed. “And Tae, this is Sooyoung,” oh, fuck, he doesn’t know how to do this, “my girlfriend.”
For an indecipherable moment, no one speaks. It must have only been milliseconds, but it felt like forever, three bodies frozen in the moment and something heavy hanging in the air. Then it is over, and Taehyung is grinning at her, that full rectangular smile that makes his large eyes narrow into slits and his face ten years younger.
“Hi Sooyoung,” Taehyung greets. “Don’t let him fool you, he calls me ‘Tae’, but I’m two years older.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Sooyoung’s eyes twinkle, and suddenly Jeongguk is struck by how similar they look. “Oppa is never one for honorifics, and I always tell him he’s going to get into trouble one day.”
Taehyung hums. “Sorry to have kept him back. I’d been travelling for a while and we happened to meet.”
“No worries.” She steps back and stands closer to Jeongguk, who has gone as stiff as a rod. “I guess I will be seeing you around more often, then.”
“I guess so too.”
With a final wave, Taehyung speeds off on Hot Star, and it is then that Jeongguk realises he really had been going slower for his sake, what the fuck, he’s going to break his legs at this rate.
And when the shock of the moment dissipated, it finally dawns on him how surreal that whole moment, as short as it had been, really was. His current partner talking to his ex-something, were they ever really partners, or boyfriends, he doesn’t even know, not even now. That they had shook hands, hands that have both been on Jeongguk before, tracing the same ribs and curves of muscle. That they had talked in a perfectly cordial manner, with mouths that had both fused with Jeongguk’s at some point or another.
“Hey, oppa, are you alright?” Sooyoung nudges him. If they were in private, she would probably curl into his side, but one of the things he is glad for is that Sooyoung, like him, shies away from public affection. Words and small touches are enough. “Is it that scary for me to meet your family?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Jeongguk assures, “just a bit winded from the ride.”
“Didn’t peg you for a coward,” she jokes, and he playfully bares his teeth in response. “Didn’t I tell you I have a bike licence as well?”
You learn new things every day, Jeongguk figures. And for the rest of the evening, Sooyoung is lovely and the food is lovely, and if it is Taehyung’s smile and the excitement with which he talked that stay in the back of Jeongguk’s mind the whole time—well, there’s not much he can do about it, except deal with it as it comes.