Chapter Text
Seokjin glances nervously at Jungkook as the van pulls up at the studio. The kid is sitting in front of him, looking out the window with music blasting from his earphones--Seokjin can hear it from where he’s sitting. He glances at his phone; the clock app reads 08:05 AM. The backs of his eyes hurt from the lack of sleep. He’d spent the night before going over everything they needed; he’d gone a little bit overboard this time but he knew--knows--it’ll be worth it to make tonight special. It always is. Nevertheless, his palms are sweating and he goes through the mental checklist again: flowers, candles and matches, cake, blindfold, venue--Hoseok, Namjoon, Jimin, Yoongi, Taehyung. He shakes his head. Maybe he shouldn’t have left Namjoon with the flammable objects.
“My god. Relax. I can hear you fussing from all the way in my head.” Beside him, Yoongi leans back against the seat, crosses his arms over his chest.
Seokjin slaps Yoongi’s knee. “Shut up, I’m already scared he knows something’s up.”
Yoongi shakes his head, the hint of a smile playing on his lips. He crosses his arms tighter, uses his left hand (the one tucked under his elbow) to lift the hem of Seokjin’s shirt, tracing the soft flesh there with his nail.
“You’re like this every time.”
Seokjin feels himself tense, something coiling in his stomach as he remembers Yoongi’s fingers from the night before at their own dress rehearsal, so to speak: how he’d felt the whine in the back of his throat as Yoongi’s hands traversed the expanse of his chest, searching, taking their time before travelling lower, resting on the hollow of his hip before--Seokjin doesn’t say anything, looks out the window.
Yoongi’s face is stoic as he leans against Seokjin, but he can hear the smile in Yoongi’s tone when he says in a voice so low it’s barely audible, “It will be fine. I know we’re all a little weird but we’re not idiots.”
Practice is almost unbearable. Taehyung sits on the floor with his legs crossed, repeating the verses of Cypher 3 over and over again without memorizing any of it. In the mirror, he watches Jungkook and Jimin practicing the coming of age dance number, faces serious, hips moving out and under like dawn in a fancy timelapse sequence he’d seen online--Taehyung can’t look away. Today, Jungkook is wearing a white polo shirt so sheer Taehyung finds himself wondering why he’d even bothered to put it on. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror: hair tousled, mouth ajar. He berates himself: he thinks he looks like shit today. He should’ve gotten more sleep but yesterday’s private practice hadn’t gone so well either. His kisses were sloppy, his technique not (in his opinion) what it could be--they’d all agreed on slow and sensual, instead he’d let his nerves get the better of him, had made a mess on Jimin’s pajamas.
“It’s okay,” Jimin had told him earlier that morning as they got ready, hugging him from behind and resting his cheek against Taehyung’s back. “You were great. You’ll do fine.”
Now he looks at Hoseok, singing with Yoongi, their voices mingling to make a sound Taehyung has never heard before in his life but which calls to mind that time Namjoon had dropped all the cutlery down the stairs. (God knew what he was doing with them upstairs in the first place.) He wishes he could be more like Hoseok sometimes: so sure of himself, always knowing what's next.
He wonders if Jungkook is nervous, makes a mental note to ask him about it after. He will probably forget although he still remembers his own coming of age barely two years past--how he’d felt so safe, so warm, as the silk blindfolds came off and Jimin had stood before him, smile bright in the candlelit room. There’d been many kisses since then but Taehyung would never forget that first one, the way Jimin had tipped his chin upward, had whispered Happy Birthday, thank you for giving us more than you’ve got, TaeTae, before pressing his lips against Taehyung’s softly. I’ll call the others, he’d said, warm hand squeezing Taehyung’s shoulder.
Now it’s his turn to deliver the message, to introduce, to console, to kiss--he takes a deep breath. He doesn’t feel ready. Jungkook has always made him nervous: his quiet confidence, the way he adapted so quickly to challenges, always stood so unafraid, was always a hundred percent himself. He wants tonight’s kiss to leave him breathless, keep him warm, give him sunlight to carry into days when there is nothing else to light the way: just as Jimin had done for him, as everyone else has done for one another.
The music stops. Jungkook and Jimin are breathless, plop on the floor next to him. Jungkook leans against him.
“Are you okay, hyung?”
Taehyung nods, his throat suddenly dry as bone.
“Not like that.” Hoseok raises a hand before snapping his arm back, demonstrating the dance move again.
Seokjin tries to follow suit, throws his hands up in exasperation.
He catches Hoseok’s eye in the mirror. “And it’s ‘not like that hyung’ to you, by the way.”
Hoseok laughs. Seokjin smiles in spite of himself.
“Am I hopeless?”
Hoseok grins. “Not as long as I’m here.”
Seokjin rolls his eyes. They sit on the floor, backs against the wall. “I think the kid knows.”
Hoseok shrugs. “I’m sure he knows.”
Seokjin looks at him, raises an eyebrow. “You told him?”
Hoseok frowns. “No. But he’s smart. He’ll figure it out. I figured it out.”
Seokjin throws him a sidelong glance. “You never told me that.”
Hoseok waves a hand dismissively. “I used to listen in with a glass pressed to the wall when you and Yoongi-hyung did it.”
Seokjin swats at his arm. “Pervert.”
Hoseok smirks. “Are we really going there?”
Hoseok watches Seokjin blush like a cigarette starting brush fire on a windy night: barely and then all the way up to his ears. He’s excited for tonight. Hoseok had been the first, technically--the happy accident, the timid knock, Yoongi’s face still flushed as he opened the hotel door slowly, Seokjin standing breathless behind him. All the clothes scattered on the floor like confetti on the hot, empty stage after a show. He remembers his heart beating so hard he could feel it in his fingers, remembers the fear of rejection pulsing against his tender bones: he’d never felt so fragile, in so much danger of breaking. It was his birthday and he only really wanted one thing--well, two. He remembers Yoongi’s hesitation, hand on the doorknob, hovering before reaching for Hoseok’s wrist, pulling him down the rabbit hole with a kiss that tasted like whisky and sugar, flowers blooming in the pit of his stomach as their tongues licked, tasted, searched. He remembers the door clicking shut, can still conjure the feel of Seokjin’s arms encircling him from behind and slipping under his shirt, beneath the waistband of his jogging pants. He remembers the breath on his neck, the lilt of his voice as it rose like a daffodil to the sun.
“Did you remember to get the roses?” Seokjin asks suddenly.
Hoseok rolls his eyes. “Red and white, already scattered all over the bed, the tub, the goddamn floor. Who do you think I am? Namjoon?”
Namjoon is relaxed today, a hundred percent focused on learning the dance that Jimin is trying to teach him for their big BTS Day celebration--well, sort of. His t-shirt is soaked and he’s been struggling with the choreography for days but for once, he is at ease about everything else, is excited, even. Seokjin had told him he was in charge of the scented candles over a month ago and boy, had he taken charge of candles. He catches his reflection in the mirror; he looks silly but he absolutely nailed buying the candles.
If there’s one thing he knows about Jungkook it’s that the boy is sensitive about smell and so he knew from the get-go that the run-of-the-mill scented candles (the local department store’s warm vanilla) they’d used over the years just wouldn’t do. Before they’d separated rooms, Namjoon had never really appreciated just how good-smelling Jungkook kept his beddings, his clothes, himself: he smelled clean, like sunshine filtering into their room on an otherwise pallid winter morning. He’d missed it and so Namjoon had placed an order for the one scent that he’d found reminded him of that mildly torturous time when he and Jungkook had been roommates: Jo Malone’s Wood Sage & Sea Salt. The package had arrived that morning and everything was perfect.
He’d rushed the box up to his room--more careful than usual to ensure that he didn’t drop anything--and opened the beautiful white box with the black silk ribbon to find everything in its beautiful, silver-and-glass packaging. It was perfect.
“Hyung?”
Jimin claps him on the shoulder, calling his attention before demonstrating the next step in the sequence.
“Oh yeah, sorry.”
Namjoon tries his best to copy what Jimin is doing. And step. And-five-and-six, seven-eight. In the mirror, he sees Hoseok and Seokjin sitting huddled together toward the far corner of the room. If there is one thing that he feels uneasy about it’s giving Seokjin the receipts for the purchase. He hadn’t just gotten candles--he’d also gotten the linen spray and the aromatic oils and had gone thrice over the limit that Seokjin had given him.
He remembers when it had been his turn: the trouble that they’d all gone through to buy plush pajamas, to safety proof the entire room, the toys--how Hoseok had pushed him onto the bed but made sure that his hand made it to Namjoon’s nape before they hit the mattress, how Yoongi and Seokjin had been so careful, so tender. How they had guided him and then eventually let him take control, let him direct them. Every time since, he’s promised that he would take whatever chance he could to make it more special than it already was, is. His gaze lands on Jungkook, standing in the middle of the room, wiping sweat off of his face and neck, rendering his already-sheer polo even sheerer. Namjoon licks his lips, tries to remember what he is supposed to be doing with his body.
He realizes Jimin is staring at him. “Hyung. Focus, please. We can think about that later.”
Namjoon catches the grin on Jimin’s face before it disappears and he gets in position for the first dance step. Was he that obvious?