Archive of Our Own ^beta

Seokjin wakes up feeling funny. Gummy eyes and a swirling in his stomach.

It’s not a big deal because Seokjin’s learn to ignore his funny feelings; they’ve never amounted to anything and he’s long stopped hoping for them to.

His head hurts. This is not in and of itself an unheard-of occurrence, though he hasn’t had a migraine since he was seven and realized he needed glasses. The pain flashes hot in his temples one minute and in the next migrates to the base of his skull, as if it can’t decide where it can inflict the most damage. This isn’t the strange part, though — it’s the accompanying heat in his belly that is weird.

Maybe, Seokjin thinks idly, blinking up at his ceiling. I just need to get laid. He contemplates jerking off quickly before going to work but decides against it; his headache is distracting and Seokjin takes the act of self-pleasure very seriously. So he gives himself two more minutes to lie in bed mindlessly before he gets up, dresses himself, and heads out to open the shop. 

It’s when he’s opening the doors to Kim’s Knowledge Emporium when it hits him: a wave of pure adrenaline, so strong that he fumbles the locks and groans out loud.

“What the fuck,” he mutters to himself, sagging against the doorframe. The noise he made was indecent at best; he’s lucky it’s still early and there’s no one around to publicly shame him more than he already has himself. He closes his eyes and sees, instead of black, starbursts of color: dark carmine, inky blue velvet, a flash of gold. He shakes his head to clear it.

Stumbling inside, Seokjin drops down behind his desk and puts his head between his knees. He has his first appointment of the day in about an hour, so at least there’s still time for him to fix whatever the fuck is going on. There’s a sharp and insistent pressure building behind his eyes, like someone’s taken a very pointy needle and is slowly inserting it directly into his brain, but at the same time he feels hot all over, pants uncomfortably tight, and Seokjin wonders if he’s about to die.

Maybe it’s Yoongi’s concoction from last night. Fucking witches. His best friend promised it had already been safety-tested, that all the ominously violet brew would do was give them a good buzz for the night. Maybe it worked differently for those without powers. Maybe Seokjin’s experiencing a late-onset allergic reaction and he’s about to become one of those unfortunates found dead with a blood-clot in his brain and an embarrassing, biologically-induced hard-on.

No. Seokjin refuses to even entertain the possibility. What would people think? That was no way for the oldest son of Korea’s most prestigious magical bloodline to go. He’d rather commit seppuku first. But he’s getting carried away – that happens often, Seokjin chasing a stray thought past its natural endpoint until his scenario inevitably leads to the hypothetical end of the world or his own demise. It’s morbid, sure, but it sort of makes a twisted, ironic sense when you consider who his family is, and how he doesn’t fit in in the only way that matters. 

Let’s start from the beginning. When Seokjin turned one, his parents, as was the custom, included the doljabi ceremony in the proceedings. Whatever the child picked was supposed to tell their fortune: for example, choosing calligraphy brushes meant a smart child destined for academic success, while picking money meant prosperity and wealth. It was a fun tradition that reassured parents and provided fodder for what would otherwise be banal familial small-talk.

Seokjin’s family, however, was slightly different, in that they could all see the future.

It manifested differently in different family members. The ability wasn’t all-powerful, of course. There were things that were more easily seen, and things that virtually always remained unknowable. Seokjin’s sister, for example, was particularly attuned to anything related to computers – she worked for Naver in their predictive algorithms and big data team, plugged into their systems and accessing with a brush of her fingers the full potentiality of the internet. Seokjin’s mother was an important political strategist and diplomat whose official role was shrouded in secrecy; her affinity was with people, their molecular instincts and the patterns that their brain chemistry formed. His father was a farmer. Well, not exactly — he’d started out as one, cultivating his own land before he realized he was producing three times as much output as his neighbors, and started his own agricultural consultancy. He could stick his hand in soil and tell you what your next harvest would yield.

So, when Seokjin had his doljabi, they had placed him in his mother’s arms with the items arrayed before them; she had closed her eyes and held him close and seen his fate.

He’d squirmed, uncomfortable and not wanting to stay still.

Then his mother jerked, once, and when she opened her eyes, there were tears in them.

“Oh, baby,” she said softly, one hand coming up to cup his forehead and still his fidgeting. “I’m so sorry.”

She told her concerned family that all she’d seen was the normal blurriness of an undecided life. Nothing like the sharpness of everyone in their family. Seokjin had no powers; he was the first Kim in a long line of Kims to be blind to the future.

(What nobody knew, until much later, was that she’d lied. She hadn’t seen the kaleidoscopic possibilities of chance; she’d seen only pure whiteness.

A solid wall of nothingness.

And it terrified her. She’d never seen anything like this before.)

As she cuddled Seokjin to bed that night, she wondered what lay in store for her boy. He gurgled happily in her arms, like a normal baby. He had such beautiful eyes; Seokjin’s mother was sure that he’d grow up to be a handsome man one day, even though, of course, she hadn’t seen anything to prove it. Call it a mother’s instinct.

Because the Kim family’s powers were so specialized, Seokjin didn’t realize he was different until much later. Of course, he always knew he wasn’t a witch, like his best friend Yoongi, who had a special talent for alchemy; he also knew he wasn’t like some of his classmates who had horns and a keener sense of smell, or could breathe underwater and make small waves scud on the top of the neighborhood lake.

He never felt bad about it, because he figured everyone else in his family was the same as him, and that he’d be okay as long as they were together.

Then, when Seokjin was fourteen, his mother had saved his life.

He was preparing to leave for school when she’d suddenly gone rigid by the sink and then, as quickly as that had come on, snapped out of it and shouted for him to stay at home.

It was the first time Seokjin had heard his mother sound scared.

Later, the news reported on a traffic accident which had seen a lorry crash into a public bus, killing three people and injuring a lot more. The bus was the one that Seokjin took to school every day; Uncle Joong, who drove it and gave Seokjin a chocolate bar every morning, had broken his arm.

That was the day Seokjin learnt his family was special, too, in their own invisible way, and that he was the one who’d come out wrong.

Seokjin handles his first appointment of the day with as much aplomb as he can muster. Thankfully, it’s a repeat customer, a nervous lady by the name of Miss Park Yoona who comes in every month to ask for the same thing, so it shouldn’t be too hard to say something semi-intelligent and believable.

She sits down tentatively on the same armchair she’s sat in for the past year. Seokjin wonders if she thinks he’s running an extended prank and one day the chair will be swiped away from underneath her. He wonders about her how her anxiousness about the solidity of everyday furniture works with her seemingly iron-clad faith in ephemeral nature of fortune-telling.

He probably has too much free time.

“So, Yoona-ssi,” he says, folding his hands neatly in his lap. He’s put on his glasses (prescription-free, just useful for aesthetic reasons) and wiped the sweat off his brow, so hopefully he looks somewhat credible and not like how he is currently feeling, which is like he’s dying. “How can I help you today?”

He already knows, of course: Yoona wants a husband. A good man to come home to and shower her with love and grandkids. Or at least, that’s what she’s been telling him for the past six months.

It’s the same thing today, except this time she looks noticeably more on edge, like there’s something pressed up behind the purse of her lips that she’s trying not to let out.

Luckily Seokjin is very good at making people talk.

“You know, the parameters of my predictions are fixed by your desires,” he says. (He’s making this up as he goes along, but it sounds like a reasonable enough limitation.) “I wonder if there’s something else, if that’s why my gaze feels so clouded…”  

Yoona blushes faintly. She seems to be trying to summon up the courage to say something. “I’m sorry, Seokjin-ssi. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me,” she blurts out, soft and rapid like a stream of bubbles. “I do want a husband—or, you know, someone—”

Seokjin leans forward, places a hand reassuringly on the table, palm facing upward.

“Someone?” he nudges.

There’s a tremulous beat, then a hand snakes out and grips Seokjin’s own tightly. He tries not to wince. Yoona takes a deep breath and says, “I’ve been spending a lot of time with my best friend Mina.” She pauses meaningfully, averting Seokjin’s eyes. “My mother, she says—too much time. It’s not normal.”

Oh, Seokjin thinks. He understands now.

Something cleaves inside him, cutting through the ache in his bones and the fever blooming in his skull. This is important.

Carefully, he takes Yoona’s sweaty hand in both of his and tugs until she looks up at him, fearful. She’s looking at him like a supplicant, like he holds within him some form of a truth, indelible and solid, that she can carry back home as prayer. That’s a lie, of course, but Seokjin isn’t that cruel (or maybe he’s just cruel enough) to break the spell now.

“Yoona-ssi,” he says, quite seriously. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m saying this as a fortune teller, of course, but also as a person. If you open your heart to what—who—you really want, you will find happiness.” He pauses. “I promise.” 

She’s quiet for a long time, and Seokjin wonders if he’s pushed it too far, but then her grip tightens slightly and she straightens with a wobbly smile on her face. 

“Thank you,” she says. “I—I think I’m going to call Mina after this.” 

And of course Seokjin doesn’t know how that’s going to turn out, if Mina feels the same way Yoona does about her, or if they’ll work out in the end even if she does, but he does know one thing: that he’s going to do everything in his limited power to give Yoona the courage to try. 

So he pats her hand gently, and says, “That’s a good idea.” 

It’s four hours later, and Seokjin feels worse and, apparently, looks the same way he feels.

“You look like you’re about to keel over and die,” Yoongi points out from where he’s seated across from Seokjin at the communal table in the front of the shop. He’d come in a few minutes ago to hang out before his next class and had so far been tapping away quietly at his laptop until now. “Are you on drugs?”

“Thank you for finally noticing,” Seokjin says dryly, but it comes out as a weird grunt instead. He thinks he’s doing pretty well, all things considered. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees blurs of color, jewel-green and pearled white and gilded amber, and he wonders if the fact that his brain feels like it’s being boiled is fucking up his eyesight. “And no, I’m not on drugs. Unless it’s your horrible potion from yesterday that’s slowly killing me. In which case, thanks for murdering me.”

“Whatever this is, it’s not my fault,” Yoongi says, not sounding very confident. “If it was going to kill you, you would have died within, like, an hour of ingesting it. Probably.”

“That’s very reassuring,” Seokjin says. The sarcasm goes through Yoongi like smoke.

“Seriously, though, are you okay? Maybe you should call it a day.”

“Can’t,” Seokjin says through gritted teeth. He can feel sweat trickling down his neck, pooling disgustingly in the crooks of his body. The migraine is still there, of course, but in the past hour he’s also begun to sweat profusely. Lovely. “Have two more appointments today.”

“Your work ethic is admirable, but maybe consider how you wouldn’t want your clients to see you this way anyway.” Yoongi leans forward. “Your whole face is wet. ”

“I’m sorry I’m sweaty,” Seokjin snaps. He’s horny and angry and feeling very emotionally wobbly, and Yoongi’s bedside manner is definitely leaving something to be desired. “I’m sorry I can’t self-regulate my biology like your perfect boyfriend can—”

“Hey, don’t bring Namjoon into this,” Yoongi interjects mildly.

“Ugh!” Seokjin throws his hands up and instantly regrets when gravity pulls them back down and jerks at the hot, tender ball that is his head. He doesn’t know why he’s being so bratty about this. It’s just that everything Yoongi’s saying comes out sounding mean and twisted when Seokjin just wants someone to pat him on the head and feed him soup.

“Sorry,” Yoongi says, and that at least sounds sincere. “You really should go home, hyung. I can stay, let your clients know you’re ill.”

“No,” Seokjin insists. “I can’t just leave—”

That’s when it hits him.

Later, Yoongi will tell him that he’d just stopped talking mid sentence, eyes rolling back in his head as he jerked up straight and unseeing. It had been terrifying.

Now, all Seokjin knows is that he’s not seeing Yoongi or the schedule he’d been working on. In his mind’s eye whirls strange pulses of color that start to coalesce into something more solid: a vision.

Seokjin doesn’t have powers.

He’s known this his whole life.

And yet. He sees: whorls of warm honey solidifying into a pair of eyes, and then a face, strong features that offset elegant lines; a shock of black hair, curling long around the person’s neck; and, finally, a man — dressed in what looked like a black velvet robe, silver chains dangling from his ears, garnet and sapphire jewels flashing on his fingers.

For one uncanny moment that feels like it lasts an eternity, Seokjin swears this man in his vision makes eye contact with him. (Impossible, because visions don’t exist in any real sense in this world; everyone knows they’re just synapses firing in your brain randomly. Also, Seokjin reminds himself, he doesn’t have powers. Any visions he has are a figment of his own overworked imagination.) But it’s not just what he’s seeing, what but he’s feeling, too — a terrible sense of dread, dark and creeping, encroaching on a brilliant ball of happiness; shards of sharp pleasure, the sullen grayness of grief. The man’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, takes a step forward, hand reaching out—

Seokjin jolts back to reality when Yoongi hits him across the face.

“Fuck!” he spits out.

"Hyung,” Yoongi says. “Are you okay?”

“Why did you do that? Ow.”

“You were flopping around like an electrocuted fish,” Yoongi says. “What was I supposed to do, just—”

“You should have let me die,” Seokjin moans dramatically, throwing one hand over his eyes. The pain in the back of his head has taken over his entire face now, until even his nose feels like it’s throbbing. 

“Don’t be stupid—”

“I’m stupid? You’re the one who—”

The door opens with a bang and a rush of wind.

Seokjin looks up, irritated and ready to shoo the unlucky walk-in away.

The man from his vision walks in.

Seokjin blinks.

“Finally,” the man says, as he lays eyes on Seokjin. His voice is disconcertingly deep, like the undertow of an ocean wave. He strides over to where Seokjin’s slumped in his chair and leans over the table, depositing a plastic bag on it and completely ignoring Yoongi. “I’ve been waiting forever for you to call.”

And then he sinks his hands into Seokjin’s hair and kisses him on the lips.

“What the fuck,” Yoongi says in the background.

Seokjin doesn’t hear that because the moment the stranger made contact, what feels like a tectonic plate break jolts through his entire body. He can feel the heat of the man’s mouth against his own, the warmth of his palms pressed against his scalp. He can’t feel the pain in his head anymore. He can’t feel it because there is none.

When the man pulls away, hands still on Seokjin’s face, it’s all he can do to stare, flummoxed, into his eyes.

Two seconds later, he regains hold of his sanity and slaps the stranger across the face.

“How dare you,” Seokjin says in his most imperious voice, standing up and shoving away from the table. The strange man — his assailant — is bent over and cradling his face, mouth downturned into a pout. He looks—amused.

“Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?” Seokjin demands.

“My name is Taehyung,” the man says, rubbing at his reddened cheek. When he straightens up, he’s almost as tall as Seokjin, which is deeply annoying. “What kind of welcome was that, hyung?”

“Who are you calling hyung?” Seokjin splutters. “I have no idea who you are!”

The man — Taehyung — winces. “You said this would happen.”

“I said?” Seokjin bugs his eyes out. “When did I say that?”

“This is going to be so annoying to explain,” Taehyung whines, flopping down into the chair opposite Seokjin. “You told me this when you were thirty-six, so I think that translates to, hmm, ten years from now?”

When Seokjin just gapes at him, Taehyung reaches over the unwraps the plastic bag he’d brought with him. In it is a container of soup. 

“Do you want some? It’s samgyetang, your favorite, right?” 

Taehyung’s ridiculous pronouncement and his refusal to leave is what forces Seokjin to close the shop early for the day and reschedule his appointments. That, and he really wanted to slurp up the samgyetang in peace; it is his favorite. 

Meanwhile, the strange boy is insistent and pouty and manages to charm Yoongi within five minutes of meeting him. Seokjin is frankly offended. 

As Taehyung happily answers Yoongi’s questions about the future (“So does Korea ever win the World Cup?” “I can’t spoil you, Yoongi-ssi!”), legs dangling long from where he’s perched on the table, Seokjin studies him from where he’s (sort of) (okay, definitely) hiding behind a potted plant pretending to water it. 

Taehyung looks out of place (and time, he supposes). It’s not just the ornate accessories and the impossibly handsome face; it’s like his very presence has disturbed the ether in which they live, causing outward ripples to tremble through spacetime and raising goosebumps on Seokjin’s skin. He looks like he belongs in a futurist baroque oil-and-silk painting: impossibly bright and keen. Yoongi doesn’t seem to feel the same odd dissonance — he’s chuckling, eyes going squinty with amusement, whereas Seokjin can’t even focus on Taehyung for too long before a pins-and-needles buzz starts up under his skin.

He’s like one of those lenticular cards — an optical illusion. Hyperreal and unreal at the same time.

Seokjin licks his lips. The kiss had definitely felt real. 

Ugh, god, he thinks immediately. Stop narrating your life like you’re a SBS drama heroine. 

Of course, Taehyung chooses that moment to look up. He sees Seokjin staring, and breaks into a smile. “Come over here!” He waves. 

Seokjin reluctantly moves over, clutching the spray bottle of water in his hand like a weapon. 

“Your soup’s getting cold,” Taehyung says earnestly, gesturing at the plastic container that does, much to Seokjin’s frustration, smell very good. 

“Is this meant to be a bribe?” He narrows his eyes at Taehyung, who’s watching him closely. He looks like a baby owl. “Just because I desperately want this doesn’t mean I trust you!” 

“Ah, hyung,” Taehyung chuckles. “If I wanted to bribe you, I can do better than chicken soup.” And then he has the audacity to wink.

“Seokjin-ssi,” Seokjin corrects. The soup beckons; it really is very good. He pointedly ignores the way Taehyung’s eyes crinkle up with amusement as he watches Seokjin work his way through the entire container. It’s disconcerting, being the focus of his attention. 

“Feel better?” Taehyung asks when Seokjin finishes. 

Seokjin clears his throat. No need to be needlessly rude. “Yes,” he says. “Thank you. How did you know I was...ill?” Do not blush, he tells himself furiously, remembering the intensity of relief that Taehyung’s touch had wrought. (Alas; he can feel his ears getting hot anyway.) 

Taehyung shrugs. “Just a feeling. I know you well.” 

“Well. No, you don’t.”

“I kind of do, actually.” 

Seokjin turns to Yoongi, exasperated. “So you believe that he’s really from the future?” 

“Not the future,” Taehyung interjects. “An alternate space-time.”

“That literally sounds like the same thing.”

“It’s hard to explain but the essential thing to understand is that for people who exist only in one space-time, all this other stuff doesn’t matter, because your experience is just that: yours. But in reality, every decision you are confronted with spawns a new branch of space-time where you do X instead of Y. I could draw a decision tree for you but it would literally take forever and also spawn its own dimensions depending on where I choose to do it, what color marker I choose to use...you get the idea. For people like me, who can jump in and out of these dimensions, it’s really not that different, it just gets tricky sometimes to find our way back to the space-times we came from. I get lost all the time,” Taehyung finishes with a chuckle. Seokjin and Yoongi blink at him, trying to absorb everything he’d just said. 

“To answer your question, hyung,” Yoongi says slowly. “Yes?” 

At Seokjin’s look of incredulity, he adds, “How is it any different from what your family can do, or what Hobi does? It’s all time-space warping hand-wavey stuff. Anyway, he sounds like he knows what’s talking about.” 

“I do,” Taehyung pipes up. Seokjin ignores him. 

“The difference is that even when Hobi is teleporting, he’s moving on our planet, in our reality! What this kid is saying is—physically, as in, in the context of physics as we understand it, impossible.” 

“Hey, I’m not a kid,” Taehyung objects, this time forcefully enough that Seokjin turns to look him up and down. 

“You look like a tween,” Seokjin scoffs. 

Taehyung widens his eyes in exaggerated horror. “And you still kissed me back?”

“I did not kiss you back! You were the one who—who violated me!” Seokjin cannot believe this. He does not need to be reminded of the kiss; his lips are still tingling from it. His authority is being undermined with every passing second —in his safe space! — and Yoongi is just cackling like a gremlin to himself instead of providing moral support. 

At that, Taehyung manages to look slightly abashed. He rubs the back of his head, fluffing up his hair in a way that should make him look disheveled, which it does, but also rakishly handsome, which—is a dangerous line of thought to be pursuing. 

“Sorry,” Taehyung says, peeking up at Seokjin from beneath his lashes, looking like a kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, only his hand is his tongue and the cookie jar is Seokjin’s—

Seokjin is honestly about to excuse himself to splash some water on his face when what Taehyung says next gives him pause. 

“Old habits die hard,” he says, looking a little embarrassed. “And, ha, it’s been a while.” 

“Since what?” Seokjin asks. 

Taehyung stills. Blinks. The shape of his mouth turns sad. “Since I last saw you.” 

“You met me today!” 

“You met me today,” Taehyung corrects, his emphasis deliberate. 

Oh. 

Oh.

So apparently, hypothetically, if this isn’t some twisted long con, in an alternate timeline/the future/another dimension/whatever they’re calling this hypothetical swathe of space-time, he and Taehyung are on kissing terms. Well. Not him, but another version of him, which he still thinks is impossible, but someone clearly has been kissing Taehyung and it certainly isn’t this living and breathing Seokjin. He does not know what he’s feeling right now, whether it’s sympathy or intense awkwardness or something quite different. 

“Am I the only one who’s concerned that Taehyung looks just shy of twenty-five but he’s been going around kissing a thirty-six-year-old Seokjin?” Yoongi pipes up from where he’s been watching this whole time. 

Seokjin pauses. “Actually, that is slightly alarming…” 

“Oh, I’m like forty, give or take a decade,” Taehyung says.

“Excuse me?” Seokjin says. This is way too much information and math has never been Seokjin’s strong suit. 

Taehyung turns around on the table so that his legs are dangling dangerously close to Seokjin’s crotch. He does not seem to notice. It’s really been a trying day for Seokjin, oscillating between horny and in pain and gobsmacked and now, apparently, right back to horny again. Valiantly, he crosses one leg over the other. 

“I’m not really sure how it works, either,” Taehyung says. “But time works differently for us — space-jumpers, time-travelers, whatever you want to call it. I’m pretty sure I was born forty years ago, but my definition of years is pretty loose. And our bodies seem to take longer to catch up.” He pokes at his own thigh experimentally. “Must be all the interstellar damage we absorb, traveling through wormholes and such.” 

“What?” Seokjin glances worriedly at Taehyung’s thigh. It looks very substantial. 

“Just joking, hyung,” Taehyung says gently, and gives a crooked grin when Seokjin looks up to glare at him for taking liberties. 

“Hey, maybe Seokjin should be calling you hyung instead.” Yoongi, apparently, is just full of stellar contributions today. He does, as Seokjin predicted, look mighty pleased with himself, only waggling his eyebrows when Seokjin bugs his eyes out at him. “Seokjin-ah, show some respect to your elders—” 

Seokjin throws a spoon at him. 

“That’s okay,” Taehyung says after he’s stopped laughing at Yoongi’s look of affront. “Jin-hyung will always be Jin-hyung, no matter where I am.” 

“Ugh, gross,” Seokjin says, because he doesn’t want to say what he’s actually thinking, and immediately regrets it when a tiny hurt flashes across Taehyung’s face. 

“I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s fine,” Taehyung says, leaning forward to rest his elbow on his knee and his chin on his elbow. He’s very close to Seokjin now, who feels like he’s being scrutinized, measured up in comparison to the other, probably superior version of himself. “I just forgot how bad at expressing your emotions you used to be. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss it, but it’s kind of cute to see you try to hide how you’re really feeling.” 

Seokjin can’t help it this time. His whole face is on fire. He feels too seen and would very much like to revert back to being unseen, please. For someone who lies for a living, he’s suddenly very bad at it. 

“Why are you here, then,” he says, a little too sharply.

“The million dollar question,” Yoongi says. 

Taehyung sighs and flops down into the chair next to Seokjin so that all three of them are facing each other at the table. 

“So glad you asked,” he says. Seokjin and Yoongi wait.

“I’m here,” he says, and pauses for effect, “to help you save the world.” 

Silence. 

“Right, please tell me the truth: are you from some kind of prank show? Like from YouTube?” Seokjin finally demands. “Is this a TikTok?” 

“I don’t know what a TikTok is.” 

“So it’s YouTube?”

“No!” 

“Then what is it, then? Because you can’t possibly be serious—” 

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life!” Taheyung says loudly. He sounds genuinely upset for the first time. “Sorry,” he adds immediately, sagging a little. “I didn’t mean to yell. But you always do this. You always—” He cuts himself off then, and is quiet for a while. It’s the most flustered Seokjin has seen him in the short period of time they’ve known each other, and he isn’t sure how to proceed. 

When Taehyung continues, he sounds more miffed than upset, which Seokjin takes as a good sign. “I was sent here by my—by Jin-hyung to help you. Because bad things are going to happen to your world, and he wanted me to help. Because he trusts me.” He brightens then, just a little, and ah, Seokjin thinks he’s getting the measure of how Taehyung’s Jin sees him now. Taehyung turns just a fraction of an inch to Yoongi, and it’s the look he gives Yoongi that he thinks neither of them can see that makes Seokjin consider the implications of what Taehyung is saying. He wonders if Taehyung’s “Jin” has a Yoongi, too. He wonders what Taehyung thinks is going to happen to them that makes him make that expression, that has compelled him to come all this way instead of living his life with the versions of themselves he belongs with. 

“What’s going to happen to us?” Yoongi asks. Seokjin thinks he saw, too. 

“I don’t know exactly,” Taehyung says. “But I know it’s going to be bad. Like, anime apocalypse-style bad.” 

“Tell me something only I know. So I can trust you,” Seokjin says, because that’s what people in movies say, when they’re trying to call someone’s bluff. 

Taehyung doesn’t look like he’s bluffing; he looks like he’s contemplating between two answers. Seokjin wonders how it is that he has more than one of his secrets. He wonders if there are things that Taehyung knows about him that he himself hasn’t discovered yet. I just forgot how bad at expressing your emotions you used to be. What does he remember? 

He’s here to help you save the world, idiot, Seokjin reminds himself. Or so he says anyway. 

“I know you can’t see the future,” Taehyung replies, and Seokjin tries not to react visibly. Not many people know about his little lie, but enough do. If you were motivated enough, you could put the pieces together. And then Taehyung continues, “But I know you saw me. Today. Your first vision.”

“How did you know?” 

Taehyung blinks, slowly pulls up his leg so that he can tuck his knee under his chin. “Because I saw you too,” he says, like that explains anything. He doesn’t seem concerned with unpacking the mechanics behind this rather convenient explanation, something which Seokjin cannot understand.

“What does that even mean?” he huffs. “That is so narratively convenient.” 

Taehyung smiles a little, amused. “Sure, I guess. But this isn’t a story. This is real life.” 

“And it doesn’t make any sense,” Seokjin grouses. 

“I don’t disagree, but here we are. Do you believe me now?” 

“I mean, I guess,” Seokjin says, because what else is he supposed to do? “So how are you supposed to help me save the world? Remember how I’m the only one without powers here?” 

Taehyung hums, biting at a hangnail thoughtfully. “Hyung didn’t really specify,” he says, unhelpfully. “He told me that I had to be the one to go, that I would unlock something deep within you. His words. And it seems like I did unlock something deep within you? You had a vision, after all.” He continues chewing. “Maybe we just need to, like, hang out?” 

Seokjin throws his hands into the air. 

Yoongi says, “You two are truly the heroes the human race deserves.”

In the end, Seokjin decides that they’ve already done far too much “hanging out” in one day for people who just met and barely know each other. That, and he needs to be alone and process the ways in which his life has been upended, preferably away from Taehyung’s very distracting presence. He hasn’t forgotten how his traitorous body had reacted to their kiss. He really needs to get laid. Unfortunately, the world is about to end so he should maybe reprioritize, and also, Taehyung quickly puts a pin in that. 

“Come back here tomorrow, I guess?” Seokjin says uncertainly. He doesn’t know what the protocol a situation like this is. Is Taehyung, like, his Yoda now? 

“Wait, I’m not going with you?” Taehyung looks up from where he was fiddling with one of Seokjin’s scrying bowls. It doesn’t actually do anything, of course, but it looks pretty and suitably mystical. 

“Going where?” Seokjin raises his eyebrows. Yoongi had just left to meet Namjoon for dinner, so it’s about time he went home.

“Wherever you’re going,” Taehyung says. “Home?” The says it like a question, with a tinge of hope. 

Seokjin’s first instinct is to say absolutely not , but Taehyung is looking at him like he’s a lost puppy and Seokjin is the kind man who was suckered into giving him a treat and is now responsible for his lifelong happiness, so. With a sigh, Seokjin nods and gestures for Taehyung to get up. (A part of him wonders if he should be more leery of inviting strange men into his house, but that’s never gotten him into too much trouble before, and Taehyung doesn’t seem like the type who will steal his breakfast cereals and leave without even saying goodbye.) 

He draws the line at Taehyung sleeping in his bed, though. 

“Stop!” Seokjin whisper-shouts. He doesn’t know why he’s whispering in his own home. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Upon returning home, Seokjin had let Taehyung shower before him and prepared a makeshift bed in the living room. Had even brought out his softest pillows, and now this brat’s trying to worm his way into sleeping on Seokjin’s bed and leaving his host to the couch? 

Taehyung, in Seokjin’s spare pyjama set, blinks. His hair is damp and trailing water down his neck, wetting the back of his sleep shirt. He looks like he belongs, which is absurd and sounds exactly like a line from a cheesy romance novel. Not the kind of narrative coherence Seokjin was thinking of.  

“To the room? To sleep?” Taehyung says. 

“Do you expect me to take the couch?” Seokjin frowns.

Taehyung looks startled. “What? No! I just thought—don’t you share beds, in your timeline?” 

Seokjin stares. This isn’t what he was expecting. “Only if you’re, er, together,” he says awkwardly. “Romantically.” 

“Oh!” Taehyung is blushing now, hands clutching the bottom of his shirt. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to—I mean, in my world everyone in the same household sleeps in the same bed.” He shrugs. “To keep warm.” 

“How big are your beds, then?” Seokjin asks. When he thought of potential cultural differences between his world and Taehyung’s, this was not one that occurred to him. 

“Big.” Taehyung smiles. 

“So will you be able to fall asleep out here?” Seokjin gestures at the pile of pillows and blankets on the couch. 

“Well,” Taehyung begins. “I don’t know…” He hits Seokjin with the puppy eyes again. 

“I cannot believe this,” Seokjin grumbles. “Fine! You can sleep in my room. But on the spare mattress.” 

“Thanks,” Taehyung beams. He picks up all the bedding and trots into Seokjin’s room. Seokjin can only press his fingers into his temples and wonder how his life had taken such a bizarre turn. He can only hope Taehyung is not secretly an extra-dimensional assassin sent to murder him in his sleep. Though if Taehyung wanted him dead, he’d had plenty of chances to make that happen by now.

They get ready for bed, and Seokjin is disturbed to find that it’s nowhere near as awkward as he thought it would be. Maybe it’s because Taehyung treats him like they’re old friends (which, he supposes, in another world they are), easily slipping behind Seokjin on the way to the bathroom or knowing to pass him his glasses from where he’d left them by the sink without Seokjin having to ask for them.

Seokjin doesn’t fill the silence with mindless talk, and Taehyung doesn’t make him feel like he has to. 

In fact, it’s Seokjin who breaks, when they’re both tucked in and he’s switched off the lights.  

“I have a question,” Seokjin says. “So if you’re here, where’s the Taehyung from this timeline, or dimension, whatever it is? Is he a time-traveler, too?” It’s something that’s been on his mind since he realized how close Taehyung and Jin must be. 

“No,” Taehyung says, slightly too cheerfully. “He’s dead.”

“What?”

“I can only move laterally—across space—if that timeline’s version of me isn’t there,” Taehyung says. “So, dead, or a traveler himself who’s somewhere else. I know, right? Somehow, this is the line that physics draws.” 

“How do you know my Taehyung is dead, then?” Seokjin feels irrationally defensive. It’s not fair that Jin got Taehyung, and he’s just been existing, Taehyung-less, for the whole of his life — would have gone on like that, if alt Taehyung hadn’t shown up. “Maybe he’s in your world.” 

Seokjin can’t see Taehyung’s expression, but he can hear his voice darken in tone. “I would know if he were,” he says determinedly. “And he died in a car accident when he was seventeen. Painless and quick. Jin-hyung saw it. That’s why he sent me here.” 

“Wait,” Seokjin says, replaying Taehyung’s words over. “Wait, wait, wait — Jin can see the future? He’s not like me?”

“Oh, did I not mention that?” 

“Uh, no, you didn’t,” Seokjin says. “Great. I literally cannot even compare to myself.” 

“If it helps, hyung doesn’t like it very much,” Taehyung says. “It makes him all quiet and he doesn’t leave the house for days afterwards.” 

“Wow, so basically what I do every weekend anyway,” Seokjin jokes lamely. 

Taehyung makes a noise of displeasure. “It’s really not that great,” he says. Seokjin turns onto his side so he can see him, a faint outline in the shadows. He’s picking at the hem of his shirt. He does that a lot, Seokjin notices, when he’s upset. Fiddle with something in his hands. He resists the urge to reach over and still their movement. “He never lets me stay and help, and he always looks so sad afterwards. I wonder what he sees sometimes. How do you deal with that, the knowing?” 

Seokjin shrugs. Taehyung is asking the wrong person. And he knows it’s meant to be a rhetorical question, but it still stings. “My family does it all the time. It’s never looked hard for them. In fact, we’ve made a lot of money from it.” 

“Right. Of course.”

“I just meant, it’s something that lots of people would want to have.” Now he’s really projecting. 

Taehyung makes a noncommittal noise. “For sure.” 

Seokjin sighs. He thinks he fucked up, but he’s too tired to figure out how. 

“Go to sleep,” he says eventually, and turns back around. 

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Seokjin only falls asleep when he hears Taehyung’s breath even out. 

Surprisingly, life does not stop for Seokjin to wrap his head around one time-traveling, kiss-giving boy and his cheerfully delivered prophecy of doom. He still has a business to run and fortunes to tell, after all, and although Taehyung does nothing but hang out in the shop all day,  he’s fully booked and they have no time to talk until closing. 

By then, Taehyung has exhausted his interest in Seokjin’s plush toy and plant collection, giving them all names (“They don’t need names; they’re there to soothe my clients,” Seokjin says. It’s only half a lie; sometimes they soothe him, too) and backstories. 

“I’m bored,” Taehyung says from where he’s cradling the Venus flytrap he’s named Jimin, after a childhood friend he had. 

“That’s too bad,” Seokjin says. “I can’t put aside my work to go snooping with you. I have clients to help, a family to feed!” 

“You live alone,” Taehyung points out.

“Please, just lean into the meme,” Seokjin huffs, and swats him on the head.

“You don’t seem very worried,” Taehyung says, who doesn’t know what memes are.

“That’s because I’m not.”

“You said you believed me!”

“I said I believed you were telling the truth,” Seokjin corrects. “Not that I actually think the world is going to end. I mean, it will eventually. Probably long after we’re gone.” 

“Why are you letting me stay if you don’t believe me, then?” Taehyung asks. 

“Would you rather I kick you out?” Seokjin draws himself up, ready to be suitably affronted.

“I’d rather you answer my question,” Taehyung shoots back easily. 

Seokjin grabs Jimin (dammit, now the name will never go away) from him and stuffs him back in his place along the windowsill, and doesn’t answer Taehyung’s question. 

Taehyung throws back his head and laughs. 

In the end, Seokjin concedes that he has to put some time aside to actually try and do this, otherwise this whole enterprise is futile. They persuade Yoongi and Namjoon to come help with the promise of fried chicken (“What, the impending end of the human race didn’t light a fire under your ass?” Seokjin snipes; Yoongi points out that Seokjin himself didn’t seem very bothered, either, and they mutually agreed that humans were trash anyway and probably deserved whatever was coming), Yoongi and Namjoon show up with more of Yoongi’s witchy brew, and that’s how they end up sprawled on the floor of Kim’s Knowledge Emporium, bones and empty mason jars scattered around them and Kim Namjoon stabbing a marker insistently at the mind-map they’ve made on a piece of paper. 

“You’re a giant nerd,” Seokjin groans “A fucking mind-map?!” 

“We have to be methodical,” Namjoon says. He’s slumped against the table, and the marker ink has started to spread where the tip is pressed into the one corner. “Long-term vs. short-term hypotheses for the end times. Will we go out with a bang, or a whimper?”

“I’d love to go out with a bang,” Yoongi says, fingers creeping up Namjoon’s arm.

“Excuse me,” Seokjin says loudly. “No shenanigans allowed. Stop touching!” 

“Aw,” Taehyung coos. He’s making the face that people make when they see unbearably cute baby animals. Seokjin is appalled. 

“You’re just jealous,” Yoongi mutters. He’s wrapped himself around Namjoon’s arm now. Namjoon looks like he’s half-asleep, face buried in Yoongi’s hair. “Taehyung-ah, hyung needs a hug. He’s forgotten what not being a grouch feels like.” 

“Specificity matters, too. What do we mean by ‘world’? What do we mean by ‘end’? So many questions,” Namjoon sighs. No one pays attention to him. 

“Jesus Christ,” Seokjin says, as Taehyung complies and pulls Seokjin to rest against his chest. “Namjoon, keep using that brain of yours and hopefully you remember everything tomorrow. Yoongi, I resent you deeply. Taehyung, this is not necessary—” 

“You feel nice,” Taehyung sighs, and Seokjin shuts up.

“It’s just the brew,” he hedges, trying to relax as Taehyung hums and he can feel the vibrations against his back. “First time I had it I was buzzing too.” 

“Yeah, that was good,” Taehyung says. He wraps his arms around Seokjin’s middle and spreads his legs so he can pull Seokjin up even closer. “But this is better.” His head tips onto Seokjin’s shoulder. 

Taehyung is so drunk and Seokjin is so fucked. 

“Uhhhh,” he says, getting desperate. “Won’t Jin be mad, you know, isn’t he your—” He’s not even sure what they are, since Taehyung had kissed Seokjin — maybe it was an open relationship? Suddenly an image floods his mind: Taehyung in between him and another version of him, their hands on either side of his head, tangling in his hair…

“He won’t be mad,” Taehyung whispers, which only makes Seokjin groan. 

Loudly. 

That snaps him out of it. He clamps his mouth shut and pushes himself away from Taehyung, glad that his sweater is long enough to cover the embarrassing evidence of Taehyung’s effect on him. 

Luckily, Taehyung doesn’t seem to notice that anything’s wrong, and Namjoon and Yoongi are literally too busy making out across from them to care. That seems like a good enough sign as any to wrap things up for the night. 

“Okay, please continue this at home,” Seokjin says, reaching over to physically pull Yoongi off Namjoon. He goes like a raggedy cat, hissing with annoyance. “Off with you, demon.” 

“Ugh, fine,” Yoongi says. “I can’t wait to go home and [redacted] Namjoon’s [redacted] anyway.”

“Did you just say ‘redacted’ out loud? What are you, twelve?” 

Yoongi smiles a smile that sends a chill down Seokjin’s back. “I mean, do you really want to hear about what I can do with my to—” 

“NO, thank you,” Seokjin interrupts. “I profusely apologize for even asking.” 

Yoongi licks his lips meaningfully.

Seokjin ignores him and calls a cab for them. When they’ve tumbled out the door and into the backseat, he comes back in to find Taehyung trying to use his toes to draw on the mind-map. 

He sighs, looks at what they’d come up with before their brainstorming session had been so quickly derailed. On the left, under LONG-TERM: climate change??? On the right, under SHORT-TERM, a longer list: nuclear bomb / alien invasion / asteroid / Black Death Part 2 / sun exploding :( 

Seokjin sends a prayer up to anyone who’s watching who cares. 

Taehyung sobers up gradually, though Seokjin still has to prod and poke him to get up and leave the cozy warmth of the shop for the ten-minute walk back to his apartment. He unfolds like a pill beetle on the floor, complaining the whole time as Seokjin tosses his coat at him about how he misses Yoongi and Namjoon. 

“Too bad,” Seokjin says. “I’m the only one left.” 

“Good,” Taehyung says, still muzzy as his face is swallowed by the giant scarf he’d stolen from Seokjin yesterday. “You’re my favorite anyway.” 

He says it so quietly, almost entirely into the scarf, that Seokjin is not sure if he was meant to hear it. 

The walk back is mostly quiet, until Taehyung lifts his head and bumps Seokjin with his shoulder. 

“Thanks for introducing me to your friends,” Taehyung says, louder this time. He sounds serious, and there’s something about the soft darkness they’re walking through together that compels Seokjin to be honest. 

“It was my pleasure,” he says, and means it. 

So it goes. Taehyung stays with Seokjin because where else is he supposed to, and Seokjin never questions the absurdity of the whole situation. How are they supposed to find out the most probable ways in which the world is supposed to end? Seokjin is hardly an investigator. All he does is make shit up, for heaven’s sake. 

“This Jin of yours didn’t give you any guidance?” he asks one day, after they’ve spent twenty minutes falling down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories on Reddit. “And you didn’t think to ask him?” 

“It’s not as simple as that,” Taehyung says. “It’s not like he just closes his eyes and conjures up whatever he wants to see. All he gets is a feeling.” 

“I wish he could have felt something more specific,” Seokjin complains. “I can think of literally endless ways the world could end right now.” 

“Well, we’re still here,” Taehyung says with way too much cheer. “Not too late!” 

Seokjin sighs. There’s no use pointing out this is a highly unorthodox way to conduct research — Taehyung’s whole existence in his life is unorthodox. 

They scour over newspapers, articles, anything that looks like it could help inform them potential crises. But all they get is the usual barrage of doom and gloom: melting ice caps, internecine conflict, poverty. It all sucks, and one of humanity’s longstanding problems might — probably will — spell their doom someday, but Seokjin can’t imagine Jin sending Taehyung over to help if the end was so far off in the future.

Taehyung retains his sense of good cheer, even as the weeks stretch on and they’re hitting the one month mark of his arrival. Seokjin has long abandoned the idea of charging Taehyung for rent, or kicking him out, because Taehyung is, surprisingly, equal parts entertaining and thoughtful as a roommate, and because Yoongi and Namjoon have unofficially adopted him into their family. 

“You’re never escaping now,” Namjoon says. “Yoongi’s imprinted on you.” 

Taehyung laughs, but Seokjin shakes his head. “He’s dead serious.” 

Taehyung just grins, and squishes Yoongi’s cheeks (something which even Seokjin isn’t allowed to do) and says he’s not looking to leave anytime soon anyway.

Which makes Seokjin rather nervous. 

Not because he’s growing attached to someone who isn’t planning on staying. Not that. He’s just concerned that Taehyung staying means they haven’t figured out how to save the world yet. That’s what’s important after all. Totally. 

“Tell me about your world,” Seokjin says one evening, when it’s just the two of them having dinner. 

“It’s colder,” Taehyung says immediately. “I think we got a better handle on global warming than you lot.”

“Ah, but you live in a world without beef, so we win,” Seokjin points out. He’d only found out the other day when he made them beef bulgogi and Taehyung had went into a tizzy over how good this mystery meat was. It’s beef, Seokjin had said. What’s that, Taehyung had asked, and then they’d spent two hours watching videos of baby cows on YouTube. Turns out in Taehyung's world people mostly ate goat. Like, an inordinate amount of goat. 

“As we learnt, methane from cows contributes significantly to greenhouse gases,” Taehyung mock lectures, “so I think we’re even.” 

“What about Jin?” Seokjin asks. He didn’t mean to, in fact had a retort ready, but he’s honestly been dying of curiosity. 

“What about him?” 

“How did you two meet?” 

Taehyung pauses, his gaze going distant. “It was a long time ago. We met in foster care.” At Seokjin’s look of surprise, he chuckles. “That’s another thing I noticed that’s different here. Back home we have a lot more kids in the system. Like, at least a third of everyone I know grew up without parents. I don’t know what we did wrong — or what you all did right — but Jin-hyung and I both grew up in the same orphanage.” 

“I’m sorry.” Seokjin doesn’t know what else to say.

“Ah, don’t be. I grew up fine,” Taehyung says. Seokjin doesn’t disagree. “But yeah, it’s been me and him for the longest time now. Never needed anyone else.” 

Seokjin bites down too hard on his food, and hits the inside corner of his mouth instead. He forces himself to swallow, and asks, “Is it weird, then? That I look like him?” 

Taehyung appraises Seokjin thoughtfully. The rings that he keeps on his fingers glint this way and that in the warm indoor lights as he rubs his hands together. 

“No,” he finally says. “You look exactly like him, but you two are nothing alike.” 

“Oh,” Seokjin says. Again, he’s lost his words.

“It’s nothing bad,” Taehyung says quickly. “It’s just that Jin-hyung is a lot more serious, I suppose. He’s had to be, because of the way we grew up. You’re lucky to have so many people who care about you.” 

“I know,” Seokjin says. “Do you miss home?” 

Taehyung shrugs, but Seokjin can see something wistful play across his face. “Home is more people than place for me, anyway.”

Seokjin doesn’t point out that Taehyung didn’t answer his question. 

A month passes, then two. They talk to scientists, researchers, tin foil hatters, and even email the CIA at one point, reasoning that if shit’s about to go down, the Americans would probably know about it. The CIA does not respond.

Taehyung doesn’t get antsy about not finding any leads, and then he does. 

“Why don’t you just go back?” Seokjin asks, after a whole day of Taehyung fretting more than usual. He’d made japchae, which Taehyung had said was his favorite, but he’d barely touched his bowl, just poked at it and got up to wander around the living room instead. It was kind of irritating, and Seokjin wished he would stay still for once. “Zip home and ask the old man what he really meant.” 

“It’s not that easy,” Taehyung says, hands in his pockets as he paces. “There’s a limit to how many times I can move around laterally without messing things up.” He says it like he expects this to be common knowledge; how the hell was Seokjin supposed to know? It’s not like he meets a lot of spacetime-travelers. 

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Sorry I’m not perfect like your Jin-hyung.”

Taehyung stops moving, looks up. “What does that mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” 

“I’m not dumb; I know what you said. I meant, why did you say it like that?” 

“Because you obviously don’t want to be here” — with me — “ and I don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn about going back!” Seokjin snaps. “You don’t owe me anything! I can’t believe you’re staying just because Jin told you to.” 

Taehyung flushes red, bottom lip jutting out. Seokjin is ready for his retorts, for him to agree that he’s only doing this because he promised Jin and that Seokjin should be grateful he’s even trying to stop his whole world from exploding or whatever, but he doesn’t say any of that 

“You’re so annoying sometimes,” Taehyung hisses instead, and this is so surprising that the acidity in Taehyung’s voice is almost like a refreshing squeeze of lemon after two months of vague and muddled gaiety. “I’m not just here because I’m following orders, that’s not how this works — that’s not how I work! You think I’d still be here if I didn’t care? I would be so—sad if anything happened to you guys! And he’s not my Jin-hyung. He’s his own person, with agency—are you laughing?” 

Seokjin is, indeed, laughing. Throughout Taehyung’s rant, he’d felt something bubble up inside him, like champagne. He wonders what’s wrong with him, as he felt affection curl up watching his friend — ah, yes, now he can call it what it is — rant at him. Taehyung had been brassy and loud from the beginning, but now it’s like this performative layer has been peeled back.

In the time they’ve known each other, Seokjin has seen him pick his nose, play the piano, and fail miserably at speaking Mandarin (apparently, his timeline’s Mandarin follows a completely different set of tones). Now, he’s seen Taehyung angry. It’s refreshing. So by the time Taehyung’s done, panting and glaring at Seokjin across the kitchen table, the bubble has frothed over, and Seokjin has figured it out. 

“Is this a joke to you?” Taehyung bites out. 

“No,” Seokjin says. “It’s just — are we fighting? Did we just have our first fight?” 

Taehyung pauses. Narrows his eyes at Seokjin, who is smiling. Can’t stop, in fact. His mirth must be contagious, because Taehyung deflates easily. Quick to temper and easy to pull back. 

“Will you stop being dumb now,” Taehyung mutters. He shuffles over to the table and scoops a spoonful of japchae into his mouth. 

“Thanks for being here to help save our trash planet,” he says, and gives in to his impulses to ruffle a hand in Taehyung’s hair. 

Taehyung whines, but doesn’t pull away.

“Fuck,” Seokjin laughs. “I guess we really are friends now.” 

“Here’s a thought,” Taehyung says one day, sitting up. “Maybe your family can help. They can see the future, right?” 

This might just be Seokjin’s worst idea yet. Well, technically it was Taehyung’s idea, but Seokjin agreed to it. It seemed logical when Taehyung brought it up. They needed to know what the future held; Seokjin’s family could see the future in a myriad of ways. Hence why they are now standing in front of Seokjin’s family home, waiting to be let in.

Seokjin is somewhat embarrassed at the size of his house. Typical upper-middle-class guilt, he used to joke with Namjoon and Yoongi, until Namjoon finally pointed out that everyone who thought they were upper-middle-class was actually just rich and too afraid to say it. He was...not wrong.

Anyway, Taehyung does not comment on the fanciness of the neighborhood or the shrubbery wall that blocks the house from nosy neighbors. When Mrs Lee, the Kims’ longtime housekeeper, comes out to usher them in, he gives her his best smile and compliments her on judicious placement of plants and ornamentation in the stone garden. 

“Suck-up,” Seokjin mutters, but only half-heartedly. He’s nervous. Doesn’t know why. This just all feels too prophetic somehow, like a scene straight from TV Tropes, like Seokjin’s mother is going to take one look at Taehyung and have a Narratively Significant Vision. 

Well, when Seokjin’s mother enters the room, she takes one look at Taehyung and arguably has something worse: a sly smile on her face. 

“Seokjin,” she acknowledges him, giving him a hug before turning towards Taehyung. “And who is your lovely guest? Oh, you’re handsome, aren’t you.” 

Okay. Seokjin doesn’t need powers to be able to see what’s going on here. Of all the things he’d thought his mother could help with, the mundane tragedy of his lack of a long-term romantic partner had not been one of them. 

“This is Taehyung,” he says. 

His mother looks at him, waiting for more.

“That’s it,” he says, opening his eyes very widely at her so she knows what he’s trying to communicate.

She ignores him. Reaches right past him to place a gentle but firm hand on Taehyung’s shoulder to steer him towards the sofa. “Now,” she says, “why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself…” 

It’s only later, thirty minutes into what has so far been for Seokjin an excruciating deep dive into his most embarrassing childhood memories (courtesy of his mother) and a highly inaccurate reenactment of his and Taehyung’s first meeting (courtesy of Taehyung, who did not censor anything, much to Seokjin’s mother’s delight), that it happens.

Mrs Kim, laughing so hard at Taehyung’s impression of Seokjin "being dramatic for no reason," reaches out to steady herself, and grabs onto Taehyung’s bare forearm. 

It’s not that Seokjin’s mother’s powers require her to be in physical contact with the person she’s reading, or that they’re even activated any time she touches someone, but with particularly strong wavelengths, it almost always triggers a kind of vision. 

This hadn’t been part of Seokjin’s plan. All he wanted was to ask his mother if she could probe the boundaries of her vision and see if anything bad was looming on the horizon. Wide scope, big picture, he would have advised. World-ending stuff. 

Instead, her pupils go black and she goes stiff for one, two, three terrifying seconds, before letting go and sagging back into her seat. 

“Shit, are you okay?” Seokjin asks, being careful not to touch her. He knows from experience that it’s always best to let his mother recalibrate in her own space after a vision. 

“I’m so sorry,” Taehyung is close to babbling, eyes wide with fear and hands tucked under his thighs as if it was dangerous to even look at them. “I didn’t mean to—” 

“It’s not your fault,” she says. “Sometimes it takes a while to process, that’s all.” 

“What did you see?” Seokjin asks carefully. He’s not sure he wants to know, but Taehyung’s future might provide them with some clues as to how it all shakes out for their world. 

His mother hesitates. He sees her very clearly move her gaze back and forth between the two of them.

“Just flashes,” she says. “Feelings. Fear, sadness, but later...happiness. Big happiness.” She hesitates.

Seokjin says, “Go on.” 

“I...I saw the two of you together. That was the only clear image I got. Seokjinnie, you were wearing a very ugly hat. One of those rounded ones that are trendy right now? I don’t know anything about what kids are wearing these days. It was bright pink, very garish. Taehyung-ssi, you were with him. It was...intimate.” She smiles, a hint of her earlier impishness returning.

“Ya!” Seokjin splutters. Oh god, did his mother see him—and Taehyung—

“Oh, get your mind out of the gutter,” she scolded. “It was only a kiss.” 

Taehyung chokes, and Seokjin has to thump him on the back while avoiding any eye contact with him. His mother watches the two of them, amused. 

“Wow, we’re leaving now,” he says, standing up and pulling Taehyung with him. He’s not sure how his plan to ask his mother for her professional insight took on such a meet-the-in-laws vibe, but it’s time to leave before she starts asking Taehyung if he prefers spring or fall weddings.

“You know I’m never wrong,” she calls out to them as they go, Taehyung offering up a tentative wave as Seokjin hustles him away. 

(She’s right, but Seokjin absolutely refuses to think about that.) 

Later, when they’re alone, Seokjin has a revelation. He says, “I’ve figured it out. That was probably your Jin. In the vision, I mean. I’m happy for you. He's a lucky guy. You're both lucky.” Lamely, he explains, “I don’t wear bucket hats.” He doesn’t mean for it to, but it sounds like an excuse. But he’s not making excuses; he’s just...looking for the most plausible explanation. (Somehow Jin didn’t strike him as the type to wear bucket hats either, but he definitely strikes Jin as the person Taehyung is most likely to end up kissing sometime in the future. Objectively, of course.) 

“Right,” Taehyung says. He doesn’t sound particularly pleased. 

“Shouldn’t you be glad? I thought you, you know, carried a torch for him.” 

“Huh?” Taehyung just looks confused. 

“Sorry, must be one of those phrases that didn’t cross over,” Seokjin says. “I meant, I thought you liked him. You know.” 

“Right,” Taehyung repeats. He still doesn’t sound happy. Was it supposed to be a secret? He’d admitted as much to Seokjin already. Or did he just not want Seokjin bringing it up? Oh. Maybe it was because Seokjin looked exactly like Jin. Duh. Of course. Seokjin is an idiot. 

They’re quiet for a while, and then Taehyung pipes up softly: “He’s not my Jin.” 

Seokjin frowns, remembering their argument last week about the importance of acknowledging someone’s autonomy. “Of course, I didn’t mean it that way. He’s his own person with agency, et cetera.” 

Taehyung doesn’t reply, and Seokjin is rapidly cycling through everything he’s said, wondering where he stumbled over some interdimensional cultural difference, when he hears a noisy exhale and sees Taehyung staring at him with such intensity that Seokjin almost shrinks back against his chair. 

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Taehyung says. “Just—never mind.” 

“No, say it,” Seokjin insists. “Did I say something rude?” 

Taehyung shakes his head. He looks troubled. “We don’t have ‘bucket hats’ in our world,” he says carefully. 

Oh, so this is what Taehyung’s worried about. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Seokjin says. “Hyung will take care of that.”

Two days later and a successful, if embarrassing, shopping trip in Hongdae later, Seokjin places a hot pink bucket hat on Taehyung’s pillow. It had been embarrassing to purchase, but it was worth it. 

There. Now Taehyung can just give that to Jin when he sees him.

He doesn’t leave a note; Taehyung will know what he meant by it. 

What Taehyung does with it, Seokjin doesn’t know — he never mentions it and Seokjin doesn’t see his gift again. 

The day before everything changes, everything changes.

They’re trying to decide what to watch on TV and Taehyung is veto-ing every choice Seokjin has made. 

“Animal Planet, please,” Taeyhung says, though his politeness is somewhat contradicted by his grabby hands for the remote.

“Ugh, I don’t want to listen to an old white man talk about crabs having sex or whatever,” Seokjin says, pushing Taehyung away with one hand while using the other to hold the remote away from him.

“David Attenborough hates crabs,” Taehyung says, as if this apparent commonality between them is supposed to win Seokjin over. “They are but jesters to him. You’d like him.” 

"You are a jester to me,” Seokjin says back, inanely, because Taehyung, in his attempt at the remote, has decided the best way forward is to crawl up Seokjin’s body. 

“Oh yeah?” There is a dangerous glint in Taehyung’s eye, even as Seokjin strains away from him. “Can a jester do this?”

And he pulls Seokjin towards himself, hard, except that Seokjin falls too easily and there’s suddenly too much momentum and then they’re both tumbling to the floor. 

When Seokjin dares to open his eyes again, they’re about five inches from Taehyung’s own. 

“Argh,” he verbalizes, inarticulately. 

Taehyung, warm underneath him, makes no move to displace him. “Hyung,” he says, and there is a wealth of affection in that one word. Seokjin can only pretend to himself so much. But just because he sees it doesn’t mean he has to do anything about it. 

Taehyung must see him make his decision, because then he continues, in a voice full of daring, “Jin-hyung would never be so clumsy,” and licks his lips.

That’s it. 

“Good thing I’m Kim fucking Seokjin, then,” Seokjin says, which doesn’t make any sense, and then he kisses Taehyung, which is why it doesn’t matter.

This is their second kiss, but this time it’s Taehyung who’s caught by surprise. 

Infuriatingly, he recovers very fast. Almost too fast, like he’d totally seen this coming. And then his tongue is sliding into Seokjin’s mouth and Seokjin can’t think anymore. Apparently kissing Taehyung does wonders for his brain function.

He doesn’t know how long they spend on the floor, only that at some point Taehyung’s hands are in his hair and he’s pressing their chests together, sliding back and forth because it feels so good, too good, he just needs to sink a little lower and—

Taehyung whimpers, and it’s a small, shocking sound that brings Seokjin back down into his body. 

They’re both half-hard. Taehyung is splayed beneath him, hot-eyed and loose-limbed, a picture of easy debauchery. His cheeks are as flushed as his lips. 

“Hyung,” he says softly, sounding as wrecked as Seokjin feels. 

Seokjin sits up. The slight bulge in his pants and the way Taehyung’s legs have fallen to either side of him feels obscene, and there’s nothing he wants more than to fall forward again and continue what they’d started. But Taehyung isn’t his. Has to remind himself of that. He’s not staying. And Seokjin knows himself well enough to realize that he’s standing before a line that would allow him to be okay with Taehyung eventually leaving.

He can’t cross that line. 

So he squeezes Taehyung’s knee, hard, and stands up. Offers a hand to Taehyung, who takes it, looking confused. 

“Hyung?” he says again, even softer now. 

“Sorry I fell on you,” he says. “Let’s just, um, watch TV. The crabs are still on, right?”

Taehyung nods. Doesn’t say anything as they both sit down and switch the channel to BBC. It’s David Attenborough, and it’s an episode about animals who use camouflage for self-defense. There are no crabs.

If Seokjin had known yesterday what would happen today, he would have stayed on that damn floor for the rest of the night and mapped out every inch of Taehyung’s body with his own.

But Seokjin doesn’t see it coming; he never has. 

It’s a Saturday, and Seokjin has overslept. 

He never oversleeps; he leaves the curtains open precisely so that the rising sun will wake him up. But now he’s bleary-eyed and it’s dark and it’s almost 10am, what the—

There's the smell of coffee in the air, and gentle music playing, and Taehyung’s mattress is empty and neatly made. He flushes at the thought of Taehyung. They’d been quiet and shy around each other after what happened, going ahead with their usual night routine as if nothing had changed when in reality everything had.

When Seokjin steps into the living room, he sees the back of Taehyung’s head first. It’s still bedhead-fuzzy, and one side of the collar of his pyjama top is flipped up. Beside him there is a pile of folded laundry, and a plate of rice cakes for breakfast. It’s an oddly peaceful scene, one Seokjin does not want to disturb, at least not for a moment. As he watches, Taehyung picks up a shirt — with a jolt, Seokjin recognizes it as his (well, all these clothes are technically his, but this is one that he hasn’t contributed to Taehyung’s wardrobe) — and lifts it to his face.

He inhales, and holds his breath for a while. When he brings it down to fold it, he cradles it like it’s something precious.

It’s just Seokjin’s t-shirt. Maybe Seokjin should be freaked out, but all he feels is his heart pumping way too fast for him having just woken up, and, uncomfortably, that he’s intruded on an intimate moment. But it’s his shirt—

Wait. 

Do people in alternate universes smell the same?

Oh. He’s an idiot.

It’s just Seokjin’s t-shirt, but it’s probably the closest Taehyung can get to Jin. Just like yesterday. Because while Taehyung might want to stay to help Seokjin and his friends, he also wants to go back. 

Suddenly Seokjin wishes Taehyung had never showed up his life with a kiss and soup, never introduced him to the idea of a smarter, kinder, wiser version of himself, never landed in his bedroom and entangled himself in Seokjin’s home in a ridiculously short amount of time. 

But most of all he wishes that Taehyung were happy. He wants Taehyung to be happy so badly. And that’s the shitty part, isn’t it? The part that hurts: Taehyung, although at times worried and frustrated, has never expressed unhappiness at being with Seokjin. But it’s clear to Seokjin now that Taehyung could be much happier somewhere else. Somewhere he belonged, with Jin who was better than Seokjin in every way. 

Seokjin’s heart is aching exquisitely in his chest, and that’s when he has his second vision. 

It’s quite possibly the worst twenty seconds of his life ever, surpassed only by the seconds that come after because he knows what he has to do. 

“Tae,” Seokjin croaks.

Taehyung looks up and does a half turn, not realizing that anything’s wrong yet. One side of his mouth is moving rhythmically as he chews on a rice cake. He looks like he belongs, just like he did the first night he’d stepped into Seokjin’s home. 

Seokjin opens his mouth again to take it back, to say, Nothing, go back to eating, because he knows what he has to say will change everything. 

But then Taehyung’s eyes register the sweat beading on Seokjin’s forehead and his shaky hands. He asks, “Are you okay?” 

“Yes,” Seokjin says, though the word sounds more like an exhalation. 

“You don’t sound okay.” Taehyung’s chopsticks hover in midair. 

“I had a vision,” Seokjin says. “Fuck. You never get used to it.” 

Taehyung’s mouth drops open into an ‘o’. “Did you see the future? Did it show you how to save the world?” 

“No,” Seokjin says. He walks the few steps forward so that he can brace his arms on the back of the sofa. He’s breathing very hard, he notices. In front of him, he can see Taehyung frowning. 

“What do you mean, no?” 

“There was no vision for how to save my world because my world isn’t the one that’s going to be destroyed,” Seokjin says. “It’s yours.” 

Taehyung’s chopsticks clatter to the floor loudly. 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, very slowly. “Why would you say something like that?” His fists clench around the towel he was folding halfway.

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin says. “I’m so sorry, Taehyung-ah. I don’t know why I didn’t—couldn’t—see this sooner—” 

“What exactly did you see,” Taehyung asks. He sounds like he’s trying not to panic. Seokjin can’t bear to look up. 

“I thought it was my world, at first,” Seokjin says. “A bright light in the sky, even though it was at night. I looked around, trying to get inside, and I saw—on the side of the building next door, lit up by whatever was happening—an ad for some fucking bizarre goat buffet. We definitely don't have those here.” He pauses, swallows thickly before continuing. "I saw myself, next to me. I think it was Jin, honestly. He said, ‘Tell him I’m sorry. I wanted to keep my promise.’ And then nothing."

“Oh god,” Taehyung says. 

“What was the promise he made?” Seokjin asks. It’s all he can think about, because if he tries to think about everything else, he thinks his legs won’t hold him up. 

Taehyung looks at him. His eyes are wet.

“When we first met, he promised he would give me a better life,” Taehyung says. “Fuck.” 

Seokjin has never heard Taehyung swear before. 

It makes sense now, what Jin planned all along, what he’d devised for Taehyung, so Seokjin is not surprised when Taehyung straightens up and says, “I have to go.” Because of course he would.  Jin was the person who had raised him, who had saved him from a terrible, lonely childhood spent in cold foster rooms because he saw the kind, strong, loving person Taehyung could become, if only he had the chance to grow. 

Seokjin knew this was coming but it still hits him like a punch straight to the gut. 

“Right,” Seokjin says. Then the implications of what he’d seen, what Jin meant when he said those words, hits. Taehyung might not come back if he goes. 

“No, wait, not right,” he says. “You can’t go back! You’ll die! Jin said so!” Seokjin’s pleas sound pathetic even to his own ears, puny against the gravitas of Jin’s message and the weight of history between him and Taehyung. How can he possibly beat that? He’s known Taehyung four months (but it’s felt like forever) and the most valuable thing he’s given him was a pillow to rest his head on (lie) and a working knowledge of neologisms he’ll never need again (truth he wishes was a lie). 

“I won’t, and Jin-hyung is a melodramatic idiot,” Taehyung says. “He should have told me, not send me away like a child. I’m going to kill him.”

“How are you going to kill him when both of you will be dead?” Seokjin grips the couch, wonders for a wild moment if he should tackle Taehyung and physically make him stay. 

“Because I have a plan,” Taehyung says. The corners of his eyes are still damp, but there is a familiar look of steely stubbornness on his face now. He crawls onto the couch so he’s on his knees looking down at where Seokjin is slumped over the back. He puts his hand on Seokjin’s head, which would have been funny if this situation weren’t depressing and frankly terrifying, and pushes his face into his chest. 

Seokjin wants very badly to put his arms around Taehyung’s waist, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t get to have this. Him. Fuck. 

Still, he can’t send Taehyung to his doom without even trying. 

“You can’t leave,” he says, heart pounding. “I’m not done kissing you yet.” 

“Okay, compromise,” Taehyung says, and kisses him.

It’s wholly unexpected and yet Seokjin falls into it like he’s been waiting for it. He thinks that maybe he has. 

One, two, three seconds, and then Taehyung is tearing himself away, panting. They both look at where Seokjin had instinctively raised a hand to keep him closer. 

Taehyung says, “I’m sorry. I have to go.” 

Seokjin nods, once. It takes everything within him to not beg Taehyung to stay. He knows that would be unfair. 

A look comes over Taehyung then, something contemplative. “Think of me, hyung,” he says with a sudden fierceness. “Think of me.” 

And then, before Seokjin can even wrap his head around what that’s supposed to mean, he’s gone. No flash of lights, no wrenching open of the cosmos. Taehyung disappears in a blink, wicked away like he’d never existed.

That’s in, then. Taehyung left. Maybe to his death, if what Jin said in his vision was true. And that bright light, the way it had illuminated the city in nighttime so unnaturally. Fuck. Seokjin should have tried to stop him, should have opened his goddamn mouth and pleaded with him to stay, to stay alive. He feels so powerless. What is he supposed to do now? Wash the dishes and move on? Mourn? 

But Taehyung didn’t sound like a man about to irrevocably face his death. He’d sounded angry, bittersweet, and brave. 

He’d sounded like he was going to come back. 

No, Seokjin corrects himself, lips still burning. Has to, to manage the ache in his chest and tamp down the swell of hope. He’s gone. He went home. 

Seokjin stands in his living room. The rest of the weekend and the rest of his days stretch out in front of him, and he has no idea what to do with them. 

Seokjin looks down at the plate of cold rice cakes in his hands, sees their smooth white surface bubble, wonders if he’s going crazy and losing his sight. 

Then he realizes what he’s seeing is liquid and it’s liquid because the cakes are are wet and they’re wet because he’s crying and he’s crying because—

Well. 

He walks over to the clothing rack by the door and takes down Taehyung’s big black coat. He’d left so fast he didn’t even have a chance to grab it. Seokjin wraps his arms around it.  It’s the only thing that Taehyung left behind. 

Here’s another thing you should know about Seokjin. He always got what he wanted. He figured that if he couldn’t see his own future, he would just make it what he wanted it to be.

So, when he was a kid, after the initial shock and the subsequent heartbreaking realization of his deficiency, Seokjin had put a smile on his face and willed himself to be okay, and he’d walked out of his room and announced to his family that he was going to open up his own fortune-telling business. It was time someone from the Kim family took care of the common folk’s problems, he said. While his parents and sister foretold the fortunes of the elite, he would help everyone else who wasn’t important enough to matter to their powers.

At first, his family had protested. He didn’t have to do anything related to predictions, they said. Fuck the press and the gossips who would inevitably turn this into an over-the-top scandal; they were proud of him no matter what — he was one of them, and they would protect him. He could be a normal person, live a normal life.

Except this was normal for Seokjin. Living in a family of magically empowered people who could all, in their own way, hold the future in their hands and help people with their knowledge. He wanted to do the same, even if, try as hard as he could, the future remained ineffable and empty before him, the biggest void across which he could never step. He would always be one step behind it.

What he could do was bridge that gap for other people, though. They, at least, need never know Seokjin was defective.

That was how Kim’s Knowledge Emporium was born. It was a little kitschy, maybe, but Seokjin had always had a flair for the dramatic, and every family needed its quirky black sheep. In his antique fairyland of a shop, he definitely stood out from his somber-suited relatives, but in a slapdash, fun way that only someone with his roguish charm could pull off. It was fine as long as at the end of the day, he was still seen as fortune teller. As one of them.

He's good at his job, and proud of what he does, but right now all he can think about is how completely powerless he feels. How, if he had the ability his whole family had, maybe he could have seen this coming, and warned Taehyung. Warned himself, too, to put his heart away. 

Taehyung had said, think of me. Seokjin can't do anything else, so he does. 

In the dark of space, something is approaching. All things considered, it’s not very big, nor is it moving very fast. It’s on course to, in about twenty years, hit a planet and probably wipe out all life on it. In two years, that course will be irreversible. If this were another planet, in another time, the asteroid would have been identified ages ago, and human civilization would have found a way to break it apart in space. But this just so happens to be a world where oceanic exploration has surpassed space exploration, and so the humans do not see this coming. 

Luckily, they don’t need to.

Far away, Seokjin is thinking very hard. He is thinking about what he wants and who he wants and the ways in which those two desires intersect. He thinks about his mother’s vision, about himself, improbably, in a pink bucket hat, kissing Taehyung. Big happiness. He would wear any number of ridiculous clothing items if it meant he got to kiss Taehyung forever. 

More than anything, though, he just wants Taehyung to be safe. To be alive, and happy. 

The flaming rock headed straight for this other earth Seokjin will never see moves. Just the tiniest bit. But it’s enough. 

In two years, its course will be irreversible. 

In twenty, it will skim right past the planet, and for a few nights its inhabitants will look up at the sky and make wishes on this shooting star. 

Seokjin wakes up feeling funny. Gummy eyes and a swirling in his stomach.

It’s not a big deal except this was exactly how he felt the morning Taehyung barreled in his life and Seokjin does not need to be reminded. Maybe his body is summoning up phantom pains because it misses Taehyung so much and is punishing him for letting him go. That would not be out of character at all. 

He’s mostly just tired and miserable, as he has been for the past two weeks since Taehyung left. 

There are no appointments scheduled for today. Seokjin doesn’t know why he bothered opening up the shop, but he suspects this routine is the only thing that’s holding him together. Quietly, in the murky grey of a winter morning, he waters his plants and checks his email. 

In his inbox there’s a message from Yoona. She’d confessed to her best friend Mina and they’d told their parents about their relationship together. It had been a hard conversation, but she thinks they’re open to it, even if they don’t quite understand. The two families are going to celebrate Christmas together. 

I told you everything would work out, he types back, along with a row of smiley faces and fireworks emojis. I’m very happy for you both. Congratulations! 

Seokjin looks around the shop. He should start putting up Christmas decorations. He read somewhere that one’s subjective emotional experience can be manipulated by external environmental factors, and if there’s one thing he needs right now, it’s to be whipped into shape by aggressively cheerful signage. 

So that’s what he does for the next two hours. He flips the OPEN sign to CLOSED, since his headache has only gotten worse and he doesn’t think he can smile and wave his way through a reading, and pulls out the musty box of baubles and tinsel he keeps in storage, and starts festooning the shit out of the shop. 

When he’s done, his head is throbbing so badly that Seokjin is seriously considering dunking his head into a bucket of ice water. He sits down on the wooden bench that serves as the shop’s waiting area, and leans his head against the cool wall. 

His eyes have only been closed for two seconds when he hears the bell above the front door ring. 

“We’re closed,” he calls out, irritated. “It says right there—” 

He turns around, ready to snap, and freezes.

It’s Taehyung. His hair is shorter than Seokjin’s ever seen it and he has a bright pink bucket hat in his hands. 

“What the fuck,” Seokjin says. Is he having another vision? 

“Is that how you say hello around here?” Taehyung grins, and Seokjin knows he’s not. 

“You’re alive,” Seokjin says dumbly. 

“Yup.” 

“Why are you standing there?” 

“What?”

“Come over here.”

Taehyung skips over, seemingly oblivious to the way Seokjin’s head and heart are both pounding in sync. When he’s close enough, Seokjin grabs him by the collar and pulls him down for a kiss. A part of him feels like this is premature, that he should be more shocked and trembly, but the other part of him is saying it doesn't matter at all what he should be, when he knows exactly what he wants. 

“Oof,” is all Taehyung gets out before he’s pushing his hands into Seokjin’s hair like he’s done before and kissing back. 

Seokjin sighs as his headache melts away, then sighs again when the pain is replaced by a more welcome kind of ache, a toasty warmth in his chest. 

“That’s more like it,” Taehyung says against his mouth. He sounds very pleased with himself. 

Seokjin pushes him back slightly, miffed. “You’re very smug for someone who made me think for weeks that you were dead,” he says. "What the hell, dude." 

“You were worried?” If it’s possible, he sounds even more delighted now.

“I thought I’d never see you again. I thought your world was going to literally end because of some asteroid collision and you’d go up in flames—stop laughing!” 

“Sorry, hyung,” Taehyung gasps. “It’s just, wow, you’re as dramatic as Jin-hyung.” 

“This is a response that is perfectly commensurate with the facts that were presented,” Seokjin rants. There is a bubble building up inside him, and he has to keep words coming out of his mouth to stop it from popping, and spilling all of the things he actually wants to say. “I resent this mockery!” 

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, but his eyes are still twinkling with laughter. “Really, I didn’t mean to make you worry.” 

“How are you here? Is your world okay?” Seokjin still doesn’t understand. What he'd seen, what Jin had said; he was pretty sure the world had been going to end. As in, end end. He imagined smoldering ruins and a smoke-filled sky. Taehyung is not even the slightest bit charred; he looks freshly laundered, as good as the first time Seokjin saw him. 

“I’m here because I wanted to come back,” Taehyung says. "And yes, it is. Not even a scratch." 

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “I meant that more literally, as in, how did what I assume to be a giant asteroid not destroy everything?” 

“Well, I had a plan, obviously,” Taehyung says. “I’m not trying to martyr myself unnecessarily here. I was just going to travel back in time in my dimension and put in place conditions that would result in better space technology, so that we would spot it sooner. It was a good plan, I just knew it would take a long time, so I had to bounce, like, immediately.” 

“Wait,” Seokjin says. “It was that easy? Then why did Jin say all of that? He made it sound like it was definitely going to happen!”

“It almost did.” Taehyung pauses, and his expression changes, becomes more contemplative. “It wasn't a sure thing, honestly. I tried my best but even then I think it might have been too late. We broke off pieces of it, but the chunk that was coming straight at us didn’t wreck half the planet only because it suddenly shifted off course, right before its coordinates were locked in.” 

“Really lucky,” Seokjin says. 

“Yeah,” Taehyung agrees. “Almost like we had someone looking out for us.” 

They let that sit for a moment. 

“No, I still don’t believe in God,” Seokjin says. 

“Yeah, same.” Taehyung nods gravely. He sits down next to Seokjin on the bench and peeks up at him through his eyelashes. “Can I kiss you now?” he asks.

“You just did,” Seokjin points out. 

Taehyung brandishes the florid pink hat Seokjin had completely forgotten about. 

“I can’t believe you kept that,” Seokjin wrinkles his nose. “I seriously suspect my mother was just making this up to fuck with us.”

“Well, either way,” Taehyung says, as he wrestles the hat onto Seokjin’s head. “I think it’s only auspicious.”

“Wait, stop,” Seokjin says, even though there’s nothing he wants more than to continue. “I just need to know, for real this time. Aren’t you and Jin—?” 

“No,” Taehyung interrupts. He looks guilty, eyes dipped down and fingers twitching against the front of Seokjin’s shirt. “We never. We were never together that way.” But I wanted to, hangs unspoken in the air.

“But when we met, and you kissed me, you said it’d been a while,” Seokjin says. “Like you and Jin were on...kissing terms.” God, he sounds like a child.

“I lied.” Taehyung at least has the decency to look somewhat embarrassed. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to know what it would feel like—” 

“And now?” Seokjin’s voice drops. “Are you just doing this because you can’t have him? Is that why you came back?” 

“No,” Taehyung almost shouts. His grip tightens and he meets Seokjin’s eyes, brows furrowed and bottom lip sticking out stubbornly. He takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have lied,” he says. “And I won’t pretend I didn’t have a crush on Jin-hyung. He was everything to me when I had no one else.” Seokjin tries not to react at didn’t, was, had. Past tense. 

“But I’m here for you,” Taehyung continues. “You. Not because Jin-hyung doesn’t want me. But because I hope you do. Want me, that is. Because if you do…” Oh God, he’s blushing, and it’s awfully cute, Seokjin has to concede, and doing ridiculous things to his heart. “...you have me.” Taehyung ducks his head, suddenly shy, terribly earnest. 

Seokjin sighs. Dammit. He never stood a chance, really, not since this boy strolled into his shop and laid one on him. “As long as you don’t expect me to send you on dramatically self-sacrificial missions to alternate universes. I’m more on a ‘let’s mind-map our way out of this’ type of guy.” 

“Is that a yes?” Taehyung’s face is suddenly a lot nearer. 

“Don’t make me say it,” Seokjin warns, poking a finger into Taehyung’s chest so that he backs up a little. 

“I want you to,” Taehyung insists, wriggling closer. He wraps his arms around Seokjin’s waist and suddenly they’re chest to chest, noses bumping. Seokjin almost goes cross-eyed trying to focus on anything that is not Taehyung’s intense gaze. “Please.” 

“Ugh,” Seokjin grouses. “Why do I have to prove myself? You’re the one who had a crush on my doppelgänger—” 

Taehyung kisses him. He keeps doing that, almost like it’s because he wants to. 

They spend five minutes or an eternity clutching at each other like two idiots (at some point Taehyung knocks the hat off Seokjin’s head, but later he will pick it back up and hang it over the bedpost as a reminder); all he knows is that Taehyung’s mouth is warm and enthusiastic and the best thing that Seokjin has ever tasted. When Taehyung bites down gently on his bottom lip, a sound slips out unbidden, low and breathy. 

Taehyung pulls back and Seokjin, pathetically, follows, brushing his lips over Taehyung’s cupid’s bow and up the slope of his nose. He feels like he’s been drugged, head cottony, lungs empty, blood rushing down south. God, even Taehyung’s skin smells good. How is that possible? Seokjin wants to eat him up. 

“Hyung,” Taehyung giggles, nuzzling back. 

Seokjin hums. His hands slide down Taehyung’s back to thumb at his hips.  

Taehyung squeaks. He sounds breathless; good. Seokjin’s glad he’s not the only one that’s so affected. 

“Is that proof enough?” Taehyung whispers. “I’ll keep saying it until you believe it.” 

“You should show me instead,” Seokjin says back. 

He can feel Taehyung’s smile against his neck. “There’s nothing else I’d rather do.” 

Seokjin can’t see the future; in fact, has only been allowed glimpses of it twice in his life — but with Taehyung, he knows doesn’t need to. 

A Note from the Narrator: If this were a different kind of story — my story, perhaps — the end of the world would probably have been a bigger deal. It might even have been the whole point. But this is the story of how Taehyung and Seokjin met, and then met again; everything else can wait. So here’s the last thing you should know about Seokjin, that Seokjin might just vaguely be aware of himself. Maybe he never fully will be; maybe it’s better that way: Seokjin always gets what he wants. And he’s never wanted anything more than Taehyung. Lucky for him, the feeling is mutual.