Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s at the dinner where Yoongi’s boyfriend Hyunwoo proposes to him, in front of their whole group of friends, that Namjoon realizes he is well and truly fucked. Not just because he’s in love with Yoongi - because he is - but more so that his immediate reaction is this is not the kind of proposal Yoongi would like; I could have done this so much better.

He stomps on the thought as soon as it forms, out of long, long habit. But still, even as he claps and smiles and congratulates the happy couple, the unwanted string of thought continues in the back of his mind, obnoxious and intrusive. Why such a garish ring - I mean, really, six gems in a rainbow? Yoongi likes cute stuff but not for an engagement ring for crying out loud. And I know for sure he told me that he wouldn’t ever want a big public proposal in front of everyone. I guess we can be grateful he didn’t propose at a basketball game on the jumbotron or something. At least Yoongi looks happy.

And he does. Yoongi is glowing, blushing, flustered and shy as he accepts everyone’s congratulations and Hyunwoo’s big showy kisses on his cheek. Namjoon finally meets eyes with Jimin, and then with Seokjin, and thinks he might see some of the same doubts carefully concealed in their stiff posture and too-wide smiles. Or maybe he’s just projecting.

Yoongi has been Namjoon’s best friend for almost ten years now. They talk, in person and over text, at all times of the day and about all kinds of subjects. Art, music, philosophy, garden, interior design - everything. So many subjects in fact, that they never really get into their dating lives with each other. Yoongi always has so much else to talk about, and even if Namjoon asks, even innocuous things like what they’ve done lately, Yoongi generally breezes past the subject and talks about something else.

So, to be honest, Namjoon doesn’t really see what Yoongi likes about this guy. He’s never gushed about him or gone on rhapsodies to Namjoon about how great he is. To be fair, he’s never done that for any of his boyfriends, but he’s been dating Hyunwoo for five years now. Namjoon is trying to be honest with himself, and decide if the problem is really Hyunwoo, or just that Namjoon thinks he’s not good enough for Yoongi. Sweet, charming Yoongi, who gets along with just about anyone, who’s a huge sucker for flattery even though he pretends like he isn’t, who always has a line of suitors waiting (with varying degrees of respectfulness) to ask him out whenever he happens to be single. 

Namjoon likes to think he’s gotten along just fine with all of Yoongi’s boyfriends over the years. Hyunwoo, for some reason, really sets his teeth on edge. He’s the kind of guy who reads something on his phone, says “OH!” and then waits for everyone around him to act all interested and quiz him: “What? What?” before he shakes his head, like oh silly me I didn’t realize I said that out loud, and then he gets to tell his story with everyone watching him. He’s the kind of guy who says he doesn’t want anything from the drive through, but then eats all your fries and drinks half your drink. The kind of guy who makes a big, long, satisfied ahhhhhhhh noise after every sip of his latte. The kind of guy who asks which of a pair of shirt options he should wear, and then goes with whichever one you didn’t pick. He’s the kind of guy who starts dating your best friend that you finally realized you’re actually in love with the very same day you decided to finally confess your feelings, and then sticks around for five years, and then proposes to him-

Namjoon picks up his glass of water and chugs the whole thing in one go. He successfully keeps it together for the rest of the dinner, and smiles for the pictures Jimin takes of all of them for posterity. Jimin sends them all out to the group right after, of course, and Namjoon is pleased and relieved to see that his smile does look genuine.

💒

After the dinner ends and they all go their separate ways, he gets a whole twelve hour break from thinking about the situation, which ends when Yoongi texts to invite him to lunch that day with Hyunwoo and one of Hyunwoo’s friends. Namjoon has all morning to give himself a pep talk and get into the right emotional headspace, so he’s his usual calm, charming self when he meets the couple at the designated restaurant and gets introduced to a tall, handsome man with an adorable smile, named Taehyung, who is the aforementioned friend of Hyunwoo. Yoongi has evidently met him at least a few times before.

“We have an important question for you two,” Hyunwoo says excitedly once they’ve placed their orders and thus can reasonably expect a few minutes to talk without being interrupted. 

He and Yoongi are both beaming at them, and Namjoon is pretty sure he knows what’s coming next. 

“Would you two do us the honor of being our Best Men?” Hyunwoo gushes, looking back and forth between Yoongi and Taehyung.

Yoongi is grinning, a little shyly, as he looks at Namjoon.

“Of course!” Namjoon says immediately, straightening up in his seat.

“Yes!” Taehyung agrees happily.

They all burble on for a few minutes then, the stream of thank yous and oh wows and I’m so honoreds and all the other noises that civilized society requires. Yoongi is still beaming at Namjoon, so much love and gratitude and happiness on his face that Namjoon can’t help but feel like he is, in fact, doing the right thing. Yoongi doesn’t love him back in the same way that Namjoon loves Yoongi, and now he certainly never will, but their friendship is still a relationship worth honoring and cherishing. Namjoon takes a deep breath, lets it out, and mentally tells himself the phrase that will end up being his mantra over the next few months: I am the Best Man.

💒

A few days later, Namjoon gets to see Yoongi by himself again for the first time since the announcement. It’s one of their usual casual hangouts, where they end up meeting at Namjoon’s apartment for no particular reason, without them really formally planning it. Just before Yoongi gets there, it suddenly occurs to him that maybe once he’s Officially Married, he won’t do stuff like this any more. It will mark an inevitable shift of Yoongi’s mental energy away from Namjoon (and his other friends) and towards Hyunwoo. Hyunwoo will always come first, will always have the Spousal Trump Card. He swallows down the sadness as hard as he can, and wraps up Yoongi in a huge bear hug as soon as he gets through Namjoon’s door.

“Augh!” Yoongi complains, but doesn’t fight the hug. “What’s this for?”

“Just wanted to say congrats again,” Namjoon lies, pulling back so he can smile at his friend. 

He never gets tired of looking at his face.

“Thanks,” Yoongi murmurs, looking pleased despite himself.

“So, how did your parents react to the news?” Namjoon asks, wanting to get Yoongi to talk about something that will make him keep smiling.

So then they sit on the couch and Yoongi, grinning, tells Namjoon about how his mom cried happy tears and his dad blustered but almost cried too. They’re all happy happy happy. Namjoon sits next to him on the couch and does everything he can to just enjoy Yoongi’s happiness, and his doubled happiness because of everyone else being happy for him. If Yoongi had any clue what was lurking in the depths of Namjoon’s heart, he would be so upset, so hurt. So Namjoon knows he can never let on the true depths of his love for Yoongi, or the true depths of his complete detestation for everything regarding the wedding.

“Ah, but enough about the engagement,” Yoongi wraps up, waving his hands. “I’m sure we’ll be sick to death of talking about the whole thing soon enough,” he says with a chuckle.

Namjoon opens his mouth to speak, possibly to make an ill-advised joke about how he is, in fact, already sick to death of it as of about seventy-two hours ago, but Yoongi leans forward and suddenly looks very earnest, so Namjoon closes his mouth again.

“But, sincerely, thank you for agreeing to be my best man and go through all of this with me,” Yoongi tells him softly, not quite making eye contact as is so often his habit. “Thanks for being there for me.”

“Of course,” Namjoon says, straightening up in his seat. “Always. Anything for you. And I mean it, alright? I want you to enjoy this. Taehyung and I will take care of everything for you. For you guys. B-both.”

Yoongi smiles and looks down.

“Thanks,” he says, and reaches out and squeezes Namjoon’s hand. 

💒

Time passes, the inexorable march of five workdays followed by two weekend days one after the other after the other, and then they’re six months out from the wedding. Hyunwoo’s parents are taking on the vast majority of the planning and finances for the ceremony and the reception, so neither Namjoon nor Taehyung have to deal with any of that directly. It boils down to the bachelor party (because Hyunwoo wants to have a combined one), preparing their speeches, and showing up as moral support to any and every event that one of the grooms requests them at. So there’s a smattering of venue tours, cake tastings, caterer reviews and so on. Yoongi actually loves all that kind of stuff, loves getting into the little details of things and chatting up the people he meets with these specialized professions, so he doesn’t feel the need to drag Namjoon into many of them.

Namjoon gets the impression from Taehyung, however, that Hyunwoo pulls him along to pretty much all of them. Despite himself, he’s actually starting to like Taehyung. He seems like a sweet and goofy guy, so Namjoon isn’t sure how he ended up being best friends with the walking void of personality that is Hyunwoo. But then, Namjoon sternly checks himself: Yoongi loves Hyunwoo, therefore there must be something lovable about Hyunwoo. Namjoon just needs to try harder to see it, and get over himself. Perhaps he should take all of Taehyung’s positive qualities as things that reflect positively on Hyunwoo as well, just by association.

Namjoon’s bubble of positive thinking bursts when they all go together to pick out suits for the best men, three months before the wedding is taking place. All four of them are going together, so that the grooms can approve their choices and make sure their suits look good with the official ties and pocket squares that they have already picked out. They’ve been messaging nearly constantly, of course, but this is the first time Namjoon gets to see Yoongi in person more than just in passing for a couple of weeks, so he’s looking forward to it immensely. The grooms already chose their suits, at earlier visits with their mothers, but they’re also going to have a fitting session with their suits today, making sure the tailoring is where it needs to be. 

They get that done first, splitting up so that each groom-and-friend pair is in different parts of the store so the grooms won’t see each other. Namjoon is waiting outside the little changing cubby, just on the outside of the curtain, listening to the rustling of Yoongi shucking off his clothes and carefully donning the expensive outfit he’s going to wear for less than twelve hours. 

Namjoon generally thinks of his love of Yoongi - at those times when he can’t prevent himself from thinking about it - as an intellectual thing, an emotional thing. Yoongi is just - his person. His guy. The one he always wants to talk to, to hear from. He’s aware of his physical attraction to Yoongi, but somehow he finds it easier to ignore. Usually. There are those times, however, when it suddenly comes to the forefront. Like when they were hanging out one time over the summer, and Yoongi was wearing a t-shirt and some shabby old workout shorts. Yoongi was lounging on his couch, slouchy and relaxed, not caring that his shorts had ridden up - and why would he, among long-time friends? -  leaving his entire, pale thigh on display. Namjoon tells himself it’s not wrong to look. Or to wonder, in the privacy of his own head, what everything else looks like.

Namjoon takes a deep breath, squeezes his hands together, and curses himself. Really, dude? You’re going to fantasize about the guy while he’s trying on his wedding suit?

Then, Yoongi pushes the changing booth curtain open and reveals himself. He’s just tucking the crisp, pearl-colored shirt into his charcoal gray trousers, then he struggles for a moment with that weird little clip closure that dress pants have. Namjoon watches as he picks up the lovely warm gray damask tie and deftly ties it with his long fingers, feeling slightly hypnotized by the flipping of digits and silky fabric. Then Yoongi is carefully getting the suit jacket on and Namjoon admires how the whole outfit perfectly sets off his pale, creamy skin, the slight pink undertone of the tie bringing out the natural pink shading of his cheeks, his lips, the tips of his ears and nose-

“I have a message from Hyunwoo,” Taehyung’s voice comes quietly from just down the hallway.

Namjoon looks over to see him approaching, staying far enough back so he can’t see around the corner and into the open changing booth where Yoongi is. He gives Taehyung a quizzical expression.

“He wanted to ask you to make sure that the suit is de-emphasizing your shoulders like he said at the first fitting,” Taehyung explains, a little apologetically. 

Namjoon looks at Taehyung sharply, a little offended, then whips his head over to Yoongi, who is rolling his eyes, not without fondness.

“Why does he want to de-emphasize your shoulders?” Namjoon asks, scandalized.

Yoongi’s shoulders are amazing. So broad, setting off his perfectly-proportioned waist and hips, that- 

But Namjoon stops himself there.

“Oh, don’t be so overprotective,” Yoongi says in a faux-scolding voice, working on getting the sleeves settled inside the jacket. “He doesn’t mean it like that. He just wants the pictures to look nice so we’re, how did he put it, ‘harmonizing our silhouettes.’ So he’s going to look as tall and broad as possible, and I’m going to be, well, cute,” Yoongi says with an embarrassed but excited grin.

Then Yoongi flips his hands out in a little “tada” gesture, the universal non-verbal signal for “how do I look?” So Namjoon pushes aside his growing irritation at Hyunwoo’s overbearing vision of what Yoongi should look like and tries to look at Yoongi objectively.

He can’t. Yoongi is cute. It’s true, they have managed to tailor the suit so that it visually breaks up his proportions a little, downplays his long legs and manly shoulders, and somehow makes him look smaller than he really is. Namjoon feels a little like his bones are not quite holding up his own body as solidly as they usually do. 

“Yeah, tell him it does,” Namjoon calls out to Taehyung, not taking his eyes off of Yoongi. “He looks ethereally beautiful, a vision in shades of gray, the perfectly cute groom to outshine all others.”

Yoongi breaks into giggles and smacks Namjoon on the arm. Ah, humor as a deflection mechanism, Namjoon thinks ruefully to himself even as he smiles.

“Cut it out!” Yoongi says, grinning. “That’s too much, you sound like one of Ruby Rhod’s entourage or something.”

“Green!” Namjoon simpers, playing along to cover up the true nature of his deep interest in Yoongi’s appearance. “So green.”

“Green like what?” Yoongi barks, still grinning though, as he’s unable to keep a straight face to stay in character.

“Oh!” Namjoon cries, throwing his hands up with his elbows tucked in. “Crystal green!”

They both dissolve back into laughter. Namjoon looks over at Taehyung, who’s smiling at them but looks a little baffled.

“Tell Hyunwoo it’s all good,” Namjoon informs him with a wink. “And go watch The Fifth Element sometime.”

The rest of the day goes fine, he and Taehyung pick out their suits and take a goofy selfie together. But still, the thought of Hyunwoo trying to have that much control over how Yoongi looks rankles him. That guy should be grateful that someone as wonderful as Yoongi is marrying him at all, not trying to get him to fit in a specific vision.

💒

Later, Taehyung texts him, suggesting that they get together at some point to rehearse their respective Best Man speeches. Which reminds Namjoon he’d better get started on writing that speech in the first place. So he sits and thinks for a while, tries to look up example generic best man speeches online and hates all of them, and paces around his apartment in agitation while his brain whirls. 

He thinks back on all of his fondest memories with Yoongi. There was that time, back in college, when they first started hanging out and they decided on a whim to stop in an ice cream shop near campus. It turned out it was the local high school hangout, and they were surrounded by laughing teenagers, and they couldn’t help but overhear all the latest juicy drama, accidentally eavesdropping on five different loud conversations at once. As soon as they were back outside with their cups of ice cream, they were suddenly both overcome by giggles, and pretended to try to feed each ice cream, alternating fake, over-the-top flirting and shoving each other’s shoulders. Up until then they had mostly just studied together or complained about classes, so it was the first time Namjoon ever got to see Yoongi being relaxed and goofy. 

There was that time they went on a local hike organized by the geology club, that had an unexpectedly narrow section with a very steep dropoff on one side. They were maybe a quarter of the way through it when Namjoon happened to glance back behind him, and saw Yoongi’s face, and realized how scared he was. So he just told Yoongi to hold on to his shoulders from behind, which he did, and he reached up and put his hands over Yoongi’s. It was a little awkward to walk like that, with his elbows sticking forward, but Yoongi didn’t let go, so neither did Namjoon.

There was the time they went to a little showcase for local artisans, and some of them even had demo stations at their booths where you could try it yourself: weave a basket! Dye a handkerchief! Spin wool into yarn!

“Absolutely not,” Yoongi said with a laugh when he saw Namjoon eyeing the booth that stated you could try carving a wooden spoon.

“But-” Namjoon protested, and then he met Yoongi’s eyes, and in his perturbed and exasperated expression remembered a whole host of other moments: the times (multiple!) Namjoon had broken window screens in the dorms, that desk in the big lecture hall he somehow ripped the entire top off of, the dent he left in Seokjin’s car door, the way he broke Jimin’s blender, the time he had tried to pat Yoongi’s chest in a “bro” way and hooked his thumb in his shirt placket by mistake and popped one of the buttons off.

“No. Woodcarving,” Yoongi told him, eyebrows migrating up under his bangs.

Namjoon stubbornly stayed and looked at the wares for sale for a minute, Yoongi eyeing him suspiciously the whole time, until he gave up and they moved on.

There was the time they won trivia night at a local bar - when the theme was interior design, no less! - and they both had been tipsy enough that as soon as they were announced as the winners, they ran at each other dramatically and Namjoon actually lifted Yoongi up into the air when he hugged him. After he put him back down, they jumped up and down together and kept hugging and just didn’t worry at all about their silly, excessive celebration.

With all that mind, filled with an overwhelming fondness for his best friend, he pulls out his laptop and feverishly bangs out about a thousand words about Yoongi and their friendship and the meaning of marriage. He feels a touch of relief, that he’s finally done it and he can text Taehyung and they can rehearse together.

Then he rereads what he’s written, and it suddenly occurs to him that this speech reads, one hundred percent, like a love confession. It’s entirely praise for Yoongi and has nothing to do with his wedding - to another man - whatsoever. Namjoon puts the laptop down on the coffee table and slumps back on the couch, defeated.

Why? Why hadn’t he realized that it was more than just a strong friendship? Why was he an idiot, who had the love of his life in front of him for years and years, and he had never even tried anything? Yoongi was always right there - Yoongi, who loves to be complimented, who loves to be flirted with, who simply loves to be happy - and Namjoon just never got the timing right. There was always someone else there, a whole legion of guys in Yoongi’s orbit, ready to send him messages to make him smile and take him out on dates and Namjoon never joined them! He never tried! He just stayed, content but yearning, as The Best Friend for years and years, too afraid of his own feelings or messing things up to try for something different.

And now, it’s all he has left to cling to. He can keep his Best Friend role, as long as he keeps his true feelings hidden forever.

Namjoon deletes the document and starts a new one. Then he feels like an idiot because he could have just selected everything in the document and simply deleted the text, and had to click fewer buttons overall. He decides it provides more finality this way, emotionally. 

In any case, after a few dozen grueling twenty-minute intervals of writing spread out over the next few days, he manages to eke out a much safer speech, though it feels painfully generic. He doesn’t feel great about it, and positively wilts when he rehearses it for Taehyung and the other man just gives him a skeptical look and says it was fine, but maybe it could use a little jazzing up.

They’re at Namjoon’s apartment for this. Disgruntled but trying to pretend he isn’t, he listens to Taehyung’s speech in turn. He’s trying to be objective, he really is, but he hates it. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s piqued that Taehyung didn’t like his, or that he hates any sequence of words that involve praising Hyunwoo, or that it is just, genuinely, not a very peppy speech. But then when Taehyung reaches the conclusion, he sighs and throws his little index card down on the table sulkily.

“Okay, yeah, mine was even worse than yours,” he says morosely, throwing himself on Namjoon’s couch.

They look at each other despairingly.

“You know what, fuck it,” Taehyung says with a sudden smirk, smacking the couch cushion. “They’re going to be drunk and high on life by the time speeches roll around, I’m just going to ad-lib it. As long as I keep it short and free of insults, literally nobody will care what I say.”

Namjoon laughs and shakes his head disbelievingly.

“I’m going to at least have something,” he counters.

After he takes Taehyung out to lunch to thank him for his feedback, he goes back to his computer and undeletes his original speech. He’ll figure something out, tone it down, put in a few begrudging lines about how great Hyunwoo - blechhh! - is for Yoongi.

💒

The remaining weeks fly by. Namjoon bangs his too-lovey speech into shape, the best men get their suits, crises arise and are swatted back down. Yoongi is absolutely glowing with happiness every time Namjoon sees him. It gets down to the final day, and it’s time for the bachelor party.

There are eight of them there: Yoongi, Yoongi’s brother, Namjoon, Jimin, and Seokjin; and Hyunwoo, Hyunwoo’s brother, and Taehyung. It all feels a little awkward, as some of them haven’t spent much time together - or in the case of the brothers, this ends up being the first time they’ve met some of the others at all. It’s nothing complicated, just a meal out together and then hanging out at an adults-only arcade so they can drink. 

Namjoon wants nothing more than to pretend it’s a regular Friend Night, like so many other gatherings of just the four of them. He could be selfish and just hang out with Jimin and Seokjin and Yoongi (and Yoongi’s brother, to be magnanimous) and try to steer all the conversation to their long-standing in-jokes. But he doesn’t. He wants Yoongi to have a good time, to be able to look around and see everyone getting along and be able to relax. So he grits his teeth and talks with Taehyung and Hyunwoo’s brother, smiling and showing everyone that he’s “crossing the streams” and being just as friendly with them as he is with he and Yoongi’s long-standing friends.

He inevitably ends up watching Yoongi most of the night. Regardless of what conversation he’s in or what game he’s waiting to play, his eyes drift over. He’s making sure Yoongi is having a good time. That’s what he tells himself. That’s his job as best man, to try to stop any problems before they start. 

And so Yoongi’s last-ever night as an unmarried man passes, with Namjoon watching his smiling face, illuminated by screen after screen at the arcade. Flashing green, flashing red. Namjoon doesn’t want the evening to end, but it does. They don’t really get all that drunk or stay up all that late. The wedding isn’t until late morning, but it still wouldn’t do to be hungover. He’s got to be in top condition to make sure things go well. He watches Hyunwoo and Yoongi leave together, hand-in-hand, and waves goodbye to them and everyone else, and goes to sleep in his hotel room.

💒

Dawn arrives, and with it acceptance, as Namjoon gets himself ready in his hotel room at the venue. This is, literally, the first day of the rest of his life. Or rather, the day Hyunwoo started dating was the first day of the rest of his life, he just didn’t realize it then. Now, it’s time to show the depth of his love for Yoongi by making sure his wedding to Hyunwoo is a beautiful day that Yoongi can look back on with no regrets or misgivings.

The ceremony is set to start at eleven, followed by lunch. Namjoon is in his suit by eight a.m. and has already exchanged a few dozen text messages with Taehyung about last minute arrangements and hitches. They’re short by a dozen chairs, Hyunwoo’s brother is dispatched to talk to the venue front desk about it. The florist is behind setting up the centerpieces, so Taehyung and Namjoon pitch in until they have to leave to help the grooms get ready. 

Namjoon has about half an hour to sit with Yoongi before they’re going to head in for the ceremony. It’s totally absurd to think that Namjoon would actually be helping Yoongi get ready, in the literal sense - Yoongi has always been better at this stuff than he is. Yoongi’s actually the one who taught him to tie a tie, thinking back on it.

Indeed, Yoongi expertly gets his own tie settled in place, the same one Namjoon saw him try on before, then leans over and makes some adjustment to Namjoon’s. He has just the point of his tongue sticking out between his lips as he concentrates on it, and his fingertips accidentally brush against Namjoon’s chin as he withdraws them. Namjoon very carefully doesn't think about either of those things.

“Thanks,” Namjoon says automatically.

Yoongi sits down with a sigh and starts nervously drumming his fingers on his thighs.

“Waughhh, waiting is the worst,” he complains.

“Did you know that in some places in Germany,” Namjoon informs him, “it’s a tradition for newlyweds to saw a log in half together?”

“At the actual wedding, or later at home, or what?” Yoongi asks, laughing.

“At the wedding, I think!” Namjoon says. “The article I read didn’t specify. Maybe it’s part of some weird wedding-night kink.”

“Spicy,” Yoongi replies, trying to keep a deadpan expression but grinning anyway.

“And sometimes in traditional Hindu weddings, the bridesmaids steal the groom’s shoes and he has to give money to get them back,” Namjoon goes on.

“If only either of us had sisters,” Yoongi says, faux-regretfully. “Alas, it’s a sausage-fest here.”

“I’m sure we can still convince Hyunwoo’s brother to steal your shoes, that young man seems susceptible to peer pressure,” Namjoon offers.

“Hmm, true,” Yoongi says, playing along. “Can you spot me some cash if he does?”

They both dissolve into laughter then.

“Ahhh, what do you think Hyunwoo is doing now?” Yoongi asks a little dreamily once they quiet back down.

“Well,” Namjoon says, “I sent Taehyung that same article about wedding traditions, so maybe he’s learning all the same things you are.”

Yoongi grins at the thought.

“So,” Namjoon goes on mischievously, “If you head to bed tonight and discover a log and a two-person chainsaw in the room, you’ll know who gave him the idea.”

Yoongi collapses sideways in laughter, slapping Namjoon’s thigh with one hand and holding his belly with the other.

Then, Namjoon checks his watch, and it’s time to head over to the venue. There, Namjoon thinks, he’s not nervous any more. I’ve done my part. All he has to do now is endure the ceremony, go along with all his cues, and then he can get roaring drunk. He stands up.

“Alright, it’s time!” he says cheerfully to Yoongi, offering his hand.

Yoongi smiles up at him, takes the proffered hand and stands up. Then, he steps in and hugs Namjoon.

“Hey, thank you. I- I love you,” Yoongi mutters bashfully into Namjoon’s shoulder.

“I love you too,” Namjoon says back, squeezing him back and willing himself not to cry.

“Now, let’s get you married!” Namjoon says, rubbing Yoongi’s upper arms and trying to memorize the way Yoongi’s sweet face is smiling up at him at this exact moment.

Yoongi steps out the door, Namjoon follows him, and that’s that. Namjoon is practically counting down in his head the final ninety minutes or so of “bestmanship” he has left to endure.

Very soon, however, things are starting to veer dangerously off course. 

Namjoon, Yoongi, and Taehyung are standing a bit off to the side at the front, behind the little stage with the trellis of fake flowers on it. The officiant is off at the other side, sitting in a chair he scrounged from somewhere, scrolling on his phone. All of Yoongi and Hyunwoo’s family and friends are seated now, in rows and rows of white folding chairs, waiting much less patiently and quietly than they were twenty minutes ago, the time the ceremony was scheduled to start. Taehyung is checking his phone approximately every fifteen seconds, for the text that Hyunwoo is finally, absolutely on his way in, at which point the three of them will take their places up at the front. Yoongi had wanted the two of them to walk in together, but Hyunwoo insisted that he get to be the one to walk up the aisle last. He claimed that it was his mother’s dearest wish, but Namjoon privately, and uncharitably, thinks that Hyunwoo just had an unquenchable thirst for being the center of attention.

Namjoon can barely contain himself because of his nerves. He’s already been trying so hard to keep a grip on himself. He thought that having to be best man for your best friend that you’re secretly in love with was already hard enough, but this unexpected, unaccountable delay is the putrid cherry on top of the wretched, garbage sundae. He feels sweaty and shaky. Yoongi, on the other hand, is still glowing. He’s having the best day of his life. A beautiful, grand party to celebrate his loving union with Hyunwoo, who he still has perfect trust and regard for. Namjoon can even see a serene little smile on his face, as if he’s imagining what funny story Hyunwoo will tell later to explain himself. 

Namjoon tries harder, flexes his fingers, tries to slow his breathing. He is NOT going to ruin this for Yoongi. He is NOT going to take advantage of this delay, this sign from the universe that this is the last moment before Yoongi is forever out of his reach. But just think of it, what if he just reached out, took Yoongi’s big, gentle hand in his own and said, “You’re the one for me. Marry me instead!”

A phone vibrates. Namjoon shakes himself out of his completely inappropriate reverie and looks at Taehyung expectantly for a split second, but Taehyung is looking at Yoongi.

Yoongi pulls his phone out of his pocket. He gets a crease on his brow when he sees whatever the notification is, and Namjoon sees his fingers move to unlock his phone. After that he freezes for a long moment, reading and rereading. Namjoon can see his eyes flickering up and down. His brow smoothes out and his face is entirely, terrifyingly blank. 

Yoongi turns, not to Namjoon, but to Taehyung. He holds up his phone in front of Taehyung’s face, a clear invitation to read whatever’s there. Taehyung’s face morphs into a look of complete horror. He brings his hands up and presses them into his cheeks, looking into Yoongi’s face, the very cliché of a shocked reaction.

Yoongi turns and strides purposefully out of the room, to the side door in the corner of the building. Namjoon freezes, not sure if he should follow Yoongi or check with Taehyung first. Taehyung steps close to him, his own phone back in his hand, clearly preparing to send more texts. He leans in, and Namjoon rotates his head so that Taehyung can speak into his ear.

“The wedding’s off,” Taehyung whispers. “Go.”

As he says the last word, he gives a gentle push on Namjoon’s arm to send him off in the direction Yoongi went. Namjoon gapes at him, flabbergasted, then rushes after Yoongi.

He bursts out of the door and into the sun. This side of the building is right next to the parking lot. He spots Yoongi not far away, peering into the clusters of cars.

“Yup,” Yoongi says flatly and absently as Namjoon approaches. “His car’s gone.”

“He- he left? Hyunwoo left?” Namjoon asks, still not sure if he understands the situation correctly, his heart hammering in his chest and his mouth dry.

“Yup,” Yoongi repeats.

“Oh, Yoongi,” Namjoon says, approaching his friend slowly as if he were a wild animal about to bolt, nervous that he seems so eerily calm. “I’m so sorry.”

“There’s a hundred and fifty people in there,” Yoongi says, putting his hands on his hips. “Can we send them over to the reception hall now? There’s been enough of a delay now that the caterers are probably almost ready to serve anyway.”

“We don’t have to worry about that right now,” Namjoon argues.

“Sure we do, they have to go somewhere,” Yoongi shoots back.

“Yoongi, let’s-” Namjoon pleads, to no avail as Yoongi brushes past him to walk back into the building.

“Better to just rip the bandaid off,” Yoongi says as Namjoon catches up behind him.

Taehyung is right where they left him, evidently still trying to text and call Hyunwoo, to no result. The audience is talking loudly, well aware now that something is wrong by the way the three men have been bustling around. Namjoon can spot a few people looking sharply over, about to give in to temptation to come over and ask what’s going on.

“Yoongi, I’m so sorry,” Taehyung whispers a little tearily. “I have no idea why he did this. He didn’t give me any sign this was going to happen, I swear.”

Yoongi seems to ignore this. 

“Taehyung, can you please pull Hyunwoo’s parents aside and tell them,” Yoongi says coolly. “And Namjoon, please tell my parents and brother. They all deserve to hear it first. Then we’ll tell the whole group that they’re free to go eat the catered lunch or just leave directly.”

Yoongi then makes shooing motions with his hands, urging them to go over to the front row where the parents are sitting, agitated. For his part, he starts taking off his jacket and loosening his tie, which causes a buzz of upset conversation to pass through the room in a wave as soon as his actions are perceived. 

Helplessly, Namjoon goes up to Yoongi’s family to do as he’s asked. He kneels in front of Yoongi’s parents, and motions for his brother to lean in. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Taehyung leaning down to talk to Hyunwoo’s parents similarly.

“Hyunwoo has decided to call off the wedding.” Namjoon whispers to the Mins. 

“What?” Mrs. Min shrieks in outrage.

“Now?” Mr. Min yells in tandem.

Yoongi’s brother immediately stands up and heads to Yoongi, quickly followed by their parents, Namjoon tagging behind.

“Oh, Yoongi, I told you so!” his mother says. Namjoon can see Yoongi freeze for a moment while he’s carefully removing his cufflinks, then resume, not even bothering to look towards his mother.

“I told you that boy was no good!” she cries, this time directing her face just slightly towards Hyunwoo’s parents. 

The chatter in the room continues to get louder, and people are starting to shift around in their seats uncertainly. Taehyung hastily prompts Hyunwoo’s parents and brother to stand up and, in as gentlemanly a manner as he can, escorts them back down the aisle and out of the building before any kind of inter-family fight can break out.

Yoongi ignores the continued complaints of his family, walks right past them, and stands at the front of the room. He’s alone, now only in his trousers and gleaming pearly shirt, the sleeves rumpled and pushed up to his elbows. Namjoon tries to go after him, to tell him to go sit down, and Namjoon will handle all the people, but he’s too late.

“Excuse me everyone,” Yoongi says loudly. A hush falls nearly immediately.

“I’m very sorry that your time has been wasted today, but there will be no wedding. On behalf of both families, I thank you for your attendance. You are free to go to the reception hall and have the planned lunch, or you can leave straight away.”

Things quickly descend into chaos after that, the whole audience suddenly rising to their feet and talking agitatedly. Seokjin and Jimin, make their way up front, rushing through the confused, milling throng. Namjoon grabs Yoongi’s sleeve and pulls him to the side, so that he’s not left standing alone in front of everyone. Then Yoongi’s parents and brother are there, all babbling and touching and crying at once, crowding him further off to the side, as he continues to answer their queries in the shortest, calmest sentences possible.

Namjoon wants to stay with Yoongi, desperate to make sure he’s okay, but Taehyung comes back and grabs Namjoon’s eye, gesturing to him urgently.

“His parents and brother are on the road now,” Taehyung explains. “I helped them get packed up, so we don’t need to worry about, uh, people running into each other?”

Namjoon nods to indicate he understands the concern - the potential for vicious arguments to break out, emotions running high and loyalties tested.

“All of Hyunwoo’s stuff is gone from his room, except the suit - he left that behind,” Taehyung goes on. “He must have changed out of it and packed up and left the instant I was out of his room.”

Namjoon grimaces in anger. They go on to discuss what needs to be done to clean up after the mess that’s been made. All the annoying details that have to be dealt with after a ceremony are still here: vendors to be tipped, things to be put away, cleaning to be done so they don’t lose the deposit on the venue. Well, maybe they can skip that last part and stick Hyunwoo’s parents with the extra bill, as payback.

“I’ll take care of all of it,” Taehyung says soothingly to Namjoon, who is getting more and more irritated and frantic by the moment. “You focus on staying with Yoongi, okay?”

“But there’s-” Namjoon protests, gesturing vaguely to the remaining confused attendees who haven’t stampeded out for free food yet, and all the decorations and the mess of chairs, no longer in nice straight rows.

Taehyung squeezes his arm.

“I’ll take care of it,” he says with the solemn air of a promise. “You take care of Yoongi.”

Namjoon takes a deep breath and nods.

And so it goes. Yoongi’s brother mercifully realizes that the tender, aggravating attentions of their parents are, in fact, not helping Yoongi feel better, so he pries them away and convinces them that he needs their help with something, and that Namjoon has some sort of bestmanly thing he urgently needs Yoongi to do with him. Namjoon convinces Yoongi that it would be good to head back to his room and get out of his suit. Seokjin and Jimin meet Namjoon and Yoongi just outside the venue as they walk, and hand them to-go bags from the catered meal they had gotten packed up especially for them, so that Yoongi wouldn’t have to face everyone if he didn’t want to, and Namjoon could stay with Yoongi the whole time. Namjoon thanks them effusively, so very grateful to have so many thoughtful friends. Yoongi remains stoic, nearly silent. Seokjin and Jimin look worried. Namjoon tries to reassure them with his eyes that he’ll make sure Yoongi is okay.

He gets Yoongi back to the hotel room and gets him to change into comfortable clothes. Yoongi even decides to shower, hating the feeling of the hair gel he has in. He does love to run his fingers through his hair, Namjoon thinks. Namjoon quickly packs the suit and all its accessories back up while Yoongi showers, and puts it all away in the hotel closet, so it’s out of sight. He gets Yoongi to eat a little of the food. Yoongi remains silent and calm.

The afternoon stretches on in Yoongi’s hotel room. Namjoon is getting text updates from Taehyung and Seokjin and Jimin, who all smartly know that Namjoon will be less anxious if he hears about the progress of handling everything, rather than updating him at the end. They certainly give the impression that it’s all going well and that Namjoon can easily keep his focus entirely on Yoongi’s well-being.

Yoongi is looking impossibly soft in his big, worn sleep shirt and shapeless black pants. He’s in one corner of the couch, the opposite side from Namjoon, feet tucked underneath himself, hair still slightly damp and sticking up. He’s still barely said much, still remained stoic. Namjoon knows this can’t last - the dam will break at some point. He just has to make sure he’s here for Yoongi when it happens.

“I’m going to order something delivered for dinner,” Namjoon says quietly. “Any preference on what?”

“I’m actually not upset that he broke up with me,” Yoongi replies, staring straight ahead, ignoring Namjoon’s question. “I mean, it happens. I’ve been broken up with a lot. It’s whatever. Can’t make someone stay.”

He swallows and looks down at his hands, fidgeting with his fingers and pinching at his palms. 

“But why at the last minute? Why did he have to do it when I was up there standing in front of everybody? Why did he have to embarrass me? And via a text? I’m not crazy, that’s, that’s, that wasn’t a nice way of doing it, right?” he asks, voice getting quieter and sadder the longer he talks.

“No, it was not nice,” Namjoon agrees forcefully. “It was not the right way of doing things at all. If he was going to do it then, he should have come and done it in person. He should have come in, pulled you aside and told you in private, then gone out and been the one to tell everyone else, and deal with the fallout, and get everyone to leave.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi nods, “Yes. That would have been the way. I would have appreciated - well, maybe appreciated is too strong of a word,” he says thoughtfully, almost in a whisper, “but having gone through it this way, that way would have been better.”

He pauses in thought for a moment, hands still flexing, twisting, rolling. Namjoon doesn't know what to say.

“Even a day earlier. He could have told me a day earlier. He must already have been thinking about it then,” Yoongi muses, though Namjoon has to lean in to hear him. “Even an hour!”

Yoongi suddenly throws his head back against the couch, gazing dully at the ceiling, and flops his arms down dramatically with a big huff of breath. 

“Even an hour earlier would have been so much better.” He pauses for a moment, then listlessly rolls his head to the side so he’s actually looking at Namjoon. “D’ya wanna read the text he sent me?”

Namjoon looks at him in concern.

“If, if- if you want me to. If you feel like it would help, s-sure,” he stammers.

Yoongi shifts himself up, unfolds his legs, and gets his feet out in front of himself. He sits up straight and fishes his phone out of his pocket. He unlocks it, flicks the screen a few times, then hands it to Namjoon. Namjoon takes the phone, and rotates his hand so he can start reading. At the same moment, Yoongi throws himself forward across the couch towards Namjoon, ducking under the hand holding the phone, so quickly and suddenly that Namjoon almost flinches.

As Namjoon starts reading the text, Yoongi has wrapped his arms around Namjoon’s torso and buried his face in his shoulder. The movement is sudden and jarring, like Yoongi is drowning and Namjoon is a buoy he has to snatch before it floats out of reach. Over his shoulder, Namjoon views the words on the screen:

[Woo♥️] Yoongi, I’m so sorry to do this to you, but I can’t get married. I don’t want to do something permanent that we will both regret. I have to accept that I don’t love you the way I should, so it would be selfish of me to carry through with the wedding now. Someday, you’ll see that this is for the best, and that you’ll make someone else happier than I can be. I hope you understand. This isn’t your fault. You are very nice, but a little boring.

Yoongi is squeezing him so tightly that it actually hurts . Namjoon can’t breathe, whether from anger or grief or Yoongi’s iron grip is impossible to tell. Namjoon can feel Yoongi’s whole body shuddering against him as he makes a horrible choked squeak, and Namjoon realizes he’s finally crying.

Namjoon quickly tosses Yoongi’s phone back to the other corner of the couch and carefully wraps his arms around Yoongi. He can feel his shoulder getting damp already. Namjoon moves one hand up to the nape of Yoongi’s neck, and splays the other just at the base of his upper back, giving himself leverage to pull Yoongi in as closely and tightly as he dares. Namjoon breathes as shallowly as he can as Yoongi squeezes back even harder, and he idly wonders when on earth he got so strong. 

For the first time since Hyunwoo proposed, with his stupid gaudy ring and his stupid smug face, Namjoon wishes with all his heart that he had been wrong; that Hyunwoo had turned out to be a good person, a good husband, and gotten happily married to Yoongi after all. It would be so much less painful than this, holding Yoongi destroyed and heartbroken in his arms, powerless to do anything to take the pain away. Pining is one thing - a secret pain he can keep to himself, and soothe by observing how happy and fulfilled Yoongi is, even if Namjoon isn’t central in his life. But this - seeing the one person he loves above all others, hurt beyond comprehension by the one who was supposed to feel the same way - this burns, with no possible relief whatsoever.

He can feel a few hot, ragged breaths from Yoongi against his collarbone, and then he starts sobbing in earnest. Yoongi’s arms relax marginally, and Namjoon holds him closer in response, able to feel his desperate, heaving breaths and the trembling of his body through his ribs and spine against his hands. 

They don’t end up ever having dinner. Yoongi cries for a long time, and Namjoon lets him. Finally, he seems like he’s exhausted himself so thoroughly that he’s about to fall asleep right there on the couch, so Namjoon hauls him to his feet and makes him lie down in the bed. He lies down next to him, on the far side so they’re not touching, until he finally hears his breathing even out. Then Namjoon goes to the couch in the room and tries to sleep. 

💒

In the morning, Namjoon wakes up before Yoongi does. He’s already getting a flurry of texts as he pulls himself stiffly off the hotel couch. He assures Yoongi’s family that Yoongi is fine, that he’s still sleeping. He confirms a few things with Taehyung, who is guiltily trying to handle as much of the cancellations and cleanup as he can. He doesn’t ask Taehyung for any information about Hyunwoo - the less he knows the better, he figures, trying to ignore the part of his brain that’s still consumed with rage.

He hears Yoongi stirring, but doesn’t look over. He figures nobody wants to wake up to find someone watching them. So he starts looking up restaurants in the area that serve breakfast. He hears Yoongi finally sit up, then the rustle of the covers as he gets out of them and then stands up. So then, Namjoon looks over at Yoongi, unsure and apprehensive of how he’ll be feeling today - what will he need?

“N-Namjoon?” Yoongi rasps sleepily, ruffling his fingers through his messy hair.

He looks at Namjoon sitting in his hotel room, takes in Namjoon’s sad and sympathetic expression. Namjoon realizes that Yoongi doesn’t remember what happened yesterday - yet. His heart hurts as he watches his best friend look at him in confusion, then in realization, and then slump over in shock as his face crumples and reality crashes down on him again.

“Oh no…” Yoongi whimpers as he hides his face in his hands. 

Namjoon quickly stands up and wraps Yoongi up again, and just stands there holding him as he cries.

“I can’t do this,” Yoongi finally says into Namjoon’s shoulder. “I have to- I have to go back to work! What can I even say to everyone! The- the apartment!”

Yoongi jerks back from Namjoon and looks up at him, overwhelmed tears still falling down his cheeks.

“I can’t do this,” he repeats, his eyes begging Namjoon - to do what, Namjoon doesn’t know.

“I’ll be here with you,” Namjoon tells him desperately, knowing how much this is going to hurt, to have a front seat to Yoongi’s heartbreak, but knowing he has to - he’ll do anything to help his best friend. “I’ll help you with everything. We’ll get through it together, okay? I’ll send an email to your coworkers, I’ll deal with Hyunwoo getting his stuff out of the apartment.”

Yoongi looks at him uncertainly.

“I promise,” Namjoon says, trying to project calm steadiness and ignoring his own simmering anger and grief on Yoongi’s behalf. “I’ll be here with you the whole way.”

He finally gets a tentative nod from Yoongi.

Yoongi manages to pull himself together enough for a tense and unhappy brunch with his side of the family - the ones who haven’t left town already that is. Namjoon stays by his side. Yoongi mostly stays quiet and displays an admirable, nearly unbreakable focus on eating an abnormal number of slices of toast. He nods implacably through everyone’s expressions of sympathy and outrage on his behalf.

Jimin ends up volunteering to stay behind to wrap up the wreckage of the ceremony with Taehyung, and Seokjin drives Yoongi and Namjoon back home. Yoongi stays in Namjoon’s apartment that night, curling up on his couch with barely a word after they watch a ridiculous (romance-free - Namjoon looked up the plot summary online before putting it on) over-the-top action movie in the evening.

Before he goes to sleep, Namjoon sits by his side and, on Yoongi’s phone, composes and sends an email to his direct boss and his team, explaining in the briefest and most professional way what happened and that he’ll be staying home from work the next day. Yoongi assures Namjoon he’ll be fine to go back to work the day after, on Tuesday. Namjoon keeps playing movies late into the night, until Yoongi finally falls asleep there on the couch. He sends an email of his own, also taking Monday off, so he can stay here for Yoongi.

He lets him sleep in as late as he can in the morning. However, one terrible, unavoidable hurdle remains in front of them: doing something about the apartment Yoongi and Hyunwoo have lived in together for a few years. Namjoon texts with Taehyung to try to get a sense for what Hyunwoo is going to do about it, feeling like it’s a sick and terrible mirror of the months leading up to the wedding, when they were talking to each other to arrange the wedding. Now they’re trying to coordinate a breakup instead.

Ultimately, however, it ends up being something Namjoon can’t do for Yoongi, and in the late morning they’re driving over to the apartment together, where Hyunwoo and Taehyung already are. Namjoon hopes that having the two of them there will keep Hyunwoo in check.

Or, perhaps, it’s really Namjoon who needs to be kept in check the most, he thinks to himself as he follows Yoongi inside, and spots Hyunwoo standing there, and his heart burns with rage.

“Ah, Yoongi, thanks for coming so quickly,” Hyunwoo says, entirely too calm for someone who’s just broken a heart. “I figured we could handle this straightforwardly, like adults.”

Namjoon sees Taehyung, standing just behind Hyunwoo, wince in total mortification. And that, oddly enough, makes him feel a little better. If Hyunwoo’s supposed best friend thinks he’s being terrible, then Namjoon isn’t overreacting either.

“Sure,” Yoongi says dully.

“Ah, great,” Hyunwoo goes on. “Anyway, I’m assuming you’re moving out, so you can pick up the stuff you need most, and then let me know when movers are coming to get the rest?”

“Why do you assume that?” Namjoon bursts out sharply, as he sees Taehyung hide his face in his hands briefly.

“Well, because it just makes sense,” Hyunwoo says, the picture of innocence. “I know Yoongi would want all of this handled as easily as possible, it seems logical.”

Namjoon opens his mouth to retort that there’s no logic, as Hyunwoo hasn’t presented any sort of argument at all, but Yoongi speaks first.

“Okay,” he says, sounding sad and defeated. “I’ll let you know. Joon, can you come help me pack some bags?”

He walks towards the back then, leaving Namjoon no choice but to follow him. He gives both Hyunwoo and Taehyung the deadliest, most alpha-male, I-will-fuck-you-up glares he can produce as he stalks past.

“Make sure you don’t take the-” Hyunwoo bleats after Yoongi, but then mercifully Taehyung grabs him and forestalls whatever he was about to say.

As he follows Yoongi into the bedroom, he hears Taehyung usher Hyunwoo out of the apartment, apparently able to convince him that Yoongi can be trusted to pack up his own things. His heart breaks all over again as he sees Yoongi pause and look around the room - the place he shared with the man he loved, where he thought he would be coming back to as a married man full of happiness - and now instead he’s here to scrape away a few shards from the life that very man shattered.

Yoongi works in silence, and Namjoon lets him. He knows Yoongi won’t want to talk about this, to risk crying about it, until he’s somewhere he actually feels safer being vulnerable. Yoongi packs up three suitcases worth of clothes, a shoulder bag of toiletries and books, and a backpack with his laptop and Switch and some notebooks. Between the two of them they can take all of it out to the car in one trip. As they cram it into the trunk and back seat of Yoongi’s car, Namjoon texts Seokjin and Jimin about their progress and they come up with a plan, lightning quick.

Only about ten minutes after Namjoon and Yoongi get the bags back into Namjoon’s apartment, the other two show up and whisk Yoongi out for dinner. Namjoon takes the time to move stuff around a little, blowing up his inflatable mattress and putting real sheets and blankets on it, putting up a little folding screen to psychologically separate it from the rest of the living room. 

When Seokjin and Jimin bring Yoongi back, along with a takeout container packed especially for Namjoon, Yoongi comes over and gives Namjoon a long hug.

“Thank you,” he murmurs into Namjoon’s chest.

“Of course,” Namjoon replies quietly. “Of course.”

Yoongi only ends up spending two weeks living with Namjoon. He seems a little energized, in fact, by the task of needing to find an apartment and hire movers and buy mostly-new furniture and go back to his job and keep everything coordinated. Namjoon and Seokjin and Jimin all come along to help on the day when he gets his things officially packed up and trucked over to his new apartment. The real MVP of the day, however, is Taehyung, who keeps Hyunwoo away from them all day, despite Hyunwoo claiming he wants to be there. Namjoon’s not sure what sort of antics he comes up with to do so, but he manages to feel a grudging little particle of gratitude anyway.

💒

Everyone soldiers onward. Seokjin and Jimin and Namjoon finally get together at Jimin’s apartment one night, when they know Yoongi has to work late and won’t want to be social, to have an epic bitch session. They all complain about all the things Hyunwoo did over the years that they didn’t like, and how much their hatred of him has been cemented now. It’s nice to finally be able to pour all the venom out, with no worry, for those two hours, about editing what they’re saying to spare Yoongi’s feelings.

They all keep checking in with Yoongi, spending time with him, making sure he’s always got someone around to talk to. It’s most often Namjoon, of course, because even during the times when he’s elsewhere he finds himself wishing he were back with Yoongi. He knows that, even though he himself feels sick, terrible, and heartbroken about what happened, that for Yoongi it’s a thousand times worse. So, somehow, he feels better staying close with him, so that he knows for sure if Yoongi needs a hug or a shoulder to cry on, he has it. Most often, however, Yoongi doesn’t wish to talk about it.

One night, just a few days after he moves, and Namjoon has invited Yoongi over to his apartment for dinner so that Yoongi doesn’t have to worry about trying to find the stuff he needs in his barely-unpacked kitchen, Yoongi finally brings it up directly for the first time in a while.

“I’ve decided Hyunwoo was right, you know,” Yoongi tells Namjoon listlessly. 

“What?” Namjoon replies agitatedly, already ready to argue.

“I am boring,” Yoongi says calmly, as if he were stating the obvious.

“No-” Namjoon starts angrily, but Yoongi waves his hand at him.

“Nah nah nah,” he insists with a tinge of bitterness, dropping his hands to his sides and balling them up into fists, “just let me say it. I am boring. So instead of fighting against it and trying to be cool or exciting or whatever I’m going to lean into it. I’m going to say no to everything. I’m going to see if I can win the record for most boring human ever. I’m going to start watching train crossings and making lists of all the different locomotives I spot, I’m going to start collecting postage stamps, I’m going to- to- I’ll buy a loom and weave tapestries that don’t even have designs on them, they’re just plain cloth.”

“Yoongi…” Namjoon says, agonizing. Does he want to be comforted? Pepped up? Sympathized with?

Yoongi sighs deeply and unclenches his fists.

“There’s nothing wrong with being boring,” Yoongi goes on stubbornly, though unhappily. “When it comes down to it, if his main objection to me is that I’m boring, and he’s a bad person, then that makes it a good thing that I’m boring, right?”

Namjoon is not at all sure that the logic follows. He’s honestly, even after the weeks that have gone by, still absolutely gobsmacked by the fact that Hyunwoo would insult Yoongi in such a way in the first place. 

Who the FUCK would date Yoongi for five years, have Yoongi agree to marry them, and then dump him - at the last minute! the last second! - for being boring. Namjoon has spent the last ten years being more and more enamored and in love with Yoongi, practically by the week. He feels like he finds a new thing to enjoy about Yoongi everytime he sees him. He honestly can’t put himself in the mindset of someone who would spend that much time with Yoongi and have it have the opposite effect. He wants to hinge open Yoongi’s brain and remove Hyunwoo’s words from them, somehow undo the poison that he infused his thoughts with.

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi says quietly. “You must all be getting so sick of me whining on and on. I mean, it’s not like it was that bad…it’s not like he died or something. I just got dumped. Whatever.”

“Yoongi, it wasn’t just getting dumped,” Namjoon tells him gently. “Your feelings are valid. And none of us feel that way, that you’re overreacting. I’ll sit here and listen to you for as long as you like. I’ll never tell you that it’s time to move on. Even if you feel like you have to put on a brave face for others, promise me you never will for me, okay? You can be sad, angry, anything. Promise me you’ll always come to me whenever you need to talk, or not talk, or anything, alright?”

Yoongi rubs his hands over his face and finally manages to look at Namjoon then. He looks exhausted, wrung out, no better than he did since it first happened.

“Okay, Joon, I promise,” Yoongi whispers.

They sit there in silence for a moment, Namjoon listening to Yoongi’s breathing as he puts his head back on the couch, closes his eyes, and tries not to cry again.

“So, what you’re saying,” Yoongi says wetly but trying to joke, “is that I have an unlimited wallowing policy with you?”

“Yes,” Namjoon says, smiling sadly.

“No,” Yoongi immediately contradicts him, waving his hand in the air. “That’s too generous. You’ve got to put a time limit on it.”

“Ten years, then,” Namjoon offers.

“No way,” Yoongi scoffs. “One year.”

“Five!” Namjoon counters. “In five years, I’ll pull you aside and give you the most blood-pumping, motivating, full-life-makeover, tough-love, pull-yourself-up and dust-yourself-off speech anyone’s ever heard.”

He sees Yoongi smile a little.

“Set a calendar reminder for it right now, I’m serious,” Namjoon goes on. “It’s going to be so good that I’ll use it as the basis for a brand new self-help book. It’ll be a best seller and I’ll become a billionaire.”

Yoongi smiles a little more.

“Maybe you should just go ahead and do it now, then,” Yoongi murmurs. “Why wait?”

“Well, I need the whole time to write it, to make sure it’s that good,” Namjoon says matter-of-factly. “That’s how good it will be, it will take five whole years to write.”

Namjoon pulls out his phone and does, indeed, make a calendar reminder for five years in the future. He holds it up so that Yoongi can see. Yoongi gives him a bracket smile and a slightly sarcastic thumb’s up in return.

💒

A few months pass. Namjoon still hovers around Yoongi, doing his best to seem like he’s not hovering. Yoongi has Seokjin for distractions: he invites him (and the other two) to play stupid online games sometimes, like Among Us or Fall Guys or whatever the latest one to go viral is. which Yoongi does even though he grumbles and tells Seokjin they’re not cool anymore. Yoongi has Jimin for those days when he just wants to sit and cry for awhile, as Jimin holds his hand and runs his fingers through Yoongi’s hair. And Yoongi has Namjoon for when he wants to talk. Sometimes he tells him stories about weird things Hyunwoo did, just random memories of him, as if he can’t help but pour the words out, in hopes the memories become dimmer in his mind. But often they talk of other things, just like they always used to: music and art and architecture and books and online trends and history. 

But through it all, Namjoon helplessly feels like Yoongi is just - not all there. He’s still flattened, muted, a diminished version of himself. 

Namjoon doesn’t know what to do. Should he trust Yoongi to know what’s best for himself, let him go at his own speed? Does Namjoon need to be trying to get him livened up more? What, really, can he do to help Yoongi?

He has a sick fear in the back of his mind of the time, at some point in the future when a switch will flip, and Yoongi will decide he wants to throw himself back out there. Will he start dating again? Go full-out and have as many hookups as possible, to finally erase the last traces of Hyunwoo from his body?

He’s not showing any signs of wanting to do that - indeed, he’s made several comments about being absolutely done with dating and wishing to remain single forever. He is, however, following through fully, with almost malicious vigor, on his vow to be boring. He says “no” to any invitation or idea that sounds like it could be “too interesting,” whining dramatically if need be. He has his friends and his job, and otherwise just sits in his apartment reading things on his phone. He still jokes about being ready to pick up stamp collecting any day now.

Seokjin informs him with relish, each time Yoongi brings up his new-found obsession with boringness in front of him, that fishing is widely regarded to be very, very boring. So Yoongi does, in fact, go fishing with Seokjin quite frequently. It warms Namjoon’s heart whenever he sees Seokjin post one of their fishing selfies. Even if the only direct sunlight Yoongi gets these days is at dawn out on a cold pier, he’ll take it.

Meanwhile, Namjoon keeps up his correspondence with Taehyung. He tells himself that it’s with the goal of protecting Yoongi in mind, as an indirect way of keeping tabs on Hyunwoo. But, in reality, he’s simply come to like Taehyung. He feels like if they met under different circumstances, they would definitely be friends. But, he thinks guiltily, he definitely can’t actually be friends with someone who is friends with Hyunwoo. He’s afraid that Yoongi would take it as a betrayal if he knew Namjoon was even texting as occasionally as he does with Taehyung. Particularly now, because all the administrative fallout from the wedding ceremony itself is long past cleaned up, so Namjoon no longer has that as an excuse.

So, Namjoon is quite apprehensive when Taehyung texts him asking to meet up for coffee that day, indicating it’s urgent. He asks Jimin to come with him, though he’s not entirely sure why. Moral support? A witness? A partner in crime to his betrayal of associating with Taehyung?

Taehyung looks more worried than Namjoon feels when they all sit down together at a little cafe. Taehyung ends up getting a tea latte, which Namjoon finds oddly cute.

“Do you know if Yoongi has Hyunwoo blocked on social media?” Taehyung starts off.

“Yeah, at least he blocked him right after it happened,” Namjoon confirms. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have unblocked him at this point.”

Taehyung nods, deep in thought.

“Well, I’ve left him unblocked for the time being,” Taehyung explains, “and I wanted to let you guys know that…well, he’s dating again.”

“What?” Namjoon cries in outrage, as Jimin makes a disgusted noise next to him. “It hasn’t even been six months!”

“I know,” Taehyung agrees, shaking his head. 

“You don’t think he was cheating, do you?” Jimin quizzes him in agitation.

“No, no,” Taehyung says, his hands out in reassurance. “I was there when Hyunwoo met this guy just a few weeks ago. So I can at least tell you it really is this new.”

Namjoon blows out a sigh and leans back in his seat.

“Wait,” Jimin says, folding up his forehead, “you said ‘unblocked for the time being.’ Why would you block him? Aren’t you guys best friends?”

Taehyung shrugs unhappily.

“I mean, I thought I was his best friend,” he says sadly, “but I guess I didn’t know him all that well. After the way he’s acted with all this…I don’t want to be his friend any more. So I just wanted to pass on this latest… escapade to you guys, and I think I’m going to stop contacting him now.”

“Oh Taehyung, I’m sorry,” Jimin says regretfully.

“When we first became friends six years ago, he gave me this sob story about how he lost his whole friend group because of some interpersonal drama that wasn’t his fault,” Taehyung goes on. “I felt so bad for him, because he seemed so friendly and energetic. But I guess, from what we know now, probably the drama was his fault and his former friends were right to get rid of him.”

“Well, thanks for letting us know,” Namjoon says sympathetically. “It really means a lot to me that you would reach out and tell us so we could warn Yoongi. You’re a good guy.”

Taehyung smiles, slightly tinged with sadness.

“Thanks, guys,” he says. “At least I can leave this situation with a clear conscience. I’m just sorry I was friends with a jerk for so long.”

Namjoon and Jimin decide to tell Yoongi that evening right after they’re all out of work, to hopefully prevent him from seeing anything on social media by accident. It’s entirely possible Yoongi is still “friends” with someone who’s still connected to Hyunwoo loosely, and may cause some incriminating post or another to float into Yoongi’s timeline with a stray like. So they invite themselves over with a pile of takeout, which Yoongi accepts with his usual placid demeanor.

Jimin takes Yoongi aside and sits next to him on the couch while Namjoon starts opening up the food.

“Yoongi, I have to tell you something I found out today,” Jimin starts gently, taking Yoongi’s hand in his own. 

He takes a deep breath.

“Hyunwoo has another boyfriend,” Jimin blurts out as quickly and clearly as he can. “We wanted to let you know in case you saw it online.”

“Oh,” Yoongi says blankly, looking at the floor.

Jimin sits silently, letting Yoongi digest the information. Namjoon realizes he has been holding his breath, so he tries to exhale and even out his breathing as he sets out the containers on Yoongi’s table.

“How do you know?” Yoongi finally asks, sounding puzzled. “Are you guys stalking him or something?” he adds with a chuckle.

“No, Taehyung reached out to let us know,” Namjoon explains.

“Oh, Taehyung!” Yoongi says, sitting up in interest. “That was nice of him.”

“Yeah, he seems like a decent guy,” Jimin agrees.

“Although, I wonder if Hyunwoo asked him to pass the info along on purpose,” Yoongi suddenly suggests bitterly, slumping back down again. “I bet his new boyfriend is-”

“No, Taehyung did it on his own,” Namjoon interrupts, not wanting to hear Yoongi compare himself to his theoretical replacement. “He said he’s actually really fed up with Hyunwoo and isn’t going to be friends with him any more.”

“Really!” Yoongi exclaims, turning to Namjoon with renewed interest. “We should steal him, then!”

“What?” Jimin laughs.

“Steal him, Jimin!” Yoongi says, whipping his back to Jimin, and sounding even more excited. “Let’s poach him! He’ll be our friend instead of Hyunwoo’s. That’s our way to come out ahead of this whole stupid mess.”

Yoongi turns back to Namjoon again, his eyes big and hopeful.

“We could invite him to the next movie night, right?” he asks Namjoon. “Seokjin wouldn’t mind, would he?”

Namjoon can’t ever say no to Yoongi, even if he weren’t making such a sweet face, so of course he agrees.

💒

It ends up working much better than Namjoon could have even hoped. Taehyung fits in with the four of them perfectly, his goofy deadpan jokes and flair for the dramatic playing perfectly off Seokjin’s charm, Yoongi’s calm readiness to be entertained, Jimin’s warm “mom friend” energy, and Namjoon’s overarching desire for everyone to get along. Within just another month or two, they feel like Taehyung has been part of their group all along.

One lazy Sunday, they’ve all arrived at Yoongi’s apartment to group up before they go for a walk in the sculpture park together, when Yoongi’s mom calls.

“Ugh, sorry guys, I’d better take this,” Yoongi mutters, and goes to sit on the couch, leaving the others where they were in the kitchen packing up a few snacks.

It’s evidently a video call, as they can hear his mother’s voice echoing through the apartment.

“Hello Yoongi, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine, mom. I was just about to go out on a walk, get all that vitamin D, you know.”

“Get the D,” Taehyung whispers (with an accompanying eyebrow wiggle) to Jimin, who has to clap a hand over his mouth to stop himself from giggling out loud.

“Ohh, you look so chubby now!” she shrieks. “Your little dumpling cheeks. And you’re letting your hair grow out!”

Namjoon agrees. Yoongi’s cheeks. Yoongi’s hair. All part of the experience of being around Yoongi all these years. Sometimes he feels like every conversation he has with Yoongi has a whimsical little Instagram filter on it, causing little hearts to float around in the background unceasingly.

“Ahhh, mom!” Yoongi complains loudly. “I lost weight ahead of the wedding, so it just came back. Don’t exaggerate.”

“Don’t cut your hair though,” she counters, “I like it like that.”

Yoongi manages to get off the phone soon after that, assuring his mom that he’s doing fine, but he has plans with his friends and he’ll text her later. The other four trail into the living room where Yoongi sits slumped on his couch.

He sighs.

“Hyunwoo made a comment at one point,” Taehyung blurts out, his face troubled, “something about fifty-seven kilograms? He didn’t really ask you to lose weight for the wedding, did he?”

Namjoon feels a sudden wave of rage swell in the back of his head, competing disorientingly with the floating hearts.

“Oh yeah,” Yoongi says casually. “He did. All part of liking me to look small and cute. That whole thing about looking good in the pictures. Whatever, I’ve already gained it all back. Check this out!”

He suddenly sits up, throwing his phone aside. Then, Yoongi lifts up his shirt, and where there was just a tiny sliver visible when he was slumped back, now he is showing the entirety of his pale, soft belly. Just the slightest little convexity is framing his cute, perfect belly button, and he starts making goofy “wyam-wyam-wyam” sound effects as he wiggles his abs to make his belly gyrate in waves. Namjoon, who had been briefly casting his memory back to the suit fitting and was starting to feel like a cartoon tea-kettle about to whistle, experiences intense emotional whiplash as has to physically restrain himself from grabbing Yoongi and smooching him. He feels like a Victorian maiden about to be overcome with hysterics from a glimpse of unexpected skin. If Yoongi lifted the hem of his shirt even three inches higher, he’d be able to see nipples…!

Namjoon wrenches his eyes away with the last scraps of his self preservation. There, he sees Taehyung, his eyes also glued to the undulating belly, but with an expression of pure, skeptical disgust. And just behind him, Jimin is watching Namjoon, with an expression far too knowing. Namjoon feels his face flush with guilt. He’s definitely just experienced far too many emotions to process in the span of thirty seconds.

Yoongi lets go of his shirt and lets it drop again. He leans back into the couch with a hollow-sounding chuckle. Namjoon thinks about the fact that he still knows Hyunwoo’s address, and could easily go wait in the lobby of his building until he got home, pin him to the wall, and yell into his face from two inches away for at least ninety minutes about how perfect Yoongi is and what a piece of shit Hyunwoo is. 

Well, maybe twenty-three minutes. He’s looked up a citizen database of police response times to the neighborhood that Hyunwoo’s building is in. For no particular reason. The average delay from calling to arrival is twenty-five minutes. So perhaps it would be three minutes of telling Hyunwoo he’s a piece of shit and twenty minutes of informing him how perfect Yoongi is, leaving Namjoon two minutes to escape. That would have a nice symmetry, he thinks, given that he was forced to write a speech for the stupid wedding in which he wasn’t allowed to insult Hyunwoo at all. Hyunwoo himself was the reason Namjoon didn’t get to recite his nice speech that he worked so hard on, so Hyunwoo can experience a decisively not-nice one in its place!

“Hey Namjoon!” Yoongi suddenly yells.

Namjoon looks up, startled, and sees that everyone else is standing up by the door, ready to go. Yoongi grins at him.

“You coming?” he asks, gesturing to the door.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry!” Namjoon says, trying to put a smile on his face. “Just, you know, rebooting. Beep boop.”

Yoongi laughs and turns to go out with everyone else. Namjoon follows gladly.

💒

In another few months, another carefully-framed conversation becomes necessary. Jimin and Taehyung, blushing and giggling, take Namjoon out to dinner one night and tell him that they’re officially dating now. Namjoon is not at all surprised, given the ways he’s seen them look at each other, and the vast increase in the number of pictures they post of each other on Instagram.

“We just wanted to make sure we tell Yoongi about it in a sensitive way,” Jimin tells Namjoon once the initial news has been conveyed and he’s able to be more serious again. “I certainly don’t like the idea that he could be hurt by us getting together.”

Namjoon thinks for a moment. He wants to blurt out that of course Yoongi would be fine with it, but he wants to give the question due consideration and respect Jimin and Taehyung’s cautious approach.

“I really think it’ll be okay,” Namjoon insists. “He really likes you, Taehyung. He had this whole thing about ‘stealing’ you for our friend group, so I think he’ll be delighted to hear it. But I can certainly be the one to tell him, so that he has time to process his feelings about it before the next time he sees you.”

Taehyung smiles his boxy smile at Namjoon.

“I do have to warn you though,” Namjoon cautions him humorously. “If you guys should ever fight or - heaven forbid - break up, Yoongi will always side with Jimin, no matter what.”

Jimin laughs.

“Oh! That’s very true!” he confirms.

Taehyung keeps smiling at them, and squeezes Jimin’s hand.

“Well, I can live with that,” he says with an easy shrug.

So, the next time Yoongi is over at Namjoon’s apartment, which happens quite frequently, Namjoon broaches the subject. He came over straight from work, and Namjoon is just starting to think about whether he’s going to try to cook something or order in. He and Yoongi are sitting on opposite sides of the couch, and there’s a lull in the conversation.

“Hey, I wanted to let you know something,” Namjoon starts cautiously. 

Yoongi looks over at him, alarmed.

“It’s a good thing!” Namjoon amends hastily. “Jimin and Taehyung are officially dating now.”

Yoongi’s face morphs into a delighted smile, gums fully on display.

“Ah, wonderful!” he says, clasping his hands together cutely. “I had a feeling they’d get together sooner or later.”

Namjoon smiles back, relieved.

“You didn’t really think I’d be upset about that, did you? It’s not like I’m secretly holding anything against Taehyung, you know,” Yoongi asks him, smiling still but a touch defensive.

“No, there was just a, uh, general feeling in the waters that you might prefer to be told privately, rather than having to react in front of everyone,” Namjoon explains tactfully.

Yoongi thinks for a moment, then makes a mouth shrug.

“Well, okay. I guess I can see that. I’m so happy for them, though!” he gushes. “At least something good came of the whole…situation. We won, we stole his best man permanently now.”

He holds his hand up for a triumphant high-five, which Namjoon gladly indulges him in, getting up on his knees and leaning across the couch so he can reach. 

“And it’s not like I can’t stand being around couples, you know,” Yoongi goes on as Namjoon sits back down. “Just because I’ve sworn to remain single the rest of my life, doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for the rest of you.”

“What?” Namjoon gasps, chilled and taken aback.

“Yeah, yeah,” Yoongi says dismissively, “I decided that, along with dedicating myself to being boring, I’m definitely done with romance and dating and all of it. I’m just not interested at all. It just-” he pauses and swallows, losing his carefully distanced teasing tone and going back to sounding sad, “- it just hurts too much to think about.”

“Yoongi-” Namjoon whispers, not even sure what to say, feeling like his heart is breaking for Yoongi all over again.

“The way I think of it,” Yoongi says, suddenly airy and dismissive again, “I’m being nice by staying out of the dating pool. I’ll just let everyone else get who they want and I’m out of the competition entirely. I’m going to be a boring little marshmallow all by myself.”

He pauses for a second, and Namjoon still can’t formulate a response.

“It’s a metaphor!” Yoongi goes on whimsically, if not a little sarcastically. “Just like a marshmallow is made from gelatin, which is pretty gross on its own. I’m going through a phase in my life where I’m dissolving back into goo so I can eventually be reconstituted into something more palatable.”

He looks over, and actually laughs self-deprecatingly at Namjoon’s dubious expression.

“It’s not a very good metaphor,” he admits.

“It really isn’t,” Namjoon agrees.

Yoongi shakes his head at himself, then he stretches out, and Namjoon is suddenly a little mesmerized by the way he can see Yoonigi’s body shift, the way his shirt rides up, the way his bare toes flex. Then Yoongi is maneuvering himself to lie down on the couch, with his feet at the spot where he had been sitting, meaning he plops his head sideways right onto Namjoon’s thigh.

“Isn’t there a game on?” Yoongi asks, just the slightest hint of pleading in his tone. “I was thinking of taking up baseball scoring, that seems super boring.”

Namjoon grabs the remote and finds a baseball game. He gently puts one hand down on Yoongi’s arm. Yoongi immediately reaches up with his other hand and laces their fingers together and squeezes Namjoon’s hand. Namjoon almost wants to cry with how grateful he feels, that Yoongi is comfortable with him, that he can at least do something, even the tiniest thing, to help Yoongi feel better even for just a few hours. Yoongi’s hand is so warm against his, his head so perfect against his leg, his hair looking so very soft and touchable. Namjoon can get away with watching him instead of the TV, so he can see the little rise and fall of his side as he breathes, the way the smooth curve of his cheek gets illuminated in different colors as the image on the screen changes. As does his ear, the perfect little shell of which is crying out to be traced with a gentle fingertip.

“You’re my favorite puddle of goo,” Namjoon murmurs to him finally.

Yoongi chuckles and squeezes his hand again.

“Thanks, Joon,” he says quietly, and Namjoon starts ordering something for dinner on his phone so he can delay getting up off the couch for as long as possible.

💒

Yoongi still, if not invited to things, defaults to just lying on his couch scrolling his phone. They’re all trying to do their part, though. Seokjin is still taking him fishing, Jimin makes him come over and help him put together large jigsaw puzzles or Lego sets (the architectural landmarks ones, which Jimin assures him count as boring since they’re for grownups), Namjoon indulges him in the little forays he makes into other “boring” hobbies (baseball scoring, mushroom cultivation, and incredibly he even tries stamp collecting). 

Taehyung invites him to one of those “paint and drink wine” nights, assuring him that since it’s mostly middle-aged ladies who do those things, it is absolutely very boring. Yoongi begs for Namjoon to come with as well, which Namjoon of course is unable to refuse. He appoints himself the designated driver, and is thus treated to a fully-sober experience of Yoongi and Taehyung getting sillier and louder as they drink and paint. Namjoon takes many, many pictures and tries not to laugh too much. It’s so nice to see Yoongi enjoying himself.

However, the day that would have been Yoongi and Hyunwoo’s first anniversary is approaching rapidly. On their group chat - the one without Yoongi - Namjoon is the one to start the conversation about what they should do on that day to distract him. They ultimately decide to get tickets to a baseball game.

On the day of, however, when Namjoon comes to collect Yoongi - the others are all going separately as they live on the opposite side of the stadium relative to where Namjoon and Yoongi are - he is only half dressed and lying down on his bed, on top of the covers.

“Hey, I’m here to get you for the baseball game,” Namjoon says quietly when he comes in.

“I just don’t want to go, Joonie,” Yoongi says tightly. 

He’s lying face up on his bed, toes up in the air. One of his socks has slid partially off, so there’s a loose lump of white sock hanging softly over those toes. Yoongi is wiggling that foot side-to-side, like a metronome, causing his sock to flap rhythmically. Namjoon feels partially hypnotized, unable to look away from the sock. Flap. Flap. Flap. In his peripheral vision, he sees Yoongi’s arms squeeze more tightly around himself. Namjoon manages to look away from the swinging foot and looks at Yoongi’s face, eyes squeezed shut, and realizes Yoongi is trying not to cry.

On impulse, Namjoon sits down on the foot of the bed, right next to Yoongi’s feet. The mattress creaks a little and Yoongi’s torso wobbles slightly as the motion jostles him. 

“That’s okay,” Namjoon says gently. “You can stay here, that’s fine too.”

He puts his hand gently on Yoongi’s flapping foot, wrapping his palm around it, stilling the nervous motion. With his other hand, he grabs the loose flap of sock and just pulls it off. Then he starts massaging the foot, working his thumbs along the underside, pressing up against the ball of his foot, through the arch, and down to the heel. He keeps his eye on the foot, focusing on the task at hand. Then, still without saying a word or looking up at Yoongi, he gently takes off the other sock, and starts massaging the other foot. Finally he hears Yoongi release a long, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi says wetly. “I felt fine yesterday and I was really looking forward to this, but now I feel like if I force myself to stand up I’m going to cry for five hours.”

“It’s okay,” Namjoon repeats, still massaging his foot. “That’s how grief goes, it’s not linear, it can come and go like that.”

“Grief-” Yoongi says, as if rebuking himself, then stops.

“You’re not overreacting,” Namjoon says, trying to be reassuring. “It’s okay to feel how you feel. It is a kind of grief, for the life you thought you were going to have, and the person you thought he was.”

Yoongi takes another deep breath, almost a gasp, and rubs his hands over his eyes. Namjoon texts Jimin, Seokjin, and Taehyung that they aren’t going to make it, then puts his phone down and keeps rubbing Yoongi’s feet while he cries. Finally Yoongi sits up and hugs Namjoon, and they sit like that for a while too, Namjoon rubbing Yoongi’s back.

The other three come by after the baseball game, knowing that Yoongi would feel guilty if they skipped it, but still wanting to see him. They don’t talk about the events of a year ago, or anything really of substance at all, but it still seems to help Yoongi just to have the five of them there and he gives out, for him, a higher-than usual number of hugs throughout the evening. Namjoon aches, and wishes, as he has every day without ceasing for the past year, there were more he could do, but he contents himself for now with the fact that Yoongi gives him a long, long hug at the end of the night and murmurs “thank you” in his ear.

💒

Namjoon gets a text from Taehyung a few weeks later.

[Taehyung] Hey, I wanted to run something by you

[Taehyung] I’m sort of acquaintances with two of Hyunwoo’s exes

[Taehyung] two of his other exes I mean

[Taehyung] apparently they get together every so often just to chat, sometimes to bitch about him if he’s done something annoying on social media

[Taehyung] do you think Yoongi would want to be introduced to them?

[Taehyung] I’ve been talking to them lately and it’s definitely given me

[Taehyung] uh

[Taehyung] a more complete picture of Hyunwoo’s personality

[Namjoon] oh wow, possibly

[Namjoon] if you’re asking for permission or something, go for it

[Taehyung] i can give you their numbers to pass on to him if you think that would be better

[Namjoon] no, no, he’s cool with you, you can text him yourself

So, a few days later, Namjoon finds himself going to a barbeque restaurant with Yoongi for moral support, to meet with Taehyung and these mysterious former exes. Taehyung is waiting for them in the entry way, smiling and bowing, so that he can escort them to the table.

Taehyung handles all the introductions: the slender man with the elfin face and heart-shaped smile is named Hoseok, and the taller, beefier one with tattoos visible on one of his hands (and eyebrow and lip piercings) is Jungkook. They nod kindly at being introduced to Namjoon and Yoongi in turn.

“You’re the other Best Man?” Jungkook asks Namjoon.

“Um, yup,” Namjoon confirms nervously.

Yoongi looks back and forth between Jungkook and Hoseok, looking a bit taken aback. Hoseok smirks a little.

“I know, right?” he says. “One thing you can say about our beloved Woo-woo, you can NOT pin him down to a type!”

Then he laughs, a big happy laugh with his head thrown back, one hand on Jungkook’s shoulder.

“So the first thing you should know, we call our little group-” Jungkook starts, until Hoseok cuts him off.

“Jungkook, no!” he interrupts. “We can’t start with that.”

“It’s the perfect thing to start with,” Jungkook argues. “If he doesn’t think it’s funny then we can’t be friends, so there’s no point.”

Hoseok hisses indignantly.

“So rude!” he complains. “C’mon, give the guy a break.”

Jungkook whips his head around and pins Yoongi with an intense look.

“We call ourselves ‘The Hole Brothers,’” he declares quickly.

Hoseok snorts with laughter despite himself, Taehyung claps a despairing hand over his face, and Namjoon looks desperately at Yoongi.

Yoongi laughs. Not a big laugh, but not his fake polite laugh either. Namjoon allows himself a little smile, a genuine one - albeit slightly disgusted.

“So I’m Hole Brother Number Three?” Yoongi asks with faux wide-eyed innocence.

“Yes!” Jungkook agrees, nodding enthusiastically. 

Hoseok raises his glass, so Yoongi and Jungkook follow, clinking their glasses and toasting their newly-formed triad. Throughout ordering, and the first few minutes of eating, they stick to basic getting-to-know you chat. Namjoon lets himself relax a little, as everyone there seems determined to keep things light and friendly. He can’t help but think, as he learns about Jungkook’s dog-boarding business and Hoseok’s career as a graphic designer, and as he notices the way they smile kindly at Yoongi and keep drawing him into the conversation, that though Hyunwoo might completely suck, he seems to have impeccable taste in men.

Still, it’s inevitable that the conversation has to come back around to Hyunwoo at some point.

“So,” Hoseok says, after a long, fortifying drink. “Taehyung told me that Hyunwoo actually dumped you on your wedding day?”

Namjoon stiffens up, but Yoongi just slumps over and sighs.

“Yeah,” he confirms glumly. “Literally left at the altar.”

“I’m so sorry he did that,” Hoseok tells him gently. “That’s really cruel.”

Yoongi shrugs.

“It’s been over a year now, so it’s…whatever,” he dismisses, not looking anyone in the eye. “He just didn’t show up to the ceremony, texted me that I’m too boring to ever love, and drove away without talking to anyone.”

Namjoon opens his mouth to forcefully clarify that’s not quite what Hyunwoo wrote, but doesn’t have the chance.

“Boring!” Jungkook shouts. “Now that’s funny! That’s exactly what he told me when he dumped me!”

Yoongi looks at him, wide-eyed in shock.

“But you’re…” he says weakly, his eyes flitting over Jungkook’s tattoos and piercings, “you’re so cool. How could anyone call you boring?”

Jungkook actually blushes a little. Namjoon is already charmed.

“Hyunwoo’s the boring one!” Hoseok pipes up before Jungkook can reply, rolling his eyes. “He’s boring to his core, he’s self-centered, he creates meaningless drama on purpose because he has no idea how to appreciate other people. He has the personality of a hole in the ground. Jungkook is so talented! He didn’t mention it so I’m going to: he can sing beautifully and play the guitar, he can draw and paint, he’s one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I know…”

“Augh, stop it!” Jungkook shrieks, smacking Hoseok on the arm with a red face and barely suppressed giggles. 

“It’s no wonder he dumped me for you!” Hoseok yells at him, grinning and smacking his arm back.

“And let’s not miss what a mistake that was for Hyunwoo!” Taehyung butts in. “Hoseok is ALSO very talented, he has the most amazing bullet journal system I’ve ever seen, he’s a god of social media, he gives great fashion advice when you ask him, and best of all-” Taehyung pauses for dramatic effect, “- he’s the one person I’ve met who never gives unsolicited advice on any subject!”

Everyone at the table plays along and gives an exaggerated whoa at this tidbit, and then dissolves into giggles.

“But I-” Yoongi starts as soon as the laughter dies down, concerned wrinkle in his forehead, “- I’m not just saying this, compared to you guys I really am bo-”

“You’re not boring,” Namjoon interrupts him. “You can converse for hours on almost any topic, you can make friends with anyone from any walk of life, you’ve perfected the art of being straightforward without ever being mean. When he called you boring, he was telling on himself.”

Namjoon tries to make eye contact with Yoongi during his speech, but Yoongi, flustered, avoids it entirely.

“Hear, hear!” Taehyung agrees enthusiastically, clapping for emphasis.

“To the Hole Brothers!” Hoseok shouts, bringing up his glass for another toast. “And our improved, interesting, fulfilling Hyunwoo-less lives!”

They all quickly raise their glasses and toast together again.

“I can’t believe I wasted five years of my life with him,” Yoongi says quietly once they put their glasses down.

“He can be charming when he wants to,” Jungkook says with a sympathetic sigh. “I actually proposed to him, can you believe it?”

“Really?” Yoongi asks, surprised.

“Yeah, I really loved him,” Jungkook replies ruefully. “He said yes, but then the next six months he alternated between ecstatic wedding planning and bursting into tears because he said he was getting cold feet. It was emotionally exhausting.”

Yoongi winces in sympathy.

“I guess…I can easily picture him doing that,” he replies, looking very much like he would rather not elaborate.

“I’ll confess,” Jungkook goes on, “I creeped on his social media after he broke up with me, and saw when he started dating you almost right away, I mean, not that I knew who you were, but he posted pictures with you.”

Yoongi grimaces again.

“I thought about reaching out to you and warning you, but…” Jungkook trails off guiltily. “I’m really sorry now that I didn’t. I wish I could have stopped him from hurting you even more than he hurt me.”

“No, don’t think that,” Yoongi says urgently, reaching out for Jungkook’s hand. “I can tell you now, I wouldn’t have believed you if you had said anything. He had already dropped enough hints about toxic exes,” he concludes with a sigh and a roll of his eyes.

“Well, I guess I can say the same,” Jungkook admits, “if Hoseok had tried that when we got together, it wouldn’t have stopped me.”

They sit together in silence, the Hole Brothers lost in thought, and Namjoon staring daggers at where Yoongi’s hand still rests comfortingly on Jungkook’s. Then he glances up and sees Hoseok giving him a look, so he feels himself flush and tries to rearrange his face from whatever it might have been doing.

The evening ends with everyone agreeing it was a tremendous success, and Yoongi has a standing invite to join all the upcoming Hole Brother gatherings. They also agree that Taehyung and Namjoon, as the unlucky collateral damage from the failed ceremony, can attend as well, but only if they refer to themselves as “The Worst Men.”

And from there, just as Taehyung had slipped nearly effortlessly into their friend group the moment they gave him the barest chance, so the Hole Brothers doas well. At first Yoongi is the one to invite them along, but soon enough Seokjin and Jimin and Namjoon find the both of them so charming and friendly that they automatically include them as well. Namjoon thinks they are a good influence on Yoongi - for one, he seems to finally stop gripping onto the poison of the word “boring” so much. 

Hoseok has a similar ability as Jimin, to draw Yoongi out of his shell, and get his mischievous, bantering side on display. Jungkook works for a company in the same industry as Yoongi, so even though he’s a documentation writer rather than an engineer, they can still fall into conversation easily, talking over the latest nuances and news. Namjoon learns that Jungkook has a similar philosophy about exercise as he does, so they start going to the gym and jogging together fairly frequently. Jungkook also forms a particularly close bond with Taehyung, the two of them acting like peas in a pod and giggling incessantly when they end up sitting next to each other.

In all, it feels good and right to have a friend group of seven people instead of just five. No matter what’s happening, who needs help or wants company or requests advice or fishes for a compliment, someone else is there to respond. There’s always someone there to join in, whether it’s something annoying or fun or mundane.

💒

One weekend, Jimin invites Yoongi and Namjoon over to have dinner at their apartment, and tells them Taehyung will be there as well. It’s just a nice relaxing evening with friends, but Namjoon can’t help but feel like Jimin and Taehyung are leading up to something, with the way they keep exchanging looks throughout dinner.

Finally, they’ve finished eating, and there’s a lull in the conversation.

“There’s something we want to tell you guys, and we wanted you to be the first to hear it,” Jimin says, happily but nervously.

Ah, thinks Namjoon, so there is something.

Jimin reaches out and grabs Taehyung’s hand, gently and lovingly.

“We’re engaged,” he says with a grin.

“Ahhh!” Yoongi shrieks happily. “Congratulations!”

He claps, and stands up, pulling Jimin and then Taehyung out of their seats, giving them big hugs and clapping their backs. So Namjoon instantly follows suit, and there’s a few moments of joyful chaos as they keep hugging and babbling. Finally they manage to sit back down, four beaming faces looking at each other.

“So, Namjoon,” Taehyung says next, “would you- I’d like you to be my best man.”

Namjoon feels a wrenching mix of pride and affection that Taehyung would ask him, and grief and sadness about how his last best man stint ended up.

“I know we haven’t been friends for very long in the scheme of things-” Taehyung starts apologetically, as Namjoon hesitates just half a second too long.

“No, no, Taehyung,” Namjoon says quickly. “Of course I’ll be your best man. I would be honored.”

He’s aware that Taehyung lost all of his close friends when he cut off Hyunwoo. He still wasn’t quite expecting that he’d be the one Taehyung would ask to fill this role, but he’s immediately determined to do it right, to do everything he can to support Taehyung and Jimin’s relationship.

Then, somewhat sheepishly, they all end up glancing over at Yoongi at the same time to check his reaction. Yoongi smiles, though tinged by sadness.

“Guys, really, it’s fine,” he says calmly. “I do appreciate you trying to be thoughtful in the way you’re bringing this up. But,” then he pauses and seems a little sadder, “I’ve been doing better, right? I’m not like- not like I was right after. Right?”

“Yes, of course, Yoongi,” Jimin reassures him. “We can all see the progress you’ve made since then.”

Yoongi nods and gives a small, grateful smile.

“I do want to ask one other thing,” Jimin asks, a bit more nervously than before. 

He reaches out and takes Yoongi’s hand before he continues.

“There’s no pressure to answer this one way or another. I just want your honest answer,” Jimin continues. “Would you be comfortable acting as my best man? If you would rather stick with being a guest, that’s fine too.”

Yoongi takes a deep breath, holds it, and exhales slowly.

“I’m sorry, Jimin,” he says in a small voice, eyes down on the table.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, please don’t feel bad,” Jimin says urgently, grabbing Yoongi’s hand with both of his own now.

“I just..I just couldn’t do that,” Yoongi tries to explain. “I would be..it would be too much, I know that. I wouldn’t want to let you down.”

“That’s fine,” Jimin reassures him. “I just want you there.”

Yoongi nods, rubbing the tears from his eyes with his free hand. Namjoon and Taehyung get up and start cleaning up from dinner, and by the time they have the leftovers put away and the dishes washed, Jimin and Yoongi are relaxing in the living room, chatting comfortably about some completely different subject.

💒

When Namjoon goes over to Yoongi’s place a few days later, he can tell Yoongi is upset and agitated.

“Maybe you should give me that ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ speech already,” Yoongi says, half jokingly and half sadly, as he sits on the couch, bouncing one of his feet and pinching his lower lip between his finger and thumb.

“No, it’s still too soon,” Namjoon says smoothly, trying to keep his tone light. “Still a ways to go until we get to five years.”

“I just feel like maybe I’m being immature,” Yoongi explains. “Like I’m just throwing a tantrum and being difficult and emotional about it when I should just…get over it already.”

“Yoongi, jeez, no,” Namjoon contradicts him. “In no way could your feelings be dismissed as a ‘tantrum.’ You went through something really wrenching, and you’re allowed to be as emotional as you want, and avoid doing things that make you feel worse.”

“But it’s keeping me from being there for my friends,” Yoongi protests, his voice wavering. “I mean, it’s one thing to tell myself that there’s no way I’ll ever consider getting married now-” and doesn’t Namjoon feel that statement like a punch to the gut, “-but to not be able to participate in Jimin’s wedding…he just…how did he ruin so many things for me and the rest of you all at once…”

Namjoon stands up and quickly moves over so he’s sitting next to Yoongi on the couch, and he grabs Yoongi’s fidgeting hand and keeps it clasped in his own.

“Jimin was telling the truth, just having you there is enough, okay?” Namjoon tells him gently. “You can be there and show your support and not worry about anything else.”

“I just still feel so ashamed,” Yoongi says, his voice even smaller than before. “That I got tricked and made a fool of in front of everyone. It was just so- I can’t think about weddings at all without thinking of that. I keep hoping the memory will hurt less, but, I’m not sure it does yet.”

“I- we- Jimin and everyone, we’ll do whatever it takes to help you,” Namjoon tells him. 

“Maybe going to their wedding, maybe it’ll help,” Yoongi says hopefully. “Maybe it’ll be enough new positive memories.”

“Sure, that’s a good thought,” Namjoon agrees. “But even if it isn’t, if you still have negative feelings about it, you can tell me, okay? Whatever you need to dump out, tell it to me anytime. I mean it.”

And not to Jimin, goes unspoken.

“I’m also so angry at myself,” Yoongi continues bitterly, “that I even brought Hyunwoo into the picture at all. He ruined so much for me, and now the rest of you can’t even be relaxed and happy at a time like this because you’re worried about how I’ll react.”

Namjoon opens his mouth to protest but Yoongi continues on. 

“I thought I had really found someone who complemented me, who’d be part of our friend group forever,” he says sadly. “Like, he liked me the way I was, he didn’t mind my soft marshmallow self, at least that’s what I thought, that it didn’t bother him and make him want more like others did. But I was so wrong about that, obviously, I guess he just liked me as a neutral background for his drama. But then in the end he didn’t even want that.”

Namjoon pulls Yoongi into a hug as he starts to cry.

“None of that is on you,” he murmurs into Yoongi’s ear as Yoongi sobs into his shoulder. “You deserved to be treated much better by Hyunwoo. And accordingly you deserve the consideration and care from all your friends. And you deserve to be gentle with yourself too.”

Yoongi squeezes Namjoon a little tighter.

“And I’ll be here to tell you that as many times as you need to hear it,” Namjoon whispers.

💒

Namjoon finds that his duties as best man for Taehyung involve even less work than when he was best man with Taehyung. The two of them want to keep it quite simple - a good thing, since there are only six months between the engagement and the wedding. Jimin of course turned to Seokjin to be his best man, so it barely feels like an effort at all. It’s just like planning a movie night or something, with all the same friends (with just some more friends and family added around the edges). 

At least that’s what Namjoon keeps telling himself. In reality he feels like he’s starting to fray around the edges. He can’t stop dwelling on the best man speech he’s going to have to give. How can one do such a thing when the circumstances under which the groom and the best man met and became friends in the first place - not to mention the reason the grooms met in the first place - is totally off limits? Because, of course, there’s no way that he is going to allude to anything having to do with Hyunwoo in his speech, even on threat of death. He’s constantly checking up on Yoongi as the preparations go on, making sure he knows he can always talk to Namjoon about however he’s feeling. So he can cry and complain to Namjoon and get it out of his system, and then come to dinner with the happy couple and be genuinely pleased to hear about the latest preparations and how much they love each other.

But then Namjoon also feels guilty that he’s not closer to Taehyung. He’s really the other main casualty of Hyunwoo’s duplicitous nature, the reason Taehyung’s more long-standing friends aren’t close to him any more. So he makes a point of getting in more one-on-one time with Taehyung, not just relying on being in the same friend group and getting to know him by osmosis. It’s nice, he’s a sweet and goofy guy, and the more Namjoon gets to know him, the more he likes him. He can easily understand why Jimin likes him so much. The two of them just gel perfectly.

In the midst of all this, the dreaded anniversary, the day two years after Yoongi’s heart was broken, falls square in the middle of the wedding preparations. Namjoon works himself into a froth trying to decide what to do about it. He doesn’t want to involve Seokjin, and certainly not Taehyung or Jimin, and risk increasing the burden on anyone else or dimming anyone’s happiness. He doesn’t think he should try to arrange a thing, an event, for the day, considering it backfired and Yoongi was too sad last year.

Finally, he reaches out to Hoseok and Jungkook, and all but begs The Hole Brothers to do something low-key with Yoongi that day, still feeling out of his mind with worry whether it’s the right decision or not. But Yoongi tells him excitedly about the invite, and Namjoon smiles in relief when he sees pictures on Instagram the next day, posted by Hoseok, of their movie night, at which they had a “popcorn” battle. They each had to make their own popcorn-based snack and then had a tasting to determine which one was the best. (Apparently Jungkook was declared the winner.) Namjoon nearly cries in relief that that, at least, went successfully.  

💒

Finally, inexorably, the date draws ever nearer, and then it’s time for the bachelor party. They just have it with all of them together. Neither Jimin nor Taehyung have any brothers, so it’s the seven of them - so much like any other gathering they might have on a rowdy Friday night, and yet simmering with significance. 

Seokjin secretly made matching shirts for all of them to wear. They’re all black, very large so that they could just slip them over whatever they showed up wearing, with white lettering. On the front, there’s a lovely design in classic script that says “Taehyung ♥️ Jimin.” Then on the back they each have a custom message, in big, highly-legible block letters.

Hoseok is “Hole Brother #1.” Jungkook is “Hole Brother #2.” Yoongi is, then, “Hole Brother #3.” Seokjin’s is “Worst Man.” Namjoon’s is “Uno Reverse Best Man.” And then, for the grooms, Taehyung’s says simply “Large,” where Jimin’s says “In Charge.” 

Namjoon is glad that Seokjin waited until they were inside the private karaoke room before he revealed them, because the level of shrieking, hysterical laughter (no doubt increased by the fact that they all “pre-gamed” before they arrived) is far too loud to have been reasonably done out in the parking lot or in the lobby. He feels like he can relax a little then. Everyone is smiling, a little buzzed (or at least most of the way there) so he lets loose with everyone else. 

He’s certainly watching Yoongi throughout the evening more than he’s watching everyone else, but he doesn’t even try to hide it then. He figures nobody is going to be paying close enough attention, so he can do what he wants - which is to see as many of Yoongi’s happy, goofy grins as he watches others sing, or all the dramatic expressions he makes as he flails and screams his own way through a few pop songs. Namjoon sings as well, playing it up and warbling in the worst way possible, just to get Yoongi to laugh more.

Hoseok actually fills up his phone storage with the number of photos and videos he takes during the evening. All in all, the evening is a great success. Namjoon didn’t drink very much at all, and though it didn’t look like Yoongi did either he’s definitely tipsy by the time they wrap up the night. Yoongi and Namjoon are sharing a room at the hotel, so Namjoon feels very protective ushering him back and convincing him to get changed and drink at least two glasses of water and lie down on his side of the room, as he whines dramatically the whole time and tells Namjoon (twice) that he loves him. Namjoon feels very fond - it almost doesn’t even hurt to hear it now, he feels so distracted and overwhelmed on the eve of the wedding. When Namjoon’s head hits his pillow, though - after responsibly chugging a vast amount of water himself - he feels like he can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

💒

The next morning, the day of the wedding, starts out very roughly. Namjoon is woken up by Yoongi sitting straight up in his bed and sobbing out loud at seven o’clock, and by the time Namjoon is conscious enough to figure out where he is and what’s happening, Yoongi is having a full panic attack. Yoongi is overwhelmed and crying and completely ashamed of himself by the time Namjoon gets him calmed down. They sit for a long time talking, Yoongi just stream-of-consciousness blurting out his fears about the wedding and how it makes him feel so anxious, this being the first ceremony he’s been to since the one that went so badly before. Namjoon holds his hand and listens to it all and makes Yoongi take painkillers and drink lots of water and escorts him to the hotel breakfast to make sure he eats something. Then Yoongi almost cries again as he apologizes for being so fragile and selfish, but Namjoon just hugs him and tells him to shush. Then, unfortunately, he’s needed for wedding preparations, so he heads off, giving Yoongi what he hopes is a confident, sympathetic smile, and assures him he can text any time.

And from there, the day just speeds up and gets busier and busier. He’s constantly touching base with Taehyung and Jimin and Seokjin and Yoongi, going wherever he’s needed, listening to everyone rant about last-minute issues and gush about decorations and ask for his help in deciphering some vendor’s important but nearly-illegible note on something or another. Namjoon almost forgets his little index card, with his notes for his speech that he struggled so hard with, on the bedside table in his hotel room.

But, everyone pulls together, and though Namjoon feels like he’s being tugged in half-a-dozen different directions, soon enough he’s seen Taehyung in his suit, gamely gone along with the so-called behind the scenes photo of him helping get Taehyung’s tie tied and his boutonniere properly attached, and then it’s time for the ceremony. The grooms are actually walking in together, so they already have a whole thing planned out where they’re going to have their “first look” with each other in the hallway outside the venue, so once Namjoon and Seokjin escort them there, they split off and head inside to wait up front for the ceremony itself.

“Still have the ring?” Seokjin mutters to him.

Namjoon frantically pats his pockets, finds the ring, and nods. Seokjin gives him a warm smile and thumb’s up. Then Namjoon dashes inside and looks across the rows of seats, filled now with restlessly waiting friends and family, for Yoongi. He’s off at the very far edge of one row, just two or three rows back from the front. He looks nervous, hands clenched into fists on his thighs, but more or less alright.

Namjoon comes up the side of the room and crouches down to check in on him.

“You holding up okay?” he asks, putting his hand on Yoongi’s thigh.

“Yup,” Yoongi tells him with a tense nod. “Everything’s still…going, right?”

Namjoon forces himself to relax and give a confident smile.

“Yes, they’re together right now, just on the other side of the door, getting more pictures taken than you could possibly believe,” he says with a chuckle.

Yoongi nods more.

“Okay, don’t get in trouble on my account though,” he says nervously, “you need to be up there when they come in, right?”

Namjoon shrugs, being more casual than he feels.

“Yup, I’m going to head up there now,” he says. “Just signal if you need me, okay? I mean it.”

Then with a last exchange of nods and thigh patting, Namjoon is off. He feels like he doesn’t breathe again until the doors at the back open, the two grooms appear there smiling at each other, and the whole audience coos at how happy and handsome they are just as the music swells to drown them out, just a touch painfully loud. The following hour or two goes by in a blur: a lovely little ceremony where both Taehyung and Jimin cry, where they exchange vows they wrote themselves that use the word “soulmate” no less than seven times, where both Seokjin and Namjoon produce the rings at the right time, and the DJ cues up the recessional about three awkward seconds too late - off just enough to be funny. 

Next is the cocktail hour while the pictures happen behind the scenes. Namjoon needs to recharge his social battery at that point, so he and Yoongi end up standing against the wall clutching onto their drinks, standing silently together observing everyone else until it’s time to be seated. Taehyung and Jimin get to make their grand entrance as a married couple to the reception, and this time - triumphantly - the DJ gets the cue for their music at the right time and the right volume.

Dinner is served. Namjoon, Yoongi, Seokjin, Jungkook, and Hoseok are at a table together, right next to the head table where Taehyung and Jimin are sitting alone, beaming out at the whole room in general, with Taehyung’s and Jimin’s parents at the other front table just on the other side of them. Namjoon does his best then, after the little chill break he took during the cocktail hour, to remain present - to engage with his friends in conversation, to draw Yoongi into it, to let go of his worries now that the union has actually happened and the worst thing that can happen now is that he flubs his speech. Jimin and Taehyung make the rounds of the room to talk to each table as etiquette dictates.

They’re greeted by a cacophony of cheers and shouting from everyone at Namjoon’s table, Yoongi included. They all stand up to hug each other and a tremendous round of embraces and back-slapping ensues. No fewer than three of them are talking at any given moment, but they all know they’ll have a chance to get together again soon, so they’re not too worried about having all their thoughts and well wishes fully heard out just yet. The happy couple move on to the next table, and Namjoon feels something unclench in his heart when he sees how widely Yoongi is smiling at their backs as they walk away.

Once they finish their round and get back to the front of the room, of course, it is time for he and Seokjin to give their speeches. They both agreed that they would remain very short.

“Jimin,” Seokjin says grandly the moment the DJ hands him the mike, “I have been waiting for this moment for some time. Sometimes, the ‘best man’ speech references the groom saying something prophetic, like predicting from the first moment that he met his spouse he knew that they’d be The One. Well, Jimin, you didn’t say anything like that, per se, but I still knew from the first moment you guys met, the connection you had would be something special. Because here’s what you did, the very first time you saw him.”

And Seokjin pauses, squishes up his face, and then produces a ridiculous, giddy little giggle, putting his hand over his mouth in an imitation of Jimin. A ripple of laughter goes through the audience, Jimin’s laughter the loudest.

“Anyway,” he continues, smiling broadly now, “that definitely set the pattern for everything that followed. You are both so sweet, and so thoughtful, and it’s been wonderful to get a front-seat view to one of the cutest romances in history. I’m so happy you found someone who is so completely on the same wavelength as you. The two of you deserve every happiness. To Jimin and Taehyung!”

Seokjin lifts up his glass in a toast, then sits down as the room applauds his speech. He hands the mic over to Namjoon with a wink.

“I was so honored when Taehyung asked me to be his best man,” Namjoon says once he stands up, summoning every particle of composure he has left in his body. “It’s very rare to see two people who are so compatible, so to be not only lucky enough to be friends with them, but also to be asked to help them get married, to honor their commitment to each other, is practically a once-in-a-lifetime treat. May you both always cherish each other, may you always speak your minds to each other with kindness, may you always be as surrounded by love and support as you are today. To Taehyung and Jimin!”

And then he leads the toast to them, and there’s another round of applause.

Namjoon hands the mic back to the waiting DJ and sits down gratefully. He nods to his friends, who are applauding his speech with everyone else. He tries very very hard not to think about the other speech, the one he didn’t get to give, as the night sweeps on around him and the cake is brought out and cut. 

Soon enough everyone has been served cake, and Namjoon is finally, finally accepting that he’s done it, he’s survived the wedding and ushered everyone through every possible obstacle, when suddenly the doors of the hall get pushed open too forcefully, and someone is bursting in.

“Taehyung!” a voice calls out.

Conversations stop all over the room as everyone’s heads whip around to see who’s come in. Namjoon hears Yoongi inhale sharply next to him before he can quite make out the face.

It’s Hyunwoo.

He strides up the middle of the room, moving purposefully towards the head table where Taehyung and Jimin are, both of them now standing up and looking at him apprehensively. Namjoon is frozen in disbelief, agog as he stares at Hyunwoo, trying to convince himself he’s imagining things. Seokjin springs into action, fortunately, and darts up to intercept Hyunwoo before he can get any closer to Taehyung and Jimin.

“Am I too late?” Hyunwoo asks - rather theatrically in Namjoon’s opinion - from over Seokjin’s shoulder where he stands in front of the unwanted guest, arms out in a clear “back off” gesture. Seokjin’s face is stern and icy, unlike anything Namjoon has seen on his generally light-hearted friend before.

“Too late for what?” Taehyung replies, baffled.

“Okay, buddy, that’s enough,” Seokjin says, stepping even closer to Hyunwoo and moving his head to block his direct sight of the couple. “Let’s head outside.”

“Taehyung, I love you!” Hyunwoo cries out. 

“Goddammit,” Seokjin mutters angrily, as Jimin and Taehyung both hide their faces in their hands and sit back down. All around the room, various friends and family make outraged noises.

“Taehyung, please! You’re the one for me, can’t you see? I’ve loved you since we met.” Hyunwoo continues, as the rest of the guests start muttering agitatedly. Seokjin does put his hands on him then, grabs Hyunwoo’s upper arms and starts forcing him back out the way he came. Hyunwoo’s feet stutter across the ground and his hands flail through the air as he resists, still focused on Taehyung, ignoring Seokjin right in front of him.

Namjoon feels utterly, utterly sick. This is like a horrible, twisted parody of what he thought about in his darkest, most shameful moments: confessing his love to his best friend in a way that couldn’t be ignored or dismissed or misunderstood. But what a way to do it - in front of everyone, right AFTER he has gotten married? To maximize the drama and humiliation of the moment? To show blatant disrespect to every single person in the room? The second-hand embarrassment is enough to make Namjoon regret almost every action in his whole life that has led him to be here, now, to witness this putrid asshole of a man make a colossal fool of himself.

And what must Yoongi think? Now Hyunwoo is proclaiming in front of everybody that he was actually in love with someone else the whole time he was together with Yoongi?

He knows he needs to get up and help Seokjin. He’s also Best Man, this is one of the things he should do. He spares a glance for Yoongi, though, sitting next to him: his unblinking eyes are glued to Hyunwoo, his hands are balled up into fists on his thighs, and he’s very pale. After an agonizing moment of deliberation, Namjoon decides getting Hyunwoo out is more important than staying next to Yoongi. He stands up, scraping his chair a little. Hyunwoo is still yelling ardent proofs of his affection and being slowly bullied backwards by Seokjin.

Then, suddenly, Hyunwoo twists away from Seokjin and beelines right towards Namjoon instead. Namjoon freezes in shock again. Following Hyunwoo’s line of sight, though, he realizes: not towards Namjoon, but towards Yoongi. Namjoon tries to stop him, stands in between, urges him backwards, but again Hyunwoo insists on being heard.

“Yoongi, I know things didn’t end well between us,” he says in a pleading voice. Yoongi is still looking up at him, eyes huge. “But please, can’t you convince Taehyung? You saw what we had between us. Can’t you be the bigger man and speak up for me?”

Namjoon sees red. He’s going to kill him. He’s going to smash his fists into Hyunwoo’s face right here in front of everyone and feel good about it for the rest of his life, even if he spends fifty years in jail. His fists are raising up in the air when suddenly he gets short-circuited - a single long, slightly knobby, index finger is mere inches from his nose.

Yoongi is standing up next to both of them now, holding a shushing hand in front of Namjoon’s face. Once Namjoon takes a tiny shuffling step backwards, Yoongi drops his hand. There is enough chatter and noise in the room now that what Yoongi says next can only be heard by the people right there at their table.

“You know who told me I was the bigger man?” Yoongi asks icily, picking up a nearly-full glass of red wine from the table.

He leans in close to Hyunwoo’s face.

“Your mom. Last night,” and then before Hyunwoo can process what he’s doing, Yoongi grabs the front of the waistband of Hyunwoo’s pants with one hand, and pours the wine down his crotch with the other. 

As Hyunwoo shrieks in dismay and instinctively curls in, putting his hands over his dripping front, Yoongi smoothly picks up the little plate of cake right next to him, and smashes it into Hyunwoo’s face.

The room quiets down considerably as everyone stands and watches in complete shock and bafflement. Hyunwoo wheezes as cake and frosting drip off his face, and wine puddles around his feet.

Then, Taehyung’s father stands up from the head table, points at Hyunwoo, and lets out the loudest, meanest, most mocking jeer Namjoon has ever heard.

“Haaaaaaaaaahhh!” he yells with the power of sixty-odd years of bottled spite. Then, still pointing, he laughs and laughs, a boisterous, hearty, contagious sound. Taehyung’s mother stands up next to him, cups her hands around her mouth and starts booing with all her heart.

The rest of the guests happily, enthusiastically, zealously follow suit, all springing to their feet, pointing at Hyunwoo, jeering, laughing, booing. Hyunwoo turns in defeat and makes his slow, shameful way back to the door, leaving disgusting drips of wine and frosting as he goes, Seokjin close behind. Once it becomes clear he’s definitely given up, more and more people start clapping and cheering, finally erupting into complete joy once he’s across the threshold and gone from sight.

Yoongi sits back down heavily. Namjoon sits down as well, looking into his face, concerned..

“I can’t believe I made a ‘yo mama’ joke,” Yoongi says quietly, barely any emotion on his face, Namjoon leaning in to make sure he can hear. “I feel kind of gross now.”

“Well, he, um,” Namjoon struggles to come up with words. “He didn’t deserve any higher-effort insult, I suppose.”

That actually gets a smile and a single chuckle out of Yoongi, which Namjoon wears like a badge of honor. Namjoon spares a look around the room then: Seokjin is already making his way back up to the front of the room, bee-lining to the DJ. He catches Namjoon’s eye and gives him a thumbs-up. Taehyung and Jimin, and their parents, are all talking animatedly and laughing up at the head table. The rest of the room is absolutely abuzz with conversation.

It’s alright, Namjoon tries to tell himself. Everyone is fine. The wedding is fine. But still, once the DJ starts playing music and Jimin and Taehyung christen the dance floor with a particularly high-energy waltz that gets gigglier and gigglier as they go, Namjoon doesn’t feel fine about it at all. He wishes that the night were over already, and that he could just go lie down in his hotel room. He accepts another glass of wine. Yoongi, still at the table next to him, does too.

The dance floor continues to fill up. Jimin and Taehyung are still dancing, and will probably keep doing so until the DJ starts packing up his equipment. Jungkook and Seokjin are winding each other up by making up more and more ridiculous dance moves and copying each other. Hoseok seems to be making it his personal mission to get everyone to come dance: he keeps popping back off the dance floor, grabbing random folks and couples from their tables, and making them stand up and dance with him.

Finally, the night ends, with Namjoon feeling increasingly on edge and jittery, wondering if Yoongi is really okay or if he’s just putting on a brave face. They get back to their shared hotel room, two queen beds, just down the hall from where Seokjin, Hoseok, and Jungkook are rooming, along with several guests who booked within this block of rooms. Sounds of people going into and out of their rooms and chatting in the hallway filter intermittently into their room as they quietly change and wash up, a familiar routine from the many, many times they’ve shared spaces before. 

Namjoon emerges from the bathroom, in his sleep shirt and sweats, his face scrubbed clean, to find Yoongi - similarly attired - sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed.

“You holding up okay?” Namjoon asks him as he puts away his clothing and other items that had strayed out of his suitcase, then sits on the foot of his own bed. 

Yoongi shrugs.

“It’s definitely not what I was expecting. Never in a million years…” he trails off, then goes on in a small voice, picking at the bedspread. “Do you think he meant it?”

“That he actually loved Taehyung all along? Absolutely not,” Namjoon says firmly. “He was just looking for a way to stir up drama and get the attention on himself. Maybe he convinced himself it was true after the fact, but there’s no way that’s how he felt at the time.”

“After…after he decided to not marry me,” Yoongi asks next, “you told me how he should have done it instead. If his latest version of events were true, and it was really Taehyung that, that h-he wanted, what should he have done?”

“He-” but Namjoon’s mouth goes dry and he claps his lips shut again. He should have kept his damn mouth shut. He should have broken up with Yoongi and then asked Taehyung out. He should have stayed away from Yoongi in the first place.

What if Namjoon hadn’t been a coward all these years? What if he had just asked Yoongi out before Hyunwoo entered the picture? Then he could have protected Yoongi from what had happened. Then Hyunwoo wouldn’t have been able to ruin this wedding too. But no - that’s the height of arrogance. Namjoon can’t know what’s best for Yoongi. As if him swooping in would be an improvement. Jimin and Taehyung probably wouldn’t have met at all in that case. Is he just contemplating sacrificing one pair’s happiness for another? Who is Namjoon to think that anything he would have done differently, at any time, would have helped anyone?

Namjoon’s brain starts to churn, thinking of all the wrong, terrible things that Hyunwoo has done. He came and tried to ruin this wedding, causing stress and emotional damage to Yoongi and Taehyung and everyone else all over again. He broke Yoongi’s heart, put a fear of betrayal so deeply in him that he can’t bring himself to stand in a dear friend’s wedding, can’t stomach the idea of being in a relationship any more. He made a grotesque mockery, in front of everyone, of the entire concept of a love confession - turning what should be a tender, hopeful, private moment into a bizarre, cruel spectacle of a power play. 

Namjoon presses the balls of his hands into his eyes, as hard as he can. How could he even contemplate ever saying anything to Yoongi at any point in the future now, in the shadow of this? Hyunwoo has somehow managed to taint it in advance, turning the carefully concealed love in Namjoon’s chest into a grenade, poised to blow up and destroy anything good about their precious friendship.

Namjoon is vaguely aware that something is wrong with his posture, that he’s curled up in some way, that his chest hurts. His eyes are filled with gray static and his ears are buzzing. 

“Namjoon,” he hears Yoongi say from a few kilometers away, and even from that distance he sounds worried. “Namjoon, please, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“I HATE HIM!” Namjoon screams, emptying all the air out from his straining lungs, feeling Yoongi jerk back from him, apparently actually from somewhere nearby. He manages a desperate gulp of air and screams again, though only a thin, pathetic shriek this time. “I HATE HIM SO MUCH!”

He’s not quite sure where anything is any more, only able to perceive a few scattered sensory inputs: his face hurts, his chest is burning, he might be lying down on his side or crumpled on his front or spinning unmoored in space somewhere; he hears one voice, then doors, footsteps, another voice. Something cold on the back of his neck. Hands wrapped around his wrists, trying to gently pry his hands away from his face. Finally, after somewhere between ten seconds and an hour has gone by, the roaring, whooshing sound in his ears decreases just slightly, and he starts to be able to understand some of the words the voices are saying.

“Breathe, just breathe. A few more, okay?”

That sounds like Seokjin.

“Relax your hands a little more, let me take them,” he coaxes.

Namjoon tries to follow, tries to unclench his fingers and arms, tries to fill his lungs. Little by little reality starts to stabilize, as Seokjin and Yoongi continue to say small, encouraging things, and then finally he’s back in his body.

He wishes he weren’t, though. He’s curled up on his side on the floor, on the thin hotel carpet. His face is wet with tears and snot. Yoongi is sitting behind him, holding a washcloth with a little ice wrapped in it against the back of his neck. Seokjin is kneeling in front of him, holding his hands. A terrible sense of humiliation burns through him - how useless can he be over the course of one day? How does it keep getting worse?

“Ugh,” Namjoon grunts, wishing he could vanish through the floor. “S’rry, m’okay now.”

That actually gets a little wry chuckle out of Seokjin. Namjoon tries to get his hands out of Seokjin’s grip, but he’s too weak and shaky to break loose. Tears are still streaming sideways down his face, soaking into his hair and ear.

“Just a couple more big breaths for me,” Seokjin says calmly, “then we’ll get you somewhere more comfortable than the floor, okay?”

“Sorry,” Namjoon says again, hiccupping pathetically. “Sorry,” he whispers again, unable to think of any other words, unable to contemplate how to explain the giant boulder of shame and regret that has him pinned to the floor. He can tell the adrenaline dump is starting to metabolize out of his system, as he starts to feel cold; the drying sweat on the small of his back and along his ribs making him shiver.

He forces himself to take a big deep breath, as the only way to get this over with now is to obey. And then one more. Seokjin murmurs to him, praising his efforts at breathing.

“Do you think you could sit up on the couch now?” Seokjin asks quietly. 

“Yeah,” Namjoon replies quickly, sniffling.

He can’t believe how helpless he feels as Seokjin and Yoongi work together to hoist him sideways, so that he’s sitting on the floor. His limbs feel limp and noodle-like. Sitting upright is enough to make him feel woozy and light-headed for a moment. Seokjin and Yoongi each grab one of his arms as he tries to shift his feet underneath himself. Finally he manages to arrange his limbs into some kind of configuration that, between the three of them, allows him to push himself away from the floor and stand (mostly) upright. Namjoon feels terribly guilty that his two dainty friends are having to heave him around like a particularly tall and misshapen sack of potatoes. What’s the use in all those years of working out and getting buff if it just makes it harder for them to help him? Everything he’s ever done is stupid and pointless.

Fortunately it’s just a few steps over to the couch. Once he’s settled in the middle, Seokjin and Yoongi on either side, Seokjin runs one hand over Namjoon’s back while he holds Namjoon’s hand with the other.

“Yoongi, can you go get him a warm washcloth to wipe his face off with?” Seokjin asks quietly.

When Yoongi comes back, Namjoon tries to take the washcloth, but his outstretched hand is shaking so much that Yoongi simply ignores it and wipes Namjoon’s face himself. As if Namjoon were a sulky baby or a sick cat. Yoongi tenderly cleans off his face, and Namjoon has to admit the warmth feels good. That being taken care of feels a little good, even if the reason for it feels extremely bad. Then Yoongi brings up a dry washcloth and pats off the water. Namjoon takes a quick glance up at his face, and sees with another bolt of shame that Yoongi has been crying too.

Seokjin hands him a glass of water, but his hand is still shaking too much to hold it. Seokjin has to hold the glass for him so he can drink, like a toddler - one more humiliation piled on by the day’s events.

“Today was a tough one, wasn’t it,” Seokjin says sympathetically as he puts the glass down. 

Namjoon nods, unable to formulate any reply more complex than that. Seokjin goes back to rubbing along his back.

“Th- thank you,” Namjoon finally manages to croak out, and swallows. “I think this means that you win the title of Better Best Man after all.”

Seokjin actually laughs at Namjoon’s poor attempt at a joke, which Namjoon thinks is just an effort to help him feel better, but he’s grateful for it anyway. 

“Not at all,” he replies. “It was a team effort. We couldn't have done it without all of us working together.”

Namjoon shakes his head but Seokjin keeps talking.

“Taehyung and Jimin had a great time. I saw them off when they left for their hotel. They were both so, so happy. Nothing Hyu- that idiot did could undo it or dim it. The whole event went well, they loved your speech. We did it, okay?” Seokjin reassures him.

Namjoon lets his head hang down lower. He’s not really in a state where he can believe or accept anything positive Seokjin tells him. But neither is he in a state where he can coherently argue against any of it, so he just says nothing.

Namjoon just wants the day to be over. He knows his friends mean well, that they want to see that Namjoon is okay, but Namjoon is completely out of energy. He’s given everything he has to get to this point, to keep everyone happy and feeling seen and understood leading up to the wedding, and he has absolutely nothing left to give. Not even the ability to listen to Seokjin trying to pep him up.

“I just wanna,” Namjoon says creakily, “go lie down and sleep this off.”

“Okay,” Seokjin says, slightly reluctantly.

Seokjin and Yoongi walk him over to his bed, his legs still quite unsteady. He manages to slip under the covers by himself, shivering as the cold fabric slides over him. He can hear Seokjin and Yoongi conversing by the door.

“You’re sure you’re okay for the night?” Seokjin asks softly.

“Yes, I’ll make sure he’s alright,” Yoongi says.

“But you’re doing okay?” Seokjin insists.

“Yes. Honestly, if you had told me this morning this was going to happen, I would have said I’d never be able to make it through. But I feel strangely okay now.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Namjoon can hear the smile in Seokjin’s voice.

“Just, text if you need anything, right? I have you both on my do-not-disturb exception list,” he continues.

“That’s very sweet,” Yoongi replies, not quite managing to conceal that he is genuinely touched despite his attempt at a deadpan delivery.

“Good night to both of you.”

The door closes behind him. Namjoon feels completely raw and wrung out, his face and eyes burning, every muscle a limp noodle. He hears Yoongi’s footsteps across the floor. In another timeline, where Namjoon had even a single particle of hope left in his body, he might ask Yoongi to sit with him for a minute. So, at first, he thinks he’s imagining it when he feels the bed shift, as if Yoongi were sitting on the other side of it. 

He finally turns his head just enough so he can see out of the side of his eye, and sure enough, there is Yoongi, sitting up on top of the covers, back against the headboard. Then, Yoongi tentatively puts his hand out, running it towards Namjoon on top of the covers. 

Not letting himself think too hard about it, Namjoon rolls over and stretches out his hand. Yoongi takes it, resting their clasped hands on his knee.

“You’re such a good friend,” Yoongi tells him. “Without you, I really, I wouldn’t have been able to make it these last two years. All your kindness and support. That’s the only reason I was able to come and see them get married at all, you know. The only reason I was able to not let Hyunwoo get to me. I know I was so anxious and overwhelmed by nothing at all ahead of time, but then once something terrible actually happened, I knew I could get through it because you were right there.”

Namjoon shakes his head, rustling against the pillow.

“That’s all you, your strength,” he argues hollowly.

“But I knew no matter what, you’d be there for me, even if things went poorly, even if I ended up not being strong enough in the end. But if it’s been too much for you,” Yoongi says, voice trembling just slightly, “I am so sorry. I don’t-”

“No,” Namjoon cuts him off, closing his eyes. Seeing and talking at the same time feel like too much for his brain to handle at once. “Nope. It hasn’t been. I would do anything, ever, all the time, to reduce your pain. Even if it’s hard. If what I’ve done has helped you even a little, it was worth it.”

“Maybe when you’re feeling better in a day or two,” Yoongi whispers wetly, “you should give me that blockbuster pick-yourself-up, dust-yourself-off speech you promised me. I…I think I might be ready for that now.”

Namjoon shakes his head again.

“S’only been two years. I promised you a full five years of wallowing. Besides, I haven’t finished the speech yet. I need the remaining three years to get it perfected,” he says weakly, trying to smile but not quite accomplishing it.

“Okay,” Yoongi says placatingly. “I’ll be selfish just a little longer then. Do you think you could sleep now?”

Namjoon nods and lets go of Yoongi’s hand. He rolls back over on his side, away from Yoongi. Tears start falling out of his eyes again, silently - or at least, he hopes so. He still imagines that parallel life where he could ask Yoongi to hold him, or even just stay close - but in this timeline, he’s stuck being alone, forever, just two feet away.

“Ah, Joonie,” Yoongi suddenly whispers sadly. 

Then Yoongi’s fingers are in his hair, gently combing along his scalp. Namjoon relaxes, almost against his own will. He feels sleep arriving to claim him almost instantly, and as he drifts off, he’s filled with gratitude towards Yoongi for being willing to indulge him. He knows, to his core, that he’s the selfish one, not Yoongi.

“Love you,” he mumbles, and falls asleep before Yoongi says it back.

💒

Namjoon wakes up the next morning feeling nothing whatsoever. Yoongi is already up and about somewhere, so he mechanically gets himself ready. The whole group of them - minus Taehyung and Jimin, already gone on their honeymoon - end up, via a flurry of texts, meeting up for the very tail end of the availability of the free hotel breakfast. Namjoon pulls on a hoodie and leaves the hood up, hoping to pass for hungover instead of - whatever he is.

Even the fact that both Yoongi and Seokjin each got him a cup of coffee from the machine, in case he didn’t make it before it got turned off, and playfully fight over which one Namjoon will accept and drink first, isn’t enough to cheer him up. He ultimately grabs one of the larger water glasses, fills it with ice and a little milk, and then pours both mugs of coffee into it simultaneously. Yoongi and Seokjin both continue to yell at him playfully, while Jungkook and Hoseok clap and laugh. Seokjin complains laughingly about how much coffee Namjoon spilled during his little stunt. Namjoon’s heart feels a tiny bit lighter after that. He keeps his hood pulled up, though,

With little fanfare, they each check out on their own timelines. Namjoon bolts out of the hotel like a bat out of hell as soon as he can cram everything back into his suitcase and jets down the road, desperate to put the whole thing in the past. Upon arriving home, he texts the group chat that he got home safe, then shuts his phone off, showers, and crawls into bed. It’s not even three in the afternoon. He’s asleep before 3:15. He dozes on and off, unwilling to get out of bed until finally, close to midnight, he has to get up to use the restroom. He goes and eats some cold noodles that were already in his fridge, opens up his laptop and sends an email that he’ll be out sick tomorrow. Later today. Whatever. He goes back to bed.

He wakes up again a bit after noon. He feels, perhaps, something close to “ rested.” Then he remembers his phone, still turned off somewhere, and the likely dozens of notifications waiting for him and then feels miserable again. He wants to be just a human for a while, not a friend. Not somebody who needs to act a certain way for the others around him to be happy. He lies on his side, staring at the wall for a while, feeling worse and worse. He should at least get up and read a book, or eat some real food. But he doesn’t.

He wakes up again close to eight in the evening, feeling absolutely ravenous and completely disgusted with himself. He staggers out into the living room, not even bothering to put glasses on, chugs a glass of water, and opens up his laptop again. He just goes and re-orders whatever the last food he had delivered was, without even paying attention to it. He knows it would be easier and faster to order on his phone but he doesn’t want to open that can of worms just yet.

Soon enough the doorbell rings. Namjoon opens the door and, due to not having his glasses on, takes an awkwardly long time to realize that it’s not the food delivery person outside his door.

It’s Yoongi. 

“Hey Namjoon,” Yoongi says, sounding slightly worried. 

No doubt he’s taking in Namjoon’s extremely disheveled appearance, his rumpled sleep clothes, his hair fluffed out at odd angles, probably his terrible morning (evening?) breath. Namjoon fights the urge to sigh deeply. This might be the one time - ever - in his whole life, that he’s been disappointed to see Yoongi.

“Hey,” he says hoarsely, moving back to let Yoongi in. “Sorry, waiting for food delivery. Been sleeping. Phone’s off.”

“Ah, I see,” Yoongi says gently.

Namjoon plants himself back on the same spot on the couch he had been occupying, which still retains his body heat. He closes his eyes. He feels more than flattened, he feels reduced to a single dimension. Namjoon exists in physical space and can be perceived, but has no volume, no mass, no energy. It occurs to him that Yoongi was probably sent to check on him, but he can’t bring himself to feel any particular way about it.

The doorbell rings again.

“I’ll get it,” Yoongi says, before Namjoon can react.

Namjoon stays on the couch with his eyes closed. He hears Yoongi bring the food in and start bustling with something in the kitchen.

“Hey, c’mere,” Yoongi says, suddenly right next to him.

He runs a gentle fingertip along the back of Namjoon’s hand.

“Come sit and eat with me, okay?” Yoongi asks him quietly.

Namjoon opens his eyes, feeling exceedingly detached and hazy. He lets Yoongi help him to his feet and lead him to the table, where whatever the thing was he ordered is already plated and ready to eat.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says meekly, and sits down and eats.

He’s dimly aware of Yoongi eating as well, across the table from him. Once he’s most of the way through his plate, awareness suddenly returns to him and he feels embarrassed and exposed. He doesn’t want to know what Yoongi thinks of him now, how pathetic he must have looked when he opened the door. How stupid he’s come across now, to have thrown a little tantrum and ignored his friends.

Shoveling one of the last bites off his plate into his mouth, he finally chances an actual look up at Yoongi.

Yoongi is looking back at him fondly, his chin resting on his hand. His eyes are warm and he’s even smiling a little. 

“You look so cute when you’re enjoying food like that,” Yoongi tells him. 

Namjoon can’t suppress a surprised wheeze and he just stares, wide-eyed at Yoongi. 

“I think it was smart of you to just switch everything off and disconnect for the rest of the weekend,” Yoongi goes on appreciatively. “In retrospect, I should have done the same thing.”

Namjoon wants to explain that he didn’t put any kind of thought into it - he just did that because he had to. So he just shrugs, using his still-full mouth as an excuse to not say anything.

Somehow, Yoongi coaxes him back to the couch and sedates him by putting a baseball game on. Namjoon hears him putting the food away and doing the dishes. He’s starting to feel overwhelmed again and he doesn’t even know why. Then Yoongi finally comes back out and sits next to him, jostling him as he sits down.

“What’s on your mind?” Yoongi asks him. 

He’s close enough that Namjoon can feel the warmth of his body, just a few inches away from his splayed-out thigh.

So many things are on his mind. I love you. I regret everything. I regret nothing as long as you really are okay.

“I’ve fucked up my sleep schedule,” Namjoon says instead.

Yoongi laughs sympathetically. Then, perhaps a bit more heartily than he meant to because it startles Namjoon so much that he flinches with his whole body, he claps his hand down on Namjoon’s thigh. Namjoon jerks his head towards Yoongi and sits up straighter.

“Sorry,” Yoongi says sheepishly. 

He suddenly looks more nervous and worried than he did up at the table - more like he did when he first came through the door. He doesn’t take his hand off of Namjoon’s thigh though.

“You worked so hard,” Yoongi says quietly, and Namjoon can tell he’s really trying to keep eye contact with him, so he looks back, so he can see Yoongi’s eyes shining with emotion.

“You worked so hard being best man - twice,” Yoongi goes on, and suddenly Namjoon can hardly bear it any more. 

He doesn’t want to think about either accursed affair. He keeps looking at Yoongi though, who is searching his face. Yoongi squeezes his thigh, just above his knee.

“None of it was your fault, okay?” Yoongi says even more quietly. “None of it.”

And just like that, Namjoon is sobbing. He’s crying so hard that he doesn’t even remember how exactly Yoongi wraps him up, but he does. They’re sitting next to each other on the couch and Namjoon’s head is on Yoongi’s shoulder and Yoongi’s arms are around him and he cries for a long, long time.

Yoongi doesn’t try to get him to explain or verbalize his feelings, or ask him any more questions at all, he just lets Namjoon get it all out. Namjoon doesn’t think he even could explain or talk it out at all - the things he’s experiencing now don’t map to any words he knows. Some of it is sadness, grief about how many things over the past few years have not gone the way he wanted for himself and his friends. But some of it is relief, that Yoongi is okay, and that - though he didn't even realize he wanted to hear such a thing until he already had - Yoongi forgives him. And some of it is just pent-up stress, and the rest is just emotions, chemicals in his brain, atoms and consciousness colliding in a way that bring him all the way back to exhaustion again.

Yoongi ends up making him just lie down to sleep right there on his couch. He puts a blanket over him. Then Yoongi lies down to sleep on the other couch with another blanket, like the two of them are still college kids crashing at a friend’s house.

Yoongi wakes him up early in the morning, with a gentle hand on his shoulder, letting him know he’s leaving so he can make it to his workplace on time. Namjoon nods, listens to him leave, and dozes another ninety minutes until he has to get up for the same reason.

And, just like that, life goes on: Namjoon showers, ices his puffy face, turns on his phone and replies to two days worth of messages during his commute. He takes a selfie with his meal at lunch time and sends it to Yoongi, and gets a 😋 in reply.

💒

On Friday after work, Seokjin comes over to Namjoon’s apartment with a few bottles of soju. 

“Well, that was a hell of a thing, wasn’t it?” he says with a beleaguered sigh once they’ve gotten the small talk out of the way.

Then, they take turns unloading about all the bullshit they couldn't talk about while the wedding was still in process. Seokjin tells about Jimin and Taehyung getting so stressed about the catering that they argued to the point of tears about what fillings to order in the dumplings. Namjoon tells him about how stressed and upset Yoongi got and how hard he worked to try to make sure nobody else saw. Seokjin recounts long, passive-aggressive battles between the two mothers of the grooms, culminating in no less than seven different dresses being purchased by the women combined. How Namjoon feels so incredibly guilty for freezing when Hyunwoo came in and not being able to help Seokjin block him sooner.

And on and on, until finally the soju is all gone and so is some of the burden. Even tipsy, Namjoon feels better about all of it, lighter. Now that the worst part is a week in the past, it doesn’t seem quite so huge and significant.

“I don’t know how you’ve handled being best man twice. Goodness,” Seokjin finally says. “Just once was enough to make me want to launch myself into the sun.”

“Ah, well, if I’d known how it would end up I’d never have been able to go through it,” Namjoon agrees wearily.

“Well, you did great,” Seokjin says, then holds up his glass. “A toast to Namjoon, who ushered his best friend through not just one, but TWO horribly traumatic weddings!”

Namjoon returns his toast wanly, clinking their glasses and then chugging the rest of his drink. Seokjin laughs at his own joke and Namjoon laughs along, then he puts his glass down and drops his head into his hands. The room is spinning a little and he needs to get the rest of the burden off his chest. He has to.

“Oh, hyung,” Namjoon blurts out. “I love him.”

“I know,” Seokjin says calmly, with a gentle smile.

“No,” Namjoon says forcefully, looking back up at Seokjin. “I LOVE him.”

“I know,” Seokjin whispers, and his smile turns sad, and that’s all Namjoon needs to start crying yet again.

Seokjin scoots over to Namjoon’s side of the table and rubs his back while he sniffles.

“Are you going to tell-” Seokjin starts.

“No, never,” Namjoon says, anguished. “Are you kidding? How could I say anything to him? I’ve had a front row seat, for months, to him saying over and over again about how he never wants to date again in his life. How could I ignore that? And especially now, after Hyunwoo did what he did? It would be the grossest, most insensitive thing I could ever do. I’d lose him forever. I’m supposed to be his friend, and help him heal, not be a vulture just circling around waiting to get into his pants.”

“You have helped him heal,” Seokjin rebuts gently. “As for all the stuff he’s said, you know he has a flair for the dramatic. You can’t hold him to what he says when he’s upset.”

Namjoon chuckles wetly at that and wipes his cheeks. That is kind of true.

“I know that what Hyunwoo did at this wedding was very upsetting and hurtful,” Seokjin goes on, “not just to the grooms but to you also. I think on Yoongi’s part, however, it might have acted more to give him a sense of closure. You’ve seen him since then, right?”

Namjoon thinks about how Yoongi came over and took care of him a few days ago. He did seem calm. Contented? Centered in himself? Namjoon nods.

“I’m just saying, take a fresh look once you’re feeling better,” Seokjin tells him, presenting an idea that sounds so very reasonable and tempting at that moment. “Really pay attention to how he’s doing now, not the hurt he’s felt over the last couple of years. Maybe your moment will come.”

Namjoon sighs. He can’t quite summon enough optimism to seriously consider it.

“I’m serious, pay attention to him,” Seokjin says urgently. “You guys have spent so much time together, even more than you used to, and the way I see him look at you sometimes…”

Namjoon shakes his head, and Seokjin mercifully drops the subject.

They go on to talk about other things for a while before calling it a night, but Namjoon thinks about Seokjin’s words for the whole rest of the weekend after that. He scrolls on his phone and sees a few posts from Hoseok and Jungkook that have Yoongi in them. He smiles as he looks at their selfies - apparently the Hole Brothers got together for drinks right around the same time Seokjin came over and got him drunk too. Yoongi looks a little tipsy, happy and blushing. It makes Namjoon feel good that he was able to relax.

💒

Life gets back into its usual rhythm, with all of them meeting up often in pairs, threes, fours, or more usually, all seven together. Taehyung and Jimin tell them all about their honeymoon, Jungkook gets promoted, Yoongi gets a new bucket hat he really likes and wears it everywhere. The wedding pictures come back and they all sit together in Jimin’s and Taehyung’s apartment for a slideshow (with alcohol, of course). They’re gorgeous, and not just the posed shots: the photographer managed to get a number of candid photos of all of them. 

Namjoon feels a little chagrined at how visibly stressed he looks in so many of the pictures. At least he managed to look presentable and happy for the posed shots, but in some of the behind-the-scenes, grooms-getting-ready stuff, he looks rough. After a few of them, he tries to avoid looking at his own face and just looks at his friends in the pictures that follow. And that is nice: the glowing smiles of Taehyung and Jimin throughout the whole day soothe his soul.

Namjoon knows that, of course, the pictures only show the happy parts and not all the terrible emotional stress that happened behind the scenes, but still: seeing how much genuine happiness there actually was, so clearly captured, helps him think of the whole event more positively. The most stressful memories of the wedding continue to lose their grip on him after that and life gets lighter, easier, especially with no big event looming in front of them.

He keeps thinking about what Seokjin said. He keeps watching Yoongi, as he has been for more than two years now, well, for more than eleven years, really, but this time trying to see if he’s looking back at him in any particular way. Does he seem slightly more affectionate with him? Does his face light up just a little but more than it does for others? Is Namjoon just winding himself up for no purpose?

💒

About three months after the wedding, Yoongi messages Namjoon with a link to an exhibition page on the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

[YG] hey, that Rothko exhibit is finally opening this weekend

[YG] want to go with me?

Namjoon remembers seeing a newsletter from the museum months and months ago mentioning this upcoming exhibit. He supposes he must have mentioned it to Yoongi at the time. He’s a little surprised that Yoongi noted it down or otherwise somehow remembered the date.

[NJ] yeah! I’d love to!

[YG] k :]

[YG] want to get there around 1 and go for dinner after?

[NJ] you’re speaking my language 👍

[YG] cool, I’ll come pick you up at 12:30

[NJ] 😎👍

The one thing Namjoon likes better than going to a museum at all is going to a museum with someone else. He likes speaking his thoughts about the artworks out loud, so having a person there with him who’s willing to listen to his ramblings is about the best life can get. He’s grateful for Yoongi being willing to indulge him this time. His good mood and enthusiasm seem to be rubbing off on Yoongi this day, who, each time Namjoon turns to him to blurt out his latest enthused monologue about one piece or another, is watching him with a warm, gentle smile.

This exhibit has a selection of Rothko paintings - those “Color Field” ones composed of fuzzy rectangles of mostly the same hue - paired with other modern works by contemporary artists who claim Rothko as a major influence. The Rothkos are quite large - over two meters tall and across - and the viewer is meant to stand directly in front of them, letting the colors take over their entire visual field. Namjoon has finally gotten his fill of a blue and gray, and he and Yoongi are moseying over to one of the more famous ones, which is orange and yellow.

An older woman is standing near it, too far back to get the full effect, really. Namjoon is close enough that he can hear her scoff as she turns away.

“So boring!” she says.

“Excuse me, did you call it boring? ” Namjoon asks, scandalized, before he can stop himself.

“Yes, I mean look at it,” she says, irritated, turning around to look at who has the audacity to confront her. “It’s a bunch of nothing. Why bother taking up so much space in the museum with this?”

“Maybe you just don’t know how to appreciate the subtler things in life,” Namjoon snaps at her, irked beyond measure. “Did you even give it a chance or did you just come in here to complain because you had your mind set against ‘modern art’ from the start?”

The woman splutters.

“It’s just color!” she says, gesturing to the painting. “There’s nothing to it!”

“You haven’t actually looked at it then!” Namjoon returns. “It’s not meant to be digested in an instant, to jump at your face and grab you. You have to approach it, sit with it, let it soak into you in a conscious and unconscious way. It’s color, it’s texture, it’s life, it’s art.”

She looks taken aback but Namjoon keeps going.

“Even if it were ‘just color,’ do you really think you can dismiss color as boring? ” he challenges her, gesturing to the painting himself. “Imagine you painted all the walls inside your house black. Or bright fuchsia. Or orange! Do you really think it would have no effect on you? That you’d go about your life the exact same way, and not feel any different about the life you lived there? Sometimes the things that are just sitting there in the background all along mean more than you could possibly realize, until you start paying attention to them.”

He stops then and takes a deep breath. Well.

“Do you work here or something?” she asks, confused.

“He’s part of a volunteer docent program,” Yoongi pipes up smoothly, in a tone that Namjoon knows from long exposure means he’s trying not to laugh. “If you have feedback, there’s a suggestion box by the front desk.”

“Have, uh, a good rest of your visit,” Namjoon says sheepishly, and she shakes her head and walks off.

Namjoon turns his head to look at Yoongi, half expecting to be scolded. But Yoongi is looking back at him with the grin he was suppressing in front of the other patron, wide and beaming, and his eyes are full of stars.

Namjoon manages to contain himself for the rest of the visit. They have a lovely dinner together, Namjoon still enthusiastically proclaiming on all the pieces they saw, the themes, the contrasts, Yoongi seemingly perfectly happy to listen to him and pipe up every so often. Once he’s home and by himself, lying in bed and trying to go to sleep, Namjoon runs through the whole afternoon again. The way Yoongi was looking at him…he wasn’t imagining it, right? Was he imagining the way Yoongi’s fingers kept twitching, as if he wanted to reach out and take Namjoon’s hand? The way he kept walking close to Namjoon, letting their shoulders brush together?

Uncertainty and hope both consume him. And for the first time, he wonders: that night when Seokjin cornered him and got him drunk and got him to spill his guts - what did Hoseok and Jungkook talk to Yoongi about on that same night?

💒

They’re hanging out at Namjoon’s apartment the weekend after that and Namjoon can tell Yoongi has something on his mind. He’s being quieter than usual, fidgeting with his bottom lip and his palms. Namjoon waits him out, tells him about the latest drama at his workplace and the new guy on his team who tells as many puns as possible.

Then he runs out of things to say, so they sit there in silence for a moment or two.

“You know, I think I only have one regret now,” Yoongi says quietly, “about how the- the whole thing turned out.”

Namjoon looks at him, ready to listen.

“That I didn’t ever get to hear your ‘best man’ speech,” Yoongi concludes with a crooked little half-sad smile. “I bet it would have been one for the ages.”

“Ah,” Namjoon says with a shrug, “well, I don’t know about that.”

“Would you mind telling me what you were going to say? Just, like, in general if you don’t remember exactly,” Yoongi asks, fidgeting with his fingers. “It’s been over two and a half years, it can’t hurt me now.”

“Can I give you an updated version?” Namjoon suggests, a sudden wild thought lighting up his brain and sending adrenaline coursing through him. “Like, take out the parts that aren’t true any more and make it a speech for, um, for the Namjoon and Yoongi of today.”

Yoongi looks at him, slightly puzzled by the request.

“Yeah, sure, that would be fine. Whatever parts of it you want to tell me, I’d love to hear,” he confirms, nodding.

Namjoon jumps up and heads to his bedroom room, rummaging around in his closet for something specific, his heart hammering in his ears. He comes back out to the living room wearing his cheesy black t-shirt that’s printed with a fake tuxedo on the front. Yoongi bursts into laughter.

“I’m setting the mood,” Namjoon tells him archly, but he can’t keep a straight face and he laughs with Yoongi too.

So then he’s standing in his living room, wearing his tux shirt, his heart in his throat, Yoongi slumped all comfortably on his couch looking at him expectantly. He takes a deep breath, swallows, and starts talking.

“Yoongi, when I started on this speech, I thought back on the whole time we’ve known each other, all the moments we’ve had together. I thought about everything we’ve done together, the way we’ve both grown over the years, and what an absolute privilege it’s been to be your friend all this time. The relationship I’ve had with you has been the most important one of my life, and it’s the one I’ll always cherish forever and want to nurture and hold on to for all the time I have remaining. So I thought hard about what I want you to take away from this speech, and it’s this: you’re not just my best friend, you’re the love of my life. I love you.“

He steps forward then, eyes locked on Yoongi who is overwhelmed and teary, and kneels down directly in front of him.

“This isn’t an infatuation or puppy love or a passing fancy. I love you deeply, with my whole heart, and I will do so forever. I’ve been by your side for over eleven years and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve loved YOU for every minute of it. I know you’ve been deeply hurt and it might be hard for you to believe it. I’m not saying you have to forget your doubts and fears immediately and trust me. If you need time, that won’t stop me. I’ll stay with you for another eleven years, or as long as it takes, for as long as you’ll let me love you. Will you let me try to earn your love?”

And Namjoon stops there, feeling like he's been reduced to nothing more than a giant, beating heart the size of a human being, exposed and vulnerable, waiting for either a killing blow or a tender embrace.

“You already have,” Yoongi whispers, and then he surges forward, drops off the couch, and yanks Namjoon into the tightest, warmest, most longed-for hug of his life. Namjoon squeezes back, holding him in his arms, finally; Yoongi is his.

Their chins are locked over each other’s shoulders, tears are streaming down their cheeks, and they sway a little, rocking side-to-side on their knees in front of the couch. Finally Namjoon pulls back and, unable to resist any further, presses his lips to Yoongi’s. Yoongi kisses back, putting his hands on the side of Namjoon’s neck, and Namjoon nearly explodes on the spot. He's done it, he's kissed Yoongi. This is real, the warmth of Yoongi's lips, salty and wet though they may be, and the way those lips are moving against his and Yoongi's warm hands on him and Yoongi's body in his embrace. Then, Yoongi pulls back and looks Namjoon in the eyes, wiping his thumbs over Namjoon’s cheeks to dry the tears away. They’re just breathing, looking at each other, living in the moment.

“Let’s sit back on the couch,” Yoongi finally whispers.

“Always so practical,” Namjoon whispers back, and gets a little chuckle.

He manages to get up first, and helps Yoongi to his feet, and they stagger a little and then immediately settle themselves on the couch, bodies turned to each other, holding hands. Yoongi slumps sideways, resting his head against the back of the couch.

“That can’t possibly be the speech you were going to give,” he says quietly with a teasing tone.

“It’s been…substantially edited.” Namjoon admits.

Yoongi barks with laughter.

“You know how some buildings are protected, so you’re not allowed to demolish them?” Namjoon explains whimsically. “You’re only allowed to renovate them. So people get around that by taking everything down except for a single exterior wall, and then build a whole new building with just that one wall incorporated, but they still call it a renovation. It was basically like that.”

Yoongi smiles at him, delighted and endeared.

Afterwards, it’s hard for either of them to recall what they even did for the rest of the day. They just sort of exist in each other’s orbit, fizzing around Namjoon’s apartment, randomly bursting into giggles, every so often shyly grabbing each other for a chaste kisses. Yoongi lingers, knowing that normally he would have left Namjoon’s apartment at some point, but he stays late into the night and they keep talking and lapsing into silence and giving each other looks. Finally they’re both yawning.

“Can I just…” Yoongi says shyly. “I don’t want to leave yet, but we need to sleep. Can I stay the night? I don’t feel ready for, well..” he stutters, then draws a breath and goes on stubbornly, “I mean, I want to be held.”

Namjoon smiles and feels a happy glow in his chest.

“That sounds amazing,” he says agreeably.

So Namjoon finds far, far too much joy in getting out a brand new toothbrush and ceremoniously declaring it Yoongi’s now, and getting out his smallest sleep pants and one of his many ragged old t-shirts for Yoongi to change into, and getting out a spare phone charger for - he can’t believe this is a phrase he gets to think now - Yoongi’s side of his bed. And then Yoongi, blushing and chewing his lips, is all soft and sleepy in his bed, and in his arms, and they get to kiss each other good night.

Yoongi is lying there, cradled in Namjoon’s arms, for perhaps three minutes when he starts talking again.

“Sometimes I thought, I had a tiny suspicion over the years that maybe you liked me as more than a friend,” he whispers slowly, as if confessing a sin. “I was- I was afraid though.”

Namjoon squeezes him ever so gently, otherwise not moving, keeping Yoongi tucked in under his chin, respecting the vulnerability he must feel admitting this. Yoongi swallows.

“I was afraid of you being disappointed in me,” he adds, so quietly it’s barely voiced at all.

“I would never-” Namjoon starts.

“It was always me getting dumped, you know,” Yoongi interrupts. “It was always them getting bored of me. I mean, Hyunwoo was the only one to say it outright, but I know my other exes were thinking the same thing. It’s like they saw how I was, you know, just a big softie, wanting everyone to be happy and have a good time, and somehow interpreted that as meaning I should have some hidden side. But I’m just a soft, plain marshmallow all the way through. There’s no secret filling when you bite in.”

Namjoon’s heart breaks for him all over again. Yoongi, seeking out love for all these years, pouring out his heart for the men who’ve come and gone, always ready to pick himself back up and be just as loving for the next one. While Namjoon, meanwhile, had simply hoarded his one love, watching Yoongi from the sidelines.

“Sometimes - not often, maybe twice ever - I'd have the thought that maybe I would ask you,” Yoongi continues in a whisper. “I always chickened out, though. Since I thought that if I suggested it and said no, that would hurt one way. But if I suggested it, and you said yes, but then you got just as disappointed in me as all the others, well…that would be too much. That would hurt too much. So I never did.”

“It’s literally not possible for me to be disappointed in you,” Namjoon contradicts him gently, trying to radiate all the love he feels for him with his voice and through the palms of his hands on Yoongi’s back and directly from his heart to Yoongi’s heart where their chests are pressed together. “It’s like I said, I’m yours from now on, no matter what. Tell me, any time, what your fears or doubts are, and I’ll stick with you and talk with you and hold you, whatever it takes. And I’ll keep doing it, every day from now on for the rest of our lives.”

Yoongi squeezes him back, overwhelmed.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Namjoon whispers, and leans down and kisses him on the forehead. “Just sleep, and know that I love you.”

“Love you too,” Yoongi chokes out, and Namjoon holds him until he falls asleep.

He’s still there in the morning when Namjoon wakes up, torn out of sleep by his alarm.

“Ugh,” Yoongi grumbles, wrapped up in a burrito of covers on the opposite side of the bed, only a little bit of hair sticking out, “you have an alarm set for the weekend? What is wrong with you?”

Namjoon giggles as he sits up and ruffles his fingers through his bed-head hair. Yoongi wiggles himself around, works his arms out of the covers, yawns, and looks over at Namjoon. There’s a slight moment of tension, a bit of worry as their eyes meet, an unspoken do you regret anything from yesterday… But Yoongi is looking at him so sweetly and openly, that Namjoon’s fears evaporate the instant they form.

“What’s your stance on morning breath kisses?” he asks, looking at Yoongi’s sleep-puffed face and its enticingly pink cheeks.

“For someone who looks as sexy as you do,” Yoongi grunts straightforwardly, “I’ll allow it.”

"Ohhhh, you think I'm sexy?" Namjoon teases him in a low, sultry tone.

"Shut up," Yoongi grumbles back. "Fishing for compliments puts you back on the no-kiss list."

Namjoon laughs, leans in, and gives him a chaste peck on the lips, so soft, so sweet. Yoongi hums faintly, almost involuntarily. Namjoon's heart swoops and flutters at this latest signal that Yoongi very much enjoys being the target of his physical affection. So then he pins him down and smooches each of Yoongi's pink cheeks quite firmly, reveling in the outraged squawk he gets in return.

The morning goes much the same as the previous day had: finding each other for little shy kisses and embraces as they get dressed and as Namjoon makes a double portion of his usual oatmeal and eggs. Then Yoongi has to leave, very reluctantly, as he already had a planned meetup with Seokjin for brunch, and he promised Jimin he’d go over to his apartment to help him choose a new paint color for his walls. He complains to Namjoon the whole time he’s getting yesterday’s clothes back on, whining that he knows Seokjin is just going to try to get him to commit to more fishing dates. Namjoon listens fondly, knowing that Yoongi is actually hoping for it. It takes maybe half-a-dozen more hugs and gentle kisses before Yoongi finally makes it out of the door. Namjoon sighs happily.

Yoongi comes back in the evening, so, so happy to be reunited with Namjoon, telling him all about his brunch with Seokjin and his paint-swatch adventure with Jimin that turned into Lego building that turned into dinner. Namjoon tells him about his day, his little bike ride up and down the riverside, the funny little songbirds he saw fluttering around in a park.

There’s a lull in the conversation finally, and they just look at each other, sitting on Namjoon’s couch, the last glow of sunset fading through the window on the other side.

“Why am I so nervous?” Yoongi suddenly blurts out.

“Because this relationship, this friendship, is really important to both of us, and we don’t want to fuck it up,” Namjoon replies instantly, reaching out his hand and rubbing it on Yoongi’s knee.

Yoongi smiles a little ruefully.

“I guess that sounds about right,” he agrees.

They look at each other for a long moment more, Namjoon’s thumb still gently soothing on his leg.

“I want you to kiss me again,” Yoongi whispers.

So Namjoon does. He scoots forward on the couch, puts his arms around his precious Yoongi, one hand cradling the back of his head, and puts the same feeling into his body that he had in his speech: trying to pour all the love he feels deep in his soul directly into Yoongi. Trying to learn Yoongi’s body with his body, learn how he responds to caresses along his back, to Namjoon’s tongue teasing right along where their lips are joined, to Namjoon breaking the kiss and mouthing along his jaw and neck instead.

The minutes all blend together in a syrupy haze, and they’re still making out on the couch, bodies turned towards each other, lips tingling from where they’ve been kissing so much already. Yoongi is wearing a pair of jeans with giant rips, so his pink knees are poking through. Namjoon has his hand on Yoongi’s leg, absently rubbing his thumb across the top of the hole, feeling the smooth skin there. He keeps kissing, probing Yoongi’s mouth with his tongue while he holds the back of his head with his other hand, and slips his thumb into the knee hole, pressing it up as high as he can reach on Yoongi’s thigh. Yoongi hums a little and shifts slightly in his seat.

Namjoon takes his thumb out of the rip and starts caressing up and down Yoongi’s thigh, getting a little higher with each stroke. Finally his hand is all the way at the crease between Yoongi’s thigh and his hip. He switches direction then, smoothing his palm around the top - his fingers reaching almost all the way around his plump buttcheek in the back, then his thumb ghosting right over Yoongi’s crotch when he moves forward.

Yoongi moans breathily right into Namjoon’s mouth, and bucks his hips, just a little, into the contact. So Namjoon makes his boldest move yet: he leaves his hand there, and starts rubbing the tip of his thumb up and down on the seam of Yoongi’s jeans, just below the fly. Yoongi shifts his legs, spreading them apart to give Namjoon better access, and Namjoon thinks that might be the hottest thing he’s ever experienced. He scoots closer and kisses Yoongi even more hungrily.

Namjoon has looked, when Yoongi unknowingly gave him the opportunity. He has looked at the shape of Yoongi’s ass when he bends over, he has looked at the shape of his crotch when he happened to manspread, he has looked (and looked and looked) when his shirt rode up and showed more skin than intentional. It might have been a bit perverted, he always thought to himself. A guilty pleasure, to look, to imagine more, but never to act on those thoughts or to touch.

Until now. 

Namjoon moves his hand again and fully cups Yoongi’s crotch, his fingers pressing up into his balls through his jeans, his palm gently grinding down against Yoongi’s unmistakable erection. Yoongi moans fully then, and starts rolling his hips up into Namjoon’s hand.

“I need-” Yoongi gasps, breaking the kiss, looking so very flushed, “I need more.”

He pushes Namjoon backwards and throws his leg over him, straddling him there on the couch. His clothed ass is rubbing right on Namjoon’s own erection inside his sweatpants. He grabs Namjoon’s shirt and starts yanking it off of him, which Namjoon helps him with. Yoongi rakes his eyes over Namjoon’s bare torso hungrily, then leans in and kisses him more, squirming impatiently in his lap. 

Yoongi’s hands are running all over Namjoon’s shoulders and back, and Namjoon’s are palming Yoongi’s butt, squeezing and occasionally wandering up to his waist underneath his shirt. Yoongi is rocking forward and backward in Namjoon’s lap, both urging Namjoon on and begging for more friction, though he remains too focused on kissing Namjoon to vocalize anything. Namjoon is so pent up, so fired up, that each motion of Yoongi’s is enough to get him closer and closer to the edge. Namjoon reaches forward, a little tentatively, and starts to unbutton Yoongi’s jeans. Yoongi moans encouragingly into his mouth.

Namjoon gets the button undone and the zipper unzipped, then puts his left hand on Yoongi’s lower back, under his shirt, and gently works his right hand inside Yoongi’s pants, cupping him again, this time just through his underwear. Namjoon wishes he could look down and see it, but he doesn’t want to stop kissing Yoongi either. Yoongi’s cock is right there, on the other side of a single layer of soft, thin fabric, and it’s already left a damp spot that Namjoon can feel against the ball of his hand. Yoongi starts grinding in earnest, both up into Namjoon’s hand and back against his erection, clearly aware of the effect he has on Namjoon.

Yoongi suddenly pulls back, lifting himself up on his knees, so his chest is level with Namjoon’s face. He tugs his jeans down his thighs, then shifts to one side so he can get the pant leg worked off. Namjoon reaches down to help him, getting to run his hand along Yoongi’s bare leg as he pushes the fabric down. They get it past Yoongi’s foot, after which he immediately switches legs. Yoongi only bothers to get the second leg just down his thigh, letting the garment remain bunched around his one knee and calf.

Then, he reaches down for the hem of his shirt with both of his hands and, in one motion, lifts it up and flings it off. Namjoon is suddenly faced with an entire glorious, pearly-smooth torso: the soft belly he’s glimpsed before, the contours of Yoongi’s chest and ribs, the little creases at his armpits with hints of hair he can just barely perceive in the periphery of his focus, and most tantalizing of all, his beautiful, perfect, pink nipples.

Yoongi gently lowers himself back down, carefully and deliberately sliding his ass against Namjoon’s cock, now separated by only two layers of fabric. Namjoon moans, and lets Yoongi grab his face with both hands and capture his mouth in a greedy, consuming kiss. 

Yoongi pushes his tongue into Namjoon’s mouth, grinds down on Namjoon again, and Namjoon comes on the spot. 

Namjoon moans again, right into Yoongi’s mouth, barely able to pay attention to his own high as it pulses through him, trying to keep his focus on Yoongi. He quickly slips his hand right into Yoongi’s briefs and wraps it around his shaft and there it is: hot, damp, and throbbing in time with the hammering of Yoongi’s heart that Namjoon can feel through the hand he has on Yoongi’s back.

Yoongi doesn’t seem too far behind Namjoon judging from his reaction. He immediately curls his abs in, hips rocking forward, seeking more friction from Namjoon’s hand. He keeps his hands on the sides of Namjoon’s face, but pulls back, too overwhelmed to continue kissing. Namjoon runs his thumb over Yoongi’s slit, spreading precum, and as he does, Yoongi blurts out the softest, sweetest little “oh” noise Namjoon has ever heard and closes his eyes. If he hadn’t come already, Namjoon is sure that would have driven him over the edge alone.

Namjoon strokes Yoongi in a driving, steady rhythm, trying to keep at the pace he seems to like judging from the motion of his body. He gets to watch Yoongi’s face, just inches from him, as he gets more and more lost in pleasure, his mouth going slack, his eyebrows drawing together, until just a few moments later he presses his forehead against Namjoon’s just as Namjoon can feel the first spurt of cum drip over his knuckles. Yoongi’s breath is harsh and hot right against Namjoon’s lips as Namjoon strokes him through it. He wants to remember this moment forever - the way Yoongi looks, the way his body feels against him: the very first orgasm he’s ever given Yoongi.

Finally, Yoongi puts one hand down to stop Namjoon’s motions, and then starts kissing Namjoon again without reopening his eyes. Short kisses this time, gentler, calming himself down. Then he pulls back and looks at Namjoon again.

“That was…intense,” he says breathlessly. “I wasn’t expecting to be so- um- for you, do you want-”

“Yoongi, I’m going to be very honest with you,” Namjoon says quietly in a faux-serious tone, interrupting him, as he definitely doesn’t want to hear any apologies about how fast he finished. “I came as soon as I saw your nipples.”

Yoongi looks at him, chuckles a little disbelievingly, then breaks out into a full gummy grin as he realizes, from the feeling of Namjoon’s body underneath him, that he’s telling the truth. He leans back in and gives Namjoon another peck, still smiling. Namjoon reaches up with his one clean hand and gently rubs his thumb over one of Yoongi’s nipples, getting a gasp out of him. It’s just as nice to touch as it is to look at - warm and tantalizing.

“What’s your refractory period like?” Yoongi mutters teasingly.

Namjoon just waggles his eyebrows in response.

They separate to clean themselves up, and Yoongi clings closely to Namjoon the whole time. Namjoon discarding his messy clothes in the corner to deal with later, and pauses awkwardly trying to decide if he should put on a fresh pair of underwear, but then Yoongi - still only in his underwear - climbs onto Namjoon’s bed and slips under his covers, and Namjoon has to join him as quickly as he can, so he just stays naked. The mere sight of Yoongi lying down in Namjoon’s bed is enough to have Namjoon realize his refractory period isn’t going to stop them from taking things further in any way. He scoots close to Yoongi and wraps him up, tangling their legs together, relishing the feeling of their bare torsos touching. He keeps his arms around him, but pulls his head back far enough so they can see each other’s faces.

“Since we’ve taken the edge off,” Namjoon asks, gently stroking Yoongi’s cheek, “Maybe this would be a good time to talk about preferences. I’d love to know about what you like in bed.”

Yoongi looks up at him, affectionate if a little self-conscious. Namjoon feels a little giddy now, at the possibilities lying before them. What an amazing gift, to know someone for so many years, and know their thoughts and feelings and emotions about so many other things - but now, to unlock a whole new area, to learn an entirely new aspect of them as a person. Namjoon wants to know everything: what Yoongi likes the most, what noises he makes, how his body will feel in every position over and under Namjoon.

“I- I mean I’m not that complicated. I don’t think we need to overthink it,” Yoongi rebuts. “I’m good with lots of different things. I switch. You do too, right?”

“Yeah. But still,” Namjoon insists,”I’d like to know anything else that’s important to you. The more we know about each other the better, right?”

Yoongi looks a little more embarrassed.

“I just like-” he says, then curls up his shoulders in a little shrug, “I like it gentle and slow. Being treated…nicely. Both when I top and bottom.”

Namjoon feels his blood rushing south again as images pop into his mind: Yoongi, all soft and pliant underneath him; Namjoon peppering him with kisses all over, Yoongi spread out and welcoming and smiling.

Yoongi laughs in his arms.

“Ok, well,” he says, grinning, “I was about to make a self-deprecating comment about being boring and vanilla, but I felt you get a semi just from that comment-” and Yoongi wiggles his leg against Namjoon’s crotch as emphasis when he says so, “-so I guess it sounds nice to you too?”

Namjoon smiles at him, feeling like he’s beaming with love and lust equally. They keep kissing then, slow and unhurried, Namjoon rubbing his hand up and down Yoongi’s back as Yoongi tangles his hand in Namjoon’s hair. Things slowly heat up again, until Yoongi is breathing heavily and rocking his hips against Namjoon’s leg, fully hard again. Namjoon, for his part, has been enjoying the delicious sensation of his erection poking into Yoongi’s soft, soft belly, sending little sparks of pleasure through Namjoon and leaving sloppy little dots of precum all around Yoongi’s belly button. 

“Mmm, ok,” Yoongi whispers, sliding his hand down Namjoon’s back, all the way down and then grabbing an ass cheek, massaging it. “I want to take care of you this time, make you feel good. Is that alright?”

Namjoon nods, his nose rubbing against Yoongi’s cheek. He reluctantly breaks away to grab lube and condoms from his bedside drawer, but sees Yoongi pulling his underwear off out of the corner of his eye. He makes no attempt to hide how he whips his head around and ogles Yoongi as he throws the items in his hand down on the bed, getting a tantalizing glimpse of Yoongi’s tiny little happy trail, on the alluring curve of his belly, pointing to that perfect pink cock he’s been doing too much kissing to see directly so far, but Yoongi pushes him down on his back with a smirk. Namjoon goes with it easily, relaxing back on the pillows, letting Yoongi sit between his legs and run his eyes, and then his hands, over Namjoon’s body. Yoongi kneels there, looking at Namjoon with wide eyes and unconsciously licking his lips, leaving no doubt in Namjoon’s mind about whether Yoongi likes what he sees. Namjoon spreads his thighs wider, letting Yoongi lean in and caress his pecs, his abs, and then reach down and run soft, teasing fingers up and down his length as he lowers his face and kisses Namjoon. Namjoon kisses him back, breath shaky as he holds himself still and resists the urge to buck up into Yoongi’s hand.

He gets a little overwhelmed then, if he’s being honest, and he closes his eyes and misses exactly what moves Yoongi makes next, but he’s still being deeply kissed and Yoongi is warm and pressed down against him and there’s a hand gently squeezing his balls and then a lubed finger opening him up, and then more than one, and Namjoon is rocking his hips into it, panting into Yoongi’s mouth as he alternates stretching him and gently, very gently stimulating his prostate.

“Do you feel ready now?” Yoongi asks him, sounding affected too as he curls his fingers up just slightly, just enough to make Namjoon feel like he’s ready to beg for more.

“Mmm-hmm,” Namjoon says dreamily.

Almost totally pliant, he lets Yoongi roll him onto his side, peppering his shoulder with kisses and then pausing to roll a condom on before lying back down and spooning up behind him. Yoongi even holds up Namjoon’s leg as he lines himself up, then gently starts pressing in. Namjoon arches his back a little, letting himself relax into the sensations, giddily trusting in Yoongi to take care of him and make him feel good. Yoongi works himself deeper and deeper very slowly, very carefully, each thrust getting closer and closer to where Namjoon needs him most. He lets go of Namjoon’s leg then, and gets both of his arms around him: one underneath, grabbing Namjoon’s chest; and the top hand first gripping on Namjoon’s hip, then splayed across his lower belly.

Yoongi grinds into him, rubbing across his prostate slowly but insistently, making Namjoon’s breath catch with each roll of his hips. Yoongi slides his hand downward and cups Namjoon’s balls, massaging them as he keeps thrusting into him. He switches it up every so often, bringing his fingers up, thumbing slowly over Namjoon’s slit to gather up the precum that’s pouring out now, stroking it down his cock teasingly slowly. And all the while he’s still grinding into him relentlessly, inexorably bringing Namjoon closer to what he can already tell is going to be an overwhelming orgasm, each rhythmic motion of their bodies like the ticking of a ratchet lift on a rollercoaster.

Namjoon is reminded of a video he watched of a master potter, where he takes a lump of clay on a throwing wheel and with deft motions, his strong, expert fingers squashing, pinching, and lifting the clay, he transforms it into an elegant vase. Namjoon feels like the clay, being formed into something new by the pressure of Yoongi’s body guiding him from all angles. And then, like a clay vessel being fired in a kiln and reaching glowing-hot temperatures, he feels the peak approaching. He can’t even speak, feels like he can barely breathe, can only moan and press himself into Yoongi’s embrace. Yoongi shudders, buries himself deeply into Namjoon, and breathes harshly against the back of Namjoon’s neck while he strokes Namjoon through his own release. Namjoon feels like he leaves his own body for a moment, fairy-light twinkles of incredible pleasure blooming into dandelion-puff shivers all over and throughout his torso as he keeps twitching and spurting cum between Yoongi’s fingers.

He’s not sure how long they lie there together, trying to regain some ability to move or at least speak, and he feels remarkably hazy. But soon enough Yoongi gently withdraws himself, and he’s been gently rolled on his other side and Yoongi is there, caressing his face, his hair, his neck, kissing him over and over on his lips and his cheeks.

“Are you okay?” Yoongi asks him, perhaps slightly amused.

“Ah,” Namjoon replies, his voice trembling still. “That was amazing.”

They kiss for a little bit longer, and then Yoongi lets Namjoon lie there, smiling indulgently as he cleans up, wiping Namjoon down and helping him come back to himself by massaging his arms and continuing to pepper his face with kisses. And Namjoon just lies there, enjoying the feeling of being loved and cared for, knowing from the look on Yoongi’s face that this part is important to him too. Knowing that they both wanted it, enjoyed it, and that they both feel content and right.

Finally, Namjoon feels steady enough to totter to his feet, use the bathroom, and get pajamas on. He can’t keep a goofy little smile off of his face as he bumbles around, unable to be at all cool around Yoongi - not that he was really ever been able to be, but now he certainly has no ability (or desire) to. Yoongi has already managed to change the sheets when he gets back, either due to his efficiency or Namjoon’s slowness or a combination of the two. Yoongi puts back on the same pajamas he borrowed before and slips in with him. Namjoon wraps him up - thinking that even if sheer biology and stamina limits the number and rate of orgasms they can have together, almost no limit applies to the amount of cuddling they can do - and is out like a light.

The next morning, alas, is Monday. Yoongi has to wake up quite early to get back to his own apartment and change. Namjoon has the fight of his life, verbal filter barely functioning thirty-seconds post awakening, to not say anything about how much easier such things will be once he and Yoongi move in together. But at least he gets more kisses before Yoongi goes. They get through their cruel workdays, the world not caring that something momentous happened over the weekend and that the new lovers would rather be with each other for now and not tending to the various other responsibilities of their lives.

Of course they get together as soon as possible at the end of the day, Namjoon coming over to Yoongi’s apartment this time. Yoongi kisses him, but seems a little distracted, a little distant. Namjoon doesn’t panic, he knows Yoongi has lots of irons in the fire, lots of things to think about. He knows him well enough now not to take such things personally. So he waits patiently, doesn’t press Yoongi to converse more than he wants to during dinner, does the dishes, and joins Yoongi out in his living room.

“Are you glad that Hyunwoo left me?” Yoongi suddenly asks him, his tone mild and his face carefully blank.

“What?” Namjoon says, confused as he sits up straighter in his seat. “Of course not, it was terrible.”

“I mean, if he hadn’t done that, then we’d be…I’d be married to him.” Yoongi goes on, still not looking at Namjoon, his hands limp next to him on the couch. “You’d never have gotten your chance to confess. I guess I’d have heard the original version of your speech…” he trails off, furrowing his forehead. 

“It’s still not- you were so hurt and sad,” Namjoon objects, “I’d rather see you married to a hundred different men who aren’t me, than have you be so hurt. At no point was I ever glad he did what he did, and that’s still true now.”

Namjoon feels himself getting a little teary-eyed, remembering the terrible days right after the failed wedding, the contrast between that and how Yoongi would have been if Hyunwoo actually loved him. 

“I’m sorry,” Yoongi says glumly, rubbing his face. “It’s not a fair question. I’m just being fretful.”

Namjoon scoots closer to him on the couch and just gently wraps him up, relieved when Yoongi relaxes into the embrace and puts his head on Namjoon’s shoulder.

“But really,” Yoongi murmurs after a moment. “A hundred different men? That might be a little too generous of you, Namjoon.”

Namjoon smiles, resting his cheek against Yoongi’s head.

“Honestly, my wish would be for nothing hurtful to have happened to you, ever. But unfortunately life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes good things can come from terrible events. I have a cousin who reconnected with a childhood friend at her friend’s father’s funeral. They’re married now with two children. If you asked her if she would prefer that the father had lived to be 120 but she never met her husband, I don’t think she’d have an answer that would satisfy everyone either,” Namjoon tells him.

Yoongi sighs and squeezes him close. They sit like that for a moment, Namjoon rubbing soothingly along Yoongi’s arms and wishing he could do more to help him let go.

“But you’re glad we’re together now,” Yoongi says quietly.

“Yes,” Namjoon tells him firmly. 

Yoongi tilts his head up then, looking at Namjoon softly and perhaps a touch pleadingly, so Namjoon takes it as the invitation it is and leans down and kisses him. Yoongi yearns into it, melting into Namjoon’s touch. Namjoon feels like, after having crossed the final barrier from best friends to romance last night, and Yoongi coming back to him now with the implicit request for more - he doesn’t have to hold back. They both want each other, and they both know they want each other.

So all it takes is a few minutes of kissing on Yoongi’s couch, hands exploring and tongues meeting and lips sliding across lips, Namjoon gradually pressing him further and further backwards, before Yoongi is breaking the kiss and standing up and breathlessly leading Namjoon by the hand to his bedroom. Namjoon catches him before he can crawl on the bed and starts undressing him, standing right there by the edge of the mattress. Yoongi’s shirt; gone, flung to the floor, and Namjoon pulls him close for a kiss. Yoongi shivers as Namjoon reaches down to undo the button of his jeans, moans just a little into his mouth when Namjoon pulls down the zipper and ghosts just the tips of his fingers over the tented front of his briefs. Still kissing, Namjoon moves his hands to Yoongi’s back, presses their bodies together, and runs his hands all the way from his shoulder blades to the small of his back, and then further down past the waistband of his jeans, firmly squeezing his butt between his jeans and his underwear. Yoongi bucks forward into Namjoon a little in response. Then all Namjoon has to do is flex his fingers and push down a little further, and the jeans slip off the last curve of Yoongi’s ass and fall to the floor. 

Yoongi chuckles into his mouth a little and steps out of them. He stops Namjoon from taking his underwear off just yet, insisting on getting Namjoon to a similar state of undress first. And then it’s just them, naked, leaving behind a crumpled pile of garments as Yoongi flings his covers aside and they lie down, side by side.

Namjoon immediately slides up close to Yoongi, putting their torsos together, tangling their legs, lining up their erections so that they can rub together provocatively while they keep making out. Yoongi relaxes next to him, welcoming his ever-deepening kisses, rolling his hips slowly to keep the barest edge of friction going.

Namjoon rolls them then, so that he’s on top, caging Yoongi in. Yoongi goes completely pliant, spreading his legs so that Namjoon’s body can lie flush above him. Namjoon rolls his hips a little more, their erections trapped between them, making them both gasp. Namjoon wants to see more, taste more. So he kisses down Yoongi’s cheek, down his neck, moving his hands from where they were bracketing Yoongi’s head to the sides of Yoongi’s body, tracing over his ribs and his nipples with his fingertips, feeling the quickening motion of Yoongi’s chest as his breathing speeds up in response. 

And he keeps going lower, kissing each perfect pink nipple, and down the gentle slope of Yoongi’s belly, kissing in a circle around his belly button, nuzzling from side to side, the skin there softer than he could ever imagine. And down further, kissing down the happy trail, Yoongi’s erection brushing up against his chin and his cheeks. He kisses into the soft, hot crease of Yoongi’s thigh on one side, then further down the thigh. 

Then he sits up for a moment to take in the full picture before him. He hasn’t yet, until now, slowed down enough to actually see all of Yoongi completely bare, to really drink in how all of him looks. He doesn’t have to wonder any more, or hold himself back: he can look and touch all he wants now.

And it’s glorious. Yoongi is splayed out in front of him, trembling and a little breathless, but relaxed and, even though his little smile is a tad shy, he has a look in his eye that is - anticipatory? Eager? He’s just as pale and pink everywhere else as he is on his neck and ears and arms and legs. Namjoon could look at him like this forever. He thinks to himself dreamily that there’s no other person who has ever been formed in such a way, such a perfect combination of parts. His belly button, smaller than you would expect, a little more narrow at the top than it is at the bottom - almost pear-shaped. His slender thighs, the whitest skin on his whole body there practically glowing in the dark, the slight curve of his ass visible just behind them from how he has his legs spread. The little bit of soft, dark hair in his armpits and just below that belly button, and the wiry dark hairs scattered along his shins - making his thighs look just that much more pale in contrast. And of course his pink cock, straining hard and leaking even as Namjoon looks at it - the very cock that brought him to such heights just last night, the perfect shape to coax an orgasm out of Namjoon. It’s jutting out from Yoongi’s balls, which are artfully draped between those smooth thighs as if they were carved by a master artisan. 

Namjoon takes all of this in, eyes sweeping over Yoongi, who looks back at him - and then cockily crosses his arms behind his head and smiles at him lazily. Namjoon can’t help but chuckle. He leans in then, and grasps Yoongi’s balls in one hand as he kisses back down the other thigh he hadn’t kissed before. They’re so big and warm - bigger than his own, for sure. What a delight to be able to discover all these things, see all the beautiful angles and creases and textures of the secret places of Yoongi, the way each place curves into the next, endlessly inviting to be touched and loved. 

He gets to the top of Yoongi’s thigh and moves his hand away, as enticing as it is to gently massage Yoongi’s balls in his palm, so that he can kiss along them and nuzzle. Yoongi twitches and yelps a little, so Namjoon just presses his face in more firmly so it doesn’t tickle. Then he does the same for Yoongi’s erection, kissing up the bottom of it, rubbing his hands back and forth along Yoongi’s thighs as he goes, enjoying the trembling breaths he draws from him as a result. He kisses the tip, then licks it, and is immediately rewarded by another bead of precum pearling up out of it. He takes it gently into his mouth then, closing over just the top third or so, and glances up at Yoongi as he gives the bottom of the head a lick.

Yoongi moans a little, looking down at him with his face flushed, tongue sticking out a little between his parted lips. So Namjoon keeps going, bringing one hand up to cup his balls again, keeping his thumb at the bottom to gently caress over his perineum too. He enjoys watching Yoongi’s eyes flutter with each motion of his lips and tongue, nearly in time with the little taste of precum that bursts into his mouth each time as well.

Yoongi finally uncurls one of his arms and reaches under one of his pillows, grabs something and taps it against Namjoon’s shoulder. He pulls off slowly, sucking as he goes, enjoying the little moan it gets out of Yoongi. He takes it from his hand: a little bottle of lube and a condom.

“It’s your turn. I want you- can you make me feel good tonight?” Yoongi asks a little hoarsely.

Namjoon grins up at him.

“I would love to,” he replies fervently.

So then he gets to keep sucking and stroking Yoongi, and gently massaging his balls, and rubbing along his thigh and belly, while he carefully stretches him out with the other hand. He loves the little noises Yoongi makes, and the way he’s lying there looking at him so sweetly, trusting Namjoon completely to pay attention to his signals and the way he responds and make him feel good. He’s up to three fingers, and lightly brushing against Yoongi’s prostate, getting more and more of those little cries of oh that make him feel so wild, when Yoongi finally reaches down and stops him.

“You ready?” Namjoon asks tenderly, caressing along Yoongi’s belly as he looks up into his face, now even more flushed, and a little sweaty to boot.

Yoongi nods, licking his lips, chest heaving. Namjoon leans in to give him a few slow, tender kisses, pressing their bodies just close enough for their erections to brush together again, then sits back on his thighs and starts unwrapping the condom. Yoongi shifts up, busies himself with shifting some of his pillows around, getting himself propped up and supported in the way he prefers. Namjoon smiles fondly at the end result, Yoongi lying back against his pillow, looking comfortable and delicious and extremely turned on.

So Namjoon, condom in place, climbs back in between those thighs, and lines himself up to the pink, inviting hole he’s been paying such loving attention to, then looks back up so he can see Yoongi’s face as they join together. It’s everything he could have hoped for, the hunger and need and love on Yoongi’s face mirroring his own feelings. And then seeing him tense up with pleasure, his mouth dropping open, at the same time he feels the intense heat wrap around the very tip of his own cock. He pauses there and kisses him, greedily and passionately, continuing to ease in slowly and relishing the way Yoongi shivers underneath him as his heat inches up to envelop him. Finally, they’re flush together, Yoongi’s bent legs on either side of Namjoon’s body, Yoongi’s balls and erection hot and smearing precum against Namjoon’s belly, the curves of Yoongi’s ass fitted against Namjoon’s thighs. Namjoon holds still then, practically feeling Yoongi’s heartbeat where his walls press around him, kissing and kissing and kissing.

“I’m not going to last long,” Yoongi admits breathlessly, smiling right against his lips, “You- you’re too good at foreplay.”

Namjoon breathes a little chuckle back. 

“Just let go then,” he whispers, and moves down to kiss along that irresistible smooth neck again. “I want you to show me how good you feel.”

He starts rocking into him then, slowly, grinding into Yoongi the same way Yoongi had done to him. He can tell by the way Yoongi moans into his ear, and clutches his arms around his neck, that he’s giving Yoongi just as much pleasure as he’s feeling, from Yoongi’s body squeezing around him with each drag. He focuses on each thrust, lining up so that he presses in where Yoongi will feel it the most. Yoongi’s moans get a little louder and more desperate each time, urging Namjoon onward. Namjoon spreads his knees out a little further, plunges in a little more deeply, and feels Yoongi’s trembling become stronger and stronger underneath him. Finally, as the pleasure building in Namjoon’s gut becomes almost overwhelming, and he pants against Yoongi’s neck, Yoongi tenses up and cries out in a choked gasp, his legs clamping around Namjoon, his toes curling up right against his hips on either side, and Namjoon feels the hot spurt of his cum between them. He finally lets himself go then, rabbiting in with a few short thrusts as Yoongi clenches down around him, and releases into the condom with a long groan.

Then, knowing already that Yoongi likes to be kissed immediately afterwards, he lifts his face out from the soft, sweaty crease in Yoongi’s neck where he could feel Yoongi’s pulse against his lips, and captures his mouth in a gentle, smoothing smooch. He kisses him slowly as they catch their breath, and Yoongi’s hands caress up and down his back, and Yoongi’s legs and toes gradually relax and fall back away from his sides.

Finally, Yoongi sighs blissfully.

“Now, I’m not saying we’ll do this every night now that we’re together,” he whispers with a teasing grin, “but you are definitely making a good case for it.”

Namjoon laughs and nuzzles into Yoongi’s cheek, endlessly fond. After more kisses, he finally, carefully pulls out, and gently helps Yoongi clean up. Yoongi gets out of bed to get cozy in his sleep clothes, so Namjoon hops up, steps back into his boxers and slides back into Yoongi’s bed, watching him drowsily pull the soft garments on. Yoongi smiles gently at him, and once he’s in bed with Namjoon, it feels like the easiest, most natural thing in the world to wrap each other up and fall asleep.

💒

Namjoon has some thoughts about how he’s going to tell everyone that they’re dating. He goes back and forth as to whether he should try to come across more light-hearted or more solemn. He gets unaccountably nervous about the whole thing. He feels weirdly as if he were preparing for another speech.

Yoongi, however, beats him to it. They’re at one of their semi-regular get-togethers, this time at Taehyung and Jimin’s apartment. They’ve been married for four months now, so they’re still sitting in each other’s laps and hand feeding each other constantly, of course.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Yoongi says brightly, failing to hide the spark of mischief in his eyes, “that it’s about time for me to start dating again.”

Five heads immediately turn to Namjoon, five pairs of eyes wide in concern.

“Oh, come on,” Yoongi whines dramatically, “why did you all look at him, huh? You guys aren’t subtle at all.”

Namjoon can’t help but laugh, chagrined at the whole situation. Apparently he hasn’t been all that subtle either.

“Yoongi, it’s-” Seokjin starts, looking solemn and big-brotherly.

“Ahhhhh,” Yoongi brays at him, squishing his face into a sarcastic bracket smile, “yes, I’ve been horribly oblivious and I’m very thankful for you all for putting up with us, but please try not to look so sad that Namjoon and I are together now.”

He grins at Namjoon in triumph as the whole room erupts in yelling and it’s quite a few minutes before any words are distinguishable. Seokjin and Jimin are beaming the most, looking so relieved and satisfied that Namjoon almost feels a little ashamed. 

“That’s two relationships that have come from Hyunwoo being an idiot!” Taehyung exults, clapping his hands gleefully.

“More than just two,” Yoongi corrects him. “We all also got to be friends with you, and Jungkook and Hoseok.”

Taehyung looks at him with big starry eyes and squeezes Jimin’s hand.

“Haven’t you guys known each other for a long time already?” Jungkook asks, wide-eyed and innocent.

“Eleven years,” Namjoon and Yoongi say at the same time, then look at each other and laugh sheepishly.

Namjoon feels another little pang of guilt and shame, but Yoongi reaches over and squeezes his hand.

“This was the right time for it to happen,” he tells Jungkook with calm confidence.

💒

A few days later, Taehyung gives Namjoon a nicely framed photograph of the two of them from the day of Yoongi’s not-wedding. Namjoon suddenly realizes that Taehyung must have gotten all the pictures from the photographer back then, and held on to them this whole time, as part of all the stuff he handled in the aftermath while Namjoon was sticking with Yoongi. The shot is from the getting-ready pictures, so both of them are immaculate in their suits and smiling. Yoongi in particular is beaming with happiness, staring off into the middle distance. Namjoon is looking at Yoongi’s face with immense fondness, his arm draped over Yoongi’s shoulder. If you didn’t know the context, you might almost believe they had been a couple then. 

Even six months ago, this picture would have been unbearably painful to behold. Now, however, that the sad events of the day, though not forgiven or forgotten, have been superseded by happy ones, Namjoon treasures it. Yoongi smiles when he sees it too, and kisses Namjoon’s cheek. Namjoon puts it up in his office so he can see it every day. He figures it’s the closest thing they’ll ever get to a picture of the two of them at their own wedding.

💒

The day that would have been Yoongi and Hyunwoo’s third anniversary approaches without either Yoongi or Namjoon mentioning anything about it. It turns out they have tickets to a concert that night. Namjoon feels a little guilty when he looks at the calendar about a week before the day - he’s the one who bought the tickets a few months ago, and he honestly didn’t connect the dots on what day it was when he was looking at the list of available showings. But then Yoongi comes up behind him and peeks at the calendar too.

“Oh! The Mozart aria showcase is this Friday?” he says excitedly. “I forgot it was so soon!” and he pecks Namjoon on the check and waddles off again, humming Voi che sapete as he goes.

And still, the day comes and they go to the concert and neither of them say anything. But the moment they get home from it, and Namjoon gets his shoes off, he finds himself pushed up against the entryway wall by Yoongi, who grabs his shoulders and kisses him hungrily. Momentarily shocked, Namjoon soon gives back as good as he’s getting and things get more and more heated by the second. Yoongi is reaching down and untucking Namjoon’s shirt, and Namjoon’s hands are making a mess of Yoongi’s hair as he pulls him in close and tangles their tongues together.

Then, on impulse, Namjoon reaches down, grabs Yoongi’s buttcheeks firmly, and picks him up. Yoongi gasps and, on instinct, wraps his legs around Namjoon as he gets lifted up. Namjoon quickly spins them around and presses Yoongi against the wall. Yoongi moans into his mouth and he can feel Yoongi’s erection poking into his hip.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Yoongi says a little breathily, his lips still against Namjoon’s.

His face is flushed, his glasses a little askew, his clothes and hair thoroughly disheveled. Namjoon supposes he looks similar.

“I can,” he says smugly, driving his hips up against Yoongi and diving in to kiss along his neck. 

He decides within seconds that he wants to be doing this with much, much less clothing in the way, so he re-settles his grip on Yoongi’s butt, shifts backwards, and carries him to the bedroom. Yoongi clings to him with his arms and legs as he walks them carefully all the way down the hallway to the bedroom. Yoongi giggles as Namjoon places him down on the bed, and then crawls over him, caging him in.

Yoongi is still wild and impatient, yanking off Namjoon’s clothes and then his own when he feels like Namjoon is taking too long. He throws back the bedcovers and directs Namjoon to sit up against the headboard, then climbs into his lap, straddling Namjoon’s thighs and kneeling over him. Namjoon hums appreciatively, letting his eyes rake over Yoongi’s delicious naked body. He never gets tired of the sight, of the unique poetry of how all the pieces of Yoongi come together: the way the pink of his knees contrasts with the wiry little hairs sprouting from his shins just below, the specific curve right where his inner thigh and his balls meet, the long pale gorgeous stretch of skin from one collarbone across to the other, his water-drop shaped belly button.

Namjoon lets his fingers trace across Yoongi’s ass as Yoongi kisses him hungrily, and then he feels it.

“Do you have a plug in?” Namjoon asks breathlessly, their faces still so close together that his lips brush against Yoongi’s as he speaks.

Yoongi nods and grins, another brush of lips, and nose on cheek, and he presses in for a kiss and lets Namjoon reach back and gently run his fingers over it. Yoongi twitches as Namjoon presses harder, causing the hot tip of his erection to press damply against Namjoon’s front, somewhere around his diaphragm. Even in the face of Yoongi’s eagerness, and his own almost unbearable arousal at that point, Namjoon still makes sure to take things slowly - he grabs Yoongi and lowers him down to lie on his back, savors removing the plug, adding lube, luxuriously stretching him out (and occasionally taking his perfect cock into his mouth, just to get Yoongi to make more noise), rubbing along his legs and belly with his free hand.

Finally Yoongi pushes him back up.

“Can we sit like we were before?” Yoongi asks hoarsely. “I want to, like that.”

Namjoon smiles and seats himself back against the pillows, reaching for a condom while Yoongi clambers up over his legs.

“Mmm,” Yoongi hums and puts a hand over Namjoon’s. “Could we- I want to feel you bare. Is that alright?”

Namjoon shivers and feels his cock twitch.

“Yeah,” he chokes out, “if that sounds good to you.”

Yoongi crowds back up to him, giving him only just barely enough time to dab a little lube on himself, then and Namjoon almost yelps when Yoongi starts to lower himself down, very slowly, and the tip of Namjoon’s erection starts to slide against Yoongi’s perineum. Namjoon gasps, grabs Yoongi’s hips, splays his hands out and grips to both spread him apart and help him stay steady. Yoongi grabs Namjoon’s shoulders and rolls his hips back and forth just a little, getting lined up.

They both moan when Namjoon’s tip slips in and Yoongi jolts downward to seal the connection. It’s so hot, so wonderful, Namjoon feels like his brain is melting out of his ears. Yoongi feels so good around him, slowly rocking up and down, seating himself further and further downward with each motion of his body. Finally, he’s all the way down, Yoongi’s balls are resting on Namjoon’s lower belly, and they’re both trembling and panting. Namjoon leans his head back and looks at Yoongi’s face - head thrown back, eyes closed, mouth open, a little tip of pink tongue resting on his lips, sweaty bangs sticking to his forehead, already slightly drawn up from pleasure.

Yoongi seems possessed, a little desperate, more focused on chasing his own pleasure first than he usually is as he starts to steadily and rhythmically pull himself up and down, his hot, wet hole drawing tightly across Namjoon’s cock with each motion. Namjoon gets the distinct feeling that Yoongi wants to replace whatever bittersweet emotion he’s feeling on this day with an orgasm, and as quickly as possible. He’s a big fan of the idea, honestly. He feels a little wild himself, a little possessive. If Yoongi wants him to remake this date from the anniversary of one of the worst days of Yoongi’s life into the anniversary of that time they had mind blowing sex, well, he’s on board.

He cants his hips up, reading Yoongi’s body expertly like now, nearly gloating to himself when Yoongi’s moans get louder and his grip on Namjoon’s shoulders get tighter.

“Oh, Joon, gonna come,” he gasps out.

“Yeah, yeah,” Namjoon mutters back, keeping the same rolling of his hips at the same tempo.

Yoongi inhales sharply and squeezes Namjoon’s shoulders again, and Namjoon watches his face crumple up in pleasure as he can feel the heat of Yoongi’s release against his belly. He keeps rutting up his hips, rubbing up against Yoongi’s prostate to draw it out as long as he can. Finally Yoongi slumps over, wraps his arms around Namjoon, and kisses him as best he can, even as he has to pause to try to catch his breath every few kisses. Namjoon caresses soothingly along his back, still rock hard inside of him.

“That was incredible,” Yoongi whispers against Namjoon’s lips.

“You wanna lie back and I’ll come on your chest?” Namjoon suggests, reaching one hand forward to tease over Yoongi’s nipple.

“I think I can go again,” Yoongi says, giving Namjoon a hungry look.

So, after some awkward shuffling of lubed, sweaty bodies and tangled limbs, Yoongi is lying face down, his ass raised just a little in the air, and Namjoon is crowding down over him, loving the way he can envelope Yoongi’s whole torso from behind almost as much as he loves the way Yoongi’s hot hole is already welcoming him back in. He presses in slowly, gets one hand down on the sheets next to Yoongi’s head and puts his right hand on Yoongi’s hip, gripping around him. He starts rutting in slowly, responding to the way Yoongi tilts his hips up, until he gets a jolt out of Yoongi and knows he’s found the right angle. He reaches around then, curls his fist around Yoongi’s rapidly filling cock, and lets the rolling motion of his hips do most of the work to push Yoongi from behind into his grip.

Yoongi is even more vocal than the first round, moaning with each thrust and gripping the sheets with both hands. Namjoon can feel him leaking more and more precum, rolling the fingers of his fist to spread it. He grits his teeth, feeling the wave starting to crest inside him, panting and burning and coiling in his gut. He feels Yoongi clench around him then, and feels his release dribbling through his fingers, so after two or three final strokes he lets go and puts both hands up by Yoongi’s head. He presses his body down against Yoongi, bracing his core and rubbing his chest along Yoongi’s shoulder blades as he rocks into him, chasing his pleasure. Finally the wave breaks and he falls flat onto him, thrusting deeply inside and releasing into the most intense heat he’s ever felt, toes curling and muscles twitching. As he jerks through the aftershocks, he sloppily kisses wherever he can reach: the nape of Yoongi’s neck, his ear, the back of his jawline.

Namjoon rolls off of him before Yoongi can start whining about how heavy he is, but simply flops over so he’s face up beside him. They lie there, side by side, limp and sated and still out of breath; Yoongi with his face pillowed on his hands, looking adoringly over at Namjoon; Namjoon, looking probably a little too cocky and self-satisfied with his one arm tucked behind his head so he can easily look back at Yoongi.

The sex is just so easy and comfortable, Namjoon muses. They’re just two horny dorks who rile each other up. They’re not doing anything cool or showy. They both get way too into watching each other feel good. There’s no point in trying to impress each other - they’ve already seen each other at their lowest points, know how terrible they look when they’re sick or crying. What’s the point of getting hung up on a weird squelching noise, or a shockingly quick orgasm, or an accidental elbow at an awkward time, when you’ve already seen and heard everything else?

And then, they’re still so keyed up and handsy that after they get the sheets changed and Namjoon is helping Yoongi get cleaned up in the shower, they end up jerking each other off right there under the hot water, Namjoon manfully taking the role of the one who has to have his back against the cold tile wall so they don’t fall over.

💒

Namjoon has a slight doubt in the back of his mind that they’re still in a honeymoon period, that they’ll get a little toned down, that one of them will have a libido slow down happen sooner than the other. 

Someday, perhaps, but such an event doesn’t show any signs of happening so far.

They come home after Jimin and Taehyung’s anniversary party, tipsy and giggly and stumbling as they get inside, Yoongi a bit more drunk than Namjoon is. So Namjoon takes the responsibility of getting his silly and handsy boyfriend changed and in bed, despite his cute, pouty complaining. He follows soon after, satisfied to wrap him up, deeply, deeply pleased that he can end the evening this way, with the man he loves a soft, warm bundle in his arms. 

Yoongi dozes off for perhaps twenty minutes and then wakes up again, maybe a tiny bit more sober, to see Namjoon gazing at him adoringly. He smiles, hums, and pulls him into a kiss. Despite the gentleness of the kiss, within moments he makes it clear he’s gotten very hard immediately, rutting his erection against Namjoon’s thigh, palpably hot and damp through his soft, thin pajama shorts.

“Please, Joon,” Yoongi whispers against his lips, “please, can I- just like this?”

“Yeah, babe,” Namjoon whispers back. “Take what you need.”

So Yoongi wraps his legs around Namjoon’s leg, crossing his ankles behind Namjoon’s calf, driving his hot hardness against Namjoon’s thigh over and over again. He buries his face into Namjoon’s neck, moaning and gasping, one arm thrown across Namjoon’s chest, absently gripping onto his pec every so often. Namjoon scoots his left hand down, sneaks it into the waistband of Yoongi’s shorts so he can squeeze one of Yoongi’s perfect, round ass cheeks. 

Namjoon thinks he might combust: Yoongi, by the day, just keeps doing things that get him more and more worked up. Yoongi is squirming against him, making the most incredible noises, so hot and wet. Every time he thinks Yoongi can’t possibly get more arousing, he does. Namjoon, on his back and with his left hand gently squeezing Yoongi’s cheek in time with his rutting, sticks his right hand into his own boxers and starts stroking himself. He can tell when Yoongi is getting close, by his breathing and the way he starts rutting against him even harder. So Namjoon tenses up his thigh, to give just that more sensation to Yoongi, who gives his loudest moan yet in response. Namjoon pushes the front of his boxers down to let his cock free, and works himself over faster and faster. He feels Yoongi reach his peak with a final hard grind, the wet patch spreading quickly. He comes then, with the waistband of his boxers pressed up against his balls and Yoongi panting against his collarbone and Yoongi’s palm over his nipple, and comes so hard, his abs crunching up almost painfully, the force of it jolting Yoongi on top of him, that some droplets of his cum reach all the way up to his chest.

Yoongi giggles at him and lifts his head up finally. He looks completely debauched - deeply flushed, sweaty, pupils blown, lips pink and parted.

“Did you get cum on my elbow?” he asks giddily.

“I just about gave myself a pearl necklace, I think,” Namjoon says, nodding, and then they both giggle and Yoongi presses some sloppy kisses on his neck and his mouth before unwinding his feet and flopping onto his back.

Yoongi is even less help getting cleaned up now than when Namjoon originally got them ready for bed, practically falling asleep while Namjoon wipes him down and puts another clean pair of sleep shorts on him. Then he puts on a new pair of boxers himself, crawls in and wraps up his dozing boyfriend, feeling so very, very fond, and is asleep hardly three minutes after him.

Yoongi is very, very embarrassed in the morning, of course.

“Oh, I can’t believe I did that,” Yoongi says, mortified, once they’re both awake and his slightly-hazy memories come flooding back.

“You did, and it was so good,” Namjoon says greedily. “I wish I had recorded it. The sounds you made!”

Yoongi groans, embarrassed, and flops his head back down on the bed. Namjoon rolls over to trap him, throwing one leg over his thighs where he’s lying on his stomach, and one arm over his side.

“I have two legs, you know,” he murmurs provocatively into Yoongi’s ear. “The other one’s feeling a little lonely, so if you want to go again…”

Yoongi scoffs at him in mock offense.

“Unbelievable,” he mutters back, unable to keep the laugh out of his voice.

Namjoon just hums and kisses the back of Yoongi’s head, and gently grinds his morning wood against Yoongi’s hip.

“At least let me kiss you before you start poking me with that thing,” Yoongi grumbles, muffled where his face is still pressed into the bed.

So Namjoon grins and rolls back over and manhandles Yoongi around, not even waiting for him to roll himself. They make out for a short bit, then Yoongi, sheepishly determined to make up for his one-track mind the night before, insists on giving Namjoon a blowjob. Namjoon agrees to that easily of course, so within seconds he’s on his back, naked thighs spread, Yoongi’s squishy morning face and fluffy morning hair buried between his legs. He looks up at Namjoon every so often, his pink lips wrapped around his cock as he sucks and wraps his tongue around the tip. Namjoon watches him and fights harder and harder to stay still as his pleasure builds and builds.

Finally, though, he wants to be able to touch more of Yoongi, so he reaches down for him.

“Hey, come up here,” he pleads breathlessly.

Yoongi gently pulls off, keeping his lips pursed and wrapped close all the way to the tip, and then looks up at him.

“No more of this?” he asks hoarsely, puzzled.

“I- I want you close,” Namjoon replies a little poutily.

So Yoongi smiles at him indulgently and lifts himself up, shedding his pajamas and climbing back up the bed. Namjoon watches his naked body as he moves, a sight he never gets tired of: the geometry of his chest and belly and thighs, his pink, straining erection jutting out, the perfect handful of his balls just underneath it. So as Yoongi comes up to straddle Namjoon’s legs, Namjoon guides him in close with one hand at the small of his back, and cups his balls with the other. Yoongi hums as he pushes his hips into Namjoon’s touch. Then he lowers himself down and their cocks brush together, Namjoon’s still soaking wet and glistening from Yoongi’s spit. 

Namjoon wraps both of them up with his hand, tightening his grip as Yoongi captures his mouth and their lips move together and Namjoon can taste himself there. And as Yoongi adds his hand on top of Namjoon’s, the movements of his body against Namjoon’s bringing them both higher and higher, Namjoon thinks about all the different amazing ways they fit together: not just hands and mouths and bodies and concavities and convexities, but in their words and their personalities and what they want in life and in a partner, both in bed and out. 

“God I love you,” Namjoon groans nearly incoherently against Yoongi’s lips. 

He knows Yoongi could tell what he said by the way he shivers all over and kisses him back even more hungrily. They both finish very quickly, Yoongi moaning into his mouth and thrusting into their hands, rubbing the bottoms of their erections together, slick from spit and precome and hot and messy. And they keep kissing for a long time afterwards, trembling, perhaps slightly chafed by this point, as their cocks soften and the cum cools off and Namjoon rubs soothingly along Yoongi’s back and leg with his clean hand and never wants to leave.

They do leave the bed eventually of course, smiling softly at each other and showering and putting clothes on and getting breakfast and drinking several large glasses of water each.

Yoongi is unusually clingy all the next day: walking up and giving Namjoon back hugs at random times, scooting his toes underneath Namjoon’s thighs when they sit on the couch together, running his finger along Namjoon’s back when they pass each other in the hallway as they putter around. In the evening, Namjoon sits up in bed and reads for awhile, and Yoongi slides in next to him and cuddles up, pulling the covers all the way to his chin so all Namjoon can see of him is his sweet, rounded face resting on his chest.

Soon, the book can’t possibly hold his attention anymore, so he puts it down, puts his glasses down, turns off the light, and scoots down with a delicious, anticipatory sigh to lie down directly next to Yoongi and pull him in close. He can read Yoongi’s mood, he can tell he just needs to be held. So he wraps him up and imagines the love he has for Yoongi like a beacon of light, glowing over both of them. Yoongi gently returns his embrace and snuggles into his shoulder, his head tucked perfectly under Namjoon’s chin.

“What’s on your mind?” Namjoon asks quietly, stroking his fingers through Yoongi’s hair.

“I just wish I didn’t still get sad about it,” he admits.

Namjoon lets the words sit in the air for a moment, keeps stroking his hair.

“That’s okay, though,” Namjoon reassures him. “It’s fine to be sad, and then the sadness will pass and come back again and so on. It’s a natural part of how it goes.”

“I know,” Yoongi says. “I just wish- hm. I just wish it wouldn’t stop me from doing the things I want to do.”

“Like what?” Namjoon asks.

Yoongi doesn’t answer at first.

“Like, well, b-being at a wedding. Sometimes I think that, I wish I could, I wish we-” and then he stops again.

Namjoon gently caresses along his back.

“If you could just snap your fingers and skip the whole buildup,” he asks in a quiet voice, “just, open your eyes and you’re standing there in front of me and someone says ‘I now pronounce you married,’ and you didn’t know a thing about it ahead of time so you never had a chance to get worried…Yoongi, would you marry me?”

The two of them are snuggled so deeply inside the blanket that it's as if they're in a little secret world of their own for the moment. Yoongi, wrapped up close, nods against his chest.

“Yes, I would,” he chokes out, and Namjoon didn’t know it was possible to feel so happy and so sad all at the same time.

Yoongi lets out a few muffled sobs against Namjoon’s sleep shirt, and then Namjoon lifts up his face, kisses the tears away and holds him until his breathing evens out and he falls asleep. Namjoon lies awake for a while afterwards, his heart full and his mind spinning, aching with the need to keep doing what he can to help Yoongi feel better. He knows, intellectually, that it’s more about just being here for him the way he has been, being the unwavering pillar of support and validating his emotions. But still, a wild, competitive part of him wants to make a grand gesture of some kind too. 

💒

They end up moving in together after they’d been dating for about a year. They do it like real adults, by hiring a moving company rather than trying to get their friends to help move all their stuff with wages of only pizza and beer. But they can still have their friends over, of course, throwing a house-warming party the instant they had enough kitchen utensils and living room furniture available for it to be practical. Even though there are still piles and piles of boxes in the two extra bedrooms that will eventually be their offices, and they haven’t found any mugs yet, and there’s an upcoming argument simmering about the fact they have way too much framed art and photographs combined to be able to hang them all up here, it still feels like home already. It feels like home to Namjoon, with Yoongi squeezed up next to him on the couch, thighs touching, as their friends laugh with them and admire the view from their living room window and help them figure out what on earth each of the seven different light switches on the wall control.

Yoongi gets home from work on a Friday two or three months after that, and Namjoon greets him right inside the doorway, trying to be chill and not show how keyed-up he is. He murmurs welcome home, baby and pulls Yoongi into a kiss. Yoongi must be able to tell how fast his heart is beating because when he pulls back, he gets a puzzled look on his face and puts his hand right on Namjoon’s chest. 

“Everything okay?” he asks, and Namjoon knows his heart is pounding right underneath Yoongi’s palm.

Then Yoongi gets distracted when he can hear voices from inside the apartment.

“Do we have people over?” he asks, even more puzzled.

“Yeah,” Namjoon says, trying to sound casual. “Just the usual crew, you know.”

He gently takes Yoongi’s hand off his chest and holds onto it, using it to lead him around the corner, out of the entryway, into the living room.

All of the furniture has been pushed back to the edges, leaving a large empty space in the middle. Taehyung is on the far side, with some kind of scarf or stole draped around his shoulders. Seokjin and Jimin are standing on either side of him, their hands clasped politely in front of themselves. Jungkook is in the far corner, where he’s taken over the coffee table with a laptop, and several speakers are set up, pointing out into the room. Hoseok is off to the other side, holding a bouquet of flowers, with a nice camera hung on a strap around his neck.

Nobody is dressed up - they’re all in their usual attire, t-shirts, jeans, untucked button-downs, sweats, sock feet, same as Yoongi and Namjoon. All of them are grinning like idiots. 

“What?” Yoongi asks, still not getting it.

Hoseok hands him the bouquet of flowers.

“Congratulations,” he says warmly as Yoongi takes it, baffled and unable to formulate a reply.

Namjoon continues leading him up to the front of the room. They stop once they’re standing right in front of Taehyung, flanked by Seokjin on Namjoon’s side and Jimin on Yoongi’s side. Yoongi is holding the bouquet with his right hand and still holding Namjoon’s hand with his left.

“We are gathered here today,” Taehyung starts, speaking as solemnly as he can as he fights to get the giant smile off his face, “to celebrate the union of Namjoon and Yoongi.”

“A surprise wedding?” Yoongi hisses at Namjoon, shock on his face.

Namjoon just nods at him, heart hammering in his throat even harder than it had been when he met Yoongi at the door. He squeezes Yoongi’s hand a few times in quick succession and gives him a look, inhaling and exhaling deeply as he does. If you don’t want this, I’ll walk out the door with you right now, he tries to tell Yoongi with his eyes.

Yoongi searches his face with his eyes, then nods ever-so-slightly. He blushes and flicks his eyes to Taehyung, then back to Namjoon.

“Namjoon, do you take Yoongi to be your husband?” Taehyung asks.

“I do,” Namjoon croaks out, already tearing up. 

He has to swallow two or three times but he never takes his eyes off of Yoongi, who has managed to smile now. He looks so sweet, so soft. Namjoon has never been more in love than he is in this exact moment.

“Yoongi, do you take Namjoon to be your husband?” Taehyung asks.

“I do,” Yoongi says, even more roughly than Namjoon, but with no hesitation.

Namjoon has to clench his teeth together, hard, so he doesn’t start bawling at that very instant.

“You may now exchange rings,” Taehyung continues smoothly.

At that cue, both Jimin and Seokjin step forward, each with a little ring box they had kept in their hands. Namjoon, obviously more ready for this step than Yoongi, carefully plucks the ring he had picked out for Yoongi from Seokjin’s hands, and then manages to slip it on Yoongi’s finger even though his hands are shaking. Jimin carefully takes the bouquet from Yoongi so that he can get Namjoon’s ring, and it takes Yoongi about three times as long to slip the ring on Namjoon, since his hands are shaking even more badly. Hoseok is on the other side of them, snapping pictures and grinning.

“I pronounce you married!” Taehyung cries enthusiastically, as he claps his hands in delight, abandoning all pretense of decorum. “You may exchange a kiss!”

Namjoon holds himself back, though. He takes a long moment to look at Yoongi, to gaze into his eyes and link their hands together again. Yoongi looks just about as close to tears as Namjoon is, his lips trembling and his eyes shining. He tilts his chin very slightly up towards Namjoon, just the barest hint of motion, and that’s all the encouragement Namjoon needs.

He’s dimly aware of all five of their friends around them, clapping and smiling. He lets go of Yoongi’s hands and gently brings one hand up to the side of Yoongi’s neck and the other over to Yoongi’s side, and then the small of his back as he steps in closer, the fronts of their bodies just touching. Then he leans in and presses their lips together, and Yoongi’s eyes close, and Namjoon can feel both of their lips trembling and Yoongi’s back shaking from suppressed tears or laughter or both, and then everyone else is cheering loudly and Jungkook starts blasting the Wedding March and Hoseok is probably still snapping pictures and there is confetti being pulled out from everyone’s pockets and strewn everywhere.

Namjoon pulls back and he and Yoongi lock eyes again, and Yoongi takes one more shuddering, overwhelmed breath, and then tugs Namjoon close and puts his head down on his shoulder. Namjoon hooks his chin over Yoongi’’s shoulder and squeezes him tight, letting the tears fall from his eyes.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he murmurs right in Yoongi’s ear.

Confetti continues to fall all around them and the march keeps playing and their friends keep cheering and jumping up and down, and they keep holding each other. Hoseok manages to get them to break apart to take a few posed shots, showing off their rings, being squeezed by Taehyung and the impromptu best men, leaning together, Namjoon kissing Yoongi’s cheek dramatically.

Jungkook puts on some more chill tunes then and Seokjin ushers everyone into the dining room, where he and Jungkook had gotten a nice dinner cooked and ready to serve to everyone. And from there it’s remarkably similar to any other Friday night gathering, if not for Yoongi’s and Namjoon’s reddened eyes and the higher-than-normal emotional pitch of the whole room. 

Once everyone has polished off at least one plate’s worth of food, and at least a glass or two of soju or makgeolli or wine or whiskey, Seokjin stands up and waits for everyone’s attention.

“To fit with the theme of a surprise ceremony with no buildup, obviously we can’t do traditional speeches,” he says, looking around at each of their faces and clasping his hands together dramatically. “So we are going to do a lightning round of instant speeches! One sentence each. I mean it! You’ll get cut off if you try to say more than one sentence.” He pauses and gives Namjoon a significant look.

Jimin and Hoseok laugh, Namjoon and Yoongi exchange a look of their own, Jungkook quaffs the rest of his glass of wine (with some difficulty, because he had added ice cubes to it, for some reason), and Taehyung looks far too excited.

“I’ll start,” Seokjin says, looking very pleased with himself. “I’m so very glad to be here today, and even more glad that you and everyone else is smiling.”

He sits down and gestures to Taehyung to go next.

“Ever since I met the both of you, I’ve always thought you were really great, and as happy as I am I got to be friends with all of you, I’m even happier you found such a sweet love with each other.”

Jimin pops up then.

“It’s been a privilege to watch the two of you grow stronger and closer through all the hard times,” he says softly.

Jungkook goes next.

“I don’t have a speech,” he says even more quietly than Jimin, “and I’m just really glad to see everyone else happy.”

Following Jungkook is Hoseok.

“My Brooooos!” he yells, shooting out of his seat. “There’s-”

“NOPE!” Seokjin shouts triumphantly. “That was one sentence. Sit down!”

Hoseok squawks in indignation, claiming it was merely an exclamation and therefore doesn’t count, but everyone else starts laughingly shouting him down too, so he gives up and sits down with a smile. 

Yoongi stands up as the laughter quiets down, but holds out his hand, so Namjoon takes it gently and looks up at him.

“Sometimes,” Yoongi says quietly after swallowing, “It’s the one who was beside you all along who means the most to you.”

He quickly sits down, releasing Namjoon’s hand, and then it’s Namjoon’s turn.

“Yoongi,” he starts, “I’ve loved you more each day for the thirteen years we’ve known each other, and I can’t wait to do the same for all the years to come.”

Namjoon sits down and of course he and Yoongi have to kiss again in front of everyone, cheeks wet with happy tears again, and everyone cheers and toasts again and then the conversation rolls onward into the evening. Jungkook tells Yoongi excitedly how he practiced moving their living room furniture back and forth, from its normal position to the “wedding-ready” position, half-a-dozen times until he got to be able to do it in under three minutes, in case Yoongi didn’t want to go through with the wedding and they all had to clean it up as fast as possible. Taehyung and Jimin had come up with an elaborate strategy to carry away all the food for the same reason, involving a massive stack of tupperware that was currently stacked haphazardly in Namjoon and Yoongi’s pantry. Seokjin almost puts himself in hysterics with how hard he laughs telling Yoongi about the many near misses he had, when he had come by for some wedding prep or another with Namjoon, only for Yoongi to still be home, or back early, or to need Namjoon to run out for something, or other similar troubles. And Hoseok, giggling like mad, shows Yoongi the practice shots he had taken, with Namjoon goofily pretending to smooch a pillow in the living room, to make sure there was enough lighting for his camera to work.

The festivities close out with a round of coffee and a wild assortment of frozen ice creams selected by Hoseok and Jungkook - all different flavors and styles, from red-bean breaded fish ice cream to corn pops to plain old chocolate fudge bars. Once the conversation starts slowing down and a few start hinting that they’re going to call it a night, Jungkook hops up with alacrity and jogs over to the closet with the vacuum cleaner in it.

“I promised I’d clean up the confetti!” he called out to Yoongi by way of explanation, “Since I was the one who insisted on having it.”

Seokjin hops up too, using a broom to get the furniture and areas the Jungkook can’t reach with the vacuum cleaner, and they giggle and bicker with each other, pointing out spots of confetti they missed. Jimin sits with Namjoon and Yoongi, overriding their protests and preventing them from getting up to help clean, while Taehyung and Hoseok pack up the leftover food and wash the dishes. And then all the furniture is back in place, everything is sparkling clean, and their five friends are ushering themselves out the door - Jungkook’s ersatz DJ equipment and all - with a promise of then all meeting up for dinner again the next day. Hoseok even promises to have the wedding pictures loaded on an iPad to look at by then. And just like that, they’re gone, and the only sign anything out of the ordinary happened that day are the rings on their fingers.

Yoongi sighs and leans into Namjoon as soon as the door closes. Namjoon wraps him up and kisses the top of his head.

“Was that-” Namjoon asks him in a hushed voice.

“It was wonderful,” Yoongi whispers back, muffled because he has his face pressed into Namjoon’s chest. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Namjoon says, finally feeling the most relaxed he’s felt in perhaps six or seven years.

Yoongi lifts his head up and gives Namjoon such a kiss then, that there’s no doubt what’s going to happen next. There’s no rush though, as they get ready for bed in the usual way, distracting each other with little momentary caresses and butt-slaps as they wash their faces and brush their teeth and - the newest step to the routine - leave their shiny new rings up on the dresser. Soon enough they’re naked, the lights are off, and they’re under the sheets together, hands and tongues busy. Yoongi caresses along Namjoon’s back, gradually smoothing his fingers lower and lower, until he dips between Namjoon’s cheeks to rile him up a little, and discovers the final surprise of the day.

“You had a plug in this whole time?” Yoongi asks him, laughing.

“Just a little one,” Namjoon replies with a grin.

“My goodness, you really had everything planned out,” Yoongi murmurs admiringly, pressing against it lightly and enjoying making Namjoon shiver as a result.

“It was dual-purpose,” Namjoon murmurs back provokingly, “so that if you hated the whole surprise wedding and told me to go fuck myself, I’d be ready for that too.”

Yoongi throws his head back in surprised laughter and smacks Namjoon on the chest.

“Now, I wouldn’t make you do that all by yourself, after all the hard work you did today,” Yoongi murmurs back once he’s more-or-less stopped giggling.

Very soon Namjoon is laid out on his back, relaxing into Yoongi’s kisses as Yoongi, draped over him, finishes the job of stretching him out. And very soon after that, Yoongi has a condom on and a last layer of lube, and he’s climbing back in between Namjoon’s legs. He kneels there, gets lined up and presses just the tip in. Namjoon exhales shakily, feeling overwhelmed and emotional already. Yoongi’s eyes roam over his face, and his eyes are a little wet too. He leans forward, pressing into Namjoon at the same time as he captures his lips in a kiss. He works Namjoon’s mouth over slowly, passionately, as he grabs Namjoon’s thighs and gradually deepens their connection. Namjoon urges him on even further than that, lifting his legs and putting his ankles together behind Yoongi’s back. Yoongi moves his arms forward as he does so, sliding them along Namjoon’s chest and then along Namjoon’s arms. 

Yoongi breaks the kiss and gently pulls Namjoon’s arms up and then pins them down above his head, intertwining their fingers. He puts his forehead against Namjoon’s and starts gently rocking into him, rubbing unerringly against his prostate with each movement and sending tingles of pleasure into Namjoon from the friction where his soft belly has Namjoon’s leaking cock trapped between them. Namjoon moans, already lit up and glowing, their hot, panting breaths right in each other’s faces.

This is the first day of the rest of his life, Namjoon thinks as each delicious movement of Yoongi’s body above him sends waves of pleasure washing through his whole being. Yoongi and Namjoon have learned each other’s bodies by now as well as they had learned each other’s personalities over the years, and they’ve become experts at coaxing orgasms out of each other. Namjoon gets closer and closer to the brink, as the love of his life - finally his in every way - plays his body like an instrument. When their shared orgasm crashes into them, filling the room with their gasps and cries, it feels like a triumph, a final declaration of victory over all the pain that could have prevented them from getting here. They kiss for a long time, both before and after they separate - as briefly as possible - to clean up and get sleep clothes on. Once they’re finally too sleepy to keep their eyes open any longer, Namjoon wraps up Yoongi - his husband! - in his arms, and feels the deepest sense of satisfaction he could ever imagine. He’s checked all the boxes, righted all the wrongs, overcome all the hurdles.

💒

A few months after their first anniversary - a fairly low-key affair where they hiked around the botanical garden together and had a picnic lunch, then took their friends out to the fanciest, highest-rated grill restaurant in the area and had a rowdy dinner full of beef, jokes, and soju that went long into the evening - Namjoon and Yoongi are relaxing in their apartment. Namjoon has just returned from the kitchen to get a drink of water, and spots the alluring way Yoongi is lounging on the couch - his slender ankles poking out of his soft, drapey pants, the slight curves of his chest and belly hinted at by the folds of giant t-shirt that clung to his half-lying-down body, his hair fluffed up in all directions as he reads a book. He ponders for a moment if he could get away with kneeling next to Yoongi and nuzzling his face into Yoongi’s belly. Or maybe sliding one of his hands up that soft, drapey pant leg, seeing how high he can reach inside before Yoongi starts wiggling.

Then, his phone buzzes. Namjoon pulls it out in confusion, and sees that it’s a calendar reminder. He opens it up and reads:

Motivational Speech for Yoongi

Namjoon curls up his arms in front of himself and lets out a wordless, groaning shout of befuddlement. Yoongi looks over at him, alarmed. Then, his eyes widen and his face takes on an expression of realization.

“Oh! The five years are finally up!” he cries in delight. “It’s time for The Speech!”

Namjoon grimaces and looks back at Yoongi, wide-eyed and speechless - in both meanings of the word.

Then Yoongi grins even more.

“You never wrote it, did you?” he crows in amusement, flinging himself to his feet and pointing to Namjoon accusingly. 

Namjoon puts his hands over his face in mock despair.

“I’m sorry,” he warbles dramatically.

“Oh!” Yoongi cries, clasping his hands to his chest. “Betrayal! I thought I was marrying a potential billionaire!”

Namjoon walks over to Yoongi and takes his hands as Yoongi keeps giggling at him, shifting back and forth as he makes little tippy-tappy stomps with his bare feet.

“Yoongi, I’m going to be absolutely honest with you,” he says, squeezing Yoongi’s palms and bouncing his arms a little. “I got everything I ever wanted with that ‘best man’ speech I gave you, and I haven’t had a scrap of ambition in life since then. Do you forgive me for not ever writing my ultimate pep-talk?”

Yoongi’s smile turns pleased and gentle then, his eyes shining with emotion as he calms down and looks back at Namjoon. 

“I do,” he says, and kisses him.