1-candy apple street
there were never supposed to be six of them. hell, there weren't even supposed to be three of them. don't ask him how one goes from one roommate to five over the span of months; yoongi has no idea how things could escalate this badly.
he got the semi-detached house just off the city centre with namjoon after college, when all they had was each other and a vague idea how to be adults. yoongi had just fucked up his first and so far only long-term relationship, and just trying to figure out life together with namjoon felt like the only possible step he could take at that point.
seokjin worked at the korean bbq they frequented in college, and when he one day told yoongi to please keep his friend away from the grill because he was making too many mis-STEAKS, yoongi knew he couldn't swerve this friendship if he tried. seokjin also singlehandedly put out the fire namjoon set to his own sleeve, and yoongi thinks namjoon's been a little bit smitten since then.
when they got the house, seokjin started hanging around more and more, started sleeping over every other night, and a few months in, he basically lived here.
"he basically already lives here, anyway," is what namjoon said when he told yoongi seokjin's lease was ending . yoongi entertained the thought of saying no for all of three seconds before relenting. a third roommate to share the rent with didn't hurt, and if it had to be someone, it might as well be seokjin, who yoongi actually liked, who was a great cook and had a car and put up with them and their lack of basic life skills for some unfathomable reason. all very important factors.
park jimin was a whole other story. yoongi has no memory of ever consenting to letting him move in. it must have been at the club where the twenty-three-year-old dances on weekends, after a few too many soju shots. yoongi really isn't too sure, and neither are namjoon and seokjin. one day all his stuff just was there, and he was cheerily informing yoongi they would be switching to captain crunch. they all just kind of accepted it. seokjin moved to the downstairs bedroom with namjoon, and jimin took the bedroom next to yoongi's. it posed no problem.
at some point, taehyung just sort of trailed in and then never left. someone had failed to inform yoongi he and jimin were a package deal, but it's not like anyone had asked for his opinion since seokjin.
hoseok - yoongi is not sure about hoseok, actually. sometimes yoongi doesn't see him for a couple of days, and sometimes yoongi walks in on him showering three days in a row.
"do you live here?" he asks one morning upon walking in on hoseok brushing his teeth above the sink in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.
"i'm offended," hoseok says around the toothbrush, touching a hand to his chest, "how can you even ask me that?"
he goes back to brushing his teeth. yoongi still has no idea.
/
the house, yoongi supposes, has turned into a recluse of a sort for people who don't really know what they are doing with their lives. and that's fine. it's just that it's sort of a disaster. it's a barely functional clusterfuck. it's a bunch of twenty-somethings bumping into each other, trying to figure out how not to hate life and how much detergent to use when doing laundry. yoongi has managed to cling to some shred of privacy by keeping the smaller bedroom upstairs to himself, but other than that, privacy is pretty much nonexistent. he walks in on someone in the bathroom every single day. they actually need to have a rule that forbids walking around the house buck ass naked, because without it, some people here would actually do it. yoongi's not going to name any names, but it's hoseok and jimin.
what they certainly don't need is another stray to take in. somehow, that's exactly what happens, anyway.
it's a sunday evening. sunday evenings are usually reserved for a movie night, or a game night, or a think-about-life-and-have-a-collective-existential-crisis night, but right now jimin and taehyung are god knows where, and movie night is rapidly falling apart due to internal conflict as namjoon, seokjin and hoseok can't agree on which movie to watch, bickering over it on the couch. yoongi removed himself from the argument thirty minutes ago, choosing to curl up in the armchair with his phone to do something more productive, like browsing memes about dogs.
they've made zero progress by the time jimin and taehyung barge in. it's raining like it's the apocalypse, they are both soaked, and looking disturbingly happy about it.
"look what we found," jimin says cheerily, and tugs someone into view. the someone is equally soaked, and looking a little bit more realistically glum. he's drowning in a black hoodie and clutching a backpack to his front.
the room falls completely silent in a matter of seconds.
"we talked about this, jimin," namjoon says finally, "you can't just pick strangers off the street and drag them home with you. people are not stray cats."
"he's not a stranger," jimin huffs, protective hands on the soaked stranger's shoulders, "he's jeon jungkook."
another collective silence tells yoongi no one recognizes the name.
"okay," namjoon says slowly, "you can't just drag strangers home with you because they tell you their name."
"we didn't kidnap him. he is here very much of his own volition," taehyung pipes in, and finally shuts the door behind them. the sound of the rain is immediately muffled. he slaps at jeon jungkook's shoulder. the boy looks sort of pained, and yoongi can't blame him. "we met him at a street corner, near jimin's work. it was raining, and he didn't have an umbrella, and he was looking kind of lost, so we asked him to come with us."
"and you just went with them? two strangers? them?" namjoon stresses, and jimin and taehyung look kind of uncertain, like they're not sure whether they were just insulted.
jungkook merely shrugs.
"you end up doing all kinds of shit," he says, and yoongi perks up at the sound of his voice, "when you live out of your car."
another silence settles. there have already been more silences in the past ten minutes than there usually are in a week. it's kind of jarring.
"you live in your car?" seokjin asks, seemingly shaken. "how old are you?"
seokjin's thinking he looks too young, and he does. he's taller than both jimin and taehyung, broad-shouldered, but he looks barely legal.
"twenty-one," jungkook replies easily, like he's completely unbothered by his living situation. "and yeah. i'm parked a couple of blocks that way, actually, and i told them they really didn't need to bring me here. i was just going to go back to my car."
"he's not going back to his car," jimin announces, and glances at both taehyung and jungkook, "right? you're soaked, it's still raining, and we're not heartless. right?"
he directs the last right at the rest of the room, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly as he does so.
"jungkook, was it," seokjin says as the first person to grasp the situation, rising up from the couch. jungkook nods. "i'm seokjin. you can put your bag down, and i'll get you some dry clothes."
jimin and taehyung high-five each other behind jungkook's back. jungkook blinks owlishly, and looks like he wants to argue, but seokjin's already disappeared into his bedroom. jimin and taehyung push him further into the room, and taehyung helpfully pries the backpack out of his hands.
namjoon seems to catch up, and scrambles off the couch.
"right, uh. i'm namjoon," he extends his hand, and jungkook takes it, kind of uncertainly, "i assume jimin and tae introduced themselves. that one over there is hoseok, and that's yoongi."
"you, uh. you all live here?" jungkook asks. yoongi snorts.
"believe it or not. all six of us."
jungkook directs his gaze at yoongi. he blinks his eyes like he just noticed yoongi for the first time - oh, yoongi thinks, his eyes are big, oddly captivating - and says,
"huh. nice."
nice is usually not the word yoongi would use, but he doesn't say anything. seokjin comes back with a pile of clothes and a towel.
"i figured me and namjoon's clothes probably fit you the best," he says, "come on, i'll show you to the bathroom."
jungkook looks a bit flustered, but follows seokjin. taehyung bounces on his feet.
"he's cute, isn't he?"
"seriously?" yoongi raises an eyebrow as high as he can physically manage. "you've upgraded from stray cats to cute strangers? you know we can barely take care of ourselves, right?"
"from stray cats to raccoons to cute strangers," jimin corrects. yoongi rolls his eyes.
"thanks for reminding me of that wonderful period in our lives."
seokjin rejoins them in the living room, and jimin and taehyung choose that moment to bail out, speeding up the stairs and disappearing into their bedroom faster than yoongi's ever seen them.
"we should give him food," seokjin's mumbling. "right? we should feed him."
"he probably won't appreciate you treating him like a charity case," yoongi points out.
"i'm not," seokjin huffs. "we'll all eat. i'll make something quick. hoseok, give me a hand."
"aye aye," hoseok says and springs to his feet. yoongi and namjoon share a glance. namjoon gives him a shrug that says, this is not the weirdest thing that has happened. yoongi gives him a look that says, yeah, but it still looks like a potential disaster. namjoon quirks his eyebrow in a way that says, don't be so skeptical. yoongi furrows his brow in a way that says, i'm as skeptical as i damn please.
"will you two stop with the silent communication," seokjin calls from the kitchen. "yoongi, please cut the onions. namjoon... just - stay where you are."
jungkook comes back clad in sweatpants and the biggest sweatshirt in seokjin's closet, and yoongi rolls his eyes at seokjin's cheery we were just about to eat, join us, no, really, it's no bother, because just a moment ago he was cursing at the eggshells.
the impromptu dinner is weird. it's like everyone tries very hard to act like normal people, but no one really knows how that works in practice. it's kind of pathetic. it makes yoongi question whether they have enough human contact outside the six of them. namjoon tries to make stilted conversation about socio-economic gender inequality because apparently he thinks that's a normal topic for dinner table discussion. when taehyung asks if he could "perchance have the tiny container of salt resting in close vicinity of seokjin's arm", yoongi can't hold his laugh.
"when we eat together, it usually resembles a death brawl," he tells jungkook, "it's every man for himself. sometimes there's blood."
"remember when namjoon ended up in the ER," jimin snickers. namjoon looks wounded.
"i broke my toe and my finger. all for an extra pork strip."
jungkook is slightly wide-eyed, squeezed between jimin and taehyung, but he doesn't look like he wants to make a run for it. he looks curious more than anything else, observing the people around him quietly. yoongi takes him in, inconspicuously, which is not hard because he's seated right across from him. he is cute, rationally, objectively speaking. yoongi wonders how he came to live in his car, but thinks he can't just straight up ask him out of the blue.
"so," hoseok says conversationally, "living in your car. what's that like?"
yoongi kicks him in the shin under the table. hoseok sends him a betrayed look.
"what?"
"that's kind of insensitive," taehyung says with a frown, but jungkook snorts.
"it's fine," he says. "it's actually not as bad as you guys think. i have everything i need with me. not much room for anything else, though."
"what do you do about washing," yoongi asks, and hoseok kicks him, this time. "what?"
seokjin, at the end of the table, looks like he's trying very hard not to sigh. jungkook doesn't seem bothered by any of it, though, merely blinking at yoongi.
"i use the showers at the rec center at the university," he says.
"ah," yoongi says.
"how long have you been living like that?" namjoon asks, unable to hide his curiosity.
"since june," jungkook says, looking up in thought, "about two months, i guess."
"can i, uh. ask why...?"
"it's not really, ah." jungkook pauses, looks at the noodles on his plate. "it's not much of a story. my parents wanted me to go to business school, and i tried it, but i couldn't do it, in the end. it wasn't for me. they didn't take it well when i dropped out, and, well. here i am. not really knowing what to do next."
"you can't force yourself if something just isn't for you," seokjin says gently.
"is there something you want to do instead of business?" namjoon asks.
"he's an artist," jimin cuts in excitedly, "he's amazing. he was drawing at the street corner where we met him."
jungkook looks slightly flustered as the others around the table make interested noises.
"not really, i mean - it's just something i do to keep myself fed."
"you draw people on the streets, and they pay you?" namjoon asks, and jungkook nods.
"people. sceneries, sometimes."
"wow, that's amazing."
jungkook is turning red under the praise. yoongi finds it sort of fascinating.
"i'm alright," jungkook mumbles.
"you must be more than alright, if people are willing to pay you," yoongi comments. jungkook looks up at him; his cheeks are tinted red, but there's a small smile pulling at his lips.
he feels hoseok laughing more than hears him; they are pressed so close yoongi feels his arm shaking against his own. he's not sure why, but he feels like it's directed at him, so he kicks him again.
/
the rain is not letting up. if anything, it's getting worse. jungkook stands in front of the window in the living room - they don't really have a hallway, the front door just leads straight into the living room - looking kind of betrayed. he looks like he's trying to decide if he should just say fuck it and go and get soaked again. jimin and taehyung very enthusiastically try to make the choice for him.
"you'll stay for the night," taehyung says, nodding, "it's a flood out there. your car has probably floated away by now."
jungkook licks his lips, brow furrowed in concern.
"i don't know, i mean. is there even room? i'll be fine, you don't have to -"
"nonsense," jimin says happily. "there's room." he pauses to think. "i'd say you can sleep in our room, but there's already me, tae and hobi. the bedroom downstairs has namjoon and jin. hmm."
he steers his eyes at yoongi, who was listening to the exchange in the back of the room, while pretending not to be listening. yoongi doesn't like the look in his eyes.
"hmm," jimin says again.
"no," yoongi says.
"yoongi is the only one without a roommate," jimin says, "come on, yoongi. you know it's true. you have extra space, which, i've been wanting to bring up, by the way. how is that fair? can i bring that up in the next house meeting?"
"sure," namjoon says, sounding a bit tired. the conversation is getting slightly off-track.
"there's still only one bed, jimin," yoongi mumbles.
"so?" jimin challenges. "don't be cold."
"um," jungkook says. his voice sounds higher than a moment ago. yoongi glances at him, and finds jungkook looking back at him. jungkook flushes again. yoongi's ears feel a bit warm, too. he swallows. looks away.
"jeez," seokjin says. yoongi can hear him rolling his eyes. "i'll make the couch for you, jungkook. you're welcome to stay over. discussion over, everyone scatter."
that's that. jungkook still looks a bit uncertain, but maybe kind of relieved, too. he murmurs a quiet thank you, and taehyung pats at his shoulder happily.
/
it's three a.m., and yoongi is awake.
the thing about yoongi is that he doesn't actually sleep all the time, despite what some people might claim. he's the last one to wake up and he loves a good three-hour nap during the day, but this is because he's awake when others sleep.
he fucked up his sleep pattern in college, and never made a real effort to fix it. work, too; he mostly has gigs late in the evening, and when it comes to composing, he finds that melodies come to him more naturally at night, which is sort of unfortunate for his housemates.
sometimes he just can't sleep until the dawn is breaking, no real reason. that's the case right now. he turns in his bed, stares at his keyboard and the unfinished pieces of music on top of it, but doesn't feel like writing.
he gets up and pads to his door. he makes his way downstairs, avoids the creaky stair at the bottom out of habit. he navigates his way to the kitchen in the dark expertly, grabs the first empty glass his hands find on the counter, not caring whose it is, and fills it with cool water.
when he turns, he very nearly has a heart attack, because a pair of eyes is staring back at him from the dark living room.
"oh, jesus," yoongi gasps, and remembers that they have, indeed, an overnight guest occupying the couch, and it's not a hell demon sent to collect his soul, this time.
jungkook is sitting up on the couch. he blinks at yoongi.
"did i wake you?" yoongi asks, detaching himself from the counter and moving towards the living room. "sorry."
jungkook shakes his head.
"i couldn't sleep. it's not because the couch is uncomfortable or anything," he hurries to add, as if yoongi would get offended by that, "it's just... a strange environment."
"i get it," yoongi says. pale light cascades down on jungkook through the window. he looks like a ghost in it. "you don't really know any of us. we're just a bunch of weird dudes in a weird house to you. i wouldn't be sleeping if i was you, either."
yoongi is usually not this chatty at three in the morning. he's probably making them seem even weirder. but jungkook shifts on the couch, his body language easy and relaxed. he hums.
"i'd seen jimin and taehyung before, on that same street. always thought they looked nice. friendly." he pulls his feet up on the couch, hugs his legs loosely. "i don't think you guys are weird. i like the house. i like that there are so many of you. it feels warm."
there's something on his face, something almost wistful. yoongi considers.
"yeah," he says quietly, "yeah, it is."
his feet take him to the edge of the couch, and he sits down on the side jungkook's not occupying. he doesn't feel tired in the slightest. jungkook, too, with his eyes bright and attentive. there's something about him; something that makes yoongi feel strangely calm, at ease. maybe the fact that it's three a.m. and there's a sort of tranquility in the air and it feels like time is standing still has something to do with it, too.
"is that where you usually draw?" yoongi asks. "that street?"
jungkook sucks his bottom lip into his mouth.
"i move around, but it's one of my favorite places. there's this candy apple vendor who always sets up his cart close by. i like the smell."
jungkook grins, and yoongi finds himself smiling back before he can register it. huh. jungkook has a nice smile. his front teeth are big. it's cute. rationally, objectively speaking.
"what about you, yoongi-ssi?" jungkook asks. yoongi is pleasantly surprised the kid remembers his name, even though they didn't talk that much earlier.
"hm?"
"what do you do?"
yoongi licks his lips. he taps his fingers against his knees, once.
"i can show you," he says, and gets up, his lips quirking at jungkook's puzzled expression. he walks leisurely across the living room floor, bare feet on the laminate, interlacing his fingers and pushing them away from his body, stretching the muscles of his arms. he walks to the upright piano in the back of the room. it's a modest thing, and pales in comparison to the shiny grand pianos at the places yoongi plays at semi-regularly, but it's his.
he sits down, ghosts his fingers over the keys, before starting a gentle melody. it's not something he plays at the bars and restaurants; he rarely performs his own pieces.
he doesn't hear jungkook crossing the floor, but he feels his presence beside him. he plays a few more bars, before his fingers go still.
"you're a pianist," jungkook breathes. there's unrestrained wonder in his voice that makes something tingle in yoongi's chest. he hums affirmatively. "do you write your own songs?"
"wrote that one," yoongi says, "don't perform them, though."
"why not?" jungkook asks with such seriousness that yoongi looks up at him. "you should. it was beautiful."
"ah," yoongi can only say, "thank you."
jungkook bites at his lip, eyes cast down at the keyboard as he reaches out to press his finger on a key, a low g ringing out softly.
"i like to sing," he says, and the way he says it sounds like a confession.
"i'd like to hear it," yoongi says, and realizes he means it. he's transfixed by the way jungkook's eyelashes cast spidery shadows on his cheeks.
jungkook parts his lips to answer, but at that moment, there's the unmistakable sound of a bedroom door swinging open upstairs. footsteps, and then jimin's voice from above them:
"i swear to god, min yoongi, i'll take the entire piano and shove it up your - oh, hey, jungkook. good morning."
yoongi rolls his eyes before tipping his head back to look up at jimin, who's leaning over the railing, his orange hair sticking up, wearing nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms and looking down at them with a sweet smile like he wasn't just threatening to shove a piano up yoongi's ass.
"sorry about the noise," jungkook says sheepishly, and yoongi wants to point out it's not his fault, but jimin beats him to it.
"not your fault," jimin says, waving a hand dismissively, "also not the first time this has happened. yoongi can't sleep at night like a normal person. it's the first time he's serenading someone other than himself, though."
"fuck off, jimin," yoongi says calmly. jimin only cackles quietly.
"i'm all for whatever's happening here," he says, gesturing vaguely. yoongi narrows his eyes. "but can you guys do it quietly? some people have work in the morning. not me. but someone, i'm pretty sure."
"yeah, yeah," yoongi says. "we were about to go to sleep, too."
jimin throws a grin at them, and also wiggles his eyebrows because he's an asshole, and then he's gone, the bedroom door closing behind him.
"don't feel bad about waking him," yoongi says to jungkook, getting up and smoothing his hands over his pajama bottoms, "my bedroom is next to his, tae's and hoseok's, and they start blasting music at six a.m. sometimes."
jungkook laughs softly. he fiddles with the oversized sleeves of seokjin's sweatshirt.
"yeah, i should - sleep," he says, taking a step backwards towards the couch, and then hovering, like he's hesitant.
"ah. of course." yoongi blinks. remembers to move. "same here."
he's at the bottom of the staircase when jungkook calls out, like an afterthought,
"thank you for keeping me company."
yoongi turns, one foot on the bottom stair and a hand on the railing. jungkook is looking at him over the backrest of the couch. he offers yoongi a small smile and adds,
"thank you for playing for me."
yoongi licks his lips.
"sing for me some other time," he says, and makes his way up the stairs.
/
jungkook is gone by the morning. yoongi ends up waking up later than intended, close to noon. half the people are at work, but namjoon's sipping at apple juice at the kitchen table, sprawling over two chairs, legs taking up the other one.
"morning, hyung."
yoongi grunts vaguely and goes to load up the coffeemaker. then he leans his back against the counter, gaze sliding over the empty living room.
"he's gone?"
namjoon hums.
"apparently he left before anyone woke up," he says, and then reaches to pick up a paper towel yoongi hadn't noticed on the table. "he left a note."
yoongi takes it when namjoon holds it out to him. on black marker, jungkook has scribbled on it:
thank you so much for letting me stay over! i'll come back later to return the clothes and to pay you back! :)
"pay us back," yoongi mumbles, "he doesn't have to pay us back. he lives in his damn car. what kind of people would we be to ask him for money?"
namjoon snorts.
"how are you going to tell him that?" he raises his eyebrows. "he doesn't have a house address."
yoongi drums his fingers against the countertop.
"there might be a way," he muses, chewing at his lip absentmindedly. "he told me he's often at the spot where jimin and tae picked him up, drawing. there's a candy apple vendor. he likes the smell."
namjoon frowns.
"when did he tell you that?"
yoongi blinks.
"oh. at - night. what? we happened to be up at the same time."
"i didn't say anything." namjoon raises his hands in mock surrender. the look he gives yoongi is vaguely amused. "i didn't realize you were getting to know each other while the rest of us were sleeping."
yoongi merely glares at whatever he's implying.
"don't you have work?" he asks in an attempt to get rid of him, and turns to fill his gigantic coffee mug to the brim.
"not really," namjoon says, "but i gotta go to the studio later. are you coming, today?"
"practice," yoongi replies.
namjoon's a producer, they are both songwriters, and yoongi helps namjoon out with whatever he's working on at the recording studio, sometimes. gets his name in the album credits, sometimes.
"i'm working on a demo for this rookie artist," namjoon says, "would you mind playing the keyboard for the track?"
"sure," yoongi says over the brim of the mug, "i'll come by tomorrow."
this week is mostly going over the sets for the two gigs he's booked to play at a restaurant in the nice part of the city on thursday and friday, and practicing for a wedding gig on saturday - both nicely paying jobs. yoongi has some time on his hands, so he goes to the street near the club jimin dances at. they didn't specify which street, but yoongi looks for a candy apple vendor - and finds him. it's a pretty nice spot, greener than the rest of this part of the city. it does smell good.
there's no jungkook, however. it was worth a try, he guesses. he really wants to let him know he doesn't have to pay them back. he walks around, and decides he might as well go see taehyung at the coffee shop he works at.
taehyung is busy taking orders and stealing hearts with his dazzling customer service smile, so yoongi wanders further into the shop to wait for a slower moment.
"ugh," he says when he sees park jimin grinning at him at one of the tables.
"smooth, yoongi," jimin says as yoongi plops down on the seat across from him against his better judgement. "did you tell jungkook you call that piece 'i need you'?"
"the day you shut the fuck up will be the day i achieve true happiness," yoongi says. "are you and taehyung ever apart?"
"we could be, we just choose not to," jimin says without missing a beat. he leans forward with his jaw resting on his palm. "did you see the note he left?"
"i can't believe he thinks he has to pay us back," yoongi says, letting his eyes slide over the length of the counter. taehyung is dealing with a customer who gestures a lot with her hands and has a very shrill voice. his smile is still there, but yoongi thinks it might be edging on his i'm dead inside and about to burn this place down smile.
"that's jungkook for you," jimin muses, "needlessly considerate. it's cute."
yoongi quirks an eyebrow at him.
"you talk about him like you didn't just meet him for the first time yesterday," he points out.
"sort of feels like we've known him longer," jimin shrugs, "don't you think so? he's one of those people, i guess. who are easy to be around."
yoongi thinks about last night, and finds himself thinking jimin's right. he thought maybe it was because it was so late at night that it felt easy talking to a stranger, but it wasn't just that. it had something to do with jungkook, too.
taehyung announces his presence by throwing himself across jimin's lap, hands looped around his neck. jimin catches him easily with an arm around his back.
"hey, yoongi," he says, and yoongi waves a hand in a lazy arc. "work is killing me. i've been working nonstop since nine. i've gotten yelled at three times. the third time the person didn't even order anything. she literally just came in to yell at me."
jimin pats his head consolingly. taehyung pouts.
"why don't you quit?" yoongi inquires offhandedly, even though he knows the answer. last week, they got a notice about rent increase. not only that, the house is gradually falling apart around them. the upstairs bathroom has a constant plumbing problem and a couple of weeks ago namjoon managed to rip his and seokjin's bedroom door off its hinges. it's why yoongi really, really needs the gigs this week.
"capitalism," taehyung says darkly. yoongi and jimin nod in solidarity.
"when seokjin gets scouted by a universal modeling agency, things will get easier," jimin sighs.
"what makes you think he won't ditch us the second that happens," yoongi snorts, "he'd be out of this shithole so fast, and i couldn't even blame him."
"he would never," taehyung gasps. yoongi just shrugs. he's joking; at the end of the day, it's a shithole, but it's their shithole.
there were never supposed to be six of them, but now that there are, yoongi wouldn't let anyone try to take that away from him. he hopes he never accidentally says this out loud.
they sit around for a while, taehyung apparently being content to spend his break on jimin's lap, and yoongi mostly listens to the two chat and watches people pass by the window. he thinks about candy apple street. wonders vaguely where jungkook usually parks his car.
he thinks it's time to move on and get to practice when jimin starts handfeeding taehyung pieces of vegetable pie. he swears the two of them act more couple-y than most couples he knows.
"call me if the yelling lady comes back to give you trouble, and i'll take care of it," he promises as he's getting up. taehyung gives him a thumbs up.
if he passes by the candy apple vendor a few more times that week, it's only because it's on his way, really. jungkook is never there.
/
he plays at the restaurant at the end of the week; it really is a nice place, the kind where the table settings include three different kinds of forks. yoongi could never ever afford to eat here, but he blends in like he could. he's done gigs like this since college. he knows he's good, and isn't shaken even when he sees someone order a two hundred dollar bottle of champagne. rich people.
it's quite boring, actually, the set list predetermined and consisting of lounge type of music. honestly, yoongi prefers playing at bars, where he has more freedom over the set and can take requests.
then it's saturday, and jungkook hasn't come back around. maybe he won't. maybe he's somewhere far away by now. yoongi is not thinking about it. he's not thinking about someone he met once. what he is doing is getting ready for the wedding gig and feeling uncomfortable in the tuxedo he got a year ago solely for this purpose.
hoseok passes by the bathroom doorway and laughs at his sour expression.
"you look like you're on your way to a funeral, not a wedding, hyung," he snickers. "or maybe to assassinate someone."
yoongi mimics whipping a gun out of his jacket and pointing it at hoseok, and hoseok mimics getting a bullet to the chest.
"you should part your hair in the middle, you look good with your forehead exposed," he says, shoving his fingers in yoongi's blond hair to mess around with it. yoongi swats him off, but ends up parting his hair like he suggested, anyway.
aside from having to wear a tux, yoongi doesn't actually hate weddings. the perks include free food and drinks and the people are usually nice and drunk. usually. once, a drunken groomsman climbed onto the stage and tried to fight yoongi because yoongi apparently played a song he hated. that doesn't happen this time.
he plays the first dance and a couple of slow songs on the grand piano, then sticks around and plays a short set on the synthesizer at the end of the evening, working with a singer-guitarist he's done weddings with in the past. it goes well, and by the end of the set he's tired and the bowtie hangs undone around his neck, but he's 300,000 won richer.
it's nearing nine when he gets into the driver's seat of seokjin's hyundai. he gives a hearty sigh and messes up his hair in the rear view mirror. he should have seokjin do something about his roots.
he's a few miles from home when something at the side of the road catches his eye. parked there is a red toyota, and on the hood of the red toyota, lounges a familiar figure. yoongi slows down to a crawl. they are just on the outskirts of the city, the lights barely touching them; even then, he recognizes the boy lying on the hood with his back against the windshield, earphones in his ears and foot bopping to the beat.
yoongi's not sure what he's doing as he rolls down his window. he should just move on, right? they barely know each other, and jungkook doesn't seem to notice him, looking down at his phone and immersed in his music. yeah, he should move on. he doesn't.
what he does is reach into the glove compartment where he knows seokjin keeps a half-eaten bag of skittles, take one out of the bag, and fling it at jungkook with all the precision of a former high school shooting guard. it hits him square on the cheek. jungkook looks up, his face the epitome of confused as his eyes land on yoongi. yoongi does a small wave. realization settles on jungkook's face, along with a lopsided grin as he rips the earbuds out of his ears and turns his body on the hood to face yoongi, legs dangling over the edge.
"did you seriously throw candy at me?" jungkook is still smiling.
"it seemed like the logical solution in my head at the time," yoongi says. "got your attention, didn't it?"
jungkook swings his legs.
"you should probably get off the road," he suggests, and yoongi agrees, even though there's no traffic. he parks at the roadside, and conveniently remembers his appearance just before getting out of the car. well. there's nothing he can do about the tux, the bowtie still undone, and he locks the car and crosses the road to jungkook.
jungkook's eyes skim over him.
"wow," he says, meeting yoongi's eyes, teeth pressing into his lower lip, "i feel underdressed. what's the occasion?"
"a wedding," yoongi replies, licking his lips. "work."
"how'd that go?"
"i don't know what it is with ed sheeran, but he seems to be every couple's choice for first dance."
"did you play your own music?" jungkook inquires.
"nah," yoongi says. he takes in the car - a basic five-seat toyota - and the boy propped on top of the hood. "you're not sleeping out here, are you? it doesn't seem safe."
"no, i'm going to park near the university. i've been doing this for a while. haven't been robbed yet." a smile ghosts on his lips. he gestures at the car beneath him. "i'd invite you in, but, you know. the place is kind of a mess. take a seat, though."
he pats at the hood beside him. yoongi breathes out through his nose in a semblance of a laugh. then he hauls himself up next to jungkook.
"nice," he says.
"more comfortable than you'd think, right?" jungkook grins a little bit.
he's wearing his own clothes now, obviously. a white shirt and a bomber jacket. jeans with ripped knees. he doesn't look as young as he did that night, soaking wet and drowning in seokjin's sweatshirt, but still young.
"how have you been?" yoongi asks, and he genuinely wants to know.
"good, good. okay. can't complain."
"i think a lot of people would complain," yoongi says. jungkook laughs shortly.
"well, you know. i've done okay so far. i could be doing a lot worse."
yoongi considers.
"you said you've only been doing this since june. is that when you dropped out of school?" it might be edging on something jungkook doesn't want to talk about, and yoongi watches him out of the corner of his eye for signs of unease, but jungkook isn't showing any.
"it was around then, yeah," he says. "my parents let me know i had no business coming back home. not that i'd want to, anyway. the last time i saw them was about two years ago, and that's fine by me."
"that's shitty of them," yoongi says, frowning slightly, and jungkook bites at his lip and hums in agreement.
yoongi kind of wants to ask him more about it. yoongi can't remember the last time he's been so interested in someone, in actually learning about them. what he asks, instead, is:
"have you eaten?"
jungkook blinks at him.
"ah, i'm... yeah. i have, really. you don't have to buy me dinner."
"what if i want to?"
jungkook looks at him, his eyes slightly wide. they are so big. pretty. jungkook is very pretty. yoongi is kind of relieved when jungkook shakes his head, firm but with a playful tint in his eyes.
"i won't let you. i can afford to feed myself."
yoongi snorts.
"fine, then." he pauses. "i have half a bag of skittles in my car."
the corner of jungkook's mouth quirks.
"that's an offer," he says slowly, "i can take."
so yoongi hops off the hood and comes back with the skittles, and they share it sitting side by side. jungkook's favorites are the red ones, and so are yoongi's, and what follows is a competition to see who can dig out the most red candy. yoongi tries to pass orange skittles for red ones, claiming they just look orange in the dim light, and when jungkook calls him out on it, he pretends to be offended, acting like jungkook just made the most slanderous statement.
it's the loudest yoongi has heard jungkook laugh so far. he tips his head back, his shoulders shaking, almost tipping backwards onto the hood. it makes yoongi feel warm.
"i was hoping i'd run into you," yoongi says a little bit later, when most of the candy is gone. "i wanted to tell you you really don't have to pay us back. you don't owe us anything."
"i said i would, and i will," jungkook assures, "i was going to stop by tomorrow, actually."
"you know you can't force us to take your money," yoongi narrows his eyes at him.
"well," jungkook says, throwing him a smile. his eyes look like they are shining their own light. "i'll just have to try my best."
yoongi's phone is buzzing in his pocket, and it's either seokjin wanting to know where the hell his car is, or the hospital, because yoongi is somehow number one in everyone's emergency contacts. he'd have to bring that up in a house meeting. either way:
"i have to go," he sighs, and slides off the hood, pushing the remaining skittles into jungkook's lap.
he has a weird urge to ask jungkook to come with him. they are basically strangers, but it doesn't feel entirely right to just leave him, knowing he'll be sleeping on a parking lot somewhere. yoongi feels weirdly involved, more worried than he would usually be about a stranger; jungkook is young and pretty and sleeping in a car and there are all kinds of people in the city. yoongi wonders if asking him to come would be pushing boundaries.
it's like jungkook can tell what he's thinking, because he smiles a little bit, says, "see you tomorrow, yoongi-ssi. i promise not to get robbed or murdered", and yoongi has a feeling he wouldn't come, even if he asked.
he considers for a moment. then, holding out a hand,
"give me your phone. i'll give you my number. just, you know. in case you happen to need something, or you're in trouble. i'll try to help. we all will."
jungkook looks at him with an unreadable expression on his face.
"i'll be fine, though," he says, and yoongi rolls his eyes.
"then i'll give you my number as a friend, jeez, jungkook. stop being stubborn and just take it."
this makes a smile tug at jungkook's lips, and he finally hands yoongi his phone. yoongi presses his number in, saves it under min yoongi. it's good enough.
"and you can just call me hyung," he mumbles as an afterthought, "i'm four years older than you."
"hyung," jungkook says, like he's testing it. yoongi decides it sounds good coming from his mouth.
"see you tomorrow," is the last thing he says before walking back to seokjin's car. when he opens the door, he catches jungkook watching him from the hood in the wing mirror.
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