Chapter Text
Part of Yoongi thought he would go blind.
On those green and dreamy roads that lead towards southern Italy the Sun seemed to be miles closer to Earth, focusing especially on that horrendous red convertible and planning to slowly cook’em to death.
When his father asked him to represent their company at the annual fancy convention that year, Yoongi was grateful that Rome didn't get crowded around the summer times and that all the locals and tourists would rather go to the southern beaches at that time of year. Getting swalled by crowds and being forced to interact with too many people in one day weren't his strongest features and having to go up on stage to receive an award and give a speech would be enough of a torture for a lifetime. Unfortunately, he just didn't count on the three stooges accompanying him coming together in a plot to make an erga omne decision.
If he thought enough about it, Yoongi wouldn't mind going blind if that meant he could stop squinting his eyes and hiding behind the back of one of his hands.
From his seat in the backseat he looked over at Namjoon drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel in pace to a Italian rock music that left the speakers, the ridiculous scarf wrapped around his head and the rectangular sunglasses were giving him a look like he was just coming out of one of those black-and-white movies from the fifties. When Jin rubbed his cheek to sooth the sunscreen that had accumulated there, he smiled brightly. Being around those two since they started going out together without calling it a proper commitment was nauseating, as if all the sighs and smiles created a toxin capable of getting everyone around them drunk and giving to complete strangers the urge to scream "just get a room”.
Yoongi wanted to go home.
But going home without his friends would just mean being alone in an empty apartment until complete boredom ate him alive.
But what if they didn't come back? What if they finally realized the fact that they didn't need him? What if they made a new friend and found out that Yoongi is no fun, but rather a vacuum cleaner that instead of cleaning up the dirt sucks up all the happiness and enjoyment in every room he happens to be?
But they already know that , his inner voice reminded him. Shut up .
His father wouldn't keep him company — too many things to do and too many people to meet. And even if he did, Yoongi believed he would rather eat his own arm or find ridiculous new ways to damage and fry his own hair completely bald than spend eternity listening about closets and cabinets.
Last time he was left unsupervised he bleached his hair into a platinum blonde.
What would happen next time?
His bet was in a pastel pink.
Maybe if I really go blind , he thought, this trip will be over and we'll all go home.
But knowing his friends and knowing how stubborn Jungkook was, he doubted a sudden blindness would do him any good. Damn, they were likely to tie strings to his wrists and guide him up and down through those ridiculously elevated streets of that country.
Or maybe the Sun would roast them like a barbecue before that.
Of all the cars at the rental store, choosing a convertible was the dumbest decision Namjoon had ever made — the top had broken about an hour after they left Rome when Seokjin tried to close it while the car was in motion.
No .
The dumbest decision Namjoon had ever made had been to agree with Jungkook when he brought up the idea to go in that stupid roadtrip just to chase after someone he had never seen in person.
“How do you know it's not fate?" Jungkook argued when Yoongi pointed out exactly that to him.
“Because,” exasperated Yoongi, waving his arms as he spoke, “he followed you a month ago on Instagram. This isn't fate, it's just a very good algorithm."
"And because you say that about everyone you meet," Seokjin added, looking up from his cell phone.
"See that? Jin is on my side."
“I'm not on anyone's side." Cleared Seokjin, chickening out.
They were all sprawled on the sofas and floor in the common area of their connected hotel rooms in Rome — their ties undone and their jackets forgotten in some corner after the convention's closing dinner. The room was large and extravagantly luxurious, with the high walls painted a soft green, the furniture adorned with gold accents and an expensive chandelier hanging above their heads, if you stuck your head well out of the balcony you could catch a glimpse of the Fontana di Trevi.
“This time is different, okay?" Jungkook argued, rolling up his shirt sleeves and revealing his tattooed arm. Despite the air conditioner running, they were all sweating a little. "What were the chances that the two of us would end up in the same place at the same time?"
"Except that you're not in the same place," Yoongi recalled, already feeling that this discussion was useless and taking him to nowhere. "You are in the same country, which is quite a coincidence. But only that."
Jungkook's hand crossed the air as if to say "detail".
"What is the name of the city again?" Seokjin asked, waving his phone in the air with the Google Maps app open.
"Porto del Faro," the hopeless romantic informed him, leaning sideways and propping his elbows in the sofa to move closer to Jin who was sitting comfortably in the expensive carpet.
The result didn't seem to impress him.
"It's only four hours from here," said Seokjin with a shrug.
" Only ?" Yoongi wrinkled his nose.
“It's not that far,” Namjoon commented, playing devil's advocate.
If looks could kill, Yoongi would be on his way to his best friend's funeral at the moment. Namjoon smiled. When had he become such a traitor?
“Our flight is only Monday afternoon,” he said with a shrug. “If we rent a car and leave tomorrow morning, we'll be arriving shortly after lunch and still have the entire Sunday free to do whatever we want to."
"Are you going to drive back to Rome in time for us to catch our flight?" Yoongi doubted, arching an eyebrow.
“There's an airport in Naples,” Jungkook reminded him, “all you need to do is email the airline and transfer our tickets."
It looked like they had been planning this for months and only cared to let him know about it at that moment. It wasn't possible that everything in the universe was making this detour so simple. There should be some bureaucracy, shouldn't there? Something that would prevent last-minute changes from happening so smoothly.
Yoongi rolled his eyes and sank down onto the couch.
"Okay," he finally agreed, already runned out of resources to defend his denials.
His father would go into full beast mode when the bills for changes in lodging and boarding were placed. How dare they do anything that is not related to the company's growth and wellbeing? Maybe Yoongi should try to sell new closets to the owners of the hotel where they would be staying in Porto del Faro.
“If he dumps you,” Yoongi warned, pointing an accusing finger at Jungkook, “I'll say I told you so."
"He won't dump me."
~
Now Jungkook was sticking his cell phone in Yoongi's face, so close that it made it impossible for him to read anything written on the gray balloons.
"See that?" He said, all proud of himself. "I told you he wouldn't dump me."
With the little patience he had, Yoongi moved his friend's hand away just enough for the blur of letters to form real words.
TAE
text me when u arrive!!!!
we'll meet u at the hotel and we can go out to eat. ;)
"That doesn't mean anything," Yoongi implied with a wrinkle of his nose. "You practically invited yourself, the poor man must only be being polite."
"Unloved," muttered Jungkook pulling his cell phone back.
As bad as it sounded, Yoongi felt it was his duty to always lower his friend's expectations a little — Jungkook was the most intense person he knew, his heart, which was too big to be contained, used to overflow with love aimed at the wrong people, and that didn't usually ended well for either of the involved.
But to be completely honest, who was he to give anyone love advice?
He was really, totally and hopelessly, unloved. In the sense that no-one ever really loved him — at least not in the romantic definition of the word — and if anyone ever did, Yoongi probably scared them off with his self-deprecatory jokes and complete lack of sense to see what is so obviously in front of him.
Jungkook used to say that he just hadn't met the right person yet, while Namjoon was more practical and blunt every time that source of the problem was the giant emotional barrier Yoongi built around himself for protection. He didn't like it when Namjoon played know-it-all, even though he was undeniably right.
Yoongi laid his head on the back of the seat, determined not to think about all the times he'd ruined things for himself out of fear of hurting him or others. He was better off alone and had already considerably reduced the number of victims in the case of if he exploded — his father and just three close friends were a solid number of people.
He closed his eyes, beams of light flickering and dancing behind his eyelids as the high wind licked at his face like a thousand needles that never really hurt. At least that he was able to appreciate: the feeling of stillness and peace as the greenery and wineries were replaced by the salty air.
Yoongi wondered if these feelings showed the same way for everyone.
For him it was like standing on the edge of a cliff in the morning, the tall grass brushing his heels as the wind took it in a dance.
For him it is the cloud on the horizon, charged and electric, bringing with it the strongest of storms while, below the cliff, the waves churn and break in anxiety.
For him, it's a breath. Air rushing into the lungs and being trapped there in anticipation of something big.
Should he jump or fly?
Going back overland is not an option.
For him, tranquility is in the wait and then peace comes when the decision is made while the rain touches your skin.
And then there is nothing left but silence.
~
When he opened his eyes again, Yoongi found a bright blue sky with few clouds and felt a slight jolt as the convertible slowed down over the brick streets.
He had to blink a few times, trying to get his eyes used to the way the light was reflected off the colorful walls of the vibrant, cheery buildings to his right. They were skirting a sort of square with a large white marble fountain, carved to look like a naked king sitting on a huge shell, one hand held out in front of his body in search of something and the other resting on a trident, in both sides of him two huge carp gushed crystal water from their mouths.
Jungkook shifted on the car seat, sinking his knees into the leather and leaning his back against Namjoon's bench to get a better look at something they'd already left behind. Like a cat after a long nap, Yoongi stretched out taking as much space as he could in that small car as he looked in the direction where his friend was pointing the camera — a building, as large as it was old, in white stone at the highest point of the City.
"So that's the Lighthouse?" he asked, squinting his eyes to see better.
Could you develop myopia from too much sun exposure?
“I don't think it works for its original purpose anymore,” said Namjoon, looking in the rearview mirror to park the car. “Looks like they turned it into a museum and lookout point."
“How do you know that?" asked Jungkook.
He lowered the level of his camera, focusing it on Yoongi who, in turn, did the only thing he could in that situation which was to smile, squinting his eyes and bring two peace signs to his cheeks, holding the pose until he heard the click of the picture.
"He spent the night researching about it," Jin replied, getting out of the car. “Wouldn’t let me sleep and wasn’t even in the fun way.”
“Gross” murmured Jungkook, crunching his nose.
“I did some research,” muttered Namjoon, taking off his sunglasses and flowered scarf.
For several times since leaving Rome, Yoongi had used every opportunity he could find to make a joke out of that turquoise satin handkerchief. But now, seeing how flawless Namjoon's hair was while his own looked as if it had been licked by the wind in an indestructible structure of frizzy ends, he was kind of wishing he'd used a scarf too.
“I think clicking on other links within the first one counts as multiple searches.” Jin shrugged, circling the car to stand on the side of the driver.
“…other links within the first… multiple searches,” Namjoon repeated, grimacing and sticking out his tongue as he wrapped an arm around Jin's shoulder. Despite this, he opened a wide smile that took over his entire face, not paying attention to the attempted provocation.
But Seokin was always smiling beside Namjoon.
They lived on a constant war footing, teasing and making fun of every little thing the other did. However, behind every acid statement or tease, there was a smile, a fond look, or a subtle touch. Every eye roll was answered with a kiss or a laugh.
And there were many of these.
Laughter.
They were constantly laughing at the smallest and silliest things. As if they believed faithfully that the sun would rise from within the other's chest.
A weird feeling took over Yoongi's heart as he watched his friends. He thought about it as he climbed out of the car and stretched his aching legs after long hours of travel. Their relationship, though unofficial with words of commitment, represented everything that people who loved each other should be.
They were accomplices.
Partners in crime.
Perfect soulmates.
Even though he hated to admit it to himself, the feeling Yoongi identified was envy — good and free of any malice, but envy nonetheless. He was happy for his friends, but a small part of him wondered what it must feel like to be a part of something so strong. That seemed to be lives away from his reality.
At least I have my cat . But to be honest, that was a shitty comparison, as Yoongi wasn't so sure if the huge ball of gray fur really liked him or just used him as a huge heater on the coldest nights.
He followed the others down the street, where an old, pale orange building took up most of the block. All sorts of plants hung from every balcony and window — from vines that climbed the walls to roses, geraniums, and violets in ceramic pots. Above the white doors, between Roman columns, a Hotel Florentine sign was written in large cursive letters.
Inside, the hotel had the feeling of what would happen if an interior summer house met an ancient Roman palace and they had a lasting romance that resulted in a beloved child. The Hotel Florentine , with its marble columns, wooden floors and vaulted ceiling, was that child. The architecture and decoration made no sense, everything was at the top of ostentation and bad taste.
"It is..." Yoongi tried to find the right words.
"Ugly?" Jungkook tried, knitting his eyebrows.
"Corny?" Jin guessed, his expression mirroring the others.
"A work in progress?" Namjoon tried to be optimistic, even though he shouldn't be believing that.
“Demolition progress,” Yoongi replied, squeezing the handle of his suitcase. “It looks more like a very poorly kept thrift store than a real hotel."
Behind an overly high counter, there was a petite girl barely out of her teens, with olive skin and dark hair in a braid, she smiled at them with her slightly crooked teeth.
"Benvenuti all'Hotel Florentine!" she said, reaching out to the four of them. "È un piacere averti qui. Hai già delle prenotazioni?"
They blinked.
The question mark beginning to form over each of their heads was almost visible. Yoongi looked at Namjoon and Seokjin, both with their mouths open and a slight look of terror behind their wide eyes. Jungkook, however, was straight up laughing out of complete despair.
How none of them had even considered the possibility that people in a small Italian town spoke only Italian was a complete mystery. In Rome everyone seemed to speak at least three languages, and although none of them was a master in English, the little they knew was more than enough to get them where they needed to be and to not starve or die of cold.
“Hi,” Namjoon tried, smiling and gesturing as if that would help. "We want. Three. Bedrooms."
How he thought the girl would deduce that the space between his hands meant "bedroom" was something that Yoongi had no idea. To him, if he didn't understand the words, it looked more like Namjoon was ordering three large vibrators, but his mind was probably more dirty than the girl's.
"Mi dispiace, non capisco." The young woman knitted her brows, her friendly smile fading into a confused grin.
"We want rooms" screamed Seokjin as he leaned over the counter.
“She's Italian” scolded Yoongi, covering his ear, “not deaf."
The girl blinked a few times, looking around for answers. Yoongi also wished they would fall from the sky. Then she held up both hands with both index fingers pointing upwards — the universal sign for "Hold on a minute" — and walked in a door behind the counter, shouting more words in Italian.
During the past two years traveling to conferences and looking for new references for his father, Yoongi had become a master at finding "Free Wi-Fi" boards in different languages around the world. The one at the Hotel Florentine was taped to the top of one of the marble columns. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and opened the email.
Since they'd agreed to go to Porto del Faro, he still hadn't found the courage to tell his father about the detour. He had spent most of the previous night tossing and turning in bed, trying to come up with a viable excuse for them to be taking a few days off without the previous knowledge of the company. For now, Yoongi needed to find something much better than "Jungkook is in love with someone he has never met and we've decided to follow the poor guy like four creeps."
But that wasn't the only reason he hadn't said anything.
He knew that.
Unlike what he liked to believe he appeared to be, Yoongi had never been a rebellious teenager. He didn't drink before the right age, always got good grades, kept himself in line, and pushed himself to the limit to be a source of pride for his father. He needed to do this — what was expected from him. To be better. Never get it wrong. Do the right things.
He took a deep breath and walked away from his friends, heading in the other direction in search of fresh air and some inspiration.
He was no longer a teenager.
He was an adult, enjoying a trip and taking a day off. His father wouldn't punish him for that. But he still felt like a scared little boy.
He typed.
Dad,
No. Too informal.
Dearest,
What? This was going from bad to worse.
Yoongi stretched his thumbs away from the keyboard. It appeared that he was writing a letter to the president to inform him that he had just emptied the public safes.
He took another breath, tapping the tip of his cell phone to his forehead timmes enough so it would start to hurt a little bit. This should be a lot easier than it was being.
Perhaps he should discuss this with a psychologist. (Perhaps he should start going to one). They would give him a certificate of worthlessness and he would go on with his life.
He didn't even see where the strangers had appeared, but one second Yoongi was walking across the lobby with his eyes glued to the cell phone screen and the next, bumping his whole body into someone's back covered by a white shirt.
It all happened so fast, he was trying to mutter an apology when the man he had just bumped into started coughing and breathing like a defective whistle puppet. He grabbed his friend's shoulder for support, squeezing and wheezing.
"… Hobi… hyung, can't… breathe…" the man tried to say, closing his fist around the other man's striped shirt.
Yoongi looked around desperately, eyes scanning up and down for a miracle or something. The other people in the lobby were starting to look at the scene and his friends were already staring at him as if to say "what have you done now?"
He didn't know either.
It wasn't his fault that disaster followed him wherever he went.
The other man, Hobi , looked as lost as Yoongi, his eyes were wide and his thin eyebrows were so high they almost reached the line of his bowl-cut brown hair. He patted his friend repeatedly and ineffectively on the back as if he were a baby who needed to burp and not a person choking to death.
Maybe that was an exaggeration.
The man wasn't actually choking to death.
But it was clear that the cough wasn't doing its body's natural job of releasing the windpipe and what was actually making the situation look critical was his despair and the way he shook himself and slapped his friend's shoulder for help.
No… Yoongi was looking for excuses not to feel guilty.
The poor man's face was starting to turn red.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yoongi saw Namjoon running towards them, his ridiculously expensive shoes making screeching noises with each step whenever they touched the polished floor, he had his arms in front of his body, acting like the responsible parent he always seemed to be.
"What happened?" he asked, looking at Yoongi who, too, didn't have the answers.
"I think he choked on a gum," it was his friend, who was fine and breathing, who said. Despite the alarming situation and his clear concern, Yoongi was surprised by how calm and contained his voice was.
"What's his name?" asked Namjoon.
"Jimin."
Calmly and carefully, Namjoon stood in front of the choking man and tried to draw his attention to himself.
“Okay…Hey Jimin,” Namjoon said in a friendly and approachable way, his palm just inches away from the man's shoulder. “I'm going to need to touch you so I can help you. Do you understand this?"
With tears in his wided up eyes and looking a little mesmerized by all the attention Namjoon always drew like a magnet to himself, Jimin nodded.
Since taking up his post as head of labor security at Yoongi's father's company, Namjoon had been saying like a broken record how much they should invest in first-aid training for all employees. At every meeting, that was one of their main agendas. But in a safe environment like closet and cabinet assembly and design, that had never been a priority. Now, seeing him in action, Yoongi was determined to take his side and insist that his father finally schedule that course.
Namjoon positioned himself behind Jimin, pressing a closed fist above his navel and using his other hand for support. He looked more like a firefighter superhero on vacation from some movie than someone who spent most of his days sitting behind a desk in a cubicle.
After having his stomach compressed a few times, Jimin finally spat out the gum.
It was disgusting.
But the look of relief on his face and the way he took a deep breath afterward was worth the sight of chewed gum being shot like a projectile across the hotel lobby.
Slowly, Jimin bent over until he was sitting on the floor, using his friend's hand for support.
Yoongi didn't know where Jungkook had come from, but he promptly handed a disposable cup of water to the young man on the floor, who accepted it.
Feeling like the dumbest person to ever walk the surface of the planet, Yoongi crouched down until he was on his knees on the floor beside Jimin.
"I'm sorry," he said, a little desperate. “I was looking at my cell phone and… it was a very important email… but that doesn't matter and… I didn't see you, I swear I didn't see you. I'm really sorry… if there's anything… anything… serious…"
It was hard to finish his thought process with Jimin's friend laughing at him and his efforts to apologize, which made him look like he was about to have a stroke. Yoongi was tempted to tell him to shut up and take it up his ass. But when he looked straight ahead and actually saw him, the words died in his throat.
That man was the type who laughed with his whole body, his shoulders shaking and his hands slapping his knees. His laugh was so loud and contagious that when their eyes met, it was hard for Yoongi not to smirk.
He took a second to study the stranger: broad shoulders, thin neck, long face. His skin was a few shades darker than Yoongi's and his nose was thin and formed a small hook at the end, below his eyes were small pouches formed by lack of sleep. But most impressive was the shape of the smile which, thanks to its Cupid bow, resembled a heart.
“I'm fine,” Jimin said, recalling Yoongi's attention. "It was nothing."
“I'm really sorry,” Yoongi said once again, feeling ashamed of guilt.
"He's alive and now he can tell at parties that he almost died in Italy, he couldn't be better," said his friend, smiling and reaching out a hand to help Jimin to his feet.
Yoongi also got to his feet. He looked around, making sure they were no longer the center of attention in the lobby — the girl was back at her post at the counter and the other guests had gone back to their conversations and planning, the only ones keeping them attention here were his friends.
“My name is Jung Hoseok,” the man said, extending his hand in greeting.
He had big hands with long, slender fingers, the knuckles were prominent, and the thumb bone stood out farther away from the others. All his features were formed by lines and fine angles. Yoongi accepted it, squeezing tightly, his touch soft and warm.
“Min Yoongi,” he informed, his voice sounding like a stranger's.
Lightly, Hoseok squeezed his hand one last time before letting go. The distance of skin-to-skin contact made Yoongi's fingerprints tingle as if they were dormant or feeling cold. He flexed his hand at his side, trying to make the feeling go away.
His eyes found the ground and a smile reached his lips. Yoongi felt like a little kid seeing a cute boy for the first time.
"What happened?" asked a new voice from behind the wall formed by Seokjin and Namjoon.
Never, in all of his not-so-long life, had Yoongi been a good gambler. His instincts weren't very keen and he couldn't find logic in odd games. But if he were the betting type, he'd readily put his money on the possibility that the man with the slightly wavy hair and the Gucci jacket who'd approached the group was the reason for the whole trip.
It would be easy money.
The eyes wide and mouth slightly open in Jungkook's admiring expression were all the clues Yoongi needed. He wanted to laugh. Perhaps, finally, his friend had felt the sign he had always believed would take him when he met the person.
He found himself looking to the side, at Hoseok's light and naturally cheerful countenance.
Maybe…
As quickly as it came, Yoongi tried to push the thought away because it was ridiculous. He wasn't Jungkook — he wasn't an incurable romantic. And he definitely didn't believe in the kind of atrocity that connected two souls with a bond strong enough for them to know exactly who they were the moment they met.