Chapter Text
Yoongi's an urban kind of guy, with bones of concrete and skyscrapers in his eyes, and he can't suppress a shudder of horror when Namjoon brings them to a stop down a long gravel drive in the middle of nowhere.
They've been driving a long time from a train station barely deserving of the name, more a lean-to in the middle of a bunch of fields. But it had some buildings around it, a couple of warehouses and businesses and even a restaurant, and Yoongi should have appreciated those signs of civilization a little more while he had them. The further they'd gone into the green wilderness of the unknown the more Yoongi itched.
"This feels like a place you go to get murdered," says Yoongi as Namjoon turns off the car in front of an old hanok. "Is that what's happening?"
"We're getting warmer," says Namjoon absently. He pops the trunk, then gestures behind him. "Let's get your stuff."
He's gone before Yoongi can comment, so he swings himself out and onto the lane with a grunt. The bucket seats hadn't done much for his spine, though Taehyung would have blamed his posture. "You sit like an S," he'd said a few times, grinning wide. "S for spine injuries. Why don't you just straighten up?"
"Too gay," Yoongi would reply, always sending Taehyung into peals of laughter that ended in fantastic, lengthy sex that straightened Yoongi out in every way but his orientation.
Here and now, Yoongi shakes his head. That's over. Over and done, and now he's out in the wilderness getting murdered by his best friend.
He turns to join Namjoon in getting his bags out and stops short. He stares, then blinks, then stares some more, finally calling, "Hey Namjoon? There's a goat here."
"A what?"
"A goat. It's staring at me."
And it is, with a contemplative, evaluating look that's a little too intelligent for Yoongi's liking. He's pretty sure goats don't eat humans, but from the expression on this one he's staring to wonder if they do and are just great at hiding the evidence.
"Oh that's Geon," says Namjoon. He pops his head around the side of the car and makes some clicking noises, none of which impress the goat. "He's a shit but he's harmless. Don't let him see your butt."
"My butt?"
"Yeah he'll knock you over. Sidle back here, he'll forget about you."
Yoongi fixes Geon with a stern gaze and keeps his front facing goatward until he's safely behind Namjoon. Namjoon's grinning to himself when he gets there, and Yoongi narrows his eyes. "You were lying about the butt thing, weren't you?"
Namjoon's grin doesn't move an inch, and Yoongi kicks him in the ankle before he hauls his duffel out of the trunk. "Are you going to make fun of me the whole time I'm here?"
"Probably," says Namjoon. He shrugs, then takes the duffel in his free hand and heads toward the house. "And not just me. We don't get a lot of city boys out this way. Fresh meat is always tempting."
"You grew up in the city too," calls Yoongi. "You had fake plants!"
Namjoon flips him off, and Yoongi chuckles as he gets the rest of his shit. He does a quick scan for goats when he slams the trunk - clear - and shuffles his way up the stairs and past the porch. The place is pretty nice in a rustic kind of way, he has to admit, but he has a hunch it's actually rustic and not aesthetically rustic like the places he's been before.
It's also bigger inside than it looked from the drive, plenty of floor space and jutting little alcoves, and Yoongi looks around approvingly as Namjoon gives him the tour. His room's the first on the right up a couple of rickety stairs, covered in some godawful wall hangings but otherwise homey with a well-padded mat.
He's just about to offer up a compliment when Namjoon says, "The bathroom's out back. Just head across the gravel to the stone building, you can't miss it."
"There's no indoor plumbing?" says Yoongi, horrified, then pauses and rolls his eyes. "Oh very funny, more jokes for the city guy. You almost had me. Where's the bathroom?"
Namjoon raises his eyebrows. "I'm serious. When do you think I had the time to do renovations? But my uncle kept it up, don't worry. It's nice. Plus the weather is warming up."
Yoongi's heart sinks as he contemplates the sheer number of times he's going to have to get dressed to take a shit. "You couldn't have told me that when I asked if I could stay with you for a couple months?"
"I guess I didn't have time to mention it between the aggressive reminders that I owe you a life debt and that your ancestors would curse me if I refused," says Namjoon. "Sorry."
"No, it's fine," says Yoongi, sighing heavily. It's not fine, but it's true he hadn't really given him a lot of choice. "Thanks for letting me stay with you. I appreciate it."
Namjoon looks at him a little more closely, a hint of surprise on his face that shifts to unwelcome pity. "The bathroom's next door, between our rooms. I put it in last fall. It's small but modern."
Yoongi considers kicking him again, but takes the higher road and smirks. "Tired of pissing ice?"
"You have no fucking idea," says Namjoon with feeling, then leaves Yoongi to get unpacked.
The next few days Yoongi mostly holes up in his room and catches up on work. Another modern amenity Namjoon's installed is great internet, and Yoongi's technically on vacation for the first week of this escape but he's never really gotten the hang of vacation. Taehyung had tried to explain it to him, sometimes using visual aids, but it had never stuck.
Probably another reason he'd been so easily dismissed, Yoongi thinks, then bears down on the track he's mixing with steely determination.
Despite those occasional interludes he does well in his quest not to think about Taehyung, or what he's doing, or who he might be doing it with in their apartment. Even though Taehyung is Namjoon's cousin they'd never come out to this place, never made memories inside of the tiny room with its surprisingly comfortable sleeping mat, so Yoongi can block out anything he damn well chooses, including ghosts.
He does emerge for meals, realizing on the first day that Namjoon needs someone to cook for him when possible if he doesn't want to die by the time he's forty. Yoongi likes cooking, since it's basically just another version of mixing tracks. It's what he's known for, combining familiar and surprising elements and feasting on the results.
Namjoon's busy right now with whatever modern organic farmers are busy with - plants and such, Yoongi assumes - but he always makes it back for an early dinner, shoveling Yoongi's food into his bowl like he's never seen anything like it.
Four nights into their new ritual Namjoon's still eating like a starving man, to Yoongi's pride and slight horror, when he says, "So, do you want a tour of the place tomorrow? If you've caught up on everything?"
"Swallow before you speak or you'll choke," admonishes Yoongi, then shrugs. "And sure. I guess. But do you have time for it?"
Namjoon lifts his eyebrows high. "Of course. This is the slow time, just waiting for stuff to grow."
"But you've been out doing shit every day," says Yoongi. He looks at the collar of Namjoon's shirt, dark and damp, and wrinkles his nose. "You come back all… sweaty."
"There's always something to keep us busy if we want," says Namjoon. "I've had everyone rearranging the sheds for more efficient planting. But that's just something to do, you know? I can take an afternoon off."
Namjoon pauses to inhale another bite, then adds, "I thought you might want to be alone for a bit. Without human sounds intruding all the time. It's what I like the most out here. It's easy to find a place where you feel like the only person on the planet. That can be healing."
Yoongi smiles to himself, touched as always at Namjoon's earnest nature and exact wrong instincts when it comes to Yoongi’s emotional needs. This afternoon he’d cranked his tracks so loudly that he's pretty sure he came close to breaking the mirror in the next-door bathroom just to push away the oppressive emptiness around him.
"Yeah it can be," says Yoongi. "But I think I'm ready to see some more of this crazy place you've set up."
"Great," says Namjoon, relieved, and he and Yoongi finish the rest of the meal in companionable silence as the dark overtakes the world.
"This is where we keep the animals," says Namjoon. "Chickens, mostly, and the goats, but we're starting to push into hogs. Don't breathe too deeply, it can be a bit -"
"Disgusting," says Jungkook beside him, glowing like a small lamp. Jungkook is young and sweet and nearly all muscle, bursting at the seams with energy and biceps, and he'd greeted Yoongi with a sparkling respect that Yoongi hadn't quite known what to do with.
Nor, it's becoming clear, does Namjoon quite know what to do with him either. He's been noticeably more distracted since Jungkook joined them by the compost heaps - "Organic!" Namjoon had said proudly - and Yoongi bites back a smile when Jungkook claps Namjoon on the shoulder and shorts him out completely.
"Oh! We have to show him the baby chicks," says Jungkook and dashes off to a nearby building. "I'll go get them ready, just a sec!"
Namjoon stares after him, brow furrowed in a very distinct way, but he starts moving when Yoongi elbows him. "So how long has that been going on?"
"The chicken breeding operation?" says Namjoon. "About six months. It's cheaper and more interesting -"
"No," says Yoongi, rolling his eyes. "You and Jungkook."
"Me and… oh, no. There's no me and Jungkook," says Namjoon, and his cheeks are pink but his voice steady enough that it sounds like the truth. "He's got someone."
Yoongi winces. "Ah shit. I'm sorry man."
"It's okay," says Namjoon. "He's great help around here. The first hire I made, and one of the few who lives here full-time. I wouldn't have been able to do half as much without him."
"He lives here?" says Yoongi, surprised. "In your house? I've never seen him. Do you have a dungeon or something?"
Namjoon waves across the horizon, to a couple of buildings on the other side of the field. "There's an outbuilding we fitted up for boarding purposes. He stayed in your room at the beginning, but as we expanded it seemed better to let the young ones have their own space."
"You're not exactly ancient," says Yoongi, but he's interrupted when Jungkook appears with a yellow ball of fluff and shoves it in his face.
It's cute, both the baby chick and Jungkook himself, and they spend some time there before moving on to the greenhouses, currently full of strawberries and tomatoes, then the storehouses, in chaos from the reorganization, and finally to Jungkook's house, which he shows off proudly. Yoongi meets the other two live-in employees, Yuri and Minyoung, and one has a degree in agriculture and the other a degree in veterinary science, though Yoongi isn't sure which is which.
"I don't have a degree in anything," says Jungkook sadly as they leave, heading back to the main house. He ties his hair up as they walk, a sort of half-bun that's rendered Namjoon speechless. "But I help where I can."
"Degrees aren't everything," says Yoongi. "Practical work matters too. I don't have a degree, but I still made it in my field."
"Really?" says Jungkook, perking up. "What do you do?"
"Music production," says Yoongi, then stops in his tracks and glares. "It's that fucking goat again!"
Geon seems unimpressed to be recognized, waiting right in the middle of the lane and chewing. He's the most unbothered an animal can be, really, and Yoongi would respect it if the goat weren't so focused on him.
And it's definitely Yoongi that he cares about, standing stock still and evaluating him with that unblinking, all-seeing gaze. Yoongi folds his arms and stares right back, not about to be out-eyeballed by a goat, but his glare has limited effect.
"I think he likes you," says Jungkook. "Geon only looks at people he likes. Everyone else he hits in the butt until they fall over."
"You said that was a joke!" says Yoongi, squaring up more firmly to avoid butt impacts.
Namjoon ignores him. "I don't understand how he keeps getting out. I put him in the pen myself! None of the rest of them ever get out."
Jungkook hums. "Geon is the smart one."
"A real feat I'm sure," says Yoongi. "How do we get back to the house now?"
"You can walk past him. He's just a goat," says Jungkook, giggling, but he steps forward when Yoongi blanches. "I'll go put him back in his pen."
As soon as he takes another step Geon leaps away, giving Yoongi a final penetrating glance before turning tail and loping across the field. Jungkook chases after him with a long call of "Geoooooooooon," and Yoongi can hear him cackling as he sprints off into the distance, legs churning and hair bouncing gaily.
Namjoon and Yoongi start moving after a long few moments of taking in the scene, Yoongi a little more cautiously, but the goat is far in the distance and doesn't seem to have any backup goats ready.
"This place really is crazy," says Yoongi, "but it's impressive. Taehyung said your uncle left a mess, but you'd never know it. Nice work, man."
"Thanks," says Namjoon. He gestures Yoongi to the benches on the front porch, then sits down with him and looks out over the land. "This is what I always wanted, you know? A place of my own to make things. Sometimes I wake up and step out here and I almost can't believe it's happening."
"I felt the same way when my first song was on the radio," says Yoongi. "I drove around for hours waiting for them to play it again. At least you don't have to waste gas to get your professional satisfaction."
"You know they make radios that you can listen to in your home," says Namjoon seriously, then cracks up when Yoongi glares at him. "I've missed you."
Yoongi says nothing, just presses his mouth together more firmly, and Namjoon laughs again. He stops when Jungkook sprints around the corner of the house and skids to a stop, panting lightly. "I got him. He's in the pen. I locked it extra good, so he won't get out this time. Probably."
"How do you lock something extra good?" asks Yoongi.
Jungkook smiles and fans his shirt to cool himself. "I told the gate to make sure it stays closed this time."
Yoongi snorts, and Jungkook's smile grows before he turns to Namjoon. "Should I go into town for the grocery stuff now?"
"Yeah, the boxes are in the cooling shed," says Namjoon. "Thanks, Jungkook."
Jungkook shrugs in reply, but Yoongi's looking between them in confusion. "There's a town?"
"Sure," says Jungkook. "About ten kilometers away."
"I didn't see any town," says Yoongi accusingly, staring right at Namjoon. "You mean there's been civilization around here the whole time and you've been keeping me cooped up in a nature preserve like one of your chickens?"
Namjoon crosses his legs, unperturbed. "It's in the opposite direction of the train station, so we wouldn't have seen it. And you're more like Geon than the chickens, I think."
"Plus we call it a town but it's not much," says Jungkook. "Just a few houses. The grocery. A hardware store. Stuff like that. Though Namjoon's farm is starting to bring more people, to support all the shipping and stuff. He's revitalizing the local economy!"
Yoongi doesn't give two shits about the local economy. He does care about seeing something that's not a field or a barn. Maybe they'll even have a bar. Small towns always have bars for wrinkled old men, right? Yoongi will proudly count himself among their numbers if he can get a few glasses of whiskey. Hell, even weak beer. Namjoon's organic lifestyle is really stifling him.
"Take me with you," he says to Jungkook. "I want to see the town. And I'll… help. With the stuff."
"I'd pay to see that," mutters Namjoon, and Yoongi flaps him into silence.
"I'd love to show you the place!" says Jungkook. "The thing is that I'm taking the motorcycle, and you could usually ride with me but I have to take the trailer and that means it's not really safe to have someone else on it."
"Oh," says Yoongi. "Can't I drive the car behind you?"
"That defeats the purpose of taking the motorcycle," says Namjoon. "And Jungkook loves to take the motorcycle."
"I love it," echoes Jungkook.
"But," Namjoon adds, grinning broadly, "we do have a moped."
"This is undignified," says Yoongi later, tooling down the road beside Jungkook on a whirring pink moped.
"What?" yells Jungkook.
He smiles when he looks over at Yoongi, but unlike Namjoon's when they left it's not evil, so Yoongi just shakes his head and gives him a thumbs up.
He doesn't feel like a thumbs up. He feels mostly ridiculous with his huge helmet and his driving goggles and this loud, pink thing between his legs. Namjoon had said it was Jin's, which made sense - Taehyung's brother is impervious to ridicule and thus the only person who could possibly ride this thing without shame - but Yoongi's a beggar so he can't be a chooser. He sees roofs on the horizon at least, nestled up the hill they're climbing at a snail's pace, and that means it's all worth it.
When they get there Jungkook starts yelling again, a guided tour from the snatches of words Yoongi can make out, but it's mostly lost on him until Jungkook waves him to a stop in front of a heavily windowed store. "The grocery."
Yoongi takes off his helmet gratefully as he kicks the moped to rest, looking around with vague hope. He doesn't see a bar but there are a few stores, like a barber shop which might come in handy for the shag in his hair. There are even people, the biggest crowd he's been around since he got here, and most are openly staring at them.
Jungkook waves at a few watchers, who smile indulgently and wave back, and he directs Yoongi to the lighter crates before he lifts the rest without effort and waddles into the store. Yoongi trails as quickly as he can, apologizing to all the people he's blocking as he muscles his way after him. It's crowded inside, surprisingly so, and the place looks clean and new and more like a city grocery than the country market he'd expected.
"Hobi, we brought the stuff! Throwing it in the back!" says Jungkook, seemingly to no one. Or everyone, maybe. There are definitely a few women who perk up at the sound of his voice.
When someone Yoongi can't see calls an acknowledgment it barely matters, because Jungkook is already swinging the back doors open and dropping his crates on the ground. It turns out they have to empty and sort them, mostly fresh vegetables and meat that go into the refrigerators, and when they're done Jungkook produces a list of things they have to fill them back up with. It's all a weird sort of honor system, and when Yoongi comments on the amount of trust they have in each other Jungkook gives him a perplexed look.
"I guess? We'll give him the list when we're done!"
Jungkook grins with all his teeth as he jogs off to the dry goods, and Yoongi starts picking out the refrigerated items on the list as best he can. By the time he's done Jungkook has made several high-speed trips back and forth and they're ready to go, hauling the crates back out through the store like incompetent daytime bandits. The line at the check-out is long, and Jungkook darts through them politely, slapping the list down on the counter in front of the clerk.
"We probably owe you a little for this one," says Jungkook. "Namjoon said so anyway. Take a look and let him know tomorrow, yeah? And you can meet Yoongi."
"Yoongi?" says the clerk.
"Him," says Jungkook, waving in his direction.
The clerk looks over and he's younger than Yoongi expected, probably younger than him. His mental image of a rural grocery worker is a middle-aged, balding man with an apron on, but except for the apron nothing really lines up. The guy certainly has a lot of tousled hair on his head, that's for sure.
Yoongi's currently dragging a too-heavy crate across the floor, so he's not really in the mood for a big introduction, but he does a half-salute of acknowledgment as he wiggles backwards towards the exit.
Jungkook laughs, then says, "He's Namjoon's friend. From the city."
"Ah, right," says the clerk, and Yoongi doesn't hear any more because he's finally maneuvered himself to the sidewalk and is free to bask in his own accomplishments and look around a little more carefully.
He hasn't found a bar by the time Jungkook joins him and lifts the crate into the trailer like it weighs nothing. He hasn't seen anything that looks like entertainment at all. "So what do you guys do for fun around here, anyway?"
Jungkook's face creases up like he doesn't understand the question. "Well, we just rode the bikes…"
Yoongi can't stop his smile, and Jungkook smiles back happily. "I meant socially. There has to be a place to blow off steam, right?"
"Oh!" says Jungkook. "Yeah, the farm. We have a party out there every Saturday, if the weather's okay and we're not in the middle of a really busy time. That's what I was talking to Hobi about. We skipped last week because you just got here and Namjoon said you hate people but it's happening tomorrow. I hope you come!"
"I don't hate people," says Yoongi, offended.
Though if he really thinks about it, if Namjoon had tried to have a party last week he might have lightly stabbed him with something, non-fatally but painfully, so he'll spare him the lecture. Instead he looks at Jungkook, who shakes his long hair out before he puts on his helmet and causes a surge in activity from the women pressed against the grocery glass behind him. He doesn't seem to notice.
"How many people usually show up?" says Yoongi.
"About thirty? Whoever's around."
"Is there alcohol?"
Jungkook nods.
"Then kid, I'll definitely be there."
It turns out a country party is pretty much the same as a city party, except people wear more comfortable pants. Yoongi hadn't gotten that memo, and his skinny jeans are making his legs feel like sausages.
He'd threatened Namjoon with horrible revenge if he did any kind of huge introduction to the group or made Yoongi stand on a chair, so he'd been spared that suffering. He'd still braced for the bad-but-not-as-bad future of a lot of people sidling up to him and to weasel out his personal drama to pass it along to the rest of the attendees, but to his surprise they don't seem to care much one way or another.
Which isn't to say they ignore him. They're all very polite, some his age but most older, and they ask a lot of questions about his work and his tastes in music and his family's health, but almost none about why he's suddenly staying here or the ruins of his relationship. He'd suspect that Namjoon warned them to keep away from the topic except that there's none of that half-hidden curiosity in their eyes that says they're dancing around something.
Instead they just talk. Jungkook darts in and out, and Namjoon tries to grease the way, but he quickly loses track of them both and is left to the mercies of his new temporary neighbors.
Who are fine, really. He spends a solid twenty minutes with Kihyun, a guy about ten years his senior who runs a mechanic's shop and apparently helps Namjoon keep all of his shit running. He's a fan of hip hop and they have a great, non-personal conversation about their favorite songs where there's no curious undercurrents at all.
Minyoung swings by and he learns that she's the vet and also something of a goth fatalist, which he wouldn't have expected.
"Everything dies," she says, shrugging, when he asks why a vet would work on a farm that sells meat. "We're all just trying to make the journey as nice as we can. Besides, Namjoon's a real one."
A real what she doesn't specify, but Yoongi nods his agreement. Namjoon is painfully real, which is part of his charm.
There are others, a lot of others, and Yoongi sips his beer and never has to move from his comfortable chair because they all come to him. Gentle, and interesting, and warm, and he still feels like he doesn't belong here but at least he doesn't feel rejected.
Namjoon starts a bonfire when the sun dips below the horizon, both for the atmosphere and the warmth, and Yoongi has to admit it looks nice against the twilight sky. They clearly do this a lot, yanking fuel from the burn pile around the side of the house and setting it up deftly, and he's helped by Jungkook and another guy who hasn't introduced himself to Yoongi yet.
In fact this guy hasn't come within five feet of Yoongi the whole night, seemingly content to work the rest of the party with his loud laugh, devastating smile, and enticingly smooth dance moves. He's popular, welcomed with hugs to every new group he slides into, and he'd spent the last half an hour as a team captain in an impromptu soccer game spearheaded by Jungkook.
During the game he'd checked Yoongi out a dozen times, a slightly slower pace than the rest of the night, which Yoongi knows for sure since the guy's been occupying a healthy slice of his own awareness for the whole party.
Yoongi noticed him as soon as he entered the yard with a case of beer, baggy crop top and tight shorts the shining beacon of a gay lighthouse on this rough social sea. At first Yoongi just thought he was hot as fuck, the sort of attractive that had Yoongi's fingers curling around the neck of a beer in horny distress, but then it became clear he was cute, too, and warm like the fire he's currently building with his own hands, yipping in terror every time the flames jump.
It took Yoongi about half an hour to realize he was that grocery store guy with all the hair - H-something, he vaguely recalls - and it took him another half hour past that to know that they were going to fuck tonight. A great fuck, too, if the way the guy smirked when Yoongi did an impromptu Epik High performance meant anything at all.
But Yoongi isn't some kind of amateur at this. He's a little rusty, but he knows how to pick up. He knows what works for him, which is getting people to come to him, so he's been playing the slow burn all night and waiting for his target to snap.
Taehyung was the one to christen it the slow burn, after the night they'd officially met at a club. He'd known Taehyung before in a background way, Namjoon's younger cousin who was sometimes at his place, all ears and imagination, but their family moved overseas in high school and Yoongi sort of forgot about him. But under those neon lights, with a few drinks in him, Taehyung had suddenly re-appeared in his periphery like a wet dream.
It turned out in those interstitial years he'd become someone Yoongi really wanted to fuck.
From Taehyung's heavy gaze he'd felt the same but Yoongi sipped drinks and let him come to him, turning away other applicants and carefully making eye contact every once in awhile to keep the interest alive. The wait had dragged out, electric, almost foreplay, and when Taehyung had finally settled next to him at the bar they hadn't even needed the pretext of a drink before they'd been out the door.
They ended up being more than fucking, way more, a more that tangled Yoongi into a knot he's still trying to unravel. But that snarled pain was at the end of things, not in the glorious middle when they'd lain in bed while Taehyung played with the bleach-fried ends of Yoongi's hair and reminisced.
"You slow burned me all night," he'd said, laughing, naked and smooth under Yoongi's pale fingers. "Like some kind of cool guy, brooding over your whiskey. It was cute. And totally unnecessary."
"I had you eating out of the palm of my hand," said Yoongi smugly.
Taehyung leaned up, jostling Yoongi across the bed and kissing away his swears. "Oh, you did. You absolutely did. I'm just saying there were a good two hours there where we could have been having sex and we weren't. Honestly you played it so slow that you almost talked me out of you entirely. I don't know know why you think you need to reel people in like that. You're not the fisherman, you're the catch."
Yoongi rolled his eyes and tried to escape Taehyung's suddenly purposeful grip. He didn’t try too hard to escape, though, because Taehyung's talented fingers were already toying with his cock in a very promising way.
"I guess there's no one like Min Yoongi for complicating a sure thing," said Taehyung before he started in on another round.
In the here and now, watching the grocery guy leap away from the fire as the wood pops, Yoongi shakes his head to clear away the memory. Taehyung had said Yoongi was a catch but he'd let him go easily enough. Yoongi's always been the reeler, the guy who has to pull in what he wants with steady patience and never let his concentration slip, and if he wants to end the night with this country boy's mouth on his dick - his dick is voting yes - he'll burn as long as he has to.
H-something's sharp gaze meets his again, just for an instant, and Yoongi drains his beer with studied nonchalance before he sets it aside and checks back in.
The guy's gone, and Yoongi frowns slightly before he shrugs. The fire's drawn the party towards it, leaving him alone, but Yoongi's more than used to that.
He scoots down in his chair, looking up at the sky and trying to catch the first stars making themselves known. That's one thing he unabashedly loves about Namjoon's place, that the stars are so present even before the dark has really set in. He reaches a finger up to touch the first one he finds - a planet, that's a planet, says Namjoon's voice, the steady ones are planets - and he smiles to himself.
"Something funny up there?" asks a voice, and Yoongi rolls his head until hot grocery guy comes into view. He's smiling faintly, hair matted across his forehead from all that earlier exertion, stomach toned and golden, and fuck he’s even hotter up close. "I hope so, I love a good joke."
"Nah," says Yoongi. "Just looking at the stars."
The guy hums then extends a hand, which is holding a beer. And not just any beer, like the shitty ones that everyone's drinking, but the good ones that Yoongi's made sure to grab for himself all night. Either the guy wants to impress or he's been watching Yoongi even more closely than he realized, and either way that puts a heavy warmth at the base of his spine.
"I'm Jung Hoseok," says the guy, sitting on the opposite chair as Yoongi straightens and pops the cap. He tosses it away, and Hoseok catches it before tucking it into his pocket, which is also pretty hot. "You're Namjoon's friend, right?"
"Min Yoongi," he replies. "None for you?"
Hoseok smiles, brighter and steadier than any planet. "I don't handle it well. I'm really fun for about twenty minutes, then grumpy for the rest of the night."
"Hard to imagine you grumpy."
"You'd be surprised," says Hoseok.
He leans back and crosses his legs, short shorts riding up just that much higher, and Yoongi lets his eyes linger. He's got great thighs, this guy, toned and smooth and aching to be bitten, and even if Yoongi's reading this completely wrong that's an image he can carry with him to bed tonight. And he will, he knows, the beginnings of arousal stirring in his veins, carrying blood to places that have been dormant ever since Taehyung sat him down and told him they were over in measured, regretful words.
Hoseok is hotter than Taehyung, Yoongi thinks triumphantly, and when Hoseok clears his throat Yoongi doesn't bother to be embarrassed as he meets his gaze. Hoseok doesn't look embarrassed either, just amused and all-too-knowing, and he's watching Yoongi like a lioness watching a baby gazelle.
"I hear you're a music producer," he says. "What's that like?"
Yoongi snorts. "That's the second most frequent question I've gotten tonight, right after what it's like to live in the city. It's like people think those are the only things I'm into, work and metropolitan spaces."
"So what are you into?" asks Hoseok easily. "You're the guest, we can talk about whatever you want."
Once again there's no veiled curiosity, nothing but honest welcome and impersonal interest, and despite the fact that Yoongi's halfway to jumping the guy his temper finally snaps.
"God, what is up with you people?" says Yoongi. "It's been like, all night, and no one's asked me why I'm staying here."
"Did you want us to?" asks Hoseok.
He sweeps his hair off his forehead, and Yoongi coughs. "No."
"Okay then."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Yoongi shakes his head. "I thought the country was all about gossip. Everyone knowing everyone's business. No secrets."
He's kind of trying to offend, kind of trying to put this guy on the back foot to cover his own disastrous lack of chill, but Hoseok barely blinks. "I guess we do. There aren't as many of us, so we get to know each other pretty well. But not because we're nosy. We just care about each other."
He pauses at a burst of distant laughter, then adds, "Besides, city guys like you never know how to keep your mouths shut. Too used to noise, and then you get out here in the quiet and have to start making it yourself."
Yoongi starts to argue, then grunts himself silent, and Hoseok chuckles. "Any secrets you have will come out soon enough. I'll be patient."
"You're talking out your ass," says Yoongi. "You don't know shit about me."
"Eh. Namjoon gets a lot of people like you staying here. He tends to bring outsiders around. We like the entertainment. Better than dramas, sometimes, the things you get up to."
Yoongi looks over to where Namjoon's sitting with a clump of people by the fire, broad smile on his face as he watches a woman gesticulate herself through a story. He's wearing fucking overalls, his forehead shiny with sweat, and Yoongi's known him for endless years but he's never seen him this happy.
"Namjoon loves it here," he says sharply.
Hoseok's eyebrows raise. "I know."
"I'm just saying, you'd better not treat him like… he's not a fucking tourist."
"Of course he isn't," says Hoseok, and Yoongi settles back. "But you are."
"Hell yeah I am," says Yoongi, tilting his head back to finish his beer. His last one, if he's reading this right. "Don't forget it."
"Oh, I won't," says Hoseok. "But you could stand to stop fighting and relax a little."
That smile comes back again but hotter, and to his horror Yoongi blushes. Hoseok leans forward, elbows on his knees, and plays with the dip in his shirt. It's not seductive, exactly, but Yoongi's bones loosen anyway.
"So what are you into?" asks Hoseok again. The bonfire lights him up prettily, like it was created to frame his gorgeous face, and for all Yoongi knows it was.
He also looks like he already knows the answer, so Yoongi doesn't hesitate when he says, "Right now, I'm mostly into you."
"Good," says Hoseok, a breath into the hot night air. "You care if people know we hooked up?"
Yoongi rolls his eyes. "I don't know anyone here. Do you care?"
Hoseok closes the gap and kisses him in response, languidly, already coaxing Yoongi's mouth open from the first press of lips. He tastes faintly of apple, sugary and tart, and that shouldn't be hot but it is. It might be the night, or the fact that he's been turned on for a couple of hours watching Hoseok move around the party like he owns it, or the way Hoseok is touching him, fingers playing at the hinge of his jaw, tracing soft patterns on his skin as the kiss deepens, but Yoongi realizes with a happy sigh that he fucking loves apples.
The sounds of people fade as Yoongi loses himself in desire, arousal no longer stirring but coursing, rushing through him like a bullet train on the way to its destination. He wants, he wants, he wants, his heart thumps with it while Hoseok kisses him, assured and slow, and fuck does Hoseok know how to kiss. His breath comes in hot waves over Yoongi's mouth in the moments they break apart, less for oxygen and more because it's the rhythm their bodies are telling them to set, in harmony with each other already.
The last time they pause, Hoseok's thumbs stop their gentle sweeps over his cheeks and hold the moment like a painting. It feels like the decision point, the moment where the night picks what it's going to be, but Yoongi already knows who he is. He licks his lips, a little numb from Hoseok's skillful handling, and Hoseok grins like he knows who he is, too.
No one's looked at Yoongi like that in awhile, like he's a feast to be devoured whole, and it feels good. It feels great, in fact, and Yoongi's not stupid enough to let the decision pass him by.
Yoongi fists his hand in that ridiculously revealing shirt and yanks himself closer to get more of it, to get more of this hot, willing guy all over him, and Hoseok abandons his explorations of Yoongi's jawline to haul him into his lap, growling low in his throat. They make out hungrily, Yoongi's fingers wound inside Hoseok's sweaty hair, Hoseok's hands kneading Yoongi's ass until it's aching. When his fingers brush the back of Yoongi's balls through his pants, Yoongi whines and ruts forward, looking for friction.
"Fuck," says Hoseok, slowing down. "Listen to you. We've barely even started, city boy."
Yoongi leans back, straddling those mouth-watering thighs, and tries to smirk instead of drool. "Look who's talking. Took you five minutes to get your hands on my ass."
"With jeans this tight, your ass was already an old friend the first time I saw it," says Hoseok. He rolls in his chair, thigh rising to graze Yoongi's interested dick, and Yoongi bites back a hiss when he does it again. "Let's go inside. I want to get better acquainted."
Yoongi thinks about making a crack about exhibitionism, about how he'd expected Hoseok to fuck him right out here on the deck, but the dark, wild expression in his eyes says that might be on the table and Yoongi's ready to go but he's not quite ready to go that far. When he looks over Hoseok's shoulder Namjoon's watching them with a blend of understanding and concern, and that's more than enough to get Yoongi up and tugging Hoseok towards the door.
Hoseok follows easily, and he shoots finger guns at a couple of girls who come out just as they make it to the house. They give him and Yoongi knowing, friendly smiles, and as the door closes behind him Yoongi hears one say, "Hobi and his city boys."
The kitchen is empty, which is fortunate because Hoseok pushes Yoongi against the nearest wall and bites a line down his throat, his hand up and under Yoongi's fitted tee to tease it off.
"Do this oft - oh," says Yoongi, groaning when Hoseok's teeth graze his pulse point with vicious intent. "Oh fuck, fuck, Hoseok, Jesus fuck."
"God yeah, say my name," murmurs Hoseok.
He pauses briefly to get Yoongi's shirt over his head, tossing it somewhere behind him. Yoongi tilts his head back into the wood as Hoseok drops lower, and lower, toying with his nipples for a too-short eternity before he's on his knees, glossy hair shining. He noses at the seam of Yoongi's jeans, humming in satisfaction at what he finds, which is the biggest hard-on Yoongi's ever fucking had in these pants. They're tight, and it hurts, and he whines to the universe about it for lack of anything else to do.
Hoseok looks up, a wicked grin curving his pretty lips. From this angle he's even more beautiful, and Yoongi's heart stops beating entirely for a moment. Hoseok winks, running his hands up and over Yoongi's hips with pressure, like a massage, over and over again as he watches Yoongi pant above him. His thumbs trace the shape of Yoongi's cock every few cycles, holding Yoongi in place when he tries to squirm.
"Fucking… fucking do something," he growls eventually.
"I am doing something," says Hoseok, laughing, then schools his face into pouting, overdone concern. "Are you uncomfortable? Does it hurt?"
"Yes!"
Hoseok slides back up his body slowly, and gracefully, the peaks and valleys of his body slotting against Yoongi's in horrible, wonderful ways, and now his palms are rubbing Yoongi's sides with that same delicious pressure. Yoongi's not sure Hoseok's stopped moving since they started this, maybe since the party began, and he wishes he'd use that incessant energy for something actually useful.
Instead he starts kissing Yoongi again, hard, slotting his thigh between Yoongi's aching legs. What was he thinking wearing jeans this tight? Did he think he was fucking cool or something? God, his dick is actually going to fall off at this rate, and all he can do is moan shamelessly as Hoseok's lips bruise him and his muscled thigh makes him light-headed and his hands try to squeeze him out of existence.
"You are the loudest guy I've ever fucked," Hoseok informs him eventually. "It's sexy as hell."
"You haven't even fucked -" Yoongi starts before the kitchen door swings open behind them and Jungkook stops short in its frame.
"Aahhh!" he says, throwing his hands over his eyes. "This is a public space! Don't you have your own bedroom?"
"Yeah, don't you?" murmurs Hoseok, nipping at Yoongi’s throat. "Why aren't we in your bedroom?"
Yoongi huffs. "Because you're a horny animal who couldn't get more than a few steps in the door before you were all over me?"
"Oh yeah, that's right," says Hoseok. "Keep your eyes covered, JK."
He undoes the button on Yoongi's jeans, and even that slight release of constriction is heaven but Yoongi flicks him on the ear before he loses all reason. "Bedroom. Now."
Hoseok leans back, his smile a little softer, though his eyes still sweep down Yoongi's body in a shiver-inducing way. "As you wish."
But instead of stepping back and letting Yoongi lead he spins and hoists Yoongi onto his back, which makes him moan again when it drags his cock up the bumps and ridges of his spine. Jungkook stops covering his eyes and covers his ears instead, crying, "I just wanted to make some ramyeon!"
"Go for it," says Hoseok. "Off we go!"
He takes off into the house as Yoongi wraps his arms around his neck and tries to tell his dick to calm the fuck down, and it's only when they're at the rickety stairs that Yoongi thinks to say, "Wait, do you know where you're going?"
"Yep," says Hoseok, sliding the bedroom door open and depositing Yoongi on the padded mat. He closes it again with a sweep of his foot, then shucks his top off to reveal the rest of his slight body, hard and muscled but almost delicate in its construction. Yoongi had a lot of words for this guy tonight, but none of them were 'delicate'. "I've been here before."
"All those city boys you've fucked?"
"Yep," says Hoseok again. "Bother you?"
"Not if you used condoms," says Yoongi, and it's honestly true. This isn't about some kind of mystical connection or the beginning of a beautiful relationship, it's about getting off. Getting off with a guy with the body of a god and the mouth of a devil, and feeling like he has a little bit of fire left inside of him.
Yoongi's wiggles out of his jeans, sighing with relief when his dick springs free, and the way Hoseok licks his lips when Yoongi gets his boxers off he might have more fire remaining than he thought.
"I did," says Hoseok. "If I don't get my mouth on that sweet-looking cock, I'm going to die. And once I start I won't stop. Okay?"
"Fuck, yes, god, get down here," says Yoongi.
He fists his cock loosely, pumping a few times for the sheer pleasure of doing it, but he doesn't get very far before Hoseok's long fingers pluck him away and start their own exploration. He's kissing him again, back to slow madness up and down the tender skin of his neck, and Yoongi bites his lip, hard, when Hoseok cups his balls as he sucks a heavy mark beneath his ear.
"Relax baby," Hoseok murmurs, but it sounds like he's laughing. "You're gonna bleed."
His free hand reaches up and teases Yoongi's lip free, releasing the breath trapped inside, and he strokes Yoongi's cock in time with the movement of his fingers, pressing into his mouth until Yoongi's panting around them.
"More," he says, hips bucking. "More. Fuck!"
He opens his eyes when nothing else happens, and Hoseok is looking at him with a half-lidded gaze that almost undoes him, right there.
"Can you do something for me?" says Hoseok, taking his fingers out of Yoongi's mouth. "While I suck you off?"
"Yeah, sure," says Yoongi, impatient. "Whatever you want."
Hoseok traces his lips with a single finger, ghostlike, raising goosebumps on the nape of Yoongi's neck.
"Tell me a story," says Hoseok. "Something about you. I want to hear that sexy voice trying to keep it together while I take you apart."
"What kind of -" says Yoongi, arching as Hoseok moves his fingers to his perineum and presses. "Oh, fuck, what kind of story?"
Hoseok hums, considering, and his massage gets more insistent. "Where's your favorite place in the city? Tell me where you like to go when you're all tense and need a release."
He grins when Yoongi slaps his shoulder - his tanned, perfect shoulder - but he grunts agreement, and Hoseok kisses him one last time before he moves down his body. It's impressive, Yoongi thinks in some hazy place in his mind, how Hoseok has traveled him a few times but it's never felt the same twice.
When he's finally at his cock, finally where Yoongi's been picturing him since that first time he caught him staring, he pecks it with a ridiculous flourish then looks up, waiting.
"What, now?" says Yoongi. He levers himself up on his elbow, incredulous. "You haven't made me wait long enough?"
"Guess not," says Hoseok, grinning. Yoongi's impossibly hard cock is resting on his cheek, right where he's got some really stupid dimples that Yoongi hadn't even noticed yet, and Yoongi is going to kill him as soon as this is over, sexy country boy or not.
He growls and falls back, and Hoseok kisses his cock again like an asshole.
Yoongi stares at the ceiling and thinks as hard as he can past the murderous impulses, until he finally finds something to share. "So my apartment building has this rooftop garden area, nothing too big, but they keep all these plants and - holy fuck!"
The last comes when Hoseok takes him into his mouth unexpectedly, deep right away, and it's hot and wet and so perfect that Yoongi can't help but twitch into it like some kind of fucking inexperienced teenager.
He's about to apologize when Hoseok pulls off with a pop, eyebrows drawn together almost cutely. "Don't stop."
"Oh my god," groans Yoongi, but he wants that feeling back, he wants it bad enough to do pretty much anything, so he presses his nails into the palms of his hands and continues. "Right, so there's plants, like, I don't even know who takes care of them but they're there, and they're, oh my god, oh my fucking god they're really pretty. And late in the night, I go up there and I sit on this fucking, like, bench -"
He breaks off because Hoseok's got his fingers back behind his balls, pushing so perfectly, nearly catching on Yoongi's asshole before circling it tantalizingly, and Yoongi has not cleaned it for this encounter, who goes to a party at fucking Namjoon's country hanok expecting to find a sex demon with the fingers of, of, well, of a demon, and he's so hard and his dick has never been so intensely sucked…
The movement stops, this time with his cock still resting inside that delicious warmth, and Yoongi wants to scream. "God, okay, there's a bench. It's yellow. I don't even know, oh god, how they got it up there, and fuck! Do that again."
Hoseok laughs, a vibrating sensation around the head of Yoongi's cock that's honestly upsetting, and obliges with a twisting swipe of his tongue that tears an embarrassing moan out of the depths of his chest. Yoongi's breathing hard now, like he's been sprinting flights of stairs, and he pushes his fingers into Hoseok's soft hair and turns his entire mind to this stupid story. Get it over with, that's the trick. Get it over with.
"So at like, three in the morning the city's still awake, because it's always fucking awake, and you can't ever see stars but you can see these flowers. The flowers blooming at night and there's noise and all these people you don't know living their stupid lives and it feels like a miracle to be there. It feels like, it feels like, oh my god it feels… Hoseok, fuck, Hoseok, I'm gonna come."
Hoseok doesn't stop this time, massaging harder, hollowing his cheeks and taking Yoongi deeper, and in the instant before Yoongi explodes in the rush of endorphins he's been chasing and chasing he pulls off and away. Yoongi barely notices, because Hoseok's jacking him through it almost tenderly, coaxing the last remnants out with a gentle rhythm that has Yoongi seeing stars behind his closed lids.
When he opens them, feeling drunk and hazy and not all there, Hoseok's kissing his cheeks, one after the other like a French greeting that never ends. His hips rock, his cock hard and stuttering through Yoongi's mess of come, and Yoongi tries to meet him, tries to give him something back despite his missing brain.
"Yoongi," says Hoseok as soon as he feels it, moving to his mouth and kissing him deeply. "Yoongi can I come on you?"
"Yeah, yeah, come on me," says Yoongi, reaching around to grab Hoseok's ass with fumbling fingers. "God, yeah, that's fucking perfect, do it. Mess me up. You're so fucking hot, so hot."
He manages to force himself up, find the sharp edge of Hoseok's collarbone and bite down. It's just a little pressure but it's enough, and Hoseok gasps as his hips stutter in his least graceful rhythm of the night. Yoongi hangs on grimly, determined to not be a shitty lay who orgasmed too hard to participate, and Hoseok's quiet when he comes but this close Yoongi can feel every whine as he lets himself go.
Yoongi's arms give out as soon as he's done, and Hoseok rolls off of him and onto the mat like a sack of rice.
"God damn," Hoseok says with feeling, and Yoongi grunts agreement. "I fucking needed that."
"You're welcome," says Yoongi, and Hoseok laughs. More a giggle really, pleased and silly, and Yoongi tries to turn his head to glare. "Don't laugh at me, asshole."
Hoseok laughs harder, reaching over to poke Yoongi in the thigh. "'You're welcome.' You're so proper."
"I am not," says Yoongi, scowling. "I'm covered in come."
"Yeah, but properly!"
To Yoongi's horror Hoseok rolls over and ducks into the hall, naked as the day he was born, then returns a few minutes later with a wet towel slung over his shoulders. The upside is that Yoongi hadn't really seen his cock yet, and it's a nice one, groomed and slim and well-sized between his thighs. The downside is everything else, because Hoseok had just been naked in the hallway. The hallway where Namjoon sometimes is, and where people from the party have been all night to get to the bathroom.
He doesn't seem to notice Yoongi's freak out, dropping to his knees and wiping Yoongi off with a piece of the pastel towel set that Namjoon for some reason owns. He makes a few sounds under his breath as he does, maybe a song or maybe just general humming, and he leans back on his heels and shoots Yoongi a smile when he's done. "All clean."
It's a different smile than his earlier sensual efforts, this one kind and friendly, and Yoongi smiles back until he remembers his concerns.
"You went out there naked," he says.
"I was dirty," says Hoseok. "I wasn't going to put on my clothes!"
He leaves the room again, still naked, and comes back without the towel.
"And that time?" asks Yoongi dryly.
Hoseok winks and gyrates his hips. "It's more fun."
Yoongi covers his face, reddening against his will, and Hoseok chuckles as he gathers his clothes. It's long enough that Yoongi starts to get sleepy from the darkness, so he moves his hands and tries to watch Hoseok instead. Hoseok doesn't seem tired at all, he notes with displeasure, but it's too much work to voice it so he doesn't.
Hoseok's dressed by the time he comes back to the mat and lays on his side, propped up on his elbow, staring down at Yoongi's face.
"That was great," says Hoseok. "Thanks."
"Yeah," says Yoongi dumbly. He's never been great at this part, the part where he's expected to function after sex. Tae did a monologue, usually. "It was. You wanna stay?"
"Nah," says Hoseok. "Gotta open tomorrow. We always open a little later on Sunday, for the parties, but it's better if I'm there first. You know."
"Wow. The manager must love your dedication."
Hoseok's dimples pop again, and post-orgasm they seem a little less stupid and a lot more attractive. "Seeing as how it's me, I guess I do."
Yoongi frowns, trying hard. "You're the manager."
"And the owner," says Hoseok. He leans down and kisses Yoongi softly on the forehead, then the lips. "So I kind of have to be there."
"You own a grocery store?" says Yoongi, chasing the kiss before falling back onto his pillow in defeat. "Like, the whole thing?"
"The whole thing," says Hoseok, smiling again. "I think you need some sleep."
"I got a great blowjob."
"Mm, you did," says Hoseok. "You're welcome."
It's a teasing echo of Yoongi's previous tone, and Yoongi swats at him as he rolls onto his side. "How do you own a grocery store."
"If you stop by some time I'll tell you," says Hoseok. He pulls the nearby blanket over his still-naked body, tucking it around him with a few quick movements. "Only if you want to."
"I want," starts Yoongi, then yawns hugely. "I want to."
"Great," says Hoseok, getting up. "It was nice to meet you, Yoongi."
"Nice to meet you, too," says Yoongi, forcing his eyes open to watch Hoseok's great legs walk out the door. "Drive safe."
Hoseok laughs and says he will, then flips off the light and sends Yoongi into the depths of sleep before he's even aware he's falling.