"Hey..."

Seokjin nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned around at the speed of a bullet train, ready to fling a chair at whoever broke in because everyone else had left since it was Seokjin's turn to do the final check ups.

"Oh, it's you," Seokjin sighed as he placed the chair down and put some distance between the furniture and himself when he found an alarmed Taehyung at the doorway of the staff room.

"Yeah, Eommoni forgot her pendrive in the office so she sent me," Taehyung answered as he attempted to lean against the doorframe and cross his arms but his satin shirt made him slip into an awkward position so he stood upright.

Talking about satin shirts, Taehyung looked like a deity of the night in dark blue, especially with those few buttons at the top being unbuttoned.

"You returning home?" Taehyung asked, slowly waltzing towards Seokjin who was finishing up ticking his mental checklist while discreetly taking peeks at Taehyung's barren chest.

"Um," Seokjin contemplated. "I'm not sure."

"Oh." Taehyung didn't sound too surprised. "Do you wanna...um, do you wanna like- I mean, since you're not sure, I'm assuming you're not busy- so-"

"Sorry," Taehyung muttered, rubbing one of his reddened cheeks that were now bunched up as a result of his flustered smile. 

"Do you wanna hang out?" 

"Do you think I'll say no?" Seokjin chuckled, ears warming up pleasantly.

They silently walked to the parking lot, arms grazing every now and then before getting into Taehyung's car.

"Where are we going?" Seokjin asked as the parking lot opened to the road.

"I'm not sure," Taehyung replied. The teasing smile and his one hand on the steering wheel made Seokjin feel a little feral.

"Are you kidnapping me?" Seokjin played along. "Should I call Yoongi?"

"Hyung, I'm a little alarmed that your first option is Yoongi- I mean, Yoongi hyung, instead of the police."

Seokjin let out soft tufts of laughter which he caught with his palm.

"Why do you cover your mouth when you laugh? You're cute anyways- uh, I mean, um- well, uh-"

"Sadly, there's no delete button in real life conversations, right Tae?" Seokjin said, biting down on his smirk.

"Ah, hyung..." Taehyung complained bashfully.

"Oh, fuck." Seokjin heard Taehyung mutter under his breath.

"It's okay," Seokjin reassured. "I don't think we'll be stuck too long."

Taehyung sighed and accepted his fate of being stuck in traffic.

"Everyone's returning home at this hour... we'll be here for like, I don't know, thirty minutes minimum?" Taehyung said in a exasperated tone, thumb on the horn as if he was tempted to honk at everyone in his path.

"Hey, it's al- oh, you dropped your earring." Seokjin bent down to scoop up the shiny rose-shaped object on the floor of the car.

"Oh! It's Jimin's actually. No wonder he couldn't find it anywhere. Did you know he made me and Jungkook search inside salt and sugar containers too? What a menace." Taehyung chuckled and pocketed the earring and gave it a good pat.

"He must really love his jewellery," Seokjin commented, before having a brief, painful flashback. "Hyejin once turned my room into a wasteland because she couldn't find her other daisy earring."

"In her defense, daisy earrings are cute. Jimin looks great in flower earrings and Jungkook usually sticks to plain rings or studs. Do you know Jungkook has like eleven piercings?" Taehyung said with pride.

"Woah, really? I stopped at three and one of them closed," Seokjin recounted.

"I've never seen you wear earrings, hyung," Taehyung pointed out while his hand reached out to roll Seokjin's earlobe between his fingers, causing redness to bloom in tremendous amounts.

"Yeah, I pierced them after uni and I'm staying with my parents right now, so... you know how it is," Seokjin mumbled the last part, eyes fixed on the glaring lights of the vehicles.

Taehyung hummed in understanding and drummed his fingers on the wheel.

"You... uh, you lied to your parents about arriving just recently, right? Wait- no, wait, I'm sorry. No, don't reply to that, sorry. I-" Taehyung groaned internally and exhaled, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"It's okay," Seokjin said quietly, eyes falling to his lap. "You're right. I lied."

"We don't have to talk about-" Taehyung began frantically.

"No, no it's fine," Seokjin reassured before getting panicky himself. "I mean, if you're uncomfortable listening to my family problems-"

"No! No, definitely not. Of course, not, hyung," Taehyung cut him off urgently.

Composing himself in a second, Taehyung said gently "I'm happy to listen to you, hyung. I'm really glad that you trust me enough to share things like this."

"Yeah," Seokjin murmured.

"I came back because of Hyejin," Seokjin began, looking outside the window. 

"She... well, as you know, she's dating Sarang and she needs my support because our parents..." Seokjin sighed, eyebrows contracting. "I hate to say this but the truth is, our parents are biased towards me."

Taehyung nodded as if he had already  figured it out.

"So Hyejin thought I'd be able to convince my parents or make them understand about their relationship. I just didn't want to meet them yet so I stayed with Yoongi for some time. Moreover..." 

Seokjin swallowed his bitterness. "Moreover, Hyejin doesn't really give a shit about me. Her brother returned after years but that's not important to her. I was so excited to meet her finally. My twin- the very person I shared every bit of my life with-I just- Tae, I thought-"

"Hey, hey..." Taehyung covered Seokjin's hand with his own and squeezed it firmly.

"Sorry," Seokjin muttered, blinkng furiously and snifling.

"Don't be, hyung. Here..." Taehyung moved his weight towards Seokjin to hug the older awkwardly due to the limited space for twisting and turning.

Seokjin giggled when Taehyung moved away and kind of wished Taehyung would hold his hand again.

"I thought I'd live with Hyejin and plan things out with her before telling my parents that I'm back but when I landed, she called me to say that Sarang comes over often so it would be weird for her if I stayed with Hyejin. She didn't even come to the airport although she wasn't working that day. So Yoongi came to the rescue."

"Also, I didn't wanna be idle so I got a job at your mom's cafe and my parents don't know about it, of course, so I had to delay meeting them even more. I give them all sorts of weird excuses to go to work and I think they're suspecting that I'm seeing someone. Can you believe it?!"

Seokjin's pouty question was answered by Taehyung's stuttering. 

"I mean- yeah, you know, parents- parents think like that all the time and, uh- like, they're not wrong- I mean, the possibility of you seeing someone is actually not unlikely so, um-"

"Tae," Seokjin stopped the train of jumbled words. "I meant, can you believe that they would think I would meet someone at 7 in the morning?"

"Of course! I mean- um- oh, the traffic is breaking-" Taehyung changed gears and began to drive.

"So have you decided where you're kidnapping me to?" Seokjin asked cheekily.

"Oh, yeah, the cemetry."

"How romantic."

"Hyung, this is a kidnapping."

Seokjin burst into laughter, and this time, Taehyung held his hand down. Seokjin didn't bother to use the other hand to cover his mouth. 

_________

"-and then, Jimin was like,"But Taehyungie you love me to the stars and back so please, pose as my professor!".  The nerve of this guy for thinking I'd pretend to be his professor on the phone."

"Well, did you?"

"...of course," Taehyung grumbled. "I had to sing some praises too, so his mom would leave him alone for a while. I was kinda surprised that Auntie fell for it because, like, she's known me for years but I guess I'm not a bad voice actor."

"I think you're a great friend, Tae," Seokjin said softly.

They sat in comfortable silence inside the bonnet of Taehyung's car with their limbs hanging out. Taehyung had driven them to an open space in the vicinity of a lake that wasn't too far from the cafe. It was somewhat away from the main road and city lights, so it was quite serene. There were other cars dotting the area so Seokjin guessed it must have been a pretty well known place to visit at the quiet hours with the chilly, gentle breeze caressing your skin and a strange scent of nostalgia that Seokjin could not pin-point. He liked it. And he liked having Taehyung next to him.

"How long will you be here, hyung?" Taehyung asked in a small voice.

"Maybe...until Christmas?"

"And when will you visit again?"

Seokjin bit his lips. When he first left the country, he had no intention of returning. Away from the title and pressure of being the family's golden, porcelain doll was an opportunity Seokjin never wanted to give up. Even though he got inevitably homesick every once in a while, Seokjin barely considered the idea of permanently returning. He had a job enough to support himself, he had a couple of kind people to accompany him from time to time and he was just wallowing in the pleasure of doing whatever he wanted after working- something he had little to no chance to do when he lived with his family. Wait, what was Taehyung asking again?

"Hyung..."

"Yeah!" Seokjin turned to Taehyung like lightening before saying calmly, "Yeah?"

There was a certain shade of blue behind Taehyung's eyes as he said, "I'm gonna miss you."

Seokjin's heart did a weird thing that made him want to lie down. 

"Well, at least we have each other's numbers now," Seokjin said, trying to sound upbeat.

"Hyung, I-" Taehyung took a deep breath and closed his eyes before exhaling heavily.

"I really like- I really like what we're doing right now, like, um- like, I wish you stayed a little longer so we could uh- you know, spend more time together like this- like, back in uni, we didn't get to- you know, spend time like this and I, well- um-"

"Tae." Seokjin carefully placed his hand on top of Taehyung's. 

"Sorry, hyung." Taehyung gave him a flustered smile.

"Ah, this fucking sucks," Taehyung groaned loudly as he stretched out his arms over his head, hitting the roof of the car and wincing before shifting his weight to his hand which he planted on the floor of the boot and leaned to his side with his body turned towards Seokjin. This made his shirt reveal a tempting amount of his chest.

"Hey, where are you looking, hm?" God, why did Taehyung have to sound so sultry while, holy shit, wetting his lips like he wanted to... like he...

"Tae..." Seokjin breathed out, head going fuzzy because shit, were they leaning towards each other?

No, he was imagining it right? But he could feel the warmth and minty scent of Taehyung's breath...feel their clothes brush against the other...feel the rapid beating of his heart... why was it taking so long? Just a few more moments and...

DUN DUNUNDUNDUN DUN DUN

"Fuck."

DUNDUN DUNUNUNDUN DUN

"Where is that damn phone- uh, oh- Hello? Eommoni, yeah...no! Yeah... yeah, I know..."

Seokjin felt too astounded to move. He just sat there really still, not paying attention to what Taehyung was saying but staring at the empty space which was previously filled by their proximity. Or did Seokjin make it up in his head? He did have a long day at the cafe because of kitchen duties...

"-leave now or she'll flog me to death."

"Huh?" Seokjin blinked a couple times.

"It's Eommoni. I totally forgot about the pendrive," Taehyung grieved his horrible luck.

"Oh! We better get going then!"

When Taehyung started the engine, he said, "Hyung, just so you know, you don't have to worry about Eommoni being mad. This happens all the time."

"Okay..."

Seokjin insisted on being dropped near Taehyung's house, claiming that he could call a Uber and return home but the younger was adamant on seeing his hyung get inside his house safely.

"Woah- woah, you're rich," Taehyung said in fascination as they stopped in front of a penthouse; Seokjin didn't find it flattering because it looked like two slabs of marble stacked on top of each other with no greenery or pool to bring any sort of life to the house.

"My parents are rich," Seokjin muttered, opening the door to leave.

"Thanks for today, hyung," Taehyung murmured before Seokjin could get out.

"I should be thanking you instead," Seokjin protested softly. He hesitated a little but then rested his hand on Taehyung's shoulder. But then he got confused trying to devise his next move so he just let his hand glide down to Taehyung's elbow in a low-key suggestive manner.

"Um, goodnight, Tae," Seokjin said before exiting the car in a flash, screaming in his mind for embarrassing himself in front of Taehyung and probably blacklisting his name for being a weirdo.

But little did he know that he had left  Taehyung having a full-fledged system meltdown.