The Scenario Duo

He had always been busy, that was what you signed up for. Even though you tried to remind yourself of that, it was becoming tricky to keep your emotions in check. Jungkook rarely called or texted you while he was at work, and you were starting to wonder where he was staying on the evenings he didn’t return home. Any other time, you’d brush it off as him just falling asleep in his studio when he was too tired to make the commute home. But recently, the feeling that something was wrong started to creep up on you. Other than how absent he was, you really had no reason to think he might be doing something immoral like cheating, but the more Jungkook ignored your good morning texts, the more likely it seemed.

You’d already texted him when you woke up, but since it was your day off you started to feel a bit lonely. The apartment felt empty without him mumbling to himself while he got ready, or ruffling your hair whenever he walked by. So, you texted him one more time, just to say you missed him and hoped work was going well. After sending the message, you stared at the screen, hoping for a response. Quickly you realized that he was probably not going to text you back at all, much less instantly. To keep yourself from obsessing over it too much, you put your phone on the nightstand and returned to the living room. Maybe keeping the phone out of your sight would stunt the urge to check it every thirty seconds. It didn’t.

About an hour after you sent the message, you heard the faint sound of keys jingling in the lock. Without moving from your seat on the couch, you twisted around to watch the door. Jungkook was still at work, and you were pretty sure you hadn’t called maintenance to fix anything that day and they usually knocked before coming in. Sure enough, Jungkook walked in, kicking off his shoes by the door and throwing a quick “hey” in your general direction.

“You’re home? It’s only two.” You registered how you must have sounded to Jungkook, and added, “Not that I mind, of course, I’m just…surprised.”

He walked past the couch towards the kitchen, not stopping to mess up your hair like he usually did. “Yeah, I forgot my wallet and my lunch this morning. Jin offered to pay for delivery, but that would have been the second time this week he’s bought me food so I came home instead,” he explained, rummaging through the fridge. While he was talking, you joined him in the kitchen, sitting on the counter.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too,” he said casually, not even sparing you a glance.

“Jungkook?”

“Yeah?” he responded, not looking up from the sandwich he was making himself.

He was not going to make this any easier for you, was he? “Is everything okay?”

“Of course it is, babe. Work has been hectic. It’ll be over soon.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.” He glanced up at the clock on the microwave, and, upon noticing the time, he hastily threw the final toppings on his lunch. “Shit. Sorry, I have to go, I’m going to be late for our recording session.” While he dashed into the bedroom to grab his wallet, you slid off the counter and packed his sandwich into a bag and grabbed him a little box of banana milk. When he came back, he gave you a fleeting side hug as thanks before grabbing his food and nearly running out the door.

Now that you were alone again, you couldn’t tell if you felt better or worse now that you’d seen him. While you tried to process how Jungkook had hardly even glanced at you the entire time he was home, you stood in the kitchen, starring at an invisible spot on the floor. After a couple minutes of this, you recognized that standing here, overthinking everything would get you nowhere. You couldn’t help it though, this had been building for weeks and his short visit today made everything feel like it was crashing down on you.

“I need a nap,” you announced to the empty apartment before consequently curling up in bed. With any luck, you’d be able to sleep away the insecurities and doubts that filled your head. The whirlwind of doubt and anxiety that filled your head made it hard to fall asleep. After who knows how long just lying there, your body took pity on you and you dozed off.

The sounds of plastic clicking together and rustling fabric woke you. Opening your eyes just enough to see, vision still blurry from sleep, you spotted the familiar figure of your boyfriend rummaging through the closet.

“Jungkook?” Your voice was dry and scratchy, and almost quiet enough that he didn’t hear you. Jungkook turned his head, frowning when he saw you propped up on your elbow.

“Hey, Jagi. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep and I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

Even though you were only half awake, you could tell it was still too early for him to be home considering the sun was still up. In the past, sometimes he would get home early and just fall asleep right away. Recently however, it was rare to see him home before 10 or 11, much less come home twice in one day.

“You’re early?”

Jungkook smiled to himself, he loved hearing you talk when you were groggy because it was adorable. “We finished recording sooner than expected, and since they didn’t need me anymore, they let me go home.” Finally finding the sweatshirt he’d been looking for, he turned around to see you sitting upright, rubbing at your eyes. “Go back to sleep, babe. I didn’t mean to interrupt your nap.”

“I don’t want to.”

Chuckling slightly at the whiny tone that had entered your tone he asked, “Why not?”

“Because I’ve missed you. I don’t want to sleep now that you’re here.”

Jungkook tugged the sweatshirt on while walking towards the bed. He perched on the edge while you scooted towards him to wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in for a hug. “Why don’t we cuddle then? Why were you taking a nap in the middle of the day anyway?”

You nodded, deciding to avoid the second question and hope Jungkook wouldn’t notice. It was a relief to have him actually acknowledging your existence instead of hardly making eye contact and not even giving you a kiss goodbye like he’d done earlier in the day. As soon as you were both comfortable, Jungkook on his back with your head on his chest, he asked again, “Did you not sleep well last night? Is that why you were napping?”

“No, I slept fine. I, um…wasn’t feeling well and was hoping a nap would help.” You snuggled a bit closer to him, draping a leg over his.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Jungkook could feel you wiggling beside him, and it was clear you were avoiding the subject. He didn’t like to pressure you into telling him anything, even if your distress was so obvious it was like someone had written it on your forehead, but he hadn’t been around enough lately to know if this was a recurring issue or a one time thing. A hand reached over and lightly rubbed your back. “You can tell me, Y/N. What’s going on?”

“It’s kind of silly,” you sighed, knowing that no matter how much you prolonged it if Jungkook was determined to get this out of you he would.

“I’m sure it’s not as silly as you might feel like it is.” He was right. He was always right.

“You’ve been gone a lot lately…” Hugging you a little tighter he planted a kiss on the crown of your head as he waited for you to admit what he probably already knew. The affection helped you relax, and you felt readier to talk about how lonely you’d been feeling. “And I’m worried that you’re not around as much because you’re upset with me or don’t like me anymore. Before you say anything I know you’re really busy with this album and I would never ask you to sacrifice your work for me, but…then you stopped answering my texts and you barely looked at me when you were home earlier. I started worrying that you weren’t just busy and you didn’t want to be around me anymore. I know it’s ridiculous.”

Jungkook nuzzled against your head as you spoke, feeling incredibly guilty. He’d realized about a week ago that he had been avoiding you, even if he didn’t mean to. “I’m so sorry, Jagiya. I didn’t mean to worry you. I haven’t been avoiding you or avoiding coming home because I’m upset with you. I’ve been so stressed out and worried about work and this album that I thought if I spent too much time at home I’d start taking it out on you. Yoongi and I got into a little argument before lunch and I was still kind of mad when I got here. I just didn’t want you to worry about me. I’m really sorry. I’ll be home more from now on, okay?”

“It’s okay, Kookie. I’m just glad you’re not upset with me.” You propped yourself up on his chest so you could look at him. He grinned when he saw the expression you used when you were only pretending to be upset. “You can tell me anything too, you know that right? Next time just tell me you’re stressed.”

“I know, I know.” His arms wrapped around your waist and tugged you closer. “I didn’t want to make you worry about me, but clearly that didn’t work.”

“Clearly.” You rolled your eyes at him, smiling immediately after so he would know it was a joke.

“Let me take you on a date this weekend to make up for being gone so much. We haven’t done that in a while, have we?”

“We haven’t, where are we going to go?”

“Anywhere you want,” he said matter of factly. “Doesn’t matter to me as long as I get to spend time with you.”

He stretched, quickly cataloging anything that felt off, but was surprised to find that, aside from his aching head and some nausea, he felt…alright. In fact, he felt much better than he would have expected to feel. With his physical wellbeing in-check, Seokjin laid back in the unfamiliar sheets (that smelled of something soft and subtly sweet) and closed his eyes. With a heavy sigh, he tried to pull memories from the night before to the front of his mind. He remembered meeting Taehyung to pregame, then going to the party at one of the fraternities on campus. Once they had gotten there, they had met up with Namjoon and Jimin, who were several shots in as well. The four of them had quickly downed a few more shots (with a toast to making questionable choices) before they had danced. Well, Jimin had danced. Everyone else supported him with flailing limbs and motions that could have been dancing had they been less inebriated. Then Namjoon had seen Yoongi and disappeared, leaving Seokjin sitting on a couch, giggling, while he watched Jimin and Taehyung dance together. Namjoon had eventually returned with another shot and that was when things started to get blurry. Seokjin had vague memories that involved beer pong, more dancing, and someone…someone that he couldn’t place, and he was hit by a surprisingly intense feeling of longing. Whoever he had met last night, they were someone that he wanted to remember.

With his new mission driving him, Seokjin found the will to sit up, careful to not aggravate his head or stomach any further. He was struck with immense gratitude toward whomever had thought to leave the aspirin and Gatorade for him. With the tablets swallowed and the Gatorade in hand, he stood and glanced around the room. The walls were bare and the room was sparsely furnished, but the crumpled bedsheets and cluttered desk suggested that the room was well-lived in. He turned to look at the bedside table and noticed for the first time that there was a note taped to the lampshade.

‘Hyung,

Yoongi Hyung and I had to leave early for our internships, but Yoongi Hyung’s roommate said that he would leave food in the microwave for you. Take it easy.

Namjoon’

As Seokjin looked over the note, he had vague recollections of Namjoon and an Uber. There had been other people too, most likely Yoongi and his nameless roommate, if the note was anything to go by. At least Seokjin knew where he was now. He had never been to Yoongi’s apartment before, but the high-quality sheets and memory foam mattress in a barely furnished bedroom that smelled like warm blankets and vanilla suddenly made a lot of sense.

Seokjin set the note back down on the end table and, as he pulled his hand back, he noticed a black smudge on his right palm. He lifted his hand to get a better look and realized that, in a slightly smudge, unfamiliar scrawl, there was the hashtag “hopeonthestreet”. With another heavy sigh, Seokjin added that to the list of mysteries that he would need to solve this morning, but his number one priority was taking care of his rolling, grumbling stomach.

Seokjin walked to the bedroom door, opening it to reveal a short hallway that looked out into the living room. As Seokjin walked down the hall, he took note of how the living room was significantly brighter and more colorfully decorated than Yoongi’s bedroom had been. The black and white furniture (that seemed characteristic of Yoongi) was decorated with colorful throw pillows, knitted blankets, and figurines that Seokjin was certain must have been selected by the roommate. Seokjin was beginning to like this roommate more and more, especially when he turned to the left and into the kitchen to find a bright note on the microwave.

‘Good morning, Seokjinnie Hyung!

There is a bowl of my famous hangover soup in the microwave. Heat it up and enjoy it well!

#hopeonthestreet’

Seokjin hummed as he looked from the note to the writing on his hand.

A clue.

Seokjin once more took a moment to thank his friends and this mysterious roommate for taking pity on a hungover Seokjin and making his morning just that much easier to get through.

Mysterious hashtags could wait, however, because Seokjin had something very important to do first. So, with a look of pure determination, he pressed the express cook button on the microwave. The aroma that soon began to fill the room had Seokjin’s mouth watering and his stomach growling. He had been blessed. He truly believed that this soup was a gift from the gods, which was proven to be accurate when he finally tasted a spoonful and actually melted in the chair. Hangover be damned. Nothing was going to ruin the moment that he was having with this soup.

But, alas, all good things must come to an end. And so too came the much-too-early end of his soup. Being a good houseguest, Seokjin washed the dishes and set them on a hand towel by the sink to dry before returning to Yoongi’s room and beginning a hunt for his phone and wallet, both of which had been worryingly absent that morning. After digging around in the blankets and looking under the bed, Seokjin came to the concerning conclusion that his phone and wallet were not in the bedroom. Feeling his pulse quicken (which in turn made his head throb, but that was the least of his worries at that moment), he left the room and took up his search in the living room and kitchen.

Ten minutes. Nothing.

Thirty minutes. Still nothing and Seokjin was beginning to panic.

Forty-five minutes. Seokjin sat on the couch, accepting his defeat as there were only so many places that a phone and wallet could be in a small two-bedroom apartment.

An hour and Seokjin was trying to set a plan for how he was going to get back to his own dorm and contact his bank to alert them of his missing wallet, when the apartment door opened and in came a man that Seokjin had never seen before.

The man, however, seemed to be familiar with Seokjin, as his face lit up with pure joy. “Hyung,” he called, walking up to Seokjin and sitting down next to him, the most adorable heart-shaped smile that Seokjin had ever seen gracing his lips, “I am glad that you are awake! Did you eat your soup? Did you like it? How do you feel?”

Now, Seokjin was not often left at a loss for words. In fact, he took pride in his ability to have some kind of quick response for nearly every situation. And yet, here he was, staring like an idiot because he had the most gorgeous man he had ever seen sitting in front of him.

The man had beautiful lips that pulled back into the kind of unique smile that had Seokjin’s stomach going haywire, but from butterflies and not the nausea (or so he hoped). His hair fell in front of his eyes, looking slightly damp, as though he had just showered or had been sweating, and Seokjin tried not to let his mind take the imagery and run with it (a task that seemed almost super-human in the moment). His toned arms were on clear display, as were his collarbones and perfectly defined chest, in the loose tank top that he was wearing. Seokjin had to look up quickly to avoid wandering into dangerous territory, but between admiring his high cheekbones and his cute nose, Seokjin noticed that a slight smirk had settled on the man’s lips. With a start, he realized that he had definitely been checking this man out and this man had definitely noticed.

In a last-ditch effort to save his dignity and cause a distraction, he blurted out, “the soup was so good that I think I may have actually been blessed by the gods. It was excellent…soup-er even.”

And there went the last bit of his dignity. It flew out of the window with any hope that he had for making a good impression. The man was frozen on the couch, staring at him and Seokjin was ready to die and escape his cruel fate and –

Then the man was laughing, loud and bright; he clapped his hands together as if to emphasize his delight. “Oh man,” he said, wiping at a stray tear in the corner of his eye, “I was wondering if the puns were just a thing that you did when you were drunk, but I am so glad that they aren’t.”

While Seokjin was drowning in relief that he did not ruin his chance to impress the angel in front of him, that last half of the sentence gave him pause.

“Wait…we know each other?”

“We met last night.”

And so, being ever helpful even if not very timely, Seokjin’s brain supplied him with some of his missing memories from the night before: Yoongi bringing his roommate over, said roommate dancing excitedly with Jimin and Taehyung, the roommate telling Seokjin about his dancing, the roommate wrapping his long fingers around Seokjin’s wrist to write his hashtag on his palm, the roommate wrapping his arm around Seokjin’s shoulders in the car, and the feeling of lips on his forehead while he snuggled into Yoongi’s pillow and wished a heart-shaped smile goodnight. In an unsurprising betrayal, his brain threw in that last memory, which promptly made Seokjin’s cheeks turn bright red.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” the man responded, his smile returning and causing Seokjin to blush even darker.

(Was it still too late to accept his demise?)

“You seemed pretty tipsy last night. Are you feeling okay this morning?”

“Uh,” Seokjin mumbled, trying to convince his brain to focus on the conversation at hand, “I’m okay, all things considered.”

“All things considered?”

“The hangover, waking up in a strange place, my phone and wallet are missing…” Seokjin let his sentence trail off. He liked to think that he wasn’t a messy drunk and yet…

“Oh! Well, I can help with at least two of those things,” the man said, standing and moving down the hall. He returned quickly and, much to Seokjin’s relief, he brought Seokjin’s phone and wallet with him. “You are in the apartment that Yoongi Hyung and I share just off campus,” he said before he sat and held the contents of his hands out to Seokjin, “and I ended up keeping everyone’s things in my jacket pockets so that nothing got lost. I meant to set them out for you this morning, but I must have forgotten. I’m sorry.”

Despite his hour of panic not even twenty minutes earlier, Seokjin couldn’t find it in himself to be upset. “No need to apologize! In fact, I owe you one…”

“Oh!” The man looked at him with the most adorably shocked expression before he stood up and struck the most ridiculous pose. “I am your hope!” A new pose. “I am your angel!” Some ridiculous aegyo. “J-Hope!”

Seokjin had never fallen in love so quickly.

“But J-Hope is just my stage name. My actual name is Hoseok. Jung Hoseok.”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“What ‘what’?”

“Are you proposing to me?”

Silence.

“Hyung, if you are going to propose, you should at least ask me out on a date first. I might not look like it, I but I love to be wooed.”

More silence.

“So what made you fall for me? My good looks? My humor? My aegyo?”

“The soup.”

A pause. “I’ll take it. I like a man who knows what he wants.”

And in the most surprising twist of events that day (which is really saying something), Seokjin found himself leaving the unfamiliar apartment with his phone, his wallet, his dignity, and a date.

A/N: Hey, All!

This one is for my friends, @theformallynamedblog and @onefabulouspokemon, and their love for Seokjin and Hoseok respectively.

You can find it on AFF here.

Feel free to send us messages and questions if you have any!