Coffee Love #20 - Not Changed
Word Count: 3,795

Date in Chapter: 2017 January 11

Note: Happens two days after Coffee Love #19.

Hoseok’s POV

        If there is one thing that Hoseok doesn’t want, it’s to be the stay-at-home partner. It’s the reason he decided to continue going to school. The reason he wants to go on with the residency training to, hopefully, become a physical therapist. He just can’t stand sitting around the house without anything to do once all of the chores are done. Now, since he’s just waiting for the residency program date to start, that’s what he’s been doing.

He loves the days like today. The days where his sister, or anyone else, isn’t busy and has time to come and hang out with him. Sometimes they stay at the house. Other times they take the dogs out for a walk around town. Today is one of those days. Despite the cold weather, the dogs still need their walks.

“Do you really want to go through with the residency training?” Jiwoo asks, holding Bean’s lead in her hand. The area in which the two are walking is one of the areas with a lot less dense traffic of people walking, but it’s one of the most unique shopping areas in the city with all sorts of antique shops and vintage clothing stores.

Hoseok grips tighter on Pistachio’s lead, only to loosen his hold again, wondering why his sister would suddenly bring that up. They were just on a topic about her work, so Hoseok sort of sees the connection. “I do.” Hoseok says, but he knows full well that doesn’t sound that sure of himself. He also knows that, if anyone can tell when he’s faking it, Jiwoo is the one.

“You don’t seem like you want to.” She points out. “Every time I bring it up, you sort of lose interest in the conversation and try to switch the subject.”

It’s true that Hoseok doesn’t like to talk about it. He’d rather not think about the future where he’ll be away from home, away from Yoongi for that long. There are many reasons as to why Hoseok might be second guessing himself, but there’s one really big reason that he’s afraid to admit. He knows that it would destroy Yoongi if he found out.

“I’m just…” Hoseok knows that he can talk to his sister about. Seokjin, who still holds onto a small amount of the distaste that he had toward Yoongi, would probably say something unnecessary, but he knows that he can trust Jiwoo. She loves Yoongi, and she cares about Hoseok. “I don’t know how well Yoongi hyung would do without me. He’s not as grown up as he likes to think he is.”

When he looks at his sister’s face, he can see a small sparkle of knowing in her eyes. She always knows when there’s something bothering her younger brother without him having to say anything. Maybe all sisters are like that. Maybe it’s a girl thing. But, then again, Hoseok can always tell when something’s bothering Yoongi.

“Hoseok, I know that’s not the problem. You know that’s not the problem. Yoongi was doing well taking care of himself before he met you.” Jiwoo says in that authoritarian tone that’s warning Hoseok he had better be honest with her before she tries to pry the reasoning from him. “So be honest, and tell me what the real issue is.”

Hoseok means to respond right away, but once he opens his mouth, no words come out. To think about it is somewhat painful, and to say it must be even more so. He hates himself for having the thought, and he feels like he’s somewhat not being as good as he could toward Yoongi. He should trust him enough, but…

“Yeah, and he was also ing around a lot before he met me.” Hoseok says, the words like poison on his tongue. He regrets it once the words are out there, but there’s no taking it back.

Jiwoo stops in her tracks, Bean whining the instant she stops moving—his harness having tugged him back as he tried to keep walking. Despite how lazy he is, he always gets impatient when sitting in once place for too long when they’re out walking—still another thing that he has in common with Yoongi. “He wouldn’t, Hoseok.” Jiwoo says, her voice firm. “You shouldn’t even be doubting him. You know that he’s changed a lot since meeting you, and he would never cheat on you just because you’re not there.”

“That’s the thing, Noona,” Hoseok says, his voice shaking. “He hasn’t changed. He’s exactly the same. The only difference is that he now has one person to do those things with. What happens when I’m gone? I really wouldn’t be surprised if—”

“Jung Hoseok.” Jiwoo snaps, and Pistachio growls at her. Hoseok tugs him back to keep him calm. “Yoongi would never do that to you.”

Hoseok doesn’t say anything immediately. He tries to hold his tears back. He hadn’t started crying yet, and it’s hard to keep himself from doing so.

“Have you talked to him about this?” Jiwoo asks after a while of Hoseok not saying anything.

Quickly, Hoseok shakes his head. “No,” He says. “I can’t tell him, and please don’t say anything.”

“Oh, I’m not going to.” Jiwoo says, and she starts walking again. “It’s not my place, but you need to talk to him about this.” She stops again. “Can we go back to your place now? I’m tired of walking.”

Hoseok laughs, but it’s only a small, half-hearted laugh. “Sure. I’m getting kind of hungry anyway.” He says, and he seriously contemplates whether or not this is something that he should talk to Yoongi about.

Jihoon’s POV

        One of Jihoon’s favorite things about interning at Suga Styles, he knows, is something that won’t always be the case when he’s a full-time employee here. He loves that he has such a flexible schedule, and he can sort of come and go as he pleases as long as he gets his work done. Like today. His advisor from his school had contacted him and asked to meet with him, and Yoongi let him go since he was caught up on everything that needed to be done.

Jihoon had no idea what his advisor wanted to talk about. She just told him that it had something to do with his plans after he graduated, so he was assuming that it had something to do with his career. What he didn’t expect was her telling Jihoon that he should consider working for other, larger companies to advance more in his field. It’s something he feels like he should talk to Yoongi about, mostly because he doesn’t really agree with her.

“Hyung,” Jihoon says, knocking on the outside wall of Yoongi’s office—the door being wide open.

Yoongi looks at him, Sungjong sitting in the chair across from him. They seem to be in the middle of something important, but it can’t be that serious if the door was open like it was. “Yes?” He responds.

“There’s just…I just want to ask you about something, but it can wait if you’re busy.” Jihoon says, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

“We’re not busy.” Sungjong says, closing up some files and gathering them up. “In fact, we were just wrapping up.”

He collects his things and leaves from the office.

Jihoon closes the door behind the secretary, and he makes his way to the desk, sitting in the seat opposite from the one that Sungjong had just been sitting in. “So my advisor was asking me about my career goals.” Jihoon tells him, thinking that’s the best way to start off.

Yoongi flashes a small, quick smile before slightly frowning. “That’s good.” He says, but he seems to already know that this isn’t exactly something that Jihoon is thrilled to be sharing with him. “Do you have any career goals?”

Jihoon shrugs, sitting back a little in the chair. “Not really.” Jihoon says. “I mean, other than working here. I thought I was kind of set.”

That small smile returns to Yoongi’s face, but it doesn’t exactly look like a happy one. “So you just want to be an intern forever?” Yoongi asks.

Jihoon shakes his head. “It’s not that.” He says. “I mean, I just…I didn’t choose to work here because I thought it would be easier to get into a small company like this. I came here because I admired you, and this is where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to go working for some large company where I wouldn’t even get that much recognition.”

Yoongi sighs, and Jihoon knows that he’s about to get a talk from the elder. “I know why you came here,” Yoongi assures him. “And I think you got a lot more out of it than you were expecting to. We both did.”

That’s true. Jihoon only came here looking for work, and to get into the company of a designer that he greatly admired. He never expected to learn that he had a half-brother he never knew about, and he most certainly wasn’t expecting to meet someone like Jungkook and fall in love so quickly. He didn’t expect to meet the best friends and family he could have ever asked for, and Yoongi probably never expected to meet his actual biological father.

“But, I think that a time will come that you’ll realize that you’ve gotten everything you can from working here. Just because this was your initial goal doesn’t mean it needs to be your last.” Yoongi says.

“So…you think I should try for larger companies?” Jihoon asks.

“I think you should put some thought into what you want to do in the future.” Yoongi tells him. “You have the potential for joining a larger company, but I think you’d also be successful in starting your own.”

“I don’t really want to start my own company,” Jihoon says, but he’s thankful for the compliments. “I don’t really know what I want to do.”

“Well, the good news is, you don’t have to decide right away.” Yoongi tells him. “You’re in a good place right now, so you can take your time to think about it.”

Jihoon nods, and Yoongi’s phone starts ringing. “I’ll think about it.” Jihoon says, standing from the chair to let Yoongi answer the phone.

Namjoon’s POV

        One thing that Namjoon finds himself doing a lot more is napping. It’s not that he didn’t nap before because he most certainly did, but he finds himself doing it a lot more frequently these days. Since Seokjin has to wake up in the morning, Namjoon is the one who gets up in the middle of the night to take care of Jinhee should he start crying. It’s not that Seokjin won’t do it, it’s that Namjoon won’t let him. He doesn’t like the idea of Seokjin not getting sleep before he has to go to work when Namjoon has all day to take naps between taking care of Jinhee and doing his work in his office.

Namjoon is pretty sure that it’s around noon when Jinhee starts crying again, waking him up from a nap that he had just lay down to take. Sighing, he gets up from the couch, and, just as he gets to his feet, Jinhee’s cries stop. Worried, Namjoon rushes to the room, only to find Seokjin holding the baby in his arms, and Namjoon is mildly confused. He should be at work right now, shouldn’t he?

“What are you doing home?” Namjoon asks, walking up to his husband.

“Am I not allowed to be here?” Seokjin questions, raising an eyebrow at the younger one.

Still in his uniform and not having showered yet, he still smells like the cafe. Namjoon hadn’t been there in a while, but the smell of coffee and different flavors of tea is something that he’s been missing these days.

Namjoon shakes his head. “What time is it?” He asks, grabbing his phone from his pocket to check the time. Apparently he hadn’t been napping for only a few minutes. Apparently it’s already been an entire two hours and it’s already two o’clock. The time that Seokjin decided to come home now that they have a baby to take care of

Jinhee starts to fall asleep in Seokjin’s arms, and Seokjin looks back at Namjoon. “Are we going to be the boring ones now?” He asks. Instead of sounding worried, he sounds more interested than anything. “You know, since we have a baby to raise. The kids and Hoseok and Yoongi are going to think of us as the boring ones.”

“Hyung, we’ve always been the boring ones.” Namjoon assures him, kissing Seokjin’s cheek before doing the same to Jinhee. “The only thing that’s changed is that we’re four boring ones now—including Latte.”

Seokjin smiles, looking down at their little baby. “I don’t actually mind being boring.” Seokjin tells him. “In fact, I kind of like it. Boring is comfortable.”

“Well, I personally think that you are anything but boring.” Namjoon assures him, and he takes the baby from Seokjin’s hand to set him back in his crib. He grabs Seokjin by the wrists, and pulls the elder closer to him. “I’m never bored when you’re around.”

Maybe other might find them boring, but Namjoon doesn’t think their life is boring. The changes that they’ve gone through in the past couple of months is anything but boring. Or, maybe Seokjin is right. Maybe boring is comfortable.

Jimin’s POV

        It’s only the start of the term for the evening class that Jimin is taking, so it’s not bad yet, but Jimin knows that his schedule will be a lot more crammed when he actually has to start getting started on projects and such. He’s not really looking forward to that, but at least it’s only once class on top of his work.

One thing is, Jimin doesn’t really like his instructor. He’s a fan of Jimin’s, apparently having seen the J-Hopeful dance performances on multiple occasions, but he seems a little weird to Jimin. Like, he kind of stares at him a lot, and he always pays extra attention to Jimin.

The instructor is making his rounds around the lab once more, and he stops behind Jimin when he reaches his desk. Jimin can feel him standing behind him, and it makes Jimin feel a little uncomfortable. “This is good,” He says, leaning over Jimin, and pointing to a few points in his code. “But I would recommend cleaning this up a little and making the instructions more clear for the person you’ll be sending this to for the next part.”

His arms go around Jimin, and he begins ruining what Jimin had already done. The instructor is hunched over him, and Jimin can almost feel his breath right against his ear. He pushes the instructor’s hand away, and starts editing the code himself. “Okay, I’ll fix it,” Jimin says, but he doesn’t see the problem with what he initially had. It was already pretty clean with straightforward instructions.

Already, Jimin is looking forward to completing this class so that he doesn’t have to deal with this instructor anymore. And it’s only his second day.

Jihoon’s POV

        When Jihoon arrives home from work, the only one there to greet him is the little kitten that Jungkook had gotten him for Christmas, and she’s only excited to see him because it means that she’ll get food. Feeding her is always the first thing Jihoon does when arriving home after his long day at Suga Styles. “Marble, where is Kookie when I need him?” Jihoon asks, scratching the cat on her back as she eats her food. Jungkook wasn’t supposed to have work today, but Seokjin may have called him in if someone didn’t show up.

After meeting with his advisor and having that talk with Yoongi, Jihoon has a lot on his mind, and he just wants to talk to Jungkook about it. Even if Jungkook isn’t the best at giving advice, Jihoon just likes to talk to him. He’s actually a surprisingly good listener when he wants to be.

Just when Jihoon rises back up, he hears the door being unlocked, and Jungkook is walking in shortly after. He’s in his gym clothes, so Jihoon assumes that’s where he must have been, but he carries take out bags of food with him. “Did you just get home?” Jungkook asks, setting the food on the coffee table.

“Just a few minutes ago.” Jihoon says, joining Jungkook in the living room.

“Good,” Jungkook says. He begins pulling the food out. “I got tacos and stuff, but I’m smelly from the gym. You can eat now, or you can wait for me to get out of the shower. It’s up to you.”

And he places a chaste kiss on Jihoon’s lips, escaping to the shower before Jihoon can say anything.

Jihoon hates eating separately, so he waits for Jungkook to get out of the shower before touching the food.

“Jungkook,” Jihoon says when Jungkook returns from the shower. There are couples that don’t discuss work together, and there are those that do. Jungkook and Jihoon definitely fall under those that do, always telling each other what’s going on with school and work. “Do you have any career goals?”

It’s unfortunate that the most annoying thing about Jungkook is simply that he’s cute all the damn time. He looks Jihoon in the eye as he chews his food, and it’s just too cute. “Not really,” Jungkook says. “I still haven’t even decided what I want to do yet, but I’m thinking about apprenticing at a tattoo parlor next semester so I can get my license.” He swallows his food. “Why do you ask?”

Jihoon shrugs. “No reason,” He says. “It’s just…my advisor told me that I should start thinking about my goals more seriously since I’m graduating this year, and she thought that I should look at bigger companies instead of working for Yoongi hyung my whole life.”

“I don’t think so.” Jungkook says, easily rejecting the idea.

“Why?” Jihoon asks.

“Because, if you work for a bigger company, you won’t have much creative freedom.” Jungkook tells him. “They’re probably already set in their ways, and they’ll have you follow exactly what they want you to do. With Yoongi hyung, he gives you plenty of freedom to explore and discover your own style. I think you can really grow as a designer in his company.”

Jungkook does have a point.

“Besides, how many CEO’s do you think are going to be as cool as Yoongi hyung?” Jungkook asks. “I don’t think many companies would allow me to be there while you’re working.”

“Well, having you there when you can be is one of my favorite things about my job.” Jihoon says, smiling at the younger. “I think I’ll stay there for a while.”

“Forever.” Jungkook says, and he leans across the table to kiss Jihoon.

Jimin’s POV

        Returning home from his class, Jimin wants to tell Taehyung about his instructor, but he finds Taehyung lying on his stomach on their bed. Clearly it’s not a good time to bring up his own personal suspicions. “Taetae,” Jimin says, walking into the room. Taehyung is just lying there with his arms folding in front of himself, resting his chin on them. “What are you thinking about?”

He doesn’t even look up at Jimin when he says, “Do you think we’ll be good parents?”

Jimin doesn’t know where this is coming from all of a sudden, though it does make sense for him to start thinking about it considering that Namjoon and Seokjin are parents now. “What do you mean?” Jimin asks.

“You know, I lost my mother when I was young.” Taehyung tells him. “I’ve always wished that she could be a part of my life, but she can’t. She’s gone.”

“Taehyung…”

“And we’re two guys.” Taehyung says, pushing himself up now. “Our children won’t have a mother. Do you think they’ll feel like this?”

Jimin doesn’t know what to say. He knows that having a family is one of Taehyung’s main goals in life, and the idea of not having a good family is scary to him. Especially considering the home he grew up in.

“I don’t think so.” Jimin says. “Our kids will have both of us, and I think they’ll be okay with that.”

“But everyone has a mom.” Taehyung says. “Even if she’s not a part of their life, every person comes from a mother, and our kids will wonder who she is. Like Yoongi hyung wondered who his father was.”

“Then the only thing I can say is, we’ll deal with those problems as they come up.” Jimin says. “We’re not even planning on a family yet, so it’s not something we have to worry about right now.”

Taehyung sighs, and he pulls Jimin in for a kiss. “I love you,” Taehyung says, seeming to let go of the issue just like that.

“I love you, too.” Jimin says back, glad that it can sometimes be easy to get Taehyung over problems sometimes.

Yoongi’s POV

        “Hyung,” Hoseok says when he joins Yoongi in bed later that evening, the two dogs curled up at their feet. He seems to be bothered by something, but Yoongi’s not a mind reader, so he doesn’t know what.

“What’s up?” Yoongi asks, closing the book that he’s reading and setting it aside.

“You know, when we first became boyfriends, you admitted to still having thoughts of other people.” Hoseok tells him. “Do you still?”

Yoongi shakes his head. “Nope.” He says. “I can’t even imagine myself with someone else.” And then he wonders. “Why?”

“I was just wondering.” Hoseok tells him. “Other than telling me that one time, we haven’t talked about it much, so I was just wondering if you still thought things like that.”

“Has it been bothering you for a long time?” Yoongi asks him, narrowing his eyes at the younger.

“Not really,” Hoseok says. “It’s just…”

“The training?” Yoongi asks.

Hoseok nods.

“Look,” Yoongi says, pulling Hoseok to lie down, and positioning himself on top of the other. “I’ll miss the hell out of you while you’re gone, but there’s no way in hell I’ll be looking to get anything from someone else. I want you, Hoseok. Only you.”

Hoseok’s worry is understandable, and Yoongi doesn’t really blame him for thinking like that. Honestly, it’s something that Yoongi worries about, too, not knowing how he’ll handle Hoseok being gone for such a long time, but he’s not going to share that with Hoseok. He has to trust himself enough to be faithful. He has to.