Seokjin likes the California sun on the back of his neck. American ice cream tastes different from what he’s used to back home and the cacophony of unfamiliar words and accents leaves him feeling mute but the sun is much the same as that which burns his nose and soakes his skin with sweat back in Seoul. Namjoon mutters in furious, fast Korean every time they make a wrong turn and needs to be dissuaded from walking with his nose buried in a map. It doesn’t remind Seokjin of Seoul, but there have been holidays spent in Busan that make his frustration with directions all too familiar. 

If Seokjin had to compare San Francisco with any city in Korea, it would be Busan. The sun and the beach and the bridge match up so very well he sometimes wonders if it didn’t happen by design. Even the steady rise and fall of the streets could just as easily belong to either city, though the trams are a bit of a giveaway.

But the difference between San Francisco and Busan, America and Korea, is uncomfortably obvious. Here Seokjin and Namjoon walk hand in hand without a care to think up an excuse for doing so; Seokjin doesn’t understand much of what the English speaking Korean Americans ask them in the Japantown bars they visit after dark, but he understands Namjoon’s smile as his lips spell out the words, “he’s my boyfriend,” like it’s not the end of the world to admit as much to a complete stranger. 

It shouldn’t be the end of the world, Seokjin doesn’t see how two men kissing ever hurt anyone, but he remembers being barely old enough to understand what a crush was before he was taken aside by a classmate and informed that the one he was forming on a boy in the year below was disgusting. He’d grown up kissing girls he didn’t want to kiss and dreaming of the freedom to love that the internet had assured him could be found in the states.

It turns out that most of America is as bad as Korea if not worse, stories of queer teens stuck in suicidal emotional stagnation all too common and the desperation to keep celebrity uality under wraps as potent as that of Korean idols. By now Seokjin’s seen enough American TV and spoken to enough of Namjoon’s foreign friends to know that the line gets drawn far sooner in the west than it does at home, that there’s no excuse on earth that could justify two men holding hands as they walk down the street. Seokjin has never understood why any justification should be necessary.

“Just up here,” Namjoon points at a road sign and pulls Seokjin along a little faster. America suits him, Seokjin worries it suits him too well. He chats with the locals in an accent that apparently sounds fresh out of New York and glares daggers at anyone who snickers when Seokjin tries to join in the conversation with his flawed grammar and Seoul accent so heavy he can’t shift it,

“Let’s hear your Korean then er,” becomes Seokjin’s favourite English sentence within twenty four hours of landing. 

The break free of the line of buildings and emerge onto the seafront. The sun is beginning to set and in the impending half-light the Golden Gate Bridge looks more magnificent than ever. The sea is filled with late afternoon swimmers and the lights of the bars the harbour start to flicker on; red, blue, green…they come in all the colours of the rainbow and every time he sees them Seokjin has to remind himself that it’s quite intentional. 

“Why here?” Seokjin laughs. Namjoon shrugs,

“Supposed to give you the best view of the city.”

The sun, the sea, the bridge, a not-so-underground nightlife promising about as much tolerance as the western world can offer. Seokjin has no idea where Namjoon’s getting his information from, but he’s got a point.

“It’s not bad,” Seokjin pulls Namjoon close enough to smile into the crook of his neck, 

They stand on the pavement, Namjoon looking out to sea and Seokjin trying to pretend that at least fifty percent of his attention isn’t focused on the way Namjoon drops his hand to slip an arm around his waist. He’s sure they’ve been together for far too long for the weight of a familiar hand on his hip to be all that exciting, but he finds the certainty that Namjoon is there, not ‘a fling’ or ‘the start of something’ but really there, together with him because there’s no one else that he’d rather be standing on a beach half a world away from home watching the sun go down with more exciting than any first kiss. It makes his heart ache to the tune of lovesickness satisfied.

“Hey,” Seokjin pulls Namjoon round to face him. The long shadows cast by the setting sun through his features into sharp relief: his thick lips, the soft slope of his nose, the single dimple appearing as he breaks into a toothy grin.

They’re kissing before Seokjin’s sense of propriety can kick in. Back home they’re always so careful, always on the lookout for cameras when they go out in public. Here they take their chances and hope that anyone who might recognise them without their makeup and stage outfits is stranded on the other side of the pacific. 

Namjoon’s lips feel more familiar than Seokjin’s own, the way they pucker then relax into the kiss, the way they part just a little wider every time he pulls back to drink in the same air as him, the way they’re undemanding but intoxicating and Seokjin can’t help but melt into them and coax them into action against his own. It’s nothing they haven’t done before, but Seokjin’s heart is pounding in his chest and he’s sure that he’s forgotten how to breathe. 

They don’t part until Seokjin is very sure that they’ve made a spectacle of themselves. Sure enough, when he pulls back far enough to rest his forehead on Namjoon’s own he can see at least two faces suppressing giggles behind raised eyebrows. 

“I love you,” and again, Seokjin’s blood runs hot like he hasn’t been saying it for years.

Namjoon’s grin is bright enough to chase the early evening shadows away, “I love you too,” he replies. Seokjin will never get over the sincerity with which he always says it, his heart could burst.

An onlooker yells something at them and Namjoon’s shoulders shake from giggling. Seokjin looks round at the heckler now shooting them a double thumbs up, “what’s he saying?”

“He’s saying I should kiss you again. And then we should…take things somewhere more private,” a happy blush creeps into Namjoon’s cheeks. 

“I like the way they think,” Seokjin says, already leaning up to meet Namjoon’s lips again.