“I’ll go.”

Seokjin’s knife stopped mid onion. “What?”

“You wanted to see the gallery on Saturday right?” Yoongi asked.

“… yes,” Seokjin’s cellphone almost fell from where it was wedged between his ear and his shoulder.

“I have the afternoon off. You’ll have to drive, I don’t get my license back for another three months.”

Seokjin could see it. In his mind, he could see Yoongi smiling sheepishly and running a hand through his hair as he asks for help.

“Sure, that’s – I’ll pick you up at four.”

There was a pause.

Seokjin gnawed on his bottom lip.

The line went dead.

Seokjin pulled the cell phone from where it was and stared.

He adjusted his hearing aid, made sure it was . It was at the highest setting.

After a minute he sighed. He cleaned up the kitchen, he was too warm to eat a hotpot. Maybe Chinese take-out would be enough.

~~

A memory of Yoongi.

Him shirtless, dog tags visible, leaning against Seokjin’s balcony overlooking the Seoul skyline. Yoongi was hard where Seokjin was soft, from his years of military service, military service Seokjin was exempt from. Seokjin could trace the muscles with his hands, if Yoongi allowed.

Yoongi pulled out a box of cigarettes. He rested one between his lips and searched for his matchbox.

“Love is like matchsticks,” he said, “it burns brightly only for a moment.”

Seokjin watched the smoke trail fade into the sky, adding monoxide to the poisonous city air. Seokjin hated cigarettes. He hated the rancid smell that would linger on Yoongi’s skin and hide bury itself on his coat sleeves.

Seokjin stood next to him, “No, love is more like a bonfire. It needs tending to be kept alive.”

“Bonfires eventually go out.”

Seokjin chewed on his bottom lip, “There were vestral s in Ancient Rome, whose only job was to keep the sacred flame alive. Love is like that.”

“Ancient Rome doesn’t exist anymore,” Yoongi stubbed out the cigarette, “Why should we learn from them?”

Seokjin didn’t answer.

The city lights bounced off Yoongi’s face, illuminating white skin in brilliant Technicolor, highlighting deep set bags under his eyes, and the missed stubble of where he shaved that morning.

Beautiful, came to mind.

So did broken.

Seokjin held Yoongi’s wrist in his hand, rubbed the soft skin right on the inside part, just barely brushing the thick veins beneath pale skin.

Yoongi pressed calloused hands against Seokjin’s cheek, traced his jaw from his ear.

Seokjin took off his hearing aid.

Yoongi kissed him.

Seokjin smiled against his lips.

He pulled Yoongi to the shower.

Maybe the cigarette smoke will wash off his skin.

~~

Seokjin stared.

There were four figures on the canvas. A man and a woman in red. And a diner employee and another man but they didn’t catch Seokjin’s attention. Not like the woman, with the cigarette dangling from between her fingers, and the man just close enough to show that they arrived together, but just far away to suggest a distance between them. An illusion of intimacy.

Seokjin frowned.

He walked to the painting near the doorway, where Yoongi was standing, had been standing for the past twenty minutes.

He dressed well today. His usual hoodie and ripped jeans replaced with a button up shirt and black pants. His bangs were too long, they spilled into his eyes. And his collarbones were too prominent, his wrists thinner than before.

Seokjin sighed and stood beside him.

He pressed lightly against Yoongi’s forearm.

He jumped, then relaxed when he saw it was Seokjin.

“Who painted this?” Yoongi asked.

Seokjin flipped through the brochure, “Edward Hopper an American. This painting is titled Automat.”

Yoongi stared at the painting, “I like this guy, he understood what it meant to be lonely.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She’s in a café, but she’s alone. She could be alone at home but she made the effort to go a café, she’s searching for someone, but no one is searching for her,” Yoongi buried his hands in his coat pockets, a coat Seokjin made him buy when his last one was too torn to keep the cold out, “Even in a large city you can feel isolated.”

Yoongi’s eyes dipped to the floor.

Seokjin tugged on his coat sleeve, “You don’t have to feel that way.”

“Tell that to depression,” Yoongi snapped.

Seokjin stepped back.

Yoongi grimaced, “Sorry, I’m…”

The sentence trailed, left to be filled by the dull roar of the people in the gallery.

Seokjin broke the silence, “There are people who will want you.”

“Not everyone has a Seokjin,” Yoongi smiled.

Seokjin returned the smile.

He pulled on Yoongi’s coat strap, careful not to brush hands, and led him to the next room of the gallery.

Yoongi followed.

Later, when they’re in Seokjin’s apartment, Yoongi will hold Seokjin’s hand. He’ll hold Seokjin’s hand and caress his face and whisper all the thoughts he had in the gallery.

That Yoongi doesn’t exist in public.

The current Yoongi frowns when they’re too close and pulls his hand away when Seokjin reaches for it.

It’s not often that Seokjin sees this Yoongi. He’ll accept it today. Only because this time Yoongi came with him.

~~

Sometimes, even when it’s just the two of them, Yoongi will close himself off. He won’t say all he wants to say. He’ll use short sentences when describing his day, simple things like “fine” and “it was okay”

Some days, he’ll forget short phrases. And he’ll start talking about how his officemate reminds him of a private from basic training, because they both print out pictures of elves and dwarves from the Lord of the Rings movies and decorate the office. And there was one time when they were on fire guard together, where the private tried to get them all to sing a bar song from the book-

And he’ll stop.

He’ll catch Seokjin staring, and the light will fade out of Yoongi’s eyes and his smile will recede, “I’m sorry.”

“No keep going,” Seokjin will touch his shoulder, Yoongi will flinch, Seokjin will pull his hand back. He’ll rest his head against the back of the couch and ask Yoongi, “Did you do it.”

“No,” Yoongi muttered while looking down at his hands, “he sang by himself until dawn.”

A pause.

Seokjin didn’t  break it this time.

“We always had fire guard together.”

“Sometimes we have to work with people we find difficult,” Seokjin offered.

“None of the other guys wanted to be on the same shift as him. They couldn’t stand his rambling.”

Another pause.

“I liked it,” Yoongi continued, “It broke the silence.”

Seokjin smiled, “You’re a nice person.”

“No, I’m not,” Yoongi stood up taking his empty glass with him as he walked to the kitchen, Seokjin’s kitchen. From where Seokjin sat on the couch, he could see the smile on Yoongi’s lips and the pink dusting his cheeks.

The next time Seokjin answers his phone he hears Yoongi’s voice shout, “I bought the book after that night. I didn’t read it all, I just learned the lyrics and sang with him the next time we had fire guard.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin asked.

“He was smiling the whole time.”

Seokjin could see it, Yoongi standing on the outskirts of camp, uniform in order, rifle in his hands, his breath coming out in white puffs and his nose read as he sang a fictional song from a fictional world.

He could also Yoongi hiding in the copy room, his cat eyes almost closed and his face curled into a gummy smile as he told the story over the phone.

“See you are nice.”

The line went dead.

But Seokjin could still see Yoongi smiling down at his phone if he closed his eyes.

~~

And then there will be those moments when Yoongi understands that Seokjin doesn’t only speak in words. When he’s not wearing his hearing aid and they’ll be on the couch watching a movie with the subtitles on. Yoongi will lean against Seokjin and intertwine their fingers. Or maybe he’ll hold Soekjin’s hand, make it just loose enough so that Seokjin can place phrases against his skin. Seokjin will repeat what the actors say on screen. Yoongi doesn’t understand it, but he spends more time watching Seokjin’s hands speak sign language than watching the film. And maybe Seokjin will sneak in one of the few phrases Yoongi does know, maybe “I love you.” And Yoongi will grab his hand and press a kiss to the palm. And they’ll forget the movie in favor of watching each other, and tracing each other with their hands.

When Seokjin wakes up the next morning, he always get up first, and goes to turn the TV off, the DVD that they forgot left on the loading screen, he’ll find that the movie was on mute the whole time.

~~

Seokjin can’t always find the right words for what he means. And even if he had them he’d rather not speak them. He’d prefer to caress Yoongi’s face with the back of his hand and press soft kisses to his neck.

Yoongi is jumpy from his years in the military, and the horror stories of warzones traded from foreign soldiers. And he’s anxious from growing up in an abusive household, from years of watching his father drink and the shouts of inadequacy and still has the scars on is back from the one time his father taught him a lesson. And sometimes he needs to hear that he’s a good person, or be told that everything will be all right, that he will make it through the day, that Seokjin isn’t going to leave him.

They’re not perfect.

Not at all.

But they’re together.

It’s more than they thought they deserve.