Chapter Text
He's last in the office like he always is, pouring over paperwork, fuelling his body with caffeine and the occasional cigarette.
"Sorry I can't stay," Namjoon appears, tapping idly on the doorframe, completely void of sincerity, adding a dramatic sympathetic sigh for show, "I'm exhausted. If my eyes didn't feel like they were about to fall out of my head, I'd stick around, y'know, help you out with Daesuk's case-"
"I heard you talking to Seokjin earlier," Yoongi says without inflection, without turning around in his chair. Namjoon's facade falls, his goofy smile vanishes. Turning to face him, pen twirling absently between his fingers, Yoongi smiles tightly, "What was it you said? Something about how you can't wait to fuck him senseless when you get home?"
It's something Yoongi enjoys, seeing the flush rise on Namjoon's cheeks as he awkwardly rearranges his tie, and over the years, it's something he's gotten remarkably good at doing.
Namjoon sighs, "Okay, so I have a date. You got me."
Yoongi grins, feeling triumphant as he winks cheekily at Namjoon, whose cheeks are still burning a bright, crimson red. He turns away from Namjoon again, frowning down at the scattered files across his desk, the words on the page suddenly starting to look like a foreign language to him. "Go enjoy yourself, Joon, I'll be fine."
He clicks his pen, begins circling words that he deems relevant, but Namjoon's lingering, leaning against the doorway with his arms folded.
Rolling his eyes to the high heavens, Yoongi drops his pen, and turns to find Namjoon watching him, his expression frustratingly unreadable.
"What?" he presses tightly, almost predicting Namjoon's next words.
"You should find someone, hyung. You're always here until the early hours, and no matter how often you say that you need to catch up on work, you and I both know that you're always 'caught up.'"
Yoongi rolls his tongue over his teeth; Namjoon's not wrong, if anything, he's ahead of his workload.
"Seokjin has a friend-"
"Good. I'm glad Seokjin has a friend," Yoongi interjects, and Namjoon frowns, amusement tugging on the corners of his mouth.
"...Who I think you'd like," Namjoon finishes softly as Yoongi stares blankly at him, "I'm not going to force you to meet him, I'm merely suggesting that you should."
Steepling his fingers beneath his chin, Yoongi pretends that he's mulling over the idea, an idea that he'd already refused the second it'd left Namjoon's mouth. Every few months, it's the same old deal; Namjoon suggests a blind date, and Yoongi feels himself wither inside whilst Namjoon describes someone faceless as 'just his type.'
He returns to his sea of sheets, to the city lights shining in through his office's window, and waves Namjoon off. "I hope Seokjin's been a good boy for you," Yoongi calls after Namjoon when he finally makes his much-awaited exit. He sniggers to himself as he hears Namjoon shout from down the hall, "Stop eavesdropping on my phone-calls, hyung!"
By the time it nears 3am, when the cleaners have vacated the office and Yoongi's limbs feel heavy with exhaustion, he calls it quits.
The biting night air hits him the moment the big glass doors to the building open, and he hisses, pulling his scarf up over his mouth, wrapping his coat tighter around himself. There's never anyone around when he surfaces, save for a few people like himself, in their suits, and Yoongi wonders if he looks as drained as they do.
His train of thought is quickly interrupted as he turns a corner, and he retreats backwards abruptly, eyes peaking around the corner as he watches a figure press their gloved hands onto the windscreen of his car.
His car. His BMW.
Flabbergasted, Yoongi's hands ball into fists at his sides.
"You fucking bastard," he whispers beneath his breath as he stands tall, and then, he's walking, fast, blood roaring in his ears and teeth gritting tightly. Before he knows it, he's got the person's hoodie bunched in his fists, he's pressed flush against the guy, slamming him against his car, growling, "You think you were gonna carjack my fucking car, huh? You fucking thought you were, you fucking asshole."
He sees red, he tastes copper, the guy hit him, but Yoongi returned the punch steadfastly, and Yoongi definitely hadn't punched right, because his knuckles throb with pain as he recoils. The guy falls back onto the hood of Yoongi's car, "Easy man," he hears as he flexes his fingers, and yeah, he definitely fucked up his hand, "Look, I'm sorry."
Yoongi spits blood onto the concrete, and as the red at the edges of his vision begins to fade, he frowns, chest heaving as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You're just sorry you got caught," Yoongi spits, and amidst the fracas, the other's hood had fallen, he'd lost a glove, and a slight spike of regret strikes Yoongi when he realises just how young the guy looks. With big, brown doe eyes and teeth too big to be contained behind his lips, Yoongi remorsefully concludes that he's barely into his twenties. "How old are you, huh? Stealing cars isn't the way to make a living, kid."
Yoongi straightens up, fixing his skewed tie and dabbing lightly at the blood dripping from his burst bottom lip. "I know, I'm sorry," says his assailant, who even sounds like he has yet to make it through the various obstacles that Yoongi has faced in his lifetime.
"What's wrong with you," Yoongi grumbles, and curses loudly as he realises that his passenger side window is cracked and close to smashing into smithereens, all from him slamming this Goddamn guy against it.
"I've gotta make money somehow, man."
Yoongi shakes his head, "You're young. You can't make a career off of doing this shit."
"I know, Sir. I know."
He's surprised his assailant hasn't booked it yet, but he's even more surprised that he hasn't tried to rob him, given his less-than-stellar stamina in the moment.
Yoongi's handiwork is already making itself known on the other guy's face, whose eye has begun to swell, and from the looks of the way in which the guy's clutching his side, Yoongi dealt out some blows to his torso, too. Yoongi's not a cruel man, he's really not, he believes everyone deserves a chance, even this guy, who was five minutes away from pulling out of his parking space.
"You're not gonna call the cops, are you?" comes a timid question that makes Yoongi pause.
For some reason or another, Yoongi feels his heart twist.
He sounds so scared, so petrified of the thought of police involvement that Yoongi just has to force himself to sigh and say, "No."
Yoongi watches as relief washes over him, shoulders drooping and twisted countenance going slack. "Thank you," he breathes.
"Get off my car."
The guy jumps away from the vehicle, like he was just scalded by a flame, "Right. Sorry."
Eyeing him suspiciously, Yoongi puts the key in his door, only to pause when he realises that this kid is lingering.
He's watching Yoongi, is he trying to suss out where his wallet is, which pocket is it in? His left or right? Suddenly, niceties are forgotten as Yoongi turns, and the guy jolts in surprise, "Give me your name. I'm not going to press charges, but if the damage you've done is larger than it seems, then I wanna know who fucked up my car..." he dabs at the wetness on his bottom lip before grumbling in afterthought, "And face."
The guy laughs.
Yoongi scowls.
The guy's laughter quickly stops.
He clears his throat awkwardly, "Sorry... Uh, It's Jeongguk. Jeon Jeongguk."
Yoongi digs his phone out of his pocket, types the name into his notes, and nods, satisfied.
"Jeon Jeongguk, if I ever see you within an inch of my car ever again, I'm knocking you the fuck out."
Spooked, Jeongguk swallows, nods, "Understood."
The look on Namjoon’s face when he sees Yoongi the following night Is one of shock, horror even.
Yoongi pointedly ignores his stare, instead choosing to focus his attention on Seokjin, of whom he offers a tight smile before acknowledging the man he’s just planted himself beside, who Yoongi presumes is his date for the night.
“Sorry I’m late,” Yoongi grumbles as he wriggles out of his suit jacket, “Traffic was awful,” he continues, and hesitates a glance in Namjoon’s direction to find him still staring, his brow furrowed and countenance twisted in contained exasperation.
His ‘date,’ coughs before angling himself to face Yoongi. He gets a look at the guy Namjoon's been trying to sell him for weeks now, and fuck he hates the way Namjoon knows his taste so well. “Your face,” Ken begins, but Yoongi lifts a dismissive hand before offering what he aims to be a reassuring smile.
“’You like it?” Yoongi jests, smiling exaggeratedly as he poses, facetiously framing his face like he’s modelling for Vogue. Namjoon’s hands ball into fists on the table before he stands to loom over the table, and he seems like he’s mere seconds away from dragging Yoongi out of the booth by his ear.
“What happened?” Seokjin pipes up with genuine concern written across his brow as he reaches up to calmly guide Namjoon back down beside him.
“Whiskey on the rocks, thanks,” Yoongi gestures towards the waiter, who nods, but not without staring long at the bruises dotted across the right side of Yoongi’s face.
“Yoongi,” Namjoon forces out tightly, but Seokjin’s quick to intervene, leaning into Namjoon to whisper something in his ear. Harsh hisses are exchanged between the two as Yoongi sits awkwardly beside his date, hands steepled beneath his chin as he waits patiently for his poison to be delivered.
No sooner does the waiter place his drink on the coaster before Yoongi downs it, Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulps the liquor down, wincing as he slams the glass down on the table before lifting his head to find three pairs of eyes boring into his very soul.
He offers them all a smile. “Self-medication,” he murmurs, more to himself than to the others.
His date, whose name Yoongi forgets, shifts awkwardly beside him. “We thought you weren’t going to show,” Ken says, trying desperately to salvage the already-awful date, to break the tension that Yoongi has no one to thank but himself for creating.
Yoongi turns to the tall, dark and fucking handsome (Christ, Namjoon knows Yoongi too Goddamn well), man, throwing him a slanted grin, “Neither did I, pal.”
As Yoongi had anticipated, Seokjin’s friend does little for him. He's easy on the eyes but lacking in stimulating conversation topics. Without the four glasses of whiskey he’d knocked back, Yoongi would’ve long been bored to tears by the Neuroscientist, whose most interesting facet appears to be the fact that he can yap on about every single boring topic imaginable.
The night ends in a blur, and Yoongi feels the radiation of controlled anger rising off of Namjoon. Already he’s dreading the moment when he gets Yoongi alone somewhere where he can complain about how Yoongi doesn’t even try to put himself out there.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Namjoon barks at Yoongi outside, away from Seokjin and Ken who chat happily to the waiter about how satisfactory the service was.
Swaying slightly, Yoongi shrugs, “Nothing you need to worry about, Joon-ah.”
Rolling his eyes, Namjoon turns his back on Yoongi, hands on his hips and teeth tight together as he sighs exasperatedly, “Ken is a nice guy, a really nice guy. He likes you.”
Yoongi’s brows raise, his mouth downturns, and he whistles, “Good to know,” he nods slowly, considering, and just as Namjoon is about to leave, Yoongi grabs his forearm. Namjoon’s eyes search his face, darting across the bruises and scrapes, “’You think he’d be up for a quick fuck, hm? No strings attached kinda deal?”
He jerks his arm away from Yoongi’s grip. “You’re a mess,” he spits.
“How about you stop setting me up with guys who’s only redeeming quality is their massive fucking dick,” Yoongi counters, coincidentally, right when Ken and Seokjin immediately freeze in the doorway, door slowly clicking shut behind the pair.
“Oh,” Ken deadpans whilst Seokjin struggles to pick his jaw back up off of the pavement.
Namjoon hurries to Seokjin’s side, and Ken's long forgotten as he stands awkwardly aside, eyes fixed on the ground before them, looking entirely out of his depth. “Maybe that’s what you need, Yoongi. A massive fucking cock to fuck some sense into you,” Namjoon attacks, and Yoongi feels like an angered dog with the hairs on the nape of its neck standing to attention.
It’s not how he planned the night to go. If anything, the least Yoongi had hoped for was a hook-up, because God knows it’s been a while, and as much as he hates to admit it, Namjoon’s not wrong about him needing some sense knocked into him.
But, he’d quite literally had some sense knocked into him the night before, all thanks to Jeongguk.
After begrudgingly exchanging numbers with Ken to keep Namjoon happy, and to prevent him from clotheslining Yoongi right there on the Main Street, the three of them turn right, and Yoongi stares after them before he himself turns left.
The night’s wind is bitter as he digs his hands deep into his pockets, gasping as a gust of wind blows his long coat billowing behind him.
Seoul’s nightlife is rarely dead, and tonight’s so exception as he weaves himself between people, stumbling over his feet slightly, his vision still blurry at the edges.
He stops to stare up at the neon lights on a billboard, and has to restrain himself from shoving a rude passerby who’d shouldered him out of the way. He swivels, eyes leaving the lights to land on the crowd, and he watches the hustle and bustle, the throng of people representing various walks of life. He watches as a couple lean close together, red-tipped noses touching and smiles soft as they generate their own warmth in the brisk air.
A third figure comes into Yoongi's focus, all dressed in black with their hood pulled low, and Yoongi frowns as their knees bend, as their hand reaches out for the pocket of the boyfriend. Belatedly, Yoongi realizes that he’s witnessing a pickpocket in action.
The girlfriend gets tugged further into her boyfriend’s embrace, and the hooded delinquent recoils quickly, shrinking away to join another hooded figure, and Yoongi’s eyes widen as he sees the face of the delinquent’s friend.
The face that’s black and blue, that’s angular but soft, the teeth that are big and flashy.
He’s walking before he’s aware of the reason why he’s walking towards the two.
Zipping his coat up, pulling his lapels up and over his face, Yoongi darts between the crowd, apologizing as he goes when he receives some noises of annoyance.
They don’t see him, they’re huddled together, discussing something in-depth when Yoongi taps on one of their shoulders, not Jeongguk’s, his friend’s, who lifts their head to frown in Yoongi’s face.
Yoongi smirks, lifts his wallet in front of his face, “Looking for this?”
It all happens so fast, Jeongguk’s soft, “Fuck,” his friend’s sudden hurry to get away, to run far away from Yoongi, but Jeongguk remains planted on the spot, staring in disbelief at Yoongi who’s staring after his friend, baffled.
“Uh,” Yoongi begins, slowly returning his wallet to his pocket as Jeongguk continues to stare, looking a lot like he’s just seen a ghost, “Sorry for scaring your friend.”
Jeongguk swallows before sighing heavily, his breath drifting before him like smoke. He shakes his head. “He thought you were a cop,” he explains, and Yoongi smirks.
“Then why didn’t you run?”
He can see Jeongguk’s injuries now, and there’s a small trace of pride in Yoongi’s chest when he realizes that Jeongguk’s face looks far worse than his currently does. Jeongguk shifts from his left foot to his right, eyes glancing around at anything but Yoongi, “Well, ‘cause I know you’re not a cop, don’t I?”
“I could’ve been lying to you.” Jeongguk freezes up, terror suddenly evident in his eyes at the prospect, and Yoongi’s sure he’s about to take flight before he hurries to correct himself, “But, I’m not. Don’t worry, kid.”
Jeongguk visibly relaxes, muscles that were once tense suddenly deflating as he tilts his head backwards to gaze up at the stars. From this angle, Yoongi sees some bruises littered across the underside of Jeongguk’s jaw, ones that he’s sure weren’t as a result of his lame punches. Unmistakable bruises that for some reason or another, makes Yoongi’s insides twist uncomfortably.
“Care to tell me what you and your friend were doing just now?” Yoongi pries, despite knowing fully well what Jeongguk and his friend were up to before he stumbled upon them.
Jeongguk shrugs, aiming for nonchalance, and Yoongi marvels at how bad of an actor he is.
“People-watching,” he offers lamely, and Yoongi can’t contain his sharp laugh.
“People-watching,” Yoongi repeats disbelievingly, “You’re out here in the cold watching shoppers. Nothing suspicious about that, kid, nothing at all.”
He’s taller than Yoongi remembered, and broader in the shoulders, not as scrawny as he’d pictured him to be. Not to say that he’d pictured Jeongguk in his brain after he’d so rudely smashed his windscreen.
It’s like a veil falls, like Jeongguk’s carefully fabricated people-mask vanishes as his posture straightens. Something shifts, either in his energy or his face, Yoongi can't quite tell. His dark eyes level Yoongi boldly, “Don’t act dumb. You know what Taehyung and I were doing.”
Yoongi nods, pointing in the direction of the couple from earlier who have gone from bumping each other’s noses to eating each other’s faces, “Your friend, Taehyung, was about to steal from that couple.”
Jeongguk doesn’t even try to deny it.
Yoongi watches the way his demeanor fails to appear knocked, how his gaze grows impossibly darker, like he’s given up on pretending that he’s some innocent kid when really, he’s anything but. Jeongguk sighs, “Look, man, I said I wouldn’t go near your car again. Never said anything about never doing anything bad again.”
His voice has taken on a deep lilt, a gruffness that has Yoongi suddenly standing tall, alert.
“You could get caught,” is all Yoongi can think to say, towards which Jeongguk scoffs, and Yoongi’s gaze drops to his wide flash of teeth.
“So? ‘You think I haven’t gotten caught before? This is how I make a living, by stealing others’ hard-earned money. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to do this, but here I am,” he outstretches his arms, and Yoongi’s gaze drops to his hoodie that reads ‘Enemies everywhere,’ in a barely eligible scrawl, “With an eagle eye and fingers that itch to steal.”
“That’s,” Yoongi pauses, frowns, “Awful, actually. Really awful. ‘You got a place to stay?”
The real Jeongguk is making himself known, and truthfully, this Jeongguk has Yoongi’s curiosity tickled. It’s like he’s bragging about his criminalist talents, like he’s proud of the fact that he survives off of others’ money. As someone with morals and a strive for independence, Yoongi can’t relate.
“Taehyung, myself and a few others have a small place downtown,” Jeongguk says, and Yoongi’s intrigued by the way in which Jeongguk's eyes dart around them, resting on someone beyond Yoongi’s shoulder before shifting to his left to stare at another unsuspecting bystander, “We’re never in one place for long. This time next month, I’ll be frequenting a whole new area.”
“Work for me,” Yoongi hears himself say, and not only is he taken aback by his sudden proposition, but Jeongguk is too, if the furrow between his brows is anything to go by. Yoongi shakes his head, stammering, “I mean, I can find you a job where I work. If you-If you want.”
Jeongguk quirks his brow, his lips tease upwards in a grin. Folding his arms, he looks down his nose at Yoongi, and suddenly, Yoongi feels like he’s being read by Jeongguk and his ‘eagle-eye.’
“Why are you helping me?” Jeongguk steps forward, voice low, “Have you forgotten that I was seconds away from riding off in your precious BMW?”
Yoongi sighs; he wishes he knew why the fuck he was helping this cocky kid. “No, I didn’t forget. I’m just, you know, feeling generous, that’s all.”
A smug grin is plastered across Jeongguk’s face, and if it were anyone else looking at him like that, Yoongi would have it gone in two seconds flat.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Yoongi.”
“Yoongi,” Jeongguk repeats, and steps closer, only this time, he screws up his face, “You stink,” he states plainly, the smell of whiskey undoubtedly burning his nose hairs.
Yoongi blows a raspberry in reply, “You don’t smell too great yourself, kid.”
Jeongguk's judgmental look shifts to a wide smile, and with his arms still folded, stance still tall and sure, he nods, “Alright, Yoongi. I’ll think about it.”
And just like that, he turns on his heels and heads in the direction of where Taehyung made his speedy exit.