Chapter Text
“Avant la rivière asséchée
Avant que tout soit emporté”
- Pomme, Les Séquoias
“So, Joonie-hyung… his number?”
Jimin was sitting in front of Namjoon, his elbows planted right in the middle of the table. Jungkook and Hoseok had just sat next to them, freshly arrived from outside, noses red from the November chill. Namjoon was doing his best to look innocent, but he was failing miserably. I will get this question every single Saturday, right?
“His number?” Namjoon repeated, averting his gaze.
“Come on, hyung, don’t pretend you don’t understand. Spill!”
Namjoon looked around, startled. They were in the middle of the first floor of a food and coffee shop, where Koreans living in England met up with Londoners to share their language and culture. Anyone could be listening to their conversation, even if Jimin was using his thickest satoori to add more secrecy. Namjoon couldn’t blame him, though – the whole situation was infuriating.
“You were supposed to get his number!” Jimin whined, falling against Hoseok’s shoulder. “What did you do?”
“I just–”
“Hey! Can I sit here?”
A young woman had put her hand on one of the remaining chairs, waiting for an answer. She was most likely here to learn Korean, and her accent was quite good.
“Sure!” Hoseok replied with a bright smile. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
“Yes,” she said, sitting next to them.
“Then we can discuss it in Korean, right?” Jimin teased Namjoon. “So, my friend here… he has a crush at work.”
The girl nodded, maybe believing that this was some sort of Korean simulation and not the ugly reality of Namjoon’s daily life. I get it. Jimin went on:
“He needs to ask this person’s number to talk to them more often, right?”
“Yes!” the girl confirmed. “Do you need to find a reason to ask for this number?”
Namjoon was speechless. He didn’t want to discuss this with a complete stranger. Hoseok nodded in his place and encouraged the girl to make up a strategy.
“You should say you need their number for work.”
“He already has his work email…,” Jimin sighed.
“Tell him you can’t access your email address from home, and that you should discuss work on your phone instead.”
Namjoon nodded, but her solution was absolutely not a solution. He had no reason to talk to Kim Seokjin about work, period. They did not work together. Granted, their desks were in the same office, but Seokjin was a biostatistician while Namjoon performed experiments on a lab bench most of the time. They didn’t even work on the same project. Jimin seemed to notice how uncomfortable he was, because he immediately changed the topic and left him alone. Finally...
Namjoon felt powerless. He had barely spoken to Seokjin, three months after meeting him, but his feelings were becoming more and more desperately unrequited. The biostatistician seemed to find boyfriends pretty easily, picking a new one on Fridays when he got dumped. Namjoon’s heart sank in his stomach and crawled back slowly to his chest every time he saw someone else on Seokjin’s Instagram feed.
How fucking ridiculous am I? He couldn’t believe how long it had gone like this. Risking glances at him every fifteen minutes in the office, feeling so shy that he barely acknowledged him in the mornings, counting the days to Friday every time he said “Boys are all the same! I’m free again!” to his new friend Taehyung working on the second floor–
“Hyung?”
Namjoon lifted his chin and blinked. Jungkook was staring at him, big doe eyes filled with worry.
“Are you okay?”
“Y–yeah, I guess.”
“Do you want to walk outside a little?”
Namjoon didn’t even answer and got up in an instant. Jungkook shook his head towards Jimin and Hoseok, silencing them with a look, and led Namjoon to the street. Green Park was busy, as usual, but the chilly air made him feel calmer.
“Are you sad because Jimin mentioned your crush?” Jungkook asked, frowning.
“No, I’m sad because it’s useless. Seokjin… He obviously doesn’t care about me.”
“Hyung…”
Jungkook squeezed his shoulder, almost hurting him. The boy was way stronger than his shy bunny smile made it seem.
“You should move on, then,” Jungkook sighed. “If it makes you miserable, you shouldn’t hang onto this… relationship.”
Namjoon averted his gaze. Did he really want to move on? No, I don’t. The answer was simple, after all.
“Having a crush on him… It makes me happy, Jungkook-ah.”
“Are you sure?”
Jungkook was a hopeless romantic, and telling him to forget his feelings was certainly the most painful thing he had said in the last four years, at least. Jungkook had enough love in him to share it with more than one person, even if Namjoon was not sure yet if it was requited. Had he told Jimin and Hoseok that he was obviously in love with both of them? Maybe, maybe not. In any case, for him to tell him to move on... it had to look like an absolutely useless crush.
“I think I will give up in two months,” Namjoon conceded.
“It’s a good idea. There are so many guys out there… So many men you could flirt with…”
“Are you talking about yourself, Jungkook-ah?”
“No!” he exclaimed, blushing heavily. “I don’t want you to be my boyfriend, hyung. I hope you’re not upset.”
Namjoon smiled and shook his head.
“No, don't worry... Is everything okay? ... whatever is going on?”
Jungkook turned away, watching the park at the other side of the road in silence for a while. When his eyes met Namjoon’s again, he looked perfectly composed.
“It’s not crystal clear yet, but it’s looking good so far.”
“Don’t feel pressured to do anything, alright? It’s just life, it’s pretty long and you shouldn’t make it painful on purpose.”
Jungkook nodded, and Namjoon instantly knew he wouldn’t get another word from him. One day, maybe, he would raise the subject again and request his opinion.
When they went back to their seats at the Korean meetup, the girl had been replaced by a friend they hadn’t seen cross the door – Yoongi. Namjoon’s veins suddenly flooded with relief. He particularly valued Yoongi’s blunt thoughts on everything. It was exactly what he needed, in such a tricky situation.
“Jimin and Hoseok told me you were still in the same mess,” Yoongi sighed, not even bothering to say hello.
“I guess I can’t hide anything from you, Yoongi-hyung.”
“Want to know my opinion on this? What you should do? Ask for his number.”
“And… What reason should I use?”
“None. Ask for the damn number, and if he wants a reason, just wink.”
Namjoon’s heart was racing at the mere thought of performing this conversation in front of Seokjin. The most hilarious part was that Yoongi was secretly the shyest person in London, and he would absolutely never follow his own advice.
“Would you do this, hyung?” Namjoon asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m not the one desperately in love with a rude colleague.”
“He’s not rude!”
“He kinda is,” Jimin pointed out, shaking his head. “You never say anything positive about this guy, Joonie-hyung. Does he even deserve your love?”
“I do not believe that love is conditional, Jimin-ah. You can love someone without getting anything from them.”
“But it’s not fair,” Jungkook chimed in. “You’re amazing, hyung, you should be happy… He called you a nerd and refused to eat at your table in the cafeteria, it’s unfair.”
Namjoon wanted to fight back. He wanted to say that love wasn’t supposed to be fair, that Seokjin had been nice to him a few times, at least once, but the truth was ugly and blunt. No, Seokjin was not the Prince Charming his friends believed he deserved. But he loved him.
“Send him that song you wrote about him,” Yoongi suddenly said.
“Really?” Hoseok beamed. “Can I listen to it?”
“Not yet,” Namjoon sighed. “I don’t know, hyung, he would find it weird and obsessive…”
“Don’t say it’s about him, obviously.”
“And… How?”
“I don’t know, send him the damn mp3 file and pretend you used the wrong number! Whatever you need to make him notice your existence!”
Namjoon nodded, lost in thought. He’s not wrong… I need to do something. I can’t stay passive like this forever. The two months will go by and literally nothing will have changed.
“Look at the bright side, Namjoon-ah,” Yoongi went on. “He barely acknowledges you as it is, so it won’t be awkward if you get rejected. You should go for it, there won’t be consequences… as long as you’re not fully weird, of course. Don’t harass the guy, he’s an ass but he doesn’t deserve it.”
Namjoon knew he was not the kind of person who could scare someone else with their feelings. He kept his obsessions for himself and released them to the world through ambiguous rap songs, nothing more. He would never make Seokjin uncomfortable to the point he would report him the HR desk, it just wasn’t him. Even if he felt ready to take a bullet in the forehead for him, if the situation arose. But I shouldn’t tell him that, maybe.
- ∞ -
On Sunday, Seokjin posted an Instagram selfie where he looked like a prince, with the caption “Available for actual men! Send your CV, 3-year experience requested in not being a douche”. Namjoon sighed. How weird would it be to send “Never been in a relationship, so I can’t say I have been a douche yet”? Extremely weird, Namjoon. A lot.
He stared at his phone for hours, scrolling through Seokjin’s feed until he couldn’t tell how old he was on the pictures. I’m pathetic. Once again, he would meet Seokjin as a single man, potentially available, but he would barely talk to him and do nothing. Monday would be the beginning of an agonising run towards Friday, where Seokjin would find another boyfriend in a club somewhere in London.
Namjoon felt weak. His gaze wasn’t focused on his phone anymore, his thoughts were wandering somewhere else. Seokjin, slow dancing against a guy’s body in a club, asking for his number or grabbing him by the collar to carry him to the bathroom. Seokjin, kissing his new target roughly, holding his chin between two fingers and crashing their lips together, the muffled sound of the loud music in the background. Seokjin, Seokjin, Seokjin. Namjoon brought an arm to his eyes, feeling ashamed of his jealousy.
Namjoon had hooked up twice during his PhD, but never found enough free time to meet his potential boyfriends in between experiments. He had seen them once after a Tinder match, lost his virginity, but mostly lost a few valuable hours of work. He didn’t find that method appealing at all. When he had seen Seokjin for the first time, it had been completely obvious to him that he had met the biggest, fattest crush of his entire existence. His brain had short-circuited and he had stared at his Excel file in silence for hours, unable to think straight. It had been a slap right across his face. He had never recovered.
Namjoon checked his schedule for Monday and saw he had a lab meeting at 9, as usual. His stomach felt warmer than it should. He bit his lip, embarrassed to realise that he used this occasion to look at Seokjin every single week. He looked stunning, there was no use lying about it. Well. Can I make this week any different?
He doubted it.
- ∞ -
Pr. Bush was not a scary woman, but you couldn’t help staying silent when she spoke. She was quietly intimidating, and her immensely long list of scientific articles and awards made her untouchable.
“This is not the main topic of this meeting, but I would like to remind you all of the conference in Paris next month,” she declared, opening her notebook. “Namjoon, you sent me the poster you want to present… I quite liked it. I will give you some little changes to make. Seokjin…”
She stayed silent for a few seconds, and Seokjin’s plump lips turned into a thin line. No one liked Pr. Bush’s hesitations. They never hid anything positive.
“I understand that your field is biostatistics, but I’m afraid this won’t be enough for your project. I realised it fully when I saw your poster. You need to perform at least some experiments, some functional validations.”
Seokjin’s handsome face paled by the second. His knuckles were slowly turning white, caged in his tense fists. He obviously didn’t want to attack Pr. Bush, but his panicked eyes were telling a completely different story.
“I have never performed bench experiments,” he replied. “Don’t you think being a biostatistician is enough?”
“Being a biostatistician is an obvious amazing addition to your resume, but bench work… You will need to get to it, eventually. You are one of the most valuable scientists of this laboratory, Seokjin, and I would hate to see you struggle on the job market in the future.”
Seokjin nodded at the praise, watching his hands.
“And… How will I learn? Will you send me back to the university?”
“No, not at all. I will give Namjoon’s side project to another postdoctoral fellow, and you will work under his supervision.”
Namjoon’s chin shot up. He was absolutely not expecting this. Working under… my… supervision… He studied Seokjin’s reaction, trying not to sweat too much, but the man didn’t seem to care. His heart was beating so loudly in his ears that he could barely hear the rest of the conversation.
“What do you think I should learn first, Professor?” Seokjin asked, prepared to take notes.
“Cell culture, transfection, western blot, RNA extraction, RT-qPCR… I think that should be enough.”
Seokjin frowned but didn’t say anything. Am I supposed to turn him into a complete molecular biologist within four weeks? He had spent his entire masters degree and PhD learning all the techniques himself. Was he capable of teaching them to someone else, not even mentioning the fact that he was almost fainting near Seokjin?
When they left the room, Pr. Bush stayed for a second meeting. Seokjin sighed loudly and openly complained about the whole situation.
“I didn’t choose statistics to be forced to work with stinky bacteria!”
“There won’t be bacteria,” Namjoon intervened, trying his hardest to keep a steady voice. “And nothing will stink.”
“Meeting. After lunch,” Seokjin almost barked, leaving a dumbfounded Namjoon behind.
Really? Does he hate me that much?