𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐑 || [JINKOOK FF ]

[7]

Jungkook hated that he had to call his grandma so late on a Saturday night. They had spoken here and there since his parents had moved away, but they weren’t close by any means. He had stayed with her for a few weeks after graduation, but as soon as he’d found an apartment, he had moved out.

He didn’t have fond memories of his grandma, either from his youth or the more recent past.

She’d barely spoken to him the whole time he’d stayed with her, and he assumed she also took issue with his sexuality the way his parents did.

To be honest, he was surprised she’d said he could come stay with her, but she had mumbled something about family being family before rattling off an address in Seongbuk-Dong.

He remembered the place, a cluttered condo in a moderate high rise on
neighbourhood of Seongbuk-gu  right below situated nearby to Dongsomun-dong 1-ga, and close to Dongsomun-dong 4-ga.

Seongbuk-dong is a economic power village located in the north of Seoul, nestled in the hills overlooking the city.

He pulled into the parking garage and searched out spot number 147, as his grandma had instructed him on the phone. From there, he took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor and headed to the end of the hallway.

There was only one door on the wall to his left, farther down the hall, while the wall to the right had three doors, his grandmother’s being the one in the middle.

As he knocked on her door, the delicate sounds of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons drifted out of the cracked-open door behind him.

Jungkook looked over his shoulder and took a quick glance inside the palatial condo since the door had been left open.

It looked like one large open floor plan space, and he could see the edge of a granite kitchen island, a sunken living area, and high white ceilings framing a wall of nothing but windows looking out over the city.

He didn’t intend to be rude by snooping, so he turned his head back to face his grandmother's door as it was pulled open.

“Jungkook,” she greeted him, shifting her weight from arm to arm as she balanced on her walker. She definitely didn’t seem happy to see him.

“Come in.” She indicated to her condo, opening the door wider. As she scooted herself back, the gust of air generated by the door opening hit him square in the face and he let out an abrupt sneeze. 

He twitched his nose up and down, trying to calm the itch, but he sneezed four more times in rapid succession. He took a step back from the front door, dropping his bag in the hallway.

“Bless you,” a man’s voice called from the open door behind him.

“Thanks,” Jeon Jungkook said instinctively before addressing his grandma, “Do you still have a cat, grandma?”

“Four cats, Jungkook. You know, for better company.”

“Fuck,” Jungkook muttered, looking down at his still-wet Converse he was now wearing with no socks. He had forgotten to grab socks from his apartment. What a shit show.

“Fuck it. Fuck this!” he said, his voice getting louder. The door behind him opened farther, and the voice from earlier spoke again.

“Everything okay out here, Hyeyoung-ssi?”

Jeon Jungkook spun on his heels while simultaneously wiping his nose with the back of his hand. The man standing in the doorway of the massive condo was probably the sexiest guy Jungkook had ever seen in his whole damn life.

The stranger locked his dark brown eyes onto Jungkook and gave him a lingering appraisal from his wet shoes to his red hair.

The man ran a hand through his dark black hair and Jungkook observed a few strands of hair starting to colour silver grey poking through  the sides of his black hair, but they only served to make him look more dignified, more responsible.

Jungkook couldn’t look away from him. Even when his grandmother replied to him, Jungkook couldn’t force himself to shift his gaze away from the stranger across the hall.

“Good evening, Kim Seokjin. This is my grandson. He needs a place to stay tonight because he's had some sort of catastrophe in his apartment,” his grandmother offered up in welcome. Jungkook was still frozen to the spot as the man reached out a hand in greeting.

After what was probably fifteen seconds too long, Jungkook raised his hand and slid it into the man's grasp. Firm fingers closed securely around the bones of his hand and squeezed, immediately taking control of the gesture.

“Well, I was,” Jeon Jungkook croaked out, sounding hoarse, but he cleared his throat. “Well, I was going to stay here but I don’t think I can now. I’m allergic to cats and I can barely breathe standing in the hallway.”

“He’s gay, by the way. Maybe he can stay with you since he's like you. Since you're gay too. Birds of a feather, and such,” his grandmother blurted, sounding more apologetic for Jungkook being gay than she did about not warning Jungkook that her cat collection had expanded.

Kim Seokjin muttered something Jungkook couldn’t catch, but he cleared his throat and said, “Of course he can stay with me, Hyeyoung-ssi. It’s not an inconvenience at all. I’d love to have him.”

“No, I couldn’t intrude,” Jungkook mumbled, breaking eye contact with Kim Seokjin and then finding himself immediately resuming it.

“It’s not an intrusion, Jungkook. In fact, I insist.”

Jungkook didn’t have another option. It was either wheeze to death at his grandmother's, even though he noticed she had already shut the door on him, sleep in his car, or grow a pair and tell Seokjin yes.

“Alright, then. Well, just tonight. I had a flood at my apartment. I appreciate it.” Jungkook shook his hair away from his eyes, and miraculously, it stayed back. Kim Seokjin smiled at him and squeezed his hand. It wasn’t until then that Jungkook noticed the man hadn't ever released him from the handshake.

“I’m Jeon Jungkook, by the way. I guess you knew that somehow,” Jungkook stated, pulling his hand free with some reluctance, which he acknowledged before shoving it to the back of his mind. He picked up his bag from the floor.

“I know who you are, Jeon Jungkook,” was the curt reply that Kim Seokjin offered, with an emphasis Jungkook didn’t understand.