HOPE'S HOES - home to neon lights, red leather couches, and some of Seoul's most tantalising strippers.
And their latest addition, Min Yoongi. The virginal, closeted bartender who may or may not be completely infatuated with the head stripper, Park...
Yoongi woke up groggy and tired the next morning, and was ready to have a lazy day before another shift at the bar. Scratching his head lazily he walked over to his small kitchen and opened the fridge to see a dismal amount of food. Grocery time, he thought to himself as he slipped on a battered pair of trainers and warm coat before leaving the house in his pjyamas, practically still half asleep. The weather was getting colder and colder by the day, and he blew into his hands to try and warm them.
There was a grocery shop only a couple of blocks away from him which was very handy, and he walked inside to find it quite busy for a morning. He reminded himself that it was a Saturday as he looked at the worn-out mothers doing their weekly shop with toddlers running havoc everywhere. Picking up a basket, he mindlessly filled it with milk, frozen pizza, and some fruit because he could now actually afford real food after recieving his first paycheck from J-Hope. The pay wasn't too bad, but it wasn't as much as he would be earning working a normal 9-5 job. But taking a boring but practical job would suck all creativity out of his life, and so earning less and watching strippers every night was ideal.
Walking down the candy and crisps isle, he began stuffing his basket with his favourite candy and a lot of Pringles. He was stopped in his trackets by the sight of a very familiar blonde-haired boy who was busy picking out cereal. Yoongi knew he had to move away fast in order to avoid an awkward interaction with Jimin, but luck was not on his side this day and the stripper whipped their head around and shot Yoongi a smug smirk.
"Fancy seeing you here cutie," Jimin said walking over to Yoongi, making the bartender incredibily nervous about what was going to happen next.
"Hey Jimin," Yoongi replied, waving his hand awkwardly and regretting his whole life choices in the process.
"You look sleepy," Jimin noted and Yoongi mentally face-palmed as he remembered his attire, hopelessly trying to think of the quickest way out of this situation.
"I just woke up," Yoongi knew he was being awkward and boring as hell, but he wanted to get away from the mystical creature before he said something even more stupid.
"Well then let's go and get some coffee," Jimin said chirpily, and Yoongi's mouth went so dry that all he could do was nod and be led by the blonde haired boy.
***
"And that's when I told him that it was not a petting zoo and therefore his grubby hands should stay away from me at all costs," Jimin laughed as he told Yoongi stories about his time as a stripper, and Yoongi carefully sipped on his coffee and tried to keep Jimin talking for as long as possible.
He had learnt a lot about the stripper in the time they had been together. He had learnt that Jimin was a dancer, and had recently dropped out of college because he was unable to afford it so being a stripper had become his only life throughout the past few months. What had surprised him most was that Jimin was only 19. The confident, effortlessly sexy boy in front of him was not even twenty and yet could move in ways that seemed so assertive and mature to Yoongi.
"So, Yoongles, tell me more about your rapping," Jimin said with a geniune look on his face, and Yoongi blushed at the pet name.
"It's not really much, just something I do in my free time, " Yoongi mumbled, looking more at the table than the stripper, "I've been freestyling ever since I was thirteen, and entered the battle rapping scene when I was in my later teens. I'm okay at it. It gives me somewhere where I don't have to be Min Yoongi you know? Somewhere where no one knows who I am, which means I can be anything I want to be."
"That's exactly how I feel on stage as well," Jimin said, his tone become more thoughtful as he spoke, "I can be anyone dancing, and no one will know any otherwise. To them, I'm just some boy named Princess that they can go home to and jack off to the memory of. But the real me, they'll never know who that is. With stripping, people become very close to your body but never to your mind."
Yoongi had never expected Jimin to be so...insightful. He felt ashamed of himself that he had assumed that Jimin would be shallow and simply two dimensional. Much to his dismay, he felt his heart lurch at the idea of someone so young being so accustomed to a world so dismal and depressing.
"Why did you start stripping?"
"That is a story for a different day," Jimin said coyly, and Yoongi couldn't help beaming at the idea of a second 'coffee date'.
As they left the coffee shop and parted their separate ways, Yoongi felt very much like he was walking on clouds. He had pictured this meeting so many times in his head yet to experience it in reality was so out of his capacity to understand that he felt like he had dreamt the whole thing. But it was real. And Jimin had called him Yoongles.
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- A lil soft chapter for y'all because Yoonmin is too freaking soft sometimes :)))