Checking the bottom of the receipt had, in hindsight, been a complete and total mistake. But he had been entering his tips into the system at the end of the night, and so there had been no other way around it. It wasn't all that shocking to find that the tip was beyond phenomenal (it wasn't every day someone tipped nearly two hundred percent). No, instead it was the number written below it that had him practically hyperventilating.
Jungkook's phone number. Along with a cute little heart and the words 'call me babe' scribbled along the bottom.
He knew better. He absolutely knew better. Knew that this was a beyond terrible idea. That all that was going to come from it was heart ache and pain. Yet he still input the number into his phone at the last minute, nibbling at his bottom lip as he contemplated how to label it. 'One Night Stand Guy' made him feel like an entire whore - and he wondered if that's what he was now. Surely there was some choice word for what he had done, some word for what that made him. Having a one night stand with someone who was taken - despite the way the rational part of his mind tried to tell him that he didn't know. He didn't know so he couldn't have made that choice.
But he could make it now. He knew which one he should make.
Yet he still did the exact opposite and wondered why his life and self esteem were always in tatters.
...
He told himself that he wasn't going to do anything with it. Wasn't actually going to call that number. Wasn't going to text it. Was just going to let it sit in his phone for a day or two until he was strong enough to erase it.
But that strength never came. Because Jungkook was clearly not for him. He was all too aware of that. Jungkook was someone else's. And this wasn't going to be like some drama where they slowly fell in love and Jungkook ended up leaving his boyfriend. This wasn't going to be some romance novel where they realized they were meant to be. This wasn't going to be star crossed lovers meeting in the dead of night.
And he had to let go of the thought that it was ever going to be like that. Had to before he damaged himself even more.
...
Taehyung wasn't home, and with him had gone his last shred of self control. Over the past two weeks the other had spent far more time with Yoongi than he had at home, and Seokjin tried desperately to beat down his rising jealousy. He was truly happy for his friends, especially considering how long they had danced around each other. But he felt like he was being left behind, left out of their lives. And it hurt far more than he was willing to admit.
So he gave in to his own weakness. Found himself laying sprawled across his bed on his stomach with the phone in his hand, thumb hovering over the key. Maybe he would get lucky and it would have just been a cruel joke, a wrong number so he can go back to forgetting. Maybe the other just wouldn't answer. Maybe he would and he would realize he didn't actually want Seokjin after all.
Maybe he was with Jimin.
Which was why this was so incredibly wrong and he couldn't bring himself to do it. Couldn't bring himself to hit that button. What would it make him if he did? How could he live with himself for destroying someone else's happiness? Was this really what he deserved? To be the other person? To be hidden away?
He didn't.
And he knew it.
But he always did the opposite of what was right.
...
He regretted it the moment he hit send, and rapidly beat his thumb against the end button, trying to get it to disconnect. But all he managed to do was end one phone call and instantly begin another, groaning to himself about his stupid, fat fingers when a voice actually came through and brought him out of his panic.
"Hello?" It wasn't either voice, not the kind, soothing voice or the deep, stirring voice, but one he had never heard before. And he realized that it was probably what Jungkook sounded like when he wasn't acting.
"Jungkook?" His own came out as a squeak and he instantly regretting ever opening his mouth. "It's Seokjin." 'The one you fucked' wanted to follow, but he managed to somehow stop it before it slipped out.
"Took you long enough cutie." There was a certain smugness contained within his voice, and he definitely should not like it as much as he did. "Give me a minute, okay?"
There was a sort of shuffling on the other end of the line, like Jungkook was getting up and walking, wind blowing across the microphone as the phone moved. It only took thirty seconds - or twenty four heart beats, he knew because he counted - until that voice was back, so deep and so captivating it had his skin breaking out into goose flesh.
"There, now I'm all yours babe." Those words shouldn't have made his heart skip a beat and feel like it was jumping up into his throat. But they did.
"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something." Or if he had been with someone. Why else would he have had to get up and move like that?
"Not at all. I just didn't want anyone else to hear the way you sound for me."
"You don't live alone?" But it was so clear that by alone he truly meant with Jimin. He just didn't want to bring him up, not directly. Maybe if he just didn't speak his name, he could pretend like he didn't exist.
"I don't live with Jimin, if that's what you want to know." Jungkook sounded amused now, but there was a hint of something else there too. Almost like avoidance.
"I just -" Of course, yes, that's what he wanted to know. As if knowing that their relationship wasn't quite on that level yet would somehow make up for what they were doing.
"Relax babe. Me and Jimin have been off and on for years now. He knows what I do when we're not together." So this had happened before. It had happened before and there was absolutely nothing special or unique about him.
"And right now you're -" It was spoken as an open ended question, despite realizing he didn't really want the answer.
"After that little tantrum he threw at the restaurant?" It came out with a chuckle, and Seokjin honestly tried to find the humor in it, but he just couldn't. "Guess you really do get to have me all to yourself for a while."
A while. He wanted to ask how long that was. A few days? A week? A month? What should he be preparing his heart for? How long would he drag out his own heartbreak? His own destruction and ruin? Why wasn't he just saving himself from it while he had the chance?
"That's -" Great. He meant to say great. He really, honestly did. But the word just wouldn't come. Heartbreaking. That was heartbreaking. He was so incredibly desperate to be wanted and cared for that he was willing to take whatever he could get.
"I love how shy you are baby." If there was any one saving grace to all of his insecurity, it was that it could so often be misinterpreted as him simply being shy. Add to that the fact that his ears turned so deep red whenever he was embarrassed that they could rival the ripest strawberry, and it was so easy to convince people of that one little lie.
He was just shy. And being shy was apparently cute.
