Archive of Our Own

“Hyung, stand over there,” Jimin said, motioning to a spot on the wraparound porch with a double-seated swing. It swayed in the light breeze, looking like it was occupied by an unseen being, eerie and spectral.

Seokjin shuffled over, wheelie suitcase still in hand, and smiled at the camera.  As Jimin pointed the cue, he shed his travel fatigue in favor of his Professional Vlogger Game Face.

“Hey, Holiday Haunts! Today, I’m coming to you from a sleepy little town in New England—that’s right, a special episode of Seokjin’s Favorite Haunts has taken me to the East Coast of America. And, as you all know if you’ve watched the last episode, I’ve got Jimin-ssi with me,” Seokjin said, pausing so Jimin could turn the camera on himself and wave a hand in greeting.

“Hi, guys, I’m here with Seokjin again, keeping him on his toes.” Jimin smiled wide at the camera. Seokjin’s viewers always loved specials with Jimin in them because he was, as one commenter put it, Jimin was “soooooo SOOOOOOO hot, omg Jimin please sit on my face daddy!!!!” Seokjin had tried his best to erase that comment from his memory, focusing on the scores of other commenters who loved their friendship and dynamic.

“This week we’re at the notoriously haunted Beacon Inn.  This property comes to us from a viewer’s tip. We’ll be meeting up with that viewer later this week, but thank you for your suggestion, tanniesdad. We’re really excited to stay in this historical and spooky Inn.”

Jimin extended the camera to Seokjin, who took it and handed off his bag.  It was customary for his viewers to get the same first look of a place that he was getting. Tradition carried over from his first episode, hundreds of videos ago. He didn’t like to stage anything, believing it would detract from the truthfulness of his review.  Jimin thought this was over-the-top, but Seokjin wasn’t wildly successful for nothing.  He held the camera at shoulder-height and opened the wood-trimmed front door to a grand staircase and a foyer that screamed ‘I’ve been haunted since the primary architect fell from the roof before building was even completed.’ Perfect.

“Here we have the foyer—notice the wallpaper, guys, that Anaglypta covering at the bottom perfectly framing this gorgeous, deep emerald patterning at the top. It’s an amazing frame for the plants.” Seokjin put a hand in front of the camera, motioning at the chest-height potted plants that flanked a walnut drop-leaf table.

The foyer had wooden floors that creaked a magnificent amount even under careful footsteps.  The windows were lined with both sheer curtains and heavy, maroon monstrosities that would close the light of day out if need be.  A chandelier illuminated the space, bulbs set to emulate the subtle flickering of real candles.  Indeed, the sconces lining the hall and staircase had the same in them, providing for a room that felt as much alive as it was dead.

It was no wonder that the Beacon Inn played up to their colourful past; the place would be a magnificent residence for a brooding vampire, so why not lean into the fact that it was haunted? After all, hauntings always came from people: tortured souls and long-lost lovers. It was never happy, cheerful places that were haunted—it was always the dark, wooden turn-of-the-century mansions, the imposing manors in the moors of England, the ostensibly-empty ryokans in Japan with shifting shadows and heavy solitude.

Jimin hustled in behind him, leaving the suitcases at the door to beckon Seokjin over to the little table where an actual flame was flickering in the heart of an oil lamp.

“This area of America has a rich history of whaling. This probably isn’t whale oil, but maybe it once was,” Jimin said, motioning with a flourish.

“Someone did their homework,” Seokjin teased, and turned the camera away before it could catch Jimin’s middle finger.

“Can I help you?” A voice carried over the crackling fireplace in the room to their right, and Seokjin turned the camera so it was on his face.

“Ghost or person?” He squinted his eyes, playing up to his role as the host. It wasn’t difficult for him to be more silly, but it was a concerted effort.  His viewers seemed to like his theatrical shows of places, his ability to ham it up for the camera.

“I’m definitely a person,” the voice said, and Seokjin flipped the camera again to follow into the right room, making sure to catch the magnificently carved lintel on his way in.

The room was more resplendent than the entryway, a roaring fire in the hearth of an ornately tiled fireplace.  Across from the fireplace, a man stood behind a high-topped desk, paperwork and books splayed across the entire surface of it.  A flat-woven rug with an ornate pattern covered the floor, creating a space where people could sit and chat by the fire in a pair of brown leather Chesterfields.  The desk itself was imposing: dark wood, thick and solid, a pair of carved angels singing from both front corners.

But the man behind the desk had none of the dark, vampiric feel of the rest of the house.  He had a button nose, cat-like eyes, and a wash of dark hair that swept over his forehead in a wave. He gave Seokjin a small smile, one that made Seokjin's heart thud unceremoniously—he was cute, so cute. In one hand, he was tapping the eraser of a pencil against a book, and he used the other to bunch the sleeves of his yellow knit sweater up to his forearms.  The sleeves fell down again a moment later, and Seokjin was charmed… so, so charmed.

Seokjin turned the camera on himself, peering into the lens. “We’ve encountered our first ghost, everyone!” He pointed the camera back at the Front Desk Guy, who cocked an eyebrow. “What’s your name, ghost?”

“Unamused Employee.” But even that was said with a hint of mirth.

“It’s a disgruntled ghost…” Seokjin turned the camera back to himself and waved. “We’ll be back after check-in with a tour! Stay tuned, Holiday Haunts.”

Jimin chuckled, taking the camera from him.

“Uh, hi. I’m Seokjin Kim.” At this, the employee eyed him up-and-down, licking his lips.

“So you’re YouTube guy.”

“So you’re… front desk guy,” Seokjin retorted. He mentally kicked himself.  Something about the absence of the camera turned his suave confidence to disastrously bad flirting.

“I guess I am.” He slid a drawer open, producing two sets of over-sized key chains in the shape of lighthouses, a single, extravagantly toothed key on each of them. “But you can call me Yoongi.”

“You’re not the one who wrote us, right?” Seokjin frowned, looking over his shoulder at Jimin, who was busy meticulously turning over each of the dozen-odd hourglasses atop the fireplace mantel.

“No, that’s Taehyung Kim, professional New England hottie,” Jimin muttered, examining one of the hourglasses closer.

“Yeah, I’m just the moderately attractive Inn employee,” Yoongi said, sliding the keys across the counter to Seokjin.

“But you’re Korean too?” Seokjin asked, reaching for the keys.

“No,” Yoongi deadpanned, straight-faced. He pulled a piece of paper from the top drawer, settling it on the desk and moving his pencil-tapping hand to write on it. “Yeah, I’m Korean.”

“Your English is really good.”

“Thanks. I kind of… live in America. Yours isn’t half bad either.”

“Thanks, I kind of… run a YouTube channel.”

“They have YouTube in Korea too. They even tend to speak in Korean—you didn’t have to go through all the effort of learning English.”

“You don’t say.”

By that point, Yoongi was barely able to hold back a smile, and Seokjin was struggling to keep a straight face. A man with banter, sarcastic and quick-witted—Seokjin’s weakness.

“I’ve actually seen a few of your videos.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi shrugged.

“I can see what’s going on here and I’m unamused,” Jimin said, frowning at them. “Can we have our room keys? The flight from bumblefuck Ohio was long, and I’d like to shower so I can feel like a human again.”

“Well, let me orient you first,” Yoongi said, turning the paper around so that it was facing Seokjin and Jimin.

On the little printout was a black-and-white map, the words “CLARE VIEW POINT” printed at the top in bold lettering.  It was a cartoonish tourist map of the town, an X on one point and 'Not to scale!' printed at the top.  Yoongi pointed to the X with the tip of his pencil. “This is the Inn. Over here is the start of the Main Street. Plenty of tourist stuff and some good restaurants, but a lot of things are closed for the season. Luckily, we have some of the best food in town: breakfast is served in our dining room from six ‘til eleven, then lunch from noon ‘til three, then dinner from six ‘til nine.

“This,” Yoongi said, tapping the tip of his pencil against a green blob that encompassed most of the end of the hook-shaped peninsula they were on, “is our State Park. Really nice views if you’re interested in nature walks or the beach in autumn. Excellent birding, too. If you like birds, that is.” Yoongi tacked a testing glimpse up at Seokjin to the end of the statement, a shy peek up through his eyelashes that made Seokjin’s heart do that bumbling two-timed beat again.

“Birds are cool,” Seokjin confirmed.

“Yeah… I’m good,” Jimin said, eyebrows furrowed.

At this, Yoongi huffed out a laugh, handing one key over to Seokjin and one over to Jimin.  Seokjin’s had the number 8 on the black-and-white striped lighthouse, while Jimin’s boasted a 3.

“You’re on the second floor, and Seokjin, you’re all the way at the top. Take the stairs up until you can’t anymore.”

“I’ll trade you,” Jimin said, holding his key out to Seokjin. “I bet the views of the cape are phenomenal up there.”

“They are,” Yoongi confirmed. He took a sip from the mug on his desk, which smelled faintly of peppermint tea. “But it’s super haunted.”

Jimin's fingers closed around his key and he withdrew his hand. “Actually, I’m fine with three. It’s actually half of my favorite number, so that’s great."

Seokjin's response differed in that he felt giddy at the idea—he loved when places set him up with the most haunted room. Often, it led him to the most picturesque spaces. It seemed to him that ghosts loved to haunt either the prettiest rooms or the dankest, darkest basements imaginable.  He didn’t mind investigating musty basements, but he much preferred the grandiose suites.

“Thank you,” Seokjin said, holding up the key and jingling it. “Let’s go freshen up.”

Jimin enthusiastically nodded, shoving the camera back at Seokjin and bee-lining for his suitcase in the hall.

“I’ll make sure you have a table for dinner. Seven-thirty sound alright?” Yoongi flipped open a thick tome, flipping to a ribbon-marked page with names and times on it.

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Seokjin shifted his backpack, nibbling on his bottom lip as he watched Yoongi scrawl Kim, Park, 7.30 on the page. “Have you worked here long?”

“For a few years, yeah.”

“Well, I’d really like to get your experiences and stories with the Inn. I’m sure you know this place intimately.”

Another coy peek up and Yoongi ran his fingers through his hair, nodding in an unbothered way that looked so effortlessly cool. “That can be arranged.”

“Neat.” Seokjin said, pinching at his leg through his jeans immediately after, feeling his cheeks heating. Neat? Neat? His grandmother said neat. In fact, he hadn’t heard the word neat from anyone below the age of eighty-six in a long time.

“Yeah, it is,” Yoongi agreed, another of those amused smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Do you maybe want my, um, number? We could arrange a time to meet up and swap stories? You know, like we’re in the Scouts again.”

“I have really fond memories of that summer at Camp Kazoo, so that would be great.”

“Some would say…” Yoongi wrote on a piece of paper, sliding it to Seokjin. “Neat?”

“Some would,” Seokjin said, taking the slip of paper and enjoying the scrawl of Yoongi’s handwriting, the flourish of his name above the number. Seokjin had grown accustomed to reading words in English when he travelled, and he felt a little surge of pleasure to see Yoongi's name spelled out in Hangul: Min Yoongi.

 Seokjin noticed then that he was gripping the camera tight enough to make his knuckles go white, and he turned from the desk, taking his first step away and catching the edge of the carpet to stumble forward.  He turned back with an embarrassed smile, waving to Yoongi.

“Watch out for the rug,” Yoongi said, now unable to hide his grin.

“Yeah, I’ll remember that.”

“And Seokjin?” Seokjin paused mid-trudge to the doorway to see Yoongi rolling his sleeves up again, brushing his fingers through his hair, avoiding eye contact until the last possible second.  “I live here too. You can knock on my door if you need anything—it has an egret carved on it. Ground floor.”

“Is this a service you usually offer to guests?” Seokjin cocked his head to the side, trying to look as innocent as possible. Was it flirting, or was it just friendly banter from an employee meant to impress him?

“Only the famous YouTubers.”  

“Well, I guess fame has its perks.”

Seokjin scaled the grand staircase, one arm weighed down with his sizeable suitcase.  He found another staircase winding to the left, climbing until he was on the topmost floor. There, the wallpaper deviated from the other two floors: a distracting pattern in blues and creams that hurt his eyes to look at.  It was a short hallway leading to a single door, and he headed down and used the oversized brass key in the lock of room 8.  The door lurched open, creaking like Seokjin was doing it a disservice by making it move.

Behind the door was a sprawling grand suite, a four-postered bed and next to the entry to a bathroom with a claw-footed tub. Across the room was a wall of windows, and a tight, winding staircase that led up.  Seokjin dropped his bag and padded inside, the door creaking shut behind him.  He kicked his shoes off and his stockinged feet made soft shirring sounds as he examined the bathroom, the roll-top desk in front of the windows, the gilded picture frames that sat atop it, the pristinely white bed linens that contrasted the navy blue of the walls and the dark wood of the bed frame. Finally, he peered up to the top of the curling staircase to see the interior of a cupola, large enough to resemble the turret of a castle with a door leading out to a widow’s walk.

Seokjin took the first step up, paused, and warily took each step up after. It was claustrophobic on the wrought-iron staircase, but the cupola offered a loveseat with a blanket slung over the back of it, a small coffee table in front of it, and a decent view out of the windows that surrounded the room.  Seokjin tried the door and found it open, stepping out onto the widow’s walk.

Outside, the early evening air whipped, alive with the cawing of gulls and spitting rain. It would be nighttime soon, and Seokjin shivered, hugging his arms around himself against the damp chill.  In the distance, he could see the lapping of the waves on the shores of the peninsula.  As he strolled around the circle of decking, he saw the other view as well: the calmness of the bay on the other side of Clare View Point.

Seokjin considered himself a true believer when it came to hauntings—there was a reason he started a YouTube channel featuring ghosts.  But even if the Beacon Inn wasn’t haunted, he could see where the ghost stories came from.  The place radiated spooky, from the creaking floorboards to the electric air of an otherwise sleepy town.  Legend seemed to seep from the deepest crevices, and the staff sounded more than happy to perpetuate the belief that their quaint little lodging was alive with more than just guests.

Back in the warmth of the suite, Seokjin showered and changed for dinner, opting for comfort over fashion in his matching sweatsuit, salmon-coloured and cosy.  Jimin was already in the little dining room by the time he’d come down, seated near yet another fireplace.  From the hall, a grandfather clock taller than Seokjin chimed the half hour.

Despite Seokjin’s attempt at indifferent searching, camera in hand as he poked around the lobby before dinner arrived, Yoongi was nowhere to be found.  Further down the hall, behind a door with a skinny, tall bird on it, Seokjin could just make out the sound of tapping on a keyboard.

~~~

The grey skies gave way to sunlight the next morning. Bands of light cut through the windows of Seokjin’s bedroom, streaming downwards from the cupola and through the staircase.  They cast shadows on the floor, steadily making their way to where Seokjin sprawled on his bed, cosy in his flannel pajamas and holding the camera at his face.

“Good morning, Holiday Haunts! Nothing to report from last night. I think I was too sleepy to welcome the spirits of Beacon Inn to show themselves to me.  But fear not! Or do fear… because we still have a few more nights here to poke around.”

He switched the camera off to ready himself for the day, turning it back on only when he was standing outside of Jimin’s door. This hallway had a wallpaper pattern that was less of a visual assault: rolling waves of emerald and pale blue, trimmed in white and creams.

“Jimin-ssi, it’s time for breakfast,” Seokjin called, knocking on the door. He turned the camera back on himself. “I bet I woke him up. Jimin loves sleeping late.”

But the door swung open, revealing a bright-eyed Jimin, bag already slung across his chest.

“Oh,” Seokjin said, turning the camera back on Jimin.

“We’re going to explore Clare View Point today, Seokjin’s viewers. Get ready!” Jimin bustled out of the door past Seokjin.

“Eager to see the town?” Seokjin asked, following Jimin down the stairs.

Jimin paused, peering over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “Something like that.”

Then, it clicked: excitable internet hottie Taehyung would be in the town centre, ready to share other ghost stories with them over a Jimin-arranged lunch. Seokjin rolled his eyes, knowing he had pinned Jimin’s intentions down effortlessly without having to ask. They headed for the breakfast buffet in the dining room. Seokjin scanned the occupants of the little tables, each covered with a white tablecloth with jams and sugars laid atop.  

Hunched over a corner table was Yoongi, a pair of glasses slipping down his nose as he put pen to paper, doing what looked like corrections on a printout.  He nibbled at his nails when he wasn’t writing, frowning at the paper like it was a perplexing conundrum. Seokjin felt the air steal away from his lungs, caught entirely in how a beam of sunlight cut across the paper clutched in Yoongi’s big hand. He was sure that his heart skipped a beat when Yoongi’s eyes strayed momentarily from the paper, found Seokjin, went back to the paper, and then rocketed up again as the realisation hit him. And the smile—the adorable smirk of recognition and happiness to see Seokjin—that was like a bullet to his heart.

“Hey, it’s your new American boyfriend.”

“He’s Korean, you dumbass,” Seokjin retorted, jabbing his elbow into Jimin’s ribs.  He weaved through the other guests sitting with their scones and teas, pointing to the two seats at Yoongi’s table. “Are these taken?”

“Not by anyone I can see,” Yoongi said, the inflection in his tone hinting to the potential of otherworldly occupants in a way that made Seokjin smile. There was something endearing about someone that didn’t turn their nose up at the idea of ghosts, especially to Seokjin, the self-proclaimed king of the macabre.

Seokjin set his parka down, a relic of his desire to go out and explore Clare View Point. Now, he couldn’t see himself leaving the table as long as Yoongi was there.

“I’m going to get some tea,” Jimin said, setting his bag on the other chair and shuffling away.

“What are you reading?” Seokjin asked, sitting down at the table and motioning to the paper in Yoongi’s hand.

“I’m taking a look at an article for a friend of mine. He’s trying to submit something for a scholarly journal. It’s… arduous and full of obscure jargon.” Yoongi reached down to tuck the paper into the little messenger bag slung to the side of his chair. “How was your first night? Did you meet Temperance?”

“Temperance?”

“Temperance?” Jimin echoed, approaching the table.

“She’s the one you’re sharing your room with, Seokjin.” There was a twinkle in Yoongi’s eye, that little smile still tugging at his lips. It was like they were sharing a secret conversation, a language all their own underpinning what was being said—a language of spiritualism and believing beyond doubt.

“Not yet.” Seokjin shook his head, accepting the mug of tea that Jimin set down in front of him. They had their own wordless language, too: it was one of many years of friendship, a ‘get me some tea’ without saying it aloud.

“That’s… disturbing,” Jimin remarked, sliding into the chair next to Yoongi.  He raised his own tea to his lips, taking a well-timed sip with a sidelong glance at Yoongi.

Yoongi pulled his glasses off, folding them into the breast pocket of his loose flannel shirt. “She’s harmless.” This with an indifferent shrug.

“Jimin’s just a baby,” Seokjin said.

“I can tell.”

“And you’re both masochists,” Jimin retorted, sipping his tea again as he slumped back into his chair.

Seokjin watched as Yoongi rose from the table, grabbing his bag to sling it over his shoulder.

“Are you…” Seokjin trailed off, not knowing how to ask the hotel employee where he was going. It seemed like an undue interrogation, but Seokjin desperately wanted to know. There had to be more to the small town than watching Jimin shamelessly flirt with the locals, which was undoubtedly what he would be subject to for the next eight hours.

“I’m headed to CVP State Park. Going to do some birding, enjoy the sunny day.”

“Birding?”

“Um, bird watching. I’m an ornithologist.” Yoongi grasped the strap of his bag, shifting it on his shoulder.

“Cool,” Seokjin said, far too fast and far too eager.  He made an effort to relax, but the vision of Yoongi the scientist was dizzying: clutching binoculars, writing notes in his neat scrawl, doing whatever else scientists did (of which Seokjin had no clue). “Or, you know… neat.”

Yoongi looked well pleased, ignoring Jimin’s scrunched nose to look square at Seokjin. “Maybe if you have some free time while you’re here I can show you around. It’s a nice park.”

“That sounds really great.” Seokjin sat up straighter, seeing the tantalisingly close vision of a date at a beach. In his head, the beach was warm and tropical, and Yoongi was wearing a far too tight and far too small bathing suit with a lab coat over top. A very vivid and unrealistic fantasy, sure, but a good one nonetheless.

Across the table from Seokjin, Jimin was frowning more deeply, eyebrows furrowed, his top lip quirked up in disgust. Seokjin had a better chance of convincing a horse in rollerskates to go line dancing than he had of convincing Jimin to go bird watching, and the look told him just that without words.

“You’ve got my number,” Yoongi said, giving a little half-wave with his hand as he turned and left the dining room.  Seokjin watched him exit, eyes roving over his slim form, wishing the baggy flannel shirt wasn't obscuring the view of his ass. He made a mental note to google Ornithologist Min Yoongi when he was alone in his room that night.

“It’s not fair that everywhere we go, everyone wants to hit on the famous YouTuber and I’m just the hot friend.” Jimin sulkily stood from the table to go to the buffet.

“Hey, that’s not fair. You know you’re going to leave me to fend for myself as soon as you convince New England Hottie Taehyung to sit on your dick. Plus, those guys in New Zealand. You got both of them.”

Jimin didn’t look even a modicum offended, shrugging a shoulder, smirking. Seokjin collected his own plate and followed to the food, camera in hand and ready to document.

~~~

Taehyung wasn’t what Seokjin was expecting.  Sure, he was every bit the enthusiast, even brandishing his key chain that said Holiday Haunt on it, easily telling Seokjin his favourite episodes (all of which contained Jimin as a guest). But Taehyung wasn’t small town by any stretch of the imagination. What Seokjin thought would be a star struck response to meeting his favorite YouTuber manifested in a breezy, blasé pleasure, a comfortable smile on his face as he peppered Seokjin and Jimin with questions.

They met at his family’s restaurant, a pan-Asian hole-in-the-wall with some of the best gimbap Seokjin had tasted out of Korea.  He said as much, and Taehyung was thankful, but it did little to draw his attention away from Jimin. There was some kind of magnetic attraction between the two of them.

Jimin, who had flirted his way through the meal, licking the end of his chopsticks in a way that verged on erotic, leaning in whenever Taehyung spoke, making sure his ‘single’ status was apparent. Jimin, an expert flirt.  Seokjin rolled his eyes, no stranger to Jimin sucking off phallic objects or batting his eyelashes to get what he wanted.  Taehyung let his mouth part ever-so-slightly, licking his lips and nibbling at the bottom one.

So, that.

They spent the rest of the day around Clare View Point, or—“The locals call it CVP or The Point,” Taehyung said.

But the locals he mentioned were scarce.  The town, which had a bustling livelihood from summer tourists, had fallen asleep for the winter.  Instead of uniformed teenagers pedalling bikes to their part-time jobs, they saw bearded anglers who waved at everyone they saw as they headed to their beaches in their SUVs, packs of kids with satchels leaving the local school, scores of storefronts with signs reading ‘See you next season! Thanks for a great one!’

When the tiny tour concluded, the sun was already dipping down below the horizon for an early slumber.

“I’m going to head over the bridge to get a drink further into the mainland. Do you guys want to join?” Taehyung asked. He sat behind the wheel of a beat-up Ford Bronco, looking like a fashion model who’d lost his way to the big city and wound up with a much simpler lifestyle.

“Yeah!” Jimin put his hand on Taehyung’s thigh across the bench seat, but Seokjin was already sliding out of the back door.

“I’ve got some more work to do.”

“First Feelings?” Taehyung asked.

“Exactly. Thanks for the tour today. I’ll see you around later this week,”  Seokjin said, shooting a radiant smile back into the cab and waving over his shoulder as Taehyung pulled away.

Back in his room, Seokjin sat at the rolltop desk, one of his nicer cameras on a tripod in front of him, filming for a segment he liked to call ‘First Feelings’. He would stuff his initial thoughts into the beginning of his travel vlogs, letting the audience know his immediate impressions and gut feelings about the place he was visiting.  There was an array of things he scored at the beginning and end of a trip: quality of service, setting, surrounding area and experiences, and haunted-ness.

“Initial thoughts on haunted-ness are… I’m not so sure. The whole town is spooky this time of year. People have left their vacation homes boarded up, and each of them feels a little like a ghost. I can see how active imaginations would run rampant here. But the Inn does have a feeling to it—the electricity.”

His fans were no stranger to ‘the electricity’, which was Seokjin’s phrase for places that bore the footprints of energy that were hallmarks of a good haunting.  It was the feeling of hairs standing up on the back of your neck, of goosebumps covering every inch of your body, of the shiver that ran down your spine, of the tears that welled in Seokjin’s eyes when he was well and truly scared.

“So—“

He was cut off by a knock at the door and reached over to turn the camera off.  By the time he stood and shuffled his way over to the imposing wooden door, there was nobody behind it.  Instead, there was a bottle of wine on the floor with a note tied around the neck and a single glass.  He grabbed it all before shutting the door again.

Like a high schooler receiving a note from their crush, Seokjin flopped belly-first onto the bed and kicked his feet in the air as he ripped open the envelope. Inside was a short note, reading:

Seokjin,

Here’s a bottle from the ghost at reception.

It’s not meant to be bribery, but do you want to come to the park with me tomorrow? I’ll tell you stories that’ll keep you up at night.

“God, I wish he would,” Seokjin said, nibbling on his bottom lip as he read on:

If yes, meet me in the lobby at 11.30 am—the tide will be going out then.

- Yoongi x

A letter from a cute guy signed with a kiss. Maybe coming to New England had been Seokjin’s best decision yet.  He opened the wine, poured himself a glass—it was a tart white with a pleasantly tart aftertaste—and sat down in front of the camera again.

“Five Seokjin Stars for the service, Holiday Haunts.” At that, he raised the glass of wine in a toast to the camera.

~~~

Seokjin zipped up his windbreaker to his neck the next morning, stepping outside onto the widow’s walk to gauge the temperature. It was brisk but sunny: a perfect day to roam around outdoors.  He scarfed down a scone and fruit at the breakfast buffet and situated himself in the lobby, leaning against the banister of the great staircase in an attempt to look casual.  In reality, his stomach was tied in knots, a persistent nervous need to fiddle with his hair causing him to incessantly run his fingers through it.

“Hey.” The voice came from behind him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. So much for casual.

There was Yoongi: a big black hoodie on, his cheeks nipped pink with the chill from outside, hair mussed and blown, car keys in his hand.  So, so cute. So ridiculously cute.

“Hey,” Seokjin said, trying to tone back the giant, goofy smile he felt blooming in his cheeks.

“Should we get going? I already put a cooler in the truck.” Yoongi stood in the doorway, half-in, half-out of the entrance hall.  Seokjin could see a truck idling at the curb, a two-door little red thing that looked like it had seen its prime in 1996.

“A cooler?” Seokjin asked, following Yoongi out the door.

“Just some food for lunch.”

Seokjin almost tripped over himself getting into the cab of the truck, taken aback by Yoongi politely holding the door open for him, closing it after he slid inside.

When Yoongi got into the driver’s side, buckling his seatbelt and shifting from neutral into first gear, the nervousness threatened to swallow Seokjin whole.  It felt like the first date he’d ever been on, butterflies wildly tapping the sides of his stomach, palms sweaty, a permanent blush settled high on his cheeks.

“So, birds.”

"Birds."

"Care you explain?"

“Only if you explain the ghosts afterwards,” Yoongi said, glancing over to Seokjin.

“Sounds fair.”

“I'm a doctoral student at the state university. Well, was a doctoral student... I've just successfully defended my thesis. Before that, I studied biology for my undergraduate degree and one of my professors showed a documentary in class about bringing this species of bird back from endangered status.  I thought it was pretty cool, so I got in touch with the woman who made the documentary. She mentored through my graduate degree and steered me towards a focus on ornithology. When it came time to apply for a doctoral program, she had heard of the Roseate Tern—that’s the bird I’ve been working with—effort going on here and encouraged me to apply.

“I went for a few different programmes, but she had put in a good word for me here. They selected me and it seemed like a good match, so I brushed up on my shitty English and, well, here I am.” Yoongi shrugged, reaching up to turn the radio down: the public radio station had gone from smooth jazz to a commercial asking for donations.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"You must love birds."

“I mean, yes, I do like birding a lot. But mostly it’s the idea of making a positive impact on the world by rehabilitating populations of endangered species.” Yoongi paused, glancing at Seokjin out of the corner of his eye. “God, that sounded boring as fuck, didn’t it?”

Seokjin barked out a laugh, shaking his head. Quite the contrary: he was endeared by Yoongi’s commitment to making the world a better place.  All Seokjin did was ensure he recycled properly and brought reusable bags to the grocery store, never too environmentally conscious.  He’d even pushed back on the idea of a compost bin at his apartment complex because he was deathly afraid of a mice infestation.

“No, I think it’s—I think you’re interesting.” Seokjin felt the blush burning at his chest, his ears.

“That’s a high compliment coming from a world traveller,” Yoongi said, a little smile playing at the corner of his lips. He looked pleased with himself.

They drove through a sea of blinking yellow lights to reach the mouth of a beach, a small hill flanked by wooden fencing.  Dune grass peeked out from behind the fencing, sparsely covering the hilly dunes.  Yoongi stopped at the mouth of the path, stepping on the emergency brake as he put the truck into neutral.

“Hold on a minute,” he said, sliding out of the car to flit around it, disappearing from Seokjin’s view at each of the front wheels.  He swung back inside, leaving his seatbelt off and easing the truck back into gear.

“What the—“ Seokjin rolled his window down and put his head out of it like a dog, watching the sand pass underneath of them as they crested the hill onto the beach. “Isn’t this illegal?”

“No, I have a permit.” Yoongi pointed a finger to the neon-coloured flag laid on the dashboard. “Just hold on while I get out of the soft sand.”

And indeed, they waded through the soft sand at a constant pace, the truck jostling from side to side as it careened in and out of other tire tracks.  When they reached the water’s edge, the sand was packed down and easy to navigate, providing for a smooth ride as they travelled parallel to the ocean.

“This is so cool!” Seokjin smiled at Yoongi, his figure framed by the ocean view from his window.

“Glad you like it,” Yoongi said, looking smug once again. “You’ve heard about the birds. Wanna tell me about the ghosts?”

“Oh,” Seokjin said, sitting firmly back down in his seat with a little shrug. “It’s not too exciting. I was studying drama and marketing in university and just decided the best way to make something of it was to start a vlog. I got the idea for the haunted destinations from my friend Jungkook’s auntie—she owned a hotel that she claimed was haunted. People seemed to like it and it just kind of grew from there.”

It was true: the growth had been superbly organic, from a handful of fans who were willing to donate small amounts of money to his channel to a following of nearly half a million who donated enough to cover his travel, the hotels, enough to contribute to his savings, the rent on his apartment back in Seoul.  What his mother called a ‘cute little side project’ turned into his entire livelihood.

When hotels started to offer free stays in exchange for a video, he knew he’d really made it. Sometimes he would see people in public wearing his merchandise or be recognised in a restaurant—it was in those instances that he felt well and truly dumbfounded as to why people liked his reviews so much.

“Have you always been into the supernatural?” Yoongi asked.

“Yeah, ever since I was a kid. My family lived in this really weird house and… well, you know. Stuff happens when a place has a big enough footprint on it.” Seokjin barely spoke about the first ghost experience he’d had, something so frightening that he’d tamped it down in his mind for years and years.

“Don’t I know it,” Yoongi said. “I had zero belief in ghosts when I started working at the Inn.”

“And now you believe?” Seokjin reached a tentative hand down and unbuckled his seatbelt, letting himself have the freedom of not using it when there was no risk of a car accident, trusting that Yoongi wouldn’t send them careening into the ocean. He felt safe, verging on safer as he learned more about Yoongi. “I never know what to expect from… science people.”

“We tend to be a more logic-minded bunch, sure, but you can only see so many unexplainable things before you start questioning.”

“That’s fair.” Seokjin reached into his pocket, producing a tiny camera meant for action shots.  He held it in the air, waving it for a moment. “Do you mind? I like to make my reviews all-encompassing of the experience.”

“Yeah, I know,” Yoongi said, giving that wry side-eyed glance to Seokjin again, an outright tease. “But sure, go right ahead.”

“You know? How many of my videos have you watched?” Seokjin asked, rolling down his window to hold the camera out of it, taking a long movement shot of their cruise down the beach. 

“One or two after Taehyung told me you were coming here. I was curious.”

“What did you think?”

“That you’d be much more of a ham in real life.”

“A ham?!” Seokjin almost dropped the camera, whipping his head back to narrow his eyes at Yoongi.

“Listen,” Yoongi said, a big smile on his face, trying not to laugh through his explanation. “It takes a real ham to make a YouTube branding that involves a silly nickname for your followers—“

“It’s not silly!” Seokjin protested, turning the camera off to angle his body towards Yoongi.  “A lot of brainstorming went into ‘Holiday Haunts’! When Jungkook and Hoseok hear that a bird scientist questioned their wordplay, they're going to fly here and… and... and do nothing because they're far too sweet to fight you.”

Yoongi swung the car in a circular arc, backing them in so the tail was facing the ocean. He put the car in neutral, stomped on the emergency brake, and pulled the key from the ignition.  His critique continued as he exited the car with a backpack in hand from the little area behind the driver’s seat. “Not to mention all the dad jokes. Huge ‘ham’ energy."

"Ham?!"

"And you tease Jimin a ton when he’s along on one of your trips, which is admittedly pretty funny. But my point is that you seem pretty laid back in real life.”

Seokjin stood by the tailgate, hands poised on his hips, floundering for a way to defend his online persona. All he came up with was: “You’ve definitely watched more than ‘one or two’ videos!”

“And the fact that you have no defence is proving my point. A whole ham dinner.” Yoongi’s smile was wider now, full of gums, rounding his cheeks as he opened the tailgate and jumped up onto it to sit. “Would it help if I told you that you’re cute when you’re flustered?”

Seokjin felt his cheeks glowing. He jumped onto the tailgate beside Yoongi and bumped their shoulders together. “Maybe a bit.”

From the backpack, Yoongi produced two pairs of binoculars snugly tucked into cases. He handed a pair to Seokjin. His instructions on how to use it were hard to follow, but it wasn’t because he was bad at teaching: on the contrary, he knew what he was talking about, his instructions were calm, and he didn’t have any problem explaining things more than once. But his deep voice was distracting, the way that he leaned in towards Seokjin was distracting, and his hands guiding Seokjin’s were the most distracting of all.

“So where’s the, uh, Rosy Tern?” Seokjin asked, lowering his binoculars from viewing a Piping Plover that Yoongi had pointed out.

Yoongi chuckled, lowering his own binoculars. “The Roseate Tern, and they’re gone for the season.”

“Oh,” Seokjin said, raising his binoculars again. “I guess they don’t like it when the weather terns. Get it?” He laughed at his own joke, knowing it was terrible.

“Unfortunately, I do get it,” Yoongi teased.

In those quiet moments—between conversation that ebbed and flowed, covering little aspects of their lives—they lost hours of time.  By the time their lunch was consumed and Seokjin had successfully learned the difference between dabbling and diving ducks, the chill had cut through them and they were back in the truck, cruising along the coastline. The tide crept up as the sun slunk down below the horizon, autumn-early to set the scene for another night of chasing ghosts.

It had been a day of relaxation, everything that a true vacation should be. There was something calming about Yoongi. Seokjin held that staticky nervousness close to his heart—so incredibly into Yoongi in a small window of time—but it was competing with a deep tranquility. Yoongi’s presence had a quiet he wasn’t used to, something that shut his over-thinking brain off, stemming anxious thoughts before they formed. His warmth glowed so brightly as he tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel to the jazz on the radio, smiling at Seokjin across the centre console, awash in the golden rays of the setting sun.

Sure, Seokjin was a true believer in the supernatural—energy tethered to places, the echo of what once was—but he’d never considered fate until now.

As they exited the beach, Yoongi hopping out to set the truck back to two-wheel drive, Seokjin’s phone buzzed in his pocket.  The home screen glowed with a message from Jimin:

Meet me at the Inn for dinner & we can do some interior ghosty shots tonight. No time tomorrow. Big bonfire on the beach!!!

Yoongi’s door slammed shut, followed by the clicking of his seatbelt.  Seokjin followed suit, pushing his phone away.

“Do you know about this big party tomorrow night? Jimin-ssi says there’s a bonfire or something.” Seokjin tried to keep his voice uninterested and casual, a juxtaposition to the thought flashing in his mind, two-foot tall neon letters that were impossible to ignore: please invite me! Bring me! Let’s go on another date! Who cares that I have to leave in a few days?

“Yeah. The locals host bonfires on the beach. There’s a keg and everyone rides their bikes. It’s pretty cool.” Yoongi shrugged, sounding just as disinterested as Seokjin.

“Yeah, that does sound cool.”

“I’m getting the feeling you want to go?” Yoongi asked, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“No, no.” Seokjin sat up straighter, shaking his head. “I—“

“Because Taehyung has been bigging up the fact that he got a famous internet-person to everyone in town, so you’re going to be ogled by tons of townies.”

“Well—“

“And you know, it’s kind of spooky on the dunes at night.”

“In that case—“

“But you could always go with me.”

Seokjin paused in his fight for words, looking at Yoongi.

“Are you offering townie ogling protection or dune ghost protection?”

“Um… both?” Yoongi gave Seokjin a sidelong look, the corner of his mouth pulled up into a smirk. He was enjoying teasing Seokjin, and Seokjin’s ears burning likely showed him just how susceptible Seokjin was to a tease (very… the answer was very susceptible, especially when it was Yoongi doing the teasing). “But my services come at a price.”

“Name it,” Seokjin said.

“What are you willing to offer?”

“I’ll tell all your townie friends that you’re on a date with the ‘famous internet person’.”

Yoongi laughed as he pulled into the parking lot of the Inn. “The only payment I get is the pleasure of your company? That’s only a third of the typical asking price.”

“Hey now! The pleasure of my company is priceless, I’ll have you know.” Seokjin squared his shoulders, mustering his best glare as they exited the truck onto the gravel lot.  “I think you’ll just have to accept my offer with the knowledge that I’m an excellent tipper when I’m travelling abroad.”

“And what kind of tip would you leave for a good date?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Seokjin said, looking down as he scuffed his sneakers on the ground, peeking up only to see Yoongi regarding him with an amused smile.

“Well, alright.”

The evening light put a pleasant, peachy glow on the evening. It made Yoongi impossibly cuter as he put his hand on the small of Seokjin’s back and led him to the front door.

“Here’s your first tip: never accept the first thing offered to you,” Seokjin said, leaving Yoongi at the foot of the stairs with a well-placed wink over his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah. See you at 8 tomorrow, internet person.”

“Don’t be so formal, Yoongi-yah.” Seokjin turned on the stairs, backing up the last few so he could hold Yoongi’s gaze as he rounded the corner. “You can call me hyung.”

He felt his heart exploding out of his chest, clutching one hand to it while the other covered his enormous grin. He fished for the key tucked into his back pocket, unlocking the door to his room with the same goofy smile plastered on his face. It fell to shock, however, when he felt a deathly cold spot near his bed—it disappeared as fast as he’d noticed it, but it sent a bone-deep shiver down his spine.

~~~

“Why were you knocking on my door last night, hyung?” Jimin whined, flopping down at the table across from Seokjin.

Seokjin had been up for well over an hour, a croissant and a coffee to one side of him, his laptop open to where he was editing footage on the other side.

“Hmm?” Seokjin asked, peeling his headphones fully off to set them on his keyboard. He could get back to editing a bit later—it was one on the wraparound porch, the Inn’s owner sat next to him on the swing while he nodded enthusiastically at her story of an encounter in the basement.

“My door. Why were you knocking on it? You woke me up like three times. Don’t think I didn’t see you disappearing around the corner, either. Trying to be sneaky.” Jimin tore a piece of croissant and waved it at Seokjin. “You take the scary stuff too far sometimes, hyung.”

“I wasn’t outside of your door last night.” Seokjin snatched the croissant back from Jimin’s fingers as he raised it to his mouth. “And get your own croissant. The table is right there.”

At first, Jimin looked offended. Then it sunk in and his face paled, eyebrows furrowed. “You weren’t… knocking at my door then running away?”

“Nope.” Seokjin shook his head.

“Then, confirmed, this place is haunted.” Jimin’s voice quivered, and he stood up.

“You scared?”

“No,” Jimin said, a defiant jut of his jaw as he turned towards the breakfast buffet. “But you should be—it was headed towards your room.”

Seokjin rolled his eyes, unwilling to be shaken by Jimin’s reports of being woken in the night. It was likely a dream or a someone playing a prank.  For the rest of the day, Jimin looked over his shoulder like someone was watching them film in the basement, in two of the empty rooms, in the lobby.  The Beacon Inn had gotten to him. Meanwhile, Seokjin had to settle for a subpar cold spot and an uneasy feeling at the top of the second staircase.

That evening, with a stomach full of clam chowder and a thick, warm hoodie on, Seokjin loitered in the lobby, thumbing through tourist brochures and trying to avoid eye contact with Yoongi’s coworker who stood behind the front desk.

“Hey.”

Seokjin dropped the pamphlet on whale watching and turned around to see Yoongi standing in the doorway.  He had a grey beanie on, swimming in yet another flannel shirt that was too big for him. With both hands, he helf the straps of his backpack..

“Hey,” Seokjin breathed, painfully aware that he was giving Yoongi heart-eyes. He straightened up, trying to look casual. “You look—you’re, ah, you’re… cute.”

“Cute?” Yoongi asked, smiling coyly.

“Yeah."

“Thanks. C’mon, the bikes are on the sidewalk.”

Indeed, there were two bikes on the sidewalk and a third bike with a tall, dimpled man astride it.

“Hey! I’m Namjoon. I don’t mean to third wheel—I just didn’t want to ride over alone.” Namjoon waved one hand, looking every bit the gentle giant with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder, cutting across his muscled chest. This town was somehow full of hot Koreans, and Seokjin wondered if he’d settled in the wrong place (which was literally Korea).

“Oh, no worries, you’re not third wheeling,” Seokjin said. Yoongi peered over his shoulder, a little furrow to his brow. “Because these are bicycles. They have two wheels.”

Namjoon laughed, something that was quite genuine and pure, and Yoongi rolled his eyes.

“As you can see, the only reason Yoongi is taking me out is because he’s enthralled with my exceptional sense of humour.”

“I thought it was because he watched all of those YouTu—“

“Alright, so, bikes. This one is for you, hyung, the seat should be high enough.” Yoongi hurriedly motioned to one of the two unoccupied bicycles, mounting the other one.

Seokjin bit his bottom lip to stifle a smile. His assessment had proved true: Yoongi had watched his videos. Not just a single video—multiple videos. Enough to know Seokjin’s brand and little things about him. While Seokjin wasn’t in the business of dating fans, this was different: someone who had casually watched after learning a minor celebrity would be in town.  Or maybe Taehyung had sat him down one day and forced him to watch.

Namjoon led the way, hands tucked into his hoodie’s pockets as he pedalled. The air smelled of ocean, thick with humidity.  There was a new feeling accompanying the immense pleasure of being out with Yoongi again, something Seokjin could only identify as nostalgia—but it wasn’t nostalgia for a memory that he’d made before.  Tilting into corners, laughing as the cool, autumn wind whipped through their hair, moonlight and street lamps to illuminate their paths: it all made Seokjin feel like a kid again.  He could imagine the teenagers in town slipping from windows to meet at clandestine bonfires, holding hands for the first time and letting themselves drift into bliss only brought on by unbridled youth, unerring joy and hope.

When they stopped, it was at a gathering of other bikes at the mouth of the beach.  It wasn’t the same beach Yoongi had driven them onto; this was closer to the heart of town, more accessible for a greater number of people.  They swung off of the bikes, parking them in a cluster to one side. Namjoon peeled off from their group almost immediately, clapping a hand to Yoongi’s shoulder and muttering something in his ear.

“Ready?” Yoongi asked, holding his hand out to Seokjin.

Seokjin paused, studying the offering, wondering if his palms would be too sweaty or his spindly fingers too cold.  He reached out, and Yoongi interlaced their fingers, pulling Seokjin along the path towards the beach.  Yoongi’s hand was big, warm, pleasant.  Often, Seokjin found holding hands to be enjoyable for a few moments, but then the linking of ill-fitting fingers became unbearable.  This was different: his hand in Yoongi’s grasp was comfortable and pleasant, a perfect match.

From the beach, Seokjin could hear voices mingling with the gentle crashing of the waves.  They crested the little hill over the dunes and the bonfire slid into view, flames licking into the night air and casting ghostly, dancing shadows of the people gathered around it.  As promised, a keg stood in the sand nearby, drunkenly listing towards a stack of cups in a discarded bag next to it.

“This is cool,” Seokjin confirmed, letting himself be led to the keg and reluctantly relinquishing his grasp of Yoongi’s hand.  Yoongi poured two beers, extending one to Seokjin.

“Cheers, big ears,” Yoongi said, tipping his plastic cup against Seokjin’s before taking a swig. “Mmm, terrible beer.”

Seokjin took a sip as well, scrunching his nose as the taste hit him.  He hadn’t been expecting much, and he’d received even less: the worst of American beers, cold and far too frothy.  Across the fire, he could see Jimin and Taehyung.  Jimin practically hung off of Taehyung, both arms wrapped around one of his biceps.  Taehyung looked enamoured, one of his hands holding Jimin’s arms in place, unwilling to let him go.

“Jimin looks cosy.” Seokjin tipped his head when they locked eyes, earning a huge smile from Jimin.

“Taehyung hasn’t been on a date in like a year and a half. He looks like a pig in shit, to be frank.” Yoongi sipped his beer again, nudging his elbow into Seokjin’s side. “Those townies are totally ogling you.”

Indeed, there was a small contingency of people tittering amidst themselves, undeniably eyeing Seokjin.

“Mmm, true. Might as well uphold my part of the bargain,” Seokjin said.  He shuffled in the sand so he was standing in front of Yoongi, using his free hand to gently trace the part of Yoongi’s fringe that was pressed down by his hat, moving it to the side ever-so-slightly before tugging the hat over his ears. “Does it look like we’re on a date?” He swallowed, finding his throat tight, his heart racing, enamoured by the way Yoongi’s eyelids had fluttered, mouth parting when Seokjin touched him.

“If it doesn’t, it will now,” Yoongi said, taking Seokjin’s free hand in his own and leading him down towards the water’s edge.

“Skinny dipping? Risqué,” Seokjin said, a nervous laugh slipping past his lips.

“No, I hate swimming. It’s just quieter down here.”

And it was quieter, away from the drone of chatting and the music.  But the sound of the ocean was crisper here, especially as they stopped just short of the edge.  Seokjin liked the way damp sand felt under his shoes, and liked it even more between his toes when his feet were bare.  It was even better now, standing on the edge of an abyss with his hand in Yoongi’s.

They stood in silence, sipping their drinks, hands clasped.  The moon cut a path through the water, reflecting brightness back onto them.  Seokjin couldn’t help but give a sidelong glance at Yoongi, admiring the cute little curve of his lips.

“I love the ocean at night,” Yoongi said, looking over at Seokjin.  Their eyes met and Seokjin looked away, painfully aware that he’d been caught staring at Yoongi.  But Yoongi squeezed his hand, and he instantly felt better about it.

“There’s something about it.”

“It’s the pull.”

That was the best way to describe it: the desire to sprint into it and see what happened.  It was dangerous but beautiful, unpredictable but cyclical, a constant churning gyration that begged to be explored.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t we jump in?” Seokjin asked.  There was a hint of laughter behind it, but also a teasing edge of seriousness. If Yoongi jumped, he’d jump.

“Maybe when we have some towels.” Yoongi dropped Seokjin’s hand again, wrapping his arm fully around the small of Seokjin’s back, fingers gripping his waist. “Don’t want you to catch a chill.”

As if on cue, a shiver ran down Seokjin’s spine and he let himself be pulled into Yoongi.  It was far preferable to the pull of the ocean. This was warm, safe, strong, secure.  It was heart-achingly sweet.

They soon retreated to the fire, finding a spot on the sand to sit.  It gave the townies an opportunity to ask their questions and make eyes at Seokjin, all the while casting curious glances at the way Seokjin never left Yoongi’s side.  After an hour of incessant questions about what other famous YouTubers Seokjin knew, what travelling around the world was like, and what Seokjin’s favourite haunted destinations were, they were given a merciful bit of quietude.

“That was worse than I thought it would be,” Yoongi admitted, handing Seokjin a refilled cup.

“It’s alright. People are naturally curious when it comes to perceived fame.” Seokjin sipped the beer, giving Yoongi a sidelong glance. “You should know, after watching all of my videos.”

Yoongi covered his face with a hand.  He was grinning, not looking all too embarrassed at being called out. “It wasn’t all of them.”

“Did you see something you liked?” Seokjin nudged his elbow into Yoongi’s side, rewarded by Yoongi’s arm around his waist.

“Yeah, one thing.”

Seokjin smiled, watching the fire, putting his free hand over Yoongi’s.  Soon after, Seokjin watched as Taehyung and Jimin disappeared over the dunes, pawing at each other.  The fire died down, signifying the beginning of the end.  At that, Seokjin and Yoongi took their leave.  They pedalled like mad down the streets, racing and giggling like two fools drunk on cheap beer and the stomach-churning sensation of falling in love.  Seokjin let Yoongi pull ahead, admiring how he released his grip on the handlebars to spread his arms wide at the night, yelling into the blackness of it.

They tucked the bikes away, knocking shoulders and hiccuping as they shuffled back towards the Inn.

“You know, you still haven’t told me your stories,” Seokjin said, prodding a finger into Yoongi’s chest as they stood at the bottom of the main staircase.

“I was thinking we could do that tomorrow.” Yoongi swept his hat off of his head, fussing with his hair and clutching it in his hands.

Seokjin nodded eagerly, unafraid to show his enthusiasm, inhibitions discarded after his second beer.

“I have to work during the day, so maybe you can get the first of them in the lobby? We can sit by the fire. It’ll be atmospheric. I’m sure your followers would like that.”

“Well, you’d know, Yoongi-yah, since you’re such a big fan,” Seokjin said, enjoying the way Yoongi groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. He was enjoying teasing Yoongi as much as Yoongi seemed to enjoyed teasing him. “That sounds good, though.”

Yoongi scratched a spot behind his ear, looking at the staircase. It was a small gesture, but one that showed he was resigned to the fact that he wanted to say more and couldn’t (or wouldn’t). “Cool, I’ll, um, see you tomorrow then.”

Seokjin felt himself nodding again, sure that he resembled a drunken bobble head.  Yoongi gave him a close-lipped smile, turning towards the direction of his room.

“Wait,” Seokjin said, unsure of what he was asking Yoongi to wait for.

Yoongi paused, turning back to Seokjin, eyes wide, kitten-like and innocent. Seokjin shifted his weight between his feet, looking anywhere but into Yoongi’s eyes, and ducked down to press a single kiss to Yoongi’s cheek before he started up the staircase.

It could have been so cool, so smooth, but he tripped up the last few steps, looking back to see Yoongi biting his lip to hold back a laugh, fingers touching the spot where Seokjin’s lips had touched his cheek.

"Watch out for the steps."

“Pretend you didn’t see that,” Seokjin said, trotting up the last few steps and practically sprinting for his room.

~~~

Seokjin awoke from a dream, one where his favourite alpaca plushies had built a boat and set sail for a distant land.  He groaned, turning to pick his phone up from the bedside table. 3:23 AM.

“Ugh,” he mumbled, dropping his phone back on the table and rolling to his other side, cuddling a spare pillow to his bare chest. He yanked the blanket up to his chin to placate the unsettling prickling on his skin, the nervous turn of his stomach.

When he was a boy, his grandmother had told him that 3 am was the witching hour. His naïveté had him believing that witches roamed the woods each night at 3 am, thirsty for children to consume. Now, he knew the truth, had stayed in enough haunted locations to understand that the hour was real. Strange thing happen during the witching hour, a time when most things slept.

But there were some things that didn’t sleep. It was the time of the things that went bump in the night.  Seokjin’s room felt alive: wind howling in the eaves, radiators creaking as they fought the autumnal chill, complaining of old walls settling against each other. He shivered, pulling the blanket even higher still, unable to shake the feeling of eyes on his back.

It was in the witching hour at an infamously haunted California hotel that he’d seen a figure cross the room and disappear midway, that he heard a disembodied voice at a haunted hostel in Thailand, that he witnessed the spirit that scared him to this day in his childhood.

And it was now, in the witching hour, that Seokjin felt the corner of his bed depress. It was soft at first, a mild rustling of the sheets at the corner near his feet, enough to make him kick them and move towards the centre of the bed.  Then it was firm, a weight akin to that of a fully grown human sitting near him, inches from where his leg rested. Every inch of his skin prickled, a lump caught in his throat. He laid still, paralysed with fear and unsure if he could will himself to do anything.  But he had to try, or he may never fall asleep again.

“Please go away,” he whispered, drawing the blanket over his head.

There was a pause—Seokjin couldn’t tell if it lasted a minute, five minutes, or ten seconds, but he squinted his eyes shut, hoping for the best—and then the pause was over, the weight slowly lifting like nothing had been there at all.  He held his breath, afraid to open his eyes, afraid to look at the part of the room that was still staring at him, staring through him, watching.

So, instead of addressing the room, he slipped from the bed: slowly, slowly, slowly, then all at once, not stopping until he was in the stairwell on the ground floor. The entryway was surprisingly bright for the middle of the night, but almost soundless. Almost. He heard the ticking of the grandfather clock, steady and stately, and the faint sound of footsteps upstairs. He looked up, eyes brimming with tears—feeling what was coming before it came.

What came was nothing, the steps abruptly stopping when someone should have appeared at the top of the staircase.  He stumbled a step back, two steps, three, before he turned, bare feet scrambling on a throw rug as he hustled to the back hallway.

The door with the egret.  He didn’t think twice before he was raising his hand to knock, a low, incessant drumming until he heard a protest from behind the door.  The heavy lock turned, and there was Yoongi: sleep-mussed, looking like a tired kitten with hair crumpled against the side of his head, eyes squinted almost shut, wearing an oversized shirt and basketball shorts.

“Seokji—“ Yoongi started, but Seokjin pushed inside, pressing the door shut behind them.

“Yoongi, there’s someone out there,” Seokjin said, pressing against the door to peek out of the eyehole.

“Someone’s out there? Like, a guest? This is an inn, hyung, you didn’t have to run out of your bed half-naked to tell me that.”

“No, like something… else. Something I couldn’t see.” Seokjin turned from the door, wringing his hands together, to see Yoongi eyeing him from thighs, to boxer-briefs, up his stomach. The pause lasted long enough for Yoongi’s eyes to fall on his chest, and Seokjin watched his Adam’s apple bob with a swallow. “Um, hello? Earth to Yoongi-ssi?”

“Hm?” Yoongi hummed, eyes flicking up to Seokjin’s, back down to his chest, then back up again.

“Something was in my room!” Seokjin crossed his arms over his chest, caught between pretending to not enjoy the blatant check-out and his settling terror. 

There was no trace of that living, breathing terror in Yoongi’s room—just soft furnishings, books stacked on a desk, a bed with a handmade quilt, and blackout curtains drawn tight.  It was instantly safer, small and comfortable despite a nighttime chill. Perhaps it was that Seokjin’s room was so tall: reaching up to the sky with that cupola and widow’s walk. Yoongi’s room was small and smelled like Yoongi’s cologne and something that reminded Seokjin of home.

“I know, hyung, it’s haunted,” Yoongi said, scratching two fingers to the back of his neck. “Are you alright? Do you need me to walk you back up? You can’t just stand at my door all night in… various states of undress.”

Seokjin let himself visibly shiver, glancing over Yoongi’s shoulder at the bed, then back to Yoongi’s eyes.  He shuffled around Yoongi, one knee on the bed before he looked over his shoulder.  It was a boldness he’d never afford himself in his everyday life, something he’d had to uncover at three am between fear and sleep. 

Seokjin's room wasn’t safe, but Yoongi was the safest.

“Well, I guess you can stay.” Yoongi made a show of rolling his eyes, locking the door again before he turned to the bed.  By then, Seokjin had all but disappeared under the sheets, retreating into safety. It was still Yoongi-warm and cosy. Yoongi approached, sliding in and turning off the lamp on his bedside table.

“Not going to regale me with late night chats?”

“It’s the middle of the night. We’ll have plenty of time to talk in the morning.” 

“What if I sleepwalk out of the room into the waiting arms of the ghost?”

“Not gonna happen.”

“And why is that?”

Seokjin could just barely make out the curve of his shoulder in the darkness.  His breath caught in his throat when Yoongi reached out and laid a hand on his bare ribcage—big, warm hand to chilled, goose-fleshed skin.

“I’m going to protect you from the ghosts, remember?” Yoongi’s voice was low, gravelly and thick with sleep as he yawned. His fingers gently dug into Seokjin’s side, pulling at him.

“O-oh,” Seokjin breathed, letting himself be drawn closer to Yoongi.

“Did it scare you?” Yoongi asked, his breath against Seokjin’s bangs, his lips pressing featherlight against Seokjin’s forehead. “The ghost?”

“Yeah.” Seokjin nodded, letting his arm loop around Yoongi’s back, palm down against his spine.

“They don’t come in here. You’re safe with me.” Yoongi’s hand trailed up and down Seokjin’s side, over his ribs and his shoulder blade—it both made Seokjin want to kiss him and to fall asleep. He had no choice but to settle for the latter when Yoongi’s hand slowed to a stop, his breathing deepening as he drifted off.  Seokjin felt every bit as safe as Yoongi implied, and fell asleep soon after with a contentedness settling deep in his chest.

~~~

Yoongi’s alarm chirped them awake the next morning, stopped only when Yoongi groaned and flicked it off.  He shifted on the bed, reaching out to grab Seokjin. Pliant and sleepy, Seokjin snuggled in closer, slotting himself against Yoongi.

“Morning, Yoongi-ssi,” Seokjin grumbled.

“No,” Yoongi grunted back, squeezing Seokjin. “Sleep.”

“You have to work.” The words had come naturally to Seokjin, laced with the simplicity of a long-term relationship, like they’d practiced the routine many times before.

“No, sleep.”

“Yoongi-ssi,” Seokjin said, his voice trilling, sing-song and playful.

“Hyung, no,” Yoongi whined, flipping them so his dead weight was atop Seokjin, like a cat pinning its owner to one place. “Sleep.”

“Yoongi-ssi, don’t fall back asleep.” Seokjin felt the stirring of something in the pit of his stomach, swelling through his groin, painfully aware that all of Yoongi’s weight on him felt good. They were in bed together, cuddling like it was a familiar act.  He resisted the urge to rock his hips up against Yoongi’s, but threw his self-control aside to let his hands roam under Yoongi’s shirt, fingers dancing along the smooth skin of his back. 

He was of two minds: Yoongi would stay in bed all day with him and ride his cock just like this, or Yoongi would exit the bed and continue their little tango of sexual tension and sweet exchanges.

“Hyung.” Yoongi was shifting onto his back, grabbing Seokjin to flip their positions. Then it was Seokjin atop him, legs parting to straddle his lap.  He could feel the press of Yoongi’s cock, hard through his boxers. Almost nose-to-nose, Yoongi squinted at Seokjin, one hand relaxed on Seokjin’s hip. When he spoke again, it was through a pout. “I can’t get out of bed when you’re here.”

“Should I go?”

“Not a chance.”

“You know… we’ve just slept together without having even kissed,” Seokjin said, licking his lips, preparing.

“That can be remedied,” Yoongi muttered, his free hand emerging from the blankets to cup Seokjin’s jaw, tilting his face down. 

Their lips met: sweet, short, fitting together perfectly. It tasted of sleep and relaxation, the picture of an unhurried morning tryst.

“Good morning, hyung.”

Instead of responding, Seokjin kissed him again—once, twice, three times, chaste kisses turning into hungry ones—then shamelessly rolled his hips down into Yoongi’s lap.  It was easier to give in than to pretend like Yoongi’s fingers digging into his skin weren’t driving him to the edge of insanity.

“Is this considered a continuation of our second date?” Yoongi said, a hint of breathy laughter against Seokjin’s cheek. “Because if so, you’re an excellent tipper.”

“No, I went to my own bed afterwards. This is… a midnight rendezvous turned into a morning grope?”

“You have a way with words.”

“Here’s another tip: no sarcasm before noon.”

Then Yoongi’s alarm was blaring again, accompanied by another well-timed groan from Yoongi.

“I have to work,” Yoongi said, ducking his head to nose at Seokjin’s collarbone, nipping his skin when Seokjin responded with a shift in his lap. “Don’t you—don’t you dare, Seokjin-hyung.”

“Fine.” Seokjin conceded, tumbling off of Yoongi’s lap and letting him up from the bed.

It was an amusing visual, observing him ready for work: he was painfully hard, and seemed to be led by his cock around the room, shuffling clothes around and assembling an outfit.  Seokjin put a hand over his eyes to let Yoongi change with a modicum of privacy, only peeking when Yoongi was tucking himself into a pair of jeans, lip bitten between his teeth.

“This is not what I want to be doing right now.”

“There’s definitely other business you could be attending to,” Seokjin agreed, swinging his legs from the bed and accepting the clothing that Yoongi offered him.

“You’re lucky I wear my clothes loose since you’re so…” Yoongi motioned to his own shoulders and bit his lip again. “So broad, fuck. I don’t think I got a good enough look in the middle of the night, do you mind standing and maybe doing a twirl or—“

“Are you objectifying me? I’m going to leave a scathing review on TripAdvisor.” Seokjin pulled the shirt over his head, enjoying the remarkably Yoongi smell it had, clean with a masculine musk.

“Leave the Inn out of it, this is all me,” Yoongi said, steadying Seokjin with a hand as he hopped into basketball shorts.  “I won’t even be an employee here soon.” He motioned at the boxes in his room, and Seokjin noted what he hadn’t noticed the night before: most everything was packed away in cardboard boxes that read ‘DONATE’ or ‘HOME’.

“Oh, you’re leaving?”

“Yeah, no point in staying now that I’ve got my degree.”

“Where are you going?”

“Good question.” Yoongi huffed out a little laugh, retreating into the small en-suite to one side of his room and returning with his toothbrush. “Got any suggestions?”

“Back to Korea?”

Yoongi brushed his teeth, nodding and motioning with his hand for Seokjin to continue the suggestions.

“You could go travelling? There’s birds elsewhere, right?”

“Are there?” Yoongi asked through a mouth full of toothpaste, retreating into the bathroom again.

“I guess. You should be the one to know, Dr. Min,” Seokjin said.

Yoongi popped his head out of the bathroom. “Dr. Min. I like that.”

Seokjin teased him all the way out of the room, stopping when they parted at the staircase—Yoongi to the lobby for work, Seokjin to his bedroom to ready for the day. They parted with a lingering kiss, Seokjin discovering that Yoongi’s passion was written in his actions: a hand fisted in the back of Seokjin’s hair to pull him in, a quiet moan of satisfaction that only they could hear, a final press of his lips to Seokjin’s forehead.

Come the afternoon, they sat by the fireplace, camera set up on a tripod in front of them while Yoongi led Seokjin through tales of the Inn.  There were stories of cold spots, apparitions, orbs in photographs, people feeling pulled and pushed and scared and any other number of feelings.  Yoongi himself had heard disembodied voices, seen a semi-transparent woman retreat into a wall, and been tripped by an unseen force.

“But none of them were enough for you to quit?”

“I’m not a quitter, hyung,” Yoongi said, sipping the cup of coffee he’d made for the interview. The look he gave Seokjin was a challenge, deeply flirtatious, a look that made a blush bloom over Seokjin’s skin, heating him fully. “I’ve got one more story for you, but it’s about your room. Maybe I can tell you there?”

“Maybe so,” Seokjin said, looking at the camera and wiggling his eyebrows.  He felt the blush spread from his ears to his chest. Straightening the notes in his lap, he looked at Yoongi, hardly able to hold his gaze. “Tonight?”

“I’ll meet you up there after dinner. Let’s say 8, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

Yoongi leaned across the armchairs, one hand tilting Seokjin’s face up, and kissed the side of his mouth before heading behind the desk.  Now the blush was certainly all over Seokjin—it wouldn’t surprise him if he had physically transformed into a tomato.

After he’d packed the camera away, he watched the footage in the room, transfixed with the way Yoongi looked at him in the videos. If his followers had half a brain, they’d see the low-simmering sexual tension crackling between them, from Seokjin’s obviously flustered flicking through his papers to Yoongi’s confident little smirk each time Seokjin blushed. 

Although he cut it from the clip, Seokjin couldn’t stop replaying the moment when Yoongi tipped his jaw up with a ginger hand on his chin and kissed him.  He nibbled on his bottom lip, wanting to feel that kiss again and again.

As night closed around the inn, a storm swept in from the sea. Wind licked the windows of Seokjin’s room, providing a tap-tap-tap of a loose shutter to accompany the music softly playing out of his laptop.  Rain pattered against the window panes, followed by the soft rumble of thunder in the distance. He padded around in his socked feet, straightening up his items by the side of the bathroom sink, the things he’d hap-hazardously thrown on top of his suitcase.

At 8 o’clock, Yoongi showed up with a thermos in one hand, two mugs clutched in the other.

“Coffee?” Seokjin asked, letting him in.

“Hot chocolate. It’s a dark and stormy night—“

“Wait, are you setting the scene? At least let me get the camera first!”

Yoongi toed his shoes off, rolling his eyes at Seokjin. He motioned to the top of the spiral staircase at the little sitting area in the cupola. “Let’s sit upstairs. It’s cool when it’s stormy.”

Seokjin grabbed the camera, using his free hand to grasp the railing of the tight staircase as he followed Yoongi up.  Yoongi was light on his feet, flitting up the staircase while holding the thermos and mugs in his hands.  At the top of the stairs, Yoongi set everything on the table: one mug on each fish-shaped coaster, the thermos of hot chocolate between them, and a candle that he produced from his pocket.

“Candle?” Seokjin asked, setting the tripod to point at the little sofa. Yoongi struck one match, lighting the candle and putting it out with a smack in the air.

“Ambiance for ghost stories,” Yoongi explained.

Seokjin set the camera up, knocking his knee against the table in the small space.

"Watch out for the table," Yoongi teased. He doled out the hot chocolate into the little mugs, topping them with marshmallows from his other pocket.

“Candle, sweets... what else do you have in there?”

“Some lint, my room key, various secrets,” Yoongi said, sitting on the sofa and patting the spot next to him. At that moment, lightning illuminated him from all around, a flash of brilliant light almost as bright as Yoongi himself.

Seokjin pressed the record button on the camera, scooting around the table to sit on the loveseat with Yoongi.  He was aware he wouldn’t be able to use this footage: dim lighting, exceptionally romantic set up, his burning desire to sit in Yoongi’s lap. Still, he liked to keep up pretences. This was for work.

“So, Yoong-ssi, I believe you’ve saved the best story for last—the story of Temperance, the Beacon Inn’s most famous resident. Could you tell me about her? Either your own experiences or stories you’ve been told.” Seokjin reached out for his hot chocolate, taking a deep sip. It warmed him from the inside out, blooming like love in his chest. Yoongi took the blanket from the back of the loveseat, draping it over their laps as a low, distant peel of thunder rolled through them.

“I knew tonight would be a storm, and stormy nights are when Temperance is most active. To start, you should know that Temperance was the daughter of the house’s architect. They moved in with the expectation of her inheriting it and filling it with a family. She was eager to get on it, beings as it was the 1840s and she was barely legal. As you do in ye-olden-days.

“So she meets this guy in town, Mr. Hill. He’s pretty handsome, he’s got money, he’s the first mate of a ship by profession, about to become a captain. Captain and Mrs. Hill has a nice ring to it. So word gets around and Hill starts to court Temperance with the approval of her father.  It’s not too long until they’re engaged—she’s not so bad to look at herself, and her father’s got money, so you can imagine that Hill thinks it’s a good match. They decide to have a longer engagement, though. Hill’s busy being a first mate and doing…”

“Seaman things?” Seokjin asked.

“Yeah, exactly,” Yoongi agreed with a huff of laughter. He sipped his hot chocolate and continued: “Every time he would go out to sea, she would wait for him up at the widow’s walk, or sit right where we’re sitting and watch the seas, hoping he’d soon be home to her again. He always came back if she waited long enough.

“It’s finally the month of their wedding, but before they’re married, Hill has to take this cargo down the coast to a southern state. It’s his first gig as a captain, so it’s a big deal.  He leaves CVP, waving to Temperance from the bow, and a week passes. Temperance doesn't hear from Hill, and she starts to get worried. Two weeks, three weeks, a month—no sign of Hill. On stormy nights, Temperance walks back and forth on the widow’s walk, hoping she’ll see his ship coming into port at long last.” Yoongi paused, grasping the mug in both hands.

“Did he ever come back?”

“No. There are rumours that the ship went a bit too far out and sunk with the whole crew.  There are also rumours that pirates boarded and sank it after stealing all the cargo. My favourite rumour, however, is that Hill thought Temperance was so annoying that he and the crew set off for England, never to return. He’d rather leave than face a life with her.”

Seokjin chuckled, shaking his head. “Romantic.”

“I know, right? Well, the story goes that Temperance hasn’t given up her watch after all these years. People still feel her in the room—sitting on the side of their bed, walking through them, sending a shiver down their spines.” Yoongi scooted closer, setting his hot chocolate on the table to take one of Seokjin’s hands.  Seokjin inclined in, setting his own mug down to enjoy the way Yoongi’s warm hands engulfed his, thumbs tracing along Seokjin’s crooked fingers and knobbly knuckles.

“But some report seeing her, too—in the mirror behind them while they brush their hair, sitting at the top of the staircase alone, pacing along the widow’s walk with a hand clutching her shawl around her shoulders.”

Light touched every surface, a quick illumination followed a creak like someone had put their full weight on a rickety floorboard out on the walk.  Seokjin squeezed Yoongi’s hands, meeting his eyes with a grin.

“Temperance,” they said in unison, immediately breaking into a fit of laughter.

Perhaps it was the laughter that sent them careening into each other, or perhaps it was the following crash of thunder that had Yoongi climbing onto Seokjin’s lap, moaning into his mouth when Seokjin’s hands grasped his ass cheeks.  They moved with each other, pawing at clothing, grinding where it felt right, enthusiastic kisses and nips along collarbones and jawlines.

“Hyung?” Yoongi gasped, breathless as Seokjin’s hands traveled up his bare ribs, rucking his shirt off and flinging it down the wrought iron staircase.

“Yeah?” Seokjin set in on Yoongi’s chest, ducking down to flick his tongue over one of his nipples.

“I watched your… ah, hyung, I watched every video in your ‘Seokjin Scouts the Southern Hemisphere’ series. After you checked in, I watched them all.”

“That’s like seven hours of content,” Seokjin said, huffing a laugh out before he continued to lick circles around Yoongi’s nipple, teasing it until it stood to attention.

“I fell asleep—your voice was calming.”

Seokjin pulled back, looking up to Yoongi, who tugged at Seokjin’s hair, lips parted and strawberry-red in the dim lighting.

“I googled you. I googled Yoongi Min Ornithologist and I… I read three of your academic articles.” Seokjin swallowed, trying to read Yoongi’s expression. His eyebrows had raised in surprise, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smug smile.

“That’s like seven hours of content for someone who doesn’t study ornithology.”

“I took notes.”

There was a pause, another low grumble of thunder reverberating around the room as the storm drew closer.  The thunder snapped the thread of tension between them, and Yoongi was off of Seokjin’s lap, practically ripping the zipper down on his jeans.  Seokjin followed suit, canting his hips off of the sofa to shimmy his sweats and boxers to the ground.

Yoongi shoved the coffee table away from the sofa—it wasn’t far given the size of the minuscule cupola, but enough to give them a little peace of mind about not knocking the candle or empty mugs. He kneeled in front of Seokjin, hands braced on his thighs to lean down and suck at the tip of his cock.

“Ah—Yoongi-ssi,” Seokjin whined, fisting his hands in Yoongi’s hair.  With no further coaxing, Yoongi swallowed down on his cock and Seokjin’s eyelids fluttered shut, a broken groan stuttering out between his lips.  The pace had changed from reading Yoongi’s papers on biological theory to enjoying the warm heat of his mouth. It made Seokjin’s head spin pleasantly, acutely aware of the way Yoongi’s rhythm seemed to match the thrumming of the rain on the windows.

Seokjin tugged at Yoongi’s hair, pulling him off. His cock twitched at the loss, and scooted to the side of the sofa and tapped the spot next to him for Yoongi to come up.  With one hand, he lowered a fist over Yoongi’s cock, squeezing the base.  With the other, he grasped the side of Yoongi’s neck, closing the distance between them with a kiss on the side of his mouth, another one high on his cheekbone.

“Hyung, will you fuck me?”

Seokjin felt his hips angle up ever-so-slightly, cock twitching at the idea of being buried in Yoongi’s cute little ass, a breathy moan rumbling deep in his throat like the echoing bellows of thunder.

“If that’s what you want, Dr. Min.”

It was Yoongi’s turn to thrust up,into the waiting circle of Seokjin’s fingers.  He clamoured off of Seokjin’s lap, grasping the arm of the little sofa and planting a knee on the cushion.  The aforementioned cute little ass was now in Seokjin’s face, begging to be licked or fucked (or both).

“Yeah, that’s what I want.” Yoongi pointed to the pool of his pants on the floor. “There’s a condom and lube in the back pocket.”

“So that’s what you meant when you said various secrets,” Seokjin joked, scrambling off of the sofa to rifle through Yoongi’s pockets.  He located the sachet of lube and condom in record time, first tearing the corner of the packet of lube and spreading it over his fingers.  As he approached the sofa again, he gripped one of Yoongi’s asscheeks, admiring the way he arched his back and wiggled into it.

“Cut the banter,” Yoongi demanded, glancing over his shoulder.  

Seokjin raised a defiant eyebrow, pulling Yoongi’s hips back to meet his groin, laying the weight of his erection along the seam of Yoongi’s ass. “Needy, huh?”

“Yes,” Yoongi retorted, rolling his hips, arching his back again. Impossible to ignore, impossible not to fall in love with.

Seokjin took a step back, plunging his first finger into Yoongi’s asshole.  It was an easy glide, a second slipping in with ease as Yoongi rocked back against them, a broken keen tumbling from his mouth.  By the time he was stretched enough for a cock, he was fucking himself against Seokjin’s fingers, face collapsed into the back cushion of the sofa.

With one foot poised on the sofa next to Yoongi’s knee, Seokjin made quick work of rolling the condom down over himself, spreading the remainder of the lube from the sachet over the length of his cock. He lined himself up, only the dim lighting of the candle and a bolt of lightning to illuminate the scene, spreading Yoongi’s asscheeks wide and sliding into him until he was fully seated.  Enveloped in velvet heat, Seokjin let go of Yoongi’s ass, massaging both hands over his lower back, his hips.  Yoongi groaned, a crack of thunder joining the chorus.

“That okay?” Seokjin asked, smoothing a hand up Yoongi’s back, gripping his neck from behind.

“Yeah,” Yoongi sighed, his muscles relaxing, bracing against the back of the sofa.

“Can I—?”

“Yeah,” Yoongi repeated, sounding eager.

Seokjin’s grip on the back of his neck tightened, hips swirling back to gyrate forward, an undulating thrust that turned into a building rhythm.  Yoongi responded to Seokjin’s hands almost as much as he responded to his cock, letting out high-pitched moans when Seokjin leaned forward to wrap a testing hand around the base of his throat from behind.  He cried out again when Seokjin smacked his ass, thrusting forward to sink into him after each strike.

“Didn’t expect this from you, Dr. Min,” Seokjin groaned between belaboured breaths, keeping a slow and steady pace.  He felt his orgasm winding tight in his stomach, white-hot, aching for Yoongi.

“You’ll get your turn to be punished after class, jagiya,” Yoongi grumbled. He’d fisted a hand around his cock at Seokjin’s instruction, and his attempts at stroking himself off were becoming erratic, hips twitching to try to get Seokjin deeper.

“F-fuck yes, Yoongi-ssi. God, you’re so… agh, I’m going to cum, you’re...” Seokjin felt sweat beading at his forehead, teetering dangerously on the edge of orgasm. As he spilled into the condom, he chased his orgasm in Yoongi’s heat, all erratic thrusts and desperation, Yoongi’s name on his lips all the while.

“Hyung, I—“ Yoongi whined, still desperately jerking himself off.

On shaky legs, Seokjin pulled out of Yoongi, using the last of his strength to turn him around and kneel in front of him.  His mouth fell open, eyes wide as he glanced up at Yoongi.  Yoongi, his own eyes glazed over with a sheen of lust, lip bitten between his teeth with a curse, traced the tip of his cock around Seokjin’s lips, on his tongue as his hand slid up and down, up and down.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Seokjin,” Yoongi growled, a precursor to the cum that spurted from the bright purple-red head of his cock, painting Seokjin’s tongue and cheeks and a bit of his forehead. He moaned, his free hand grasping at Seokjin’s hair with a firm tug.

They remained like that for a moment: frozen in a tableau of lust, Seokjin’s mouth closing to swallow what Yoongi had aimed properly, Yoongi panting and removing his sticky hand from his cock.  He let go of Seokjin’s hair, thumbing at the cum spattered on Seokjin’s face, finger plunging into his mouth.

“Fuck, Seokjin,” Yoongi said, eyes trained on the way Seokjin sucked his finger in, tongue swirling around the pad of his thumb, pulling off with an obscenely wet sound.

Yoongi collapsed back on the couch, running a hand through his hair, pushing it back to expose the milky whiteness of his forehead.  He watched with half-lidded eyes as Seokjin removed the condom and tied it off, depositing it into his empty hot chocolate mug to take care of later.  In the ensuing flash of lightning, Seokjin’s eyes fell on the camera tripod: still set up, still ticking away the minutes on film, blinking a red light into the darkness.

“I think we just shot an amateur porn film,” Seokjin said, motioning to the camera.  He reached for it, pressing the button to end the recording.  As he flopped down on the sofa next to Yoongi, creating a pile of loose limbs and enjoying the way Yoongi immediately kissed at his shoulder, he accessed the video.  It was dark, but visible enough. “I should delete it.” His finger hovered over the button, an extended pause.

“Wait,” Yoongi said, hand on Seokjin’s arm to physically stop him.

“What?”

“We should watch it.” Yoongi smiled, a Cheshire Cat grin that looked downright naughty.

“I’m—no. We…” Seokjin raised his eyebrows, head tilting to the side. He shook his head and frowned at the camera. “It would be undeniably hot, but I’m nervous about observing myself. You know—my performance.”

“Do you think your performance was lacking? Because I can tell you firsthand it was phenomenal,” Yoongi said, hand still braced on Seokjin’s forearm.

“No, I’m just afraid that it might come off as lacking regardless of the, uh, actual experience, you know?”

“Sure.” Yoongi nodded.

They both paused. A bolt of lightning flashed. A roll of thunder followed. They continued to pause.

“So do you wanna go watch it?” Yoongi asked.

“Yeah, let’s go get my laptop.”

In the comfort of Seokjin’s hotel room bed, they watched, they studied, they gathered their stamina, and they filmed again in the name of science and art.  Seokjin fell asleep in Yoongi’s arms again, content and ready to cast off his life in Seoul to spend forever in this place.

~~~

“I—you’re… you’re just going to stay?” Seokjin frowned across the breakfast table at Jimin.

Their final day at the Inn had come, each day blurring into a constant refrain in Seokjin’s heart that said Yoongi, Yoongi, Yoongi.  After returning from Taehyung’s house—a rented beach bungalow on the other end of town—Jimin announced his plan to stay on this leg of their journey for the foreseeable future.

“That’s the plan.”

“But you’re… you’re supposed to be helping me with filming. I bought you the ticket!” Seokjin protested.

“I know but—“ Jimin started, and Seokjin kicked his shin under the table. “Ow!”

“No buts, Jimin-ah!”

“I’ll pay you back for the ticket!” Jimin reached below the table to rub at his leg, glaring at Seokjin.

“Who’s going to help me film?”

“I don’t know, the tripod? You brought like three of them.”

“And one of them only fits into your giant suitcase!”

“You can use my suitcase! I don’t need much here.” Jimin reached across the table to grab Seokjin’s hand, giving it a little squeeze. “Please try to understand, hyung. I really like Taehyung. This is good for me.”

Seokjin’s eyes cut from Jimin’s hand on his, back to Jimin’s pleading, puppy dog-esque expression, then back to their hands. He sighed. It was futile—not only would he never convince Jimin to leave, but he understood. His understanding was too close for comfort, in fact. 

When Yoongi had left his bed that morning with a million sweet kisses and whispered promises of ‘I’ll be back in Korea soon,’ ‘look me up,’ and ‘come see me before you go.’ Yoongi had walked out of the hotel room with a little piece of Seokjin’s heart tucked into his pocket, and it had hurt more than Seokjin thought it would.  He was used to leaving things behind: going from one destination to the next for his show, never in one place for too long, always having to say goodbye to his flat in Korea.

There was a feeling deep in his stomach that told him the next time he saw Yoongi, it would feel a bit like coming home. Yoongi was both that comfortable, warm place and an exciting, new destination.

“Fine. The least your boyfriend can do is drive me to the airport this afternoon.”

Jimin’s worried expression broke into a bright grin, his eyes almost disappearing with the effort of it. “Thank you, Seokjin-hyung. Of course we’ll get you to the airport.” At that, he stood from the table, disappearing out of the dining room.

Seokjin pushed his scrambled eggs around on his plate with his fork, his appetite gone. He didn’t mind travelling alone, but he much preferred travelling with Jimin. That was half of why Jimin accompanied him on the trips—he could film alone, and he'd done so for years.

In his third straight minute of staring out of the window as rain spattered the glass, he stood up like a man possessed. Hell, being in a place so haunted, there was a chance he was possessed.  He put one foot in front of the other, marching straight to the reception area.

Behind the desk, Yoongi nibbled on the end of a pen, his glasses on, a perplexed little frown on his face as he read a book.  He looked up when Seokjin entered, a lightness coming over him with a grin that reassured Seokjin.

“Seokjin-hyung.”

“Hey,” Seokjin said. He approached the desk slowly, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans in an attempt at nonchalance.

“You’re trying to look nonchalant,” Yoongi said, matter-of-fact, an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

Seokjin let out an exhale, his shoulders slumping as he did. “Okay, yeah.”

“What’s up?”

Seokjin put both of his hands on the desk palm-down, looking like he’d come to the table with a business proposition instead laying himself bare for Yoongi to do what he pleased with.

“Jimin just ditched me for the rest of the trip.”

“Oh?” Yoongi looked confused, then nodded as realisation dawned. “Oh, Taehyung.”

“Yeah, Taehyung.”

“That’s annoying,” Yoongi lamented, reaching across the desk to put one of his hands over Seokjin’s.

“Yeah, now I have extra tickets everywhere.”

“What a waste.” Yoongi closed his book, revealing a battered copy of ‘What It’s Like to be a Bird’.

“Yeah.”

“You know,” Yoongi started, taking his hand back from Seokjin’s to flip through a calendar on the desk, eyes scanning it, “this is my last shift for a while.”

“A while?”

“Yeah, I asked for time off to finish packing. I’m supposed to go back home in a couple of weeks, remember?”

“Oh,” Seokjin said, peeking up to study Yoongi’s face.  Yoongi’s expression was similar: a shy look, a query poised on the tip of his tongue. “You know they, um, have birds where I’m going.”

“Do they?” Yoongi asked.  Seokjin nodded. Yoongi nodded. They sized each other up. Yoongi grabbed his book and tucked it under one arm. “Should I go pack now?”

“I think so.”

Maybe this part of the trip wouldn’t be so lonely after all—no trip could be with Yoongi at his side, sweet like honey and warm like home.