Seokjin was not fine, and no matter how hard he tried to deny it, no matter how long he spent convincing himself his feelings weren't real, he couldn't escape the fact that he was falling, falling, falling so rapidly for Kim Namjoon. He was everything he could have ever wished for in a guy, handsome and intelligent and kind and just straight-up enthralling to talk to. It hadn't even been a week since he had started getting to know Namjoon and Seokjin had already found himself enchanted by him. Everything he did seemed to make him want to get closer and closer.
Even now, as Namjoon accidentally knocks the bowl of wet ingredients onto the floor of Seokjin's parents' house and nearly spills the bag of flour when trying to clean it up, he somehow still manages to be endearing as ever.
Seokjin had thought it would be a good idea to make Christmas cookies together, both as something they could do (he passed it off to Namjoon as another fake date, but it was honestly just self-indulgent) and a way for him to start teaching Namjoon to cook. Now, with Namjoon having managed to somehow get raw egg in his hair, he wasn't entirely sure his judgement had been correct.
Namjoon, as it turned out, had a special talent: being able to destroy or mess up almost anything he dealt with. Seokjin had thought he was clumsy before, but it was nothing compared to the mess he was in the kitchen. Now Seokjin knew why Namjoon had been desperate enough to learn how to cook to agree to be his fake date; Namjoon was horrible at baking, and Seokjin would be willing to bet the same thing applied to cooking. They hadn't even finished with the batter yet. After all of it, though, Seokjin couldn't even bring himself to be irritated at Namjoon, not with how profusely he apologized and the jokes he slipped in their conversations to lighten up the mood again.
"Well, I guess you could say I'm doing a pretty crummy job at mixing these ingredients," Namjoon says, smirking at Seokjin, who shakes his head at the man's third stupid pun of the last half hour. Stupid, but it's obvious Namjoon already knows that – it's his goal, because Seokjin's seen him make good jokes. This isn't meant to be one of them.
"Well, now that we've got all of our ingredients out again, I'll show you how to do it properly and not in a way where you manage to fling them off of the counter," Seokjin says, moving closer as Namjoon picks up the bowl of dry ingredients and a whisk, putting them closer to the newly-poured wet ingredients.
Namjoon pours the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ones, and even though it's the absolute bare minimum, at least he didn't manage to spill them this time.
"Good so far,"
"Yeah, because this is really easy to mess up, pouring something from one bowl into another,"
"You just knocked a bowl of ingredients off the counter while trying to mix them, my expectations are not high,"
"I can mix correctly, don't you worry. It's...well, everything else that I struggle with," Namjoon shrugs, whisking around the ingredients, one hand on the whisk and the other on the counter. The whisk dings against the side of the bowl, slowly pushing it towards the edge of the counter. Seokjin shakes his head yet again, this time with a small smile.
"I'm not so sure about that,"
Seokjin steps up from behind Namjoon, clutching the bowl in one hand and gently placing his other hand on top of Namjoon's. Swishing the whisk around in a smooth, quick pattern, he demonstrates, and soon enough Namjoon gets the hang of it himself.
"Perfect. See, it'll be a lot better this way," he says, removing his hands and moving back again, and immediately misses the warmth of Namjoon's hand. He supposes it was nice while it lasted.
As he observes Namjoon continue to mix the ingredients how Seokjin showed him to, he realizes that even though the man is completely incompetent at cooking now, he has a great capacity to learn. He just needs to be shown how to do things, and from there he's actually pretty good. Based on what he's observing, Namjoon is incredibly quick to pick things up.
"Hey Seokjin, is this mixed well enough? It looks good to me," Namjoon pushes the bowl in Seokjin's direction, who peers at it carefully for a few moments before looking back up at Namjoon with a smile. To his surprise, it was mixed perfectly, just enough to have a good texture without being overdone.
"Yeah, it's great. Good job, Joon!"
For just a moment afterwards, Seokjin isn't quite sure if he's seeing things, but he swears that he sees the lightest hint of pink on Namjoon's cheeks before he smiles. It was probably just wishful thinking, though.
That was all.
"So what do we do now?"
"We take the dough, cut it into shapes, bake it, and then we're done!" Seokjin exclaims happily, practically tasting the sweet taste of cookies already. Taking the dough in his hands, he puts it down on the table and gets out the flour.
In the half a second that he's turned away from the batter, Namjoon has already put his hands on it, pulling small parts of it and beginning to flatten it out. Seokjin walks over again quickly, placing his hand on Namjoon's to get him to stop.
"Wait, wait, wait, not yet. They won't turn out well if we do it now. First we have to roll it over flour," he explains, holding up the bag, and Namjoon nods, looking embarrassed.
"Oh. That makes more sense," Namjoon nods, watching as Seokjin sprinkles flour across the table, giving him the dough along with the parts that he had already taken off of it. Seokjin puts it down and uses the rolling pin to flatten it out.
"See? It's better this way," Seokjin says, turning to Namjoon with a smile.
"Wow, this actually doesn't seem too difficult once you put effort into actually doing it correctly," Namjoon marvels, and Seokjin chuckles.
"Yeah, that goes for a lot of things," Seokjin finishes rolling out the batter, which is now a flat, easy to cut singular piece.
"And here comes the best part!" Seokjin pulls out a set of holiday-themed cookie cutters, ones he had had since he was a kid. The various metal shapes of trees, reindeer, snowmen, ornaments, and other things associated with the winter holidays all laid out on the counter, almost looking like ornaments themselves, were starting to really put him in the holiday spirit. Not that the various decorations around and the Christmas songs repeated an obnoxious amount of times didn't, but it really made him realize how close the holidays were.
And how close Namjoon was. The man was standing right beside him, practically leaning over his shoulder as he reached for a tree-shaped piece, and Seokjin was almost painfully aware of the way that their arms touched, their rolled-up sleeves allowing their skin to touch, the way even though Namjoon wasn't even trying he could still make Seokjin's cheeks hotter than hell, the way something so innocent and small could make him so happy.
But it was just a little crush, and even with his little (and possibly fake) flirtations Namjoon probably didn't feel the same way, so he would just have to deal with it. Indulge in it without chasing after anything more.
That was all.
Namjoon manages to drop the cookie cutter almost immediately after picking it up because of course he does, and as he drops to the ground to retrieve the clattering thing his soft hair brushes against Seokjin's face, and call him whipped but Seokjin would be lying if he said he didn't want to feel it more.
He would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying this all a little bit too much, the pleasant scent of moist cookies wafting through the air, Namjoon's hopelessly endearing k-k-k laugh, the smallest of brushes against each other as Seokjin got unnecessarily close to show him how to do things. Namjoon wasn't a good cook, not even close - but how fun it was to just do things with him more than made up for any irritation that could have been caused by his complete lack of skill.
"Like this," he says softly to Namjoon, guiding his hands so both of them are on top of the cookie cutter. "If your fingers are too close to the edge of it, you might end up cutting yourself. I don't want you to get hurt."
Seokjin doesn't care about all the rudimentary mistakes. Kim Namjoon could accidentally throw a tray of blazing hot cookies straight onto his face and he'd still be happy. It felt nice, here in this kitchen, flurries of snowflakes falling outside the window and a brightly lit Christmas tree in the next room over, and he wouldn't change anything about it.
•
Namjoon didn't like him back. That was what Seokjin kept telling himself, because more likely than not that was the truth and the absolute last thing he wanted was to get his hopes up about dating his Calculus tutor, be wrong, and then have to face him again once the new semester started.
His hopes, however, seemed to have a life of their own, and just like the icicles outside they just kept spiking. And nothing can stop it from reaching a new high the next day when Namjoon walks up to him, phone in hand, clearly fighting a smile from his face. He holds the screen up to Seokjin's face, the mediocrely designed homepage for a business's website showing up. Looking closer at the light red-highlighted headings, Seokjin sees it's for a bike rental place in his town, one he had passed by often growing up but never really thought about.
"Want to go on another date?" he asks, sounding almost eager. Seokjin immediately nods, because of course he wanted to, but what exactly did the bike rental place have to do with this, he wonders? And when he asks, Namjoon is all too happy to answer, almost as passionate as he was at the art museum.
"Well, I just love going on bike rides. It's calming, you know? I was thinking it would be a nice date to go together, if you're interested," Namjoon says, eyes lit up in a smile so bright Seokjin swears it could rival the sun.
"Yeah, I'm definitely interested. When did you want to go?" Seokjin asks, trying to stay cool right now. Stay cool, stay cool. It's just Kim Namjoon , probably the most handsome man he's ever seen, asking him on a date, and he had a small suspicion that it was genuine. He was fine.
"I was thinking...would now work?"
Kim Namjoon wants to go on a date with him now . Seokjin swears he's going to faint, either from pure bliss or the embarrassment from the dorky smile on his face now that he's unable to get off. Whipped. He was whipped for this man, he wasn't even denying it now. Namjoon could ask him to go at two in the morning and he'd probably still say yes just because of that hopeful smile.
"Perfect,"
•
The use of two white and plain but sturdy bikes ends up costing them 30,000 won and fifteen minutes of waiting in the literal freezing weather. Walking the bikes away from the store and onto the recently snow-cleared streets, Seokjin can see their breaths in the air the whole time. It's not ideal biking weather, that's for sure, and they both know it. Not even Seokjin's thick jacket, warm knit hat, and scarf could fully defend him from the elements. What was more of a problem, though, was the thick piles of snow lining the streets, freshly fallen from the day before and starting to collect a small amount of dirt. Pretty to look at, sure, but inconvenient to get through on any sort of transportation.
"What if we crash into the snow?" he wonders aloud to Namjoon as they mount the bikes, Seokjin struggling for a moment to find his balance, as it's been a fair amount of time since he's last ridden a bike.
"Well, we crash into the snow. Don't worry, it's not that bad. It's easy to get out of, just a small annoyance is all," Namjoon shrugs as he looks at Seokjin, but then has to steady himself to make sure he doesn't fall off. Seokjin's honestly surprised that so far Namjoon seems a lot more balanced than usual; he would have expected the man to be as clumsy as usual, but he seemed calm, almost effortless in his movements. Seokjin never thought he would describe someone riding a bike as graceful, but Namjoon managed it.
"You see that building to the right, the one with the bread in its logo? That's the best bakery here. Their bread is delicious, especially the one with raisins. I'll get you to try it sometime," Seokjin comments, gesturing with his head towards a shop on the right side, its more beige color palette making it stand out against the other shops in the vicinity. That, and the multicolored lights hung over the entire outside. Most of the other places had various Christmas decorations as well, but the bakery always went all out. He supposed the owners were particularly festive.
"I'd like that. Your town is pretty passionate about Christmas, huh?" Namjoon says, looking around, gazing at the red and green ornaments spread about, white tinsel on shopfronts. No matter how small, most of the places around had some kind of holiday spirit going on. Seokjin was used to it - it was the same when he grew up - but it still always seemed somewhat magical to him. He wasn't always the most festive person, but he did love the feel of the holiday season.
"People here definitely like it a lot. I do too, honestly. How is it where you're from? Ilsan, right?"
"Ilsan, yeah. Depends on the place, but at least for my family we don't really do much. I mean, my parents are on business trips for Christmas, so I think it's pretty clear they're not too into it," Namjoon's eyes are glazed in wonder, white lights nearby reflecting off of them. Seokjin almost wishes he could admire them for longer, but that wasn't a good idea for two reasons: one, it would probably just deepen the crush he most definitely had on Namjoon, and two, it would probably creep Namjoon out. And though Seokjin wasn't the world's most experienced with romance, what he did know was that seeming like a creep was not the way to attract someone.
"Do you like it, all the decorations here?"
Namjoon hums for a moment before giving his answer.
"I do. It's new, but in a good way. Have you ever heard that English Christmas song that goes 'it's the most wonderful time of the year'? Well, probably not, but that's one of the lyrics. I feel like this place is the real-life version of that, and it's not a bad thing,"
Such a simple question and Namjoon actually put effort into answering it. That was just how the man was, Seokjin supposed, and that was one of his favorite things about him so far.
"Namjoon...again, I'm sorry about all this. This is your first time really celebrating the holidays and you're doing it while pretending to be the boyfriend of someone you barely knew before this," Seokjin says, fidgeting slightly with the black rubber of the handles, and Namjoon chuckles as he looks back towards the road ahead of them, going along the slight curve of the street.
"It's alright, Seokjin. I agreed to this, remember? It's not like I had major plans for the holidays anyways, and you're going to have to teach me to cook, which I'm terrible at, so you're also paying me back. You don't have to apologize anymore, don't worry," Namjoon's tone is somewhat teasing, but at the same time genuine and comforting. Seokjin liked this other side of him, the sweeter side, contrasting with his usual sarcasm, both of which he had never seen during tutoring.
"Are you sure? It's just that I know this was a lot to ask..."
"Unless you're going to teach me some secret recipe for an apology cake, or endless sorries are an ingredient in basic dishes, we're all good, okay?" Namjoon smirks playfully and Seokjin shakes his head, smiling nonetheless, because somehow even Namjoon's smirk seemed breathtaking.
"You know, I thought I would hate this at first. No offense, but I kind of thought that it would be boring and I'd regret agreeing," Namjoon continues, and Seokjin's smile drops slightly, and he risks losing his balance just to hit Namjoon's arm softly in annoyance.
"Hey, I'm not that uninteresting!"
"I know, I know now! As I was saying, I didn't really expect much before we left. But really, you're not half bad. You're fun to talk to, actually. I probably wouldn't have tolerated this with anyone else, that's what I'm trying to say," Namjoon says, and this time Seokjin doesn't even try to stop his hopes from flying into the outer atmosphere because he had never gotten a compliment like that before, much less from a fake boyfriend that could potentially turn into a real one. Granted, he had never had a fake boyfriend before now, either, but this definitely meant something to him. It definitely meant something from Namjoon, too, judging by the way he can barely look Seokjin in the eye without turning his head away immediately.
"Me too, Namjoon. Thanks for being a good pretend boyfriend. I've never had one before, obviously, but I'd be willing to bet you're the best one out there,"
This time, Seokjin knows he's not just seeing things when he sees Namjoon's cheeks erupt into a soft pink, and maybe it's just influenced by his own desires, but he would be willing to bet all the money in the world that it wasn't just because of the cold.
•
Sometimes an hour feels like it drags on forever, such as when you're waiting in the doctor's office or half-asleep during your least favorite class. With Namjoon, though, each minute feels like a single second, the rapid passage of time intertwined with banter and jokes and conversations and laughter. Things feel like they just flow when Seokjin is with him, so much so that they almost miss the time they're supposed to return the bikes by. Namjoon, though, seems to be just as responsible out of university as he is in it (ignoring his lack of motor control skills), and remembers early enough for them to get back in time.
They didn't crash into any of the piles of snow littering the sidewalks and streets, which Seokjin honestly considers an accomplishment with how many there are, especially for Namjoon , who was pretty much chaos incarnate and could hardly go a few meters without managing to trip over his own feet. Sometimes it was just the air that tripped him up. On a bike, though, Namjoon had actually done pretty well.
As they take the bikes back to the rental place, a light flurry starts, fresh snow falling over the two of them, slowly dampening their hair and jackets as it melts. Seokjin begins to wish he had brought some sort of hat, fearing that his wet hair would just make him even more cold than he was at the moment. Somehow it seems that the weather is colder than it was before, or perhaps it's really just the snow. Whatever it is, it's freezing out, and Seokjin can practically feel an icicle forming on the tip of his nose. It's not pleasant, and he's just looking forward to getting back to the hotel.
They're probably a quarter of the way through their walk back when Seokjin feels a hand tentatively touch itself to his own half-numb left hand, the person's palm pressing snugly against his and slender fingers settling themselves around his. Looking to his left in shock, it's Namjoon looking at him, Namjoon with a soft but embarrassed smile and a cherry-colored face, Namjoon who squeezes his hand lightly. Seokjin raises his eyebrow at him.
"Oh, sorry. Am I bothering you? I just thought since-" Seokjin cuts off Namjoon's words with a laugh, amused at how nervous he seems.
"No, I don't mind. Just wondering why,"
"My hands are cold. I wanted to keep warm, that's all. My fingers feel like they're in a freezer out here!" Namjoon seems to find more confidence in his excuse, confidence Seokjin is all too happy to question with just four words.
"Didn't you bring gloves?"
Namjoon's smile falters for a moment, as he looks away, clearing his throat, but still grasping onto Seokjin's hand.
"Your hand...it's comfortable to hold," is all the answer Namjoon offers, but it's more than enough to make Seokjin's own cheeks hotter than a blazing fireplace, redder than Rudolph's nose, and even though he tries to tell himself for the sake of his own sanity that it's probably just more to "sell the act", he knows that's a complete lie. And so he's more than happy the entire way to their temporary home as no gloves are put on and no hands are let go of.
Later that night, when the sky has gone dark and the final flakes of snow have fallen, the two rest under the covers of the bed. Seokjin feels warm both inside and out as they slowly inch closer to one another as they drift off, with neither of them making any attempt to stop it. And he supposes Namjoon does, too, with the way they finally fall asleep, Namjoon's arm wrapped loosely but comfortably over his waist.