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Seokjin sees the estate and oh, how he laughs.
Namjoon looks at him curiously, climbing out of the car. "Is something funny?" he asks, jumping to the ground and reaching back to help Hoseok out of the car, despite Hoseok being decidedly more agile.
"No," Seokjin lies.
It's funny because Seokjin could have had all of this. He literally could have lived here. It’s hard to imagine that if he had accepted the proposal all those months ago, he would be preparing to move in by now. Him. Live here.
Funny.
Pemberley doesn't sound like enough of a temptation by itself, but it's hard to resist when the whole thing is in front of him. Everything is so...Seokjin can't think of a word other than perfect. The building itself is beautiful, old-fashioned and huge, and the gardens are sprawling, the entire area the perfect balance of nature and maintenance. It's a subtle nuance, but Seokjin can't say he isn't pleased to see that Yoongi hasn't decided to trample over the gardens with decorative fountains and an enormous statue of himself.
But that's...ah. Seokjin scolds himself. That's not fair to Yoongi. Seokjin doesn't think of him that way, anymore. It'd be easier if he did.
Maybe Seokjin wouldn’t feel so much regret walking into this place.
"Stop smiling so weirdly," Hoseok criticizes, stretching his back from the long drive. "It's freaking me out. You've been mopey for forever."
Seokjin scoffs. "Mopey?" He has not been mopey.
"You spent the entire ride here staring out the window silently and sighing at the mountains," Hoseok replies, rolling his eyes. "Either you're in love or you're mopey."
Well.
Of the two, Seokjin is probably mopey.
"I know you didn't really want to come," Namjoon says kindly, "but the grounds are really beautiful, and the house is honestly gorgeous. I swear." He readjusts his shirt and wipes off some dust with jittery hands. "I think you'll have fun."
Fun. The house is beautiful, and the grounds are beautiful, and Seokjin is sure that the inside is beautiful as well, but he doesn't particularly feel like he's going to have fun.
"Stop frowning." Hoseok stabs his finger into the crease between Seokjin's eyebrows. "Stop thinking so hard and enjoy it."
"First you wanted me to stop smiling and now this." Seokjin laughs. "I can't win."
Hoseok rolls his eyes and grabs Seokjin by the hand. "Come on! Be excited! Conform to my desires."
Namjoon snorts. "This is how he flirts."
"Luckily for me, he already has a boyfriend to prey on," Seokjin notes idly as Namjoon turns red. He stifles a grin.
"Ugh, for real. Let's go," Hoseok whines. "There's an art collection in here that I've been wanting to see."
Seokjin lets himself be dragged into the building and prays to whoever is watching that today doesn't go down in flames.
The art is beautiful and Seokjin is, understandably, a mess.
Seokjin understands that Pemberley is a tourism opportunity, and he understands that with that comes some grandeur, but despite that it still feels like a home. Or, maybe not a home, because it's a mansion — almost a castle — and unlike any home Seokjin has ever encountered, but it still feels personal.
The tour guide, a smiling old woman who basically raised Yoongi and his brother, says that Yoongi designed most of the house himself over his years of living there, collected the artwork and arranged the rooms and organized the landscaping as he pleased. If this place feels personal, it must be personal to Yoongi.
This isn't the sort of person that Seokjin would have imagined Yoongi to feel like, but the proof is right here, in front of him, all around him, and he laughs when he realizes that he's feeling soft for a version of this man that he never knew.
"Here he is," the tour guide is saying, and the words nearly give Seokjin a heart attack. Automatically he looks around, fully expecting to see the bleached hair and the bad posture and the weird, awkward, flat look of Min Yoongi.
He tells himself that he feels nothing, certainly not disappointment, when all he finds are painting and sculptures and gold gilding.
Hoseok and Namjoon are standing next to the guide in an adjoining room. Seokjin had gotten distracted by the collection and his thoughts, so he calmly closes the distance between them and looks around. It's a photo gallery, white walls and modern frames with photographs ranging from the size of his hand to nearly as tall as Seokjin. There are portraits of people Seokjin has never met and some that he has. He sees Jimin's face several times, and he wishes that his brother Taehyung could be here to see them. They're stunning photographs. All of the photographs are, all the portraits and landscapes and still lifes.
It has a much different feeling than the rest of the galleries, more modern and almost sterile. The walls are stark and clean and sharp, but whatever the others are looking at has a soft look on the tour guide's face.
Seokjin turns the corner and he doesn't know why he's surprised.
"This is the master," the guide says, gesture to the large portrait on the wall, "and his brother, in the photo next to him." Yoongi's brother looks young and happy, with a soft face and a cute smile. It's posed, the backdrop clearly one from a studio, but the look on his face is soft and unaware, like someone behind the camera said the right thing at the right time and got something magical.
Yoongi looks different than Seokjin has ever seen him.
Unlike his brother's picture, this one is candid. Yoongi's neck is bent back awkwardly and his eyes are closed and his mouth is hanging open, laughing slightly too hard to be pretty but just hard enough to be perfect. He's wearing a huge scarf and glasses that are nearly falling off, and he's got a professional looking camera in his hands. He’s standing in front of some sort of pier, one that Seokjin doesn't recognize, and the sea behind him is calm in all the ways Yoongi isn't. Yoongi looks alive.
Out of all the Yoongi's that Seokjin has seen, he thinks he likes this one the best.
"Who took this picture?" Seokjin asks no one.
"Jungkook, his brother, sir," the old woman replies fondly.
"It's good," Seokjin says. "Why is he holding a camera?"
She smiles again. "I'm afraid you missed my saying it earlier, but Yoongi is extremely fond of photography. He took all of these, with the exception of a few, and the red room, which has all of Jungkook's work." She gestures around the room. "I believe on the day this way taken, Yoongi was showing his brother how to work his new camera. They were in New York. He remembers that day fondly, even if he hates this picture." She laughs. "Jungkook likes it, so Yoongi put it up. He's worthless against his brother."
Yoongi was a photographer. "I didn't know that," Seokjin says idly, looking around the room. It's weird, being surrounded by someone. Art is weird. This is weird. This is too close to something Seokjin doesn't want to touch.
The guide looks at him, surprised. "Do you know him?"
Seokjin swallows. Not really. "We've met," he answers instead. "When he went and stayed in the country recently, we were neighbors."
"Ah, that's nice," she says. "He is a good man. I'm sure kind people like yourselves did him good."
""I guess." Seokjin frowns.
"You didn't tell us he was so handsome," Hoseok teases, nudging Seokjin with his elbow.
"It wasn't important," Seokjin whines, ducking out of the way. Because it wasn't. Isn't. It's fine. Things are fine.
Seokjin is fine.
Seokjin has a tendency to wander and no fear of getting lost, so no one is surprised when he finds himself walking through the halls of Pemberley alone.
Hoseok
Bitch
Text us when you're done making us look bad
The tour guide will think you're a scoundrel
Seokjin rolls his eyes and sticks his phone back into his pocket after checking the time. They'll be here for at least another hour, and Seokjin has plenty of time to kill.
The house is sectioned off. Some areas aren't open to the public, and despite the fact that the entire house is gorgeous and meticulously designed, he gets the feeling that the family spends significantly less time out here in the grandeur and more time in the few wings that are closed off. He imagines Yoongi coming in through the kitchens and working his way up through the back hallways, never seeing the galleries or the golden rooms unless he pulled himself out of his safe spaces.
And that's fine to imagine, except that it's evidently not true, because Seokjin hears music and it most certainly isn't the tour guide.
He's not sure what makes him follow it, but he does. The music is light and airy, and even Seokjin can hear in the notes how expensive the piano is, but more than that he can hear how delicately it's being played, like it's precious.
Seokjin knows his own luck, so he knows before he even turns the corner that it's going to be Yoongi.
Yoongi has the door open, and when Seokjin moves to stand in the doorway his hands falter on the piano, playing a sharp chord as his mouth drops. His fingers find the music again, but it turns into something simpler, a melody from memory while he stares.
"Um." Seokjin crosses his arms over his chest. "Hello."
The rhythm falters. "Hello."
Seokjin stares back. "Are you just going to play the piano or...?"
Yoongi frowns consideringly. "I feel like if I get up from the piano I will be too vulnerable and you'll yell at me," he says decisively, hitting a key very pointedly. "I'm safe here."
"This is your house," Seokjin says incredulously. "If anyone is unsafe, isn't it me?"
"Ah, I forgot." Yoongi looks at him flatly. "You would never disrespect me in my own house."
Seokjin blinks. He won't say the sarcasm doesn't bite, but he also won't say that Yoongi is wrong. "Well."
Yoongi smiles tightly. "Well."
Seokjin's phone is buzzing incessantly in his pocket, but he ignores it because if would be rude to check it now, when he's standing in front a man who by all means should hate and seemingly doesn't. Also, there's something kind of striking about Yoongi right now, sitting at the piano, the culmination of this new side of him Seokjin hasn't seen. He's not entirely sure he wants to look away. "It's a lovely house," Seokjin says after a while.
"Thanks." Yoongi laughs a little and the music trills. "I worked very hard on it."
"I can tell," Seokjin says, because he can. Because the tour guide told him. Because he's here for a tour. Why the hell is he here for a tour? He's an idiot and this is what he was afraid of. Seokjin is afraid of a lot of things and a part of him hates that Min Yoongi is included in that. It feels stupid and unnecessary.
Although, looking at Yoongi now, maybe it's not him as a person that Seokjin is afraid of, and more what he comes tied to: a lot of baggage and the knowledge that Seokjin might have been wrong.
Yoongi purses his mouth. "I'm surprised that you're here."
"I'm...also surprised that I'm here," Seokjin admits. He'll probably beat up Hoseok and Namjoon for convincing him to come here despite his gut warning him against it, but for now he has to accept it.
Yoongi flips the music on his stand, but he's barely looking at it any more even though his fingers clink idly on the keys. "I would have thought you'd never come within 100 feet of me or anything I stood for."
Seokjin smiles warily. "Apparently we're both full of surprises." Seokjin, certainly, keeps surprising himself. He's more comfortable than he would have thought and less comfortable than he'd like to be. Both of those things are startling.
Yoongi laughs deep in his chest and plays a major chord that reminds Seokjin of summer. "I always knew you were full of surprises," he says. "You're unpredictable."
Under normal circumstances, Seokjin might ask coyly if that's a bad thing, but considering the way that they left things, he can't imagine Yoongi is very pleased. "I'm..." Seokjin takes a breath, leaning against the door jamb and rubbing his forehead. "I'm sorry about what happened." It's not easy for him to say.
"Hmm." The music twinkles as Yoongi runs his fingers idly over the high notes. "It's okay." He frowns. "I don't really want a repeat, but it's not just your fault, so I'm sorry. I'll take responsibility."
He'd better.
"Thanks." An awkward silence that they both deserve. "How are you, uh, doing?"
Yoongi shoots him a weird look. "You mean after the proposal went horribly wrong and you shot me into the dirt?"
Seokjin sets his jaw. "You deserved it." Regardless of what kind of person Min Yoongi is, there's nothing about that proposal that would have convinced Seokjin to accept it, or even turn it down gracefully. They both blew up carelessly, and there are regrets, but Seokjin wouldn't take back his refusal.
Yoongi sighs. "I deserved it," he agrees. He stops playing for a moment. "I'm not...entirely sure why I did it."
A bit harsh, but not unexpected. "You were drunk," Seokjin replies. It's certainly been the most memorable night he can remember, with a drunken confession and a proposal and a collection of backhanded compliments about his family and his lack of wealth and how Yoongi's parents would never accept him. Never. It burns. "People are horrible when they're drunk."
"I'm a truthful drunk," Yoongi says, thinking. That burns, too. "I just wish I were, I don't know, a better person, so my truth didn't suck ass."
"That would be nice," Seokjin replied primly.
"Truth changes, anyway," Yoongi says. He smiles awkwardly. "I'm an unreliable narrator."
That's one way to apologize. Seokjin will take what he can get. "You don't have to be an unreliable narrator," he answers. "You can just try not to be such a dick."
Notes clash on the piano but Yoongi laughs. "Noted."
The room settles as so, to an extent, do they.
That doesn't mean that things aren't awkward, because they are. That doesn't mean that Seokjin particularly wants to be here, because he doesn't. That doesn't mean that Seokjin regrets telling Yoongi no, because he'd tell Yoongi no again. Nothing has changed.
"Nothing has changed."
Seokjin blinks, because at first he thought he said it aloud by accident and now, when he sees Yoongi looking at him, he sees that they were Yoongi's words and not his own.
"What do you mean?" Seokjin asks, confused. "Your family is still disappointed that I exist? You regret falling in love with me?" He ticks off the reasons Yoongi listed a few months ago, long ago but not long enough that he's forgotten. "Maybe the fact that my family is still a wreck and my mother wants to me to be a gold digger?"
"I'd ask you to marry me again," Yoongi clarifies.
Seokjin opens his mouth and finds that he's speechless.
"I mean..." Yoongi clears his throat. "Obviously that's like, really a jump, considering that you hate me."
"I don't hate you," Seokjin corrects before he even forms the thought.
It's too quiet. Slowly, Yoongi starts playing his melody to fill the space.
"I'd still say no to a marriage proposal," Seokjin says after a tense moment.
Yoongi hums absently.
"I mean, a marriage is kind of intense." Seokjin clears his throat.
"Drunk Yoongi loves grand gestures," Yoongi replies stoically. "Like unfounded proposals and being an asshole."
Seokjin snorts.
"Seokjin!" someone calls from behind, and when he turns he sees Hoseok power-walking over the expensive carpet. He comes to a harsh stop when he sees Yoongi in the room, but Namjoon slams into his back when he's not paying attention. "Seokjin," Hoseok says in a more indoor-friendly voice. "We're about to go see the grounds."
"Oh." The tour. "Right."
"Sorry." Yoongi stands up from the piano, and amongst all the grandeur he looks mildly out of place in his jeans and hoodie. Seokjin matches the decor more than he does in his button down, but he still feels a little like he's intruding. "I was distracting your friend."
Hoseok smiles too-big. "It's fine! Take him."
Yoongi turns red.
Seokjin laughs.
"Your house is beautiful," Namjoon tells him, reaching forward to shake his hand. For a moment, Seokjin thinks Yoongi might refuse, but there's not a speck of hesitation when Yoongi returns the handshake. He doesn't even seem surprised. "I could spend literal days in your library."
"Feel free," Yoongi says easily, slipping his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, and Seokjin chokes on his own spit. "There's plenty to read and I don't make as good use of it as I should."
"We're only here for another day," Seokjin says, beating his chest with his fist. Hoseok raises an eyebrow and Seokjin staunchly ignores him. "We leave in the morning."
"In the morning?" Yoongi asks. He looks vaguely disappointed. Seokjin tries not to think about it. "You should stay another night and come have dinner with us."
"Dinner?" Hoseok asks incredulously.
"Us?" Seokjin demands.
Yoongi clears his throat. "My brother is coming in tomorrow morning. He'd like to meet you."
Namjoon stares at Seokjin. "Would he?" he asks suggestively.
"We have our train ticket book--"
Hoseok pushes Seokjin aside. "We'd love to stay for dinner."
Seokjin scowls at him.
"Come on, Seokjinnie," Hoseok sings, hanging off of his arm. "What's one more day?"
One more day.
Yoongi smiles at him.
Seokjin can commit to at least one more day.