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Jeongguk had barely made it through the door of their shared apartment when Taehyung seized his shoulders and pressed him against the corridor wall, fixing him with a gaze very familiar to Jeongguk by then, playful and charming but searingly intent, and Jeongguk distractedly let go of his bag, letting it thump to the ground at his feet, just as Taehyung leaned in to him and pressed their lips together.
It would be a bit of an exaggeration to call Taehyung a god-sent miracle-working kisser, but he sure as hell came close. He got sloppy at times, when too sleepy or excited, but it was still easy, embarrassingly easy for Jeongguk to come undone from the things he did with his tongue. But Jeon Jeongguk was nothing if not stubborn. So when Taehyung moved his lips imploringly against his own, Jeongguk let himself lift his arms to encircle the other’s waist, to feel Taehyung move under his hands through the soft fabric of his sweater - but pointedly turned his face into his very best impression of a stone wall. Taehyung let out a small whine as Jeongguk refused to respond (save to close his mouth more tightly) and redoubled his efforts.
As Taehyung’s playful nips at his lips turned to earnest pressing against Jeongguk’s mouth, tongue petulantly dragging along the lower lip, pushing insistently and electrifyingly at his mouth, Jeongguk tried to hold up his pretense but soon gave in, parting his lips easily. Humming appreciatively, Taehyung wasted no time in taking the opportunity, slipping his tongue into Jeongguk’s mouth, and, oh, right, this was why Jeongguk had trouble even looking at Taehyung’s tongue sometimes, had to glance away before his face starting heating up thinking of the way he moved it against his own, almost hypnotically rhythmic and playfully explorative and so, so, hot.
All too soon, Taehyung pulled away, both of them breathless and heady and a little bit on fire, and Jeongguk leaned in for one last peck as Taehyung’s face split into a coy grin.
Taehyung leaned in close to Jeongguk’s ear, breath brushing at the skin on his lobe.
“Expresso double shot,” he murmured, “one pump vanilla and two pumps hazelnut, with soy milk instead of whole. No whipped cream.”
Jeongguk blanched for a moment, thought back to the complex order he’d planned and placed at the nearby coffee shop, for his usual drink on the way home. Mentally compared it to what Taehyung had just said, component by component, and-
“Goddammit, Kim Taehyung,” Jeongguk moaned, “I thought I’d get you with the soy.”
- ☕️ -
As a rule, Min Yoongi was perplexed by few things, and disinterested in most things. But his Thursday evening shifts at the coffee shop were starting to prove themselves both perplexing and interesting - just the slightest, faintest bit.
When the door chimed at the expected hour and a familiar face walked in to join the queue, Yoongi couldn’t help but let out a small smile. He breezed through the next few customers, keying in orders in his typical disinterested fashion, until the man he was waiting for had made it to the counter. Looking up, Yoongi smirked.
“So, Mr. Jeon,” he drawled, “what mind-boggling, system-breaking order have you got for us today?”
The customer grinned toothily. “One triple shot, half-sweet, non-fat caramel Macchiato,” he paused for a moment, then added, “with five pumps vanilla.”
Yoongi whistled as he keyed it in, pretending not to notice the scandalised pout that the barista on duty - Park Jimin Who Hated Thursdays, as he’d jokingly introduced himself as to the new intern - shot in Jeongguk’s direction. “Glad I’m just doing customer service," said Yoongi, as cheerily as he ever got. "You should tip our poor Jimin back there, I think he’s developing allergies to you.”
Jeongguk laughed. “Sorry, I’ve got this game-challenge thing with my boyfriend. Can’t let him keep on winning, and he guesses easy orders really fast.” Then, as if realising (finally) that he’d said something strange, the young man coloured and tried to stammer out some half-assed fake explanation. But Yoongi just shrugged coolly. Passing Jeongguk his change and receipt, he bid Jeongguk and his boyfriend a good day. The customer smiled, relieved, and headed over to apologetically collect his order and tip an offended Jimin.
Min Yoongi was definitely interested.
- ☕️ -
When Jeongguk got home that evening, and did not immediately get accosted at the door, he was confused.
It wasn’t like Taehyung always greeted him with the same kissing fervor, but ever since they’d started their obscure-coffee-order-guessing-game-featuring-Taehyung’s-insane-taste-buds-and-illustrious-past-experience, Jeongguk had never once come home without some form of a Taehyung-shaped greeting (except maybe for the one time Taehyung had tried to act coy, standing right by the door but pretending he couldn’t see Jeongguk, asking oh my how did the door open on its own? I must be hallucinating, did I eat paint by accident today, and actually doing a pretty impressive job of not kissing Jeongguk until the latter had threatened to - god forbid - drink water).
“Tae?” Jeongguk called out, wondering if he was hiding, or had fallen asleep at some new creative location (which was, on that note, not unheard of for Taehyung - Jeongguk had once found him snoozing blissfully in their pile of dirty laundry, right in front of the washing machine, a pair of boxer shorts casually flung over his eyes to block out the light). But when no answering call or laugh or crashing sound came, Jeongguk frowned, confusion giving way to concern. Dropping his bag at the sofa, he started systematically checking the rooms for signs of human life, getting increasingly worried when the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen all yielded no results.
It was when Jeongguk flung open the door of the storeroom, that he felt his heart freeze for a moment. Because there, on the ground, half-slumped over an old box and surrounded by an assortment of crayons (presumably spilt from the now-empty crayon box lying forlornly on its side), was Kim Taehyung, Jeongguk’s boyfriend of three years, and top supplier of all his problems. The number one problem at the moment being that said boyfriend was mysteriously unawake and face-down in their storeroom, of all places.
“Hey, Tae,” said Jeongguk, crouching down and reaching out an arm to shake the other's shoulder. “Tae, wake up.”
But Taehyung barely moved, squirming slightly under his touch but staying steadfastly unconscious. Jeongguk furrowed his brow, and reached out his other arm as well, to pull Taehyung up from where he’d been lying, trying to suppress the growing knot of worry in his gut. Taehyung, unhelpfully, remained completely passed out, limbs boneless and head lolling to the side like a ragdoll until Jeongguk edged closer to support it with his shoulder.
And that was when Jeongguk realised Taehyung’s forehead was burning hot against his neck.
Alarm immediately shot through Jeongguk’s nerves, and he wasted no time in carrying Taehyung back to their bedroom, before literally sprinting to grab the thermometer from the bathroom cabinet, and hurrying back to ascertain the extent of Taehyung’s illness. He struggled to remember the phone number for the hospital - just in case - as he waited for the reading to stabilise.
38.6 degrees celsius. Not deadly but not good. Jeongguk let out a breath, and was starting to think of how to bring Taehyung to see a doctor (was it too far to carry him? probably too far) when he noticed a telltale plastic bag, small and white and unobtrusive, with a logo proving that Taehyung had already been there, done that. Jeongguk checked the contents, feeling relief wash over him when he saw only regular cold and fever medicine, and when, upon counting the pills, he found that Taehyung had indeed taken a correct dosage. Taehyung’s phone, left strewn beside the bag, helpfully buzzed at that moment, revealing a message notification from one of Taehyung’s colleagues at the elementary school art department wishing him a “speedy recovery!”
Jeongguk sighed, relieved, and stood to get a damp washcloth. Now the only question left was what the hell he’d been doing in the storeroom. As he sponged at Taehyung’s forehead, trying his damnedest to remember how his mom used to do it, Taehyung’s eyelids twitched, then fluttered open.
“Hey, dummy,” Jeongguk couldn’t help but smile, bringing the washcloth down to Taehyung’s neck.
Taehyung smiled drowsily at him, closing his eyes again and leaning a little towards Jeongguk’s touch.
"Why didn't you tell me you were sick, huh?" Jeongguk said gently, lifting his other hand to run through Taehyung's hair. "I was worried."
"Didn't want to worry you," Taehyung murmured indistinctly, voice blanketed by sleep, "you were working." Jeongguk sighed.
“And what were you doing in the storeroom?”
“Mm,” mumbled Taehyung, “had to get crayons for the kids tomorrow. Art room doesn’t have enough colours.”
Jeongguk laughed. It was impossible not to. That was Kim Taehyung for him, running a high fever and most definitely not going to work the next day and worrying about fucking crayon colours.
“You big, big idiot,” Jeongguk murmured, leaning down to kiss Taehyung’s hair. “Go to sleep. I’ll get the crayons for you.”
- ☕️ -
“I’ll take an, uh, triple shot, half-sweet, non-fat caramel Macchiato. With five pumps vanilla.”
Yoongi raised his eyebrows. He felt like he was always raising his eyebrows when it was Jeon Jeongguk ordering at the counter. If he got forehead wrinkles prematurely he was officially making Jeongguk medically accountable. “Isn’t that the same as last week? That’s a first.”
Jeongguk grinned, looking surprised that Yoongi even remembered (though that merely proved how little he understood the unforgettable pains of preparing complex coffee orders. Innocent, innocent, pure baby child. If Jimin ever really snapped and put a cockroach in his drink, Jeongguk would never be able to understand why, the poor thing).
“Yeah, my boyfriend got sick last week,” Jeongguk said merrily. “So I never got to, uh, u-use it.”
He faltered partway through his words, seeming to realise - again - how strange his sentence must have sounded. Yoongi certainly appreciated the strangeness, raising his eyebrows at the young man, again. For months Yoongi had keyed in increasingly complex coffee orders, had Jimin get increasingly flustered making said complex coffee orders, and watched Jeongguk drink the entirety of said increasingly complex coffee orders (with varying levels of enjoyment; he didn’t seem to like soy much) on the spot, in the coffee shop, and return the emptied mug afterwards. Yoongi, no matter how deep he dug into the depths of his own screwed up imagination, could not conceptualise how the customer - no, the customer’s boyfriend - could use exotically-crafted coffee that had already been drunk.
Actually, forget it, Yoongi didn’t want to know.
“Alright, one coming right up.”
- ☕️ -
When Jeongguk met Taehyung for the first time ever, it was also over coffee. Or at least, it was over a terrible, shit-tasting, diluted, over-roasted, probably cursed cup of hot bean water trying to pass its sorry ass off as coffee.
(Jeongguk now still remembered the address of the obscure shop he’d gone to, years back on that rainy day in June. It was just off his college campus, tucked into a corner of an old building, between a run-down bakery and a bookshop that he had never once seen open. But the first time Jeongguk actually went into the coffee shop, he had paid no attention to any of the shops beside it, barely even to the shop itself - all he remembered was being dead exhausted, wobbling in the shop after racing a deadline with two all-nighters in a row and computer trouble of epic proportions, blindly seeking something, anything, that had near-deadly quantities of caffeine in it.)
“The strongest coffee you’ve got,” Jeongguk mumbled at the counter, barely staying on his own two (two? Was that the correct number?) feet. His hands were still shaking from his previous caffeine-seeking endeavour (at the now-empty vending machine) as he paid for his drink, and continued to shake very helpfully as he received his drink and shuffled his way to an empty seat, nearly spilling it twice as he stumbled over his feet.
Jeongguk must have had been quite the sight, with his wrinkled black hoodie (probably inside-out) pulled over literal pyjamas, dark hair grimy and well on its way to resembling a windswept porcupine, and feet shoved in mismatched argyle socks and sandals, because fuck shoelaces. But at that time, Jeongguk had already gone way past having any capacity to care. Way, way past. Instead, he’d all but collapsed in a seat, and chugged at his coffee with desperate abandon.
Just to discover that the coffee, like his life, and his grades, and his computer, and that all-nighter bullshit he’d pulled, was complete and utter irredeemable shit.
The crushing disappointment must have had been written all over his face, because a man - a gorgeous young man, sitting alone at another seat in the shop, conveniently faced towards Jeongguk’s direction because life just sucked like that, with faded lavender hair just a little too long and smooth rich sun-kissed skin and blue paint splotched endearingly on his cheek, wearing an oversized cream sweater in what was probably the softest material known to mankind, that hugged the curve of delicately sculpted shoulders and half-concealed exquisite long-fingered hands - had exploded into very loud laughter the moment Jeongguk’s tongue had its first tragic encounter with his coffee.
Had Jeongguk been under normal conditions, he would been fine. He would have let it slide, or even laugh along. Because like a normal, well-adjusted and functioning human being, he would have had a sense of humour. However, at that moment, Jeongguk was under extremely non-normal and non-comfortable conditions of low sleep and high caffeine and his computer fucking crashing six times in one night - how did that even happen to him, a good person - and under such extreme conditions of stress and duress, Jeon Jeongguk was not okay with this enchanting deity of a man laughing at him and his shitty cup of shitty coffee.
“Hey,” he yelled, across the shop, turning about every head in the room towards him and his probably inside-out hoodie and socks with sandals. “What’s your deal?”
Gorgeous Laughing Guy only laughed even harder, nearly collapsing onto the table in a fit of giggles, and Jeongguk was starting to truly understand the meaning of sadism. He sat, affronted, glaring defensively at the man as if he’d insulted everything Jeongguk had ever stood for.
And then Jeongguk was suddenly understanding the meaning of masochism, because he found himself standing up, grabbing his blasphemic cup of coffee, and stalking over to sit down at the seat opposite the painfully good-looking person currently ruining his life.
“I said,” repeated Jeongguk, “what’s your deal?”
“Oh my god,” managed the other guy, fighting and failing to stop his stream of bubbling laughter. “Sorry. You’re just so cute.”
Jeongguk gaped at him, offended. Cute? Cute? Did this guy just have the nerve to call him - oh, Jeongguk realised, a drop-dead beautiful young man had just called him cute. Jeongguk blinked, mouth opening and closing but unable to string words together into any semblance of coherence. The other guy seemed to find this even more amusing, because he just laughed even harder, if at all possible, and soon melted into a shaking mess on the table, head pillowed in sweater-swathed arms. Jeongguk glared at the adorable lump, cursing everything he’d ever done to lead up to that moment. Finally, the laughter subsided, and the man looked back up at Jeongguk in an unfairly charming way.
“So, hi,” he grinned sheepishly. “I’m Taehyung.”
“Hi, Taehyung,” answered Jeongguk, intelligently. “This coffee sucks.”
And so met Jeon Jeongguk and Kim Taehyung for the very first time.
Fortunately, after the initial idiocy of the situation, they somehow managed to lapse into a more-or-less normal conversation - Jeongguk feeling initial irritation dissolve at Taehyung’s genuinely good intentions (and meltingly warm eyes, and honey-smooth voice, and fucking illegal collarbones), and Taehyung naturally being good at talking to people, even strange young men who looked like they’d just died sixty times in a row but still crawled out handsome.
Jeongguk soon learnt that Taehyung laughed easily, and was an art major at Jeongguk’s university, and did not in fact know he had blue paint on his face. And Taehyung soon learnt that Jeongguk was a year younger, and had a computer that was an unfaithful dick, and usually drank coffee from other, less terrible cafes, but this time those were too far and Jeongguk was desperate.
Taehyung smiled at Jeongguk’s third semi-crazed rant at the atrocious coffee he was forced-by-circumstance to drink. “Well, okay, I think you’re probably right.”
“What do you mean, probably? Of course I’m right.”
“Yeah,” laughed Taehyung, “but I’ve never actually drank the coffee here so I honestly can’t say. It definitely smells satanic, though.”
“You haven’t?”
“Yep, not even once. I haven’t drank any real coffee since, like, six months ago,” he frowned, “I think.”
“Why?”
“Because,” announced Taehyung dramatically, “I found my one true coffee love six months ago, and Kim Taehyung’s tongue never forgets.” When Jeongguk looked at him in confusion, Taehyung smiled and carried on.
Taehyung described how, in a small old coffee shop a few blocks down, he had found a type of coffee he had never heard of before. A strange mix, pioneered by a young barista, something he had called a Cypher. And he described how, curious as ever, he had ordered one - large, because Taehyung had always been a risk-taker - just to try.
And then, eyes lighting up, Taehyung went on to describe how blown away he had been by the incredible taste of it, how it had been something rich and exotic and carefully layered, each sip giving different bursts of flavour, with chocolate powder sprinkled at the base of the cup and vanilla in the sides, and a bit of cinnamon, somewhere in there, holding everything together, and whipped cream added even though it was served hot, and something else he couldn’t even identify, all flavours crashing together in rhythmic waves and sporadic explosions, to make the best cup of coffee Taehyung had ever drank in his entire life, since the day he was born.
“But then when I went back to them a couple of weeks later,” he said, “they’d stopped selling the Cypher. And I’ve never found it anywhere since. But my tongue never forgets, never, so I can’t drink coffee anymore unless it’s that. I’m in love, Jeongguk. In love.”
Jeongguk laughed, “I’ve never seen anyone so passionate about coffee before.”
“Well, you’d know if you got to taste it! It’s special, really really special. Before that I’ve ordered about every weird coffee order you can imagine, but that one - the Cypher - it really takes the cake. It was so good, other coffee just isn’t coffee to me anymore.”
“Hope you find it again, someday,” said Jeongguk, buzzed and overwhelmed. Taehyung smiled at him, again, and Jeongguk marveled at how even his smile was incredible, somewhat rectangular, and how strangely inviting it made his lips look, and how a faint blush was creeping up his neck the more he thought about Kim Taehyung’s lips and - what was that about the tongue? A tongue that never forgets? Jeongguk swallowed. He wondered, hypothetically, whether that tongue could remember people too, because-
At that moment, an alarm went off. Jeongguk fumbled for a moment, before realising it was his phone, and dug under his (inside-out, definitely inside-out) hoodie for the pocket of his pyjamas (fuck, had he just met Kim Taehyung, angel among men, in his pyjamas? And it was the set with the second button mismatched, too, after Jeongguk had ripped it off by accident one time) for the offender. He swiped to turn off the moment-ruining alarm, and remembered with horror why he had set it in the first place.
“Holy fuck Taehyung I have to-” gasped Jeongguk, hurriedly downing the last of his terrible coffee, spilling just a bit out from the corner of his mouth. “Class. Class, I've got class. A presentation-” and oh god, he was still in his pyjamas “-I’ll catch you again another time? Maybe?”
Taehyung blinked and hurriedly grabbed an ink pen from his pocket, scribbling something on the back of his receipt. “Yeah, definitely. Good luck!” He shoved the paper into Jeongguk’s hand right before the younger man ran off to face presentation hell, “and call me!”
Later, one near-death experience-in-the-form-of-a-presentation later, Jeon Jeongguk would look down at the paper he’d shoved in his inside-out hoodie pocket, and feel comforted looking at the phone number penned in hurried writing, and the small heart-shape doodled at the side.
- ☕️ -
Yoongi was absolutely, one hundred percent perplexed, when he passed through almost the entirety of his next Thursday shift without any sighting of Jeon Jeongguk. Not even a glimpse of him through the glass door or windows, or a message from anyone who may have happened to know him. If Yoongi was honest with himself, he was a little disappointed. He missed the kid and his strange, creative, possibly perverse coffee experiments. And also because Jimin looked far too relaxed in the back, straightforwardly making cappuccinos and lattes, mixing and pouring like a complete pro. Not that Yoongi minded, of course, Jimin was a non-hated coworker, and his happiness was Yoongi’s happiness-
Yoongi watched as Jimin smiled too-cheekily at the woman he’d just whipped up an americano for. She was young and pretty, dewy fair skin and bright cat-like eyes and light hair - dyed, Yoongi was convinced - brushing over straight eyebrows, white dress thin and shape-hugging over her slight frame. And Jimin was smiling too much as he passed her the cup, reddening slightly when she took the coffee and her fingers, long and slender with shell pink manicured nails, brushed slightly over Jimin’s.
Okay, Yoongi definitely minded. Fuck Jimin and fuck his happiness. Where the hell was Jeon Jeongguk.
However, throughout the whole shift, as customers came and went and the crowd gradually thinned out (because who would drink coffee so late in the day, anyway), Jeongguk made no appearance in any shape or form. Yoongi definitely did not get increasingly sulky throughout his shift, and was in no way unfairly bitter about it to Jimin, who absolutely did not laugh cheerily at Yoongi’s misery before admitting that he missed Jeongguk too, that the boy was cute even though he was annoying, and he didn’t like to see Yoongi “all emo”. And Yoongi certainly, indubitably, most assuredly did not get unreasonably agitated - for no reason, because it didn’t happen - and insist that Park Jimin and everyone else go home once it was closing time, that Yoongi would stay to clear up by himself.
And thus, Yoongi found himself wiping tables alone in the coffee shop, keys to the front door jangling in his pocket, questioning his life decisions. And his sanity.
He was just about done deftly removing a latte stain from a table near the front - that somehow always seemed prone to latte-drinkers, was there some kind of deep-rooted psychological thing for that? Well, whatever - and planning to move on to doing the dishes after that, when he was startled (just the slightest bit, of course) by a sudden knocking on the door.
Yoongi turned to the glass door, about to yell a friendly we’re closed, can’t you read the sign, before realising that the man behind the glass, sweating and huffing and looking completely out of breath, knocking on the door with a kind of shy desperation, was none other than Jeon Jeongguk.
Eyes widening in surprise, Yoongi haphazardly chucked the latte-stained washcloth into the sink and rinsed his hands quickly, before heading over to open the door and let Jeongguk in.
“Jeon, what the fuck,” he said, in typical Yoongi fashion. “What are you doing here at this time?”
“Yoongi, god, I- give me a minute,” Jeongguk panted, and Yoongi waited as he caught his breath. “I ran all the way here, work ended so late today because something went wrong, and the boss, like, hates me or something, and my phone died on me, and-” Jeongguk’s words tumbled out increasingly fast, and Yoongi soon realised the younger man was very clearly upset. Yoongi frowned. If even he, lord of emotional stuntedness, could tell, it must have been pretty bad.
“Okay, Jeongguk, calm down. Sit down.” Yoongi pulled out the chair at the table he’d just wiped. “What’s the matter, kid?”
Jeongguk took the invitation, collapsing on the chair and burying his face in his hands.
“Yoongi, it’s our anniversary. It’s our anniversary, god, our fourth anniversary. And I’m going to get home so late and my phone is dead and I’ve got nothing for him and I bet he’s waiting at the apartment with no dinner and wondering where the hell his useless boyfriend is and now there isn’t even coffee, and I’ve ruined it, Yoongi. I’m still ruining it right now.”
Yoongi blinked, trying to make sense of the situation. “Wait, so you...forgot your anniversary?”
“No,” Jeongguk moaned, “I remembered. I had a reservation at a restaurant and everything, but then I got so damn held up at work on today of all days because some fucker can’t carry a decimal point, and my boss hates me so I had to stay, and I had to cancel the reservation because I can’t even make it, and my boyfriend doesn’t even know anything and I can’t tell him because my phone hates me too, and you guys are closed already so I can’t even play our weird coffee game.” Jeongguk sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. “And when I do get home and explain he’s going to be so nice about it, and say it’s fine but he’d be really sad too and I can’t stand it when he gets like that.”
Yoongi frowned, quiet for a moment.
“Well,” he offered, awkwardly, trying his best to be gentle, “I can’t imagine what your weird coffee game is, but if it’s any help I haven’t packed up the coffee-making stuff yet, so I could whip up whatever you can think of - I know Jimin always makes your drinks, but I’m better, trust me. It’ll be on the house. Oh, and you could borrow my phone to call, or something, if you want?”
Jeongguk looked up at Yoongi from the table, as if the barista had just told him he’d found the cure to global warming, and cancer, and united all conflicting political leaders through the power of love.
“Seriously? God, oh my god, thank you, Yoongi-”
“Any time,” Yoongi interrupted, feeling a blush growing on his cheeks as he dug for his phone. Damn, he was bad at these feelings things. Passing his phone over, Yoongi watched as Jeongguk easily keyed in the number - because of course he would know his boyfriend’s phone number by heart, the little rascal - and called him up.
“Hey Tae,” Jeongguk said breathlessly after a very brief wait - the guy on the other end probably picked up on first ring, god, how disgustingly sweet could you get - and began stammering out his explanation and apologies and not even one excuse and Yoongi gulped and did not blush and tried to busy himself with preparing the kitchen area for coffee-making, scrubbing aggressively at cups and saucers to clear space at the sink. It wasn’t his business to listen or intrude, he was just the guy who took Jeongguk’s coffee order, the guy who was a sworn bachelor since his last disastrous relationship, years back, and did not do feelings. The “I’m so sorry”s and "Baby”s and most certainly the “I love you” at the end, flowing out smooth and easy in Jeongguk’s voice like warm milk, were not for Yoongi’s ears.
Finally, the call ended, and Jeongguk went over to return the phone to Yoongi, looking a lot more relaxed and a little shy, pink dusting his cheeks. Yoongi cleared his throat and received his phone with thanks. Then, wiping his hands on a cloth, he pushed away the strange discomfort he’d felt, and focused on the next task he had promised.
“So,” drawled Yoongi, as if it were any regular Thursday evening, “what’ll it be today?”
Jeongguk furrowed his brow in thought. “I think,” he started, “maybe a triple - no, quad - shot-”
But then Jeongguk froze, expression morphing into something strange. Tentative, yet hopeful. A bit like a scientist told to jump to the moon, but finding the ghost of an equation, somewhere, promising it could put gravity to sleep. Jeongguk pursed his lips.
“Actually,” he said, “this is kind of a long shot. But do you know how to make a Cypher?”
Yoongi dropped the washcloth he’d been holding.
“Fucking hell, Jeon Jeongguk,” he said, a smile spreading slowly on his face. “How the hell do you know about the Cypher?”
- ☕️ -
Jeongguk walked as fast as he possibly could to the door of the apartment, carefully balancing the coffee cups he held in his hands - both large, because Taehyung was a risk-taker - as he tried to fumble with his keys. He’d just managed to unlock the door (with no small amount of creative coffee cup placement and a potentially ground-breaking new way to hold keys) when the handle turned on its own, and was pulled open away from him, to reveal Taehyung, grinning widely as he flung himself into Jeongguk’s arms, pressing his face into his neck, as Jeongguk tried to hug him back, mostly with his head, without jolting the cups.
“Jeonggukkie!” Taehyung laughed, “You’re back!”
Jeongguk smiled into Taehyung’s hair. “Yeah, Tae, yeah I am. And I got you something you’re not going to believe. Let’s go inside first.”
Taehyung pulled back and Jeongguk shuffled his way into the apartment, putting down the coffee cups at the dining table before doubling back to lock the door. Taehyung helped chuck Jeongguk’s bag on the couch, before peering questioningly at the two mysterious coffee cups squarely centred on the dining table. Two. Two cups was new to him.
“Hey, Jeongguk?” Taehyung called casually, as Jeongguk struggled to close the door.
“Yeah?”
“Are you planning on, you know,” Taehyung devilishly lowered his voice, “not sleeping at all tonight?”
Jeongguk slammed the door shut too hard and dropped the keys.
“N-no,” he cried, scandalised and red in the face, turning to look at Taehyung, “Kim Taehyung, what do you take me for?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out why you’re drinking two cups of coffee. At night.”
Jeongguk paused. Then grinned a bit, eyes curving the way they did when Jeongguk teased Taehyung and was convinced - most of the time, wrongly - that he had the upper hand. “Well,” said Jeongguk nonchalantly, strolling over to join Taehyung at the dining table. “One of them is for you.”
“Jeon Jeongguk,” huffed Taehyung, about to go on a melodramatic re-telling, Jeongguk was sure, about his epic episode with coffee and true love, and chide Jeongguk for forgetting something so clearly central to his personality, but Jeongguk held up a finger to shush him.
“I’ll drink first, and you can try to guess,” Jeongguk grinned. “The usual way.”
Taehyung smiled at that. He liked it the usual way. A lot.
“Okay.”
So Jeongguk carefully pried off the lid of one cup, with some trepidation, hoping faintly that Taehyung’s (and Yoongi’s, apparently) taste in coffee was not secretly terrible, and took a big sip. He hoped he looked as attractive as he was trying to, even as he flinched when the coffee proved itself less cooled and more scalding than Jeongguk imagined. He tasted the layers of flavour, that Taehyung had told him about so, so long ago, the burst of cinnamon, although he was pretty sure the walk from the coffee shop to the apartment had messed with the careful arrangement of varying tastes. Jeongguk drank more - to be fair to Taehyung - before licking some of the foam off his lips and turning to Taehyung, arms open invitingly.
Taehyung was never one to say no to fun, and a Jeon Jeongguk with foam on his lips and his arms open had fun written all over him. Smiling widely, he slipped easily into the other’s embrace, bringing his hands up - one to cup Jeongguk’s cheek, trail fingers along his jaw, and one to snake around his neck, thumb rubbing over his skin. Taehyung leaned in, resting his forehead against Jeongguk’s for a moment, fixing him with a heavy gaze. He smiled as Jeongguk’s eyes darkened, and leaned in to close the distance, pulling Jeongguk towards him as he pressed forward.
No matter how many times he kissed Jeongguk, Taehyung never really got used to how good it felt. It was soft and warm and wet, and they moved well with each other by now, and Taehyung could taste vanilla on his lips and cinnamon on his tongue and - wait, wait a moment, it couldn’t be. Taehyung let out a small gasp, heart pounding with excitement as he kissed Jeongguk fervently, eager to find out if this inkling could possibly be true, and as he caught the blend of different flavours, and just a bit of the taste of powdered chocolate, Taehyung was certain. He pulled back quickly, drawing a small whine from Jeongguk, and stared at his boyfriend.
“Jeongguk,” said Taehyung, “Jeon Jeongguk. How did you - where on earth did you find a Cypher?”
Jeongguk just grinned at him, playfully silent. Taehyung pouted. He turned and uncapped the second cup of coffee, took a slow sip, relishing the familiar and amazing taste, the unforgettable combination of flavours and textures and the strange rhythm to the taste - Taehyung had never known taste could come with a rhythm, until he’d tried this - and swallowed, before quickly putting down the cup and pressing in to kiss Jeongguk again.
Jeongguk gasped, not expecting the second attack, and Taehyung happily took the chance to slip his tongue into his mouth, agile and teasing. Not that Jeongguk minded. He hadn’t realised how amazing tongues were until Kim Taehyung, and his boyfriend never failed to continuously prove the point.
“You haven’t finished your coffee yet,” Jeongguk mumbled, when Taehyung pulled back briefly.
“It tastes better like this,” Taehyung murmured, “now shut up and make out with me.”
With no strength left to even pretend to not enjoy it, Jeongguk wrapped his arms around Taehyung, holding him snug and close and letting Taehyung kiss him, long and sweet. He was starting to understand how Taehyung must have felt, to feel and taste coffee on the other’s mouth instead of his own, and had to admit it wasn’t so bad. (A bit gross, if Jeongguk thought too hard about it. But it was really, honestly, very difficult to think hard about anything when Kim Taehyung was kissing him.)
And finally, when they ran out of breath, and Jeongguk pulled away, gasping, Taehyung grinned up at him, and sweetly said, “now will you tell me?”
And so Jeongguk, a little stunned and breathless, smiled. “You know that guy I always see at the coffee counter? On Thursdays?”
“Min Yoongi, right?”
“Yeah,” grinned Jeongguk. “Turns out he was, like, the guy who invented the Cypher. But his boss didn’t really like some kid just making up new coffee drinks, especially since it was so hard to make, so they had a bet - Yoongi had to sell enough in that first day to sell it again, ever. And of course, that was when you got it the first time.”
“But he didn’t sell enough,” breathed Taehyung. “My god, I should have bought, like, fifty.”
“Come on,” Jeongguk laughed. “You’d die drinking that much.”
Taehyung shook his head, stunned. “Anything for the Cypher. Fuck, it’s so good.” As if remembering that as he said it, Taehyung gently picked up his temporarily-abandoned coffee cup, and brought it to his mouth for another blissful sip.
Jeongguk watched him quietly. Then grinned. “But, you know, Tae, there’s something else about this drink.”
“Mm?”
“It’s not actually the same Cypher.”
“W-what?” Spluttered Taehyung, nearly choking on his mouthful of coffee.
Jeongguk fought not to laugh too hard at the look of betrayal on Taehyung’s face, as he explained himself. “It’s still a lot like the Cypher, but when Yoongi was making it he said they’d run out of one of the ingredients. Some kind of milk, I don’t know. So he had to swap it out for something else, and change things up a bit to, like, ‘balance the flavour’ -” Jeongguk smiled widely. “-So what we’re drinking right now is what Min Yoongi, grandfather of new era coffee, calls Cypher Pt.3.”
Taehyung gaped at him, utterly stunned into silence. Finally, he found the words to ask, “what happened to part 2?”
A dark look flashed across Jeongguk’s face as he remembered tastes that should never have graced any human tongue. Never. “It, uh, didn’t work out.”
Taehyung shook his head, again, looked from the coffee cup in his hands to Jeongguk, and noticed the strange expression the other had - the slightly teasing quirk of his lips, the excited light in his eyes, as if Jeongguk had just pulled some major heist and was just waiting for Taehyung to catch on, and-
“No way.” Taehyung’s mouth fell open. “No way. This isn’t counted. This is-it’s cheating, oh my god, come on, Jeon Jeongguk-”
Jeongguk exploded into laughter, snorting and doubling over, nearly knocking his own cup of Cypher Pt.3 clean off the table. Taehyung started pounding at his arm, protesting vehemently that Jeongguk didn’t play fair, but they both knew.
“I’ve won, Taehyung, I’ve won our fucking coffee game.”
Taehyung let out a dramatic wail, and Jeongguk was beginning to burst into a second round of explosive gloating, when the doorbell suddenly rang. They both froze. It rang again. Then, when it rang the third time, a slow smile spread over Taehyung’s face.
“Special delivery for Jeon Jeongguk and Kim Taehyung!” A clear voice rang out from the door, and Jeongguk stared blankly as Taehyung leapt to his feet, previous agony forgotten, grabbing Jeongguk’s hand and dragging him to the doorway. Jeongguk followed dumbly, utterly bewildered, and watched as Taehyung brought them both to the door but made no move to open it.
“Present!” Taehyung called out, grinning.
“Okay!” Came the voice. “Are you ready?”
“What is he talking abou-” Jeongguk hissed to Taehyung, but was cut off by his boyfriend pecking him quickly on the mouth, one hand snaking around Jeongguk’s head to cover his eyes, as the other slid the key into the lock. Jeongguk protested feebly as Taehyung unlocked the door with a click, and pulled it open (he guessed, not like he could see). Jeongguk suddenly felt Taehyung’s breath on his ear, and the whispered words, “Happy anniversary,” before Taehyung uncovered his eyes.
Standing at the door, grinning widely, holding one pizza box on each hand, was a man Jeongguk had never seen in his life. For a moment of blissful ignorance, Jeongguk was extremely confused, then he realised what the pizza delivery guy was wearing.
A black hoodie, wrinkled and unquestionably inside-out, over literal pyjamas - white, with a coffee stain on the right sleeve cuff, and the second button from the collar different from the rest. Mismatched argyle-patterned socks, one grey and one blue, and sandals. Because fuck shoelaces. He even had mile-long eyebags drawn on with - makeup? And mussed up hair, fortunately brown instead of black, in the exact likeness of a windswept porcupine.
“P-p-pizza,” stuttered Jeongguk, stupidly, feeling his ears burning and not knowing what else to possibly say in this terrible situation. “You ordered pizza.” And then Taehyung was laughing, and the pizza-Jeongguk-guy was laughing, and Jeongguk screamed.
“Sorry,” giggled Taehyung, “I know it’s really cheesy.”
“Fuck,” was all Jeongguk could yell. “Fuck! ”
When it came to playing games with Kim Taehyung, there was really no way to get the upper hand.
- ☕️ -
Later, Jeongguk would find out the pizza delivery guy was Jung Hoseok, a senior who did dance at their university. And he didn’t actually deliver pizza as a job, but had somehow managed to pull off the stunt after a full month of Taehyung-style shameless pleading. Jeongguk wasn’t sure if he felt grateful, or if he hated him.
Later, Jeongguk would disclose to Taehyung that the phone he had called him with was Yoongi’s, and Yoongi would wake up the next morning to dozens of fully-capitalized text messages thanking him for being the “GRANDFATHER OF CYPHER”, and begging him to bring it back to the menu.
Later, lying in bed, pressed close under a blanket with their legs tangled and the lights off and satisfied in every way, Taehyung leaned into the crook of Jeongguk’s neck, arm wrapped lazily around his stomach, as Jeongguk drew extremely cheesy heart-shapes on Taehyung’s back. (Not that he could tell. Okay, he probably couldn’t tell.)
“I can’t believe,” murmured Taehyung, pressing in a closer, “you revived an extinct coffee for me.”
“I can’t believe you convinced the pizza delivery guy to cosplay me,” mumbled Jeongguk, “and that you remembered my second pyjama button was the mismatched one.”
Taehyung chuckled, too tired for a full-out laugh, “Kim Taehyung never forgets.”