won't you fa-la-la-la-love me too? || namjin || ✔

3. denial and dates

The only way Skewered on the Stick had changed since Seokjin had last been there was the addition of a few new workers: other than that, it was the same as he always remembered it, with its grey tiled floors, yellow walls, handwritten menu, calming decor, advertising of its secret ingredient which they promised to never share, and of course its two passionate owners, Jeongi and Yoonguk.

Seokjin wasn't surprised that it had been chosen as their meeting place - the entire friend group was familiar with it, having gone there frequently in their adolescence both to eat food and talk to the people who ran it, and that made it the perfect venue for their double date. Or more like seven-way date? Septuple date? Seokjin didn't know what to call it, though with so many people it would be more like a regular gathering than anything. Which meant that thankfully, there probably wouldn't be too much focus on Seokjin and Namjoon. Probably.

Even though Namjoon had suggested they show up early, they weren't the first there, thanks to Yoongi's (and by extension Jungkook's) unrelenting punctuality. Despite the man's complete lack of a normal sleep schedule and the grogginess that often resulted from it, he somehow managed to always be early to everything, no matter how trivial. They see Yoongi and Jungkook before either of the two see them, with Yoongi resting his head on Jungkook's shoulder, eyes closed and a hint of a gummy smile on his face. They're often like that, though they tend to tone it down a lot while around the others. It's sweet, domestic, Seokjin thinks.

He wonders if he'll ever find anything like that.

"So this is your boyfriend, huh? I was wondering when we'd finally get to see him," Yoongi says in lieu of a greeting, sticking his hand out as the two approach and grasping Namjoon's for a handshake. "I'm Yoongi, and this is Jungkook. Namjoon, right?"

"Yep, that's me. Nice to meet you," Namjoon smiles, pulling out one of the chairs to sit, but as he goes to do so he instead nearly falls straight onto the floor, barely managing to steady himself on time. Seokjin fails miserably at trying to suppress his laugh.

"Has anyone ever told you that you sound like a windshield wiper when you laugh?" Namjoon says teasingly.

"You. Many times," Seokjin desperately hopes Namjoon will get his attempt to put some "history" into their relationship, knowing that the three words were risky. And his heart feels like it almost stops for the less than a second that Namjoon looks confused, only beating again as Namjoon's smiles once more as he realizes and goes along with it.

"You act like it's not a fair comparison,"

"You talk like your laugh doesn't sound like the way people show they're laughing on the internet!"

Their conversation continues, flowing forward in a way that feels comfortable, familiar even as they jump from topic to topic and get lost within mazes upon mazes of random tangents. Even as it's interrupted when he introduces Namjoon to everyone as they all settle in, the two of them are quickly able to get back into what they were doing. It feels nice to trade teasing remarks back and forth - banter, he might even call it.

It takes about a quarter of an hour for the entire group to arrive, most of them being on time and some being the slightest bit late. Though all of his friends are interested in meeting Namjoon, asking him the typical "get-to-know-you" questions and laughing at the jokes he cracks, no one is more excited about it than Seokjin. Both because, well, he's supposed to be pretending this is his boyfriend, and because he actually does find Namjoon intriguing.

Engrossed in a riveting debate on which type of lamb skewers are the best, it's easy to forget Namjoon hasn't always been a part of them, with how well he meshes with everyone. Namjoon really had nothing to worry about: Seokjin's friends loved him, his sarcastic interjections, his constant contributions, and the way he laughed at even the stupidest of Taehyung's jokes. It was going well. It was going...normally, how Seokjin would have expected it to go if he was introducing an actual boyfriend.