lovestrippedbare | 𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕚𝕔𝕠

Yoongi ducks his head, stifling a laugh. "Not sure anything is as good as that," he teases, "but I'm sure the fish will try their best." Most of the other people here seem to be parents and children, not many others their age wandering around, and Yoongi wonders if they'll stand out. Probably not, he decides. Everyone else is too engaged in the displays or in minding their wandering children.

He leads the way toward the nearest display, where little kids press up against the glass so close it begins to fog with their breath, excited to see the jewel-toned fish swimming past. "See, they're very pretty," he says, lips twisting into a smirk as he glances over at Jungkook. Fish don't come anywhere close to holding Yoongi's attention the way he does.

Jungkook snorts, coughing a second later so that he doesn't come across as too rude to the parents sticking close to their children. He's always loved Yoongi's wry tone, his blasé attitude that shows in the curve of his lips. They've known each other long enough now that Jungkook understands that underneath the surface is someone who cares, and often more deeply than the rest of the group. Still the outward appearance has an undeniable appeal to Jungkook, who feels more often than not like he cares too much.

"Yes, they're very pretty," Jungkook parrots back with a slight raise of his chin, though he inevitably finds himself staring at the fish not long later. It's not uncommon for Jungkook to come across a small fish tank in someone's house, whether at a relative's or sometimes at seafood restaurants, and they've never been very exciting to him in that context. But what he tends to forget about aquariums is how much of an overall shift in ambiance they entail. The halls are dark, flecks of light bouncing off the walls, and it feels almost like stepping into another world.

(The shrieks of the children break the spell just a little.)

"Do they like... have to really carefully plan out the tanks, you think? To keep fish from eating each other?" Jungkook wonders aloud, stepping close to the glass.

Yoongi glances away to examine the signs pointing to different exhibits, curious what else might be hiding in the aquarium. He's not in any rush now, content just to drift between displays and see what's there, but they'll have to pick a direction to drift in.

"Definitely," he agrees. "Different fish like different environments, too, so there's that, but mostly I don't think they'd want fish eating each other in front of the kids." His voice drops lower as he speaks, not wanting any of the children gathered around to hear. Admittedly, a couple of the kids would probably find it fascinating instead of upsetting. Kids are weird like that sometimes. Still, better not to earn the wrath of any parents. "Looks like they have a whole shark area too."

"...gotta wonder how you start a conversation like that with the kids. Because they'll have to know eventually, right? Plus stuff like nature documentaries," Jungkook muses to himself. While they're a long way out from being capable of supporting kids, the fact that both of them have expressed interest in parenting has lingered in the back of Jungkook's mind, piquing his interest in moments like these. "I guess you could do it like in The Lion King, where you explain it's all one big circle... bigger fish eats smaller fish, but eventually big fish die and feed. Uh. I don't know what the equivalent of grass is, underwater. Seaweed?"

Shaking his head before he gets too lost in the topic, Jungkook glances over to where Yoongi's investigating the signage, perking up when he sees the shark exhibit. "Ah, sharks! We should go see those." He tugs on Yoongi's hand, guiding him away from the most crowded part of the path. Under his breath, Jungkook starts to sing as he walks.

"Baby shark, doo doo doo-doo doo-doo..."

Edited 2019-05-17 16:42 (UTC)

Yoongi lets out a sound that's as much groan as laugh, head tipping back in feigned exasperation. "Now it'll never leave my head," he says, putting up no protest as he follows Jungkook in the direction of the sharks. Still, he finds himself considering Jungkook's question. How do people explain to kids that fish eat other fish? Kids are so strange sometimes, maybe they just accept it. At least they have plenty of time before they have to figure out how to do that themselves.

Even if the idea of it still warms him. Someday, he thinks. Someday it'll be their turn.

"I think it's seaweed, yeah. Or kelp. Coral?" he muses, glancing at the displays as they pass, all the brightly colored fish flashing past. "All of the above."

"Mama shark, doo doo doo-doo doo-doo," Jungkook continues singing, bumping his hip against Yoongi as they walk, which might be more than a little obnoxious, but Jungkook finds that he doesn't mind. It isn't long before one of the kids nearest them picks up on the melody and follows along, her arms outstretched over her head, miming the image of a shark fin over her head.

Tempted though Jungkook is to break off and dance with her, he settles for making a face at her instead, puffing up his cheeks for the papa shark portion of the song and stamping his feet with a little more conviction. It sends her squealing and running off.

"Mm?" Jungkook mumbles, standing upright again and doing his best to recall the conversation. "Kelp — ah! Yeah, kelp. I guess coral works too. But then, you have to get into like, well all the coral in the world is starting to die because the planet's getting too hot, and that's — man, I don't know how you'd explain that to a kid."

It is, Yoongi thinks, quite possibly the cutest thing he's seen in his life. No matter how annoying the song is, watching Jungkook with the little girl, seeing how wrapped up he gets in engaging with her, leaves Yoongi smiling fondly.

Someday. Jungkook is so much better with kids than he realizes and, even if he knows they're young to be thinking about this, Yoongi wants so badly to see him with a child of their own.

"Well, maybe all the coral will be dead by the time it's our turn," he says wryly, taking Jungkook's hand between both of his, "and we can just explain we screwed up the whole planet for them. Which is... not any easier. Think we can get away with leaving it at the circle of life?"

Jungkook squeezes his eyes shut with a heavy sigh. It is, admittedly, a little harder to get completely wrapped up in the matter of coral reefs when they're not exactly in a position to do anything about it — Jungkook himself isn't even old enough to vote and try and sway the government in the direction of helping. But even the surface-level understanding is enough for Jungkook to lament. He doesn't doubt that the years have been growing progressively more extreme in weather, and it seems like a shame that there are so many parts of nature that are dying off, likely to vanish before they even have enough money to visit.

"Hey, hey," he says with a wrinkle of his nose. "Give us some credit; it's our parents who have probably done more of the damage. It's not exactly like we're running the show right now." Jungkook shakes his head, eyes fluttering a bit at the thought. "Wouldn't it be terrible if our childhood films literally need to be tweaked for the next generation? Guess we'll have to hope that they'll have something nicer to think about, like landing on Mars or something."

In an environment like this, lovely and dimly lit, surrounded by so many beautiful and strange creatures, it's a shame to think of how much the world is changing, the environments they come from disappearing. "Okay," Yoongi agrees, "we'll explain their grandparents screwed everything up."

It doesn't seem fair, he thinks. People older than them had time to see the way the world is falling apart and they've just left the mess for the next generation. Like it isn't bad enough that all of them have been fucked up by their parents in one way or another, they had to fuck up the world, too.

His attention is caught by another fish, brow arching as he looks into the tank as it swims pass, long and bulky and less colorful than some of its companions. "Okay, that thing is huge. Do you think it eats people?"

Even though they've been talking about the next generation from the start, there's still something about hearing his parents' generation be referred to as grandparents that throws Jungkook into immediate giggles. Grandparents seems to imply a time when the current adult generation's hold on society will have passed, when they shift into taking a backseat, when they have more time to focus on smaller joys, like their grandchildren.

Jungkook can't help but long for that time. Adulthood will probably mean a loss of certain freedoms, Jungkook knows. It'll be stressful to suddenly be responsible for the direction of his life, to be the one wholly culpable if any decisions are made poorly. But Jungkook can't help but think that it'll be better than where they are now, carefully pressured underneath their parents' thumbs.

He doesn't dwell on the thought for too long, attention quickly pulled to the tank when Yoongi points out a large fish, its shadow flickering over the floor as it swims around in the tank.

"Wow..." Jungkook marvels, eyes wide as he presses himself right up against the glass. "It probably could? Unless it doesn't have teeth. It can definitely at least kill a person. Man, the ocean's cool."

There are times when, for no particular reason at all, all Yoongi wants to do is wrap Jungkook up in his arms and hold him. It might be as much knowing that he can't as it is anything else, but he longs to slip his arms around Jungkook's waist and rest his chin on his shoulder as they gaze into the tank together. Someday, he thinks. When things have changed enough that they can have kids, they'll have changed enough that he can hold his boyfriend — his husband then probably — without people commenting or staring or anything else. For now, he stands close, holding his hand.

"So cool," he agrees. The tank is dense with kelp and other, smaller fish dart around, but the big fish keeps his attention. It's the kind that clearly tries to blend in with its ocean floor, but its size makes that impossible. Fish must have terrible eyesight. "Do fish have teeth? I don't think I've ever really thought about that. I know sharks do, but, like, regular fish?"

Jungkook pauses, wracking his brain for any scraps of marine life knowledge he has — which admittedly isn't much. Most of the stuff he focused on in school was essentially what the rest of the student body valued. Prettier animals, those that were often on display, like dolphins and killer whales and sharks. Trying to think of other fish is a stretch when the best Jungkook thinks that he can do is conjure up images of 3D rendered fish from Finding Nemo. And even then, he doesn't think of their types so much as the names from the movie.

Like Nemo or Dory.

"Uhhh... oh! Piranhas! Piranhas have teeth, right?" Jungkook points out, wagging his finger. "Big enough teeth to really tear things up if they drop down... or at least, that's how the video games always made it seem. Weren't there video games that had pools with piranhas? Ah, but I can't think of any off the top of my head..."

"Ah, true," Yoongi says, nodding. "Piranhas." They are, if he remembers right, freshwater fish. At least, in movies and things, they're always in rivers, which he thinks are always freshwater. But if they have teeth, then ocean fish probably do as well. "And those big... anglerfish? The ones with the lights over their heads. They always have big teeth in movies."

But that's something entirely else. Marine life way down in the deep is terrifying.

Which is part of what makes it so cool.

He snaps his teeth playfully at Jungkook, tugging at his hand as he pulls away to keep heading down the hall. "I guess they all have to have some way of tearing up food."

"Ah! Yeah! Anglerfish!" Jungkook nods emphatically, looking at Yoongi as though he's a genius, then around the aquarium as though he might be able to spot an anglerfish somewhere if he watches closely enough. (Though, now that he thinks about it, he's pretty sure that he's never seen an actual anglerfish in his life, and he's been to plenty of aquariums. Wasn't there something about their habitat that can't be replicated in an aquarium? He's not sure.)

He giggles when Yoongi leans forward and sharply bites the air, then lets himself be pulled along down the hall, gait occasionally slowing whenever he spots something that catches his interest. Which is fairly often. Unlike the zoo, where all of the exhibits have some amount of distance between them, the side by side nature of the tanks makes it very easy for Jungkook to be distracted the whole way down the hall.

"Some of them don't have teeth though, right? Like, like uh, the whales and their baleens? Although I guess whales aren't technically fish... or like, what're the called, parrot fish? The ones that look like they've got beaks. Maybe they've got teeth inside of those beaks, though," Jungkook mumbles half to himself.

Yoongi's not in such a rush to get anywhere that he minds slowing down here and there. They end up lingering every few feet to look into the different habitats. Some are more interesting than others, and some slow his step, too, leaving him gazing into the water in awe.

"They probably do," he agrees, though it takes him a moment to decipher what Jungkook is mumbling. The way Jungkook gets so caught up in his surroundings and places like this is charming to Yoongi, but it does mean a little extra effort, especially when Yoongi's hearing isn't always great as it is. "Unless they use the beaks to eat? That seems kind of awkward, though."

He wonders if there are any parrot fish here so they can go see for themselves or ask a docent or something. Or maybe piranhas. Or penguins.

"Ugh. Ugh. Can you even imagine, though? Having both a beak and teeth? That sounds like... dinosaur-level shit," Jungkook protests, shivering at the thought. "I mean, birds only have beaks and they eat without any problem, so maybe some fish are the same way? Like you just peck at... I don't know. Kelp and coral."

Jungkook presses his lips together, cheeks slightly puffed as he realizes just how deep the gap in his marine knowledge runs. He glances quickly at the closest text display, as though it might reveal to him the answers to all of the questions suddenly swirling through his mind. (Unsurprisingly, the display says nothing about parrot fish. Or fish teeth, for that matter.)

"I guess we could look for them. Unless we've passed that display already," Jungkook muses, glancing over his shoulder at the hallway behind them.

Yoongi stifles a laugh, reaching out to tickle Jungkook's waist. "The parrot fish are gonna come get you," he teases, hopping back a step to avoid retaliation. "Let's find them and see. Do we even know what part of the ocean they live in?" For that matter, he's not even sure if they're ocean fish or freshwater. Ocean, he's pretty sure, but without knowing what environment they live in, it's hard to guess which direction to go. They could ask someone, maybe, but he'd rather just figure it out themselves.

Pulling out his phone, he types in a quick search. "Tropical waters. Alright. So which way for tropical fish?"

Jungkook yelps. Loudly. Loudly enough that his only saving grace is the fact that there are kids running about, and that their parents are too distracted by keeping track of them in the dim lighting to pay too much heed to an overgrown boy as he twitches and jumps a little to the side.

Honestly, Jungkook is probably overreacting a little, and he's ashamed of the fact that his impulse was to run rather than fight back. Sighing, his shoulders slump in acknowledgment of his loss, this time. (He'll just have to get back at Yoongi later.)

A couple of steps later, Jungkook hooks his chin onto Yoongi's shoulder, watching him flip through search results on his phone. "Tropical fish are all the bright ones, right? Like the ones in Finding Nemo? I think I saw some signs of those kind of fish that-a-way," he muses, pointing in a direction perpendicular to their current path.

With Jungkook's chin on his shoulder, it's so tempting to turn his head and kiss his hair, and Yoongi thinks he should probably restrain himself, but he gives in anyway. Everyone else here is distracted by their kids and the fish. It's doubtful anyone would notice or care. Besides, it gets tiring, having to worry all the time about who might notice or what they'll think, part of why it was so thrilling earlier in the bathroom, sucking Jungkook off right under everyone's noses, unseen. After that, it's hard to worry too much about a quick little kiss.

"Yeah, like Nemo," he says, nodding. Clownfish, they're called, and the tropical fish tend to be brighter for some reason. He wonders if the display will explain why that is. To blend in with coral maybe? He slips his phone back into his pocket, reaching for Jungkook's hand again as he starts in the indicated direction. "Alright, so that-a-way it is." Even if it's the wrong direction, they're sure to see interesting things.

A kiss isn't nearly as daring as what they did only minutes ago, yet Jungkook finds his face flooding over with warmth all over again. Affectionate touches aren't rare between the two of them, but being out in public gives everything a little more intensity, his heart pounding as Jungkook beams in Yoongi's direction. He reaches immediately for Yoongi's hand, thumb tracing softly along the curve of Yoongi's palm before he gives Yoongi's hand a firm squeeze.

Sometimes, he wonders if the greater population is slowly growing in tolerance. If it isn't that he and Yoongi have been particularly good at disguising their relationship, but instead that people see it and don't mind. If, someday sooner rather than later, they'll be able to show each other as much outward affection as Jungkook knows they'd like to — like they did on their first date, kissing out under the open sky.

But for now, being a little bolder in the dim lighting of the aquarium is enough.

"I wonder if all the fish they had in that movie really live together, or if they just picked the prettiest ones to keep kids interested," Jungkook muses.

Sometimes they don't need words. Jungkook takes him by the hand and touches him so gently, and Yoongi doesn't need to hear him say anything to know how much he's loved. And while, realistically, he knows that most people who fall in love probably feel this way, he can't help thinking no one else here can possibly know what it's like to be loved this much, to give of themselves this fully. Even if everyone thinks the same way, no love is like theirs.

"I think they do," he says, considering the types of fish they see in the movie. "They're all tropical, right? So they probably live together. But maybe they chose that region to keep kids interested, so it might be both." It makes him wonder what the fish are like off their shores.

Not enough to want to find out firsthand, going back to the beach tonight, but maybe they can find them here in the aquarium.

"It'd be nice to visit that kind of place sometime," Jungkook muses quietly to himself. He tries to imagine the type of clear, blue waters and bright, colorful fish that are always seen in movies, in documentaries. What he knows of fishing around Korea never seems quite as appealing — they might have cleaner waters in Jeju, but even there, Jungkook's pretty sure that the fish mostly blend in with the dirt at the sea floor. Fish of the sort that they get to see at the aquarium now hold such appeal because of how hard it is to get to them otherwise.

If he lets himself think too hard about it, it's honestly a little sad that living creatures get pulled so far away from everything they knew, all the freedoms they enjoyed, to end up here. But maybe they're not as aware, Jungkook muses. Maybe fish are simple enough that having guaranteed food is worth it.

"Ah! Look — I told you," Jungkook exclaims, spotting a tank filled with bright yellow and blue fish in the distance.

It's fun to imagine all the places they could go someday. Yoongi knows that they'll be constrained in real life by their work schedules and finances, but in his head, it doesn't matter. They can see Vienna and Venice and head off to places that have fish like this, clear waters and bright coral and brighter creatures. Australia, maybe. At least, he remembers the fish going to Australia in Finding Nemo.

"There they are," he says, pleased, as they approach the tank, his eyes widening at the sight of all the tropical fish. Unlike that big brown fish blending in with the sandy floor, these fish are brilliant and colorful, catching sunlight filtering down from above as they flit past. "They're so pretty, wow. Where would we go to see them? Outside of here, I mean."

"Hmm," Jungkook hums, taking a moment to step back until he's able to come up behind Yoongi, wrapping his arms around Yoongi's waist and resting his chin on Yoongi's shoulder once more. Bit by bit, he's finding that he doesn't make taking liberties in front of other people. What's the most that anyone would be able to assume, anyway? That they're close? That they're family? They aren't doing anything that would be, on its face, untoward, and the likelihood of being confronted when most are fixated on their kids seems relatively low.

Besides, the feeling of having Yoongi in his arms is worth it.

"The Mediterranean is pretty close to like, Vienna and stuff, right? I mean, not close close, still much further than all of Korea, but I always hear stuff about how there are really great trains in all of Europe and you can really get around pretty easily," Jungkook murmurs in thought. "Like with week-long passes or something."

It comes as a surprise when Jungkook pulls away, his arms slipping around Yoongi's waist. For a moment, Yoongi hesitates, unsure if it's a good idea, but then, it's not like anyone here knows them. No one's going to run off and tell their parents that they were being oddly close (and is it even that odd when they've been such good friends?). The moment passes and he relaxes into Jungkook's arms, his hands settling over Jungkook's.

"That would be fun," he says, brightening at the idea of it. "Riding across Europe from Vienna to... somewhere in Greece maybe? It's really pretty there." At least, the pictures he's seen have always seemed beautiful, everything white stone and bright sunlight. The water should be lovely and clear enough to see the brilliantly colored fish. "I mean, if we're going to go, we should just... do it. See everything."

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