lovestrippedbare | 𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕚𝕔𝕠

"Please don't get stung," Yoongi says wryly. "I have no idea what to do if something like that happens." He knows people say to pee on it but he's pretty sure that's some kind of legend, not actual, helpful advice. "You'd be flailing around while I tried to look it up on my phone." Still, if — when — they go back to the beach, that won't keep him away from the water. If anything does, it'll be Jungkook distracting him on the shore.

He looks up at the signs as they walk, smiling when he recognizes which way they're headed — not with any real speed, still slow enough for him to look into the tanks as they go, but definitively in the direction of the sharks. That's one of the things he likes about zoos and aquariums. He'd never want to meet some of these creatures face to face, but put up some fencing or a sheet of glass and he can get close enough to marvel at their grandeur.

Giving Yoongi a long, solemn glance, Jungkook presses his lips thinly together and then shakes his head. "Yoongi-ah," he says, tone carefully even as he raises his hand to squeeze Yoongi's shoulder. "It's okay if you need to pee on my foot. I think our connection is deep enough that I would not hold it against you." He tries to keep a straight face, but ends up snickering not long after — there's really no way of knowing whether or not peeing on a venomous sting will do anything at all, but the thought is a funny one. Even if Jungkook's pretty sure the attempt would get them reprimanded for public indecency before anything else.

He's still biting on his lower lip to keep his volume down as they make their way to the shark-filled tanks at last. A few of them stretch from floor to ceiling, opening them to an endless swath of blue, but it's the open-air tank that Jungkook tugs the both of them towards first, willing to bet that the gathered crowd is waiting on an opportunity to interact directly with the specimens in the tank.

"Yah," Yoongi exclaims, but he can't hold back his own laughter at the idea of it. "You'd better not, since I'd be doing it to save you." He has no desire or intention of pulling his dick out in public and getting in trouble for it, but he can't pretend he wouldn't, if it came down to it, if that actually had any real protective effect. He's pretty sure it doesn't.

In the next moment, though, all his attention is drawn to the massive tanks, his eyes wide as he gazes into them, letting Jungkook lead him so he can keep looking back. "Ah, they're so cool," he says. "Look at them." There's a crowd at one of the tanks and he's not sure what they're looking at, exactly, but he's excited as they approach, craning his neck to try and peer around them.

As impressive as the tanks are, Jungkook finds himself much more taken by the look of awe on Yoongi's face, the way that he cranes his neck and his eyes widen to consume every detail. It isn't often that Yoongi appears so unguarded, Jungkook thinks. He's usually the more collected one of the two, the one who's much more careful about making sure they stay on track as a pair. Letting Yoongi take a moment now to revel in the exhibit seems like a no-brainer, and Jungkook's expression softens as he watches his boyfriend, biting down the temptation to press a kiss to his cheek.

He'd take a picture if he thought he could get away with it without Yoongi noticing.

As it is, they end up making their way to the open tank instead, Jungkook lingering half a step behind as Yoongi's excitement pushes him forward. "Ah," Jungkook exclaims softly, seeing the ripple of sting rays in the water. "Looks like we found them."

Yoongi feels like a little kid suddenly, delighted by the possibility of getting to touch these creatures, who look incredibly cool as they glide through the shallow water. "Ah, there they are," he says, giving Jungkook's hand a soft squeeze. They'll have to wait their turn — and there are a couple of kids ahead of them who seem likely to take their time, which Yoongi can't fault them for the way he would if it were an adult — but it seems well worth it. "I had a feeling we'd find them."

In the meanwhile, he glances back at the sharks. They'll give them a better look, he decides, once they've had their chance with the sting rays. "They look kind of rubbery," he says, unaccountably pleased about it. "I wonder if they feel that way too. They seem pretty gentle, too." The kids don't seem to be having any trouble with them, at least.

It's fairly rare for Jungkook to see Yoongi as excited as this, almost buzzing with energy as he lines up behind kids about half their size, easily glancing over their heads to watch the rays even from a distance. Already, Jungkook finds himself wondering what it is exactly about the sting rays that has caught Yoongi's attention so deeply — more than any of the animals that they'd seen at the zoo only months before. Something about the movement, perhaps, Jungkook muses to himself. Rays and jellyfish both have an almost ethereal quality to the way they move, gliding and floating through the water, making it look entirely effortless.

"They do look really gentle," Jungkook agrees, leaning in to bump his lips briefly against the side of Yoongi's head, a subtle sort of kiss that shouldn't draw undue attention. Not that anyone's staring much at them here, Jungkook thinks, when they're all clearly lined up with the goal of petting the rays. "And yeah, the way they flap around kind of looks like rubber... but would they really feel that way? I guess I don't know what they feel like, or sharks. Toys are super smooth, but then when you think of fish, you think of scales, right? Are there actually fish out there that have... just skin?"

Yoongi beams at the tiny kiss, eyes fluttering briefly shut, almost more at the idea of the gesture than the touch itself. He longs so deeply for a day when they can be as openly affectionate as they want to be, as obviously in love as any other couple they've seen walking past. For now, though, little things have come to mean everything.

"I don't think so," he says, considering Jungkook's question. "But they don't look scaly." That doesn't mean they aren't, though. "Maybe they're just really tiny scales." He feels a bit like a kid himself, as if he's gone back in time to an age when he loved the ocean for its creatures as much as for what it meant to him and his friends as a place of escape. Still, watching the kids in front of them helps make passing the time easier, and he stifles a laugh as a tiny girl draws her hand back from the water with a shriek of laughter before reaching back in. "Like sharks, right? They're fish. They have to have scales, too."

"Yeah, really tiny or like, I don't know, shaped some other way that makes them more aerodynamic? ...wait, that isn't right," Jungkook says, scrunching up his face, one eye shutting as he reflects. "Whatever the water-based equivalent of aerodynamic is." He's not versed enough in animal anatomy to really guess at what kind or shape of scales might be best for achieving the fluidity of a sting ray's movements, but his mind starts to muse over a number of different possibilities. Needle-like scales? Flexible scales?

As he ponders, Jungkook raises a hand up to the back of Yoongi's head, idly scratching at Yoongi's scalp and running his fingers through the hair.

"Man, I can't even imagine what sharks feel like. They always look... rubbery or slimy. But maybe that's totally wrong, maybe they're all rough and we just don't know it because none of us really get close enough to touch one. Especially not bare-handed," Jungkook muses. Seeing some of the aquarium workers swimming through the tanks has him wondering how fun it might be to go scuba diving, even though Jungkook suspects they don't have enough money saved up for that right now.

"I mean, there are marine biologists," Yoongi counters. "Some of them have to have touched sharks, so the information has to be somewhere." Which is, in a way, beside the point. They could take out their phones and search for this kind of stuff, but it's much more fun to discuss it and come to their own conclusions. "They look really smooth, though." Whether or not this is actually the case is hard to say. They're fish, too. Fish, as a rule, aren't as smooth as they look.

Leaning his head back into Jungkook's hand, he glances over and smiles. "But then, penguins don't look very feathery and they are. So who knows?" Nature is strange and wild and full of surprises. The mystery of what a stingray feels like, at least, is one they can solve soon. Yoongi slips an arm around Jungkook's waist, watching as they step closer.

"Yah, when I said none of us, I mean like... us, people like us. Plebeians," Jungkook snorts, rolling his eyes slightly at the mention of marine biologists. Because, yes, there are definitely people who have literally touched sharks before. Probably people in this very aquarium who have. "If nothing else, it's like. Not enough people who have touched sharks to make what they feel like common knowledge for the rest of us, right? Even though people like shark stuff. Like Jaws. Or Sharknado." Jungkook narrows his eyes. "Actually... now I gotta wonder why marine biologists don't come out with that information. They're being kind of stingy, don't you think?"

Jungkook continues to massage at Yoongi's hair, stepping up in the queue when a couple of kids run off to go visit the next exhibit. It shouldn't be too long, Jungkook thinks, until it's their turn to pet the rays. Selfishly, he hopes that their time won't be cut short just because they're older. He heaves a deep sigh.

"Now you've got me thinking about penguins. Do they have petting zoos with penguins? I wanna pet a penguin," Jungkook mutters, eyes narrowing at the thought.

Yoongi laughs. There's something satisfying in being irritating in small doses sometimes, even with Jungkook. In any case, the mention of Sharknado would be enough to make him laugh anyway. He's never seen it, but he can only imagine how absolutely, ludicrously bad it must be, but still, it's true. People like shark stuff.

"Maybe we should ask someone," he says. "About the sharks. We'll have to ask the internet about the penguins." There's got to be somewhere you can pet penguins, Yoongi reasons, and if there is, he wants to take Jungkook there. It just might not be in Korea, and that's fine; it's one more thing to add to their list of places to travel. "Oh, here we go."

The docent waves them forward as space opens up ahead of them, giving them room at the side of a shallow tank of lukewarm water. "They don't sting," she says. "But be gentle with them, okay?"

Yoongi nods, reaching in slowly, waiting for a ray to get close enough to touch.

The rays are undoubtedly cool, Jungkook's lips curving into an immediate smile at the way the tips of their bodies ripple in the water. Jungkook waits for Yoongi to get settled before he draws closer himself, one hand lingering at the small of Yoongi's back as Jungkook watches Yoongi extend a hand into the water. His gaze skirts to the side, watching the way Yoongi's expression brightens as the rays swim closer, and Jungkook immediately knows — there's no way that he'll be half as interested in the rays as he is in Yoongi's enthusiasm.

"Do they like being pet?" he asks the guide, who tilts her head with a small smile.

"We think so," she nods. "Some more than others. As long as you're gentle and don't make any sudden movements, you'll find that they approach you of their own will. Any sting rays on the shyer side, we don't bring out for petting."

Jungkook breathes a small sigh of relief, glad to hear that there might be something in it for the rays as well. He clasps a hand around Yoongi's shoulder, glancing down into the water as one of the creatures approaches. "You first. What's it feel like?"

It's impossible not to feel like a kid himself, leaning carefully against the side of the pool, watching for the rays to approach. When one gets close enough, Yoongi reaches out tentatively, running his palm along its back. He draws his hand back for an instant, laughing. "Slimy?" he says, touching it again. It doesn't seem to mind, like the guide said, lingering close enough that he can stroke its back. "Rubbery. But kind of rough, too? Try it."

The way it moves, almost like it's flying in water, is enthralling to Yoongi, and he watches it for a moment more before looking to Jungkook, trying to take in his reaction in turn. As exciting as the experience is, part of the thrill is getting to share it with the person he loves most. The stingrays must be used to all the attention, he figures, since this one seems in no hurry to move on.

"Slimy?" Jungkook asks with a blink of surprise, tilting his head. Maybe he should have guessed as much — plenty of fish at Noryangjin are slimy to the touch, and Jungkook's pretty sure that home aquariums get really slimy when they haven't been cleaned enough. It seems reasonable to think that natural marine environments would have a lot of slime as well.

Intrigued, he steps a little closer to the side of the tank, grasping at the edge of the tank with one hand while he reaches in with the other. Jungkook's fingers hover above the sting ray as he bites at his lower lip, watching the ray's sides flutter through the water. Then, almost as though it senses Jungkook's hesitation, the ray flaps with a bit more strength, raising its buoyancy in the water.

"Oh!" Jungkook exclaims as the ray bumps against his fingertips. Carefully, he strokes along the edge of the ray's wing, then up towards its back. "Whoa. Like... sandpapery, but yeah, slimy too. Whoa."

Yoongi grins, glancing over at Jungkook. He knows Jungkook has his own quiet days, his own reticence at times, but still it seems to Yoongi as if he takes the world head-on with an enthusiasm Yoongi loves dearly. "It's weird, right?" he asks, nudging Jungkook's shoulder with his own. He can see now why the little girl ahead of them drew back and laughed before diving back in; there's something so fascinating about the texture that he can't quite stop touching it yet.

"They're friendlier than I thought they would be," he adds. He remembers going to petting zoos as a kid and being disappointed when the animals showed no interest unless he had treats for them. The rays don't seem to be coming over in search of food, but another one turns up soon. "I wonder if they feel curious. At all, but especially after seeing so many people."

Jungkook snickers when Yoongi bumps their shoulders together, slightly sheepish for the fact that even at Yoongi's most enthusiastic, Jungkook feels like he's probably coming off as more of the kid between them both. Now that it's clear that the rays aren't too startled by his presence, Jungkook draws his fingers more firmly down the length of the creature, specifically working down the center and towards the spindly tail. The docent tells them not to press too hard against the sliminess, because it's a necessary part of keeping the ray healthy, so Jungkook is careful not to press too hard, or to let his contact spread too wide. He goes only as much as the ray seems to be comforted by.

"Do you think they actually see all that well?" Jungkook asks, tilting his head to try and find the creature's eyes, which look a little droopy and almost grumpy, in contrast with the playful flailing of their wings. "Or maybe what they like is having someone almost scratch their back. Since I can't imagine, like, that it's easy for them to turn onto their sides and rub themselves against a rock or something."

"Ah, that's true," Yoongi says, nodding. He can't even reach every spot on his own back with ease, and he's not a flat flapping ocean pancake. It must be much more difficult for the stingrays to manage such things. "It must be hard to get around without hands. Although I guess pretty much everything in the ocean has it figured out."

Maybe it's like cats, he thinks, the way they brush up against people, looking for scritches where they can't reach, using attention to achieve their own ends. In an unexpected way, that's what the rays remind him of now, cats looking for attention, steady and calm, though there's something more playful in their movements. It's like they're flying just beneath the surface.

"I don't know. They seem to be a lot better at swimming than I am," Jungkook chuckles, watching one of the stingrays take off, fluttering towards the back of the tank, clearly done for the time being with all human company. Jungkook's far from a bad swimmer, but there's something about the way that the rays move in the water that's graceful beyond compare. It's not as sharp as a lot of the other fish that they've glanced at in the tanks, but it's unique. Stealthy.

A little playful, Jungkook thinks, watching as one of the rays almost skates over Yoongi's hand.

"But yeah, I bet it must feel really neat to have something scratching them so gently. Like, even if they don't know whether or not they like it, it's probably interesting? Or maybe they really do like it, because if it was just something they didn't understand, I'd think they'd run away, just in case it's a new kind of threat," Jungkook muses. He's not actually sure how deeply any animal thinks, so starting at the mental level of a toddler is about as good of a guess as any.

Jungkook likes to say he isn't very smart, or at least to hint it, but Yoongi doesn't believe it. He's not always great at school, but that's not the same thing. What Jungkook does well — what he's a genius at, in Yoongi's opinion — is understanding the world on new levels, from new perspectives, eyes wide as he takes everything in. He processes and absorbs and intuits in a way Yoongi thinks is beyond himself. He can make guesses and he's good at observing people, but it isn't quite on the same level. He reads people like putting together a puzzle; Jungkook inhabits the picture instead, steps into their lives.

"It's nice to think they enjoy it," he says. "Even if it's just wishful thinking or projection. Ah, they're pretty, aren't they? So graceful. They probably would run away. Even if you have a stinger, you probably don't want to use it if you don't have to."

Jungkook isn't sure if most people would necessary call stingrays pretty — their eyes are a little odd-looking, for all the grace that there is in their movements. But the fact that Yoongi so easily describes them as such only makes Jungkook smile widely, ducking his head briefly, hair falling in front of his face. Everything about Yoongi is cute, if not necessarily in the typical way that one thinks of the word. The cuteness comes from how earnest Yoongi is, thoughtful and guileless.

"I hope it's not just wishful thinking," Jungkook murmurs, petting the ray one more time before he lifts his hand out of the water, not wanting to take too much time away from the younger kids queued up behind them. He wipes his hand down on a nearby towel, wrinkling his nose at the thought of how many other people must have touched it, then looks around to check if there's a bathroom nearby.

Not that he plans on leaving until Yoongi is done, of course.

"I wish we had a real way of knowing. Like how you can tell when dogs are happy because they wag their tails and lick you all over."

It isn't much longer before Yoongi pulls away, too, giving the ray one more stroke before he steps aside to wipe his hands. "Bye," he says to it, glancing back at the line and grinning as a little girl scurries up to take their place.

"Mm, true," he says as he reaches to hook his arm through Jungkook's. "They're not as clear-cut. Though I guess that's why we'd get a dog and not a stingray."

He likes the idea of it, the life they'll have, the two of them post-college and service in a little house with a piano and a kid and a dog running around at their feet. The days would never be quiet then, always awash in laughter and music. They're small, simple dreams, he thinks — not easy, necessarily, but manageable, and all the better for being shared.

The thought hadn't even occurred to Jungkook to say goodbye to the stingray, and he finds himself endlessly charmed by the fact that Yoongi did, practically beaming by the time they link arms. He glances briefly behind them before deciding to take the plunge and pressing a quick kiss to Yoongi's cheek, then giving their arms a little tug as he swings them both in the direction of the sharks. The shark tanks are some of the most impressive that he's seen in the aquarium by far, the glass wide and expansive, allowing many people to swing by and survey the creatures at once.

"Maintaining a tank for a stingray also sounds pretty difficult," Jungkook points out with a small grin, tilting his head. "Although, I don't know... seeing how cute you were about the stingrays makes me wish that it were easier to get one for ourselves. Because. You were very cute. Almost enough to make me jealous of a stingray."

He slows to a stop by the sharks, mouth gaping slightly as he watches a particularly large one swim across the space.

Yoongi laughs, surprised. "I was not," he protests, not sure why that's his reaction exactly. "I wouldn't know how to take care of one anyway." It'd be kind of cool, though, to have a pet like that. Somehow, though, it doesn't feel as right as having a dog. He doubts a stingray would be very happy in whatever small tank they'd be able to afford.

The shark proves distracting, though, his eyes widening as he looks up at the shark slinking past. "Whoa." Stingrays are, it turns out, kind of cute, at least to Yoongi. Sharks, on the other hand, are positively majestic. Even with the thick glass between them, it's impressive and sends a little shiver through him, a frisson of vestigial fear and delight. "Okay, that is cool."

The cuteness only extends further with Yoongi's protests, futile as they are. There's a certain natural modesty in Yoongi — though he has a couple of areas that he's decently confident in, music being one and general academia being another, there are some areas where Yoongi doesn't have the slightest clue about how to acknowledge his own draw and appeal. When confronted with that praise, Yoongi usually lands somewhere between denial and bashfulness.

There's no way to describe it other than 'cute.'

But Jungkook doesn't belabor the topic, not when there's a shark commanding both space and attention. Jungkook instinctively pulls Yoongi's arm closer around his own, feeling that flicker of fear, even though the glass between them and the sharks is no doubt reinforced several times over.

"Can you imagine coming across that in the actual ocean? I'd shit my pants," Jungkook says frankly. "Wet suit. Whatever."

"Immediately," Yoongi agrees, nodding. With some distance between them and the creature, he's taken aback by its grandeur, but out in the ocean, he knows, he'd be terrified. And probably dead. "But then it'd eat us, so. I think. I don't know which sharks eat people." He knows that, in theory, most sharks don't attack unless they feel threatened, but, frankly, all of them seem pretty threatening to him, except the little sand sharks gliding along the floor. "But if one's in front of me, I'm gonna assume it's one of them."

Still, he steps closer, pressing a hand to the glass before glancing to Jungkook. His hand slips down again to rest on Jungkook's arm, keeping him close. Half the fun of the aquarium, like the zoo, is seeing the creatures in it. The other half is watching Jungkook and how he reacts to all of them.

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