lovestrippedbare | 𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕚𝕔𝕠

"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.

"I think the only mental image I have of a dangerous shark is like... the great white?" Jungkook admits, narrowing his eyes as he runs through his very limited shark knowledge. He knows that there are some tiny sharks, like nurse sharks, that aren't very frightening. And that there are some really large sharks — is it a whale shark? or a shark whale? — that don't actually eat humans. "So like, big, gray, looks really rubbery, white belly. Like Jaws. I don't know if all of those are actually great whites, but all the ones with that kind of shape and color would really scare me. And maybe hammerheads, too. Just 'cause they look really weird."

He instinctively draws closer to Yoongi upon feeling the brush of Yoongi's hand against his arm, biting his lower lip in thought. "They've gotta have some kind of display that talks about the sharks in here, right?"

"Oh, hammerheads are so weird," Yoongi agrees. He pulls a face, but even those, he thinks, would be really neat to see. Glancing around, he looks for a display of the sort Jungkook's suggesting. There are placards on some of the walls and, a little further away, a bigger board with pictures on it. He guides Jungkook toward the latter. "But, yeah, most of them are probably... not safe, but not as dangerous as I assume. But still."

That's part of the thrill of seeing them so close, he figures. There's the illusion of danger, cushioned by the safety of such thick glass between them. He can indulge in the excitement without ever having to fear anything for real, while enjoying the way Jungkook holds tight to him.

"What do you think made hammerheads evolve into that kind of shape? Like, do they actually see better because their eyes are so far apart? But then why aren't more sharks like that? It's just so weird," Jungkook says with a small shudder, laughing as he pulls out his phone. There aren't any hammerheads in this particular display, but it doesn't take long to pull up images of them. Somehow, they manage to look menacing, alien, and goofy all at the same time. He holds the phone up to Yoongi's gaze with a wrinkle of his nose. "It's like... their eyes are the widest part of their body. If they bump against narrow holes, it'd be with their eyes. Seems impractical."

Just then, another large shark swims up close, and Jungkook glances up with his jaw slightly slackened. The second time around isn't quite as startling, but a couple seconds after the fact, he lets himself shiver anyway, feeling almost a thrill of pleasure as he hides his face against Yoongi's temple.

Yoongi smiles, eyes falling shut for a moment, enjoying Jungkook's closeness more than the presence of the shark. "Now who's cute?" he asks quietly, giving Jungkook's arm a gentle squeeze. The shark is so near to them, Yoongi can almost feel the chill of the water, the glass cool where he lifts his hand to press his palm against it.

"It has to be an evolutionary advantage," he decides, thinking back to the picture of the hammerhead. "But I don't see how. Like you said, impractical." It might give them a metaphorical leg up on predators closing in from the sides — but then, what eats a hammerhead shark? It seems to Yoongi like that's the sort of creature that ends up top of the food chain.

Unless its dumb shaped head prevents it from being an effective hunter.

Edited 2019-06-16 07:05 (UTC)

"Still you," Jungkook insists, nudging the curve of Yoongi's cheekbone with his nose before pulling back, leaning against the tank and staring up at the rippling water towards the top of the exhibit, the way it casts all the space below in glittering beams of light. There's no shortage of water around them in Korea, but it's not often that they actually get to see what lies beneath the surface. He wonders if they might be able to find a way to explore the beaches with the group in a way that's more like this — buying some goggles, maybe some snorkeling equipment. The water might be too cloudy to see much, but it'd be fun to try.

"I feel like if it was really a big evolutionary advantage, then all sharks would look like that," Jungkook reasons. "But most sharks are just shaped like... really smooth fish, right? Almond-like in shape. So, I don't know. Unless the hammerheads end up getting to eat things or go places that you can't when your eyes are normal. Ah, I don't know."

Jungkook shakes his head. He feels like he's starting to go in mental circles.

The little gesture is so comforting and cozy, Yoongi breaks into a brighter smile. Sometimes, with Jungkook, it feels like he can't stop smiling, never so happy as he is at Jungkook's side. It's hard for him to see how he could possibly be the cute one when Jungkook is right here, so fucking adorable that Yoongi is sure he must look positively lovestruck whenever his gaze turns Jungkook's way. He should probably care about that, try to be a little less obvious, but he really can't bring himself to give a fuck. The room is dim, everyone else is busy with their kids, and no one cares.

"Almond-like," he snickers. "That's about right." It's still funny, though, imagining them briefly as floating almonds with fins. "Should we ask someone?" They're not going to figure it out on their own unless they look it up on their phones. It might be worth it to satisfy their curiosity, even though it's also kind of fun to make things up.

Jungkook narrows his eyes, weighing the pros and cons of asking members of the aquarium staff whether or not they know. On the one hand, it might be a really cool piece of knowledge. On the other hand, there's almost a soft of fun that comes with not knowing and simply marveling over how weird and goofy hammerhead sharks are, and doubly amusing to imagine them pausing before narrow holes, unable to maneuver their way through. Not that Jungkook would admit to finding such a thought amusing. It's actually probably appalling, the lack of empathy that he has for the big fish.

He purses his lips, battling with his internal monologue and trying not to give himself away.

"Nah," he decides, sliding a hand by the small of Yoongi's back. "A little mystery never hurt anyone." He tilts his head, glancing further down the exhibit. "Ah! Look, the tank merges into — it's like a tunnel over there. Let's go."

"Ahh!" Yoongi exclaims, looking over where Jungkook has indicated, taking in the way the ceiling gives way to the curved walls of a tank overhead. He hasn't been to an aquarium since he was pretty young, but he thinks he'd remember if he'd seen something like this before, and he hasn't. "So cool."

He slips an arm over Jungkook's shoulders, heading toward the tunnel. "And yeah, a little mystery's not a bad thing." He's not the kind to just make it up for himself, but it's fun to imagine the possibilities. Besides, they can look it up later if they're still curious and see if they got it right. "I wonder if they have any hammerheads over there."

As soon as they make it into the tunnel, he tips his head up, eyes going wide as the white of a shark's belly flashes overhead.

Most of the time, Jungkook is the type to stroll through exhibits quickly, content to scan the area for a first impression rather than spending the additional time to look everything deeply through. It matters more to him to have a broad set of experiences, superficial that they may be, than to try and understand the ins and outs of what's in front of him. (Sometimes, he finds himself wondering if this is part of why he feels like he's so much slower, so much less learned than some of his hyungs.)

But this exhibit proves to be an exception. Jungkook lingers, his mouth gaping as he stares overhead, blindly grasping around until he's able to find Yoongi's hand and entwines their fingers together. Surrounded by the tank on all sides, this feels like the closest that Jungkook may ever come to being so far under the ocean, the closest he may ever come to understanding what the creatures down here see.

"Wow," he breathes, absentmindedly running his thumb over Yoongi's knuckle. "It's like we're in the ocean. How do they — this is crazy." He pulls to one side of the tunnel, pressing his palm flat against the class and feeling the concave surface.

Yoongi glances over at him, fondly taking in the wonder in Jungkook's expression. This was a good idea, he thinks. He can't even remember which of them came up with it, but already it's been a memorable experience — not even counting the blowjobs in the bathroom, though the sudden thought of it makes his ears flare red. At least it's fairly dimly lit in here and no one will wonder at it. Just seeing Jungkook this enthralled, plus his own excitement, has made the trip worthwhile.

"The glass doesn't even look that thick," he muses, thought it must be incredibly strong to bear the weight of what must be literal tons of water and all the wildlife in it. Sharks float past, tails flicking idly, and he squeezes Jungkook's hand. "They're so close it's almost like we could touch them." It almost seems childish to say, when very evidently they cannot do that, but it still feels that way, the creatures gliding close enough at times, Yoongi can see the rubbery texture of their skin and the rise and fall of their breathing.

"I wonder if it takes a lot of effort to clean," Jungkook murmurs, because Yoongi's right — the glass doesn't look thick, which must be testament to how clear they've kept the surface of it, crystal clear in every direction, as though they've descended under the ocean in a bubble. He wanders vaguely through the tunnel, his steps slow and meandering, only paying enough attention to make sure they avoid bowling any kids over. The rest of the time, he stares overhead, gaping at the white bellies that flash by, the occasional glimpse of teeth they get when the sharks open their mouths.

"This feels just as good as actually seeing them underwater," he muses. "Don't have to deal with the wet suit, or cages, or... worrying that the sharks will actually do something to us. And it doesn't look like they care that we're here. Looks like they've got plenty of space, too." Jungkook shifts closer to Yoongi, letting go of his hand to drape his arm behind the small of Yoongi's back, keeping the both of them side by side.

"Yeah, it must be a pain to clean," Yoongi says, wryly amused by the thought. Inside and out, the glass is spotless, nothing to interfere with their perfect view of the creatures. They're alarming and elegant all at once, something sleek and beautiful about the way they move.

"But it's nice," he adds. "That they do have a lot of space. Probably not as good as the actual ocean, but if they have to be here, at least they have room." It feels better for him, too, knowing the sharks have a decent-sized home and that this must be a reasonable approximation of what it might be like to see them in the wild. Leaning close, he tucks his chin on Jungkook's shoulder for a moment. "They're kinda beautiful, huh?"

"At least here, they know when they're getting their next meal?" Jungkook muses, a hint of sadness now apparent in his voice. When he lets himself think too deeply about zoos and aquariums, Jungkook can't help but wonder if there's something about them that lacks deeply compared to the wild. It's hard to know whether or not animals ever have that much awareness, and it's unlikely that they ever carry as much of the romanticism that humans do, but Jungkook knows that some creatures aren't really made for captivity.

"And they're not going to be hunted here, and they don't have to worry about the temperatures of the ocean changing, and... ah," Jungkook sighs, pressing his lips together. It all feels like excuses that are cobbled together, if he's honest with himself. "I guess all we can try to do is make sure they live as happily as they can here, and if they don't like it... hopefully the aquarium lets those ones free, you know. If they're struggling in these tanks."

He pouts, turning to look where Yoongi's chin is perched on his shoulder. "Sorry. I'm being a total downer."

Edited 2019-06-19 20:52 (UTC)

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