j_dope: no (Default)
사라있네 ([personal profile] j_dope) wrote2014-03-10 11:54 pm

Set Your Heart on Fire

Set Your Heart on Fire
Suga/Jimin
1790 words ; pg-13
Yoongi is part time student part time teppanyaki grill master. Jimin is easily impressed. (A/N: teppanyaki, or hibachi as Americans like to call it, is a Japanese style of eating where the chef cooks in front of the guests and makes it into a sort of show.)




Yoongi's always been clever with his hands. Up through high school, he had been on the basketball team, and he was the best at handling the ball on his team. But it became clear he wasn't going to get much taller, so he turned his talents to more practical uses.

His part time job in college is the grill master of the most popular teppanyaki restaurant on his campus. He's the best one at the shop, and that's not even him boasting. His manager Seokjin, who oversees operations and manages the splitting of the tips, has told him he's their highest-earning chef, but that's privileged information so he doesn't go around telling people that. It only slips occasionally.

Sometimes his friends go to visit him while he's on duty and he gets to serve them. It's mostly fun doing his tricks and performance cooking in front of them, except he's got the worst friends. Hoseok and Namjoon are an awful duo together and they are always the loudest customers, hooting and calling out whenever Yoongi does a cool spatula flip or egg spin.

They're embarrassing, but they're still his friends so he bears with it. He just grins, teeth gritted, and tries harder to smack them in the forehead with the small bits of meat he's supposed to launch into their mouths.




One day, Hoseok comes in with some of his dance crew as well as a bunch of tiny kids in his tow. "New members," he explains when Yoongi rolls out his cart of ingredients.

"Since when did you guys start taking preschoolers?" Yoongi asks, eyeing them critically.

Hoseok shakes his head. "Why can't you just congratulate them? Kids, this is Min Yoongi, don't mind him, he doesn't mean it."

"Yes, I do."

"Jimin and Taehyung are first years," Hoseok continues, ignoring him.

The one with the chubby cheeks and the one who looks like he's on some hallucinogen nod when they hear their names. Yoongi swears the freshmen are getting smaller every year.

"Are you sure that one's out of elementary school?" Yoongi says, raising his eyebrows at the one whose round eyes made him look lost.

"Jeongguk's a townie. He's still in high school but he's got the talent so why not?" Hoseok says, and Jeongguk ducks his head and beams at the compliment. Hoseok smiles back at him, practically cooing. Seriously, Hoseok and his tendency to take care of anything smaller than him makes Yoongi gag.

"You got the teriyaki chicken right?" Yoongi says, changing the subject and carrying on as a professional does.

"Yep," the one with puffy cheeks—Jimin? says. "Gotta get my protein," he says, flexing his arms—bare, not that Yoongi had been looking or anything—in demonstration.

"Preschoolers don't need muscles." Yoongi grins at the pout on Jimin's face and quickly turns to the next kid. "You got the shrimp combo?"

After he confirms all the orders, Yoongi squeezes out the sauces onto the little sauce dishes, explaining each one. Hoseok's heard this too many times, but the new members give him favorable reactions. He's a performer and it gives him validation, not that he'd ever admit it.

You ain't seen nothin' yet, Yoongi thinks as he starts to flip and twirl his spatula and tine fork, smirking when he hears chorus of ooh's from his table.

When he sets the grill on fire, he can see the kids' eyes practically pop out of their heads. He starts on the appetizers and fried rice. He takes four eggs out, spins them on top of the grill and pops them up with his spatula. He catches one in his breast pocket, two in pouches at his waist, and one on the spatula edge, cracking it in half.

It's kind of entertaining though, they really do act like preschoolers the way they clap and make impressed sounds. Out of the kids, Jimin's the most vocal about his delight, shouting every time Yoongi makes a perfect catch. Yoongi would try to hide his smugness, but that doesn't fit with his character.

Next is the flaming onion ring volcano, which tops off the appetizers. Yoongi serves the vegetables, divvying the portions with a practiced hand. He likes to pick out a single guest to tease, and Jimin has already made himself an easy target, so when he serves Jimin, he scoops the smallest of servings.

The next time he goes to fill Jimin's dish he piles the serving spatula up only to put a single carrot slice on his dish before dumping the rest of the portion onto the stoned-looking kid's plate.

The little round 'o' Jimin's mouth forms and the disbelief in his eyes makes Yoongi laugh, makes the entire table laugh. Yoongi does this a few more times, each time making to fill Jimin's dish, and each time Jimin ends up pouting. It doesn't get old, but soon everybody else's portions are served so Yoongi finally gives Jimin his fair portion.

Yoongi has to clean up the grill before cooking the main entrees, and everybody's pretty much dug into their meals, but Jimin watches him intently, not touching his food.

"You can start, you know," Yoongi says, looking up from scraping the burnt crisps off the grill surface.

"Oh." Jimin picks up his chopsticks but he seems to get distracted and ends up just watching Yoongi towel off any remaining grease and residue. It's not that it's cute, it's just Jimin's voice is soft and sweet and not what you'd expect, really, Yoongi convinces himself.

Yoongi gains the attention of the rest of the table when he puts the meat on the grill with a satisfying sizzle. After chopping up the meat, he picks out a couple of wimpy pieces of chicken and pushes them to the side. When the meat's about halfway done, he takes these pieces and cuts them up into tiny chunks. This is his favorite part.

"Who wants to try catching this with their mouths?" Yoongi asks.

Of course, Jimin is the first to raise his hand. Yoongi flicks the spatula upward, the little piece of meat soaring up in a clean arc. It bounces right off Jimin's nose.

"Okay, who's next?" Yoongi says, and Jimin makes a noise in protest.

The doe-eyed kid goes next. He catches Yoongi's throw neatly.

"Whoa, you're good at that, Jeonggukie," Hoseok says, always ready and armed with praise.

"Or I'm good at aiming," Yoongi says.

"How'd I miss then?" Jimin asks, and Yoongi sends another bit of chicken flying. It promptly slides off of Jimin's cheek.

Yoongi thinks it'd be hilarious if he kept pelting Jimin with the pieces of chicken, but he's already teased too much. "Open your mouth and stay still."

"Ooh, so dirty, hyung," Hoseok says, cackling at his own joke—who even does that?

Jimin turns a nice gradient of pink but he obeys when Yoongi raises his spatula at Hoseok threateningly. A man to his word, Yoongi launches the chicken bit perfectly into Jimin's mouth. Swish.

"Mmmm." Jimin savors the bite, and bounces in his seat. He's too excited and Yoongi wishes he had drawn it out a bit more.

The meat finishes cooking and Yoongi serves it up. While he cleans off the grill a second time, Jimin asks him endless questions. "When did you start learning hyung? Have you burned yourself a lot? Are you here every day? What's your favorite food on the menu? Do you drink soda? How do you keep your skin so white?"

Yoongi answers half of them and then just gives up. He doesn't catch half of them because he's still wondering how in the world Jimin's voice is so tiny. "Don't ask those kinds of questions to somebody you just met, preschooler."

Jimin just smiles up serenely at Yoongi, who dumps the last of the ashes into the built-in disposal.

"Enjoy your meal," Yoongi says, bowing out. As he leaves, he notices Jimin picking up his chopsticks as if he discovered he had food in front of him for the first time.

It's not cute, not cute at all.




Okay, fine, it's actually adorable, Yoongi thinks when Seokjin shows him the receipt for the teriyaki chicken meal. Yoongi-hyung, daebak! is written in awful handwriting. It's contained in a speech bubble spoken by a winky face, its smile large and curved and tongue sticking out. There's a crude thumbs up that only has four fingers but whatever. It is adorable.

Yoongi doesn't like that it makes him smile, large and goofy, very unlike the usual smirk he carefully maintains at all other times.




The next time Yoongi goes into work, he's welcomed by the server up front. "Morning, hyung!"

"Yeah, mornin'," he says, yawning and rubbing sleep out of his eyes when something very familiar about the soft-spoken voice jolts him awake.

He looks up from the floor, coming face to face with a golden nametag. Park Jimin. He looks up further and he definitely does not panic.

"What are you doing here?" he says, in a very calm and collected manner if anybody asks. No, his voice definitely did not crack from jumping two octaves. And definitely no, he did not stutter.

"I got a job here!" Jimin says, brandishing his shiny new nameplate.

Yoongi prides himself in his fast reflexes so he recovers enough to think of one of his signature caustic replies. "If you wanted to flirt with me, it might have been more effective if you found me when I'm not on duty."

Smirk back in place, Yoongi pats himself on the back for his smooth recovery. What he doesn't expect is Jimin to blush furiously, turning that endearing shade of red again that wasn't from the heat of the grill.

"I needed a part time job," Jimin says, way too quickly. "And I just wanted to watch you cook again, that's it, there was an opening and it's not like I can afford to come here and eat just to have you cook for me, I mean I'm a student and how many students do you know who are load—"

"10:30."

"—ed I mean unless the...eh?"

"I get off at 10:30 and if you wanted to get to know me so badly, Park Jimin, I will be treating myself to ramyun after a hard day's work and you're welcome to join."

Jimin stares at him, eyes completely round and jaw slack. "Yes," he finally stutters. "That would be...."

"...cool? Awesome? Great?" Yoongi supplies.

"Yes. That."

Yoongi ruffles Jimin's hair as he walks past. He glances back to see Jimin giving him the largest smile yet, his cheeks round and eyes disappearing, and yeah, Yoongi thinks it might be the cutest thing in the world.

Not that he'd say it aloud.

acatwhowrites: (Changjo♡love)

[personal profile] acatwhowrites 2014-12-20 08:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I can really see Yoongi with this kind of performance job, wowing everyone. He's so lazy, though. Maybe if he really got into it, it'd be almost perfect.

Picking on poor Jimin, though. Everyone picks on the kid. unu Even if he is prime bullying material. He's just so gosh darn cute. Getting a job to totally not flirt with the handsome, talented hyung~

=^..^=~
xiuxun: (Default)

[personal profile] xiuxun 2015-06-17 09:59 am (UTC)(link)
/gawking
okay yoongi. i'm very amazed and amused.
but not as much as that little brat for sure. /snorts
congrats, you just got yourself a fanboy from your awesome performance xD