Be kind, but don't hold back your thoughts at the same time! Fandom: BTS Rating: G, for now at least This is a bit of the first scene of my WIP oneshot, where Yoongi is a widower looking to sell the house he once lived in with his late wife and buy a new one, void of the memories that now plagued their home. Hoseok is his realtor, and they will eventually bond and fall in love during the home selling/buying process. I'm sorry if this is too long!! I didn't want to leave any important lines out of this scene for concrit. This is my first time doing this :)
If anyone had told him only a few months ago that he’d be walking into a realtor’s office to discuss the sale of his house--the one he had spent almost eight years saving up a down payment for, stuffing leftover dollar bills into the jar that sat underneath his bed that stood in the corner of his college dorm room, working overtime late into the night, or sometimes the early morning, when he would board the city bus just as the morning sun would rise above the horizon to greet him--he would have called the person insane.
No way would he have ever considered letting go of his townhouse, with historical charm in every line of crown molding along the juncture of the walls and the ceiling, and in the worn floorboards that would creak on every step he took.
But, today is not a few months ago. The Min Yoongi that stepped into Jung Hoseok’s office was not the same Min Yoongi that sat in the upstairs bay window with his cat, looking down onto the sidewalk for what felt like hours as people would walk by, blissfully unaware of how, in only a mere three days time, his world would change, flipping a complete one eighty from nights spent sipping wine on his couch in front of his fireplace to packing up the rarely used, intricate china that sat in the kitchen’s upper cabinets.
“Welcome, Mr. Min. Come take a seat,” The realtor spoke as Yoongi entered the room, standing up from his chair that faced the door, gesturing with his hand to the one that faced him, across his desk.
“Thank you, Mr, Jung,” the shorter man replied as he pulled out the chair enough for him to sit down on. Yoongi crossed one leg over the other as he leaned forward to reach out his hand, which was promptly shook with a firm grasp.
“You can call me Hoseok,” The realtor smiled widely, showing off his bright, white teeth, a smile that could rival the summer’s harsh light filtering in through the uncovered windows, that was perfected for his ads that lined the billboards of the freeways and backs of bus stop benches, one of them being the very catalyst for Yoongi’s strained phone call only a week ago, setting up an appointment with soundless tears trailing down his cheeks.
“Okay, Hoseok,” Yoongi coughed, clearing his throat that felt dry, too dry, as if he had spent the last week without a single drop of water, “Feel free to call me Yoongi, then.”
Hoseok smiled wider, if that was even possible, the apples of his cheeks pushing up to turn his eyes into crescents. “So you’re looking to sell your home and buy a new one, correct?”
“Yes,” Yoongi replied, nodding.
Hoseok turned slightly to face his desktop computer, his fingers flying to press into the keyboard. “What are the specs of your current home?”
“It’s a townhouse, on the outskirts of downtown,” as Yoongi spoke, the realtor’s fingers were flying to press into the keyboard, recording the information, “Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, something around three thousand square feet. It’s got a small yard in the back.”
“Okay, great! Big houses are sparse in this market so I’m sure it will sell fast, and probably over asking,” Hoseok’s voice was full of cheer, so much so that Yoongi wondered in the back of his mind if this was his normal voice, or just put on for the sake of quality customer service. It probably was the latter. “So what size for the new house are you looking for? Bigger? Smaller?”
“One bedroom, one bathroom, maybe something like one thousand square feet.”
Hoseok’s fingers stuttered in their typing, his wide eyes flickering to glance back at his client, who only sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, and his lips pulled into a straight line across his face. “A-ah, downsizing then?”
“Yes,” Yoongi nodded once more, his voice as emotionless as his facial expressions, hoping that the realtor could not see the beads of stress sweat building around his hairline. “Can’t afford a big house anymore, so, yeah.”
It was a solid excuse, one that everyone who didn’t know the situation would believe easily, in the times where the city’s taxes would rise dramatically on each reappraisal of the neighborhoods’ values, enough to wring the life out of both the occupant and their wallets.
“I see,” Hoseok trailed off for a moment, eyebrows furrowing as he stared unblinking at Yoongi, but the small expression of confused curiosity was gone in a flash, as if it had never existed, his smile popping back up onto his face, “Okay, well, there’s a good few options of that size that we can look at, But we should get your home on the market before we start touring properties. Even though your home is the size in high demand, I see that it was built in the late 1800s, so, if you’re up for it, I can arrange to do some minor updates to receive the best offers possible.”
Of course. Updates. To remove all of the character from his home, to replace it with white and light grey walls that would need tens of coats to cover up the natural rough texture of the walls from the wallpaper, and the holes that lined them from the countless pictures and paintings that the four generations of owners would hang, and machine made wood-look tile floors that would be too cold for his bare feet in the dead of night when he would awake with his stomach calling out for a midnight snack. The thought of such made Yoongi’s heart want to plummet into the corrosive acid of his stomach, disintegrating into nothing.
“Yoongi? Are you okay with updates?” Hoseok repeated his idea once more, peering down into Yoongi’s glossy eyes.
“U-uh, I’m not sure,” Yoongi blinked, “I don’t think I have the money for that.”
“Fair enough, I understand, updates can be expensive,” Hoseok leaned back in his chair, enough to finally bring the two of them to eye level, “Have you thought about staging your house, atleast? I can arrange a stager for you, as long as you’re already packed up and ready them,”
A stager. Replacing his sparse, mismatched furniture that he picked up at flea markets and thrift stores, their patterns and colors clashing, but that didn’t matter to Yoongi, as long as they were comfortable and useful, with what would most likely be modern furniture, with stark white, fur rugs that would cover the imperfections of the floorboards in each room, and tastefully distressed wooden pieces, the concept of which Yoongi could never quite wrap his head around, when you could get actual vintage, age-distressed furniture for hundreds cheaper, used. But as much as he despised the idea of tainting his home with such, he resigned, lowering his gaze to the dark grey floors of the realtor’s office.