au where jungoo is the childhood friend. op could potentially be namjoon (muscle kink, moral distress) or yoongi (size difference, moral distress) https://twitter.com/redditships/status/1301909340526436354

i’m personally leaning toward namjoon bc i think he’s more fun to write in a morality-bound sexuality crisis. questioning yoongi writers you are super super valid!! i just love content-with-his-gayness-yoongi.

for extra spice, i would keep their canon age gap and dash in a bit of namjoon having been conditioned to see jungoo as the younger sister he needed to “watch out for” with that insidiously chivalrous brand of misogyny, because +

he still feels like he wants to protect jungoo, but is that just because he’s still not seeing him as the man that he is? or is it because he just loves jungoo so much and gender aside has /always/ wanted to be the safest harbor for him?

ok this brain worm officially titled “the safest harbor”

MEANWHILE. jungoo and his other transmasc buddies vmin like. “guys i’ve had a crush on namjoonie hyung since i was a kid. what if i’m still just idolizing him? what if it’s not that i love him, but that he’s the safest thing i’ve ever known?”

and vmin look at each other, look back at jungoo, and lay their hands over his. “guk-ah,” jimin says gently. “don’t you think it’s telling that you’ve never felt more like the best self you can be than when you’re with him?”

and it’s TRUE. because namjoon did have all those ridiculous gender norms shoved in his head but he always tried to combat them. never told jungoo he couldn’t play with him and the rest of the boys even when they were kids. just tumbled rough and dirty with him.

namjoon isn’t the source of jungoo’s stability. but he is the placid haven where jungoo can lay everything else aside.

wow. i have made myself emo goodbye

AH. jungoo only vaguely remembers it, but there was only one instance when they were kids in which namjoon got into big trouble. jungoo doesn’t know why to this day.

cw // misogyny, some gendered bullshit/bullying

(namjoon’s other male friends teased him for always “bringing his little girlfriend along” to play with them.)

(namjoon insisted that jungoo was like a little sister and had every right to play if she wanted, but then one of the boys said “ugh whatever she’s not even a real girl anyway, always pretending she’s one of us or whatever.”)

(namjoon, a pacifist from birth who had never learned how to throw a punch, socked him right in the jaw. he’d ended up breaking his hand, but he refused to tell jungoo why it happened.)

(years later, jungoo realizes that after that, namjoon ate lunch with him at school every day. jungoo had always thought he was looking after jungoo. only when he’s older does he realize namjoon probably became completely socially ostracized as a result. cue: guilt.)

this au eventually ends with the two of them together, on the brink of something new after all these years. namjoon still has a lot to unpack about his newfound identity, but jungoo just crinkles his nose at him in a happy smile.

“you were there for me while i figured out who i am, hyung. this time i get to be here for you.”

WHY HAVE I DONE THIS

you can blame lili for enabling me too https://twitter.com/yeongwonhanrain/status/1301994448642076672

OH WAIT. EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO TIE IN SOME CANONICAL NAMKOOK DIALOGUE.

epilogue in which years down the line, namjoon jokes with vmin and yoonjinseok that jungoo was his gay awakening.

jungoo laughs along, but later that night, he curls up on namjoon’s chest and whispers, “was i really your gay awakening?”

namjoon pauses. “well, yeah. obviously looking back i clearly was never straight, but i didn’t figure out how bi i was until you moved in with me.”

jungoo’s expression is full of awe. “i can’t believe it was /me/ that did it for you.”

“what’s so hard to believe?” namjoon scoffs. “you’re easily the best thing in my life. always was. always will be.”

jungoo makes a happy noise and closes his eyes as namjoon cards a hand through his hair.

quieter, namjoon whispers, “sorry you had to wait for me, bun.”

“s’okay, hyung,” jungoo says drowsily. “would have waited forever.”

namjoon thinks he’s fallen asleep after that, but then, mumbled against his chest, “my first and last role model.”