Chapter Text
Yoongi allows hand-holding. He knows what Taehyung is like by now, that he needs touch, some form of physical affection to understand that he’s not hated. Yoongi has never been that type of person—requiring words or tentative fingers lacing through his—but he can appreciate that he and Taehyung don’t have to be the same.
He’s generous, even. He accepts Taehyung’s soft little goodnight kiss, lips to Yoongi’s cheek as they lie there in the dark of Yoongi’s bedroom. Taehyung doesn’t move right away, just lingers against his skin as he whispers, “Thanks, hyung,” in his familiar, sleepy rasp.
It’s sticky where they touch. Their palms, their arms, where Taehyung has a leg tossed over Yoongi’s thighs. Yoongi absolutely can’t sleep like this, but after years of cohabiting with Taehyung and Seokjin, he recognizes that all he has to do is wait for Taehyung to pass out to untangle himself. Sweat beads under Yoongi’s sleep tee, along his philtrum. “Yeah,” Yoongi says.
Taehyung shifts back, but his nose and lips are close enough to Yoongi’s cheek that he can still feel each, steady breath, the warmth of Taehyung’s skin. The room is dark, quiet; Yoongi, eyes accustomed, watches Taehyung’s hair stir under the gentle spin of his ceiling fan.
Yoongi almost doesn’t realize he’s been kissed on the cheek again until Taehyung dips forward and then back, and the smack of Taehyung’s lips against his face sounds off in the silence. Okay. He doesn’t say anything. Taehyung is like this, sometimes. Seokjin may be his mentor, but Yoongi was there to help cook for him and give him advice when nobody else was available—and he may not have known a single thing about the acting industry other than what Seokjin has told him throughout the years, Taehyung didn’t seem to mind.
He just wanted somebody that’d look at him and see a man rather than a means of profit. Yoongi gave (gives) him that. He gives him this, too: lying pliant as Taehyung assaults him with slow, wet kisses, his fingers pulsing where they sit between Yoongi’s. Breathy hyungs that don’t achieve anything other than stirring Yoongi up low in his belly.
Reminding him of odd evenings in the apartment, Seokjin off filming in some other city, the sun burning orange and casting the tiles and cherry wood cabinets in a hazy, new-dimensional fuzz. Taehyung’s hand to the small of his back as he slips by, their bodies hiding the touch from Seokjin’s constant presence—Seokjin’s mugs, and where Seokjin’s air fryer sits by the sink. Yoongi and Seokjin’s matching, handmade coffee cups they bought during an anniversary trip to Thailand.
Yoongi allows the hand-holding, because Taehyung has done so several times when Seokjin was sitting on the other side, cooing in that teasing inflection Yoongi hates. Taehyungie likes you!
Yoongi allows cheek kisses, because Seokjin has witnessed Taehyung do so for the past year, encouraging the affection with his squeaky laughter and, you’re an honorary hyung to Taehyungie now, huh?
The kid has always enjoyed affection. That’s what Yoongi calls him—the kid—even if he’s grown into his skin now. Even if he’s in his mid twenties and makes Yoongi’s belly stir like an orange sunset’s been lit aflame inside his gut. It’s safer, using labels. It erects walls that he can remain safely behind.
Allegedly. Taehyung’s next kiss goes right to the corner of Yoongi’s mouth. Yoongi’s breath is swallowed, skipped. He doesn’t react, doesn’t move. Taehyung’s lips clicking against his lip corner a second time is so much louder than the first. Maybe because Yoongi is expecting it this time. His inhale is audible, quivering.
Finally, “ Taehyung-ah ,” he whispers. Taehyung does an absent little hum, sounding almost asleep. His leg across Yoongi’s thighs twitch, then, and Taehyung angles his head to kiss a little more boldly into Yoongi’s mouth, just the outer half.
Yoongi blinks in Taehyung’s direction. His eyes are closed. Lashes dark and long where they sweep along his cheekbone. Dark hair a wavy, sleep-mused mess, an off-brown color that his last web drama required he dye it. Yoongi is going to sweat to death. Die from dehydration.
“One kiss,” Taehyung mumbles. “Okay?”
“Huh?” Yoongi can’t feel his hand anymore. He thinks it’s melded into Taehyung’s from the heat and moisture.
“Here.” Taehyung lifts his head and shoulders up and over Yoongi’s, presses right into Yoongi’s mouth with his own. Something slow and chaste, drowsy with sleep. “This.”
Taehyung gives another. Yoongi thinks you said one , doesn’t say it aloud. He uses his free hand to hold Taehyung back at his chest, useless because Taehyung is craning forward anyway, mouthing at Yoongi’s lips—and Yoongi isn’t really trying, anyway. He goes slack, breath still stuttering along as Taehyung does little experimental licks, prodding for more, deeper.
Then they’re kissing. Actual kissing, Yoongi’s mind supplies dreadfully. The slide of their wet lips, Taehyung’s tongue slipping over his. The clicking loud and startling. Yoongi is making a mistake. He can’t—
“Can we,” Taehyung pulls away (not far enough), “skin?”
“Huh?” Yoongi feels like a broken record.
“I wanna touch skin. Take your shirt off?”
He can’t—he can’t do this. Yoongi catches his bearings, swallowing and blinking hard up at Taehyung, says, “No,” in an unconvincing lilt. “He—my boyfriend will kill us.” Kissing is already too far to reel back (albeit a more disastrous section of Yoongi’s mind is certain Seokjin will forgive it), but naked touching. Skin on skin. That leads only to dark, irreversible places.
Yoongi can’t do this. Not to him.
But—“Just our shirts,” Taehyung pleads. A low, languid rumble. His eyes slit open, pooling into Yoongi’s pupils. “Please, hyung?”
Yoongi thinks of repeating himself. If Taehyung will give up on the second try. Taehyung is not one to do that until Yoongi gets serious, though. Never has. He’s good at getting what he wants with persistence and round eyes gone rounder.
Yoongi is no exception.
So Taehyung goes to take off Yoongi’s tee from the hem, untangling their hands—and Yoongi, expression titled in opposing directions, allows it.